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It wasn’t until after Extreme Rules that they finally talked about it. There had been hints, there had been some weird shit, but until then there had been...plausible deniability. Dean thought that was the right term. Plausible deniability. He liked that. It sounded formal and unemotional, like something you’d hear in a boring class, or a documentary. Not something messy and painful that made your knees weak and your heart feel like it could shatter into a cloud of jagged glassy shards.
“We gotta talk about this,” he said, pacing across the hotel room, turning and pacing the other way. Ten quick strides one way, ten quick strides back.
Roman looked up from the ice pack he was holding to Seth’s shoulder. “Talk about what?”
Seth winced, and not from the pressure on his shoulder. “Not with Roman here.”
“Yes with Roman here,” snapped Dean. “We may not always get along--” Roman glowered at him, “--But we’re a team, and he needs to know.”
“Know what?” said Roman, and he was starting to sound angry. He was starting to sound worried, too, but Dean didn’t like to focus on that.
Seth smoothed out a crease in his jeans, staring down intently, and said nothing.
“When Seth jumped out of the stands,” Dean said. “I knew when it happened.”
“Well, you could hardly miss it,” Roman pointed out. “What with everyone screaming and Seth, you know, landing on you.”
“No,” said Dean, looking at Seth instead of Roman. “I mean, I felt it. The moment he jumped. I felt--all of it.” The exhilaration. The determination. The pain of impact.
The frantic need to save Dean.
“No way,” said Roman. “That’s...that’s just a legend, right? All that bull about wrestling soulmates.”
“It’s not bull,” said Dean. “It’s just not common. And people don’t like to talk about it. But… I’ve heard stories from people I trust about it. Wrestlers feeling when their tag team partner’s injured. Knowing when their friend’s in trouble.” He kept his eyes on Seth, who kept looking down. “It’s… something you can head off, though,” he said. “If you catch it early. If you don’t let yourself be too vulnerable. If you keep your walls up.” Look at me, damn it.
Seth looked at him, and suddenly it was Dean who had to look away.
“When you fell down the stairs,” Seth said. “I felt every one. I didn’t know what to do--” He broke off. “It’s not… complete, though,” he said. “I can’t feel you right now. We can keep it… distant, if we don’t let down our guard.”
“It might not be so bad to have something like that,” Roman said, looking like he still didn't really believe it. “It could be really useful.”
“What if we ever had to fight each other?” Seth’s voice was strangely small. “If we had that kind of connection, it would be…”
“Hey,” Dean said. “We’re not gonna fight each other, right? They can’t force us into that.”
Seth gave him a doubtful look, and suddenly Dean was angry.
“Fuck you, Rollins,” he snapped. “You don’t like me? I can live with that. I don’t always like you either. Or Reigns. But you’re my brothers, and I’d walk through hell itself before I betrayed either of you.”
It was true, he realized with a distant surprise. He hadn’t realized it was true until that exact moment.
Damn.
“Look,” he said quickly to cover his alarm, turning his back on their startled looks, “Let’s just be careful, okay? I don’t need to feel you getting all jazzed up about that crossfit crap, you don’t need to feel me, uh, feeling anything. We can just--” He made a warding motion with his hands, as if pushing something unwanted away.
“Right,” said Seth. “No distractions.” And that was the end of the conversation.
It was fine, it was no problem. Now and then Dean could feel a little tug from the direction of his teammate, a flicker of something: warmth or worry or lust. That last one never directed at him, he was sure. He was pretty sure. But it stayed banked and low, like two wires that weren’t quite connected. Just tiny sparks. Keep your guard up, Dean.
He was used to that, anyway. Sure, he emoted a lot, but he always kept a distance between him and the rest of the world. He’d seen a lot of awful shit in his time, it didn’t really reach him where it mattered anymore. There was no way those wires were going to cross. No way anything was going to upset or horrify him enough to let down his guard.
And he thought that right up until the moment that he saw Seth bring that fucking chair down across Roman’s back.
