let the sun shine in

by spibsy

Summary:

after seth turns his back on them, neither dean nor roman wants to be alone. they spend a week learning about seth, about each other, and about themselves.

Notes:

hOOLY guacamole, i've been working on this fic for six years and now it is DONE. honestly, i've loved this fic ever since i started it. it's my baby, the love of my life. i really hope you like it as much as i do. ♥

Neither of them has said a word since they got back to the hotel. In the ring, it had been almost normal, Dean scratching and crawling his way over to Roman, getting a hand on his shoulder, squeezing hard enough to hurt.

“You okay?” he’d asked in a voice quiet enough that Roman almost didn’t hear him. His voice was rough, and harsh, and Roman hadn’t known what to say. No, he wasn’t okay. He was not at all okay. He stared blankly at Dean, and Dean stared back, something cracked wide open in his eyes, and Dean laughed a little.

“Stupid question,” he’d muttered. A referee or two or three were in the ring with them, and Dean had snarled at them, violence and animalistic rage, and they’d backed off.

They made their way to the back slowly, painfully, checking each other as they went, and they’d just as silently packed their things. There was one less bag in their locker room than there had been, and Dean had stared at the space where it used to be for a long time.

Now, back in their hotel room, Dean is sitting on his bed staring at the connecting door, and Roman is lying on his own bed staring at the floor, and neither of them are saying anything at all because the room is filled with more words than either can possibly speak.

His back is killing him, worse than it had been last night, and Roman doesn’t know if that’s because now he’s got bruises on top of bruises or because now his bruises are from someone he… trusted. Loved.

He coughs, turning his head to look at Dean. Dean’s still looking at the connecting door. “Wanna talk about it?” he offers.

Dean doesn’t turn to look at him. He doesn’t even really have an expression on his face. His elbows are propped on his knees so he can rest his chin on the bridge of his fingers. His whole body’s got to hurt – Roman has injuries on top of old injuries, and his throat hurts and his ribs hurt and his eyes are burning, just a little, but Dean, Dean, Dean, Roman had been trying to pay attention through all the hurt and disbelief and Seth—

it hurts to think the name, hurts to have it bouncing around his head, like when he was twelve and thought he was hot shit and swore in front of his mama and she’d smacked the back of his head hard enough that his ears still ring sometimes if he says the word ‘fuck’ and it hurts, and his ears ring, and Seth was never supposed to be a curse word

—he had hit Dean with that chair over and over and over again, like it was personal, like he wanted Dean to feel it for a long, long time.

Hell, he didn’t have to hit him more than once for it to hurt Dean for a long time. The first one would’ve done it. Because it was—him. Because he was the one doing it.

“Not even a little bit,” Dean says. Right, Roman had asked a question. There’s something at the edges of Dean’s mouth that makes Roman hurt in ways that have nothing to do with the bruises and welts on his back. He’s seen Dean angry, seen Dean overjoyed, he’s even been around when Dean was so drunk he cried, once, not that they ever talk about it.

He’s never seen Dean look so hopeless. It’s so very not-Dean, to look hopeless.

“Okay,” Roman replies. He knows better, even now, to push when Dean doesn’t want to be pushed. That was always Seth’s job, Seth was the one who made Dean talk when he didn’t want to and damn it, damn it, Seth, what were you thinking, what’s going on in your head—

But Roman’s not privy to that information. He has no doubt it goes deeper than even Triple H knows, because Seth’s always been smart like that. Whatever plan he has, they weren’t part of it.

Dean breathes in hard, and lets it out in this shuddering sigh that Roman feels in his bones. They won last night. They won. So how’s it ended up that they still lost?

“I don’t want to go to Smackdown,” Dean mutters. His eyes are closed now, but everything else is still the same. “I don’t want to – I don’t want to do anything. I don’t even want to know his explanation. I don’t care. I don’t care.”

It sounds like he’s trying to convince himself as much as he’s trying to convince Roman. Either way, Roman gets what he’s saying. It doesn’t really matter, what reason Seth’s going to give for why he did what he did. Whatever the reason is, it’s just going to hurt more, anyway.

“We’re not going to Smackdown.” Roman says it flatly. He might not know much, but he knows that. They’re not showing up at Smackdown to hear whatever he has to say, to watch him stand at Triple H’s side like they didn’t do their best to kill the man two nights ago.

“We’re not?” Dean asks. Finally, he moves, his eyes sliding over to Roman. He still looks lost, uncertain, everything Roman knows Dean Ambrose not to be, but without Seth, Roman’s not so sure Dean Ambrose isn’t an entirely different person. He’s only ever known Dean when Seth was there.

“No reason to,” Roman murmurs, and that gets something resembling a smile out of Dean, bitter and sharp, but a smile nonetheless.

“Guess I should book a plane back to Vegas, then,” says Dean. He looks unhappy at the prospect, and Roman only has to think about it for a moment, think about Dean sitting alone in his apartment like this, brooding, miserable, replaying that moment in time over and over again. He can’t leave Dean to deal with this on his own. He can’t deal with this on his own.

“Come home with me,” he says. It’s half invitation, half plea. Dean needs him, yeah, but Roman is selfish in all the ways that matter and he knows that he needs Dean, too.

Dean frowns at him. “What?” he asks, like he must’ve misheard. He didn’t, and they both know it, and if he’s giving Roman an out, he’s not taking it.

“Come home with me,” he repeats. “To Florida.” He pauses, then adds, “I don’t really, uh. I don’t wanna be on my own, I guess.”

There. Now he’s put himself out there, and Dean won’t be able to think Roman’s doing it because he thinks Dean’s weak, or needs looking after, or whatever Dean would think.

Dean still looks suspicious, but it’s better than, than heartbroken, or however he’d looked before. “You, uh. Are you sure?” he asks. His eyes have cleared up, less of a haze than they were. That’s good. That’s really good.

“Wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t,” Roman says. He tucks his lips into his mouth. He wants to say more. There’s so much more he could say, should say, so much more that Seth would know to say or not because Seth knows how to handle Dean and Roman doesn’t, never has. He doesn’t say anything.

Dean looks at him and Roman feels broken open, like everything he feels is laid out right there for Dean to peruse. His hurt, his anger, the feeling of bewildered betrayal that overlays everything like a fog. But Roman doesn’t have anything left to hide if he ever did, not from Dean. He won’t lie to Dean and he never lied to Seth but it didn’t matter, and Seth left anyway – but Dean hasn’t. Not yet.

“Okay,” Dean says. It sounds like salvation. “Yeah, long as you don’t mind.”

Roman doesn’t know what he’s doing. With Dean or at all, really, because all of the things he’d planned, everything he’d even vaguely considered for himself has been, since November of 2012, with his best friends by his side.

Even when he’d gotten a bit of a big head around the end of last year, fancied he might be Something, Someone, even then, he hadn’t considered that Dean or Seth wouldn’t be there with him. He’s not stupid. He knew, even when he thought maybe, maybe, something bigger, he knew the Shield was the biggest thing he could be a part of.

And now Seth’s ruined that. Seth had a plan of his own, apparently, and it’s just like him to go ahead with them without any consideration for the pair he’s leaving behind.

He doesn’t know what to do. But Dean doesn’t know what to do, either, he thinks, and as long as he’s not alone in this, Roman can handle the uncertainty.

“I’ll book the tickets,” says Roman. Everything’s a swirling vortex of confusion in his head but now he has a plan. Not much of a plan, but then, he was never the planner. That was all Seth.

Shit. Roman needs to stop thinking about him. About it. He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to do that – Roman’s used to thinking about Seth, making sure he’s alright after another death defying stunt, keeping track of how he’s feeling, because that’s what brothers do.

Seth is his brother, and Roman can’t just drop all of that even after what Seth’s done. He just has to hope that his little brother knows what he’s doing, that there’s something else, some plan here that he just doesn’t understand yet. He has to hope for that because the thought that little brother doesn’t need him anymore, that he can just drop Dean and Roman like dead weight he’d been carrying…

Well, Roman doesn’t know. He just doesn’t know.

Dean’s staring at the door again. Roman had checked earlier, and all of Seth’s stuff is gone. Still, he wonders if Dean is hoping Seth will just walk through it. He doesn’t know if Dean would hug him or kill him.

He sighs, and leans over to pick up his phone. He needs to get those tickets.

By the time they touch down in Florida the next morning, Roman’s feeling a little less numb and a little more pissed off. The call of home is sweet, though, and Dean’s still there. He has to keep reminding himself: Seth left, but Dean is still here. He hasn’t smiled in the past twelve hours and he’s wearing those dark sunglasses that hide his emotions and he’s barely said two words to Roman since last night, but he’s still there. He hasn’t run yet, and Roman knows he’s been tempted.

Hell, Roman’s been tempted. His relationship with Dean is tumultuous at the best of times and downright antagonistic at the worst. He hasn’t said it out loud, doesn’t think it deserves the air it’d take to get it out of his mouth, but when the chair shot had come from behind him, he’d thought it was Dean finally taking the shot he’s been dying to.

He’d seen that Seth was the one who brought chairs into the ring, but it had seemed so ludicrous that it would be Seth. Dean is the wildcard, Dean’s the loose cannon, Dean’s the one Roman shouldn’t trust.

Dean is here. Seth isn’t.

That’s all there is to it.

“Forget how fuckin’ humid it is in Florida,” Dean says. It’s quiet, but it’s something.

“It’s worse since we’re so close to the beach,” Roman replies. “But the heat’s not so bad, this far west.”

“I’m from Ohio, dude,” says Dean. The pointer finger of one hand delicately pushes his sunglasses up, propped on his forehead like Roman’s are. “Only seasons I know are winter and construction.”

Roman laughs and Dean’s mouth actually flickers into something closer to a smile than a frown. It’s not all the way there. Roman’ll have to work a little harder for that.

“Come on, we’ll get a cab,” says Roman, jerking his head toward baggage claim.

The cab ride is quiet, too, but Roman doesn’t mind that so much. He’s thinking most of the way there, anyway. Dean’s never been to his house. Of course, Roman’s never been to his place, either, but for the life of him, he can’t think why. Seth stayed with him a few times – once when his apartment was getting remodeled, Seth stayed with him for a week, and they watched shitty action movies and threw popcorn at each other and—

And Seth’s not here, and Dean is. Roman needs to stop living in the past for a minute and start figuring out what he’s supposed to do from here.

(His chest hurts. Seth was never something he was supposed to need to move past. He’d never thought he’d be something Seth needed to move past, either.)

Roman sighs as he looks at his house. He’s often wondered if he really needs as much space as it gives him, whether he should just get an apartment, but it’s not like he can’t afford to keep the house and he likes… company. He likes being able to ask people around, not that he’s had anybody in the past few months to do that with. They’ve always been so insular.

Dean whistles quietly as his suitcase thuds against the ground. Roman’s paying the driver while Dean takes in the house. “Don’t know what I was expecting,” Dean says, leaning against the handle of his suitcase.

“Up to your standards?” Roman asks, digging his keys out of his pocket. He misses Dean’s answer when, upon his opening the door, a whirlwind of fur and yelping attacks his calves. He crouches and earns himself a lick to his chin and enthusiastic panting.

“Wouldn’t have thought you were a dog person,” Dean drawls.

Roman spares him a glance, then picks up his dog in order to introduce them properly.

“His name’s Brody,” he says, watching Dean watch the dog. They seem to be locked in a battle of wills. “He’s not loud or mean or anything, most of the time.”

“Who takes care of him when you’re on the road?” Dean asks. He offers his palm, cupped for Brody to snuffle his nose against, and then, when he’s accepted, gives him a scratch on the head.

“There’s a girl down the street who comes by, takes him for walks, makes sure he has food and water and plays with him.” Roman doesn’t know how to interpret the look on Dean’s face.

His eyebrows are pulled together, his lower lip jutting out a little, and his eyes are looking at Brody but Roman can tell that’s not really what he’s looking at.

“What?” he asks. He can throw it out there. It’s Dean’s choice whether he wants to let Roman in on what’s bugging him or not.

Dean shakes his head and smiles, looking at Roman instead of the dog. It’s one of the least happy smiles Roman’s ever seen. “I know Seth’s shoe size,” he says. It’s the first time he’s said that name since The Incident. “I know his phone number by heart, I’ve met his brother, I could tell you what he orders at every goddamn restaurant in the continental US. And I didn’t even know you had a dog.”

Roman’s not sure what he’s supposed to say to that. He doesn’t know if Dean’s upset because he wants to know Roman better or because he knows Seth too well.

Maybe it’s because it turns out neither of them really knew Seth at all.

“Now you know,” he offers. It’s not much. But they’re working on it, aren’t they? Isn’t that what this is about? They’re the only two left, now. Maybe both of them leaned on Seth, and maybe that’s why he left, or maybe it isn’t. Without him there, all they have to lean on is each other.

Roman’s back still hurts. Brody’s squirming in his arms to be let down, and Roman bends to do so.

“Come on,” Roman invites. “I’ll show you where the guest room is.”

“You have a guest room?” Dean snorts, and they’re back to sort of normal, the weird tension dissipating. “Man, I thought I’d just be stealing your couch for a week.”

“I wouldn’t inflict my couch on anyone’s back,” Roman replies. He leads Dean down the hallway to the room he has for, well, for Seth, mostly, and sometimes for a cousin or an uncle that drops by. It’s decorated in cool blues with cream accents, and he only knows that because his mother had mentioned about a thousand times while she was helping him put it together.

He hasn’t talked to her in about a month. The only people he ever talks to are Seth and Dean. He’s never really thought, before, about how strange it is that he settled so deeply into two people when he grew up surrounded constantly by dozens.

“Shit, man,” Dean says, peering into the room from behind Roman. “This is nicer than the bedroom in my apartment, and I live there.”

Roman shrugs. He’s never sure – and that’s always been one of his problems, hasn’t it, when he’s interacting with Dean – whether Dean’s insulting him or just talking. He hopes that’s one of the things they can work out while he’s here.

Dean drags his suitcase into the room, and sits carefully on the bed. He does look a little out of place, leather jacket and combat boots amongst the pristine wallpaper and carefully made up bed. Roman kind of likes that, though.

One of the reasons Roman had wanted to be in the Shield was to show his family he didn’t need them in order to get ahead. His father had been appalled, told him nobody in their family behaved like a common thug. Talked about consorting with someone like Dean Ambrose.

Yeah, Roman likes that a little. He likes that Dean screws with all of Roman’s preconceived notions, whether they’re about the world or about himself.

His boots are scuffed and flecked with dirt and his mother would be horrified.

His mother had adored Seth.

Roman clears his throat. “You want time to yourself to settle in?”

Dean makes a noncommittal noise and then shrugs for good measure. “What d’you do for fun around here?” he asks. “Aside from sweat to death.”

“Go to the gym,” Roman says. “Walk the dog. Go grocery shopping. Catch up on shows I missed. Pretty boring.”

“What’s your favorite color?” Dean asks out of nowhere. Or not out of nowhere, to him. Roman’s sure Dean’s thought processes make sense to him, anyway.

“Blue,” he says. “Kinda cliché, I know.” He pauses, and then: “What’s yours?”

Dean smiles at him, an actual smile that’s marginally more pleased than the others. “I like red,” he says thoughtfully.

There’s a silence, then, but it’s not awkward, or at least, Roman doesn’t think it is. He ducks his head after a moment and steps back out of the room. “I think I’m gonna see if I have any food that’s not canned,” he says. “Probably get pizza later or something and then I can go shopping tomorrow. I don’t even remember the last time I got groceries.”

“Cool,” says Dean. He bends to unlace his boots and the image is striking to Roman, for some reason, as Dean carefully toes off each shoe. He clears his throat again and then leaves, moving toward the kitchen.

It’s so strange how well he does and doesn’t know Dean. He knows what’s important, or what he’d thought was important, anyway. He knows that Dean’s shoulder’s been fucked up for years but he’s pretty good at compensating for it, and he knows that Dean doesn’t like driving at night, and he knows that Dean hates when people don’t take him seriously.

Those are the kinds of things good tag team partners know about each other. Roman doesn’t think they’re the kinds of things that good friends know about each other.

He could learn the things good friends know about each other. If Dean stays.

He hasn’t ruled that out, exactly, that Dean will just decide it’s too much trouble and bail. It’s looking like the two of them against the world, now, and if Dean wanted to get out of the line of fire, Roman wouldn’t exactly blame him. Hell, they don’t even have Daniel Bryan around anymore to have a tentative truce with. Even with Batista gone, going against the Authority plus Seth as just the two of them is daunting.

Dean could leave. And Roman couldn’t even be upset with him for it, because it’s what any smart person would do.

He turns around without looking in the cupboards, walking so quickly back to the room he’d left Dean in that he’s practically jogging.

“Dean,” he says when he gets there. He almost doesn’t recognize his own voice, and when Dean looks up from where he’d been doing something on his phone, he looks alarmed.

“Dude, is there like, a snake in the cupboard, or something? Or a fuckin’ scorpion, if it’s a scorpion you’re on your own—“

“Do you want to leave?” Roman cuts him off.

Dean is frowning again, and Roman knows he’s being really – aggressive, or whatever, but it’s imperative for him to know right now if this is all a wasted effort.

“We just got here,” says Dean, but his eyes are sharp, taking in Roman’s face, and he knows exactly what Roman’s talking about.

“Please,” Roman says, “if you want to not be, if you want it to end because Seth’s gone, then it can end. If you want that to be the end of the Shield, that’ll be the end of it, and we don’t have to keep going. But please just tell me now. If you want to leave, if you want it to be over. We can just quietly go our separate ways.”

“I don’t want that,” Dean replies. He’s gone very still, apart from his leg, jittery, bouncing up and down. “Shit, Roman, if it was up to me, we would’ve kept on like we were forever. Just ‘cause – that’s just lettin’ ‘em win, isn’t it?”

“It’s just you and me,” Roman says. God, he’s not making any sense, and Dean’s going to leave, and Roman doesn’t know what he’s going to do. He did this before Dean and he knows that he can do this after Dean, but. But.

He doesn’t want to.

“Exactly,” Dean says, like that’s settled something for him. He leans back and props himself up with his hands. “And we’re the Shield whether Seth is with us or not.” He raises his eyebrows in challenge.

“Right.” Roman takes a deep breath and lets it out. Dean’s not leaving. He doesn’t have to figure everything out for himself yet. His goals shift in his head, to accommodate for one missing person, but they don’t have to accommodate for two. “Right. So what do we do?”

Dean smirks, pushing his hands on his knees and standing. “Seth might’ve been the architect, but that doesn’t mean he’s the only one who has plans.”

“Do you have plans?” Roman asks. He doesn’t have any plans, so he’ll gladly listen to Dean’s.

Dean snorts. “Too many to count. Walk with me.”

And Dean goes casually striding down the hallway back toward the kitchen, leaving Roman to follow behind.

“So, we don’t know a lot right now, do we?” Dean says. “We just gotta go off what we can assume, so, for whatever reason, Seth decided he didn’t like us anymore, right?”

Roman’s throat is dry. “Right.”

“Don’t know why, though.” Dean talks with his hands a lot, gesturing wildly around his face while he’s speaking. “That’d really help, knowing why. I mean, it’s not like he likes anyone on the other team.”

“That we know of,” Roman points out. “Plan B, that’s what Hunter said. That kind of implies…” He trails off. He doesn’t want to finish that sentence.

Dean leans back against the counter, and he looks a little like someone’s punched him in the stomach, the edges of his face brittle. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “Yeah, I know what it implies. Plan B. This wasn’t spur of the moment. He’s been thinking about doing this for a while now.” He licks his lips. “Might’ve been planning this the whole time.”

Roman thinks about quiet hotel room conversations, he thinks about laughter and throwing popcorn at each other and inside jokes. For some reason, the clearest memory he has right now of Seth is from something like six months ago, when he’d stopped to grab coffee and at the last second had gotten one for Seth, too, and he’d stopped back at the car with it, handed it to Seth who looked at him with a drowsy smile and said, “Thanks, man.”

“He hasn’t,” Roman says abruptly. “Not the whole time.”

Dean doesn’t look as sure, but he shrugs a shoulder and leaves it. “Okay, he hasn’t. Either way, it is what it is, and we’re one man down. At least Batista’s gone.”

“Silver linings,” Roman murmurs. He needs something to do with his hands. He steps next to Dean to check the cupboards, mentally keeping track of what he’ll need to get at the store. “So what’s our next move, then?”

“Beat the shit out of him the next time we see him,” Dean says. “I dunno. Watch Smackdown, I guess. See what he has to say for himself. See if that changes anything.”

“You think it will?” Roman asks.

Dean doesn’t answer for a long moment, and Roman is just about to ask something else to change the subject when he finally says, “No, I really don’t. I think if it was something he was going to let us in on, we would’ve heard from him by now. Either way, it’s his move. Nothing we can do but wait.”

“I hate waiting.” Roman sighs. “Sure we can’t just beat the shit out of him?”

That surprises a laugh out of Dean, and Roman’s chest warms at the sound of it.

“That’ll be our plan B. Plan A is see what he’s got to say.” Dean crosses his arms over his chest. “I already know I’m not gonna like it.”

“I didn’t like when he hit me with the chair,” says Roman, moving to check the refrigerator. “I can probably handle him being a dick. Want a beer?”

“God, yes,” Dean replies, and Roman pulls out two, nudging the door shut with his hip. He hands one off to Dean.

Somehow, they mutually decide to gather in the living room, and Game of Thrones is playing quietly on the TV while they sit on either end of the couch. Dean’s back is against the arm of it, one foot tucked under him, the other leg stretched out far enough that his toes occasionally prod Roman’s thigh. Roman’s not so sure he actually realizes he’s doing it.

“It’s weird,” Dean says suddenly, fiddling with the wrapper on his beer bottle. “Going so long without talking to him, I mean. Guess I never thought about how often he’s just… around.”

The scheming, smirky Dean has gone, replaced by one that’s brooding and pensive. Roman doesn’t know what makes him switch off between the two, but this one is infinitely harder to talk to.

“I know what you mean,” says Roman, only barely paying attention to the screen. This is more important. This is Dean, talking, and he’s already seen this season, anyway. “I keep thinking I should check my phone, see if he’s texted, or, I don’t know. Anything.”

“He won’t.” Dean has peeled almost the entire wrapper from his bottle. It’s still half-full. Roman hasn’t touched his. “You know he won’t. He won’t show his cards until he’s ready to.”

Roman breathes out hard, tipping his head back against the couch. “Yeah,” he says. “I know. Can’t help hoping, though. Even if he can just turn it off, doesn’t mean I can.”

Dean laughs a little, but doesn’t say anything for a long moment. “You said,” he starts, then clears his throat. “You said you don’t think he’s been planning it since the beginning. Earlier.”

“I don’t,” Roman confirms, twisting so that he can look Dean head-on. “I’m not saying he hasn’t been planning it for a while, maybe months, even, but I don’t think it was since the beginning.”

“Why do you think that?” Dean asks. He’s not meeting Roman’s eyes. “He ever, like, say anything to you?”

“Nah.” Roman shrugs. “Maybe it’s wishful thinking. I don’t know. Maybe he really has been playing us the whole time. All I know is what he’s given us, and he’s bled for us time and time again. I don’t know what the hell he’s doing now, but I have to think it’s not…” It’s his turn to clear his throat, and it doesn’t get rid of the lump in it. “I gotta believe that he hasn’t been conning us the whole time. I gotta believe it’s not that, man, whatever else it is.”

