This is all just a dream. In a few hours, I'm going to wake up, it'll be Tuesday morning. Have to be up early to get to the airport, Dublin here I come, stop by the hotel room to get the key card and hopefully a shower, then on to the studio, yap-yap-yap, then the arena and done.

He knew it wasn't true. It was Tuesday, Tuesday night, and all of the above had already happened.

He'd known it was serious the moment it happened. A sharp, tearing pain, and he collapsed to the canvas, a dove with a very broken wing. He couldn't get up, his knee was completely non-functioning. Even if it had been, he didn't dare put any weight on it, the pain was already excruciating. There was no playing it off, no sucking it up and finishing the match. He was biting his lips to keep the screams and swears in, and could only shake his head when the ref asked him if he was able to continue.

Now in a Dublin hospital, on heavy pain medication, Seth stared at the ceiling tiles, struggling to accept what had happened to him. He'd torn everything that held his right knee together. He needed surgery. He had to fly back to the states tomorrow night, and see a surgeon in Chicago. He could be out of the ring for half a year, a year, or forever. This could very well be the end of his career.

Yes, he'd wanted to rid himself of his championship, and the heavy burden it had brought, but not like this. He looked at his IV, saline was dripping slowly, like teardrops. Seth didn't think he could cry anymore. He'd already wept torrents of tears for everything that had happened to him since Wrestlemania, which had been both the happiest and most dreadful night of his life.

"Sierra/Hotel/India/Echo/Lima/Delta, The Shield." His phone was ringing. Roman or Dean. Of course, it was Dean.

"Seth! Is is as bad as I've heard?"

"Well, how bad did you hear it was?"

Dean sniffled.

"Don't cry, honey," Seth urged. He hated to think Dean was upset.

"I've just got something in my eye," Dean half-laughed, and cleared his throat. "The trainers told me it was serious."

"Yes, it's serious. Everything that held my knee together is torn. Go ahead, say 'I told you so'." Seth replied, bitterly. Of course, he wasn't mad at Dean, he was mad at himself. He should have told Stephanie about what Hunter had done to his knee.

"I would never do that, Seth. They told me you're going to need surgery."

"Yeah, I'm flying to Chicago tomorrow to meet with a surgeon and get that all set up." Fuck! Why am I being so cold to him?

"I wish I could be there for you." Dean's heartbroken voice was little more than a sigh, Dean on the verge of tears.

It softened his lover. "I wish you could, too. But, you know the business..."

"The show must go on."

"And it will...without me..." Seth said, in bewilderment as he realized that fact for the first time. Until his return, he would be written out of the scripts and storylines, different people would feud for his title.

"Seth, honey, I'm... I'm not sure I can go on without you. Shit, that sounded stupid."

"No it didn't, Dean."

"You feel it, too, don't you?"

"Yes," Seth said. "Its-" He stopped, because he heard his door open. "Dean, I have to let you go, someone's here."

"Okay, I'll call you the next chance I get, sweetness. I miss you."

"I miss you, too." Damn it, Seth thought. We almost said 'I love you'.

He could see two vague silhouettes against the curtain that had been drawn around his bed. "Come in," he called. Whoever you are.

The click-clack of high heels, and Stephanie appeared from behind the curtain. "Oh, Sethie... You just can't keep yourself out of trouble, can you?"

Before Seth could think of a snappy reply, Hunter jumped from behind the curtain. "Surprise!" He declared, and burst into laughter at Seth's scared face. "Stupid Seth. I didn't make you piss yourself again, did I?"

Seth, whose heart was racing in his ears, barely heard the question. "What are you doing here?"

"Can't a mentor visit his injured protege in the hospital?" Hunter asked, and glared at Seth. Stephanie laughed.

"When it comes down to you visiting me, no," Seth replied flatly. He realized that again, he had the upper hand. Help was just the press of a button away, should Hunter try anything.

"Nice interview, by the way," Hunter said, sarcastically. "Hard to believe that the one regret in your career was having to piss under the ring once."

"No, I lied. But, I couldn't very well tell the truth, because the one regret I have in my career is ever agreeing to your special contract."

"While that one may be null and void, your work contract is still in effect," Stephanie continued, all business.

"Yes, until 2019, I know that," Seth snapped.

"Shut up. How dare you interrupt me? Impudent little snot. As I was saying, your work contract is still in effect, so your surgery and recovery will be documented, and turned into a special-"

"No."

Stephanie glared at him; Seth could see she wanted to hit him, she slid her icy blue daggers down, to his knee, and her face went slack with hopelessness, because she could never do it. "Shut the fuck up! You're under contract, we're paying you, and we're not paying you to sit around re-reading all of your Harry Potter books and taking nude selfies. Your surgery and recovery will be recorded, and that's that. If you cooperate, you'll get a huge push when you return, and a chance to reclaim your title, without any special provisions. If you want to continue being a spoiled brat, we'll bury you and job you out until the end of your contract. We'll make you look so bad not even TNA will want you when you're done with us."

Seth knew that WWE had the power to do just that. He knew that if he recovered from this, he wanted to keep wrestling, it was what he was born to do. He was born to be a champion, born for the spotlight. "Well, I don't want the cameras on me all the time. They can talk to me in the hospital before the surgery, film the surgery, talk to me again just before I go home, and then nothing until I'm in Birmingham to do the rehab. My life isn't a fucking reality show."