The shock of betrayal slammed into him, rocking him backwards, and he had no walls left, no barriers, there was nothing left in that moment. He looked into Seth’s eyes and felt the determination, the ice-cold victory; the impact of the chair in his gut was a distant afterthought as he doubled over, retching. The chair came down again hard on his back and he heard Seth bite back a grunt of pain at the blow--Dean’s own pain reaching back along the link that he had denied for so long, the link he could no longer hold at bay. “Stop it,” Seth growled between his teeth, but he couldn’t, and the pain doubled and echoed between them as metal thudded into flesh, as Dean was reduced to nothing but agony and triumph that contradicted and negated each other and burned him to ash.
He felt it all the time, after that: the connection blazing between them like some sick conduit, channeling bile and anguish. Ironically, their matches were the best times: good, clean pain, handed back and forth like a purifying fire, neither holding back.
Other times were...bad. Feeling the glow of satisfaction in the pit of his stomach that meant Triple H had complimented Seth made him want to puke. He drank more, knowing it made it harder for Seth to function. He started screwing around a lot, hoping that jolt of orgasm would wake Seth up, leave him panting and jangled. Screw you, like you screwed us. Suffer. Suffer. Suffer.
And so they both did.
“Why couldn’t it be Roman,” he said under his breath.
“What?” said Cesaro, glancing away from the monitor where Brock Lesnar was slapping Roman Reigns across the face, the Wrestlemania crowd seething around the ring like a sadistic sea.
“Nothing,” said Dean, wincing and pressing the ice tighter to the back of his head. It wasn’t like sharing the pain lessened it, though. He couldn’t help Roman by hurting for him. In fact, it wouldn’t help Roman a bit to be dealing with this headache right now. He just...wished he could share it, somehow. Roman looked so alone out there and--
He came to his feet, his heart pounding, his breath coming fast. Everyone looked at him.
“You okay?” asked Randy Orton, mildly curious.
“Oh shit,” gasped Dean as adrenaline spiked through him, as he felt terror and and anticipation and exhilaration wipe out all other emotions. “Oh shit, you motherfucking little son of a bitch!”
The crowd noise surged upward and the wrestlers around him gasped, but Dean knew before he heard the music, before it appeared on his screen: Seth Rollins, holding his battered briefcase, running down the long, long Wrestlemania ramp.
Dean howled something inarticulate--it went unheard, everyone else was jumping up and screaming--as Seth entered the ring, feeling fear and exhilaration shredding at his soul.
He felt it when Seth curb stomped Lesnar.
He felt it when Seth curb stomped Roman.
And he felt it when Seth pinned Roman and the belt was placed into his shaking hands.
He felt it--he screamed as a white-hot rush of joy and satisfaction lifted him, obliterating all his rage and pain into unwelcome, loathsome delight. He had done it, he had pulled it off, his brilliant, ambitious brother, and it felt so good. He shuddered and hid his face in hands to hide his smile from the room, some vestige of shame keeping him from leaping up and crowing with joy.
He was so happy.
Seth saw him coming down the corridor and his face lit up into a dazzling smile, as if he were looking at something beautiful. Dean launched himself at him, laughing helplessly, and wrapped his arms around him.
“You did it!” he yelled, pounding Seth’s back, second-hand rapture still fizzling along his nerve endings, the torrent of joy electric between them. “Oh God, oh God, oh Seth--”
“I did it,” Seth mumbled, and then he was kissing Dean, his mouth locked on Dean’s as if neither of them had ever wanted anything else. “God-- Dean--”
“You fucking beautiful--” gasped Dean, “I can’t-- I need--” His hands scrabbled on the bright belt on Seth’s shoulder, then on the skin beneath it. “It feels so good. Help me-- I shouldn’t--” But he couldn’t remember why he needed help, couldn’t remember why he shouldn’t be doing this. What could be more natural or more right than getting his hands into those tight leather pants, than making his champion gasp and groan so beautifully?
Seth staggered backwards, slamming into a wall, his eyes half-closed with a new rapture that Dean could feel, and it was the best thing ever, oh, it should never end. He licked salt from Seth’s chest and felt the stab of lust flash from Seth to him, a Moebius strip of longing and ecstasy. Seth’s hands tangled in his hair, pulling him downward, and Dean felt himself falling as if off the longest ladder ever, nothing but space around him, and it was all he wanted--
And then Seth gasped and shoved him away.
