Chapter Text
Seth Rollins has had Dean Ambrose erased from his memory. Please never mention their relationship to him again.
Dean reads the note card over and over again trying to comprehend the words. It’s simple enough but his mind refuses, desperately fighting their meaning. Anger floods his veins, tears filling his eyes, he reads the words again hoping they’ll say something else if he just focuses hard enough. But it doesn’t.
“Why…” Dean’s voice dies in his throat.
“I’m sorry.” Roman says putting a hand on his shoulder. “Wish there was a better way to tell you.”
“Why’d he do this?” He asks aloud as if the answer will magically appear out of thin air.
Thirty minutes ago he pulled up to Roman’s place in a particularly sour mood. Seth had changed his phone number only a week after their latest break up. Latest because this had been happening off and on for months now. They’d fight, throw their most vicious words at each other until one of them stomped off disappearing for days. They stopped apologizing after fights as if returning made things all better. It didn’t.
A week had past and Seth hadn’t come back, it was starting to worry Dean. Maybe he had gotten hurt, he remembers voicing that to Roman in their squad car one night, Roman tried to reassure him that things would work out. Did he already know by then? Had he been lying to him, pitying his sad state of existence? That wasn’t fair to Roman, he had never lied to Dean before and handing him this card was proof of that. And while it was great that his best friend gave him the honest truth it didn’t help the excruciating agony in his heart.
How could Seth do this to him?
Two years doesn’t seem like a lot in the grand scheme of things but when you’re so enwrapped in someone, and both of you connect so flawlessly two years feels like a lifetime in the best and worst ways. How was he supposed to move on? Fuck, how was he supposed to just accept that Seth had gone and voluntarily forgotten him? Dean knew their last fight had been bad, he said shit he shouldn’t have, remembers the pain in Seth’s eyes and the venom he spat back at Dean. If he had known that was the tipping point he’d take it all back, hold Seth in his arms one more time.
“The fuck am I supposed to do now?” Dean’s voice rough.
“Got some beers in the fridge.” Roman says and Dean gives a sad laugh.
“That’s an idea.”
Over the next week Dean gets rid of everything in his apartment that reminds him of Seth. It’s hard as almost everything has some meaning attached to it but by the end he throws out a couple bags and boxes, going so far as watching the garbage truck empty the dumpster and drive away. Its as close of a goodbye as Dean’s going to get.
There’s one exception to the clean up however, their first photo together. It was so goddamn cliche, he remembers Seth’s face light up at the sight of the photobooth pulling Dean over saying that they had to in a ‘I don’t make the rules but I actually am’ kind of tone. Dean looked grumpy in the first image, Seth was rolling his eyes at him in the second, the third Seth was pulling him in for a kiss both of them a bit of a blur, they were in the midst of the kiss in the fourth holding each other close. Dean’s memory fills in the nonexistent fifth frame, the I love yous whispered between them.
He should’ve burned the photo but he couldn’t make himself. Dean was going to keep it as a reminder that he was the strongest out of the two of them. That he wasn’t going to go and forget about what they had. He was going to live with the memories and move on. At least that’s what he told Roman four beers into his night of misery.
It's a hard promise to keep over the next few weeks especially the first time he spots Seth at a bar they used to frequent laughing with some stranger that Dean automatically wants to rip apart. He wants to go over there and punch them both in the face, scream at them. Then he realizes that to Seth all that’d be is some stranger attacking him and for Dean it’d be another night of sobbing his guts out at home for being nothing more than a forgotten ghost to the man he loves. So he leaves, gets shitfaced, and ends up passed out on Roman’s couch. Roman’s been pretty great through it all, does his best to never mention Seth unless flat out asked. Cause he still gets to talk to Seth and it kills Dean a little, Roman’s the reason they met in the first place and really he should hate him for it if it hadn’t been, for the most part, the best two years of his life.
“Might be the only guy you’ll meet that won’t tell you to shut up about crime scenes at lunch.”
It was a bad habit that Roman mostly put up with usually until Dean would try to break out the gory scene photos for examination. Seth wrote for the paper and had two true crime books under his belt when they first met for coffee. They spent the whole time talking about some of Dean’s old cases, thirty minutes became an hour, then two, then four. Seth suggested dinner and Dean agreed.
They fucked like rabbits that night.
“It’s like I gotta start my whole life over.” Dean says the morning after seeing Seth at the bar. “Only I don’t get to fucking forget.”
It sucked. God, did it suck. Dean felt like a zombie for the first few months, throwing himself as hard as he could into his work. He stopped going to places he thought there was even the slightest chance of seeing him. Slowly Dean was getting his life back together again if just a bit more empty. A lot more empty if he was being truthful. Drinking helped with that, not a lot but enough to help ease his mind.
On the year anniversary of being forgotten Dean treats himself to an early drink. Things were ok, he had a new case to sink his teeth into, Roman was slowly trying to discuss Dean’s future dating prospects which was finally not making him want to puke at the idea. He did not expect a year’s worth of effort to explode right in his face. There was Seth at the end of the bar looking miserable and every warning that was screaming in his head goes unheard as Dean walks over to him.
Except he had no clue what to say.
Seth blinks up at him. “Can I help you?”
“You looked sad.” Dean says feeling like an idiot.
Seth breathes out a laugh, takes a sip of his drink. “Shitty week.”
“It’s Tuesday.”
Seth gives a genuine laugh this time that makes Dean’s heart hurt. “Two days of garbage. You gonna sit with me or what?”
Dean shouldn’t but he does. Orders them both drinks catching Seth’s lips perk into a smile. He finds himself being oddly careful, he knows what Seth likes and makes sure not to order it. This is all a bad idea but he has no intention of leaving.