Dean goes quiet again, thoughtfully tapping his fingertips against the side of the bottle. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, okay. I get that.”

“What about you?” Roman asks, unsure of what the look on Dean’s face means.

Dean’s lips tuck into his mouth, and then he shakes his head. “I think it’s easier for me to believe he’s always wanted to hit me with that chair,” he says quietly, “than to believe that I’ve done something recently to make him think I deserved it.”

Roman takes that in. What would hurt more? Knowing Seth never really cared about him, or knowing he did something to make him stop? It’s a hard choice. Roman doesn’t want to make it, so he nods, silently, glancing over at the TV. He has no doubt that neither of them have taken in a single thing that’s happened on the show.

“I think I might just get groceries now,” he says, shoving a hand though his hair. In the relative coolness of the house, it’s easy enough to just leave it down, but he’ll put it up before he leaves. “I was gonna leave it ‘til tomorrow, but we don’t got anything for breakfast, so I might as well do it today. You wanna come with?”

Dean tilts his head thoughtfully, tracing circles around the rim of his still half-full beer. “Better’n just having your dog for company, I guess.”

“My dog’s plenty good for company,” Roman chides mildly. He sighs, getting to his feet. His back still hurts, bad, and the plane ride didn’t do him any good. What he needs is a night in a good bed, not one of the hotel slabs they call mattresses.

“You want me to help you put somethin’ on that later?” Dean asks from behind him. When Roman turns, Dean’s standing as well, passing his bottle from hand to hand, his eyes on Roman. Roman gives him a curious look, and Dean shrugs. “You winced. When you stood up. Figure it’s still got to be hurting you pretty bad.”

Roman sighs, pushing his hair back again. “Yeah,” he admits. “That’d be great, if you’re sure you don’t mind.”

Dean gives him an annoyed look, brushing past him on the way to the kitchen. “Dude, you’re letting me be a fuckin’ baby in your house for a week because I couldn’t handle being alone. Trust me, I owe you.”

It takes Roman a moment to parse through that.

“That’s not why I asked you to come home with me,” he says, following after Dean with his own bottle. He’ll shove it in the fridge. He can make stew with it or something.

Dean looks over his shoulder from where he’s dropping his bottle in the trash. “Yeah, it is,” he says. There’s no irritation in his voice, just matter-of-fact certainty. “But it’s okay. Took you up on it, didn’t I?”

“I guess.” Roman watches Dean as he leaves the room, probably to put his boots back on, maybe change out of the plane clothes. Actually, he should probably do that, too. Roman wrinkles his nose as he looks down at himself. He smells like recycled air and stale sweat, probably. He should really get a shower in before they go out in public.

“I’m taking a shower,” he hollers in Dean’s general direction, waiting until he hears the affirmative ’kay from Dean and then making his way to his own room.

The shower does him good, refreshing and hot, and he’s still messing around with his hair when he makes his way back downstairs.

“You want me to braid it?” Dean asks when Roman wanders into the living room. He rolls his eyes, but it’s nice to see Dean smiling, at least.

“You implying you know how to braid hair?” he replies, giving up and twisting the elastic he’d had around his wrist into his hair, a loose bun at the base of his neck.

Dean shrugs, getting to his feet. He’s changed, too, though he’s still got his clunky boots on. “Never know when some things’ll come in handy,” he says. “I can do the fancy fishtail ones, too.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed.”

“Guessing there’s a lot of things about me you wouldn’t have guessed,” Dean replies. He’s got a point there. Dean hadn’t known about his dog. He didn’t know about Dean’s braiding capabilities.

They’ll learn. They have to, now. There’s no buffer, nobody to pawn each other off on. They need to do this together.

“D’you think,” Roman starts. He shakes his head, ducking back into the kitchen to grab his keys and make sure he’s got his wallet. Dean’s narrowed his eyes when he comes back out.

“Do I think what?” he asks Roman.

“Nothing,” Roman says. He beckons for Dean to follow him, and Dean, thankfully, follows behind as Roman unlocks the door that leads to the garage through the kitchen.

“I don’t care if it was nothing.” Dean doesn’t let it go while they get into the car. “I still wanna know.”

Roman sighs, pushing the button to open his garage. “You can never leave things alone, can you?”

“Nope,” Dean answers without hesitation. “Look, man, whatever, you know? But it’s just us now and I don’t wanna deal with you having weird secrets, so, out with it.”

Roman stays silent while he backs out of his driveway, and then shrugs, delicately. “Guess that answers my question, anyway,” he says once they’re on the road. “I was wondering if you thought he might be counting on that. That we wouldn’t be able to get along without him. We don’t have the best track record, do we?”

He sees Dean’s mouth twist out of the corner of his eye. “Been months, though,” he mumbles. “I didn’t think we were still – you still got any problems with me?”

“Nah,” says Roman. He doesn’t have to think about it, even, which is surprising. “Nah, we’re good, I just wondered if that might be what he’s thinking. That without him, we won’t be able to… go on.”

“That’d be pretty conceited of him.” Roman can’t read anything in Dean’s voice. “You think he’s that far up his own ass?”

Roman snorts, but doesn’t say anything for a long while, until he pulls into a parking spot. When he looks over at Dean, he’s wearing a seatbelt, looking at Roman curiously, hands folded in his lap. The image almost makes him laugh, but instead he shakes his head.

“I think there’s probably a lot of shit about Seth I don’t know,” he replies. “Whether it’s because he didn’t want me to or because I didn’t bother to look as far as I should’ve. I think there’s a good chance that he’s not coming back either way. I don’t know what I think, Dean,” he concludes. “I mean, should we have seen this coming? Did you see it coming?”

Dean calmly unbuckles his seatbelt. Roman’s stomach is in knots, has been probably since last night, since The Thing happened, but seeing Dean so calm helps. What a joke, that he’s freaking out now and Dean’s the calm one. When did that happen?

“Should’ve,” says Dean thoughtfully. “Did you know – I told him once, I told him that you don’t make friends in wrestling, you make business partners. He laughed at me. But you don’t trust people, you never trust people because that’s a fucking stupid thing to do, and they’ll always turn their back on you.”

“Are we friends?” Roman asks. He’s not sure what he wants the answer to be, but the possibility of any of them is terrifying, a little.

Dean still looks thoughtful as he gazes back at Roman, narrowed eyes and pursed lips.

“Yeah,” he says. It sounds like a confession. “Yeah, we’re friends, I think. And it’s fuckin’, I hate it, but there you go. Guess I trust you. Isn’t that the stupidest thing you’ve heard in your life?”

That does make Roman laugh, and he shakes his head. “Not even close,” he says. “I guess me saying it doesn’t mean anything in the long run, but I’m not gonna stab you in the back. Not my style.”

“It’s definitely my style,” says Dean. “But hey, back at you. In it for the long haul now.”

“Good to know.”

Roman doesn’t think he’s ever going to tell Dean that he’d thought it would be him. Chances are, Dean already knows. Roman doesn’t even know if he’d be offended. Even so, it’s his shit to deal with, not Dean’s.

“C’mon,” he says, unfastening his own seatbelt and opening the door to swing a leg out of the car. “We’ve got more important things to worry about.”

Dean laughs, and Roman likes it. He likes that he can make Dean laugh. Something about that pings gently in the back of his head, and he frowns, but the wisp of a thought is gone before he can grasp it.

They’ve got half a cart full of groceries and Dean’s intently reading a pickle jar when Roman figures out what it was. It’s the same sort of feeling he used to get around the cheerleaders in high school, and more recently around Renee Young when she’s interviewing them. It’s a gentle, nudging warmth, familiar because he’s felt it before, but unfamiliar because he’s pretty sure he’s never had it around Dean. Almost positive, actually.

“You okay?” Dean asks him, and when Roman looks up from where his hands are tightly gripping the push-bar on the cart, Dean’s not reading the pickle jar anymore. He’s looking at Roman cautiously. Roman has no idea what his face was doing, that Dean seems so hesitant, but he makes an effort to relax his hands and put on a smile. Middle of the grocery store is no time for this kind of revelation.

“Yeah, man, no problem here,” he says. Dean doesn’t look like he believes him, but he shrugs, anyway. Roman bobs his head toward the pickles. “You gonna get those?”

“Kinda want ‘em,” Dean says, glancing back at the nutritional facts. “Do they count as a vegetable, you think?”

“Doubt it.” Roman’s smile feels more real on his face, as he leans against the cart. “I think any of the nutrients you’d get from the cucumber got replaced with salt and preservatives a long time ago.”

“Mm. Bummer. I wanna eat them straight out of the jar and watch you cringe.” Dean’s smiling a little, too, his mouth hitched up in the corner.

“I’m less uptight than you think I am,” Roman warns. Oh, god, he’s still smiling, and it feels all the way real now, and how is he just figuring this out now? He’s an idiot. He shoves it away, clearing his throat. “Go ahead and get them, then, but you’re eating all of them. Pickles are disgusting.”

“Fuckin’ right they are,” Dean agrees, settling the pickle jar between a loaf of bread and a can of Campbell’s chicken noodle, because Roman’s a big kid at heart. “Gross. Horrible.”

Roman laughs again, shaking his head. “You’re gonna eat that whole jar,” he says again. “If you don’t finish them in the week, I’m keeping them around until you come over again and finish them off.”

“I will get you having pickle sword fights with me by the end of the day,” Dean challenges. “Just you watch me.”

Roman doesn’t even doubt that very much, but he snorts anyway, pushing the cart on down the aisle. He knows he needs the essentials: bread (check) and eggs and probably more beer, and meals. Meals for more than one person. He likes to eat as well as he can when he’s home, since he eats pure garbage on the road. He should get fruits, and vegetables that don’t come in brine. Meat. God, he wants a fucking cheeseburger.

Dean’s wandered off somewhere the next time Roman looks up, and he sighs. He’ll catch up with him later. He quickly makes his way down the rest of the aisles, grabbing anything that looks good or like he could turn it into something good. Dean’s not picky about food, as far as Roman knows, but if there’s anything he doesn’t like, Roman’ll eat it anyway, so it doesn’t matter much.

He spends about five minutes in the frozen food aisle, staring at the pint-sized containers of Häagen-Dazs. He just loves ice cream, but frankly, the idea of devouring a pint of frozen creamy goodness like his boyfriend just broke up with him makes him feel ten kinds of pathetic.

But… butter pecan. Peanut butter pie. Roman’s only so strong.

“What’re we getting?” Dean asks from behind him, and Roman jumps. He wordlessly points to the ice cream, and Dean frowns at him. For a moment, Roman’s sure Dean’s going to say are you really expecting me to cry into ice cream with you while we listen to Taylor Swift songs in the dark and eat our feelings? but he doesn’t. Instead, he says, “Dude, come on. B&J is the only way.”

“Not all things that rhyme are true,” Roman says, but he pops open the freezer door in front of the Ben & Jerry’s anyway.

“Name one thing that rhymes with Häagen-Dazs,” Dean challenges. Roman’s mind completely blanks, and that’s not even the point, anyway, but Dean’s grinning like he’s won a competition Roman never agreed to as he grabs a pint of Half Baked from the shelf.

Roman gets Chunky Monkey. Dean shakes his head sadly, nose wrinkled, and Roman rolls his eyes for what feels like the sixth time today. Dean just brings it out in him. He kind of likes it. More than kind of.

He needs to get out of here so he can figure out what kind of even means.

“There anything you want, in particular?” Roman asks, peering into the cart. He’s hardly ever home enough to shop for himself, so he’s not sure, but it looks good enough to him. And they can always come back.

“Mm. Not really.” Dean shrugs. He has his hands in the pockets of his jacket. Sometimes, not always, but sometimes, Dean just looks so effortlessly, casually cool that Roman’s envious of it. More often than not, he just feels like a clumsy oaf outside of the ring. Sometimes he feels like one in it, too, but it’s easier to hide then. Easier to focus on what needs to be done.

Easier to focus at all. He keeps getting distracted by his thoughts, and that’s no good. He shrugs back at Dean and throws a frozen pizza into the cart when they pass them.

The girl who checks them out watches wrestling. She – Rachel, her nametag says with a cheerily drawn smiley face next to it – doesn’t say a word about it, but Roman can tell from the way her eyes dart from him to Dean and back again. Rachel has the same look on her face as, there was a kid at the airport in an Undertaker t-shirt and they both have the same look about them, the same vague pity mixed with nervousness mixed with alarm.

Me too, kid, Roman doesn’t say. Beside him, he can practically feel the way Dean’s gone stiff, his shoulders squared back like a cornered dog. He’s noticed, too, then.

Her hands shake when she takes his card to pay for the groceries, and Roman presses his knuckles against Dean’s hip while she’s busy with that. Dean relaxes, just a little, and Roman makes sure to smile at Rachel when she gives his card back.

It’s not her fault that Roman had managed for a second to forget about Seth. It isn’t Rachel’s fault that for just a blip of time, he’d been able to feel like everything was just like it had always been.

“Have a nice day,” she says after Roman signs his receipt. There’s a stutter deep in her throat and he hears her take a deep breath. He steels himself for any number of questions he doesn’t want to answer. “Um,” she says, “that was a really good, like, match, at Payback.”

She looks like she’s about to pass out when Roman looks up from the cart full of bagged groceries, and he opens his mouth with no idea what he’s going to say—

“It was, wasn’t it?” Dean says from where he’s loitering near the bag carousel. He’s looking at Rachel curiously, and she doesn’t look any less like she’s going to pass out. “It was a good fuckin’ match, right?”

Rachel’s cheeks flood with color. Me too, kid, Roman still doesn’t say. What is it about Dean?

“It was a good match,” Dean says again, when they’re loading the bags into the trunk. Well, Roman’s loading. Dean’s looking thoughtful and leaning against the side of the car.

“It was,” Roman agrees. “Clean sweep, doesn’t get any better than that.”

“What the fuck is wrong with him?” is the next thing Dean says, and Roman’s not quite following anymore, but he’ll do his best.

“Dunno,” he replies. “We beat them two pay-per-views in a row, so it can’t be that they’re on a winning streak.”

“Right?” Dean asks, frowning, his arms folding across his chest. “Why the fuck would he jump ship to the other team when the other team got their ass beat last night? And the time before that? Why the fuck would he do that?”

“Let me know if you figure it out,” Roman says quietly, closing the trunk. “I’ve been trying since it happened.”

“I wanna see it,” says Dean, abrupt as ever.

“I don’t,” says Roman. Truth be told, he hasn’t even thought about it, but he already knows he doesn’t want to see it. He doesn’t want to know what look was on Seth’s face.

“It’d be on YouTube, right?” Dean asks. He’s stuck on it now as they make their way into the car. “Or dot com, it’ll be somewhere, right? They’ll have put a video of it somewhere, big fucking deal, right? It’s a big deal, they’ll have put it on YouTube.”

“Probably,” says Roman. It’s reluctant, but resigned, because Dean’s got that look like he’s going to look this up whether or not Roman wants him to, and he’s not about to let Dean watch it alone. “Can we at least put the groceries away first?”

Dean waves a dismissive hand at him. “Whatever. I wanna see it. I need to see it. I have to… I have to know.”

He sounds pleading now, and Roman sighs, because he’d known, really, from the moment Dean said it that they’d be watching it as soon as they got home. If Dean knew how to use his smartphone he’d probably be watching it in the passenger’s seat right now.

Dean does help put groceries away, at least. As well as he can, since he doesn’t know where anything goes, and he’s bouncing on his toes like he does before matches sometimes, jitters and nerves.

Roman pulls his laptop from the case he keeps it in, opens it, turns it on, as slowly as he can, like Dean might change his mind if it takes more than three minutes. He knows better, but he still tries.

It’s about the third video back on the WWE’s YouTube channel.

“The Shield implodes,” Dean reads in a mumble. The thumbnail is Seth hitting Dean with the chair. It’s framed to catch attention, to capture the eye, to be interesting, and Roman feels a surge of misplaced anger, fury that this is something the whole world gets to see. That Seth did it in front of the whole world for everyone to see, that this video exists because Seth wanted as many people as possible to see him do this.

“Why didn’t he just say he wanted to leave?” Roman doesn’t quite ask, so quiet he can barely hear himself, and Dean doesn’t respond verbally but he does nudge his knee over against Roman’s before he clicks on the video.

Roman gets another of those bursts of anger when Triple H’s voice is the first thing he hears. Plan A, Plan B, whatever plan it was, it was Triple H’s plan. This is Triple H’s fault and Roman wants to hurt him, wants to wipe that smug smile off his face because he took everything Triple H had Sunday night and came out on top but somehow Hunter came out on top anyway, because that’s what he does. He always wins, and Roman had wanted to prove him wrong. Thought they had.

When the camera cuts to the ring, Seth’s standing there with them – it’s the first time either of them have seen him since the night before, and it aches. Dean flinches a little, next to him, and Roman returns the knee nudge.

“He looks normal,” Roman says quietly. The chair in Seth’s hand is hard to look at when Roman knows it’s about to be against his back.

Dean hisses through his teeth when it happens, the loud smack of steel against Roman’s vest, and Roman feels some phantom twinges in his back, where the bruises are still so tender it hurts just to have a t-shirt on. Roman’s not watching Seth, though. He’s watching Dean. Video-Dean, who looks like he’s just had his heart ripped still-beating from his chest.

If Roman had thought (and he hadn’t, except in the way where you always worry most about the things you know will never happen) that Dean might be planning on joining Seth, that this was some sort of double-bluff, he isn’t thinking that anymore. In the video, Dean looks from Roman, clinging to the ropes, to Triple H, like he thinks somehow Triple H has teleported into the ring while they were looking right at him, and then he looks at Seth, then back to Roman, where his eyes linger.

Roman’s willing to bet that Dean had hoped that maybe if he kept looking at Roman he wouldn’t have to look at the person he knew put Roman on the mat.

But he does, and the look on his face makes Roman hurt bone-deep. He knows Dean doesn’t trust easy, when he does at all, but Dean trusted Seth. So did Roman, but Roman trusts more than he should. Dean measures out his trust in teaspoons.

He watches. Dean is frozen in place, staring at Seth, and the camera flashes to Seth, and Seth looks… cold. He looks cold, and Roman thinks it would have been easier if he looked angry. Satisfied. Pleased. Vindictive. He doesn’t look any of those things. He just looks cold, and solemn, and… determined. That’s the word Roman’s looking for. Determined.

“Jesus Christ,” Dean mumbles next to him. Roman glances away from the video for a second, and Dean’s eyes are trained on it. His hand is at his mouth, fingers pushing at his bottom lip, a nervous tic Dean’s had as long as Roman’s known him.

When Roman looks back at the screen, Dean’s stumbling, feet fumbling over each other and it’s not like him at all but Roman knows in that moment what Dean’s brain was doing, telling him to attack whoever just hurt Roman, but it was Seth, it’s Seth so he needs to hit Seth but he can’t hit Seth, and it’s not surprising when Seth just jams the chair into Dean’s gut because Dean couldn’t even fight back against him, and Seth knew that. He knew Dean wouldn’t. Couldn’t.

Roman had been vaguely aware that Seth had hit Dean more than once while Roman was down, but he hadn’t known – it just keeps going. Once, twice, three times, four, Roman loses count after seven because it just keeps going, on, and on, until the chair breaks. He gets Roman again in the middle, which Roman doesn’t even remember, but the worst part is that the expression on his face doesn’t change.

The crowd’s chanting something Roman can’t make out, and Seth’s standing over Dean with that same solemn, determined look on his face, the other chair in his hand. His expression does change a little then, while he’s dropping the chair to the mat. His lip curls up, in something like disgust.

Dean tries to shove the chair away in the video, maybe some sort of knowledge of what’s coming, but Seth just prods it gently back into place, and Roman wants to look away when Seth measures the distance, something Roman’s watched him do a million times, but not to Dean, never to Dean, who’s just trying to get to his hands and knees, just trying to get up when Seth’s foot slams his head down against the chair.

It’s a move Roman’s seen Seth do a hundred, a thousand times. He’s always loved that move, the weird brutality of such a move in Seth’s arsenal, because Seth is such a pretty wrestler, he’s so fluid and he can move so fast, and the way he wrestles is beautiful, and the curb stomp is such a dirty, harsh move for a wrestler like Seth.

He and Dean are silent as Seth looks down at video-Dean, then out at the crowd, and then he picks up the chair he just stomped Dean into. The way he leaves the ring is almost dainty, light footsteps and a hop down the ring apron and then a long pause, a long moment where he’s just standing there in front of Triple H and Randy Orton and part of Roman just wants him to hit them too, it’s okay if Seth turned on them as long as he wasn’t joining the Authority, but then Seth just hands the chair to Orton.

Triple H pats Seth’s shoulder with a grin like they’re old pals. Maybe they are. Maybe the arm Triple H slings around Seth’s shoulder is the arm of a friend, a confidant. Maybe Seth’s been planning this the whole time.

“D’you,” Dean says. His voice is a croak, and he clears his throat. “D’you remember when we used to triple powerbomb people?”

“We still – we’ve done that recently,” Roman amends. It’s weird to think he’ll never do a triple powerbomb again.

“Not those,” Dean says. His eyes are still on the screen. “Like when we first got here. When we’d just do it to whoever, because they got in our way, for no reason. For no reason. Just ‘cause we wanted to.”

Roman swallows. “Yeah.”

“Even when we did those,” says Dean, “Even when we didn’t give a shit, we didn’t care, even when we didn’t care, he still, he still at least looked happy, or like, like he looked like it mattered. Y’know? He looked like it still mattered.”

Dean finally looks away from the screen, and he just looks bewildered now. He waves a hand at the video still playing, where Seth is standing over them, Triple H’s arm around him, that vague look on his face. “He looks like he doesn’t even know us, like it’s nothing to him! Like it doesn’t matter, how could it fucking not matter?”

Truly, on the screen, even as Triple H grins at Seth, tightening his arm, saying something to him, looks so smug, so victorious, Seth doesn’t. Seth doesn’t look victorious, triumphant. He still just looks blank. Like he might as well be taking a walk in the park.

“We shouldn’t have watched this,” Roman says.

“No,” Dean bites out. “It’s good. It’s good, I needed, I needed to know. What he was thinking.”

“Can you tell?” Roman asks, an honest question, because he can’t, he can’t tell at all what Seth was thinking, can’t see past that look on his face, because it’s nothing. No expression. Seth’s one of the most expressive people Roman knows and Roman’s always been able to read him well.

Dean squints at him, closes the lid of the laptop like h can’t bear to look at it anymore. “No,” he says, like that should be obvious. “Says it all, doesn’t it?”

Roman guesses it does. If Seth’s not giving them anything else, all they can go off are his actions. His actions are that he hit Dean with a chair about seventy times and let Randy Orton maul Roman until he could barely breathe. It’s not looking good for him.

“I still want to believe he’s got a plan,” Roman says. “But he doesn’t, does he? This is it. That was the plan.”

“I think so,” Dean says. He sits back against the couch, slowly, hands settling on his thighs. “I want – I fucking want there to be something else. Anything. Something that says he’s gonna call or text or something and say he’s just trying to bring them down from the inside, something to say he had to or they were gonna kill his family, whatever. But there’s nothing. There’s just what he did. There’s just him breaking a chair on my back. There’s just him hitting you from behind.”

