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They heard the snap backstage.
At least that’s what Finn tells him as the two of them frantically tear apart the locker room in search of Dean’s phone and wallet. And he can believe it, too. Hell, he’d thought one of the steel beams under the ring had pinged loose until he saw Dean sprawled on the mat next to him, his face drained of colour and right leg bent at an unnatural, sickening angle.
Seth’s seen Dean fight through everything from a busted nose to cracked ribs, but not even the Lunatic Fringe can shake off a broken leg and before the referee could even so much as think about lifting his arms up in that dreaded X formation Seth had already pinned Dolph, won the match, and jumped off the apron in search of a medic.
“Ah-ha!” Finn says suddenly from the other side of the room and Seth looks up just in time to see him brandishing Dean’s battered leather wallet above his head like a title belt.
“This would be a lot easier if he didn’t throw his shit around like a teenager,” he complains as Finn tosses it over to him.
Finn laughs, his attention already back to the pile of discarded clothing he’d been digging through. “Maybe,” he concedes. “But you wouldn’t change him for the world, now, would ya?”
When Seth finally makes it to the employee parking lot behind the venue Roman’s already there chatting to the EMTs as they load Dean onto one of the onsite ambulances, concern etched into every line of his face.
“He’ll be okay,” Seth assures him, gently placing a hand placed on the small of his back.
Roman’s already chuckling before he even turns around; a deep, fond rumble that Seth feels through his palm. “Of course he will. It’s the doctors I’m worried about,” he jokes and they share a brief smile before Roman pulls him into a hug. Seth lets himself melt into it, soaking up the easy affection that his Shield brother has always shared so freely. “I’ll try to head over after we’re finished up here,” Roman says against his temple. “Look after him, okay?”
Seth’s greeted by a long string of colourful expletives when he finally clambers onto the ambulance.
“I tripped, man. Tripped,” Dean snarls as he tugs uselessly at his hair. “Back full of thumb tacks? No problem. Barbed wire garrotte? Piece of piss. Light tube to the head? Please, sir, may I have some more? But no, a poorly timed stumble is what’s going to put me out for the rest of the year. Jesus fucking Christ.”
“Hey, come on, it’s okay,” Seth soothes, knocking his fist lightly against Dean’s jaw once, twice, before curling his fingers round his chin in a loose hold. “Accidents happen. I mean, how many times have you seen me fall on my ass? Remember that time I bruised my tailbone jumping over the barricade? Couldn’t sit comfortably for weeks.”
Dean cracks a small, pained smile and Seth gently thumbs the corner of it. “Pretty sure I still have that haemorrhoid cushion you made me buy knocking around the house somewhere.”
“Next week on hoarders,” he deadpans and Dean snorts lightly in amusement.
Seth presses their foreheads together and takes a few selfish seconds to just enjoy the feel and smell of him before stepping aside so one of EMTs can squeeze in between them to fit Dean with an oxygen mask.
Panic immediately flashes across Dean’s face and he jerks back, accidentally jarring his leg in the process.
“Shit,” he chokes through a gasp. “Shit.”
Seth gently, but swiftly manoeuvres her back out of the way, mumbled apologies spilling from his lips.
“Deano, look at me,” Seth tries but Dean stays curled in on himself, shoulders heaving as he tries to catch his breath through the pain. Seth runs a hand through his hair, the calm façade he’d plastered on before leaving the locker room beginning to crack in the face of Dean’s distress. “Hey, look at me,” he snaps. After a few seconds, Dean grudgingly meets his eyes, jaw tense as if physically stopping himself from screaming something he knows he’ll end up regretting later back in Seth’s face. “I know you’re pissed off and I know you’re in pain, but you’ve got to let them do their job, man. Please? For me?”
Dean holds his gaze, chin raised defiantly, but Seth has no intention of backing down.
“Fine,” Dean eventually relents and directs a stilted nod towards the EMT who quickly darts back between them to slip the oxygen mask over his head.
It isn’t until they’re finally pulling away from the venue that Dean speaks again. “Did you at least get the pin?” he asks casually, like they’re lounging in front of the TV on a Saturday night trying to decide whether to order pizza or Indian instead of speeding off towards the nearest hospital.
Seth knocks his head back against the interior of the ambulance and rubs a hand roughly across his face, only just managing to swallow down the hysterical laugh clawing its way up his throat. “Of course I did, what do you take me for?”
