#nikkithebettertwinx0

Trying his best to settle himself back into his body was proving harder than expected as Roman watched his own placid features barely shifting with the attempt, and in frustration he attempted to smack his corporeal self only to have his hand flit through the head. The sharp jolt suddenly running him his arm felt like a live current however, a series of images from his own childhood passing by swiftly in front if him as though he were watching it from the backseat of a car and there was heat——Pensacola summer heat and the smell of meat roasting over a backyard earth oven and the faraway sound of his mother’s voice and the feeling of foreboding in front of a large door he recognized as that of his old principal in grade school.

With a surge of effort he pulled back as hard as he could, stumbling several paces back as a gaze now wild with animalistic confusion never left the still-unmoving body on the bed and he tried to make sense of—— Dreams. They were dreams. They had to be. Weren’t they?

The soft moan and whimper from the other side of the bed had him quickly crossing the room to perch close to where Nikki was asleep and the way her features were contorted with fear and pain and all the things that alarmed him made him swear up a storm, more so that it was clear he couldn’t wake her up by normal means.

"Nik? Nik c’mon it’s me!" Said the man urgently as he tried to gently tap at her face before a thought occurred to him that if he had seen dreams swirling away in his own mind before this, then there was no reason he couldn’t do the same to her. With barely a second’s worth of hesitation, Roman pressed his forehead to her own and the feel of a livewire current running down his spine this time almost made him pull back had it not been for what looked to be a little girl cowering within the rapidly shifting expanses of her dreamscape. Those expressively wide eyes staring back at him with the same shock no doubt portrayed in his own made him push further so he could try and reach out for the tiny paw that was frantically trying to scrabble for his as the thing, the huge shadowy thing with a vaguely familiar silhouette loomed in the distance.

"He’s coming! Hurry please!" The shrill voice yelped out in a panic as the waifish girl fighting back tears underneath her mop of heavy brown locks reminiscent of a Shetland Pony tottered on her tiptoes trying to reach for him and the last hold he had to the outside world was completely forsaken when he finally saw the shadow-thing’s face.

"He’s going to kill me!"

"No he won’t, sugar britches." Roman assured her swiftly as he scooped her up safely in his arms and cradled her head upon his shoulder so she couldn’t see the thing that was rapidly approaching them with fire in its eyes, and while Roman would normally have thrown himself into a fight with anything wearing the face it wore, the fact that it was at least twenty feet tall with teeth that were filed down to unnatural points displayed in a sneer that seemed to spread from ear to ear made his fight or flight instincts err on the side of caution.

"Don’t look behind, a’ight? We’re gonna run for it real fast."

Any doubt he’d ever had on his chances at Olympic hurdles was ground to dust underneath the crunch of his boots——wait, where did his Shield gear even come from?——as a mad dash across the desolates plains ensued. The BA-THMP! BA-THMP! of heavy footfalls crashing haphazardly behind him reminded Roman of the way his own heart was hammering maddeningly against its ribcage as he hurtled forward in a kinetic explosion of muscles working down to their very last fibre even as the shadow of the creature loomed every closer behind them.

"GIVE HER TO ME! GIVE ME WHAT IS MINE, BOY!" The thunderous roar almost blew out his eardrums as Roman felt the shockwaves underneath him and the ground shook and twisted so his stumbled in his steps and tripped though instinct made him maneuver himself so the child in his arms was shielded from the fall.

He couldn’t run anymore. He could barely breathe, but the red-hot heat that was building up in his core had reached boiling point and was beginning to spill over molten drippings of wrathful rage as Roman got to his feet and held on to the little girl as fiercely as she was to him.

"OVER MY DEAD BODY, DAVE!" Came the snarl, and he barely notice the deepening of his baritone to an almost guttural, beastly growl as light swirled around him seemingly with a life of its own. All he could see were the stitches in Joelle’s arm after her ordeal with the man, the fear in her eyes whenever they had headed out soon after and Dave’s taunts of leaving her to starve in a nameless basement rang in his ears as an affirmation for how much hatred he had accumulated in barely a year for the remorseless, tattooed behemoth.