Roman lets out a breath and it feels like he’s breathing out more than just air. It feels like he’s breathing out something he wants desperately to grasp and stuff back into himself, but he knows it would just slip through his fingers anyway.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay. At least, at least we know now. At least we know.”

“I liked it better when we didn’t,” Dean replies, and Roman laughs because that’s what he was thinking too, but it’s not a happy laugh. It’s weak and pitiful and he stops it before it really starts.

“So what now?” Roman asks, his eyes on Dean, even though Dean’s eyes are on the closed laptop. “What do we do?”

“What we have to do, I guess. Same thing we were doing. Trying not to let the Authority win.” Dean lifts his shoulders in a shrug. “Just have to come to terms with the Authority having Seth in it now.”

That hurts to think, hurts that it hurts. Hurts to think of Seth being on the opposite side. As long as it’s mattered, Seth’s been on his side. Even when they weren’t all on the same page, it was him and Dean who clashed. Seth refused to get in the middle, but he was never on the opposite side.

“You gonna be able to do that?” says Roman.

Dean’s mouth curls up in a smile, half-hearted and bitter. “Done it before,” he points out. It’s true, and Roman can remember when Dean and Seth would’ve sooner spit on each other than have a civil conversation, but it’s still, it doesn’t feel right. Roman’s never known Dean when Seth wasn’t his friend. Even at the beginning when they all barely knew each other, and Dean sometimes looked at Seth all suspicious, or Seth tensed up when Dean patted him on the shoulder, they were still friends more than they weren’t.

Roman was around when they hated each other in developmental. He watched the matches they had. Good matches, great matches. The sort of match you have with someone you really, truly hate.

He doesn’t know if he can do that.

“I don’t know if—“ he says, but he cuts himself off, because that’s weakness, isn’t it? It’s, he should be able to turn it off. Seth betrayed them. Roman should be able to use that, that hurt and anger, he should be able to use it against Seth. But the thought of hitting him hurts. The thought of fighting him hurts. The thought of spearing him, or having a match against him at all, it hurts. It seems impossible.

“You don’t have to,” says Dean. It’s quiet. “I can do it for both of us. I think it’s easier for me.”

“What is?” Roman asks.

“Hating him,” Dean says. Roman hadn’t realized he was looking away, but he looks back to Dean and finds Dean’s looking at him as well. “I’ve done it before. I remember what it feels like. I can…” He pauses for a second. “I can do it without thinking too hard about it. I don’t think you’ve ever hated someone in your life. You don’t – you’re not like us.”

Roman shoves down old healed-over scars, feelings of not being good enough for them, of not being able to relate to so much about how the two of them got here. Them being in a different class than him. “How do you mean?” he says, because he doesn’t think that’s what Dean’s talking about.

“In businesses like this,” Dean says slowly. “You team up with people for a couple different reasons. Necessity, mostly. Sometimes friendship, but mostly it’s necessity and the friendship comes after, I guess. At the beginning, when Heyman was all, okay, you three, you’re a group, I wasn’t thinking it’d be anything but a means to an end. It didn’t matter if I hated either of you because I didn’t come into this thinking it’d be anything but necessity anyway.”

“Okay,” Roman says. He thinks he knows where this is going, but he doesn’t want to assume.

“I’m pretty sure Seth felt the same way,” Dean says. “That it was just our way onto the main roster, a way out of developmental. And sure, you probably felt like that too, a little. But in the beginning, you were the only one who even pretended it could ever be anything else.”

“It was something else,” says Roman. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if Dean says it wasn’t.

“It was,” Dean agrees, and Roman tries not to audibly breathe a sigh of relief. “But it wasn’t, at the beginning. Whatever it became, it didn’t start like that. Like – okay, if you weren’t there, it wouldn’t have become what it was. You know? Without you, it just would’ve been boom, we did what we came here for, we’re a team, but just, just that. Because you wanted us to be friends. Because you thought of it as more than just a team by necessity. That’s what I mean. You, like, you care. Is all.”

“But so do you, that’s what you just said,” Roman says. He’s trying to figure out what Dean’s saying, read between the lines, but he doesn’t know if there are lines to be read between, and it’s hard to keep up. His head feels sluggish when he tries.

“Yeah, after a while,” Dean agrees. “But I don’t – usually. I don’t do, like, allies, even. I definitely don’t do friends. Or brothers. Until I did. My point’s that I know how to turn it off and I don’t think you do.”

“I don’t even know what I’d be turning off,” says Roman under his breath, and Dean laughs, relaxing a little against the couch.

“Right,” says Dean. “I can hate him. The whole, the thin line thing. I can hate him. Or I can at least pretend good enough to do it to his face.”

“Oh,” Roman says. He still doesn’t think he gets it, really, but from what Dean’s saying, he wouldn’t. Maybe this is just something he won’t ever understand. What Dean seems to be saying is that Roman won’t have to fight Seth, which is. Well. “That’s not really fair to you, is it?”

“Hey, you can take care of the rest of them. Orton, and Triple H, and whoever. Really, I’m gettin’ off easy,” Dean says, but Roman can tell he doesn’t really think that. “What’s for dinner?”

It’s the most transparent change of subject Roman’s ever heard, but they both need it, so he hums, checking the time.

“I’ve been in the mood for a cheeseburger that doesn’t look like it’s been sat on all day,” he admits. “Sound okay?”

“I’m always in the mood for a cheeseburger,” Dean says, sitting up a little.

“I’ve got a decent grill,” Roman says, distracted when the dog tries and fails to climb up his leg into his lap, proceeding to fall onto his back and wriggle before barking and scampering away.

“Cute,” Dean notes. “Talented.”

“He reminds me of you,” Roman shoots back without thinking of all the ways that could be misconstrued. Once he realizes, he has another moment like he had in the grocery store, feeling kind of warm in his chest, embarrassed in a way he hasn’t felt much since high school.

Dean smirks at him. “I do specialize in being cute and talented, thanks.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Roman replies, which is better than the mental stammering he was doing. He avoids further awkwardness by getting up and ducking into the kitchen, except Dean just follows him there. Roman just gets the meat out of the refrigerator and washes his hands, waiting for Dean to speak.

“Can I ask you something?” says Dean, leaning against the counter next to Roman. “And get an honest answer?”

Roman wants to say he wouldn’t lie to Dean, but he thinks Dean knows. “Course,” he says.

“In the video,” Dean says, “when he hit you. You didn’t look… surprised, I guess. Shocked.” He licks his lips, and Roman knows what’s coming next. “Did you think it was me?”

It’s exactly what Roman didn’t want him to ask. He wants to be honest, because he doesn’t lie to Dean, but in this case he’s not sure the truth wouldn’t hurt worse than the lie. Dean must see that on his face, though, because he shakes his head vehemently.

“Not what you think I want to hear. I won’t be pissed either way. I just want to know if you thought it was me.”

“For a second,” Roman admits slowly, reluctantly. “Right after it happened. Just for a second, I thought it might’ve been you. But then I figured – maybe they pulled a double bluff and Batista came back. I don’t know. But it wasn’t more than a second. It’s not—“

“Shut up, I know,” Dean says. He looks thoughtful. “If I were in your position, I probably would’ve thought it was me, too. I know I don’t exactly scream ‘trustworthy’ most of the time.”

“It’s not that,” says Roman. “I do trust you. There was just, you know, when everything got fucked up for a while. Seth was so determined to make us all alright again that I couldn’t imagine him being the one to do it. He wanted us to work everything out so badly that… I couldn’t picture him doing it. It wasn’t anything to do with you, really.”

Dean hums. “It was a little to do with me, though,” he says. “I know we said we’re over it, whatever, but you’re sure there’s nothing lingering? From earlier this year?”

“Positive.” Roman’s hands have been methodically mixing and then shaping hamburger patties this whole time. “I trust you. I know I can trust easy sometimes, so it might not mean much, but I trust you. You’re… kind of the only one I trust, right now.” It’s hard to admit.

Dean looks at him in a way Roman can’t quite figure out. “It means more than you might think,” he says, decisive, and Roman knows that’s the end of the conversation as Dean reaches out and touches his elbow. It’s casual, just his fingertips, but it sends a wave of something down Roman’s spine that he doesn’t want to analyze too closely.

“You want another beer, there’s more in the fridge,” Roman says. Dean shoots him a grin over his shoulder.

“You know me well, my friend,” he says, ducking into the refrigerator. “You want one?”

“Sure,” Roman decides on a whim. The cold bottle will be a relief when he’s out in the heat next to the grill. He gives his hands another wash first, then takes the plate in one hand and the beer Dean hands him in the other. “Get the door for me?”

“Sure thing,” Dean says, pulling open the sliding door so that Roman can get through. Roman is, again, expecting Dean to leave then, go back inside where it’s cooler and sit on the couch with his beer. Instead, he lingers by the grill while Roman checks the heat of the coals and settles the burgers onto it.

“How do you like ‘em?” Roman asks.

“Middle of the road,” says Dean, setting his bottle onto the tray next to Roman’s unopened one.

“Gotcha,” Roman says. He’s not used to this. He’s not used to talking to Dean without Seth there, which is weird, because he can talk to Seth without Dean there just fine. Maybe part of that’s being tag team partners with Seth more often, and maybe part of it’s just not knowing Dean as well in general, but it doesn’t sit well in Roman’s stomach. “What’s your favorite food?” he asks.

Dean looks at him with a little furrow between his brows. “Hm,” he says. “I like pizza, I guess that’s kind of cliché. Shitty pizza, though, the greasy, cheesy kind with too many toppings on it so it goes kinda soggy in the middle.”

“That’s disgusting,” Roman says, but he’s smiling as he shakes his head.

“Well what’s yours, tough guy?” Dean asks, making a face at Roman. “How dare you look down on my food choices? I’ve seen you eat some questionable gas station food, my friend.”

Roman points with his spatula. “I just can’t resist a good nacho, man, what can I say?” He checks one of the burgers. “I don’t know. My dad makes some pretty good mango chicken. Used to ask to have it for all my birthdays as a kid.”

“Mm.” Dean picks his beer back up. “You close to your family, then?”

Roman looks sideways at him, but it doesn’t seem like a pointed question, and Dean doesn’t look bitter or anything, so he goes ahead and says, “Yeah. Pretty close, I guess. My mom helped me decorate the house when I first got it. I see ‘em on Christmas, Thanksgiving, that kind of thing. We’re all pretty tight knit.”

“I can’t even imagine,” says Dean. Roman’s not looking at him anymore, but it sounds honest. It also sounds like Roman should change the subject.

“What’s the… best sex you ever had?” he asks. It’s the first thing that came to mind, the kind of thing he’s got an answer pre-loaded for when he’s in any locker room in the world, but it’s definitely not the kind of thing he’d imagined ever asking Dean about over the grill in his backyard. He doesn’t flinch but it’s a close thing, and a bead of sweat drips down the back of his neck while he tries not to panic.

Dean doesn’t seem to think it’s that weird of a question, though. He just hums again, takes a swig of his beer. Roman opens his while he waits and wonders whether he should rescind the question.

“So I’m at a bar,” Dean says. “I’ve been wrestling a while but not too long, y’know, I was probably twenty-one or so. No, actually, I was twenty, I know that. I wasn’t old enough to be in the bar but I had a friend and the bartender felt sorry for me. Anyway. Not the point. Actually, never mind, that was the second best time.” He drains the rest of his beer. “So, I was seventeen. There was this abandoned amusement park kind of deal nearby, like, not within walking distance but within driving distance, and I’ve always hated creepy shit but my friend really wanted to go and I didn’t have anything better to do.”

Roman makes a noise of assent, checking the burgers again and flipping them while he keeps an ear on Dean’s story.

“So my friend bugs me until I agree to go to this abandoned amusement park. And it was fucking terrifying, like, I don’t know what it is about specifically abandoned amusement parks but it was the worst thing in the goddamn world. Rides all had plants growing on them and there was graffiti all over the place, and everything was all rusty and disgusting, probably snakes and shit everywhere, I could’ve died. But we were already there and I didn’t want to have wasted the gas money, y’know? So we took a look around.”

Roman’s enraptured at this point, as he usually is when Dean tells a story, so he takes another drink from his beer and stays silent.

“There was a bunch of scary shit but I remember three things in particular, there was a merry-go-round that was all busted up and broken down and all the horses were on the ground, that was a nightmare. Then there was a boat that was like a ferry kind of thing that you’d take across this lake, and it was mostly sunk but like, not all the way, and that was creepy as hell. And then there was the house of mirrors.”

Dean pauses here, for emphasis or to make sure Roman’s listening, which he doesn’t have to because Roman’s fully involved and hanging on his every word even as he keeps an eye on the burgers.

“My buddy was like ‘Dude, we have to check this out, we have to go inside the house of mirrors,’ and I was like, you know, ‘Fuck you we have to check this out, we’re gonna get murdered or bit by a spider or bit by a homeless guy who’s living in there,’ but of course we ended up going in the stupid house of mirrors anyway.”

“I’ve never known you to do stuff you don’t want to do,” Roman says doubtfully.

Dean snorts. “Okay, maybe this friend of mine was somebody who was pretty great at convincing people to do things, I dunno. Don’t interrupt my story.”

Roman makes a show of zipping his lips. Dean looks at him in warning again before he continues.

“So we’re in the house of mirrors, and my friend is like, keeping real close, you know, because it was pretty freaky. There was like an inch or two of water all over the floor, and even though some of the mirrors were broken, that made it worse. The rest of them were smudged and dirty so no matter where you looked it looked like there was something there even if there wasn’t. There were all kinds of sounds, like I’m sure it was just animals living in the walls or whatever, but when we were in there, we were sure we were gonna die.”

Dean looks at his empty bottle. “Can I get another one of these?” he asks, and Roman scowls at him.

“Not until you finish the story,” he commands, checking the burgers again and then cursing as he realizes they’re ready. “Actually, yeah, because I need to get buns and shit anyway.”

Dean gives him a grin and Roman flips him off while he heads back into the kitchen to grab buns and, while he’s there, Dean’s fresh beer. The buns go on two plates and the beer he tucks under his arm while he heads back out to the grill.

“Here,” he says, showing Dean where his beer is. “Finish the story and I’ll give it to you.”

“I could just take it, you couldn’t even stop me with your hands full,” Dean points out, but he doesn’t go for the beer regardless. “Where was I?”

“House of mirrors,” Roman prompts.

“Right, right, okay. Anyway, we’re in the house of mirrors and we’re pretty sure we’re gonna die. But we can’t find our way back out because it’s a fuckin’ hall of mirrors, so we keep looking for the exit but the power’s been out for centuries at this point so there’s no lights at all apart from what’s coming through the holes in the walls and that’s just reflecting off all the mirrors, so that’s no good. Anyway, at one point my friend’s like, we gotta stop, I’m gonna piss myself if we don’t stop, I’m so fucking scared, and I was like okay, fuck, don’t piss yourself, you’re gonna get your piss pants all over my fucking upholstery on the way back.”

“A very thoughtful friend,” Roman comments, handing Dean his plate and then retrieving the beer from under his arm.

“Hey, that car was the only thing that made my life worth living when I was seventeen, shut up. Anyway,” Dean continues, following Roman inside, where they can put condiments on their burgers. “So, we stop, and I’m trying to keep calm ‘cause both of us can’t be freaking out, or we really will die in here, so I’m like calm down, calm down, and then my friend’s like, I can’t believe I’m gonna die a virgin.”

Dean pauses again, dramatically, and it takes Roman a moment to catch up.

“You did not,” he says.

“I most definitely did,” Dean says. “I said, you know, you don’t have to die a virgin, if you don’t want to, and we’d kind of – like, there may have been a year or two of flirting before we got to this point, I didn’t just throw it out there, like, hey, wanna bang, there was some precedent here. And basically, my friend was like, you’d better make this good if it’s gonna be my first time and my last time. And that’s the story of how I got laid in an abandoned house of mirrors.”

Roman looks at him. Dean looks placidly back as he squirts mustard onto his burger, then plops the bun back onto it.

“You’re full of shit,” says Roman.

“That’s offensive,” Dean replies, his dimple poking into his cheek. “I wouldn’t lie about something as serious as giving some ghosts a free show.”

“You are so fucking full of shit,” Roman repeats, hiding his own smile by looking down at his burger while he rearranges some lettuce on it. “You are a liar, I can’t believe you.”

“Swear on my life,” Dean says. “How about you? Lemme guess, it was prom 2002, the night was beautiful, violins played and you made sweet love under the stars.”

Roman pops his burger lid on. “Ha ha, very funny.”

“I don’t know why you think I’m joking. I’m almost positive every sexual experience you’ve ever had could have been in a Disney movie.” Dean squirts mustard onto his finger and sucks it off like it’s whipped fucking cream. Roman really wants to know why Dean is the way he is.

“I got a handjob under the bleachers in high school,” he shoots back, unsure if Dean’s insulting him or not. A recurring problem.

“Didn’t that happen in High School Musical?” replies Dean. “Was that Disney? Fuck, I dunno. I can’t keep up. Kids these days, y’know.”

“I’m almost positive that did not happen in High School Musical,” Roman says, though he can’t be sure, since he’s never seen it. Somehow, he’s not shocked that Dean has. “Best ever… Might’ve been a couple years ago. Had a long term girlfriend in college. When I was still playing football so there were parties all the time, met her at one of those.”

“I don’t even know what the phrase ‘long term’ means,” Dean says, following Roman into the living room where they settle at opposite ends of the couch. Dean tucks his feet up underneath him, and that’s when Roman notices he’s barefoot for the first time. He doesn’t know why that’s such a big deal, Dean barefoot in his house, but it makes one of those fizzles go up Roman’s spine. Dean continues, “Unless there was also an abandoned house of mirrors at this party, I think I’ve still got you beat.”

“There was not. There was a house near the campus everyone said was haunted, but everywhere in Georgia’s haunted, basically,” Roman reasons. “Not the point. Anyway, met this girl at a party. She was really cool, and we were both designated drivers for the night so we were pretty bored. Not fun being in the middle of a bunch of drunk frat guys setting up a beer pong tournament when you’re not also drunk.”

“Most shit’s not fun if everyone else is drunk and you’re not, but I get you.” Dean gestures with his plate. “Continue.”

“Thanks for giving me permission,” says Roman dryly. “Anyway, she was cool. She’d gone to all the football games, we talked about strategy and stuff, talked about how disgusting Diet Coke is because it was the only nonalcoholic thing in the house. Played some pool.” He pauses to take a bite of his burger. “She beat me pretty bad in pool. And then we, uh, accidentally had sex in a bush.”

He takes another bite while Dean stares at him.

“I think you skipped a little bit of this story,” Dean says. “First of all, I have never had accidental sex in my life. I don’t even think that’s possible. How do you accidentally bang someone?”

“It wasn’t that part that was accidental, it was the ‘in a bush’ part,” says Roman. “The sex was very intentional. We were just like, all the bedrooms were taken and we were gonna try, uh, there was this… hammock kind of thing outside. You ever had sex in a hammock?”

“Nope,” Dean says thoughtfully. “Never even tried. I think I will now, though.”

“Don’t recommend it,” Roman advises. “That’s how we ended up in the bush, anyway. And then we were just, like, fuck it, right? And it was amazing. Kinda prickly, but. Good.”

“Huh.” Dean chews, slow, swiping his finger through the mustard that’s dripping off his burger. “I still think that sounds pretty Disney, man.”

“Well, then I guess I might be pretty Disney.” Roman shrugs, and decides that from now on he’ll just assume Dean’s not insulting him even when it sounds like he is. “I think bush sex is better than getting swampy flood water on my balls.”

“Hey, don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it, hot stuff,” Dean shoots back. “You ever watched yourself fuck from seven different angles? Fucking trippy.”

“I haven’t, actually, but I’ll make a note to try it when I get the chance.” Roman shakes his head. “Want me to put Game of Thrones back on?”

“As good as anything else.” Dean shrugs, already nearly done with his burger. “Be ready to tell me who everyone is again, I don’t remember shit from when you were trying to explain it the first time.”

Roman puts it on and doesn’t bother explaining it again. He figures neither of them are going to pay much attention to it, anyway, and he’s right. It’s barely been on for five minutes when Dean says, “What’s your favorite match you’ve had?”

He thinks about it while wondering if this is going to be how the whole week is. Them just spouting off whatever questions come to mind. Is Dean doing it for the same reason he’s doing it? Roman doesn’t really know why he’s doing it, either, other than this sudden desperate need to know more about Dean than what he already does.

Dean is interesting and it’s infuriating. He keeps Roman guessing. The thing about Seth is – was, anyway – that Roman at least felt like he knew him well. Clearly parts of that were incorrect, but until last night, he hadn’t thought of Seth as unpredictable, and Dean practically invented the word. Roman wants to know more about him. He wants to know what makes Dean the way he is.

He wants to know why Dean’s sticking around when it would have been so easy to go their separate ways by now. He wants to know why Dean’s barefoot in his house asking him what his favorite match he’s had is.

“I liked the one we won the tag titles in,” he says, but Dean shakes his head, so Roman stops talking.

“That’s not your favorite match,” Dean says. “Come on, in your gut, what’s your favorite match?”

Roman bites his lip, and sets the remnants of his burger down. “Uh, okay,” he says. He hates that Dean’s right. That match wasn’t his favorite match. It was Seth’s favorite match. Roman doesn’t know what that says about him. “Honestly, I think it was our first Wrestlemania. And I know that’s cheesy and I know it sounds like a copout but I think that’s what it is. I’d never wrestled in front of that many people before.” He clears his throat, but Dean doesn’t say anything. “What’s yours?”

“I got a couple,” Dean says. “But y’know, one of them. I had some matches in developmental that I think are some of my best work, like, ever, and I like some of the stuff I did before I came to WWE, but one of my favorites is, uh. It was on Raw. In March. Night after Elimination Chamber, I think.”

Roman frowns, thinking about it. “That was,” he says, “the night after – against the Wyatts? That’s the one, uh. That’s the one Seth walked out on, though.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean says, like that’s what he meant, when Roman was expecting him to say he’d remembered wrong. “That one. I love that one. I mean, now.”

Try as he might, Roman can’t figure this one out. Which is nothing new, with Dean, but now he feels more comfortable saying, “What are you talking about? That was like one of the worst nights of my life.”

“Well, yeah,” Dean says. “At the time. It was shitty and terrible and I really, really thought I hated you for it.”

“Jesus, don’t cushion the blow or anything,” Roman mutters.

“That’s not what I meant,” says Dean. He stretches his feet out across the space between them and then nudges them over onto Roman’s leg like he’s not even thinking about it. Roman doesn’t know what to do so he doesn’t do anything. “I mean, like. I already know I’m not gonna explain this right but I’ll do my best. We were, uh, not best friends, at that point, we can acknowledge that, right?”

“Right,” Roman agrees. Anyone watching them at the time could have seen that, and plenty of them did. Seth sure did.

“So I guess it’s not really,” Dean says, cutting himself off and then rolling his eyes. “It wasn’t really the match, it was what it represented. Or whatever.”

“What did it represent?” asks Roman with another frown, and he settles his hand on Dean’s foot without thinking. Dean doesn’t seem to mind, or even notice, so Roman leaves it there. His thumb is resting against the knob of Dean’s ankle. He keeps it very deliberately still.

“Well, that we were being fucking idiots, basically,” Dean says. “I was trying to one-up you all the time for stupid fucking reasons, and it was just stupid. If he hadn’t done that, I probably never would’ve figured out why I was doing it.”