The next couple of hours are a blur of filling out what he can on Dean’s medical forms, curt phone calls to management back at the venue and Stamford, and cup after cup of cheap hospital coffee. It’s… It’s a lot. He wasn’t able to decompress in the way he usually would after a match and the last dregs of adrenaline pumping through his veins are keeping him just on the wrong side of restless. It’s only when a nurse comes to tell him that Dean didn’t need surgery and they’d already set his bone under a general anaesthesia that he allows himself to slouch down in his seat with a sigh, the tension that had been keeping his muscles primed for a fight long since over finally bleeding away.
He fires off a quick text to Roman to let him know there was no longer any need for him to rush down after the show before downing the tepid remains of his coffee and hauling himself to his feet.
Dean’s talking to his doctor when Seth arrives at his room. He sounds surprisingly alert considering he must have only just recently woken up and Seth smiles, relieved to hear that familiar drawl no longer laced with pain.
“Cool, cool. Just one little thing, though. Could you maybe repeat, like, the last half of that? And then the first half, too? Ya know, for props— for pots— for posterity's sake.”
Well, maybe not that alert.
“I’ll come back when you’re feeling more lucid,” the doctor assures him with a laugh and Seth takes that as his cue to knock. “Come in. Ah, looks like you’ve got a visitor,” she says when Seth pops his head in. She stands up with the weary groan of someone who’s been on their feet all day and offers her hand.
Dean’s head shoots up at the intrusion, wide blue eyes immediately zeroing in on Seth.
Seth’s visited more hospitals since he started wrestling than most people do in an entire lifetime and he’s long since grown accustomed to the familiar too-bright fluorescent lighting and unsettling antiseptic smell they all have in common, but it never gets any easier seeing a loved one laid up in a hospital bed. It’s especially jarring to see Dean this way, his unique brand of chaotic energy tempered by thick blankets and beeping machines.
Seth swallows thickly, throat suddenly tight. “Hey, stranger,” he manages. “How’re you feeling?”
“Wow,” Dean breathes reverently. “Hi.”
Seth frowns, having been expecting a sarcastic how do you think, genius? or at least a characteristically blunt like absolute horseshit. “Errr, hi?” He looks to the doctor who smiles to herself as she makes a few notes on her clipboard.
“Did the doctor send you?” Dean continues, gaze swinging back and forth between them like a pendulum.
There’s a split second of panic induced white noise where his stomach drops somewhere around his ankles before he takes a moment to catalogue the drowsy, slack look on his face and the soft quality to his voice and it clicks.
“You’re high!” Seth crows in delight.
“And you’re the hottest guy I’ve ever seen. What’s your name?”
Seth chuckles, the back of his neck prickling with heat. “Seth,” he answers with amusement.
Dean graces him with a dopey smile that shows off his dimples. “Seth. Seeeeth. That’s a good name. Like— like that Seth Meyers guy. Funny dude. I like Seth Meyers.”
“I know you do, bud.”
The doctor clears her throat and Seth sheepishly turns his attention back to her.
“He’s going to need to stay in overnight so we can monitor his leg but after that he can go home as long as there’s someone to care for him.”
“That won’t be a problem.”
He’d already called Marek to let him know there was no need to cancel his classes at the academy because Dean would be coming back with him to Davenport instead of home to Vegas. Dean won’t like it, being away from the desert for too long always makes him antsy, but it’s the best option they have while Seth’s on the road.
“Luckily for him he’s young and fit so I see no reason as to why he won’t make a full recovery with the right amount of rehabilitation,” she continues.
“Good. That’s… good,” he says, inwardly cringing at his lack of eloquence.
The doctor gives him a small sympathetic smile, no doubt used to dealing with emotionally drained family members and friends. “His head will start to clear soon,” she adds. “It’s nothing to worry about, merely a lingering after-effect of the anaesthesia, but if you have any concerns please do call for a nurse, especially if he starts feeling sick. Someone will be along later with his prescriptions.”
Once they’re alone, Seth pulls the lone visitor’s chair closer to Dean’s bed and collapses down into it. The padding deflates under his weight with a prolonged puff of air until it feels like he’s sitting directly on the plastic frame. His back twinges in protest, a dull ache having already settled deep into his spine around the second hour of sitting hunched over in the waiting room.
“Are you my nurse?” Dean asks, the words slurred as if he’d just got in from a night of heavy drinking.
