Disclaimer: The author is in no way, shape, or form in any form of association with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), any of the wrestlers mentioned in this story, or anything else. I just wrote the thing. Please enjoy.

Warning: Mental Breakdowns and angst ahead.

The thing that Dean always loved most about thinking about his childhood is thinking about just how far he'd come from being that little child who was barely five years old who was living in the projects and spending most of his days trying to figure out how to make mac 'n' cheese on the stovetop while his mom was off at work. Dean doesn't remember much about the place that he was living in with his mom – while his dad was away in jail. Sounds like he was living the life, doesn't it? – but he could tell you that it was his biggest dream to get out of the place. So, of course, when five year old little Dean Ambrose opened the door one day when his mom wasn't home yet and he was up well past his bedtime to find cops there, he knew he was finally free. It's not like his mom was a bad parent per se (at least, at the time, little five year old Dean Ambrose didn't think so). She just did some bad things and got caught up with some bad people and that's how that cookie crumbled in the end. Dean doesn't say he misses her because he doesn't remember her well enough to miss her. It's just flashes of hair and eyes. She doesn't possess a full face to him anymore.

He was placed in foster care when he was taken and he remembers hearing all kinds of talk about how they were trying to contact someone of his family who would be able to take care of them. He doesn't tell them that all of his family were a lot like his mom – or his dad – because he wanted to see just how long they would try to help him before they finally just gave up. He was put into a home during the first week of his being in foster care, but after he landed a fist in the face of a kid who tried to push him around, he was moved to another. Then another. Then another. To say that Dean was a problematic child would be being nice. He was an angry child, he always had been. You had to be angry and you had to be dominant to survive where he was living before, going to the school he went to. It's just how it was. He went through six different foster homes before he found himself entering the Reigns household.

The Reigns were nice people who were new to this whole fostering thing. They had a birth son of their own named Roman, who was only 6 months older than him, but was taller and already looked scary to Dean, who was very short compared. Dean was quiet for a while, finding his inner omega and swallowing his pride. This wasn't like the other homes. This wasn't another foster kid. This was a kid who had ran this household for years now and Dean was going to respect that. Dean knew what respect was and even at Roman's young age, his demeanor demanded for it. It was two weeks of Dean being relatively quiet and staying away from the older boy before they really started to bond. Roman was tough, he was sturdy. Dean, at the time, didn't know that's just what he needed. He needed an older brother. He needed someone to hold him up when he felt like he was about to fall. Roman starts talking to Dean after those two weeks of terrified silence, the two six-year-olds finding every little thing to talk about with light in their eyes and smiles on their faces and Dean remembers for the first time feeling like he made a friend.

But Dean had a lot more problems that he really didn't liked to admit at the time. There were times when he would just snap and he would go on a rage-fueled breakdown and his only goal was to make everything around him as broken as he was. He had been having them as long as he could remember and with no mother around, it usually ended in a lot of broken matter. It was five weeks into his stay at the Reigns household that Dean experiences the first breakdown he had since his last home. It's filled with shouting at the top of his lungs and trying to destroy everything in sight, but it's ended quicker than it started when Roman wraps him so tight in his arms with a strength neither of them knew he had. All he did was hold Dean through everything to make sure he didn't hurt himself – even though Roman got bitten and scratched in the process. It was in that moment that Dean placed a full body trust into the other boy and it was in that moment that he felt that he had truly found a family that would never leave him behind.

As Dean and Roman grew closer, they grew to the point where Dean was courageous and comfortable enough to start pushing at those alpha-male boundaries to see what he could do. When these arguments start coming along is when there was a brand new addition to the Reigns household; a smaller, black haired boy who was 6 months younger than Dean and therefore a year younger than Roman. He would fit in immediately and was to be protected at all costs. Roman and Dean had decided that the day before he showed up and when he actually showed up, they were sure that they would make good on their promise. The boy's name was Seth and he was really the thing that kept everything from getting too bad. He was smart and he made sure that Dean and Roman's arguments never got to a harsh point like they had at some points during the past. There was never pushing or shoving when Seth around and there was never the need to breakdown because Dean was always terrified that if he did, he would hurt his little brother. He'd never had a little brother, but he knew that the only thing he wanted was to make sure he was okay. He wanted to make sure he was the best big brother he's ever had; like Roman was to Dean.

