Their morning had been hectic. Despite a wicked hangover, Dean had snuck out with their ice bucket, filled it with ice and cold water, then poured it all over a soundly sleeping Seth with Roman as collateral damage. After a promise from Dean that that was only the beginning of his revenge, the men took turns showering, then got dressed, finding themselves on a plane a few hours later.

Once they'd made it to Washington, the boys headed straight for the arena for a Raw taping. Inside the large arena, Seth immediately headed towards their assigned locker room and its showers. Dean had found some practical joke souvenirs from the stores in the Hawaii airport, and had apparently made it his mission to test them all out on Seth. The most annoying, Seth decided, was the itching powder Ambrose had somehow managed to get all over Seth before their flight. Little did Seth know, as he turned the water as hot as it would go, that Dean had decided that one of his last acts of revenge, before he'd consider forgiving Seth, would be to dump the rest of his itching powered into Seth's duffel bag, paying special attention to his ring gear.

"I wouldn't do that," Roman warned, but made no move to stop Dean; he didn't want to be next on Dean's hit list.

"Mind your own business," Dean said, shaking the small pouch of powder in front of Roman as a warning. Reigns held up his hands in surrender, returning his attention to back to his own bag while he tried to figure out a way to warn Rollins without Dean catching on. Unzipping Seth's bag quickly, Dean rummaged through it to find his friend's ring gear. Suddenly, Dean let out a satisfied laugh as he took something out of Seth's bag and walked over to Roman. "Well look what we have here," Dean said in amusement as held out one of Seth's old t-shirts just as the youngest member of The Shield reentered the room. Seth stood with one towel around his waist as he used another to dry his hair, a look of anguish on his face as he saw Dean and Roman with his shirt in their hands. "Aw man, now what do you have planned? More stupid powder?"

"You better see this Rollins," Roman said quietly.

Seth walked over and immediately let out a string of curses as he paled. "This is all your fault Ambrose! If you wouldn't have started your revenge at six in the morning, I would have remembered to get rid of them!" Seth exclaimed, staring at the volcanic rocks that Dean was holding. Dean simply shrugged, "You'll be fine, it's just a superstition."

"You'd better hope so," Rollins growled in annoyance.

Needless to say, it took a few weeks before Seth was comfortable going anywhere on his own. This worked out just fine for Dean who, as always, wanted to see firsthand if the myth was true...though he highly doubted it. But curiosity wasn't the only reason why Dean stuck so close to Seth. Though Dean would never openly admit it, he actually planned to be there for his friend in case Seth actually needed help with the "curse." However, for all Dean's good intentions, Seth interpreted Dean's unusual hovering as the Lunatic Fringe biting his time to say "I told you so" to Roman and Seth if nothing became of the curse.

In contrast to Dean's seeming excitement over the situation, poor Roman was constantly in protector mode. Roman followed close to Seth, doing whatever he saw fit to save Seth from what Reigns believed was inevitable doom, and regardless of their personal beliefs, all three men had to admit, there had been a few close calls: a car had nearly hit Seth as he crossed the street, the electric socket caught fire at the hotel when he'd tried to plug in his blow dryer and he'd been trapped in an elevator on his way to meet his teammates. Thankfully though, through all this, Seth had thus far been unscathed. Roman was convinced it was the curse, Seth was beginning to agree with his friend, and Dean swore that it was all just coincidence.

Lucky for Seth, Dean cared much more about his brother than he did about being right (as he saw it). Deciding to forgive Seth for the whole ordeal, Dean took it upon himself to research how to get rid of a curse he was more than sure didn't even exist. Not much of a researcher, and no friend to technology, Dean was astonished, once he could figure out how to find the information, how many superstitious people there were in the world as he found endless accounts of the myth, and then eventually, how to break it.

"Just put them back?" Rollins asked suspiciously.

"That's what I said...well actually, that's what Google said," Dean corrected, still annoyed at the surprised looks on Rollins and Reigns' face when he'd told them he'd actually Googled something.

"That easy? Just put them back?" Seth asked again, just to be sure there wasn't a catch that Dean had forgot to mention.

"Look, if you don't believe me, keep your stupid rocks," Dean said as he turned his attention to his new Google search: funny animal pictures.

"Now, we didn't say we weren't going to try, we just want to make sure we get it right," Roman said, trying to coax an unusually helpful Dean back into the next phase of planning: getting The Shield back to Hawaii.

After putting the rocks back and boarding their return flight, Dean pretended to pout on the way home because now they'd never know who was right out of the three of them; they'd never know if the rocks were a curse or a myth. Dean's behavior suited both Seth and Roman just fine because when Dean pouted, he tended to sit quietly while he brooded and shot angry glares at his friends. This quiet time allowed Roman, for the first time in weeks, to doze off with his head laying heavily on Seth's shoulder, the big man finally able to relax a little now that he was not on constant alert for Seth's well being. Thus, all three men sat quietly as their plane began its decent back to the states.

As unpredictable as ever, Dean suddenly brightened. "Hey, we should go on trips like this more often."

Startled by Dean's sudden comment, Seth and Roman simply groaned and closed their eyes, trying their best to ignore Dean as he made plans for the next superstition he wanted to tackle.

Next time, Dean gets to try out the superstition, Seth thought wearily to himself.

The things he did for his family...

Again, hope you enjoyed this fluffy little story, and please let me know what you think about it :)