Seth holds out his arms and makes a point of looking down at himself. He’s still decked out in his grubby ring gear, the only addition being the hoodie he’d blindly grabbed on his way out of the locker room which, on closer inspection, definitely isn’t his. He hadn’t exactly been thinking clearly after they’d got Dean backstage. But then again, he rarely ever does when Dean’s involved.
“Does it look like I’m a nurse?” He asks. “Actually, don’t answer that. I really don’t need you getting any ideas about me playing nurse once we’re home.”
“Home?” Dean questions, a frown pulling his brow into a confused knot.
Seth lays a hand on Dean’s uninjured leg and squeezes. “Yeah, home,” he says tenderly. “You know how hard it is for me to sleep without you, so you’re coming back to Iowa with me until you’re better.”
It takes a few moments for Dean to fully process the implication behind Seth’s soft words and gentle touch, synapses stuttering through the anaesthesia fog, but once he does his mouth falls open in an unattractive gape. “No way. No freakin’ way. Holy shit. You? And me? I hit the jackpot. Go me.” He raises an arm and lightly pumps his fist in celebration. “How long?” he asks eagerly, swaying forward.
And isn’t that the million dollar question, because even when he hated him, he loved him. Loved him so much he let it tear him apart, let it tear them apart.
“Long enough,” Seth eventually settles on.
“Have we kissed yet?” Dean continues.
A fierce punch of affection hits him square in the chest. “Yes, Dean, we’ve kissed.”
“Niiiice,” he drawls. “So what do you do? Are you a model?”
The question startles a bark of laughter out of Seth and Dean’s face lights up as if the sound alone has made his entire week. “Smooth. I wrestle. So do you.”
“Well, duh. ‘Course I do. But you too, huh?” He whistles, low and appreciative. “Damn, I bet you’re dynamite in the ring. Hey, stand up and let me get a look at the goods.”
“Dean!” Seth admonishes through a cackle.
“That is the most fucking ridiculous laugh I’ve ever heard,” Dean points out before falling back against his pillows to look up at the ceiling. “Man, this is the best day of my life.”
Seth shakes his head in disbelief. “You’re in the hospital with your leg in a cast. You practically snapped it in half, for Christ’s sake, man,” he says.
Dean slowly raises his head back off the pillows and blinks at him owlishly. “Wait. What? Snap— snapped in half?” He questions, voice getting progressively louder with each word. “Oh, God. What the fuck?” He swears shrilly as he looks at his leg in horror.
Seth winces. “Ah, crap.”
“I can’t lose my leg, man. I need it,” Dean implores desperately.
“Shhh, it’s okay, you’re not—” Seth cuts himself off to swallow a laugh. “You’re not going to lose your leg.”
“And how do you know, huh?” he demands with childish petulance.
“Remember the woman that was in here before me? That was your doctor. She told me you’re going to make a full recovery.” Dean looks at him sceptically, eyes narrowed. “I promise. Scout’s honour,” he says, raising three fingers.
Dean scoffs, the panic in his eyes receding. “There’s no way you were a Boy Scout,” he says. “Scout’s don’t grow up to be people like— like you.” He pauses to wave his hand up and down the length of Seth’s body in an uncoordinated flip-flop motion. Seth must be smiling without realising it because Dean clutches dramatically at his chest and makes a little oof noise as if he’s been punched in the stomach. “See? What a knockout. That ain’t the smile of a guy who went to camp to learn how to tie knots.”
“Dork,” Seth says affectionately.
Dean goes quiet after that and Seth takes the opportunity to reply to the handful of texts he’d left unread. He feels especially bad about leaving the chain of worried messages from Sami unanswered so takes a quick snap of Dean slumped in his bed to send to him with the caption he lives! underneath. He immediately gets back a string of heart emojis.
It isn’t long before Dean becomes restless again and starts to obnoxiously smacking his lips together.
“My mouth tastes gross. I need a drink,” he says and makes a move to grab the jug of water that had been left for him on the bedside table.
“Whoa, slow down, I’ve got it.” Seth quickly jumps up and places a hand against his chest to stop him from moving any further. Dean looks down at it in confusion before continuing to defiantly press forward. Seth doesn’t so much as roll his eyes as flick them up towards the ceiling in exasperation, used to these sorts of antics from Dean even when he hasn’t been pumped full medication, and gently pushes him back. “Stay,” he orders.
After pouring a cup of water, he slips a hand round to the back of Dean’s neck to steady him and gently lifts it to his lips. With his coordination dulled, more water ends up dribbling down his chin than staying in his mouth. “God, you’re a mess,” Seth says fondly as he wipes it away.