Dean staggered backwards, blinking at Seth in confusion. The back of his head hurt, he realized. The staples had torn open.
Seth was looking at his hands, covered with Dean’s blood.
”Stop it,” Seth grated, “this isn’t you,” and Dean felt the rapture of the link curdle into rejection, into loathing. Fresh anger flared within him, and he seized it with a gasp of relief: his own anger, his familiar beloved rage.
“You bastard,” he snarled, “You sick, arrogant, repulsive monster. Charging in there, stealing the title, you--”
“It was nothing personal,” Seth said, his voice flat. His hands were shaking.
”Bullshit!” Dean glared at Seth, swinging his hatred and rage like a kendo stick, as if it could leave welts on skin (skin still shining with his kisses, skin that tasted like--no). “I felt the difference when you curb stomped Lesnar and Roman, you--” His voice choked in his throat. “I hope you suffer,” he snarled, locking eyes with Seth and putting every ounce of contempt into his eyes, his voice, into the ragged hurting thing between them. “I’ll be glad to suffer too as long as you scream, Rollins.”
“Go to hell,” breathed Seth.
“Only if we go together,” said Dean.
Later, much later, Dean would remember the crimson loathing that had flashed across the link from Seth to him, a stabbing hatred as clear as words: Worthless. Undeserving. Violator. He had assumed those were Seth’s thoughts about him, Dean. Later, he wasn’t so sure.
It didn’t matter anyway.
Natalya sat in the little common room, watching Seth Rollins fight John Cena. It was a close fight--there was no denying Seth Rollins was a brilliant wrestler when he put himself to it, whatever else you might think of him as a champion. Cena was on the mat, and Rollins climbed the turnbuckle in preparation for a beautiful splash that would finish him off--
It was small enough that most people might have missed it, but Natalya saw the sudden hitch in the champion’s stance, the way he winced briefly. He jumped into a frog splash, but the hesitation had cost him, and Cena got his knees up. Rollins rolled over, grimacing--
“Stop it,” she heard Roman Reigns say in a low voice that almost couldn’t be heard over the sound of the match.
She glanced over to see Dean Ambrose sitting with one fist bunched up, the knuckles white, his eyes fixed on the screen where Rollins was fighting. As Rollins moved forward Ambrose thudded the fist into his hipbone, hard enough that Natalya winced for him and his breath hissed. He raised his fist to do it again--and Reigns caught it out of the air.
“Stop it,” Roman said again, his voice low and full of something that sounded like pity.
“It’s the only way--” Dean’s voice broke off and he took a ragged breath. “It’s the only way I can hurt him.”
“I know,” Roman said. He unfolded Dean’s fingers and laced his own through them. “Look at me, Dean.” Dean looked away from the screen to Roman and Roman said again: “I know. But it’s not worth it.”
On the monitor, Seth pinned John Cena. Dean’s mouth twitched into something oddly like a smile for a second, and then he groaned and buried his face in Roman’s shoulder.
“He’s not worth it,” Roman said in a low voice, stroking Dean’s hair, ignoring the hubbub in the common room. “Don’t let him do this to you.”
Dean sobbed once, harsh and angry, and Natalya realized she was staring and she’d better find something else to do.
“Isn’t this better than taking down the ring?” Dean said, waving a hand to take in the Dublin street, the throngs of people at the various pubs. “Playing hooky once in a while’s a good thing. It’s even worth missing seeing Kane put Rollins through a table.”
Roman grinned at him. “Pretty sure Seth isn’t gonna let Kane get him anywhere near a table.”
“The little weasel will squirm out of it somehow,” Dean agreed cheerfully. He could feel Seth’s adrenaline like bile at the back of his throat; the match was beginning. A shot of whisky might be a good idea right about now. He headed down the sidewalk toward the nearest pub--
He screamed as pain knifed through his knee, dropping and rolling onto his back without thinking, clutching at his leg.
“Shit!” Roman’s panicked voice sounded very far away. “Dean, what is it?”
