Notes: I admit I haven't been keeping up with WWE recently, but Tumblr informed me that The Shield sort of broke up and Seth betrayed them. Youtube gave me the footage and well, Dean's always interested me, so this is sort of canon compliant in that there's a betrayal, but this time, both Roman and Seth betray him, instead of Seth betraying Roman and Dean. Because I want to break Dean a little, okay. There may or may not be more of this, idk.

Written for the prompt of "lost cities" at writerverse.

Warnings: None

Pairing: Implied Roman/Dean/Seth

Spoilers: For the last few episodes of Raw and Smackdown.

He's driving way too fast, but he doesn't care. There's no one here to tell him to slow down anymore. He lights a cigarette because there's no one here to tell him not to smoke. He holds the smoke down in his lungs until it burns too much and he exhales quickly. The red of the stoplight floods the car and he stares at his hands clenched around the steering wheel.

The car is silent. He's alone. He hasn't been alone in quite some time. He doesn't know what to do except keep driving through this lonely, lost city. Everything aches, inside and out, but he's not going to give into the pain. He takes another drag off the cigarette and flicks the ashes out of the window. He really should go back to the hotel, but then he'd have to face the empty hotel room and that's really more than he can stand right now.

He feels like he should be angry, enraged, furious. Mostly, he's just cold and numb and alone. You'd think that he'd be used to being alone, but being with them had changed all of that. He wants to hate them for their betrayal. He wants to be angry and disgusted with them. All he can muster up is the crushing weight of failure and inadequacy and loneliness. They left because he wasn't enough for them. He wasn't strong enough, wasn't talented enough, wasn't human enough.

He's too much of a monster and who wants to love a monster? He understands why they wanted to leave him. He just wishes that he hadn't let himself get so attached to them. He wishes he hadn't been fooled into believing that someone could love him for him. He was just their stepping stone in the company. His vision blurs and he gasps, throwing the cigarette out of the window, telling himself it was just the smoke that made him gag a bit and not the pain.

He ends up at the hotel anyway and parks, resting his forehead against the steering wheel after he turns off the car. He doesn't know what to do anymore. He doesn't know what tomorrow is going to bring except more pain and silence from the people he loved most in the world. Still loves, if he's being honest, but there's no one to tell him to be truthful anymore. No one to call him out on his bullshit. No one to protect him and be there for him. There's just no one anymore.

He pulls himself together and gets out of the car. He's been alone before. He can do it again.