“I’m sorry, baby. Do we call each other baby?” Dean squints up at him, lips glistening. “The light’s too bright,” he complains.
“Not much I can do about that,” Seth replies as he smooths a thumb over Dean’s stubbled cheek. Dean leans into it, chasing the warmth of Seth’s hand even as he sits back down.
“Hey, give me your hand back a sec,” he orders.
Seth huffs a small laugh and reaches back over. “Well seeing as you asked so nicely.”
Seth can feel how weak he is through his grip. It’s too loose. Dean always grabs him with purpose, like he has to.
“You’ve got nice hands,” Dean mumbles to himself.
“What are you looking for?” He asks quietly as Dean slowly follows the blue lines of his veins with a feather-like touch. He eventually stops at Seth’s ring finger, encircling it gently.
“We’re not married?” Dean asks and Seth’s traitorous heart skips a beat. “Man, I must be a goddamn idiot because I definitely want to marry you.”
Seth opens his mouth to reply but all coherent thought has apparently decided to abandon him. What do you say to something like that? “Yeah?” He croaks dumbly instead.
Dean nods, his chin almost hitting his chest. “Shit makes sense when I look at you,” he says simply.
Outside Dean’s room, a trolley rolls past the door, the clack of heels against linoleum flooring and animated conversation following it down the corridor until the sound is just a memory.
“God, I’m never letting you live this down,” Seth jokes around the sound of blood rushing in his ears. Dean hums under his breath in acknowledgement, still playing with Seth’s fingers, and Seth knows he’s already lost him again, still not fully coherent. “Gonna give me this back?” He asks, wiggling his fingers in Dean’s grasp.
“Nah, I’m good,” he says and so they stay holding hands across Dean’s hospital bed like a couple of idiots. “We’re seriously together?” he questions again. Softer this time, as if he just can’t wrap his head around it.
“We are. Pretty wild, huh?”
“Pretty fucking spectacular if you ask me,” he says through a jaw cracking yawn.
“You tired?” Seth asks and Dean makes an affirmative mm-hmm noise. “You should try to get some sleep.”
“Will you still be here when I wake up?” He asks.
“There’s no place I’d rather be,” Seth says honestly.
Seth wakes up to a hand in his hair.
Which in itself isn’t particularly unusual, Dean’s fingers always end up in his hair one way of another, but he isn’t usually stretched across a hospital bed when it happens.
“Hey,” Dean whispers, voice gravelly.
“Ah, shit, sorry,” Seth says as he sits up. He wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. “Didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
“S’ok,” he replies. “I haven’t been awake long myself. And anyway, Ro’s been keeping me company.”
That makes him perk up. “Roman’s here? Where?” He asks, looking around the room as if expecting him to pop up from behind the heart monitor or something.
“Calling Galina. She was worried,” he says. “He brought me some clothes and snacks,” he adds, nodding to the rucksack leaning against the legs of Seth’s chair.
Seth stares at it before groaning and slumping back down in his seat. “I should have sorted that out. It's not like I didn't have the time.”
“Nah,” Dean says dismissively. “You’ve been exactly where I needed you most and that’s right here next to me.”
Seth releases a small huff of laughter. “Still high, huh?”
“High? Sweetheart, I spent most of my formative years high and let me tell you, I’m depressingly sober right now,” he says matter-of-factly. Seth looks him over; his eyes are focused and he’s no longer listing to one side. “Why? Was I saying dumb shit? I hoped you filmed it. Bet it was funny as fuck.”
“Ehh, didn’t seem right.”
Truth is, it hadn’t even occurred to him, but Dean doesn’t need to know that.
“Pussy.”
“Well sorry for wanting to preserve what little dignity you have left.”
“Ouch,” he says almost proudly, grin stretched wide across his face.
“How’re you feeling, anyway?” Seth asks.
“Fuzzy,” he decides on after a couple of seconds. “Like my head’s full of cotton wool. Not in too much pain, though.”
“Well that’s something.”
“I guess. Gonna be out of action for a while, though,” he says, finally addressing the proverbial elephant in the room.
Seth sighs. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault, though, is it?”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t be sorry. Because I am. God, I’m so sorry, Dean. I’m sorry you’re in pain, I’m sorry you’re going to have to deal with rehab when I know how much you hate it, I’m sorry you’ll be stuck at home instead of doing what you love. I’m— I’m fucking devastated for you, man.” Seth can feel himself getting riled up, frustration tightening his chest and stinging his eyes, as for the first time that night the consequences of Dean’s accident begin to sink in.