“Why were you doing it?” Roman asks. He licks his lips. “While we’re talking about it. I don’t know if you ever actually told me.”

Dean rolls his eyes and his mouth slants down at the side. “I was,” he says, pausing and then continuing, “trying to impress you, basically. Show you I could be a big fuckin’ deal, too.”

Roman takes that in. It’s something he feels like he can’t just react to, has to mull it over to pick it apart. “What… are you talking about?” he concludes.

Dean huffs. “Come on. You were this big muscley muscleman winning all the matches and Survivor Series records and final two in the Royal Rumble and all that. I just wanted to show I could be good too. Maybe part of it, a lot of it, was jealousy. But a lot of it was just wanting you to see I wasn’t, like. Worthless as a teammate.”

“Dean, I’ve never in my life thought you were worthless as a teammate or anything else.” Roman feels like he’s talking too fast. It’s like the words need to come out of his mouth faster than his lips can move. “Like, the opposite, you gotta know that.”

“Now,” Dean acknowledges. “But back then, I was younger and stupider. And I thought I needed you to see me as a threat in order to see me as a partner.”

“You didn’t,” Roman says quietly. “Shit, I’ve felt like I wasn’t good enough to be in a group with the two of you since, since forever, really.”

Dean waves the hand his bottle isn’t in. “Well, that’s bullshit, too, and my reasoning was bullshit, but it was what I was working with. Not like that anymore.”

Roman’s hand involuntarily tightens on Dean’s ankle, because that makes him think about how many things aren’t going to be like they were anymore. Dean startles a little, like he’s first noticing Roman’s hand where it is.

There’s a silent moment where Roman wonders whether he should move his hand, starts to shift it away, only for Dean to nudge his leg back against Roman’s hand. It’s subtle, a barely-movement, and Dean doesn’t seem about to acknowledge it in any other way. Roman leaves his hand where it is.

Dean’s probably a little buzzed, is all. Roman doesn’t feel particularly affected by the beer he had (or was it two?) but Dean’s had more, and faster. God knows Dean can handle his liquor, but he’s not a machine.

“Not like that anymore,” Roman agrees. He sets his empty plate down on the side table, and offers his free hand to take Dean’s and set it on top. He feels pleasantly full, comfortable here in a place that’s familiar to him even if his houseguest isn’t the usual.

“Which season do you like best?” asks Roman. He turns to look at Dean, who hums.

“Not summer,” Dean immediately dismisses. “Winter sucks too, though. Probably fall. I like Halloween. Not all the spooky shit, but like, the atmosphere of it all. Leaves and pumpkin flavored shit, I dunno. What about you?”

“Huh,” Roman says. He hadn’t had an answer planned for his own question. “Kinda like winter, actually. I’m pretty festive. I like big dinners and family parties and hot chocolate.”

“You would, you big sap,” Dean teases. Roman notices for the first time that he’s slid down against the arm of the couch so much that he’s practically lying down. It can’t be comfortable, but he doesn’t seem bothered. “How d’you like your coffee?”

“Hot. Little bit of sugar. Not too much, that ruins it.” Roman shrugs a shoulder. “What about you?”

“Black,” says Dean. “Unless it’s from Starbucks in which case I get loads of shit put in it because that’s not real coffee anyway, it’s a dessert and I go big or go home with desserts.”

Roman snorts and shakes his head. “Y’want another?” he offers, nodding toward Dean’s empty bottle. He’s a little surprised when Dean shakes his head.

“Take a water if you’ve got it, though.” Dean pulls his feet back out of Roman’s lap.

“Not cold,” Roman admits. “I don’t like mine cold so I just leave it out. Room temperature.”

“That’s the most disgusting thing you’ve ever said to me,” says Dean without blinking. “Might as well just get me a glass of water from a hose.”

“Does that mean you don’t want any?” Roman asks. This thing where he doesn’t take anything Dean says as an insult even if it might be is really difficult. “I got ice cubes.”

“Nah, I’ll drink your pond water,” Dean says. “Room temperature. You’re an animal.”

Roman shoots him a grin and takes the plates with him into the kitchen, figuring he might as well wash them since there’s only a few. Once he’s finished those and left them to dry, he grabs two bottles of water and heads back out into the living room.

While he was gone, Dean was busy. The television’s showing Jeopardy now, instead of Game of Thrones, and Dean’s watching with vague interest. With one of his hands, he’s absently petting Brody, balanced on one of his thighs, front paws planted on Dean’s chest as he demands attention.

It’s kind of domestic. It makes Roman stop for a moment, just to watch Dean sit on his couch with his dog and watch Alex Trebek ruffle his mustache about this or that.

Dean looks up and there’s a flash of blue on his face as someone gets the Daily Double. “Took you long enough,” he teases, scratching Brody behind his ears. “Get lost?”

“Did some dishes.” Roman’s voice at least doesn’t sound as affected as he is. “Just to get them out of the way. Water?”

“Don’t throw it,” Dean warns, as though Roman would have. It’s his dog in Dean’s lap, after all. Roman hands over the bottle with careful exaggeration, and Brody immediately noses at the thing taking Dean’s attention from him.

“Hey, I got two hands,” says Dean. His voice gentles when he talks to the dog, low in timbre, and Brody’s tail wags when Dean keeps petting him.

“My dog’s gonna like you more than me,” Roman complains, sitting back down on his end of the couch.

“I’ll still like you best,” replies Dean, still looking at Brody while Alex Trebek asks about a library that burned down in 50 BC. “Alexandria,” Dean mutters as he scratches Brody right under his collar.

“What is the Library of Alexandria?” answers one of the contestants. It’s the right answer.

Roman eyes him sideways, and when Dean’s brow furrows at the next question (what egg white concoction is made for pies) Roman guesses meringue and gets it right.

“I like baking,” he says when Dean looks at him narrow-eyed. “I make a mean muffin.”

“Of course you do. I’m not even surprised.” Dean shakes his head, taking a swig of his water. Brody’s calmed down by now, padded on Dean’s lap in a little circle and tucked his head up against Dean’s stomach to nap. Roman’ll have to remember to take him for a walk before he goes to bed.

Over the course of the next twenty minutes or so, they trade right answers and wrong answers. Roman gets one about the owner of a football team and which college is near Palo Alto, Dean gets one about an email address used in the X Files and who wrote A Raisin in the Sun. In general, Dean knows an awful lot about things Roman would never have assumed he knew anything about.

During the show, Dean keeps shuffling closer to Roman as they chat between answers, banter about who’s winning between the two of them. Eventually, Dean’s sat on the cushion next to Roman and Brody is curled up asleep on the far couch cushion.

“Final Jeopardy, bro,” Dean says, rubbing his hands together. “All the marbles.”

“I’ve got you beat, I’m not even worried,” says Roman. He nudges Dean with his shoulder. “How much you wanna bet?”

Dean waits for them to announce the category: Colleges & Universities. “Shit,” he mutters. “In like, fake, Jeopardy money? Because there is no way I know more colleges than you do. You went to more than I did, that’s so not fair.”

The commercial break starts and Roman turns to look at Dean. “That’s the way the cookie crumbles,” he says with fake regret. “And anyway, if it’s any college north of about the Carolinas, I know jack.”

“I’m gonna bet just enough money to beat you. I don’t know how much that is but it’s how much I’m betting.” Dean reaches over to pat Brody’s belly and Brody stretches in his sleep with a quiet snuffle. “Cute dog,” he offers.

“He is,” Roman agrees. “I’m glad you’re getting along. Man’s best friend and man’s best friend should always get along, I think.”

Dean barks and lolls his tongue out with an exaggerated panting sound, and Roman laughs, nudging him again. When the show returns from commercial, they both snap to attention.

“Team nicknames of the eight Ivy League schools include four animals, three colors, and this Christian denomination,” mumbles Roman, reading along the prompter with Alex. He has to look down before he smiles too widely. College football was really helpful for exactly this moment. A couple other things, too, but especially this moment. He glances sideways to Dean, who thankfully looks flummoxed as expected.

“The… okay,” says Dean. “Uh. Lutherans?”

“Yeah,” Roman snickers. “The Harvard Lutherans. You got it.”

“Hey, you don’t fucking know,” Dean shoots back. “You’re gonna be a fuckin’ loser when that’s the answer, dickhead.”

“The Columbia Presbyterians,” Roman mocks. “The Yale Baptists.”

“Hey, maybe! I don’t hear you speaking up!” Dean elbows him in the ribs, and just happens to hit a bruise from the night before in the process. Roman winces and Dean frowns, sudden, harsh. “What? You okay?”

“It’s the Penn Quakers,” Roman says to distract Dean from fussing (were Dean the fussing type – though he is, in his own way). The Jeopardy song ends on the screen, and they go to the answers. One person said Orangemen, and Roman laughs even though it kind of hurts to. Another contestant didn’t finish, but one said Quakers, and Dean huffs loudly when that’s right.

“I hate you,” he says, sulking. He folds his arms across his chest and flops back against the couch. “Fine. Rematch tomorrow.”

“I mean, if you’re into getting your ass whooped, I’d be glad to provide the whooping,” says Roman.

Dean grins at him like a wolf, all teeth and charm. “You have no idea what I’m into,” he says. If he wasn’t Dean, Roman would kind of think it was a come-on. But it’s Dean, so it’s not.

“I’ll save that for our next questions and answers round,” he says, swallowing down a thousand things he’d rather say.

Dean is looking at him in a certain way, and it must be the light, the way there’s a glint in his eye, something in the way he’s inclining his head like an invitation, slouchy and challenging. He turns to look at the screen and the light flickers blue against his face, and the odd moment draws to a close.

“You ever get something stuck in your head?” Dean asks, still looking at the television where it’s lapsed from Alex talking to the contestants to the local news. “Not a song, but like, a smell, or something? Or a taste in your mouth, or a sound?”

Roman’s back twinges as a reminder, and he only just keeps himself from wincing. “Yeah,” he says quietly.

“I keep remembering,” says Dean, pulling one of his legs up close, his knee tight to his chest. He wraps his arms around it. His other leg remains stretched out, the heel of his foot on the floor, his thigh pressed against Roman’s. “I keep remembering things that don’t—matter. I want to be over it so I can move on to hating him, because I know how to do that. I do. I know how to hate him. I’ve done it before and I can do it again.”

He licks his lips. They look dry, and the expression on his face is uncertain. Roman’s not sure whether Dean’s face suits uncertainty. It’s too vulnerable. Dean’s face tends to relax into snarls, or growls, grins and smirks and sneers. They come easy to him, and they’re familiar for Roman to see on his face. Things like this seem unnatural.

“Can you?” Roman asks. He reaches without thinking for Dean’s hand – for Dean in general, but his hand’s right there, and Roman’s hand rests on top of it. Sometimes, in quiet moments like this, Roman is reminded that Dean might play at being a god but he has bones just like everyone else.

“Yes,” Dean says. There’s a surety in his voice that Roman wishes he could muster himself. It’ll be a long time (if ever) before Roman could say he hates Seth, his little brother, Seth who takes himself too seriously and tells seventh grade jokes. Roman doesn’t hate easily.

“I’m gonna take the dog for a walk,” says Roman, grasping at the change of subject like a lifeline. He’s so tired. He’s so tired, already, and he’s only had to deal with this heavy feeling in his belly for not even twenty-four hours. “Wanna come?”

Dean looks at him in consideration, mouth twisting, and finally shakes his head in the negative. “Nah, you go ahead. I’ll take advantage of having the whole couch to myself. Gonna mark my territory.”

“Do not piss on my couch,” Roman instructs. Brody, whose ears had perked up a little at the word ‘walk,’ squints his eyes open, his tail wagging suspiciously as though Roman might be lying about the walk.

“Who’s gonna stop me?” says Dean, hefting Body with his hands and shoving himself back over into that corner of the couch. Brody yips in surprise, but he’s more comfortable with Dean than Roman could have ever expected, balancing himself on Dean’s stomach and wagging his tail while he looks at Roman.

There are two sets of expectant eyes on him and Roman rolls his own as he heaves himself up, groaning under his breath. Fuck, his back hurts. He’s looking forward to tonight, his own bed, his own house. The leash is on the table next to the front door and he grabs it, turning back to find Dean watching him with a gimlet eye as he scratches Brody’s chest.

“You gonna be okay?” Dean asks, even as Brody nearly falls off of him craning his neck to get more pets. “I’ll come with you if you’re gonna, like, die.”

“I’m fine,” mutters Roman, straightening. He whistles for Brody to come and Dean oofs as Brody pushes off his stomach to scamper over to Roman. Roman clips the leash to Brody’s collar and frowns when he looks up and Dean’s shirt is rucked up so he can rub his stomach.

Roman forgets, and he hates it, but he forgets that while his back is killing him, Dean suffered more shots from that chair than he did. He can see the faint blue-yellow splotch of a bruise at the edge of Dean’s shirt hem, an odd shape for a bruise, a bar-like straight line. From the edge of that chair to his gut.

“Think he drew blood,” Dean says with a sniff.

“Oh, he did not, you baby,” says Roman, because the last thing Dean would want is Roman to handle him with kid gloves. “He weighs about six pounds. You’ve had worse.”

“He’s killed me,” says Dean, deadpan. He flops backward on the couch, limbs akimbo. “I’m dead. Roman, I’m dead.”

Brody sniffs curiously at one of Dean’s limp feet. Roman raises his eyebrows at Dean and waits.

Dean huffs. “Well, when I get blood poisoning or, or dog foot disease, you’ll feel like an asshole then, won’t you?”

“Sure,” Roman says agreeably. “I’ll even cry at your graveside.”

Dean looks at least vaguely satisfied with that. “Good,” he says decisively. “You’d better.”

The air outside is still hot and muggy even though it’s half past seven, and Roman tugs his shirt off and leaves it on the porch. It was already starting to stick sweaty to his back and he doesn’t want to have to peel it off all his scrapes and bruises once he gets back. Might get a couple weird looks from the neighbors, but most of them know what he does for a living.

Brody moves pretty fast for such a little thing, and he knows his favorite spots well. The end of the driveway, the tree halfway down the street, a fire hydrant that looks like it’s seen better days, its red paint peeling off at the edges. Brody sniffs at the bottom of it and then walks around to the other side, sniffing it there as well before he calmly lifts his leg to pee on it.

There aren’t many people out in their yards at this time, they’re staying in away from the mosquitos and the heat, but the few that are give Roman a wave or a nod. He likes this and always has, living in neighborhoods, having neighbors, the domestic bliss of it. He likes having a dog and a house and a backyard.

Roman’s still learning things about Dean, but he doesn’t think Dean is the same at all. He doesn’t think Dean craves the normalcy he’s never had. He doesn’t think Dean wants a white picket fence and a mortgage and neighbors who’ll make him a Welcome to the Neighborhood pie when he moves in. Dean was made for movement. He wasn’t made to settle down. He lives like he doesn’t have a home and as far as Roman knows, he likes it like that.

That’s what Roman’s always known. That’s how Dean acts, it’s the vibe he’s always given off. But… Roman keeps thinking about how Dean had settled so well with him and Seth. Dean had settled with them, and maybe it had taken time for it to feel like it was something comfortable, but it had always felt right. To Roman, at least, it had always felt right even when it didn’t feel easy.

He wonders if it felt that way for Dean. He wonders if it still feels that way for Dean, or if Seth removing himself from them makes it feel wrong.

Roman hates that it feels a little wrong to him, too. He feels off kilter, because he’s so used to keeping constant track of two people, and now there’s just one. It’s just him and Dean.

Just him and Dean. And that’s not less, than him-and-Dean-and Seth, but it’s different. It’s not wrong, but it’s not right. Not yet.

Brody yips at him from the ground, annoyed that Roman’s gotten lost in thought, and Roman gives the leash a little tug, squats to give him an apologetic scratch on the head.

“S’okay, boy,” he mutters, letting Brody butt up against his hand. “Just having a little crisis.”

That’s a strong word — probably. Roman turns around to start the walk back.

And that’s not even addressing that, well. Thought. That he’d had while they were at the store, the thought that he keeps forgetting about until it’s abruptly thrown back in his face when Dean does utterly random things. Putting his feet in Roman’s lap. Sitting on the bed in the guest room like he belonged there, in Roman’s house, even though he’s nothing Roman’s house has seen before — an inkling of a thought that Roman wants Dean to be on Roman’s bed, instead. Nothing he can ever remember thinking before, but he’s certainly thinking now.

He’d just blame it on the situation, but Seth has been to his house a million times, and Roman never wanted him in his bed, at least not that he can remember.

He thinks, abruptly, about kissing Dean. Thinks isn’t the right word, because it’s more like his brain shoves the image at him and leaves him to deal with the aftermath.

It’s only when Brody starts pulling at his leash that Roman realizes he just stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.

Okay, he thinks, walking now on autopilot. His feet know the way back to his doorstep, which is good, because the entirety of his brain is focused on the thought he just had flung into the forefront of his mind. Dean. Kissing Dean. Roman being the one to kiss Dean – kissing Dean while being Roman.

It’s like a dream while he’s still awake, the way Roman can imagine Dean’s hips under his hands, the scratch of his stubble against Roman’s jaw, the way Dean always smells like that one leather jacket he’s worn in, and vaguely like cigarettes – not smoke, but the way cigarettes smelled when Roman was a kid and sniffed the packet his grandfather had, like pennies and Fig Newtons.

Roman’s kissed a lot of people. He’s never kissed Dean. And now it’s all he can think about.

When he gets back to his house, Dean’s outside, stretched out in a lawn chair on the porch, and he’s just wearing jeans, his shirt disappeared somewhere in the ether. Roman’s seen Dean shirtless a million times, in locker rooms and before matches, on hot days when they’re all shoved in a car together and wearing a shirt’s about as bad as wearing a blanket.

It’s different, though, seeing someone without a shirt on when you’ve just realized you want to kiss them.

“Took you long enough,” Dean scoffs, leaning down when Brody toddles his way up to Dean’s feet and giving him a scritch under the chin. “Thought you got lost.”

“Nah,” says Roman after a moment where his vision genuinely swims. The line of Dean’s back is a distraction that it’s never been before, the way his belt’s tugging his jeans down enough that Roman can see he actually has a faint tan line right below the dip of his waist. “Dog missed you.”

Dean looks smug, toying with one of Brody’s ears. “You didn’t?”

Roman snorts and winds Brody’s leash around his wrist and then unwinds it again. “Depends. You actually piss on my couch?”

For a moment, Dean looks faintly surprised, his brow furrowed like he doesn’t remember the conversation they had before Roman left. Then it clears, and he grins. “Guess you’ll have to go inside to find out.”

Roman hums and unclips the leash from Brody’s collar. Brody takes advantage of his newfound freedom by tripping over his paws as he scampers down the steps, and then sniffing some flowers.

“I trust you,” Roman murmurs, settling down on the bottom step and stretching his legs out. Dean stays quiet for a moment, then clears his throat, and Roman hears a soft shuffling before Dean wriggles his way into the remaining space on the step next to Roman.

He’s very warm, like the sun has soaked into his skin where it touches him, and his legs when he thuds his heels on the grass in front of the steps are just as long as Roman’s are.

“You’re taller than me,” says Roman like it’s a thing he’s just realized instead of a thing he’s known forever.

“Mhm,” Dean replies, nudging his thigh against Roman’s. “Just by like an inch.”

“Still,” Roman says. “Can’t tell. You slouch so damn much.”

“Hey, don’t blame my slouch,” says Dean. He knocks his knee against Roman’s a little harder now. “Not my fault you forget who’s the real big man on campus.”

“Big man on campus,” Roman huffs. He pokes a finger into Dean’s side. “I can see all your ribs, big man.”

“Ouch,” Dean mutters. “I ever tell you why I started slouching?”

Roman frowns. “No,” he says, settling his chin on his hand. Dean’s eyes light up when he’s about to tell a story, his face gets so animated, and Roman hates that he’s noticing.

“I actually have like a kind of,” Dean falters, mouth twisting as he rubs the back of his neck. “Like, I used to read a lot as a kid, right? Because I hated people, and learning, but I liked books a lot. Still do. Still hate people, still love books. And I used to just be bent over a book all the time, so now I have a kind of. Like, a bump. On the back of my neck, it’s basically like my spine reconfigured itself because of my awful posture, so now I just have a permanent slouch.”

“Like… a hunchback?” Roman asks, squinting. He can never tell if Dean is fucking with him.

“Exactly like a hunchback, but I was kind of trying not to use that word.” Dean scowls at him, then grabs Roman’s hand and pulls it up to the back of his neck, turning a little so that his back is facing Roman. “See?”

Roman presses his palm against the place Dean indicated, and there is indeed a rounded bony bump there, but he’s distracted by all of the, well, all of the skin. Dean has an awful lot of skin — and scars. There’s one giant gnarled one on his shoulder blade and another, neater, on his triceps.

He’s not even really thinking about it when his thumb slips down and traces the edge of the one on Dean’s shoulder, a big nasty thing, at least six inches long. He can feel Dean shiver when he touches it.

“That’s from a death match, isn’t it?” Roman asks.

Dean clears his throat. “Yeah. Germany. Barbed wire. Wasn’t pretty. I had to get cut out with wire cutters.”

Roman hisses in a breath through his teeth, his thumb moving along the flick at the top of the scar like a melting candle, crooked and drooped.

“Wrestled some more the next day,” Dean comments. “Hardly even hurt. Course, at that point, I was pretty used to that kind of pain. It all starts to feel the same. Like getting teeth pulled. Not really pain, just… pressure.”

“Can’t even imagine,” says Roman, and it’s true. He can’t imagine deliberately putting himself through matches like that, night after night, and staying sane. And maybe some people would say Dean didn’t make it through with his sanity intact, but Roman knows better. Dean plays it up sometimes and when he does, Roman goes along with it, but Dean’s always been sharp as a tack. Sure, he’s got his little tics, but insane? Roman doesn’t think so.

Then again, he’s not so sure he’d know insane if he looked it in the face.

“Not for everyone,” Dean says, under his breath but still loud enough for Roman to hear. He turns back to face forward and Roman’s hand drops from his back. “Not for me, even, anymore. Was then, though. I guess it was kind of a way for me to like. I dunno. Whatever.”

“What?” Roman coaxes, toeing off his shoes so that he can curl his toes in the grass. It’s a nice feeling, cool and soft.

“Like a way to — hurt. A way to get hurt without having to do it myself, I guess. I could just go out there and get other people to slice me up and break glasses on my head and I could hit someone with a fucking, a fucking bat wrapped in barbed wire if I wanted to, and I was… angrier then.” Dean’s frowning harder now, and he heaves a sigh that’s more like a grunt. “Lot of shit was different then. It’s kind of funny,” he says, and it trails off like he’s going to continue, but he doesn’t.

He doesn’t look like he actually thinks it’s funny, either.

Roman stays quiet, looking off across the street. The neighbors across from him have a red door and an American flag in their yard. He’s never actually seen anybody come out or go into the house, but even now there’s the telltale flicker of a television screen against their window.

Brody has apparently finished smelling everything in the yard because he’s busied himself with digging a hole in the grass, and Roman heaves himself up to grab him.

“Bad dog,” he mutters, tucking Brody under his arm and offering his other hand to Dean to help him up. “We should head in before the mosquitoes start coming out in full force.”

Dean curses, accepting Roman’s hand. “Forgot about the all the fucking mosquitoes down here,” he says. “Definitely don’t miss that about Florida. You can keep those.”

