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In spite of his whole life, Seth Rollins is just a man, though he isn’t quite sure if he's a good one or a bad one. He might play at being either one, and there have certainly been times when he’s felt bold enough to play at being something else entirely. Something blameless enough to mistake for divinity. But it’s just that: a mistake. Because like all men, Seth Rollins is subject to the same rules of karmic justice as anyone else. Like all men, Seth Rollins has once been stubborn enough to deny it.
He can’t deny it tonight. As he sits wilting in the corner of the ring, he hurts with every injury he’s ever gotten. He remembers every time he’s landed an inch short of where he meant to fly. He feels the exhaustion of every minute spent chasing and chasing and chasing after titles.
They’re lifting Cody up on their shoulders and right now, Seth isn’t strong enough to be there.
Cody is lifting the belt above his head and right now, Seth isn’t bad enough to feel upset about it.
Cody is thanking him and right now, Seth isn’t good enough to walk away without help.
Tonight, he is an ache in the shape of a body.
Okay, he thinks, underneath all the lights that are not for him, I deserve this.
So does Roman Reigns.
So they’ve both reaped what they sown. So they’ve both been punished with the same fate. So the fact that they still shared anything at all was the worst of it all. It comforted him as much as it pained him. There was another man out there who he could share everything with, but they had already tried it once, and it only tore them apart.
Sami and Kevin let his body, as weak and heavy as it is, lean on them as it trudges to the back. He tries to imagine how Roman left, if he had two solid and steady arms holding him up too. If he still had someone to burden with his faith. Or if he was no longer worthy of even that.
He wonders what it would be like to see him now, when they’re finally both too tired to destroy each other anymore. If they could only touch each other without it hurting just once, it would change everything—
He looks back at the ring, at Cody.
Finally, Cody.
And Seth knows then that he’s done his time and it’s over now.
He thinks about Roman.
Then he lets it go. Finally.
Seth isn’t surprised when he finds Jon’s car in the parking lot. They have a habit of finding each other at times like these. They never touch. They haven’t touched in years, but meaning is always dancing electric in the space between them and neither of them can admit it out loud. Jon, because he’s too much of a good man, and Seth, because he’s too much of a coward. But meaning is the closest thing they have to a word for it. It’s not love or hate. Just meaning. There’s years and new loves between them now, and yet—
He slides into the passenger seat. He’s been here a hundred times before.
“Just drive.” Until the wheels fall off, he wants to say. Until we run out of the gas. We’ll buy new wheels. We’ll refill the tank. I’ll pay for it. Over and over again. I promise.
Seth doesn’t say any of it though. He starts the car anyway.
“It’s over now.” Jon’s words have always been like that, devastatingly undeniable, just like his strikes. Seth has been on the receiving end of them more times than he can possibly count. He wants to laugh. It’s over. A decade of his life, summed up in two letters that together don’t live in the mouth for more than a second. But it was true and it was real, and Jon had always been the truest and realest man he’s ever known. And maybe that was why he hated his own reflection sometimes.
“I’m gonna miss it,” Seth confesses. Even inflicting pain had become a sort of comforting routine. There were often fewer things as tangible as cold steel clasped in his hand. He knew exactly how it would go, every time.
“We’ll live.” And that’s how Seth knows what he’s always known: that Jon was the best of them. Jon, who’s grown bigger than the man Seth used to call his best friend.
They sit in silence for the longest time because Seth doesn’t have to say anything for Jon to know that he can take him anywhere.
The truth is that Seth could’ve spent forever in Jon’s car even if he was just driving around in circles in a parking lot, and Seth would look out the window and it would be pitch black, like the entire universe had ceased to exist and they were the only living creatures left. But the sun would rise and the world would remind them that it was still there, and it was still full of places they had to be without each other.
“I should go soon.”
There’s a long pause. But if you listened closely, you’d hear Seth say: do you remember that blistering night in Illinois? The fireflies lingering and the people leaving. You, in the back of the ring truck, beer in one hand. Me, looking at your other hand, the empty one resting on your thigh. Me, thinking, goddamn, I could fit my whole life in there. Flip your palm up to the heavens and let me in.
Jon says, “Tell me where to go,” and Seth does, because of course he does.
The party leaves Seth early.
All it leaves behind are empty bottles and cans and sparkly streamers on the floor of the penthouse. Cody is still in his three-piece suit, hunched over as he gathers what he can into his arms. Because despite the night he’s had, Cody Rhodes is still just a man. One that looks like he can hold the whole world in his arms, sure, but he only looks that way. Right now a bottle escapes from his grip and he sighs. Maybe he’s embarrassed over thinking he can carry more than he actually can, and as Seth watches him, Seth knows him. He knows that Cody Rhodes is just a man who swears when he finds his hands sticky with beer. Just a man who is still here after the party has ended.
This is life, he thinks. He had spent so long alone that he’d missed out on moments like this. He’d missed out on being spectacularly overwhelmed by stupid simple beautiful things.
The title is slung over the armrest of the couch, and it matters, of course it does.
Maybe this matters more: Seth kneels beside him and starts to pick up the streamers.
Cody smiles. “We missed you.”
“Had unfinished business to take care of.”
“Oh.” From somewhere behind him, there’s a loud clatter as Cody empties his arms in the trash can. Seth looks around. There’s still a long way to go. “Is it finished now?”
He just shrugs. That’s the best he can do. That’s the best he’ll ever do. That’s okay.
When did it become okay?
Cody has returned to his side. There’s a stain on his vest that Cody might be annoyed about when he has the energy for it. “Well, thank you, Seth.”
Overwhelming is the word that comes to mind. You overwhelm me.
Tomorrow Seth might hurt worse than he does now. He might wake up teary-eyed from a dream he doesn’t remember. He might want to remember it, but he will know he won’t, because like everyone, he forgets. He might be okay with forgetting. He might miss those times when the people he loved were just people he loved and nothing more. He might realize that they are still just people he loves, always, even when none of them want to be that anymore. He might realize that he is still a person people love too, even when he doesn’t want to be that anymore.
He might remember Cody’s private smile for him and regret its existence. He might regret not saying no, don’t give this to me unless you want it mangled.
Right now his hand brushes against Cody’s and neither of them are destroyed.