"No, Sethie, of course it's not. We're talking about a ninety-minute special on the network, not your own show. And, we don't have to have the cameras at your house while you're recovering, I understand that, and I will ensure your privacy is respected."

"How can I trust you, Stephanie? You promised me Hunter would not come anywhere near me, and he tried to rape me again in the locker room after my promo on Monday, and he's here now." Seth glared hatefully at him.

"Seth, despite what you think happened between us, we have to keep working together," Hunter said, and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Don't fucking touch me!" Seth hissed, and pushed the hand away. "It's not like we were dating and it ended badly. I was your protege, the future of your company, your pet, your houseboy, your slave, and you raped me."

Hunter chuckled and shook his head. "You know that's not what happened, Seth."

"Yes, Hunter, it is what happened. And you tried to do it again yesterday. I can't work like that. I won't work like that."

"You worked like that for almost a year, Sethie. Why the sudden change?" Stephanie prodded. "You went from being a good house pet to a brat seemingly overnight, just as we had begun to allow you more freedom. But, that's just like you. You've always been completely ungrateful for everything we've given you."

"Are we almost through here?" Seth asked. He realized it had been hours since he'd last pissed, when he'd taken a drug test in the training room after they'd evaluated his knee. He had been clean, of course.

"Yes, just one more thing. We need your title."

"Give me my black gym bag."

Hunter dropped it on to his lap, and Seth winced at the impact to his bladder. He bit his lips and unzipped his bag, and pulled out the sexy black belt. In spite of everything, he didn't want to let it go. He touched his custom plates, and sighed. I will reclaim you, he told his title, and his vision grew blurred from tears. When Stephanie yanked his belt out of his hands, two tears spilled down his face.

"Oh, stop your bawling. You'll get it back FedEx as soon as we crown a new champion," she told him, impatiently.

Seth wanted to shout out that it wasn't the belt itself he was mourning the loss of, it was his position at the top, but that would only make him seem pathetic, so he found something else to say. "Is he going to have a special contract, too?" He asked, nastily.

"Why, I don't know. Maybe he will," Stephanie replied coolly, as she transferred Seth's title to her briefcase. "Don't forget to update your Instagram regularly."

Hunter smiled. "Get well soon, my pet." Then, he leaned in, and before Seth could react, Hunter gave him a kiss, right on the lips.

Seth did not have to play up his disgust; the back of his hand went to his mouth automatically. Hunter laughed, and he and Stephanie left before Seth could say anything. He was completely repulsed by that kiss, and that Hunter had actually had the balls to do it. He realized that as far as Hunter was concerned, absolutely nothing had changed in their dynamic, aside from Hunter's level of involvement in Seth's day-to-day life.

He wanted to brush his teeth. And, the restroom would be useful for another reason, too. He reached for his crutches, and realized he couldn't push his IV stand and hobble at the same time. Embarrassed, he pressed the call button. Almost immediately, a nurse popped into his room. She was middle-aged, and eerily resembled one of his elementary school teachers, with very short gray hair and glasses.

"Good evening, Mr. Rollins, I'm Jessica, and I'll be your nurse overnight. I was just on my way in to see if you needed anything."

"The restroom. And, you can just call me Seth."

"Can you hang on while I get your numbers and temp real quick? I'll be fast, I promise." Jessica went to the computer, and began typing.

"Um...yeah."

Jessica came over with a thermometer, and put it in Seth's ear, then took his blood pressure. "Your blood pressure's a little high, but that's probably because you need to go."

Seth nodded and squirmed a little as the nurse typed more numbers, then she came over and unplugged his IV stand from the wall. "Okay then, let's get you to the restroom."

Seth got on his crutches and hobbled to the restroom, hating the way they felt in his armpits; they had to be adjusted better. Jessica pushed his IV stand in after him. "I just need to get you a urinal. Even though you're in the restroom, we need to track your urine output."

"I'd like to brush my teeth, too. Could you bring me my ADIDAS gym bag? It's on the chair by the window."

"Of course, Seth. I'll be right back." Jessica left and quickly returned with all Seth needed. "I'll be just on the other side of the door, just open it when you're ready to come out, or yell if you need anything."

"Thank you."

After he'd been relieved and sanitized, and Jessica had put him back to bed and gave him another dose of pain medication, Seth took off his glasses and stared up at the ceiling, and wondered what the future had in store for him, until the drugs took over, and made his thinking more and more random until he finally fell asleep, with themes from Super Mario World playing in his head.

The End

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Slave Seth was my third fan fiction, and originally intended to be just a short story. Now it's my first complete fan fiction mini-book. Ironically, I finished the original short story the same day Seth Rollins injured his knee the first time. I decided to keep going on it, and took Slave Seth to four chapters, and for a long time, I considered it complete. But, after beginning its sequel, Dirty Shield Brothers, I realized Slave Seth needed a better transition to it, and ended up taking it to twelve chapters. The turns it took, specifically Hunter's raping of Seth, will require me to go back and edit Dirty Shield Brothers in several chapters, but it can only make the story better.

Thank you to everyone who read Slave Seth and enjoyed it. Special thanks to Matt, who told me about fan fiction, and made it possible for me to share mine with this nifty laptop; and to Kurt and Andrew, two of my favorite Canadians who inspired and supported me, and even had input in some of the story.

Everyone out there has…

a kink

a fetish

That some may think obscene

But everyone is different

Everyone has a "naughty" *taboo* thing

It's something special

Let it shine on…