“Do you not get them in Vegas?” Roman asks, curious. Now that he’s thinking about it, he doesn’t actually think he’s ever seen a mosquito when he’s been out in Las Vegas.

“Not like you get ‘em down here,” says Dean, leading the way back into the house. Roman stops to grab his shirt so that he can toss it into the hamper at some point. “It’s drier out there. You mostly just get mosquitoes in the kind of heat that’s real damp and humid. One more of the endless number of reasons I’m glad I bolted when I did.”

“Shoulda stuck it out. Maybe we’d be neighbors.” Roman tosses his shirt with wild abandon and then, when he misses the hamper entirely, picks it up and drops it in anyway.

“Or you could book it to Vegas like I did,” says Dean. “We’ve got deserts and shit. And gambling. And booze.”

“You got any,” Roman starts to ask before he stops and re-words what he was going to say. “Is there anything you have any, like, hometown loyalty about? Like, towny patriotism?”

He’s never noticed any of that in Dean. Roman’s got some where it counts, for sports teams and shit like that, or he’ll root for a contestant on Wheel of Fortune if they’re from Florida. And obviously, he likes it pretty well, or he would’ve left. But he’s never noticed shit like that from Dean.

Dean shrugs a shoulder. “Not really,” he says. “Bengals suck. Reds are okay, I guess. I don’t even know if we got a hockey team. I grew up in the shitfuck part of Cinci, anyway, so all my fondest memories are of, like, being real grateful that one homeless guy put his knife away when I said I was twelve. Or the time one of my mom’s friends stole fifty bucks from me. The time I saw a dog get hit by a car and the guy just kept going.”

“Jesus,” Roman mumbles.

“I like Vegas better,” Dean says firmly. “Lot of places to run. I can think about shit there. But it’s just like, it’s Vegas, you know? People don’t — they don’t live in Vegas. Vegas is a place people go ‘cause they hate their hometown. I mean, I guess that’s why I went, too. But usually they leave after a while. I just live there.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Roman settles back down on the couch and Dean pops down next to him, one leg folded underneath him. “And when we’re on the road as much as we are, I guess it doesn’t really matter.”

“Don’t matter where your home is as long as you’ve got one,” says Dean. It sounds like a quote, like something he’s heard before and is repeating, but if it is, Roman doesn’t ask where it came from.

Roman inclines his head. “Doesn’t have to be a place,” he says quietly. Dean will know what he means, even if he won’t acknowledge it.

Dean’s mouth does twist into something like a smile, and he tips his head back at Roman.

The rest of the night passes in a blur, and before Roman knows it, it’s time for bed — or, rather, come time he’s tired enough and sore enough that his own mattress sounds like the best thing he’s ever heard of.

“I’m turning in,” he says to Dean, still on the other end of the couch vacantly watching the movie that had been playing on the television. Some old war movie, not black and white but the sort of flickery too-saturated that isn’t too far off.

“Good idea,” Dean says, twisting his wrist to look at his watch. He does that a lot, Roman’s noticed, but whenever Roman asks him the time after he does it, he looks at him with a confused frown. Roman’s pretty sure looking at the watch at all is more habit than anything, doesn’t know if Dean ever registers the time on it. Roman does the same thing with his phone. Funny.

“Tomorrow maybe we’ll actually leave the house and do something,” Roman offers.

“Sounds terrible,” says Dean. “Let’s stay here and watch your stupid medieval show instead.”

It’s one of those things Dean says, the ones that could be a joke or could be serious or could be a combination of both. Roman still can’t really tell which, but he’s starting to wonder whether Dean can even tell which, or if he just says things and decides what they are based on how the other person reacts to it.

“Sounds good to me,” Roman ventures, and Dean grins at him, pushing himself up from the couch. He jostles Roman as they both make their way through the doorway, nudging and pushing at him, and Roman nudges back, feels all of ten years old.

His hand settles on Dean’s lower back once they’re through the doorway, and Dean’s skin is very warm, heat bleeding through like a furnace. It nearly makes Roman stop in his tracks, and Dean doesn’t do what Dean usually does, what Roman’s watched him do with other people. He doesn’t casually shift away from where Roman’s touching him, doesn’t jerk away, doesn’t twitch conspicuously. He just stays where he is, and looks up at Roman, his eyes glittering a little here in the hallway where the light is dimmer.

“Night, Roman,” he says, and for one precarious moment, Roman truly thinks Dean is about to lean in to kiss him.

He doesn’t, of course he doesn’t. He smiles, though, and it feels pretty similar to how Roman imagines a kiss would feel, knocks him for a loop.

“Night,” says Roman, and it sounds faint even to him.

Dean drifts off toward the guest bedroom, and then turns in the doorway. “Thanks,” he says. He doesn’t say for what, and Roman doesn’t ask. Dean’s door clicks quietly shut behind him.

Roman thinks about that span of thirty seconds for about an hour before he manages to fall asleep.

The next time he blinks his eyes open, the red digital numbers on the clock next to his bed tell him it’s 2:37 in the morning and he’s not at all sure why he’s woken up. It’s made clear to him after a moment, when his bladder shouts at him to get to a toilet.

His back kills when he rolls out of bed, and he’s glad he has an en suite because he doesn’t much love the idea of crawling his way to the bathroom. He smacks his lips, and grimaces. He’ll have to head to the kitchen anyway to get a glass of water. His mouth tastes like he drank a beer through a possum’s ass.

Roman’s detoured on his way to the kitchen when he notices the faint blue flicker of the television screen on the frame of the doorway to the living room. He frowns, because he thought he turned that off before they went to bed.

When he reaches the doorway, he stops in his tracks. The couch is on an angle to the doorway, so all he can see is the television currently playing an infomercial for the Magic Bullet and Dean’s profile backlit by it. He looks captivated as he lifts a spoon to his lips, swallowing a mouthful of his ice cream.

Roman watches him for a long moment as the man on the TV chatters on in an Australian accent. He ducks back into the hallway, and completes his original journey to the kitchen. While he’s getting his glass of water, he considers his options here.

He could just continue on as he was. He could finish his water, go back down the hallway and go back to bed. It’s three in the morning and he had a long flight yesterday, had a long day the day before. His back twinges, a quiet reminder that being flat on his back right now really is the best thing he could do for himself.

Or.

Or he could grab the pint of Chunky Monkey that’s calling his name and watch some goddamn infomercials at stupid o’clock in the morning with his best friend.

“Fuck it,” he mutters, pulling open the freezer door with one hand and grabbing his ice cream with the other. After another thought, he grabs an ice pack as well, because his back really isn’t doing great and better this than nothing.

Roman gets himself a spoon from the drawer and heads back out into the hallway to the living room. Dean’s still there, still watching the same infomercial, his spoon hovering over his ice cream container.

“What’re we watching?” Roman asks as he settles himself down on the other end of the couch. Dean’s feet are on the couch too, and he pulls them out of Roman’s way when Roman sits.

Dean looks at him, surprised, but he doesn’t look upset. He pops his spoon into his mouth and swallows what’s on it before he replies.

“Same infomercials that’ve been on since the nineties,” says Dean. “Wait’ll you see what Mimi can do with a handful of blueberries. Fuckin’ magical. Make me a smoothie.”

Roman laughs, using his spoon to break the plastic seal on his ice cream. “I already got you ice cream, what more do you want?”

“There’s no fruit in this,” Dean says. He digs his spoon back into it and slurps another glob down. It absolutely looks like the least healthy thing anybody could ever eat. Roman can’t wait to dig into his.

“Mine’s got fruit in it,” Roman brags, pulling his lid off and dropping it on the endtable.

“Bananas don’t count as a fruit,” grumbles Dean, nonetheless eyeing Roman’s ice cream with a modicum of envy. “Cherry Garcia, man. Only way to go.”

“I thought you got Half Baked?” Roman asks.

“Only ‘cause they were sold out of Cherry Garcia.” Dean points his spoon at Roman. “Bullshit,” he says firmly. “Total bullshit. What kind of respectable grocery establishment runs out of Cherry Garcia?”

“We’ll go somewhere else today and get you some Cherry Garcia, big cat,” Roman replies, trying to hide the amusement on his face even though it’s useless since it’s so obvious in his voice.

“Good,” says Dean. He grins at Roman again, a smudge of chocolate on the corner of his lip, and Roman abruptly remembers that feeling from earlier, the warm pleasantness like being full after a good meal, like a goodnight kiss. Dean nods toward him. “Your back bothering you? You don’t gotta sit up with me, you know. My weird sleep schedule doesn’t gotta be your weird sleep schedule.”

Roman shrugs. “Only bothering me a little,” he lies. “And I couldn’t sleep.” Also mostly a lie, but he does feel like he couldn’t possibly sleep now, not now that he’s sat here alone in the dark with Dean, eating ice cream, talking in quiet voices, not now that Roman’s thought about kissing him.

Oh, good. He’s thinking about that again now. Great.

“If you’re sure,” says Dean, squinting at him. He takes another bite of his ice cream, then turns back to the television. “Put that ice on it, though. If it’s still bugging you a ton in the morning, lemme know and I’ll put some of that IcyHot stuff on it for you.”

“Thanks,” Roman says, doing a fairly decent job of pretending that didn’t just kill him and he’s not dead now. He slides the ice pack from the spot where it had been melting wet spots into the couch, slipping it back against his lumbar spine.

“The Xpress Redi-Set-Cook one is next,” Dean announces, like Roman has any idea what that means. He looks over at Dean, like a big kid eating his ice cream cross-legged in just his shorts in front of the TV. Like any nine year old watching Saturday morning cartoons.

“Sounds great,” says Roman. It feels honest.

He doesn’t remember when they fall asleep, or even if they fell asleep at the same time. What he remembers is the last thing he heard from the television was a lady talking about her pineapple upside down cake. The next thing he knows, he’s waking up with his neck crooked in a truly horrific position, half a pint of Chunky Monkey melted in its container on his endtable, and Dean’s head shoved underneath his armpit.

“Huh,” Roman says out loud, unplanned. He very nearly shushes himself, but Dean doesn’t stir, still breathing evenly with one arm thrown across Roman’s waist, not quite snoring. Every time he breathes out, there’s a quiet whistle, though, and it’s kind of. Well. It’s some words he doesn’t usually associate with Dean.

He stares down at the top of Dean’s head for a minute. He forgets Dean has curly hair. He wets it down for the ring and when he’s not in the ring, Roman isn’t usually looking at his hair. It is curly, though, and it looks soft. Roman wants to push his fingers through it. He doesn’t.

The TV is still on, playing some morning religious program, a preacher on the screen decked out in all white and talking about the Lord Jesus while some ladies look appropriately enthralled in the pews. Roman snorts, stretching as much as he can with Dean taking up most of his right side.

He takes a mental inventory. Okay, legs kind of cramped, neck’s gonna have a crick in it for an age and a half, back is killing him but that’s not particularly anything new. He’s never thought of Dean as a really heavy guy but his dead weight has left Roman with a dead arm. He can feel the pins and needles in his fingers as the feeling slowly starts returning to them, and he belatedly realizes that his hand is resting on Dean’s waist, over the waistband of his shorts, and above that he’s all warm, smooth skin.

Roman thinks he has a problem.

Well, he had a problem before. This has changed from a Problem into a full blown Situation, and he has no idea really how to deal with it at all.

If he could, he would just go back to sleep (or pretend to) long enough for Dean to wake up, so he didn’t have to deal with making any sort of decision right now.

Roman doesn’t have that option — his back really needs some attention soon, and if he keeps his neck in this position much longer, it’ll never be the same. He bites the bullet and attempts to slide off of the couch as well as he can without disturbing Dean.

He almost makes it, too. He’s got one foot on the floor and one arm unravelled from Dean’s clutches when he can sense Dean’s demeanor shift from unconscious to not-quite. It’s silent but Roman can tell when it happens. Dean’s eyebrows pull together the tiniest bit, the corners of his mouth turning down. His remaining grip on Roman’s arm tightens and then relaxes.

“Time is it?” he asks, gruff and low, his eyes still closed. Roman shoots a quick glance at the clock on the wall above his television.

“Half past ten,” he replies. He’s precariously balanced on the edge of the couch, and thankfully, Dean adjusts his position enough that Roman can slip the rest of the way off, staying crouched for a moment before he straightens up. His back is still killing him, shooting pains from his tailbone up to the back of his neck.

When he looks back down at the couch, Dean is looking back up at him, squinting in the daylight streaming into the windows. The usual smatter of stubble on his jaw is thicker than he usually lets it get, his hand resting on his stomach as he rolls his shoulder.

“You got a pretty comfortable couch,” he says. His voice is still that morning rasp.

“You were mostly lying on me, actually.”

“Well, you got a pretty comfortable you, then,” Dean replies, pushing himself up into a sitting position and stretching his arms above his head. Roman really wishes he could keep his eyes from drifting down Dean’s chest and stomach, the hollow beneath his sternum. He’s sure there was a time when he wouldn’t have looked at all. He’s sure there was a time when he had no problem not checking Dean out.

“I think I’m gonna go for a run,” says Roman, dragging his gaze away. He swallows. “Wanna come with?”

“Yeah,” Dean answers immediately, rubbing a hand over his jaw and wrinkling his nose. “Lemme piss and shave and then yeah.”

“No problem,” Roman replies. He steps back to let Dean up and while Dean’s in the bathroom, tugs a hair elastic from his wrist and shoves his hair up into a bun. He doesn’t put it up to sleep; that leads to split ends and frizz like nothing else, and he takes care of his hair as well as he can. He winces, knuckling into the base of his spine and arching. All the knots that aren’t in his hair are in his back. He’ll have to do something about that when he gets back.

He ducks into his room to change into running shorts and doesn’t bother with a t-shirt, not in June in Florida. Not to mention how he knows it’d be hell on his back. Even this run is probably ill-advised but Roman needs to get out and move, feels a thrum in his veins that demands it.

When Roman returns to the living room, Dean’s sat on his couch, also in running shorts, scratching Brody under the chin lazily. He glances up at Roman. “Finally,” he teases, like Roman had been gone more than a minute and a half. Dean’s jaw is smooth-shaven now, and when he stands up and passes by Roman, he smells like the same aftershave Roman uses, the one in his medicine cabinet. It makes Roman feel a little woozy.

They don’t talk much on their run; most of what conversation they do have is Dean asking mildly about things they pass, parks and buildings. Roman has a practiced route to run and Dean seems content to follow his lead. They’ve both worked up a sweat by the time they return to Roman’s house and he feels so much better, buzzing with the vague joy that comes with getting a good sweat going.

Dean sighs, the same vague satisfaction visible on his face that’s on Roman. “Mind if I grab the shower first?” he asks, scrubbing a hand through his sweaty hair, damp and curling at the ends.

“Go for it,” Roman says. He tugs out his hair tie and wrinkles his nose as his own hair tumbles down his back. He heads out to the backyard while Dean’s showering, sits on his back steps and lets Brody loose in the backyard. The dog scrambles around in the yard, trying to catch butterflies, nosing into the ground, and Roman finds himself lost in thought while he watches him.

His bones feel pleased. It’s odd, he always feels like this when he gets home, much more settled and content in himself. That’s not the odd part; the odd part is that he still feels like that with Dean here. He doesn’t really feel the urge he feels when he has guests usually, which is to impress them — or, not impress, but… something. Be on good behavior. Not scratch his balls in the living room.

Maybe it’s just because it’s Dean, and Dean’s different. Even from Seth, Dean’s different. Dean doesn’t give a shit about things like that. He just does what he wants. And sure, he has lines he doesn’t cross, things he won’t do around just anyone, but. It’s just the two of them here for the week.

Roman knew that. He’s known that. But it’s still a little startling when he thinks of it frankly like that. It’s just the two of them. At Roman’s house. All week.

So focused is he on his thoughts that Roman doesn’t even notice when the faint sound of the shower stops. He does notice, though, when Dean drops down next to him, a towel slung around his shoulders, his hair damp in a different way now. He smells good. Clean, fresh, like bar soap. He’s barefoot. Roman remembers noticing that before, yesterday, and he doesn’t know why it still is such a big deal to him.

“Hey,” says Dean. His face is bright pink. Dean takes hot showers, steaming hot, even in the summer. Seth used to tease him about how he’d get so red like a sunburned lobster, and Dean would throw his towel at Seth’s head.

“Hey,” Roman answers, nudging his knee against Dean’s. He’s sure he smells awful.

“Used your soap ‘cause I forgot to grab mine from my suitcase before I started,” says Dean. He leans his jaw onto his fist, watching Brody piss against a tree. “Hope that’s okay.”

“Yeah, s’fine.” Roman whistles for Brody once he’s done, and Brody comes trotting over. Roman rubs behind his ears. He misses his dog when he’s not home. Brody’s probably small enough that he could take him with him on the road, but he thinks it’d be too stressful. Brody likes it here, it’s warm and he likes his sitter and he likes his favorite spots to poop in the backyard.

“I kinda like it here,” says Dean all of a sudden, and Roman looks over at him, surprised. “Not the weather or that shit, it’s disgusting, but. This is nice, I guess. Just, a backyard. It’s quiet. I never had a backyard before.”

“Welcome to mine whenever you want one.” Roman licks his lips. “Guess I should shower, too.”

“Yeah, you should,” says Dean. “You smell like a garbage factory.”

He’s smiling when Roman punches him in the arm, and he doesn’t stop smiling even as he rubs the place Roman hit him.

Roman always takes long showers by necessity. His hair alone could take hours if he let it, but he doesn’t feel like spending all day in the shower today. He does his hair first, as quickly as he can, then piles it into a bun on the back of his head. Lord, his hair when it’s wet weighs about the same as he does. He’s been thinking about getting a trim soon, but they’re always on the road. Maybe this week.

Dean’s still in the backyard when Roman finishes, and Roman takes a moment to just look at him before Dean notices he’s there. Dean has a stick in his hand which he’s throwing to Brody, over and over, calmly taking it back when Brody brings it and flinging it into the far corner of the yard.

Brody’s a good judge of character.

Then again, Brody had liked Seth, too.

Dean glances back over his shoulder like he’s sensed Roman was there, and there’s another one of those moments they’ve been having, where Roman looks at Dean and Dean looks back at him and everything else just seems like white noise in the background. One of those moments where Roman wonders if Dean’s thinking about kissing him, ‘cause that’s sure what Roman’s thinking about.

He shakes that thought out of his head. No use thinking like that. This is probably just… emotional stress. From trauma. One of your best friends turning his back on you doesn’t mean you start daydreaming about kissing the other one.

“Having fun?” Roman asks, and Dean grins at him.

“I like your dog,” he says, absently tugging the stick from Brody’s mouth. He doesn’t throw it again immediately, instead letting Brody gnaw on the end of it.

“He likes you, too,” says Roman, watching Brody use the entirety of his tiny body weight to try and pull the stick from Dean’s hand. “Got good taste.”

“Flattering,” Dean replies. He finally lets the stick go, but once Brody’s got it, he just looks confused, as though Dean wasn’t supposed to let him win the tug-of-war. Dean chuckles like he sees it too, and takes the stick from Brody while he’s not expecting it, hefts it in his hand and then tosses it across the yard.

Brody scampers after it, and Dean is still smiling when he turns back to Roman.

“Really,” he says, continuing a conversation Roman had thought had ended. “This is a cool place. Too big for one person, though. I feel like big houses are more likely to be haunted if there’s only one person in ‘em.”

Roman has to snort. “How’s that make sense?”

“Ghosts like lonely people,” Dean insists. “Lonely people need people to talk to, but they don’t have anyone. So they got ghosts.”

“I don’t think I have any ghosts,” Roman says. “But I’m not lonely. Maybe that’s why.”

“Really?” asks Dean. “You never get lonely here by yourself? I guess you have the dog.”

Said dog is currently nosing at Dean’s shin with his stick. Dean takes it, with a jerk to get it out of Brody’s mouth, and tosses it again. Like clockwork, Brody goes after it.

“Yeah, and — people come up to visit sometimes.” Seth, mostly, but Roman doesn’t have to say that. He’s pretty sure Dean can infer. “My mom likes to see how I’m doing.”

“Cute,” says Dean. He toes at the grass with one bare foot. Most of the pink in his face from his shower has gone now, but there’s still a little bit of a flush at the high points of his cheeks, a little bit of a sheen there. Roman’s not sure whether it’s remaining dampness from the shower or if the heat’s just made him start sweating again.

Roman wants to kiss his face. Not just his mouth, not just normal kissing. Roman wants to kiss his whole fuckin’ head and it sucks, and his stomach is twisting itself into knots.

Brody has abandoned his stick, busying himself with a corner of the backyard that he hasn’t dug up yet, and Dean is smiling faintly at the dog, a little bit of a breeze touching at his temples, where his hair’s still rumpled and damp.

It feels like in a movie, where the two main characters are alone, and the audience knows something’s going to happen because the music in the background changes. Roman doesn’t know what song would play in the background of a movie starring him and Dean.

As though Dean can sense that Roman’s thoughts have gone to a weird place, he looks away from Brody and raises his eyebrows at Roman, expectant. What he’s expecting, Roman’s not sure. Probably words? Probably, he’s expecting Roman to say something?

Instead, Roman leans forward, just a little, could’ve been an adjustment to the way he’s sitting, he could explain it off as that. Dismiss it as something else, if Dean leans back out of his space with a laugh, asks what he’s doing.

Dean doesn’t ask that. Dean blinks quickly, once, twice, three times, and he does — the thing. A signal that’s not hard to interpret, a glance, fast but visible, from Roman’s eyes to his lips and back again.

“Oh,” says Dean, so quietly Roman might’ve imagined it, but he doesn’t sound upset, and Roman could still save this, could just lean back and pretend. But he’s so bad at pretending, and he’s so bad at not going after what he wants.

He doesn’t think he makes up how Dean tilts his head and leans into it when Roman kisses him, but he’s worried about other things at that point, too. The feeling of Dean’s lips — chapped and dry, and he could tell by looking at them, but it’s so much different to feel — or the way Dean settles a hand on Roman’s knee, warm against bare skin, and Roman’s just wearing basketball shorts, and Dean’s not wearing much more than that, and they’re kissing.

Roman’s so much more aware of everything around him than he was thirty seconds ago. The rise and fall of Dean’s chest, the places he missed shaving this morning, the way, every so often, his teeth will catch on Roman’s bottom lip, and it feels deliberate, makes Roman shiver.

Dean feels closer than he was. And of course he is, can’t get much closer than kissing, but it’s still a lot for Roman to deal with. Dean is so much, so much of a person, big in ways Roman’s never met before he met Dean, like kissing the moon. Not the sun — it doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t burn. It’s cool and easy and so much less weird than Roman thought it would be.

Dean’s mouth is damp when it slips from Roman’s lips to the corner of his mouth, kissing him there, then back to his mouth, deeper now, and Roman slips a hand up Dean’s neck, fingertips pressing against that bony part of his spine, his thumb resting against Dean’s throat. He can feel it bob when Dean swallows.

Roman wasn’t expecting this to feel so much like a natural progression. He was expecting, a little, that he would kiss Dean and it would awaken that part of his brain that’s been sleeping, the part that knows that of course he doesn’t feel like that about Dean, that this would happen and he’d wake up.

Instead — it just feels like, like of course, of course this happened, of course he’s kissing Dean and Dean kissed him back and it feels good and great and right, of course. Naturally.