"AIN’T YOURS TO HAVE SO SIT YOUR ASS //BACK!!!//"

The last word barely sounded human and the sudden blast of whitish-blue light blinded him for a moment, but whatever had transpired had worked enough that the Dave, now smelling strongly of burnt flesh took several steps back with an agonized scream as swirling energy too fast for his eyes to register yet emitting what vaguely sounded like a chorus howls which grew louder and louder pushed the beast back until it had crashed over a hill attempting to get away from the furious flurry of which Roman couldn’t explain its source.

Whatever light remained however dimmed as they left until it was dark as night as a vague sense of unease began to slowly tendril from the shadows in the back of his mind, though the girl in his arms seemed barely perturbed by it.

"Is he gone?" She enquired quietly, looking up for the first time from his collarbone where her face had been buried since he’d taken her into his care.

"Yeah. For now I think." Roman murmured back, setting her down carefully even as he remained alert for any sound that would suggest the damn thing wasn’t quite as gone as he’d like to imagine.

"We should leave before he decides to come back, and I ain’t sure what the hell that was but I’m not bankin’ on lightning striking twice, sugarpie. You alright?"

"Yes sir. I think so." Came the polite reply as she clung to his hand still and he gripped it reassuringly.

"Thank you. He tries to hurt me a lot. He has killed me many times too. It is very painful every time, but mama hurts more."

The calm, casual way in which she explained her predicament chilled his blood, though not as severely cold as the faint sound of weeping growing louder somewhere nearby did. It was Nikki’s weeping, and while his normal instinct was to check on her wellbeing, this instance had the small hairs on the back of his neck standing on ends as the girl led him upon a meandering path in the darkness to a dim source of light which tinted everything around it a deep red.

It was hard to mistake the figure hunched over a bundle in her arms for someone else and Roman felt the roof of his mouth go dry as he watched Nikki hold on to the raw, vaguely human remains of an unborn child.

"I killed her." The young woman whispered in hushed, haunted tones as she looked up at them with a glassy, empty gaze of someone that had spent far too long crying.

"I killed my baby. He told me to do it. He promised me——-I was so stupid. She would have been so beautiful."

"But she is." The girl spoke up brightly and Roman watched as she knelt down next to Nikki and places tiny hands on the remains. There was something to be said for the sight of a fully-formed baby, all flushed skin and flailing, chubby arms slowly regenerating before his eyes as the piercing sound of a newborn’s plaintive cry filled the air.

"Isn’t she?"

"She’s got your eyes, darlin’." Roman nodded in agreement, breathing a soft sigh of relief even if a deeper part of him ached knowing that it was here and here alone that Nikki could escape from the sobering reality of the situation and he bent down to tenderly tuck away several strands of hair behind the shell of his wife’s ear so she could see the rosy-cheeked baby in her arms clearly.

"Prettiest eyes this side of the Milky Way."

The smile that she offered him was the one of the brightest, most serene ones he had seen on her as she nuzzled the newborn lovingly and cooed sweet nothings over the soft singing of a lullaby which made to calm the crying down to a contented burbling.

"Hush, little baby, don’t say a word. Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird And if that mockingbird won’t sing, Mama’s gonna buy you a diamond ring….”

A kiss was pressed upon the baby’s forehead as she fell asleep in Nikki’s arms and the hispanic beauty lifted gaze to meet Roman’s once more.

"I think I’ll name her Cleo. A name fitting for the smallest of queens."

"That’s my name, yes." The prim manner in which the older version of the child sat with her hands folded on her lap watching the proceedings made Roman nod in earnest agreement when the ground shuddered and thundered again, and all semblance of tranquility as the red light gave way to a golden warmth had died down to alarm as all three got to their feet instantly.

"He’s coming back." Cleo instinctively ducked behind him once more as he held on to the girl’s hand and shielded her from view while the familiar shadow loomed once more in the horizon.

"I know, princess. He ain’t gonna hurt you, I promise." Came the promise as Roman grit his teeth and steeled himself for whatever abomination it had managed to contort itself into in its short absence.

"He won’t take my baby away. Not this time." Nikki said resolutely as she clung to her child as though she was cradling the holy grail before worriedly throwing a glance over at where the former gridiron captain and her older daughter were.

"You have to go. Keep her safe."

"Nik, I ain’t leaving you to deal with that asshole on your own!" He retorted heatedly though the glare of cold fury silenced him right after and the feeling of a hurricane blowing right in his face kicked up.

