Chapter Text
Noise. That’s all Sami could remember. His ears were ringing with it. In all of his years in the business, he had never heard a crowd as loud as that. The screams and yells of a crowd watching him take that final step, watching him finally betray his (now former) best friend.
Sami was completely in a daze. He didn’t remember leaving the ring; didn’t remember his coworkers’ looks of fear, frustration, and horror as he was brought backstage. He didn’t remember getting walked back to the locker room. The Bloodline locker room.
“Sami.” Sami looked up, and saw Jimmy kneeling in front of him, holding a wet washcloth. Jimmy reached out his hand and started to wipe the blood off Sami’s knuckles. Sami didn’t know how it got there. He felt another hand come up and touch his face. Looking left, he saw Jey looking at him with concern. Solo was standing behind Jey, always the quiet sentry.
“You good, uce?” Jey asked him, running his fingers through Sami’s hair. This feels nice. Sami thought, leaning into Jey’s hand. Jey smiled at him and kept up his ministrations. Jimmy by now had finished cleaning one of Sami’s hands and switched to the other one.
“Is he… how is he?” Sami tried to speak, his voice hoarse. Had he been screaming? He didn’t know. Jey and Jimmy had matching grimaces. Solo’s expression didn’t change.
“He’s alive.” Another voice. Sami’s head snapped up. Roman. Sami hadn’t even realized he was there. He was staring down at Sami, his expression unreadable. The wiseman was behind him, looking at Roman to see how he would respond. Sami nodded.
“Ok” he said. How did he feel? Sami couldn’t tell. At the moment he didn’t think he felt anything. Roman knelt down, Jimmy subtly shifting so that Roman could be right in front of Sami. Sami looked into his dark and calculating eyes.
“Why do you care how he is?” Roman asked. Sami swallowed, unsure of how to respond.
“I-“
“Hey, uce, why wouldn’t he care? Them being friends for so long.” Jimmy cut in. Roman glanced at Jimmy, as if his expression alone would force Jimmy to stop talking. Jey jumped in as well.
“Hey chief, Sami proved himself, didn’t he? He did what you asked him to do. Big Jim’s right, amount of history they have, of course he would want to know.” Sami continued to look directly into Roman’s eyes. It felt like he couldn’t look away, like he was trapped under Roman’s gaze. He saw Roman’s expression soften slightly. Roman reached up and touched the other side of Sami’s face. Sami naturally leaned into the touch; Roman smiling slightly at the reciprocation.
“You’re right, Jey. He did. He did exactly what I asked him to do.” Sami felt like he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but look at Roman. He nodded again.
“Of course I did.” Sami heard himself saying. “I’m sorry you ever felt like you had to test me.” Jimmy had put his hand on Sami’s shoulder and was rubbing back and forth. Sami felt surrounded by touch, by these three men that he had aligned himself with. By his tribal chief. Roman smiled, an actual smile that changed his facial expression so drastically it made Sami gasp.
“I’m sorry too.” Roman said softly. Jimmy’s and Jey’s heads whipped to him, identical looks of shock on their faces. Solo was staring at the back of Roman’s head, a slight look of disbelief on his face. Even the wiseman looked surprised. They’ve never heard him apologize. Sami realized. But this is the second time he’s apologized to me. Sami didn’t know what to make of that realization.
“With everything that our family has been through, I can’t take chances with people coming in and causing trouble. What we’ve built is too important. But it was my own insecurity that caused me to be suspicious of you, Sami. You’ve never done anything more than be a friend to me, to the twins, to Solo. You’ve more than proven yourself.” Sami thought that was most he’d ever heard Roman say outside of a promo. But Roman wasn’t done yet.
“In fact,” he continued, “you’ve proven to be more than a friend.” He leveled a look at Sami; Sami felt paralyzed. “You’re our brother.” Jimmy and Jey gasped and immediately put their arms around Sami, hugging him from both sides. Sami looked at Roman with disbelief. He glanced up at Solo, almost more shocked to see a smile on his face. The wiseman didn’t look nearly as excited.
“You mean that?” Sami whispered, as if he was afraid to break the spell of the locker room. Roman nodded solemnly.
“I mean that. And we’ll need to talk more about it, but for now we should go.” The wiseman quickly schooled his features and jumped into action.
“The jet is fueled and ready, my tribal chief.” Roman stood up gracefully. Jimmy and Jey helped Sami to his feet. Sami’s whole body felt like it had been dipped in lead. He was definitely going to be sore tomorrow.
“Can you walk?” Roman asked him. Sami nodded.
“Good. Let’s go.” The twins and Solo quickly took that as their cue. Solo grabbed Sami’s gear bag and came up right behind Sami, seemingly ready to catch him if he was more unsteady on his feet than he had thought. Sami caught Solo’s eye and saw a look of friendship there that hadn’t been there before. He looked back at Roman.
“Where are we going?” He asked. Roman smiled, that same blinding smile as before that made Sami gasp again.
“Home.”