The kiss ends but it doesn’t, lips still pressed against lips, breathing against each other, their foreheads pressed together. Roman doesn’t open his eyes, doesn’t know when they closed.

He opens his mouth — his bottom lip catches on Dean’s, and it makes him just want to kiss him again — but before he can say anything, Brody is clambering onto his lap, legs sliding on the slippery fabric of Roman’s shorts. The moment is broken as Roman curls his hands around Brody to keep him from falling, takes the stick from his mouth and sets it down next to him. He loves his dog, but he feels like he knew what he was going to say and now he has no idea.

He scratches Brody’s chest to have something to do with his hands. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Dean’s hand lift to his face, his fingertips pressing to his lips like Roman’s seen a million times before, only now he’s just kissed Dean’s lips, and if Roman were the blushing type, he thinks now’d be the time.

The silence at this point has stretched long enough that Roman wonders if he should even say anything at all, but every time he opens his mouth, nothing comes out. His lips feel a little buzzy, like he’s just gotten static shocked.

Brody licks Roman’s chin as though he can sense the tension, and Roman has to smile, pets down the length of his dog’s back and pops a kiss between his ears.

“Good boy,” he murmurs. There, at least he said something, even if it was to the dog and not Dean. At least words came out of his mouth.

Dean clears his throat and Roman’s all ready to tense up, but Dean just says, “He sure likes that stick.”

“Yeah,” says Roman, seizing on the conversation, because Dean’s voice sounds a little gravelly, and Roman doesn’t know what to do with that information other than kiss him again. “He likes fetch. Likes to run his little ass off.”

“Is it just sticks or does he like, like, tennis balls and shit, too?” Dean asks.

Somehow, they manage to have an entire conversation about dog toys, of all things, and neither of them mentions the kiss, and by the end of the conversation, the sun’s near straight above their heads and that shower was useless because Roman’s sweaty all over again.

He reaches a hand behind him at a lull in the conversation and presses it into the base of his spine. Christ, his back is really starting to hurt again from sitting out here for so long, and he doesn’t mean to wince, but he does, and Dean is really good at zeroing in on these things.

He squints at Roman, frowning. “Your back bugging you again?” he asks.

Roman doesn’t have the heart to point out that ‘again’ implies his back had ever stopped bugging him, and the impromptu night’s sleep on his couch hadn’t helped. “Yeah,” he grunts, rolling his shoulders to try and get rid of some of the tension in them. “Little bit.”

“C’mon,” says Dean, smacking the back of his hand against Roman’s shoulder. “I got IcyHot in my bag, we’ll slather you in some of that, you’ll be good as new.”

Roman’s brain must short out for a minute, because next thing he knows, he’s sitting on the guest room bed and Dean’s humming, digging through his bag.

“You don’t gotta,” Roman says, and it’s partially because he has IcyHot of his own somewhere around here, or something similar, but it’s also partially because having cream rubbed on him by a guy he just accidentally made out with seems like a poor decision on his part.

The decision’s not really being made by him, though, as Dean just casts him a look from the side and retrieves a white tub with vaguely familiar branding, gesturing in Roman’s direction with it.

“Extra strength,” Dean comments like he didn’t hear at all what Roman just said. “You look like you could use some of that.”

Roman’s back does feel particularly extra-strengthy, so he sighs. This is very Dean, anyway, it’s his way of mother-henning. He used to do it to Seth all the time. Aggressive mothering.

“Lie down on your stomach,” says Dean, which Roman thinks is absolutely a bad idea, but Dean has that stubborn set to his mouth like he’ll put Roman there if he doesn’t go voluntarily. Roman shuffles backward on the bed (which smells like Dean, kind of, when he lowers himself carefully onto his stomach and his face presses into the comforter) and is very grateful that he already didn’t have a shirt on. Taking it off in front of Dean right now would feel vulnerable in a way he’s not used to. Not vulnerable, that’s too strong a word, but… new. Different from before.

He can feel Dean’s eyes appraising him and then a weight on the bed, dipping it. Dean doesn’t knee up over him (yet, Roman’s brain thinks traitorously), thank god, but he does settle a warm, dry hand on the center of Roman’s back.

“You taken a look at this?” Dean asks quietly. His fingers are tracing in smooth patterns across Roman’s back, and he can’t see it, but he thinks Dean might be tracing the bruises he can feel.

“Tried,” Roman grunts. “Don’t have enough mirrors. Next time I stop by a department store changing room.”

Dean laughs a little, curling a knuckle into the small of Roman’s spine. “Looks pretty rough,” he says. “Couple’a these are just about black.”

“Feels pretty rough, too,” says Roman, though it’s a little better now that he’s at least lying down straight on a bed, even if it’s not his own.

The next touch to his back from Dean is slick with the gel from the tub, and cold even though Roman’s kind of expecting it. Dean’s thorough if not quick, rubbing it in small circles from the top of Roman’s shoulder blade across to the other, then down and back across. By the time he gets to what Roman thinks is the worst of it, an achey spot on his lats that feels thorny, pricking points of pain whenever he moves wrong, Roman is feeling much more relaxed, his aching joints finally getting a chance to rest. He hisses through his teeth when Dean presses down a little too hard, and Dean apologizes under his breath.

“S’okay,” Roman murmurs. Dean’s good at this, and he’s trying to focus on something other than the pain, and the way the cold tingle of the gel is loosening into warmth. “Thanks.”

Dean makes a noise of acknowledgement, his thumb rubbing gently against that thorny spot. “Can I ask you something?”

“Mhm.” Roman should have known better, but he’s trying his best to be relaxed.

“That whole kissing me thing,” says Dean, and Roman’s whole body tries to tense, but that hurts, so he just ends up making a strangled sound and that’s all. “Was that, like, a one time thing, or have you been planning on that for a while?”

“Uh,” says Roman, brain scrambling to figure out how to talk about this without actually talking about it. He’s got nothing. “Neither?”

He doesn’t — he wasn’t planning it at all, he’s terrible at plans. He just does things and hopes they work out okay. But he doesn’t want it to be a one time thing, either, really, not if Dean doesn’t want it to be. Dean sounds fairly neutral on the whole thing, actually, but it might be the thing he does where he doesn’t want to let on how he’s feeling so he pretends not to feel anything at all.

That’s Roman’s least favorite Dean voice-slash-expression, because he’s no good at figuring out the intricacies of what people mean when they’re trying to seem like they mean nothing. He trusts that people will say what they mean, and doesn’t understand when they don’t.

“I mean, how are you—feeling about it?” Roman asks. Sometimes the only way to get Dean to answer something like a real person is to ask him as directly as possible.

Dean doesn’t say anything for a long moment, but there’s a thoughtful edge to the silence, so Roman doesn’t break it even though it’s killing him. Dean’s fingers are still absently massaging his side, and Roman feels about seven different ways about it.

“Not sure,” Dean finally says. “Might need to do it again. Gotta do more than one experiment before you can form a hypothesis, right? That’s how it goes? I dunno, been a while since I took biology.”

Roman blinks at his comforter. Okay, Dean’s pretty hard to figure out sometimes, but that, that seems pretty straightforward.

“Gotta have more than one control,” he says. His mouth is just saying words for him now. “Like a. Theory.”

“Exactly,” says Dean, voice firm. “Like a theory. Gotta do it more than once, I don’t make the rules, mon frère.”

Roman feels almost giddy, eight year old whispering secrets to their best friend giddy, because Dean’s not making this weird, or at least not any weirder than Dean normally makes stuff. This is easier, if it’s like this. Roman can do this, if it’s like this, if they’re exactly how they were except now sometimes there’s kissing. That’s, that’s best case scenario if Roman’s ever heard one.

He clears his throat, just in case something ridiculous makes its way out of his mouth, a giggle or a quack or something — either feels possible — and then he says, “Well, if those’re the rules.”

“They are,” Dean says quickly. He slides his hand from Roman’s side back to the middle of his back, his hand just damp now instead of slick with gel, and Roman can barely feel the pain anymore.

Roman lifts up onto his elbows and hefts himself over. His back presses sticky to the comforter but he needs to be looking at Dean, just, just for a minute, and he can wash the bedsheets later. Dean is looking right back at him, his eyes glittering, the corner of his mouth just barely lifting up.

“Then I guess you should probably come here,” says Roman, and he feels daring for it. “Let’s be fuckin’ scientists.”

Dean’s mouth flashes a grin, and now he does knee up over Roman’s waist, sitting back against the tops of Roman’s thighs. Roman’s never thought about this, but, looking up at Dean looking down at him, he wonders if he’ll ever be able to think about anything else ever again.

“Always wanted to be a scientist when I grew up,” Dean says, breezy and casual.

“Really?” Roman asks. He can’t see it.

Dean’s grin grows wider. “Nah,” he admits. “I wanted to be a fireman. Same thing.”

Roman laughs, “That’s not even a—” and then Dean kisses him, and Roman shuts up.

It’s somehow so much More like this, Dean is closer even though he’s exactly as close as he was in Roman’s backyard, but he still smells like Dean-mixed-with-Roman’s-shampoo, and his skin is still sun-warm when Roman puts his hands on Dean’s sides, and his thumbs brush against the lowest of Dean’s ribs. Dean is holding himself up like he thinks Roman will break if he has to bear Dean’s weight, but Roman doesn’t want that. He wants Dean closer. He wants Dean as close as he can get him, and closer than that.

He curls his arm around Dean’s lower back and pulls, then again more urgently when Dean doesn’t acquiesce. Dean breathes out a laugh against his mouth, mutters, “pushy,” but he does relax down against Roman and it’s so, so much better like this. There’s so much of Dean, and all of it warm and smooth and rough and there, he’s there, he’s here.

Roman touches the side of Dean’s neck, just to make sure, his fingertips pressing as lightly as he can against his pulse, fluttering against the pads of Roman’s fingers. Roman knew once, how to check someone’s pulse, learned when he was a lifeguard, forever ago in the summer when he was a teenager, and his trainer told him that depending on whether you try to take a pulse with your thumb or your fingers changes whether you’re feeling someone else’s pulse or your own. He can’t remember which is which now, but the pulse under his fingers is rabbiting quick and even.

He slides his hand back down to Dean’s shoulder, squeezes it lightly; it’s the one Dean’s always had problems with, back from an injury he’d gotten in developmental that had never healed right.

Roman wants to touch as much of Dean as possible now that he’s touched him at all. He doesn’t want to stop and think about it, doesn’t want to wonder what’s changed, doesn’t want to ask himself why this feels so good when he’s never thought about anything like it before. This is good and Roman likes good things.

Dean kisses the same way he does most things, like he’s trying to coax a reaction from his opponent — is that the right word for someone you’re kissing? Roman can’t help but laugh at his own thought, and he can feel Dean’s mouth smile against his own even though Dean can’t possibly know what he’s laughing at.

“I like it here,” says Dean when they’ve broken apart for a moment, his voice a rasp that makes Roman kiss him again, quick and hard.

“Stay here,” says Roman, his fingers hooking in one of the belt loops of Dean’s jeans and tugging. “Here likes you, too.”

Dean laughs, his own fingers twisting in the still damp tendrils of Roman’s hair, behind his neck, and Roman has never thought Dean’s laugh was sexy before, but like this, coaxed kiss-rough like sandpaper and throaty, he can’t figure out why.

“Back okay?” Dean checks after some amount of time has passed; it could have been ten minutes, could have been six hours. Roman doesn’t know.

“Better,” he admits, leaning up to steal another kiss. It feels so natural to do that it feels unnatural, which doesn’t make sense but is how he feels. “Thanks.”

“Anytime.” Dean knuckles under Roman’s chin to lift his head to a better angle, and another ten minutes, another six hours goes by the wayside.

“Jesus,” says Dean, finally, his head tipping down so that he can press his forehead to Roman’s bare shoulder. “Okay, time out.”

“‘Kay,” says Roman, kissing Dean’s neck instead, because it’s right there. He keeps his lips pressed there and can feel when Dean laughs.

“I think it’s a little early in our relationship for me to be gettin’ my dick out so you gotta stop,” says Dean. There’s so many things in that sentence that Roman has thoughts about all at once, so much so that like a car crash they all pass through the intersection of his mind and end up in a pile of broken glass and panicked honking.

“‘Kay,” he says again, and he means it this time. Dean’s dick has never entered his contemplation of this. Hell, he’s barely had any contemplation of this, he’d just managed to get to thoughts of kissing Dean before he actually did it, and now — okay. Slow down. Time out. Time outs are good.

Dean has a dick.

Okay, Roman knew that, just like he knows a lot of things in concept, like how he knows that Windex tastes bad even though he’s never tasted it before, like how he knows getting bit by a shark would hurt. He knows Dean has a dick, he’s just never thought about Dean having a dick.

And Dean had called it a relationship — secondarily panic-inducing but it’s there all the same in Roman’s brain. Two things he probably should have thought about before he pulled the plug and kissed his best friend, 1. Said best friend has a dick, something Roman’s never really dealt with in sexual situations before, and 2. Said best friend might now be something more than a best friend.

Said best friend is now looking at Roman with narrowed eyes, because Roman is awful at hiding his emotions. He doesn’t even want to know the expression that was just on his face, but he does his best to school it. It doesn’t make Dean look any less suspicious.

“You okay?” Dean asks, slowly. He tilts his head the way he does when he’s trying to intimidate people a little, and it doesn’t work on Roman anymore, but he still gets the point of it.

“Yeah,” he says, and then, because he’s an awful, terrible person, “just my back twingin’ a little bit, that’s all. Caught me by surprise.”

Dean’s expression melts into grumpy concern, his hand slipping behind Roman’s back to give him a little more support. Roman appreciates it in theory, even though he’s a dirty rotten liar and his back feels fine, for the most part. Certainly not worse than it had before.

“You should lie down for a while,” Dean says, swinging his leg back over Roman’s hips and easing back onto his heels. “Shit, you haven’t even gotten a full night’s sleep in your own bed since you got all fucked up, have you?”

“I’m fine,” Roman says firmly. He’s already regretting the lie, wracked with guilt and knowing Dean’s probably not gonna let it go until Roman does lie down.

“Seriously,” says Dean, planting a hand in the center of Roman’s chest and pushing against it. “Don’t even get up. Right here, just lie down a while. I’ll entertain myself for an hour or two. Maybe give your dog a bath or somethin’.”

“You really don’t have to do that,” Roman says, but he’s easing himself down flat anyway. He lets out an unplanned sound of relief, because this really is a million times better than sitting up. Dean clearly takes that as a sign of victory.

“Too bad, I’m gonna.” Dean pats Roman’s side. “Get some rest, big guy. Close your eyes, count sheep, all that shit. I’m gonna reorganize your fridge or some shit.”

“How many ways can you organize a fridge?” Roman asks, but Dean ignores him, already slipping off the bed. As Roman watches, he nonchalantly adjusts himself in his jeans, and Roman remembers again, like a heartbeat — dick dick dick dick dick dick — and his heart rate speeds up again. Thankfully, Dean’s already heading out the door.

Just before he leaves, he pauses, one hand on the door jamb, and leans back to look at Roman. “Seriously,” he says, frowning sternly at him. “Rest. That means no stressing out about shit. And you better still be lying down when I come back to check on you.”

Roman tosses off a sloppy salute and Dean grins at him with all his teeth, then disappears through the doorway. He doesn’t close the door, which Roman appreciates — even if he can’t see much of the hallway from where he’s lying, he doesn’t like to be in closed rooms as a rule. He’s not sure why, or what makes the difference: when he’s sleeping, he likes a closed door, or when he’s changing, but otherwise he just doesn’t like the feeling of being inside enclosed spaces.

He’s surprised to find that he is actually a little tired, not tired enough to fall asleep, but enough to ease into drowsy not-quite-thereness. It’s nice, and it feels good to just be able to relax and not be sitting up or standing.

The light has changed a little by the next time he opens his eyes, not yet dark or dusk, even, but lower than it was. Mosquito time, his dad used to call it. Then again, most times of day in this part of the country are mosquito time, especially in the summer.

He stretches, and his back pops a little, unused to actually getting downtime. He winces even though it doesn’t really hurt.

Roman sits up and his back hurts then, a bit, but not nearly as much as it had even though he can’t have been lying down for long enough for it to make any real difference. His back does stick to the sheets, though, and he makes a mental note to throw them in the wash before night really does fall.

He has to slouch in a terrible way for his first few steps away from the bed, but by the time he goes through the doorway, he’s managed to stand upright. The house is quiet, so at least Dean hasn’t managed to burn it down, not that Roman really thought he would, or that he would sleep through it. The only vague sound he can hear is coming from the living room, what he assumes is the television since it’s not Dean’s voice and he doesn’t think Dean would have friends over.

The sight that greets him in the doorway to the living room is adorable. Dean’s sitting cross-legged in the middle of the couch, still just in his jeans, and Brody is perched on his lap looking for all the world like he’s actually paying attention to what’s on the TV. Roman glances at the screen perfunctorily but he recognized Alex Trebek’s voice without looking.

“Well I’m lost on this one, bud,” says Dean, scratching Brody’s neck. “Got any ideas?”

Brody remains silent, though his tongue lolls out a little.

“Yeah, maybe I need to brush up on my Latin,” Dean replies. He gives Brody another scritch under his collar, and Brody’s leg thumps happily on Dean’s thigh.

“Having fun?” Roman asks. His voice is still a little fuzzy with sleep, and he clears his throat when Dean looks up at him.

“You missed the first round,” Dean informs him. Roman could have guessed from the dollar amounts onscreen. “I’ll tell you though, I don’t think your dog would do real well on this show.”

“Don’t insult my dog,” Roman replies. He makes his way to the couch and Dean slides over without being asked, though he only slides as far as the right side of the middle cushion. Roman settles down, pressing his spine firmly to the back of the couch in the hopes that it’ll give some support.

“I’m not, I just think his areas of expertise are in other places,” says Dean. “Tummy rubs. Other dog butts. Peeing on plants.”

“Ah, I see,” says Roman. He reaches over and gives Brody a ruffle behind the ears. “Probably pretty good on treats, too.”

Brody’s ears perk up at the mention of treats, and Roman hates to get his hopes up, so he reaches down into the drawer of his end table and withdraws one from the box there. Brody yips and scuttles from Dean’s lap to Roman’s, sniffing wildly at the treat in his hand.

“Overthrown for treats, shoulda known,” says Dean, looking at Brody mournfully. “Was I nothing to you?”

“Gotta bring out the big guns sometimes,” Roman replies. He breaks the little bone-shaped treat in two and offers one half to Brody in the palm of his hand. The dog sniffs once, twice, and then snatches it up, teeth snapping and grinding to try and break it down as quickly as possible. “Can’t have my dog getting ideas that you’re his new daddy.”

“I’ll wrestle you for him,” Dean challenges. “I think I could take you, one on one.”

“I’m not putting my dog on the line in a wrestling match,” Roman says, carefully covering Brody’s ears so that he doesn’t have to hear this nonsense. “How dare you?”

“Worth a shot,” Dean shrugs. He curls his legs up on the couch and his expression changes a little. “Get some rest?”

“Some,” Roman says agreeably. “It was good. Needed it. Thanks,” he adds, because he said it before but he really wants Dean to know he’s grateful. “I know I can be kinda pigheaded about this kind of stuff. So, thanks.”

Dean still waves it off, though, because he’s Dean. “You needed the rest,” he says. “Wasn’t nothin’. This the Philippines or the Bahamas?” he asks, and it takes Roman a moment to recognize he’s talking about the show.

“Bahamas, I think,” Roman says as someone else answers the same thing on the show. It’s correct. He allows himself a smile.

“Well, I thought so, too,” Dean says. The next question is about theater, and neither one of them gets it, but the one after that is about the desire to suffer pain, and Roman’s not surprised when Dean knows the answer is masochism.

Dean also knows all of the answers (questions, technically, but Roman isn’t that kind of asshole) to all of the prompts in the ‘food in the Bible’ category, which he wasn’t expecting.

At Roman’s questioning look, Dean shrugs. “Read it once when I was bored,” he says. “Kind of dreary sometimes, little dry, but — lentils — not bad. Wouldn’t read it again. Can’t quote it.”

“You read the Bible,” Roman says, deadpan. “Because you were bored.”

“Done a lot of things ‘cause I was bored,” Dean challenges. “Reading’s not the worst of ‘em.”

Roman gets the $2000 dollar answer for ‘International Road Vehicle Stickers,’ but it was genuinely because the clue mentioned alpine nations, and the only one of those he knows is Switzerland.

“Ready for Final Jeopardy?” Dean asks, rubbing his hands together with glee. “I’m gonna mop the floor with you.”

“I think you probably already won, money-wise,” Roman admits. He got a few, and some of those were ones Dean hadn’t also gotten, even, but for the most part, it’s been Dean kicking ass and taking names.

The category is announced, and Dean hoots.

“The Beatles! I got this in the bag, motherfucker,” says Dean, nudging Roman’s arm with the back of his hand. “No chance, no chance in hell. Unless it’s about Sergeant Pepper.”

“Isn’t that like, their most popular album?” Roman asks, reluctantly amused.

“Yeah, but it’s garbage, like, groundbreaking garbage but godawful, honestly.” Dean wrinkles his nose. “Then again, some of the shit on the White Album was pretty suckass, too. I don’t know what the fuck McCartney was on when he wrote some of that shit.”

“I didn’t know you had such strong opinions on the Beatles discography,” notes Roman. “What’s your favorite album of theirs, then?”

“Revolver,” Dean answers promptly. “Like, they were kind of starting to get into the weird shit already then, but it wasn’t so fucking weird that it was barely music anymore. At a certain point weird for weird’s sake just don’t cut it. You gotta be weird with purpose.” He pauses, then says, “Rubber Soul’s good, too. Little too pop for me. I like it a little more edgy.”

“You’ll have to show me sometime,” says Roman, and he hopes it sounds genuine. It is.

“Maybe, if you’re lucky,” Dean replies. He’s smiling, though, as they return from commercial break.

The question is what the Beatles number one is with the shortest title, and Dean snorts, disgusted.

“Too easy,” he says, sulking.

“I take it you know it, then?”

“Everyone should know it.” Dean narrows his eyes at Roman. “They only had like twenty number ones, and most of ‘em were more than one word.”

“I was gonna guess Hey Jude,” says Roman.

Dean squawks. “Come on, dude, it’s like, peak Lennon. When he was all sad and shit, before he got super political.”

“There was a time before Lennon was super political?” Roman asks.

“You’re really hurting me here, Roman,” Dean says, holding a hand to his chest. “Come on. It’s Help!. Obviously.”

“Right, of course,” says Roman. He feels a little appeased, though, when one of the contestants does answer Hey Jude. It clearly wasn’t the stupidest possible answer.

Dean’s right, though, obviously, and when the final credits begin playing, he looks to Roman, twisting to lie back with his head against the arm of the couch and poking Roman’s thigh with his toe.

“Same time tomorrow?” he asks.

Roman nods; he likes this, a kind of ritual for the two of them, crafting their own sense of normalcy. Even if Dean will probably beat him again. He’s deceptively smart. Roman knew he kind of played up some things about himself to get opponents to underestimate him and other people to stay away from him, but he still finds himself a little surprised by all the niche knowledge that Dean has tucked away in his brain.

“So I guess you don’t have a favorite Beatles album,” says Dean, “but do you have a favorite album in general?”

