Title: What Is And What Should Never Be

Author: captainbartholomew

Disclaimer: I don't own WWE. Like I could afford to feed them! You know how many pancakes they eat?!

Summary: They always say be careful what you wish for; however nobody seemed to ever mention this to Dean Ambrose.

Blame/Fault: I could blame caylendar (stop glaring at me, caylendar), but this isn't her fault. It's totally mine. However, she did encourage me to keep going with this when I told her my idea. You can thank my Dabbling Drabbles piece for this little beauty. If you read those, you should be able to sense a tie in with one of those pieces a little down the road. You won't get it right away, but if you guess correctly, I'll give you an internet cookie! :)

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Chapter One

Dean Ambrose examined the empty hotel room before him. Their used to be two other men in this room with him, but now, now it was just him. He remembered the laughs they shared. The anguish they had gone through. The frustrations they had vented about together. The bond and brotherhood they had formed with each other over the last three years. He especially remembered the fears they shared, but now those fears had become reality.

Seth Rollins had joined the Authority.

Roman Reigns was now on a path to stardom as WWE Corporate tried to push the monster of a man into the championship picture taking on the likes of Randy Orton, John Cena, The Wyatt Family, or anyone else who dared challenge him to get in his way of obtaining the brass ring.

Sure, Roman and he were still brothers, but while the Power House was off trying to win over the WWE Universe; Dean was forced to do battle with the jobbers. Every once in a while Roman would call on him for help against his adversaries or Ambrose would be thrust into the title picture attempting to punch Seth's teeth down his throat.

Roman had wanted to take Dean out to celebrate after they're encounter with The Authority earlier in the night. The Lunatic Fringe wasn't in the mood to put up with anyone after being hit in the head with a chair by Jamie Noble of all people. God, Seth's little security team couldn't figure out how to wield a weapon if it killed them, could they? So, Dean had elected to take the night off and stay in.

John Cena and a few of the older Superstars had heard Roman's invitation to Dean about going out for a quick drink and they decided to join. This just furthered Dean's desire to not go even though his mind had already been made up before the other superstars invited themselves. He would feel much better after a couple of hours of shut eye. As it seemed, Ambrose was the only one around on this level of the hotel not meeting a single soul on his way up to the room as he entered it. The dark shadows stretching throughout the entire room and a bit of moonlight flickering in to the room.

It seemed as though he was the one left out in the cold after The Shield breakup; the dirty blonde looked glumly around the room. Leave it to him to be the last one standing… here alone. He internally sighed. He remembered when Roman would go off to call his daughter and wife leaving Seth and Dean to their own devices. Dean remembered how much fun Seth and he had creating silly games to pass the time, just chatting about life, or sharing stories about their wrestling pasts before Roman would come back in and Mother Hen like it was nobody's business telling them to get ready for bed.

God, Dean wished Seth was here now. He could pick his brain about his current feud with Bray Wyatt and his goons. Their brains were so similar and it was like the two of them could communicate telepathically from time to time. He longed for those days when he and Seth were brothers. What had Seth called him once, his wrestling soulmate?

He wished Seth had never betrayed them.

He wished him and Rollins were still best friends.

He wished their friendship had never become so fucked up in the first place.

Most of all, Dean wished Seth was still his brother.

Dean shook his head knowing these idle wishes would never come to fruition. He couldn't waste his time on such placid thoughts. Seth was never going to change; no matter how many times Dean attempted to beat him in the head with a steel chair.

He pulled out a pair of sweat pants and a loose fitting t-shirt while quickly brushing his teeth to get ready for bed. As Dean set his suitcase off to the side of the hotel room and crawled under the blankets of one of the beds, he couldn't help but reminisce about his adventures with Seth from over the years as he let his body drift off to sleep for the night.

Dean's sleep was restless as he tossed and turned throughout the night. The hotel room was stuffy and it seemed the bed was stiff. It was one of those nights where a person would wake up every couple of hours wondering why your body was being so cruel. Every time the young wrestler woke up he looked over to see the other hotel room bed was still empty. No sign of Roman having snuck in while Dean had been tossing and turning in his attempted sleep.