“So why are you here on a Tuesday afternoon?” Seth asks.
“Anniversary.”
“Alone?”
“Anniversary of being dumped.” He answers.
If that isn’t conversation killer he doesn’t know what is.
Except Seth doesn’t even seem fazed. “Hey, me too. Not an anniversary, I mean. Got dumped today.”
The vindictive side of Dean smiles but he doesn’t let it show. Instead he raises his glass at Seth.
“To heartbreak.”
Seth takes a drink and makes a little wince of a face, he never liked the straight up stuff. “I’m Seth, by the way.”
For a moment he’s unsure if he should give his real name. What ramifications, if any, it might have. In the end he doesn’t really care. “Dean.”
He has no idea what to say to Seth. They’re strangers. Everything Dean feels and remembers belongs to him and him alone. This isn’t his Seth. They’ve never shared a bed. They’ve never kissed. He’s… He’s a clean slate.
It’s a dangerous thought. Tempting.
“You come over here, buy me a drink, then just sit there like a sack of potatoes.” Seth looks at him, little grin playing on his face. “You’re real bad at this flirting thing, Dean.”
“You just got dumped. Isn’t there some, I dunno, buffer time?”
“It was over weeks ago.” He says sadly. “Today he gave me final notice. I’m a pretty awful boyfriend, basically.”
“You tell me I’m bad at flirting then say you’re a bad boyfriend. Thinking this is a you problem.” Dean hates how comfortable he is around Seth.
Seth chuckles. “Probably, maybe I’m just impatient.”
“What do you want?” Dean asks finishing off his drink.
“Out of what?” Their eyes meet and Dean swears he feels a bolt of electricity run through him.
“Right now.”
“Right now?” Seth slides his glass over to Dean, that damn grin still on his face. “A drink that doesn’t taste like horse piss.”
He really wants to kiss that stupid face. Shove him into a booth in the back and make Seth remember him.
“What about you?” Seth asks after gets his new drink. “What do you want?”
Dean shrugs. “Something new. Something better.”
“Well, celebrating the anniversary of a break up isn’t gonna help with that.”
“You’re probably right.” It feels like the whole damn world is laughing at him. At this conversation that shouldn’t be happening.
He's too relaxed and Seth looks to have no interest in pushing him away. Dean should leave, put this place on the list of locations to avoid and get on with his life.
His empty little life.
So he asks Seth what he does because that’s a normal question between strangers. When they first met Seth had downplayed his work, he was more interested in what Dean had to say. That said, they were having coffee then, a few real drinks in him and Seth was a talker so it isn’t surprising to hear him chattering away about his current project. It’s nice to hear real interest in his voice again, even if it’s about grisly deaths.
“-it’s fun. I mean-” Seth pauses to think because who in their right mind uses the word fun when describing murder research.
Dean does.
Dean shakes his head and fishes out his issued ID and badge putting it on the counter.
“Nah, I get it.”
Seth’s fingers trace over his badge. “What div-”
“Homicide.”
“Really?” Seth’s face brightens and Dean smirks.
“See, that’s a creepy eager face.”
Seth’s laugh makes his whole body ache. Makes Dean wish he could just hold him again. He should’ve never came into this bar.
“I have a friend who works in homicide but he never tells me shit. Name's Roman Reigns, maybe you know him.”
Dean gives a little nod. “We work together a lot.”
“Yea?” Seth’s brows furrow in thought. “I don’t remember him mentioning you.”
Dean fights down the bitterness clawing its way up his throat.
“We keep our personal lives separate.” He lies. “I don’t need to hear about him and he doesn’t need to hear about me. Just get shit done.”
Seth buys it, takes another swig of his drink. “So what’re you working on?”
It’s like the first time they met all over again except this time they’re slightly drunk and laughing at things they really shouldn't be. Any thought of leaving is gone, he’ll take this day now turned night. It’s a much better memory than watching a garbage truck haul away the remnants of their relationship.
Dean’s about to order them another drink when Seth lightly swats his hand. “If I get too drunk I won’t be able to take you back to my place.”
“Oh.” Dean feels his skin begin to warm up.
They fuck like rabbits that night.
Dean’s head is a mess. The angry part of his mind wants to take advantage, hurt Seth when he’s vulnerable laying underneath him. Some kind of revenge fuck leaving Seth an aching wreck like he was. But he could never do that. He loves Seth so goddamn much that he could plunge a knife into Dean’s heart and he’d just accept it. He already did a year ago. And here he is back at square one.
Dean wakes up the next morning to the buzz of his phone. Fishing through the pile of clothes beside the bed he sees it’s a text from Roman asking if he’s ok. He groans dropping the phone back onto the heap, he had never come back to the station and Roman probably assumed Dean drank himself into a stupor. Which honestly would’ve been a better situation than the one he’s currently in but he can’t really bring himself to complain. Seth begins to stir awake and fuck is he beautiful the way he bites his lip at seeing Dean.
“Hey there.” Seth says with a little smile.
“Hey.” He feels himself grinning back.
They share a few groggy kisses neither making a move to get up. Dean’s phone buzzes again and he sighs turning over to grab it.
Not coming in. Tired.
He sends off the text but Seth is already sitting up stretching out his back.
“I’m gonna make coffee, want some?” Seth glances back at him.
It’s an invitation to stay. He shouldn’t but this could be something, this could be the second chance that Dean wanted. To Seth they were just two strangers that met in a bar. Their last fight didn’t exist in this space, none of them did. They had hit it off just like the first time they met and with the way Seth had looked at him just a few moments ago Dean knew there was a real chance. This was another shot at being with the love of his life only this time he knew what to do, how could he not take it?
Dean sits up beside him and plants a kiss on his shoulder. “Sounds good.”