"GO NOW!" Her voice boomed out once more with the fierce love and fury of a mother bear and the Samoan swiftly picked Cleo up inti his arms without further hesitation.

"KEEP HER SAFE!"

The world seem to spin around him, wind and howls and the vague presence of something else, three somethings by his side in the whirlwind of distorted sounds and rapidly flickering images of past and present meshed together that made him nauseous and as he fell backwards with the child nestled on his chest it was to recognize that the ceiling overhead was that of his bedroom’s.

"Is mama going to be okay?" Cleo enquired concernedly as she stared at Nikki who was deep asleep, features stern and stone-like as compared to the fear and pain from before.

"Your mama’s a fighter, sugar britches. She’ll give that twat the fight of his damn life." Roman stood up, frowning at the sight of his own body still not awake despite everything that had transpired. Clearly he wasn’t about to wake up anytime soon.

It was hard to pin down when exactly the erratic mood swings began—-‘mood swings’ his school counselor had called them and he didn’t know if the calm levity in which the matriarch of the family approached the subject when she found him barricading himself in his bedroom trying to make sense of the convoluted mess of thoughts in his head made things better or worse.

"Stop being such a girl!" one of his teenage classmates had jeered at him when he’d been forced to request a break during Phys Ed to try deal with another whirling onset of emotions he couldn’t figure out the source.It was a demand promptly answered by a dodgeball to the face so hard the boy’s nose had been broken by the impact, and when Joseph Anoa’i had reiterated to his Mama what had sparked the incident, there was a long silence behind the door which he leaned his back against before he heard her chuckle and while it had dissipated any fear of punishment, made to heighten his confusion even more.

There was nothing wrong with what he was feeling, she had assured him as much. He wasn’t going mad, and she knew this because what he was feeling wasn’t his own, and here the idea that he had someone else in his head sobered him up quickly.Soul mates, she had said. Old wives’ tales almost gone from recorded memory in her native Italy. There were some who believed that souls were sent down to earth in pairs, many unknowingly passing the other in their everyday lives, some separated by continents or decades destined to never meet in one lifetime.Some though had the luck to meet each other in this lifetime.Fewer still had a gift; sometimes they could hear, see, even feel things only the red string of fate could explain. Somewhere out there, perhaps his soul mate was calling out to him.

A concept so vague wasn’t easy to wrap his mind around, but what did as he laid on his bed countless nights thinking over those words however was the idea that he wasn’t alone. There was someone out there whose emotions he could feel, so tangible as though they were one of his own and he had to wonder if they had someone who would tell them the same he had been told. Did they know about soul mates? This odd, unseen link now shared?He didn’t know so much as their name let alone any ludicrous assumptions that such questions would ever find themselves answered, but there was the burning desire to reach back to them.

It started with learning to calm himself when the sudden spates of anger flared up—-no mean feat for a natural hothead. It went on to reassurances and sympathy whenever anguish and deep sadness began welling up and as time went by and seasons passed, the young man found that these episodes grew with an alarming intensity.Wherever they were, they were hurting. Terribly.

'You are not alone'The four words he echoed in his mind constantly to reassure them as he stepped foot through the gates of his college.

'You are not alone.'The same rang in his mind as captain of the collegiate football team when a few of his top quarterbacks tried to make a case for taking advantage of a cheerleader too drunk to consent. For a damning moment as he had to be pulled off one player who had the audacity to suggest that she 'was asking for it', the idea that someone was the reason for his supposed soul mate’s despair weighed heavy on his mind, so much so that he barred all three students from the finals playoffs as punishment.

'Alone' was a word he became intimate with shortly after, having been expelled from college when his actions drew the establishment too much unwanted attention especially after they had initially tried to downplay the victim’s reports. There was no blame in the eyes of his parents when he ended up on their doorstep again with a tiny two-year old in tow whose mother no longer wanted anything to do with him after his dismissal, no disappointment in his mother’s tone as she reiterated her support for her youngest, but given how being the son of immigrants living just over the poverty line in the dregs of an unforgiving Brooklyn neighborhood had made him dependent on a scholarship in the pursuit of the American dream, it was like a light went out over a stormy night at sea.