Roman’s mouth twists. “Not really,” he admits. “Music wasn’t something that was super important to me growing up, so I think I missed most of the emotions that were supposed to come with hearing it. I got songs I like, artists I like, but it’s all over the place.” He pauses. “Well.”

“Well?” Dean prompts.

“There’s this one album. I used to — when I was in college, I used to listen to it a lot. Shooter Jennings album, haven’t listened to it in forever, I think it was called Electric-something or Something-electric. For like a year and a half that was the only thing I listened to, but I don’t know why. I’d just listen to it on repeat, over and over and over again.” Roman shakes his head. “Can’t remember any of the lyrics now, or even what any of the songs were called.”

“Huh,” says Dean. He looks contemplative. “If I could work a computer, I’d try to figure out what it was. Maybe I’ll do a Google or something later.”

Roman shrugs. “Not important, really. I just remembered it. Never had anything like that happen again.”

“Shooter Jennings, huh?” Dean muses. “Guess that’s why you never got pissy when I put on Merle Haggard in the car.”

“When you’re in charge of music, you’re in charge of music,” says Roman. “Rather have your stuff than—” He cuts himself off, because it’s normal to make fun of Seth for his music but Seth’s not here to get huffy about it, and anyway, he doesn’t want to talk about Seth.

Well, that’s half a lie. He wants to talk about Seth but he wants it to be normal, he wants to talk about Seth because Seth’s still their brother and it’s ordinary to talk about him, it’s not a weird thing. He wants to talk about Seth like nothing’s changed, but something’s changed. Something pretty damn big has changed.

“I like your music, most of the time,” he changes what he was going to say, but both he and Dean know what it was that he almost said, and it makes the mood of the room dip a little.

Dean clears his throat. “Thanks, I think,” he says. He looks determined. Good; Roman’s also determined to not think about Seth as much as possible, as well as he can. “I like to think I got pretty good taste. Maybe a little eclectic.”

“You do have weird taste sometimes,” says Roman. There was a day a few months back where Dean had control of the CD player in the car and flat out refused to play anything but songs off his iPod from some Norwegian band that Roman had never heard of. The music had been real catchy, sure, but also fucking bizarre.

It had been one of Dean’s off-days, though, where he drummed his fingers relentlessly against the steering wheel and stopped at a gas station and got six Slim Jims and four of those powdered tubes of energy drink you’re supposed to add to water and dumped the tubes down his throat dry.

Roman hadn’t known how to handle Dean then, hadn’t known whether talking would make it worse, so he’d just stay silent, letting Seth chatter enough for the both of them.

He doesn’t actually know if he knows any better now. He’d like to think so. He’ll find out soon enough. They’re going to be traveling just the two of them now, so if Roman doesn’t actually know how to handle Dean on his weird days, he’d better learn.

Dean prods Roman’s thigh with his toes again. “Me? Weird taste?” he asks, faux-affronted. “How dare you. I never have weird taste.”

“Your life is a weird taste,” Roman responds.

Dean drops the act and grins at him. “True,” he acknowledges.

He pokes Roman’s thigh again, this time apparently without purpose. Roman glances sideways at him. Dean still has a little smile on his face and, while Roman’s watching, jabs him yet again with his toe.

“Trying to start something?” Roman asks. His blood is starting to pump a little faster.

“Me?” Dean asks, this time slower, more obviously putting an act on. He puts a hand to his chest, which draws Roman’s eyes to his chest, and then his stomach, the way his waist tapers down to something almost slender before the hem of his jeans starts. He remembers that vague tan line he’d seen earlier. Was that today or yesterday? It all kind of blends together when he naps in the middle of the day.

“Yeah, you,” says Roman, and he grasps Dean’s ankle the next time Dean prods his leg. From the little smug smile on Dean’s face, that’s what he was planning.

Roman’s always been pretty impulsive. It’s one of his best and worst qualities. It’s what causes him to twist and in one motion heft himself between Dean’s legs. The surprised look on Dean’s face would be worth it on its own, but it makes it doubly advantageous when Roman notices that this feels good, his hips slotted between Dean’s thighs, the both of them pressed close in this one tiny corner of the couch.

God, it’s like being drunk, the more he gets this close to Dean, like Dean fills up all of his senses just by existing and breathing in the same bubble Roman’s existing and breathing in.

“Hiya,” says Dean, and his legs spread a little to accommodate Roman, which is fine and doesn’t make him breathe a little funny.

“Hey,” Roman replies, and he touches Dean’s face, balancing carefully so as not to fall on top of him, because there’s a tiny scar that curls on Dean’s chin like a comma, and Roman’s never been close enough to see it before. He sets his thumbnail against it, and Dean makes a soft huffing sound.

“You’re some kinda tease, you know that, right?” he asks. Roman can feel him hook his ankle around the back of Roman’s calf. Roman smiles and Dean kisses him while it’s forming, catching it like fireflies in a jar.

It hasn’t gotten less good, Roman wasn’t imagining how fucking great it feels to kiss Dean. It’s still pretty damn fantastic, maybe even better because of his position, since he can get even closer, kiss Dean even harder.

Dean pushes up — up, his hips arching just a little more than a little until they’re pressed flush against Roman’s. And this, this is more than they’ve done, really - when they’d made out in the guest room, their lower halves had stayed very definitively apart. Roman had thought that was a mutual decision. For all he knows, this is the first time Dean’s ever done anything with another guy as well.

He doesn’t think so, though. He’s not going to ask, because he’s not fourteen, but the confidence in the way that Dean just did that — it’s something he’s done before. He certainly isn’t made breathless at the thought of someone else’s dick the way Roman had been.

“Oh,” comes out of his mouth, though, because he’s human, and Dean’s hard, a thickness through denim that Roman’s unfamiliar with. It’s new, but it’s not unpleasant. In fact, it’s pretty damn pleasant.

Dean chuckles low right below Roman’s face. When Roman opens his eyes (when did he close them?) Dean’s are shining with mirth underneath him.

“You good?” Dean asks. There’s a fuzzy note in his voice that Roman really, really likes. “All good, big guy?”

“Uh-huh,” Roman replies absently. He licks his lips, and his eyes move down Dean’s chest, where sweat is beginning to shine on his collarbone, down his stomach, muscles held tight, past his belt buckle, to — well, yeah. That’s a dick alright. Dean’s dick is obvious, pressing against his zipper.

“You wanna look at it or you wanna take it out?” Dean asks. He doesn’t sound accusatory or even really that curious about the answer. Like Roman could say, ‘I just want to look at it and think about it for a while,’ and Dean would shrug and let him.

Dean is relaxed, actually. He’s slumped back in the corner of the couch, one arm stretched along the arm of the couch, one arm propped on the back cushion. He doesn’t look like this is anything to think too hard about. And honestly, the answer to the question he’d asked is probably not as complicated as Roman is making it.

“I wanna take it out,” Roman answers, slowly, savoring the words as they leave his mouth.

Dean hisses quietly, a quick suck of air between teeth. “So do it, then.”

Roman’s hand moves like it’s in a dream. His fingers are pressing against the surprisingly cold metal of Dean’s zipper before he can even think about it properly, the pads of his fingertips brushing the rough denim. Dean is warm here, despite his zipper — the swell in his jeans is hot like skin when Roman cups his hand over it and, out of pure curiosity, rolls the ball of his wrist to press forward against it.

The noise Dean makes is pure sex, a moan caught in his throat, a choked off gasp.

“Tease,” Dean says, the hand that had been clutching the back cushion of the couch now moving to clutch at Roman’s shoulder, his fingers splaying over Roman’s tattoo. The image that puts in Roman’s head, Dean’s pale fingers contrasting with the harsh black lines of the ink, makes him feel a little like he’s losing his mind.

“I’m not,” Roman argues. Talking is a little like trying to walk underwater, slow and clumsy. He isn’t trying to tease, not really, isn’t put well enough together that he could formulate the kind of deliberateness that involves. He just… wants to touch. Wants to feel Dean’s skin, wants Dean’s fingernails to dig in and pinch, wants Dean’s head thrown back so that Roman can nudge up under his jaw and feel his pulse against his lips. It’s making his head spin.

“Prove it,” says Dean, a challenge. Roman’s never been one to turn down a challenge.

His fingers feel like useless appendages as he draws down Dean’s zipper, the kind of fumbly he hasn’t been since high school. The button pops open with a twist of his fingers, and Roman doesn’t even take a deep breath before he pushes his hand into Dean’s jeans and withdraws the length of him.

It’s… a dick. Roman doesn’t know what he was expecting. But it’s just a dick. A hard dick, a little sticky with sweat against his palm, leaking at the tip, but a dick nonetheless.

“You keep doing that, I’m gonna get the wrong idea and decide to start bein’ a dick model,” Dean says to him, his breath coming in harsh pants.

“You should,” says Roman without thinking. Honestly, he’s never thought of dicks as particularly appealing things, was always very grateful when someone chose to touch his, because they’re kind of weird looking. But Dean’s looks… nice. Thick, not absurdly long, curving gently toward his stomach, flushed pink near the tip. It’s… Roman’s pretty happy to have it in his hand, all things considered.

He moves his hand, experimentally, a slight squeeze and pull. Dean makes a low groaning sound, so he does it again — a little bit of a squeeze, and then a slower drag up.

“Okay,” Dean says, his fingernails digging in slightly to Roman’s shoulder. “You know, I didn’t figure you for a guy who’s boarded this plane too often, but you’re piloting like a fuckin’ champ.”

“Thanks. I think.” Roman is hard-pressed to think of something more difficult than talking while he has a dick in his hand, but the words come out. “I, uh. Haven’t taken a lot of lessons. On how to pilot this kind of aircraft.”

“No offense, but I kinda figured.” Dean rolls his hips a little, and Roman takes the hint, moves his hand again, a slow up-and-down. “You really don’t seem the type.”

Is that an insult? Is it a compliment? Is it neither? Roman doesn’t know and he’s getting pretty good at not caring.

What he does care about is the bare patch of skin on Dean’s neck, where his stubble doesn’t reach, where the skin is thin and vaguely sun-pink. He cares about getting his mouth on it, his tongue, his teeth. He ducks his head to press his mouth against Dean’s neck, and he licks against his pulse-point as he twists his wrist.

Dean hums. It sounds pleased. “I’m starting to feel a little like this is unfair. I got my business right out in the open and there you are, all buttoned-up. Doesn’t seem right.”

“Nope,” says Roman, his teeth catching on Dean’s throat, making him inhale sharply. “Maybe you better fix that.”

“Thought you’d never ask,” says Dean, and before Roman can react, he’s pushed Roman back, up and over, so that Roman is seated in the middle of the couch. There’s a second’s pause, and then Dean swings his leg up over Roman’s lap and sits, balanced on Roman’s thighs. It makes Roman think of the way they’d been positioned in the bedroom — close, heavy, his hands slipping to Dean’s thighs, the denim coarse beneath his fingers.

Dean’s fingers are far more confident than Roman’s had been, and he’s got less work to do - he tugs down the waistband of Roman’s shorts and dips his hand inside, pressing it where Roman is hard as well.

His hand curls around Roman, a loose fist, barely there, and then tighter. The sudden pressure makes Roman moan. It’s been a while since he felt so taken apart by the barely-beginnings of a handjob, but this is… this isn’t some girl he met at a bar. This is Dean. Everything swirling in his head is compounded by the fact that this is Dean with his hand on Roman’s dick, with his nails digging into Roman’s arm.

“This’ll blow your mind,” Dean says, sliding his legs further apart so that he’s snugly settled in Roman’s lap. He pushes forward then, hands on Roman’s shoulders, until there might as well be a click in Roman’s brain when their lengths slide together, hard and soft, hot and slick. Dean’s dick is leaking something fierce, a clear bead at the head smearing against the underside of Roman’s cock when Dean arches his hips again.

“Yeah,” Roman says, because that’s all he can say.

“Yeah?” Dean responds. He wraps one hand around both of them and that’s, that’s — Roman’s vision blurs for a moment as Dean strokes in long, slow movements, the movements becoming smoother as his hand gets wetter. As Roman watches, Dean lifts his hand to spit into it and then wraps it around their dicks again, and now it’s even wetter, even hotter, the way Dean is biting his lip and seems ultra-focused on what he’s doing.

Roman’s watching Dean’s face when his orgasm hits him, a surprise, hits him out of nowhere like a punch to the stomach. His jaw tightens, his fingers scrambling against Dean’s thighs.

“Yeah,” he vaguely hears Dean say. He sounds satisfied. “Yeah, just like that.”

“Fuck,” Roman says when he feels like he can talk again. It’s drawn out, heavy on the ‘F’ and he can hear in his own voice how wrecked he sounds.

“Maybe later, busy right now,” says Dean, and he’s still moving, his hand still stroking himself, now slick with Roman’s come, and that’s an image that’ll stick with him for… probably forever, honestly.

It only takes a few more strokes for Dean to come, his shoulders drawn tight, his wrist moving in staggered bursts. They’re a mess now, both of them, and Roman’s going to need another shower, but he doesn’t care.

There’s a moment of heaviness, where neither of them speaks, the only sound in the room the harshness of their breathing as they both come down.

“So that’s new,” says Dean, finally turning to the side and flopping off of Roman’s lap.

“Very,” Roman agrees. He’s hot now, a sweaty mess of bodily fluids, and by all rights he should be panicking right now, but he’s not. He just feels… good.

“You good?” Dean asks him, and there’s some tone in his voice that isn’t familiar to Roman, but his brain isn’t interested in analyzing that too hard.

“Uh-huh,” he responds. His heartbeat is winding down, less of a drumbeat in his ears.

“Good.” That’s more familiar, the quiet satisfaction in Dean’s voice. Roman’s heard it after a match went well.

“You good?” Roman ventures.

“Baby, I’m fuckin’ fantastic.” Dean’s quiet satisfaction is louder now, and Roman finally turns to look at him just as he’s rubbing sticky fingers through the mess on his stomach. It makes Roman’s ears feel hot.

“Good.” Roman can’t help but smile, and it feels ridiculous on his face, too-big and goofy. He turns away to hide it.

“I’m fucking disgusting, though,” says Dean. Roman can sense the wrinkle of his nose. “Wrestle you for the shower.”

Roman knows his shower is in no way big enough for two people, or he’d offer to just save water and do it together. Then again, showering together… is that something they do? Is it something other people do? Should they?

“You go ahead,” he says vaguely, shoving a hand through his hair. It’s knotty now, and damp with sweat, matting against the back of his neck.

“‘Kay,” says Dean, and he takes another moment before he heaves himself off the couch with a groan. He touches his stomach again, his mouth curling into a grimace. “Haven’t fooled around like that in a minute. Forgot how gross it gets.”

With that, he leaves the room, jeans sagging on his hips, revealing that tan line that makes Roman feel almost giddy.

Now that he’s alone, the room is too quiet. Roman has nothing to do but think.

And think, he is. He’s thinking about how much things have changed over the course of the past week. Less than a week, he registers. Today’s… Wednesday. It took him too long to get to that conclusion, but he’s almost positive it’s Wednesday. That means it’s been two days since… Since Seth, and since everything got fucked up.

Is this fucked up? Roman has to ask himself, and he realizes that he doesn’t know the answer. Would this have happened if Seth hadn’t done what he did? He’s not sure. He doesn’t know.

Does it matter? He doesn’t know that, either. Roman doesn’t know whether it makes a difference to what’s happened. He doesn’t know if he cares.

He doesn’t know if Dean cares. Dean doesn’t care about much — loyalty, wrestling, good beer. Roman doesn’t know if Dean gives a single shit about this change in their relationship. This change to a relationship?

God. Roman doesn’t know. He doesn’t know a damn thing about how things are supposed to be now. But he already didn’t, not with Seth gone.

He would have probably wanted to talk to Seth about this. He probably would have texted Seth right now, telling him everything and asking for advice. And Seth would have given him that advice, and maybe it wouldn’t have been perfect advice, but it would have been better than what Roman’s working with right now.

Roman is so lost in his thoughts that he doesn’t hear the footsteps coming down the hall until Dean has returned to the room, towel-damp hair sticking to the back of his neck. He’s wearing shorts now instead of jeans, the elastic waistband frayed at the edges, and he’s holding Brody, who is squirming happily.

“You really got too many haircare products, bro,” Dean announces, drawing a hand down the back of Brody’s neck. “I don’t think even you need that many deep conditioners.”

“I get split ends,” Roman argues. It’s easy to slip into this, normal back-and-forth. If Dean isn’t going to act like this is a big deal, then Roman can follow his lead. “Don’t be a hater.”

Dean gives Roman a look that nearly makes him shiver, all dark eyes and a fond curl to his lip. “If I hated you, I think the last hour would’ve gone differently.”

Roman swallows, his spit all of a sudden the main thing he’s focusing on. He clears his throat, and spots Dean smiling to himself.

“Fair,” he allows. He clears his throat again, and finally pushes himself off the couch. “Think I’m gonna catch me a shower, too.”

“Good idea,” says Dean. He strolls to the couch and sits down on the side he’d been when they’d… started. Roman’s skin feels hot and prickly.

His shower is taken in automated movements — he washes his hair, shoves a shitload of conditioner in it, then washes his body in slow, methodical movements. He’s not even doing it so that he has the time to think. He’s actually doing his best not to think of anything at all. Even as he scrubs his stomach until the skin goes pink, he’s deliberately keeping his mind as blank as he can. He knows himself: if he lets himself think about it now, he’ll whip himself into some sort of panic, and if Dean isn’t panicking, he’s not panicking.

As Roman washes the conditioner from his hair, a thought suddenly occurs to him. What if Dean’s not panicking because Roman isn’t panicking? What if Dean just wants to keep the peace and keep Roman from losing his shit? What if Dean is taking his cues from Roman, and actually this is a really weird situation for both of them?

Roman turns the water off with a frown. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what Dean’s thinking, and he doesn’t know whether they should both be freaking out or talking or not talking or what. He blindly snatches a towel and begins to dry himself using the same methodical, unhurried movements he’d been using as he watched.

In all seriousness, does it matter? If Dean’s reacting to Roman instead of the situation? Is that important? Roman wants to be sure of one thing, just one, but his main sure thing just became a not-so-sure thing, so his barometer for certainty has shifted.

When he returns to the living room after he throws on a pair of shorts and combs out his hair, Dean is still sat on his couch, dangling one of Brody’s many toys above him as the dog reclines on his back in the center of the couch. Brody is half-heartedly thwapping at the toy with a paw every so often, but Roman can see that even Brody is tuckered out.

Dean glances up at Roman as he enters the room, scanning him with a dispassionate gaze.

“Your dog is picky,” Dean says, gesturing with the crinkly oversized star-shaped toy in his hand. “Wouldn’t give me the time of day until I got the right toy out of his little box.”

“He’s a man who knows what he wants,” says Roman, loitering in the doorway. “I think I’m gonna let him out for a few,” he continues, “if you wanna come?” It ends in a way that sounds very unsure, which isn’t what he was going for.

Dean hardly reacts. “Yeah, sure.” He scoops the dog up in his arms and Brody stays put, drowsily snuffling at Dean’s chest. “Poor kid,” he says. “Tired himself right out. Big day, lots of fetch and belly rubs.”

“Takes a lot out of a man,” Roman agrees. He leads the way to the back door, pushing open the screen and sighing as the fresh night air hits him. It’s not cool, by any means, but it feels like it where Roman’s hair has dripped onto his shoulders and back.

Dean lets Brody down and the dog toddles off into the grass while Dean and Roman lower themselves to sit on the top step.

Silence falls.

It might be comfortable silence, for all Roman knows, but it doesn’t feel very damn comfortable to him.

“So,” says Dean. It may as well be a gunshot for how abruptly it breaks the silence. “Weird day, huh?”

He sounds wry, and it occurs to Roman yet again that this might be just as complicated for Dean as it is for him.

“I’ve had weirder,” Roman says with a shrug of his shoulder. Every movement he’s making feels very deliberate now.

Dean laughs. “Bet you haven’t.”

He’s not wrong. In the grand scheme of things, Roman can’t recall a day quite as emotionally uncertain as this since… well, Monday.

“Well,” Roman starts without much idea of how his sentence is going to end. “New experiences, you know.”

“This gonna make shit weird?” Dean asks. It almost overlaps with the end of Roman’s sentence. He’s not looking at Roman, instead staring at the moon with intensity. “Tell me now if it is, and we can pretend nothin’ ever happened. Just give me the word.”

“That’s not what I want,” Roman says. He’s not sure what he does want, but pretending this never happened isn’t it. “Shit, it happened, you know? I mean, if you-”

“Nah, no,” says Dean with a minute shake of his head. “Don’t go puttin’ words in my mouth.”

“Okay, so we’re not doing that,” Roman replies. He laces his fingers in his lap to have something to do with his hands. “So what are we doing?”

Dean scoffs quietly. “I was hoping you knew.” He shakes his head again, but slower. “I don’t know. I was thinkin’ — I don’t know, past few days, I was thinkin’ maybe, you know? Not blind or anything, and you don’t really got a hell of a poker face.”

“Thanks,” says Roman. His ears are burning again. He’d really hoped he had that under wraps, but it’s just like Dean to so casually destroy his pretences.

“Welcome. Anyway, I thought maybe there was something, a thing, you know? But I’m not really the captain of the talking-about-our-feelings brigade, so I wasn’t gonna bring it up. What if I’m wrong, you know? I’ve been wrong before; it’s rare, but it happens.”

“Big of you,” says Roman, and this whole conversation is surreal. He’s not used to Dean going on like this — usually everything Dean says is very deliberate, chosen thoughtfully. Despite what people say, he doesn’t go on babbling very often. Roman doesn’t want to interrupt.

“I just thought… what if it’s just because of Seth?” The name is said with vitriol, the kind of anger Roman still can’t muster glowing like hot coals in Dean’s voice. “What if it’s just, I don’t know, because there’s nobody else? Because you need a distraction? Because I’m kind of fuckin’ easy?”

“No, hey, no-”

“Let me finish.” Dean’s eyes flick to Roman’s with silent disapproval. “And then I thought to myself, like… who cares? Who gives a shit?” He finally turns to face Roman, his knee knocking into Roman’s, his gaze piercing. “I don’t. I don’t care why. ‘Cause I wanted to. And I don’t think I’m imagining that you wanted to. So why get all fuckin’ weird about it? We’re adults. We don’t need permission.”

“You weren’t imagining it,” says Roman. It sounds — to Roman, at least — like Dean is saying exactly what Roman had been hoping for out of this: that he doesn’t need to know yet why they’re doing this. Is it possible that it’s enough that they want to? Could it be that easy? “I wanted to.”

“Alright, cool.” Dean nods as if to punctuate his statement. “So shit won’t get weird, right?”

“Right,” says Roman. The way Dean’s phrased it, it seems as straightforward as anything. Like Roman was stupid to have thought anything of it.

“Good. Great.” Dean lets out a breath and then a quiet yelp of surprise when Brody, as if sensing the wrought emotions, wriggles up into the ‘V’ of Dean’s legs looking for attention. “Hey, buddy,” he says, his voice softening. He scratches behind Brody’s ears.

“Think it’s time for him to go to bed,” says Roman. The feeling blooming in his chest at the way Dean behaves with his dog feels far less casual than they’ve established this is.

“Same here,” admits Dean, absentmindedly flipping Brody’s tail back and forth. “He’s got the right idea.”

