Peace Of Mind or Day Old Hate
The car ride was silent.
As was the check in, a few muttered words to the tired-looking woman at the front desk and then the two battered men are riding upstairs in an elevator.
The silence wasn't necessarily uncomfortable, but it was heavier than either man would like. "How's your back?" Dean finally asked when the elevator doors pinged open, ignoring the swimming feeling he got with the motion.
Roman shrugged. "I'll be okay. How you holding up?"
"Fuckin' hurts man." It's obvious (though maybe not outwardly obvious) that Dean isn't talking about his body. He fought back the traitorous welling up of his eyes as Roman fumbled with the keycard briefly.
The lone king size bed on the left side of the room is what broke the dark-haired man. He just stood, barely inside the doorway. His bag full of ring gear rolled off his shoulder, hitting the ground with a quiet thud.
"Ro...?" Dean asked slowly, because he knows that face. He'd seen it a lot in the mirror after yet another fucking awful thing had knocked him flat on his ass. "Hey, take it easy okay?"
"That weasel." Roman snarled. Dean knew that being angry was much easier for him than being sad. "That fucking son of a bitch." His fingers worked quickly at yanking the support tape off his wrists.
"Roman." Dean's voice had a hint of warning to it. "Don't lose your shit on me now, Big Dog." His tone and posture softened visibly when Roman slumped onto the bed, his head in his hands. "We'll figure this out, okay? Don't get upset. Not yet, anyway."
"I'm gonna' punch him in the mouth." Roman mumbled between his fingers. He reached behind him and dragged the pillow in the middle, Seth's pillow, to his chest. "Rollins..."
Dean didn't exactly expect Roman to burst into tears, but he supposed it was only a matter of time. He himself had only barely held it together when Roman had crumpled to the unseen blow from Seth. Dean felt like he may have gotten off a bit easier than his partner. Orton had ignored the 'Lunatic' for the most part, but he'd gone out of his way to wound Reigns. Even tearing off his vest and undershirt to expose his battered back to a horrified Universe.
"Ro..." Dean crouched in front of Roman, placing a hand on his knee.
"I hurt so much, Dean, so fucking much-" Roman gasped out, latching his teeth down onto his fist afterward in an attempt to muffle his sobs. "My fucking back-"
"Why didn't you let the trainers see? Jesus Ro. You don't have to be a hardass all the time." Ambrose scolded, "He hit you out of the fucking blue and then Orton had a field day. You should have let the medics look at you!"
"I'm stronger than that!" Roman growled, "I have no choice, I have to be. If this is how he's gonna fucking play-!"
"You being injured, festering and gettin' benched for six months ain't something I wanna think about, Reigns. C'mon."
Dean wasn't used to being the one who soothed or calmed, that was Roman's job. Even if his methods were a little more 'football locker room' and a little less 'tender loving care', there was nothing quite like a well-meaning head smash or fistbump. The occasional impact of forearm to forearm, while not nearly as common, was usually an unexpected bonus. Roman seemed to ooze fight and willpower through skin contact. Dean recalled pulling through a few matches, tank on empty and nothing but the feeling of Reigns' large hand on the back of his neck making him move, urging him back up even when he thought he had nothing.
"Uce..." Dean said, gently pawing the other man's hair to one side so he could see his face. "Ro, please. Tomorrow morning, yeah? We'll get you to a pro, get you checked out. I ain't sleeping unless you agree. We have to stick together now, because we're all we have, right? So please..." Dean rested his forehead on the pillow Roman still had in a death grip against his torso.
It smelled like Seth.
Ambrose felt his control slip a fraction.
Please don't leave me you're all I've got Reigns I need you-
"...we need to repay that fucking weasel." Dean snarled instead, fighting the urge to sink his teeth into the pillow and tear it full of holes.
He felt Roman take a shaky breath and release it in a groan of pain. "It ain't just my back, Uce. I just...the back is the easiest part to pinpoint, y'know?" Roman finally said. "I hurt, my insides feel all twisted and fucked up. I ain't felt like this in years, Dean. I thought we were a team."
His tirade picking up speed, Reigns threw the pillow with all his strength at the wall, then raked his fingers through his hair. "I thought we were brothers! I thought we were together to the top, 'fight bleed and die for each other', isn't that what he fucking said?" Roman raged, hunched over Dean. He was practically screaming into the other man's face, too far gone to care. "I defended him! I kept him safe! We kept him safe! So he could fucking leave with the highest fucking bidder, that sellout piece of shit!"
"Reigns, Jesus." Dean grimaced. Roman was sure to hurt himself more as he got wound up.
What the fuck do I do. What the fuck do I do?
Ambrose rose up on his knees and just. Knocked his forehead into Reigns' chest. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough to give Reigns pause.
"How many times have we swiped him out from under a guillotine, Roman?" Dean asked, not really expecting an answer.
Roman sniffled above him.
"How many times have we pulled his ass out of hot water? How many times have we been loyal fucking guard dogs for that scumbag?" the blond man shakily exhaled, feeling like he was on the verge of something. Something fucking important, if he could figure it out.
"Too many times, more than I can count! He fucking used us!" Roman replied furiously. "He would never stick his neck out for us like we did for him, like we do for one another!"
"But he doesn't know we're not fucking dogs at all." Dean raised his eyes, giving Roman a grin that showed far too many teeth as all the pieces came together in his head. "We're fucking wolves, Reigns. And we're gonna' tear his fucking throat out."
Roman was silent for a few seconds, long enough that Dean began to pull back, afraid he may have overstepped his bounds. Large hands framed his face, and abruptly Ambrose was hauled into a kiss that left him panting against Roman's mouth.