Then something happened.The unrelenting, unspoken belief that he wasn’t alone when he stared in the mirror every morning and wondered how willing he was to sell his soul so his family could have the life they deserved. The inexplicable calm that wove deftly through the thick haze of anger and self-loathing as he through out rejection letter after rejection letter.The odd sense of being loved by a presence whose name he didn’t know, whose face he couldn’t see, but as he tore up the latest bunch of 'We are sorry to inform you's, it was with the dawning realization that this was his soul mate reaching out to him.This was his soul mate doing what he had done for them for so many years.This was his soul mate knowing and acknowledging that he existed.

'Everything's going to be alright.'The constant reassurance seemed to say.

And just like that, the beacon was re-lit as he threw out the letters with a deep sense of satisfaction and found himself picking up an application for the police academy instead, filling it out as his daughter laid sleeping next to him.He wasn’t going to sell his soul, no, not when out there was someone inextricably linked to it.He was going to strengthen it.

"Oi Joe, Seth!"He could hear the phone receiver being unceremoniously dropped back onto its cradle in Jon Moxley’s standard careless fashion—-a far cry from the way the scruffy officer handled himself on the streets and Joseph was throwing on an overcoat before the man could even explain himself.Next to him, the weedier agent with the odd skunk-striped mane whose nose had been buried in the folder of cold cases for the past two hours looked up, vaguely annoyed by the interruption as the knotting eyebrows would suggest though he rose from his seat regardless, pushing his glasses higher upon the bridge of his nose in a businesslike-manner.

"Got a 10-52A*** on the west side, sounds bad."

"How bad we talkin’?"Joseph rumbled even as the familiar wave of fear suddenly kicked up in the back of his mind though this time so strongly that it made him nauseous. Something was terribly wrong.

"Kid made the 911 call. Cleo. Ain’t got a last name but she can’t be more than five."He watched as Jon blithely flicked aside the remnants of a cigarette, those perpetually droopy blue eyes lighting up with a rare fire he only only ever saw in the man when minors were involved.

"Daddy’s throwing Mommy around like a sack of potat—-Joe?”

The hammering onset of wild terror coupled with agony—-in itself no emotion but a state of being made him double over involuntarily, breathing harsh as he scrambled for a hold on the elevator’s guardrail to support himself.

"You alright man?"Seth murmured concernedly as Joseph felt the man’s hand grasp his shoulder and it broke him away from the terrible wailing in his head—-it was vaguely human, but so garbled by the maelstrom of emotions that he could barely make sense of it.

"M’fine.”The Samoan-Italian assured them half-heartedly, the way his features were scrunching in the manner which suggested him doing battle with a particularly bad migraine belying the fact that he clearly wasn’t, but as the elevator doors opened to the ground floor and his feet took him out the door to their patrol car faster than his brothers-in-arms did, he was grateful if only for the fact that they didn’t question him about it.

"We gotta get there like fuckin’ bats outta hell, man. I think he means to kill her this time!”

They didn’t question what he meant by 'this time', more so when this had been their first time responding to a problem in the household. Didn’t question how he knew the route even before Seth could set up the GPS, the rock-solid trust and inseparable rapport that all three men had developed over the scant course of two years working together leading to an unspoken understanding that each had reasons for doing what they did and none questioned it. It was the same that led them to follow him quietly up the stairs of the the house, its door lock busted open allowing them access and that alone had his heart hammering frantically in his chest, especially with the broken bottles of liquor on the floor and the fact that the whirlwind of fear and terror and agony had died down to a dead cold silence when they had arrived there, and part of him had been met with the stomach-churning possibility that she was already gone.

The sharp, terrified screams of “DADDY! DADDY NOOOOOOO!" and violent clatter of furniture from the second living area had all three trundling up the steps as fast as they could, Joseph himself lopping across three at once when a weakened female voice rang out desperately from the same place. Even in the chaos, the inward smile of deep relief was one he couldn’t help as he felt the fierce love of a mother take over every synapse right down to his fingertips.She was alive. Barely so, but alive.

"Dave! DAVE SHE’S OUR DAUGHTER FOR THE LOVE OF GOD LET HER GO!”

"She called the cops."The deep voice that snapped back was slurred and spiteful as the tiny shrieking that sounded like it came from a child who was be shaken and shaken hard carried through the corridors.

“STUPID GIRL! YOU CALLED THE COPS DIDN’T YOU?!”

"DAVE DON’T HURT HER!”