Finally, he heard a light click in the door as a key card was sliding through it. Dean rolled over to look at the alarm clock sitting on the night stand with the numbers glaring an obnoxious red color with 2:37 scrawled across it; he glared back at it annoyed.

The timing seemed right since the bar Roman had told him about was a little ways up the street from the hotel. Roman was always the responsible one making sure the other wrestlers and divas made it back to the hotel especially if they had too much liquor in their system. Dean blamed it on Roman's fatherly tendencies knowing full well the man could be an overprotective mother hen. Dean adjusted himself to a position to attempt to talk to Roman about his nightly excursion, but Dean noticed the elder man's silhouette wasn't as bulking as it normally would be when Roman was lurking in around in the shadows. Dean had roomed with the Samoan a long time and he knew, whoever this was was certainly not Roman Reigns.

Dean instincts kicked up recognizing this as a potentially dangerous situation. He watched the figure move around in the dark throwing what seemed to be a suitcase on to the other hotel room bed. He prayed this other figure wasn't some crazy fan who had miraculous charmed the pants off the hotel front desk just so they could murder Dean Ambrose in his sleep. Or some crazy fan girl who just wanted to say they had roomed with the Dean Ambrose because that would totally happen to him too. Immediately, the Lunatic Fringe shook his head trying to get these crazy notions out of his head.

He continued to watch the figure as it walked into the bathroom shutting the door. Dean heard the shower turn on and steam begin to trickle out of the bathroom into the hotel room. The strange shadowy figure starting to whistle while in the shower, it was a familiar tune but Dean couldn't seem to place it. He racked his brain trying to remember the tune as it was whistled eerily echoing throughout the hotel room. If this was Bray Wyatt, he was going to be so pissed.

Great, he was going to die by the hands of some crazy psycho and this stupid tune he couldn't name would be forever engrained in his memory without a title on it.

Just as quickly as the whistling started, did it stop. The shower turned off and as the bathroom door opened a figure with a towel wrapped around his waist emerged while more steam rolled out into the hotel room. There was also a towel wrapped around his hair too. This further added to Dean's suspicion; whoever this person was, it was certainly not Roman. As the figure moved back toward the bed and began to rifle for clothes… or maybe it was a murder weapon… in the suitcase, did Dean realize what he had to do. He was going to get this guy out before they had the opportunity to take him out. If he was going to go down, he was going to go down guns a blazing and with a fight.

Again, he adjusted himself on the bed and posed to strike the intruder as soon as its back was turned. Within seconds the person was walking back to the bathroom. Dean realized it was now or never to attack whoever had let themselves into his hotel room. As quietly as a cat, Dean got up from the bed and perched himself on the corner of the other waiting for the intruder to come back out of the bathroom while he patiently waited for his prey.

Soon enough, the intruder walked out of the bathroom and that was when Dean attacked.

Dean pounced letting a primal scream rip from his lips as he suicide dived off the bed onto the intruder. Quickly, Dean pinned the intruder under him and clutched their arms to the carpeted floor. This intruder was not going to get him. Not tonight, not ever. Dean Ambrose was here to stay, baby.

"DEAN! WHAT THE HELL?"

Ambrose looked down to see who had yelped at him in annoyance. When he looked down, the bathroom light combined with the moonlight flitting into the hotel room caused Dean to finally see the figure that had been lurking around in the room. The Lunatic blinked repeatedly in confusion staring as if he had been hit with a rock in the head too many times (okay, maybe that chair shot had done something to him).

Seth Rollins, who wore a loose fitting CrossFit t-shirt and baggy sweatpants with a glasses clad face, stared up at Dean in annoyance, but more in confusion wondering what the hell was going on.

In that moment, Dean didn't know what was going on. How Seth of all people had gotten into his and Roman's hotel room? Where the hell was Roman? And wait, was Seth trying to talk to him right now like a civil human being? Maybe he should listen and see what the little weasel was talking about.