"Damn, Ro."
"Uce." Reigns was looking at him with an expression that Dean could only liken to fucking reverence, and if that wasn't a damn heady thought he didn't know what was. It almost made him nervous. If he even remembered what that felt like. "My brother." Reigns rumbled. Their foreheads rested together and their eyes locked for a moment.
...
Roman wasn't known for talking. He was very much a man of few words, believing that actions would always be the loudest defining factor in any point of life. He was always worried of tripping over himself verbally, as well. So he chose to keep silent.
But he watched.
He saw more than anyone thought he did.
And he remembered.
"You're too fucking crazy out there, you should have stayed in your fucking padded room!" Rollins had screamed at Dean one night. Roman's ears had pricked up.
Dean never apologized. To anyone. Ever. And yet there he was, stammering I'm sorry over and over, curling in on himself like he was waiting for a beating. Rollins had thrown his hands up in disgust, leaving the room shortly after and slamming the door behind him.
Reigns had never asked what Dean did before the fighting. He figured that if the blond man offered him that courtesy, he should at least return the favor.
"Uce?" he asked quietly. "Want me to go get him, talk some sense into him?"
Dean had snorted, hiccuping or stifling a sob. Roman could never tell. "Fuck it, Big Dog. He's right, anyway. I'm a fuckin' liability. Always will be, I guess. Sorry about that." he mumbled.
When Seth had returned later that night, he'd raised an eyebrow at Ambrose wrapped around Roman, the lighter-haired man sound asleep and Reigns nodding off. But after heaving a heavy sigh all Rollins did was shrug and force his way into the middle of the embrace.
Seth became the one who never apologized.
Dean grew more and more reserved, and Seth seemed to be in a constant state of discontent. It was all Roman could do to just try and keep a balance in the ring as The Authority and Evolution started coming down harder and harder.
He felt kind of dumb, being as surprised as he was with the stunt Rollins pulled tonight. The timing was right, but he guessed that deep down, he'd still wanted to believe that Seth wouldn't turn his back on them. On everything that they'd done for one another.
A spine-bruising blow from a folding chair had thrown that out the window. Reigns had been laid out almost cold in the ring, stunned from the assault. And then the beating from Orton, Dean just out of reach, still curled up on his side. Roman knew he would have bruises on his throat, back, everywhere. But if it meant that Dean was safe...
He could take a chair or two.
The bed reminded him a little too hard of what they'd lost. Who they'd lost. He was so used to falling asleep with Seth's elbows in his ribs and Dean's long legs tangled in his own, it seemed...wrong somehow that they were down to two.
Wrong, and yet...
"Do you trust me?" Roman asked, knowing it was a loaded question. Especially with someone like Dean.
He was concerned with how quickly Dean nodded, the blond not exactly keeping eye contact and his shoulder twitching like he wanted to escape badly. "I'm serious, Uce. Ain't gonna' hurt my feelings if you don't, y'know? Not after what happened tonight." Ambrose fidgeted beneath Roman's serious gaze, fingers hammering away at his collarbone. The black-haired man tried a different tactic. "Should I trust you, Uce?"
Dean fixed Roman with a look of pure fury, blue eyes flashing angrily for an instant before dulling and breaking away. "I don't...know." Ambrose mumbled, seeming dejected. "I don't know what I'll do from one minute to the next. You got no idea...Thoroughbred. No clue what happens in this skull." He tapped the side of his head absently. "I never know."
"But you'd never go to The Authority, right?" Roman pressed. "You haven't yet. If you were gonna' leave, you would have left with Seth. That would have been the smart thing to do."
"I'm not well-known for my intelligence, Reigns." Dean snapped. "I'm well-known for having enough dumb luck to power a small country." He was going to wear a hole through his collarbone if he kept that up.
"I don't want anyone else by my side." Reigns said plainly, making Dean's eyes widen and fingers still. "I want the most loyal fucking maniac with me when the 'Big Dog' and the 'Lunatic Fringe' take down The Authority."
"And I want the quietest, biggest, angriest motherfucker I can dig up with me." Ambrose swallowed hard. "The best vest-wearing warrior in our little team." He seemed dangerously close to tears.
"So I'll ask again, Ambrose." Roman knew that this was a tough call, coming right on the heels of Seth's betrayal. But he needed to know, dammit! "Do you trust me?"
"Y-yeah. I think I do." Ambrose shifted his hands to Roman's arm, the one covered in tattoos. "This is some noble fucking shit, Reigns. If you make me regret this, I swear I'll make you regret doing it." the 'Lunatic' rasped, fingers pressing at random into the different designs on Roman's upper arm.
"Likewise, you fucking nightmare." Reigns grinned, wincing as the pounding of bruises made itself felt. "Dean...Uce. Bed?"
Dean looked positively skittish for a second, and Roman had almost resigned himself to sleeping alone before Ambrose softly said, "yeah, I...yeah. Okay."
Dean clung to him once they were both in bed, flinching and pressing his lips carefully to Roman's throat when he groaned in pain. "I'm so sorry." Ambrose mumbled into Roman's chest, the larger man hushing him and running his fingers through his hair in what he hoped was a comforting gesture.
"Sleep, Uce. We've got one hell of a fight ahead of us." Roman whispered, resting his chin on Dean's head and closing his eyes.
AN: I've had this one sitting half-finished on the computer for a while. Seth coming back reminded me of that fact (I may or may not have been listening to Day Old Hate by City And Color as I was putting the finishing touches on this, hence the two titles). I actually love Rollins, and I can't wait to see what he's got in store for us poor saps.
Enjoy this sad little hunk of kayfabe in no way at all not-porn.