"DROP THE GIRL, FUCKHEAD! SVU! YOU’RE UNDER ARREST!"Hurtling ahead with both speed and force borne from his days on the gridiron, Joseph had about enough time to register a behemoth of a man clutching a tiny ragdoll of a girl struggling several feet above the floor and the streaks and smudges of blood on the floor and the walls, the sort made by human hands struggling to support themselves before he collided violently with the child’s ‘daddy’.

It felt like ramming into a wall with how dense the man’s bone and muscles were, but at six-foot-six and two hundred and sixty five pounds, the impact was more akin to a steam engine collusion, the child flung haphazardly out of her father’s grasps though the gruff “Gotcha!” from behind him told the Samoan that Jon had safely caught the toddler and he kept his focus on ‘Dave’ whose punch clocked him hard on the jaw and the two began savagely trading blows—-one out of drunken rage, the other out of righteous fury.

The walls shook as they took their scuffle to an upright position, grappling and twisting in a spectacularly violent ballet, Seth’s voice clearly heard over the calamity informing the county of their situation as Joseph felt his back smashing into the glass pane of a window which shattered from the blow so he was teetering dangerously from the third-story ledge.

"Stay OUT OF MY BUSSIN—-"Dave’s snarl was cut short by a headbutt to the face as Joseph shoved him back towards a waiting Jon, watching as the man hooked both meaty arms behind the suspect’s back to expertly twist and wrest two-hundred and seventy-eight pounds of abusively drunk bastard to the ground, and he wasted no time in dogpiling himself atop the struggling figure alongside Seth for added restraint as Jon whipped out a set of handcuffs

"Bitch, your dumb ass is making this our business.” came the raspy snarl from Jon as he slapped the handcuffs on and promptly sat on the suspect before yanking out a folded sheet of printout from his jacket.

"How’s this fucking rights thing go?"

As the adrenaline dies down in his veins however, Joseph’s attention swiftly shifted to that of the limp, broken figure in the corner where the bloody streaks seem to point to and the child clinging to her. Seth’s expression was solemn as he checked on both and paged for medical aid.

"How’s she doin’?" The Samoan quietly enquired over Dean’s schoolboy reading of rights and Dave’s foulmouthed cursing, a hand reaching out to gently stroke the dark mop of curls on the little girl’s head as his mind wandered to his own daughter who fell asleep every night waiting for his return.

"Kid’s fine. Bruises present but we might need a MRI later to confirm. Mother’s in bad shape. Broken arm with a compound fracture, internal bleeding, severe facial injuries."Seth said impassively as he connected with the local county.

"Officer Seth Rollins reporting. We have a 10-92. I repeat, a 10-92. Medical assistance required. Assault, possible child abuse. Copy that."

Doe-like brown eyes were dull behind the mask of dry blood which marred features that had been beautiful at one point, her shoulders slack as though all fight had gone out of her body the moment she knew her child was safe.

"Mommy got bad owwies. Is Mommy going to be okays?" Cleo piped up concernedly, bottom lip quavering as she clung to her mother more firmly.

“‘Mommy’s gonna be just fine, sugar britches. The doctors are coming. Everything’s gonna be alright.” Licking his lips in trepidation despite his confidence in answering the girl’s question, Joseph felt the woman suddenly reach out to squeeze his hand and as he looked down into her face it was to see the dim sparks of a light of realization; One he acknowledged with a warm smile as he enveloped her hand in both of his own to draw it close as though he wasn’t ever going to let go."You’re not alone, you hear me? You’re going to be alright. I’m right here."

I’m right here. One couldn’t fault him for not being a man of his word and those three he’d stuck to with a steadfast loyalty; Trailing her into the ambulance until he was assured she was asleep and in good hands. Caring for the despondent little girl the way he did his own, both whom he brought to see the sleeping mother on his time off. Rest was hard to come by as he kept an eye on Joelle, his own daughter and Cleo who were growing close as sisters and held hands as they slept but rather than exhaustion, his mind felt like a shroud had been lifted off it and it fed strength into his bones as he glared daggers at Cleo’s father from across the witness stand.It was this man whom had hurt the person whose thoughts had been a part of him for almost two decades, and whatever it took to ensure that he’d never lay a hand on her again, Joseph was willing to do.The woman had finally come to, he had been informed as Jon, Seth and himself made his way to the ward once more and the grin he wore couldn’t have been any wider as Joelle and Cleo both squealed in delight and shot off for the room immediately.