Roman, Dean, and Seth were inseparable from the first week that Seth arrived and it continued that way. With each passing day within the household, they were proven to only be getting closer. It was one night when they were outside in the backyard having their own camping trip away from the house that they made a pact with each other. It was after they had their parents help them make s'mores and after Dean had rubbed his chocolate coated fingers onto Seth and Roman's cheeks and had them retaliated; after Dean had been put on scary story duty because he had seen the most horror movies on late night television; after they were all tucked up in the tent and in their sleeping bags that they decided that they never wanted to have to be apart again. This is also where Dean and Seth both talk about how they ended up where they were now and about their lives back at home. Dean went first, telling about the conditions that he lived in and how the cops just showed up one day. He talks about how he felt like he was left behind because no one had come for him yet and how he still doesn't know where his mom is. He's wrapped in two sets of little arms to keep him from falling away from them. Seth had learned from verbal speech about what Dean goes through. They've been doing so well with fighting the monsters that Dean finds haunting him in his own mind.

Seth is the one who speaks next. He speaks about how he was living with his parents and how his mom was laid off from her job. He speaks about how they lost their house and had to move into a smaller place. He talks about how he couldn't buy new clothes and how their water got shut off. And he speaks about how one day he was in school and got called down to the office to be taken away. Dean doesn't remember the exact things that he said, but he remembers a crack in his voice when he starts talking about how he was so confused and how he still spoke to his parents but it just wasn't the same because he didn't think he was ever going to go home again. In that moment, Dean remembers looking at his little brother in a different light and he remembers Roman and him both wrapping their arms around Seth as he tries to force himself not to cry.

The months pass by without much of a hassle for anything. Things were falling naturally into place and the boys were still growing closer by the day. Summer was drawing nearer and Roman turned 7 while Seth turned 6 and they shared a day for their birthdays and a lot of the kids from their school came because Roman was popular and Seth had been good at making friends. Dean had sat to the side during the party because the thing about him is he had never been good at making friends with anyone but his brothers. He remembers hearing the parents talk and remembers some glances thrown his way and talk about both him being a foster kid and then there was some kind of bullshit talk about 'Middle Child Syndrome' or something. He remembers just sitting there and taking it, grinning every time one of his brothers would look over at him with a grin of their own but feeling vaguely ill.

It's when Seth's birth parents show up that Dean is hit full on with the force of just how fake his new family really was. He had been sitting here for the last months wanting to believe that they were growing closer together and that they were the things that they needed to actually be a real family. But every week, Seth got a call from his parents and now they were here and Seth looked so happy and Dean didn't want to get attached to something that wouldn't last. It was in the midst of the excitement that Dean slips away, telling himself he was only going to be taking a walk to clear his head and let all the families have their time. Thinking of families led to thinking about his mother though and he ends up going into a breakdown, but this one was quiet and he sprinted too far and into unknown territory to relieve himself of the tension. It takes them two days to find Dean, who had harbored himself in a tree and had heard them yelling but hadn't been able to bring himself to get down and face them. He had ruined their birthday party because of his own feelings. He was guilty.

It was only when he heard Seth and Roman's broken, pleading shouts from the car while it was raining that he scales down from the tree, his face passive and blank when the car was stopping and everyone was running to him. He didn't know what to feel, but he knew that he wanted to cry, but didn't. He thought for sure that he was going to be put in another home for this, but he wasn't. He was taken home and bathed and fed, but he doesn't speak to anyone. As was fair, Roman and Seth didn't talk to him either, not for a while. After two days, Seth tries, but can't get anything out of Dean, so he gets aggravated and left Dean alone again. It was after four days that Roman tries. He goes as far as to try and start an argument with Dean because he knew that Dean couldn't resist arguing and protecting his image. It doesn't work. Roman doesn't try again and Dean doesn't blame him. He wouldn't try again either.

