Fear is Real {WWE FanFiction}

Chapter 9

The dream - more of a blurry memory, really - took solid shape. Roman stood in the shadow of a banyan tree. Just a few dozen feet from him stood his younger self, hair short and a few teeth missing. The younger him cradled a football to his chest. On the other side of the yard, his two cousins were waiting for him to throw the ball.

Roman smiled. He remembered this day. His eighth birthday party.

He watched as his younger counterpart shifted the football. 'Right foot back, right arm back, fingers spaced evenly along the stitching, step forward, throw, follow-through.' The mantra rang clear in his mind. It wasn't a perfect throw, but it was good enough.

His cousins tackled each other to the ground  trying to catch it. He chuckled as his younger self ran to join the pile.

"Joe, Jonathan, Josh!" That was his mother calling from the back door. "Time for cake!"

The memory faded as the three youngsters raced each other to the house. Another took its place.

Roman watched as an enraged Dean and a defeated-looking him came backstage. Roman grimaced. This was right after Seth turned on his "business partners."

"That cowardly, sneaking, sniveling little punk is lucky I didn't get my hands on hi-"

"Dean," memory-Roman interrupted. "Please, enough." Roman could hear the pain in his own voice, a pain that still resonated within him.

Dean didn't protest. Roman remembered finding this surprising at the time, but looking back on it now he supposed that Dean didn't want his best friend to hurt any more than he already was. The thought only made him feel worse.

He turned away from the memory, coming face to face with a swirling, convoluted white fog. It made sense. This wasn't part of his memory, and he'd been in too many arenas to recall the particulars of this Indianapolis one. Still, he stood there for what could have been hours or seconds, staring.

A wet, racking cough startled him. Someone grasped at his legs from behind. With a shout he spun. Dean looked up at him, hands searching blindly for something to grab ahold of, his eyes dim pinpricks of light. Blood spilled down his face from a gash in his forehead.

"Roman," he said, and his voice was weak. "I know this isn't you. It isn't you. I love you. Don't-" Another round of hacking coughs, and Roman, helpless to control the memory, kicked out at Dean. He heard the sickening crunch of Dean's nose breaking.

"Roman."

"Roman."

He sat bolt upright, shaking and muscles tense. His hair clung to his face and neck. For a moment he thought he was still dreaming; everything was dark and he couldn't tell who had called his name.

A lamp came to life.

"Roman?"

It was Seth. Roman breathed a sigh of relief, feeling his body slump forward as sobs built up in his throat. He couldn't break down. Not now. Not here, with Seth watching.

"Roman, what's wrong? Talk to me," Seth said, concern lacing his voice.

He took a moment to regain a semblance of composure, then raised his head.

"It's nothing, just a bad dream," he said. "Go back to sleep."

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Seth open his mouth to protest, then snapped it shut. The two-toned man nodded his head and flicked the lamp off. It didn't take long for Seth's soft breathing to fill the room.

It should have relaxed Roman, hearing that sound again. The sound he'd slept next to for nearly two years while Dean was off somewhere with some nameless girl. The sound that had lulled him to sleep countless nights when the soreness caught up to him. 

Eventually, he drifted off into a fitful sleep, Dean's last words echoing in his head.