“Rub it in, why don’t ya.”
Seth freezes, spine snapping straight. “That’s not— I wasn’t trying—” He tries but Dean’s smiling at him, all soft and fond. He deflates with a weak laugh and scrubs a hand roughly across his face. “I guess I’m only just realising it’s going to be months before you’re back beside me in a ring.”
Dean’s smile turns into a wicked smirk. “Oh, I see how it is, you’re going to be lonely. Aw, don’t worry, honey,” he coos, batting his eyelashes. “I’ll make sure to call every day while you’re out on the road bringing home the bacon.” Seth pinches the meat of his bicep and Dean yelps. “Hey! I’m injured!”
“You’re arm isn’t,” he points out, absentmindedly rubbing the spot where he pinched. “You know I love you, right?”
“Well I should damn well hope so otherwise we’re on two very different pages here, my friend,” Dean says, eyeing him critically. He sighs, long-suffering and put-upon, before awkwardly shuffling over to one side of the bed, his splinted leg a dead weight, and patting the space next to him. “C’mere.”
Seth scrambles to his feet and inelegantly squeezes in next to him. Dean immediately pulls him in closer once he’s settled with an arm around his shoulders.
“I did say something dumb, didn’t I?” He states, dread creeping into his tone. They’ve said a lot of awful shit to each other over the years. Most of it petty, said purely to get a reaction, some of it sharp and vicious, designed to cut deep. Both still carry the scars caused by those particular barbs. Scars that ache when prodded too hard. They’ve been trying to do better recently.
“No, you’re fine, you were actually really sweet,” Seth assures him.
Dean groans and hides his face in Seth’s hair. “Well why didn’t you say so? That’s way worse!”
“Who you trying to fool, Ambrose? It’s just me here and I already know you’re a big ol’ sap.”
“I plead the fifth,” he mumbles.
Seth debates over whether to tell him, part of him wanting to keep Dean’s clumsy flirting and innocent declarations of love all to himself, greedily horde them away to keep him company during long haul flights and boring business events.
“You, ah, you didn’t know who I was.”
“Yikes. And how’s your delicate ego recovering from that particular slight, Mr. Monday Night Rollins?”
Seth huffs. “Yeah, well, joke’s on you because I’m, and I quote, the hottest guy I’ve ever seen,” he says, imitating Dean’s familiar drawl. “Even when you’re on another planet I’m still you’re whole world,” he sing-songs with saccharine sweetness.
Dean fakes a gagging noise but doesn’t deny it and Seth smiles smugly to himself in satisfaction.
“Can’t imagine not knowing you,” Dean says after a while. “Kind of freaks me out, actually, the thought of looking at you and there just being… nothing. I mean, take away everything we’ve done together and I wouldn’t be me, this me. Not without you.”
And there’s Dean’s own special brand of blunt sincerity rearing its head again to steal Seth’s breath away.
“Christ, Dean, you’re really putting me through the emotional ringer tonight, man. And, errr, likewise. You’re kind of my everything.”
“Eloquent.”
“Seriously? I was gone for all of ten minutes,” an exasperated voice interrupts from the doorway.
Both of them look up at the same time to see Roman with his arms crossed and a fond smile playing across his lips.
“Come on, Ro, you know he can’t keep his hands off me. Fortunately it’s a burden I’m willing to bear,” Dean says, his one-armed grip on Seth tightening. “All good back home?” He adds.
“Yeah, Galina wants you to give her a call as soon as you’re up to it.”
Dean salutes. “Will do.”
Seth can feel his eyes beginning to droop again, the combination of being snuggled up against Dean’s side and Roman finally being there with them instilling a sense of calm within him for the first time since seeing the medical team run out from backstage with a stretcher held between them.
“You should head back to the hotel because quite frankly, and I say this with all the love in the world, you both look like death," Dean rumbles from above him. "Seriously, Ro, your eyes look like two pissholes in the snow. Go get some sleep, man."
“You hear that? This one thinks we look like shit.”
Seth pulls back just enough to look at Dean’s face. Despite proclaiming the contrary, he’s obviously still in pain, his eyes pinched at the corners and jaw tense.
He tilts his chin up and Dean meets him half-way in a gentle kiss. “I’ll come by first thing tomorrow. Smuggle you in a breakfast burrito or something.”
“That’s my boy,” he murmurs against his lips. “Whose fucking hoodie is this?”