The only people that Dean talks to are his foster parents, and that's only to ask if he can call his mom and they seem to get it. They promise him that they'd try. And try they did. Within a week, Dean was talking to his mom on the phone, but it was nothing like he expected it to be. She wasn't like she used to be. She wasn't laidback or easy to talk to or just easy to not talk to at all. She was brash and she sounded like she was struggling and angry. She didn't sound like she cared much about Dean or how he was doing at all. She told him she was in jail and laughed at him when he asked if she had seen his dad, saying that's not how jail worked. She just talked so much about herself and not about when she was coming home or whether Dean was okay or not. She didn't ask anything about him. She just assumed. She always just assumed. He was getting more aggravated by the moment as she just talks and talks and talks like he wasn't six years old and he could handle everything that she was laying on him. About how she might not come home at all because of the charges she had and how she hated where she was and how she just wanted to be out. It was weighing on Dean because he couldn't do anything, but she wouldn't care if he was the one complaining. She never cared. She wasn't like Seth's parents or Roman's parents. He didn't know why he tried.

He was building up tension on tension as he listens to her speak all about herself and her problems until he finally just snapped and asked if she had missed him at all, if she cared about how he was doing at all. Her only response had been, "Don't be such a baby, Dean." It had led to Dean spitting out how he hoped she died in jail, just like he had heard her speak about his father before, back when they lived at home and not in a different household and in a jail cell, before hanging up. Roman's parents were there and just staring at him for a moment, as if waiting for that shoe to drop, and it did. Dean had attempted to throw the phone at the wall and had fallen into screaming out a thousand curses and trying his best to fight off the hands that were trying to keep him safe from himself.

It wasn't until he had two smaller pairs of arms wrapping around him that he really felt all of the fight drain from him, especially when Seth was there pleading for him to calm down because he was hurting himself. He remembers all of the fight leaving him in that moment and he remembers sagging against Roman, who just helped him down until they were on the floor and he was cradled against his chest. Dean remembers crying his eyes out because his mom didn't love him and he would never have a family like he had with Roman and Seth ever again and it would never last. He didn't say any of this out loud, so he doesn't think anyone ever knew about his fears. It was just a long time of Roman cradling him tight against him and Seth's face pressed against Dean's back, telling him everything was going to be okay. And at the time, he believed him. There was nothing else that he could do besides believe him.

Dean didn't remember how much later it was before he remembers Roman – with a bit of trouble – was picking him up and taking them to their where the three of them shared a room, despite his parents' demand that he not do that because he would hurt himself. Dean doesn't want Roman to hurt himself, but it was too late to complain. Normally, it was Roman on the single bed and Seth and Dean on the bunk bed in their room. That night, Dean fell asleep feeling safer than he ever had, curled up against Roman with Seth curled up at his back, his brothers barricading him in and keeping him away from the harm of the world. That night would forever be branded into his mind for more than one reason.

It was only two weeks later when Roman was being rushed to the hospital with extreme pain and being rushed into surgery for a hernia. Dean was terrified and worried and could feel a breakdown coming on, especially when he hears about what causes a hernia. Lifting heavy objects was one of the reasons and that night flashed into Dean's mind and he remembers having to go to the bathroom with Seth close behind to make sure he doesn't cause a scene. He knows the beginning of the end when he sees it and this wasn't going to end well for any of them.

He was right, though; Dean. He knew that it was the beginning of the end and it was proven to be correct. Roman's parents – the parents Dean was starting to call 'Mom' and 'Dad' much too easily – had to relinquish their foster kids due to insubstantial funds and send them back to the care, where they were issued into two different homes within the next week. Dean was moved into a household where there was another boy – the birth child of the parents who he was fostered to – named John. Dean started calling them the Cena family or the Cena household from the moment that he moved in. Seth was moved into the Helmsley-McMahon family, where they had a son who was adopted from where they had fostered him before. Seth and Dean talked every day for about a week and talked their parents into allowing them to go see Roman after he was released from the hospital.

Dean remembers nearly breaking down into tears because he remembers feeling it was all his fault, but Roman punched him lightly in the shoulder and told him to suck it up 'cause he wasn't the one who had surgery. Dean laughed and hit him back just as lightly and they were okay, just like that (even if it wasn't okay in Dean's mind). It was for three months living separately that they talk their parents into taking them to Roman's every day. They weren't in school because it was summer, but maybe it would have been easier to see each other in school. It works well for the most part, until one day, after school starts and Seth turns out to be going to another school, they can't meet up together. And then it happens again. And again. And it happens for a month straight that they can't see each other.