Oh God, no. Not here, not now, I’ll lose the title, I’ll fail, I can’t, I can’t--
Dean struggled to push away the intrusive terror, the second-hand pain and panic. A fresh scream tore at his throat as he felt Seth do something that buckled the knee in agony, fire and and acid sluicing through him.
Someone was picking him up, carrying him. “I’ll get you to a hospital--”
“No,” he managed to gasp at Roman. “Nothing...wrong with me.”
Roman stopped, peered down at him. “Seth?” he said slowly, and for a moment there was worry and horror in his voice.
Dean nodded. “Hotel,” he whispered. “I’ll ride it out. No choice.”
They read about it later, of course. Roman even watched the video. Dean didn’t have to, he knew what it would show: Seth’s knee bending at a sickening angle, how he fought through it to finish Kane off anyway before collapsing.
But that night all he knew was agony. Roman stayed by his side, holding him, listening to the choked sounds of anguish he made, wiping the tears of pain and fear--Seth’s tears--from his cheeks.
The painkillers finally kicked in and Dean felt the world blurring around him, reality sliding off into a strange ringing absence of sensation. “Oh God,” he managed past a tongue gone strange and thick. “Why. Why.”
“Why what, Uce?” Roman had a hand in his hair as if to steady him. Seth had no one, Dean could tell. There was no one there who cared about him. He knew this shouldn’t bother him.
“Why couldn’t it be you?” he said, feeling tears that were not Seth’s at all at the corner of his eyes. “Why--”
Roman brought his forehead to Dean’s for a long moment, and Dean focused on that spot of warmth, of contact. It was cold wherever Seth was, and no one was touching him. “It ain’t necessary,” Roman said after a moment, his voice rough. “I already feel your pain.”
Sucks to be you, then, Dean thought, but couldn’t quite make his mouth work to say it. That seemed oddly funny, and he started giggling helplessly, until unconsciousness shut him down like a sleeper hold.
The low buzz of the hospital night shift whispered through the corridors. Above that, Dean could hear Roman making small talk with the receptionist and guard, keeping them distracted with some tale of a minor injury. Roman was good at distractions, Dean would give him that.
He hadn’t even asked any questions when Dean had asked him to help, he’d just nodded and started planning.
Dean could feel a low-level hum of painkillers from Seth dulling everything around him, but luckily he was sharp enough--and nervous enough--that even that didn’t slow him down. Soon enough he was slipping into a low-lit hospital room. Single-bed--at least the Authority had gotten Seth a decent room, Dean thought sourly, even if none of them were there for their soon-to-be-former champion.
Seth was asleep, hair tied back into a bun, face pale against the pillow. Dean sat down next the bed and looked at him for a long time.
You deserve this, he felt with all his heart. You’re a scummy, back-stabbing bastard, and you deserve this suffering, you deserve this loss. Like a bat wrapped in barbed wire, like a jagged splinter of glass, he felt all his anger at Seth Rollins. You deserve to be alone. You deserve to be here alone.
Seth’s head turned slightly on the pillow and a crease of pain appeared between his eyebrows. He winced and bit his lip in his sleep. Dean knew he should find that satisfying.
And then he sighed and let the anger drop, let the bitterness drop. But you’re not, he thought. You’re not alone. Roman and I are here. We came for you, so you wouldn’t be alone. It’s me, Seth. I’m here.
It took a moment for that dent of anguish to smooth from Seth’s brow, but it did, to be replaced by a kind of rapt wonder. He sighed in his sleep, a sound of pure relief, and Dean saw tears on the lashes shadowing his hollow cheeks.
Dean sat for a while longer, watching him. He wanted, with a sudden fierce and irrational longing, to cross the room and touch Seth’s forehead, to kiss the tears from his lashes.
But that would wake Seth up, and then he’d know Dean had definitely been here, and Dean couldn’t bear that. No, it was important to keep--what was that phrase again? Plausible deniability, that’s right. Nice and clean and formal.
It was a funny thing, Dean Ambrose thought as he watched Seth Rollins sleep, smoothing comfort and peace into his dreams. It was a really funny thing. Because this thing between them wasn’t fucking plausible at all, that was for sure.
But he supposed it wasn’t deniable either.