"I swear you need to get off me right now you idiot. I knew I shouldn't have left you alone, but the doctors said Owens didn't hit you that hard with the chair. So I thought to myself, Seth why don't you go for a night run those always relax you and let you clear your head. I thought I could make our next plan of attack. So I come back and shower to get the sweat off and then the next thing I know, you have me pinned to the hotel room floor! I knew I should have been watching you closer, but you objected!"

Had that chair shot from Noble knocked Dean loopy tonight or what?

Seth was talking to him like they were still friends. Seth was acting all caring and concerned over Dean's well-being and it was weirding the older wrestler out. This had to be all a part of Seth's next scheme. Rollins had always been a schemer. He was the Architect after all.

Finally finding his voice among the weirdness, Dean turned and gave Seth the dirtiest, most disgusted look any person could give another human being in their lives. Seth didn't know what to make of this. He just blinked trying to comprehend what had gotten into Dean Ambrose.

"What's your angle, Rollins? Why are you in here?" questioned Dean his voice dripping with venom in a way Seth had never heard the other man speak before.

"Angle, Dean what are you talking about? We always room together; it's been that way since well you know…" Seth trailed off glancing towards the bland hotel room wall not wanting to finish his sentence.

Dean gripped Seth's arms tighter in frustration and annoyance. Seth was just yanking him around stalling for whatever reason. Roman was probably in some serious trouble by now thanks to Seth. He didn't have time for Seth's little mind games. He had to find out where Roman was, get to him, and then probably beat the living daylights out of Seth for the umpteenth time in the last two years.

"Why are you here, Rollins? What'd you do with Roman?" cried Dean as he continued to pin the man down on the floor not allowing him to move from the spot in the carpeted hotel room.

"Dean, man, I repeat again, what the hell?!" choked out Seth, "Did Owens hit you too hard with that chair in our tag match tonight? You're not making sense! You're not usually this hostile or delirious when you have a concussion, should I take you to the hospital?"

Dean blinked. How was he not making sense? Why on earth was Seth here? And how on earth did Seth have a key to the hotel room of all things? Why was Seth Rollins of all people being nice to him? Why was the Architect caring about him? What the hell was going? Had he finally snapped? Was he actually becoming the lunatic everyone truly thought he was?

Slowly, Dean got up off Seth unsure of what was truly going on around him right now. He swore if this was another one of Seth's weasel tricks, he'd stab the man with a fork.

"I'll say this one last time," Dean explained slowly enunciating each word with caution and a bit vindictively toward Seth, "Where is Roman Reigns?"

Slowly, Seth rose to a sitting position against the hotel room wall trying to regain the feeling in his arms. Absentmindedly, the young wrestler began to rub his arms as he see red welts forming where Dean had grabbed him. Seth looked at Dean with a perplexed look of confusion and shook his head not understanding.

"Owens really hit you too hard with that chair tonight, didn't he?"

"Seth…" Dean warned in annoyance waiting for an answer about Roman's undisclosed location.

"Dean, he betrayed us? Don't you remember?" Seth sad looking Dean dead in the eyes as if someone had just told him they had run over his prized dog and they didn't even stop to apologize.

"You're lying," Dean scoffed, "That was you. You hit him with the chair and then you attacked me all for that stupid brief case. It was the end of our brotherhood. It was the end of the Shield."

"No," Seth interjected before looking forlorn once again, "Whatever, you're talking about never happened. Roman Reigns was the man who destroyed the Shield."

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*a/n i: So I know people have done the whole what if Roman turned against The Shield or what if Dean turned against The Shield piece on this website, but I wanted to write my own version. This one is going to be a bit different since we have WWE's version of Dean traveling to let's say another universe/plane of existence where it wasn't Seth who turned against him, but Roman. Hint: Part of the bigger theme for the fic!

Next chapter, we'll get a little more insight from good guy Seth about how the betrayal went down, where the heck Roman is, the landscape of this WWE, and how the heck is Dean dealing because if I was him in this universe my brain would explode from all the emotions running amuck!

Reviews are the wrestler/diva of your choice bringing you an ice cream sundae to deal with the feels! Thanks for reading! -cap