When he entered, it was to see mother and daughter reunited, the hispanic beauty swinging around her baby girl with unbridled joy and he merely leaned against the door with his brothers, basking in the cathartic feelings of relief and happiness which broke through the dark shroud in his mind like a shaft of sunlight.

"Uncle Joe took care of me!"Cleo piped up as she pointed at him when enquired by her mother, and the same dull eyes that had fought to stay conscious when he first saw them in the dilapidated house now lively and spirited as they should have been rose to meet his gaze and two pinpricks of flush pink colored her cheeks.

The scars were still there; stitches on her forehead, yellow and red patches of healing bruises, the swelling in her left eye from a caved-in orbital bone, but in his mind there was nothing more beautiful than the smile she wore and it must have been obvious to those around him as Jon elbowed him in the ribs with a smarmy smirk.

Her earnest thanks to all three of them was reciprocated with a casual salute from Jon and an acknowledging nod from Seth who gently called for the two children, offering to get them snacks from the vending machine while the young woman rested.

It was an offer gleefully accepted, and that left Joseph alone with her in the room as he pulled up a chair to sit by her bed.

"Thank you for keeping an eye on her. I hope she wasn’t too much trouble?" She enquired wryly as he chuckled and shook his head good-naturedly.

"Don’t mention it, ma’am. You raised her pretty damn well. Little angel through and through, that one."He assured her as he leaned forward—-an act she mirrored with all the curiosity of a cat and he could almost see the cogs working in her head as she tapped her bottom lip absent-mindedly."You know, I could have sworn we’ve met before."There was wonderment in her tone as she reached out to trace a finger against the cut of his cheekbones before she even knew what she was doing, and when it finally hit her, there was the sound of apologetic throat-clearing as she withdrew slowly. "I’m sorry. It’s just, your voice is…well. Familiar.” "You mean from that night when we found you?" He raised his eyebrows as her features scrunched up in deep thought and then shook her head.

"No. No, even before that. I mean, I must sound stupid. It’s just—-" She sounded rueful as though something ridiculously wonderful had been deflated inside of her and he could feel it clear as day as he caught her hand before she could pull it back to her chest, thumb rubbing across her knuckles gently.

"Ain’t stupid to me, ma’am. Always heard there were stranger things between heaven earth." He said firmly, watching the shift of expressions on her face as he kept going. "Who knows maybe we have. We just didn’t know then, y’know? But ain’t a bad thing that, knowing that you’re not alone. Keeps you believing everything’s gonna be alright even on bad days and all. " He could feel the warm swell of emotions, like nothing he’d ever felt in twenty years of having her in his mind as she reached over to softly kiss him on the lips.

"Uncle Joe is nice and all, but does the upstanding officer have a name?"came the coy enquiry as he saluted her warmly.

"Leati Joseph Anoa’i. Special Victims Unit, at your service, ma’am. And here’s betting there’s a pretty name to that pretty face, yeah?"There was a soft giggle as she laced her fingers with his own, taking a few moments to study them before finally speaking up,

"Nicole. Nicole Garcia-Colace. It’s my pleasure to meet you, Officer Anoa’i."

Neither noticed the four sets of curious eyes peering through the door, but none of it mattered. For in a moment when two destined souls met, nothing else mattered save here and now.

There's a calm surrender to the rush of day, When the heat of a rolling wind can be turned away, An enchanted moment, and it sees me through, It's enough for this restless warrior just to be with you.....

Dean & Roman: HEY! NOBODY BEATS ON OUR TRAITOROUS SWINE EXCEPT US!

Nikki: HEY! NOBODY BADMOUTHS MY SISTER EXCEPT ME!

((Who am I to tell the masses no? I was going to do them separately, but I have a bunch of prompts to be done, so these are being put together. Inspired by some posts in the Sandow tag.))

Your muse’s revenge fantasy comes true, at a horrible cost. 

Always protect the Moneymaker. That was the major task given to Damien Sandow when the Miz discussed the deal with him. The role of a stunt double was to follow the lead of the star and to take the brunt of the damage they would take.

What wasn't part of the agreement was the complete dismissal of his own skills when they weren't being used to accentuate the Miz.