It eats away at Dean, who knew this was going to happen. He knew it. He knew that once he messed everything up, it would never be the same. They said that they would never leave each other behind, that they never wanted to be apart. Then Dean had to go and mess it up because he had to do something stupid. Maybe he belonged in jail, just like the rest of his family. Maybe he was just as stupid as the rest of them. It's been 36 days since he's seen Seth and he's worried to death about his baby brother – and it is his baby brother, he would always be his baby brothers, they made a pact – when Dean has a breakdown that's the most violent he's ever had and Roman isn't there.

He's with the Cena household and he's in the room they gave him to call his own that's so empty that he doesn't know what to do with it. He's at the place that's supposed to be his home but feels too clean and smooth and even for it to belong to him. His fist collides into the wall and he knocks a lamp down and he's shouting and he can't see straight. The next thing he knows, he's being strapped down and he can't remember anything besides waking up in a white room where he can't hurt himself and thinking that maybe this is just what jail feels like.

He's there for two weeks, that's what they tell him. He was put in there because he was a danger to himself and they wanted to make sure that he was going to be okay. He doesn't talk much, even when they try to talk to him. The father of the Cena household – his foster dad, John Cena Sr. – comes to pick him up after the two weeks with a soft, almost understanding smile on his face. But he doesn't understand and there's something more to that smile that Dean's not happy about; there's apology there, there's sorrow. Something's wrong, but he doesn't want to think about it.

He's driven home in a deathly silent car because the attempts of conversation are brushed off because Dean just doesn't care. They reach the Cena household and that's when Dean is shooting up in his seat at the sight of who's waiting in the driveway. Roman and the Reigns family are there, all with bright smiles on their faces and he doesn't remember the last time that he's been so happy to see Roman smiling. He's opening the car door before the car's even stopped and he's sprinting full speed at Roman who is just as ready to hug him as Dean is.

They're locked in an embrace that's almost too tight, but Dean hasn't seen him in what feels like ever and all he's seen are doctors and he realizes he's crying before he can really stop himself and he's moving from Roman to hug the parents of the Reigns family. He almost wishes that there was more, that this is just like it was before, but he knows it's not because there's something missing, like something's ripped out of his heart, and he thinks he knows what that apologetic smile is about now.

Momma, he remembers saying, looking up at Roman's mom, Patricia, his eyes wet with tears and she looks like she's about to cry just hearing him call her that. He knows that this can't be easy for her, because she's seen him at his worst, but it had never been bad enough for him to go through what he had just been through (and it would never be that bad again if Dean had any say). Momma, where's Seth? Where's my baby brother? Because she would know, wouldn't she? He could trust her, she would tell him the truth and that's all he needed right now. He just needed to know where his baby brother was.

The Cena household was standing to the side, all hesitant, even their little boy who was named after his father quiet and looking a little pale in the face. Roman is already trying to pull Dean into his arms, which is a bad sign; that is always a bad sign. Ro, Ro, wait, where's Seth? Where is he? I have to know he's okay, Ro. I have to know my baby brother's okay. He's our baby brother, we have to make sure he's okay! Dean remembers feeling like he was in hysterics and he looks at Roman and Roman gives him the answer no one else will without saying a word. Seth's not here. That's what he gets. Above him, his Momma's hand is going into his hair and that's not a good sign either, because he feels the panic ebbing up around him again and he's clinging to Roman ever tighter.

The words are what hits him the hardest. Dean, honey, Seth's parents don't think it's a good idea for you two to be spending any more time together. He's a danger. He messed up again. He messed everything up. They don't understand, baby. It's not your fault. They're just trying to do what's best for him. Isn't that what you want? What's best for Seth? Of course that's what he wanted. That's all he ever wanted. He barely spent half a year with him but Seth had gotten under his skin and into his heart and it feels like he's missing an arm knowing he can't see him again. He can't even see him in school. He's failed to protect his baby brother because he was a danger to his baby brother in the first place.

I thought we were his family, Dean remembers sobbing out against Roman's shoulder all too well and Roman's arms were wrapping around him tighter and he thinks he hears a hitch in his older brother's throat, but he doesn't want to think about that any more than he wants to think about how Seth's gone. He doesn't want to think that maybe because Roman was here with Dean that he couldn't see Seth anymore either. He doesn't want to think that maybe Seth was left all along with his new family where he has a stranger for a brother while Dean got a stranger and Roman all the same. He doesn't want to think that was the fate of his little brother because his baby brother deserved so much more than that for all of the pain that he's gone through.

But then he's led inside by the Cena household and the Reigns family eat dinner with them. Dean finds himself feeling nauseous halfway through his meal and he wonders idly why he never felt this way when his mother was taken away. There's so much that has happened in his life that he feels he should have felt about as strongly as he feels about this, but at the same time, he understands. None of that felt like it was because of him. He didn't fail in any of those aspects. His mother was on the wrong path, his father was never around anyway, his family wasn't really his family at all. This… this was family. Even in due time, he thinks that the Cena household would become family to him if they happened to stay together long enough.

It was about a year later – a year of these people trying to be as gentle with him as possible and taking him to talk to therapists and trying to find different methods to control his anger and his temper – that he was adopted into the family after no one in his family proved to be a good fit for being his guardian. He's not surprised and he has no complaints that he'd say verbally about the Cena household. They have tried so many methods to get him to be okay. So many different methods but they don't let him do the one that he knows works the best: arguing. They say it's not healthy, but he would beg to differ. He manages to pull their goody-two-shoe son into a few heated arguments that leave Dean feeling on top of the world afterwards, but the therapist just says it's because of his ego or something. Therapists don't know anything, that's what his mom told him before. And maybe she was right.

Remembering Seth is still like a knife in his chest but Roman is around almost every day to make it better, and when he's not around, they talk on the phone. Roman joins the football team – something that John, his brother, is already involved in. (He calls the John Cena Sr. 'Padre' for shits and giggles; Carol Cena is known as 'Madre' for the same reason. Patricia and Sika Reigns are 'Mom' and 'Dad' to him and would always be). Roman tries to talk Dean into getting involved, but after watching Roman and Dean wrestle around, Madre and Padre decide that's not the best idea that could be presented. Roman's the only one who doesn't treat him like a ticking time bomb.

Roman slaps him around and wrestles with him and takes him down and argues and it makes him feel like normal; that's all he ever wanted in the first place. The Cena household feels more like home after he begins to hang up what feels like thousands of pro wrestling posters all around him and Roman helps him decorate the walls just the way that Dean wants. Years pass on by and Dean almost forgets about Seth, save the nagging feeling at the back of his heart where he knows that he can't just forget that easily.

When John gets into the Vince McMahon's School of Excellence – even hearing the name McMahon causes Dean's skin to crawl because they're the bastards who took his baby brother from him – and Dean is still in 7th grade, Roman a grade ahead of him, things start getting a bit worse.

John joins the football team and also on that team is Seth's older brother, Randy Helmsley-McMahon, the adopted boy that lived with Seth. John becomes Dean's source of information about Seth and John does it because he wants to help Dean. Dean becomes obsessed in his own way, but he's glad to hear that Seth is doing okay and was even adopted into the family over the years after his parents voluntarily gave up their rights. Roman tells him he needs to stop worrying and Dean tries. They all go to the football games and Roman doesn't point Seth out even though they both know he's there and after a few games, Dean tells himself he doesn't care anymore.

When the time comes along, Roman gets into the Vince McMahon's School of Excellence and gets onto the football team, so Dean is just that much more alone as he watches his two brothers on the field going against their enemies. He doesn't look in the stands, but sometimes he thinks he feels a gaze on the back of his neck. Roman tells Dean one day that Randy is a dick and Dean doesn't doubt it. Roman, another day, tells Dean that Seth's the same way now, and that makes Dean feel bitter.

When it's Dean's time to apply to get into Vince McMahon's School of Excellence, he doesn't make it. The test results get 'lost in the mail' somewhere, according to the office, when they were supposed to be sent back to the Cena family for review. They didn't want any trouble and Dean doesn't care, so they don't bring it up more than once. He goes to another school and goes through his Freshman year. And now, here he is: only a month into his Sophomore year and the school's telling his Padre and Madre that they understand Dean has problems, but they either need to transfer him to another school, or he would have an expulsion on his record. They go home, and after a few hours on the phone with some persuasion and some threatening of suing, oh he likes this… hey, look what do you know?

Dean's the newest student at Vince McMahon's School of Excellence.

Now, how about we get on to the actual story and skip away from all of this childhood emotional bullshit? I bet you guys are going to love this story.

And bam.

Hope you guys liked it!
Reviews would be great!