“Shit, I was gonna change those sheets before now,” Roman says with a guilty glance back toward the house.

Dean makes a skeptical noise. “From what, the IcyHot?” he asks. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve slept on worse, trust me.”

“You could tell me you’ve slept on the floor of a Spanish prison and I’d believe you,” Roman responds. It’s not quite a joke. He pushes himself to his feet with a low groan, knuckling fists into his lower back and stretching until it pops. He makes a mental note to throw the bedding from the guest room in the wash tomorrow morning.

“Oh, I never told you about that?” Dean asks, letting the dog chew on the webbing between his thumb and forefinger. He carefully extracts his hand, then gets to his feet as well.

“Night,” Roman says. It feels awkward, almost, though he’s trying his best to seem unaffected. Should they hug? Should they kiss? Should he be asking Dean back to his room?

His brain makes a cartoon screeching noise at the thought of Dean in his bed. Maybe they should save that for another time.

“Night,” Dean says like he hasn’t heard Roman’s internal monologue, which Roman supposes he hasn’t.

Roman quietly coaxes Brody back into the house, and the click-clack of his nails on the floor helps Roman feel more like he’s treading water. It gives him something to focus on.

“You coming in?” he asks, lingering in the doorway with the door open.

“In a sec,” answers Dean. He leans against the railing of the stairs, glancing back at the moon. “It’s nice out.”

“Sure,” says Roman. It is nice, anyway, and he doesn’t feel like prying. “See you in the morning.”

Dean inclines his head, but doesn’t say anything more as Roman closes the door behind him.

Inside the house, the sudden quiet darkness is refreshing. Roman feels a lot less hot, though the temperature hasn’t really changed between outside and inside. He busies himself with making sure Brody has enough food and water for the night, brushing his teeth, washing his face. By the time Roman finishes all his nightly tasks and pushes the door to his bedroom open, Dean still hasn’t made his way back in.

The morning dawns far too early in Roman’s opinion. He squints into the morning light, rubbing a hand over his face as he checks the time on his phone. 8:30. The dog is curled in a ball at the foot of the bed, but as Roman watches, his head lifts to blearily regard Roman.

“Mornin’,” Roman says.

“Mornin’,” comes a response he’s not expecting, and he has a perplexed moment of wondering when his dog learned how to talk before he realizes that Dean is in the doorway to his room.

“Oh, hey,” says Roman, sliding up in the bed so that he can sit, swinging his legs over the side. His back twinges, but it’s far better than it had been when they’d touched down in Florida. “How’d you sleep?”

“Like a baby,” answers Dean. “I wasn’t watching you sleep like a fucking creep, I promise. Just on my way to the bathroom.”

“Don’t let me stop you,” Roman says. Dean flashes him a quick grin and ducks out of the room, heading back down the hallway.

That was… normal. Considering everything that happened yesterday, it was very normal, in fact. Roman’s starting to wonder if he might not have to freak out about this at all.

“C’mon, boy,” says Roman, reaching a hand over to scratch Brody’s belly. “Time for breakfast.”

Breakfast turns out to be eggs and PopTarts, which Dean doesn’t seem to mind by the way he scarfs down one of his PopTarts in about three seconds flat.

“Wildberry,” is what he says to Roman when he notices that Roman is staring. Like that’s an explanation.

Roman strips the sheets off of Dean’s bed about mid-afternoon, though Dean protests the whole time. Roman’s just not the kind of guy who can abide by dirty sheets. He throws them in the wash and, by the time it’s almost done with the dry cycle, they’re back in the living room, watching some old action movie on the TV.

Well, Roman’s half-watching. And Dean is fully not watching, instead listlessly flipping through a ‘Local Attractions’ catalogue that had come with the mail. Roman usually throws that shit out, but Dean had seized it when he’d tried, claiming he wanted to clip coupons.

“We should check this out,” Dean says suddenly, holding up a page of the catalogue. It’s an advertisement for the Dogs Only Night they have at the neighborhood pool. Roman’s never been before.

“Sounds like it’d smell disgusting,” he observes, smiling a little when Dean gestures more forcefully with the magazine. “When is it?”

“Next week.” Dean’s already carefully ripping out the ad. “Wednesday, I think.”

“You planning on coming out this way again?” Roman has to ask.

Dean doesn’t outwardly react, but his tone is very casual when he says, “Thought I might. Lovely this time of year.”

Roman tries very hard not to let his smile start to look too ridiculous. “Pretty nice,” he agrees.

The noise of the dryer going off interrupts, and Dean refuses to help Roman get the sheets back on the bed, reasoning that he had tried to convince Roman not to remove them at all. They end up wrestling on the bed, which completely fucks up the fitted sheet, and results in them making out fully clothed for about an hour.

In the middle of it, Dean laughs, tips his head back against the headboard, and looks at Roman fondly. “We keep doing this, you’re gonna have to start investing in ponytails. It’s like being strangled down here.”

And this, Roman likes this. He likes Dean being here, he likes Dean being here for him to kiss, to trade joking barbs with. He likes that Dean seems to like being here with him.

“I like it here,” he says quietly, a hand pressed to Dean’s chest, his fingers spread wide.

Dean’s eyes are bright as he looks up at Roman, his head against the pillow, a half-smile lingering on his lips.

“Here likes you, too,” he replies, his hand sliding up Roman’s side. His palm is warm and dry, his blunt fingernails gently scratching Roman’s skin. “Here could get used to this.”

“Good,” Roman murmurs. He ducks down to kiss Dean again and savors it, lets it linger the way he wants to. That’s the thing about Dean — he makes it impossible for Roman to feel a sense of hesitance because Dean just cranes up into it. Even if Roman thought, maybe, Dean was just doing this out of a sense of obligation, to keep Roman from feeling embarrassed about his own… crush, that’s the only word for it, even if Dean was only doing this to make Roman feel better (which isn’t his style), he isn’t acting that way. He seems to be just as into this as Roman is.

“Smackdown tomorrow,” Dean mutters against Roman’s lips. It sends a wash of cold down Roman’s back. He leans back, now chagrined, and drops off Dean to the side. Might as well have been a cold shower for all it sapped Roman of any desire he had.

“I didn’t mean you had to move,” says Dean, but he’s heaving himself up onto his elbows, lacing his fingers across his stomach. He looks at Roman consideringly.

“I forgot,” says Roman, chagrined. He takes a deep breath in and lets it out. With everything else — the newness of everything, he’d managed to forget that none of this is normal, and ordinarily there’d be someone else here to make fun of them for all of it. “I can’t believe I forgot.”

“Probably a good thing,” Dean replies. He sets a hand on Roman’s shoulder. “Hey. It’s fine. God knows we could use a distraction.”

Is that what this is? Roman’s thoughts are whirling. Is this just a distraction? For Dean? For them? Does he want it to be anything else? He was doing a great job of not thinking about any of this but now he doesn’t have an option. He has to think about this. About Seth, about what this whole new development means.

“You think he’ll even say anything?” Roman asks, sighing and turning to Dean. Dean has shifted, folded his legs criss-cross-applesauce, but he’s still looking at Roman. “Or — will he save it for Raw? Or will he ever say anything?”

“Don’t know,” answers Dean. He doesn’t sound concerned at all. “Maybe he’ll just let Triple H talk for him.”

That’s not what Roman wants. His frown deepens. He wants an explanation, something at least. Some sort of meaning for what’s happened. You don’t just turn on your team — there had to be a reason. The real question is whether Seth’s actually going to let them know that reason.

“I hope he says something,” he responds, slow, unsure of whether Dean’s on the same page. “I hope — I hope he says something, at least. I don’t care what. Just, anything, you know?”

Dean makes a noise of assent. “Yeah, I get that. Don’t know if it’ll make any difference, though.”

“How could it not?” Roman asks. “Knowing the reason? Knowing what changed?”

“Maybe nothing changed,” Dean says. His eyes are locked on Roman’s. “Maybe he’s just been planning this. Maybe it was what he wanted from the start. Maybe it’s something he decided on five minutes before we went out there. He still did it either way. What changes if he spouts off some bullshit about it?”

Roman can’t see it that way. He can’t think of Seth as someone who would’ve done this, but he has, and Roman’s brain can’t comprehend how to balance the two things he knows — he loves Seth and Seth turned his back on them on Monday.

“I just want to know why,” Roman says. He doesn’t know how to explain it better than that. “I just want to look at his face and hear why he did what he did.”

“Okay,” says Dean, squeezing Roman’s shoulder and then letting go. “So we’ll figure it out. We’ll get it out of him, if he doesn’t want to say. We’ll figure it out.”

Roman sighs again. That’s not even beginning to think about the other thing Dean had said, about this being a distraction. He’s not sure how that makes him feel, just knows that there is a pit in his stomach now that could be from talking about Seth or it could be from that, the other thing. The thing Roman’s been trying his best to ignore.

Maybe Dean doesn’t feel the same way about this as he does.

Doesn’t matter, he tells himself firmly. Doesn’t matter at all, not now. Not in this moment. Right now, they’re focusing on Seth and how to handle that curveball. They’ll deal with this later.

“So we gotta watch Smackdown,” he concludes. “If only to see if he does say anything. And if he doesn’t, we’ll just have to find him on Raw. Get it out of him somehow.”

The smile Dean gives him is mean and almost hollow. “Not a problem,” he says. “I got no problem beating it out of him if I got to.”

Roman hates that he still feels a wrench in his chest at that, hates that he hates the thought of Dean and Seth fighting. God, he’d thought they were over this after what happened in March, when Seth walked out on them. He’d thought that was it, that was the worst thing they’d ever go through as a group. He hadn’t anticipated that Seth’s walk-out was just a preview, that he was only planning on staying until now.

“Why’d he even bother?” Roman asks. His muscles feel jittery, so he stretches his legs out, leans back against the headboard. “In March? Why’d he even bother trying to get us to work our shit out if he was just gonna leave?”

“Who fuckin’ knows?” Dean replies with a shrug. He looks very relaxed, actually. He doesn’t look like he’s freaking out over either of the things Roman is freaking out about. Maybe Roman is overreacting. Maybe he should be looking at this the way Dean is — it doesn’t matter why Seth did what he did, and they’re fooling around as a distraction.

He can look at it that way, right? He can do that?

“You’re right,” he says, rolling his shoulders and noting with relief that his back isn’t hurting him nearly as much as it had been. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Sounds good,” Dean replies with a half-smile. He swings his legs off the bed and stretches himself, arms above his head, and his sternum pops quietly. “I’m starved. Feels like forever ago I had those PopTarts. You wanna figure out something for food?”

“Sure,” Roman acquiesces. He swings his own legs off the bed. “I think I got shit I can throw together.”

That’s the last they talk about it for a long time, as Roman allows himself to fall into the rhythm of making food, half-listening while Dean talks about the dog night at the pool. He sounds excited for it, and Roman does his best not to think about what it might mean if Dean wants to come back around next week, if Dean wants to come back to Roman’s house to stay a while.

They eat in the living room, scarfing some chicken and rice dish that Roman always makes when he has no idea what to make (basically just chicken, rice, and six assorted spices from his cabinet) and pop on the TV to have something on in the background.

“You like dogs or cats better?” he asks Dean as he scrapes for the last of the rice in his bowl.

“Cats,” Dean answers even as he leans down to scratch Brody under his chin. The dog has been begging at Dean’s feet for the past five minutes, because he knows damn well Roman won’t be giving him any table scraps. “Less work. Less high-maintenance.”

“You’re good with him, though,” Roman notes, nodding toward Brody. He reaches out to take Dean’s bowl as he finishes. “I wouldn’t have thought.”

Dean’s mouth curls up and then down, and he keeps looking at Brody even as he responds. “Seth’s got dogs,” he says. Roman supposes that’s enough of an explanation, though it’s on a topic he’s been doing his best to avoid, so he changes the subject.

“You strike me as the kinda guy who has snakes and shit,” he says. “Snakes and lizards. Maybe a rat.”

“Thanks, or fuck you, whichever,” says Dean, but he’s not frowning anymore. “Nah, we never had pets growing up ‘cause nobody would ever be home to feed ‘em. I just like cats. They’ve got attitude. Dogs are cool and everything, but you know how you stand with a dog. I like to stay on my toes.”

Roman makes a quiet clicking noise and Brody trots over as Roman retrieves his treats from the side table, breaking one of the little dry bones in half and chucking it across the room to watch Brody sprint after it.

Dean clears his throat. “Would you rather have no arms or no legs?” he asks.

“What the hell kind of question is that?” Roman laughs. He offers the other half of the treat to Brody when he’s finished crunching on the first half. “Uh, no arms. I think. No, no legs. I don’t know.”

“Come on, you gotta pick one.” Dean is rubbing his stomach like he’s pleasantly full, his eyes on Roman, amusement playing in them. “Arms or legs?”

“Legs,” Roman finally decides. He tosses Dean a look. “What about you? Arms or legs?”

“Legs,” Dean agrees without hesitation. “You think I’m gonna get rid of my arms and never jerk off again?”

“Just get replacement arms,” Roman suggests. “Robot arms. Like that superhero movie we watched.”

Roman realizes too late that the reason they’d even gone to see that movie was because Seth had demanded they all go. Roman hadn’t seen any of the movies in the series, but Seth had been determined for them all to see this one in theaters. And it had been maybe a month after Seth had walked out on them, and Dean and Roman had been walking on tenterhooks to make sure Seth didn’t leave again.

Clearly, it didn’t work.

“Yeah, well,” Dean says. He doesn’t say anything else. Roman wonders if he’s remembering what Roman is remembering.

“What’s your favorite movie?” Roman asks, desperately, anything to change the subject from this aching bruise on his heart.

“Uh, Terminator, maybe,” says Dean. He looks startled, like he’d been lost in his own thoughts and wasn’t expecting to have to answer a question even though all they do is ask each other questions.

And kiss. They kiss sometimes, too.

“Oh, shit, we’re gonna miss Jeopardy,” Dean exclaims as he flips his wrist to look at his watch. He grabs the remote from the end table and flips the television on, flicking from channel to channel until Alex Trebek’s mustached face enters their field of vision.

The game has already started, but from the categories, Roman doesn’t think they would have managed to come up with much.

“How much d’you know about Abe Lincoln?” he asks Dean, pushing himself up on the couch so that he can sit up straight.

“Probably about as much as you know about sheep,” Dean responds with a scratch to the back of his head. “Okay, maybe the second batch of questions’ll be better.”

Dean is thrilled when the second batch of categories includes lines from Hamlet and Psychology, and Roman hangs all his hopes on modern film, but by Final Jeopardy, Dean is definitely beating him even though they haven’t actually been keeping score.

“I’m wagering everything,” Dean says smugly.

“I’m wagering four dollars,” says Roman, and he wishes the way Dean gets so earnestly into competition, even when it’s just a random episode of Jeopardy, was less appealing to him. The way Dean goes guns-blazing into any contest… it makes Roman feel warm.

Dean snorts. “Coward,” he taunts. The category is 19th century U.S. history and Roman has never felt less prepared to answer a question (or question an answer, as the case may be.)

They both watch, irrationally invested, as the question is revealed.

“A dignitary at the dedication of this said it was ‘keeping watch and ward before the open gates of America’,” says Alex Trebek, affable as anything.

“Okay,” Dean mutters, eyes narrowed, gaze darting from side to side. “Okay, okay. Keeping watch and ward. Like a guardian? America’s guardian?”

“The Statue of Liberty,” Roman says, quickly, because Dean’s ability to talk himself through the reasoning of anything is going to lead him to the same answer no matter what, but at least he’ll have the bonus points from answering before him.

“Ah, fuck, it is, isn’t it?” Dean says, snapping his fingers. “It’s the fuckin’ Statue of Liberty.”

All three contestants also answer the Statue of Liberty, and Roman feels very pleased when it’s revealed to be the right answer.

“You beat me fair ‘n square,” Dean says, stretching his arms above his head until his back makes a soft popping sound. “I’ll getcha tomorrow, though.”

“You would’ve gotten it,” says Roman. “I just got it first.”

“Yeah, yeah, brag about it.” Dean throws him a fake annoyed look, then leans back against the arm of the couch so that he’s facing Roman. “We’ll see who’s laughing when I beat your ass at Jeopardy tomorrow night.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Roman says. He turns so that he’s also facing Dean, propping one leg along the back of the couch to ease the stress on his lower back.

Dean looks at him again, but it’s not an annoyed look this time. It’s playful, mischievous.

“Better stop sitting like that,” he says. He doesn’t offer an explanation.

“Why?” Roman asks. He bends his leg at the knee, which puts less pressure on his back, and slouches a little.

Dean’s mouth quirks to the side. “‘Cause it’s makin’ me wanna suck your dick.”

Roman’s veins light on fire, or at least that’s how he feels. Sometimes he manages to forget, about everything, because Dean and him are Dean and him. And then, in moments like this, he’s reminded, he can. They can. They do this now.

He slouches a little more, until his lower back is firmly making contact with the couch cushion, and gives Dean a challenging look.

Dean laughs, loud and unabashed, grinning at Roman and then licking his lips.

“Shit, then what’re we waiting for?”

He slides forward on the couch, hands and knees, crawling toward Roman until he’s right in front of him and then lowering himself to his stomach. Roman’s knee drops, and Dean settles his hands on Roman’s thighs.

“Never done it from this angle before,” says Dean, thoughtful. He rubs his hands up Roman’s thighs and then back down, a firm rub. Roman’s skin tingles under Dean’s fingertips.

“Y’want me to move?” Roman feels barely capable of speech with Dean like this, so casually suggestive, his mouth not more than a few inches from Roman.

“Nah.” Dean grins up at him, his nails digging in a little. “I like a little challenge. Makes it fun.”

He curls his fingers into the waistband of Roman’s shorts, tugs them down enough that he can crane his neck and press a kiss against Roman’s hip, then again below his navel. His next kiss is lower, pushed into the stubble where Roman’s happy trail would be. Roman can feel himself perking up with the proximity.

“I’m gonna take care of you,” Dean mutters, finally pulling down Roman’s shorts enough to expose him fully. The cool air is startling, but not as startling as the way Dean immediately mouths at the side of Roman’s shaft, low by his balls, his nose nudging Roman’s hardening cock. “Gonna take real good care of you.”

His breath is warm against Roman, his tongue a flickering wet presence on Roman’s skin.

Without thinking, Roman’s hand comes to rest in Dean’s hair. The fine strands are soft beneath his fingers.

“You got no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this,” Dean informs him, and then he mouths up over the head of Roman’s cock and he stops talking and Roman stops thinking.

Dean’s mouth is a silken warmth as his tongue presses to Roman, his hand curling around the base, his mouth tightening, tightening until the suction is almost too hard, almost too intense. It makes stars burst behind Roman’s eyes, which is when he realizes he’s closed them.

He opens his eyes but that’s even more of a sensory overload — the way he can see Dean’s lips tight around him, the way he can see how Dean’s eyes are closed, his brow furrowed lightly until it relaxes and he sinks down, his mouth a burning pressure of wet warmth. His mouth is like hot silk as he swallows around Roman, his throat tightening just a little. Roman has to close his eyes again.

And like this, it’s like he’s on another planet, the sensation amplified, and he can hear — he can hear the quiet soft sucking sounds Dean’s making, the gentle constriction of his gag reflex. The low humming, a constant vibration. Roman opens his eyes.

Dean opens his eyes then, and their gazes lock — Roman has no idea what the expression on his face is but the corner of Dean’s mouth quirks up and that’s, Roman can’t think about that too hard, about Dean smiling around his cock, about Dean with his mouth full and still so playful. Dean’s chin is wet with spit and God knows what else, and he pulls his mouth off but draws his hand up in a long stroke, smoothed by the slickness he’s left. Roman feels sparks in his extremities.

“Ain’t done this in a while,” Dean says, his voice shot, almost a croak. He licks his lips and then dives back in, moving his hand to meet his mouth, a long pull that feels like it’s coaxing something out of Roman, something intangible but very real.

“Couldn’t tell,” Roman replies, and he can hear how fucked he sounds, how there’s a barely noticeable tremor in his voice.

Dean laughs around him, taking his mouth off but not moving far. He sucks a kiss from the side of Roman’s dick, trailing them down lower, his tongue (fuck, but Dean has a long tongue, and Roman’s never thought about it in this context) dipping lower to trace patterns over Roman’s balls. It’s light touches, faint, almost ticklish, but Roman doesn’t feel like laughing.

“You flatter me,” Dean mutters, and Roman doesn’t even remember what he’d said before that to prompt the response. All he knows is his balls are tightening, his heart rate coming faster and faster.

“I’m close,” he says to Dean, and if anything, Dean digs his heels in more, his hands resting on Roman’s waist as he sinks his mouth down as far as he can, and he’s pushing himself, gagging faintly but staying where he is, and when Roman comes, he can feel the tightening of Dean’s throat all the way around him when he swallows.

Dean slowly pulls back, letting Roman drop from his mouth with a quiet hum, swiping a wrist over his mouth, now bright pink and rubbed raw. His lower lip is shiny, and as Roman watches, his tongue darts out to smooth over the abused skin.

“Jesus,” he says emphatically, his bones like jelly. He still has a hand in Dean’s hair, and he strokes it gently, a thoughtless movement. Dean makes a satisfied noise and his head butts against Roman’s wrist. Smiling to himself, Roman tugs, gentle, and Dean hoists himself up on the couch so that he can sit back on his heels.

It’s obvious that he’s not unaffected, his jeans tented, and Roman doesn’t think, doesn’t second-guess, just flicks open the button of Dean’s jeans and draws the zipper down to dip his hand inside.

Dean sucks in air between his teeth, then laughs.

“Your hand’s cold,” he says. He’s still pressing into it, though, his hands settling on Roman’s shoulders as he grinds his hips against Roman’s hand.

It just takes a movement for Roman to curl his hand around Dean. This gets easier the more times he does it. He remembers when the thought of touching Dean’s dick had never even occurred to him. Now it’s almost second-nature to stroke, pull Dean out of his jeans.

It’s a little dry, so Roman grunts, removes his hand just long enough to lick his palm. Dean’s in the middle of a disgruntled noise when Roman replaces his hand, and his palm is slick now so it’s that much easier to pull little sharp sounds from Dean’s throat, the quietest whines Roman’s ever heard. It’s not long before Dean is shuddering, coming apart, spilling over Roman’s hand with another one of those quiet whimpery moans that makes Roman feel like he might break apart at the seams.

He smooths his other hand up Dean’s back, savoring the feeling of skin beneath his fingers, of the indentation of Dean’s spine. They’re both breathing hard, and Roman’s hand is covered in come. Dean’s.

“Jesus,” he says again.

“You’re tellin’ me,” says Dean. He sounds rough around the edges. His chest rises and falls in great gasps, and his chest is flushed at the top by his collarbones.

Roman isn’t sure what to do with his other hand. One is now resting on Dean’s hip, but the other - and all he can think about is how Dean had swallowed without hesitation, gagging on Roman’s cock and swallowing all of him down.

Well, first time for everything. Hesitantly, Roman licks his palm, drawing his tongue up the middle of it. It’s salty, mostly, he’s surprised to note. He really thought it was going to taste worse. He continues to clean his hand, only noticing that Dean’s staring at him when he looks up, sucking the last of Dean’s come from the pad of his thumb.

“You’re fucking unreal, you know that?” Dean asks him, and he leans in to kiss Roman again, this one almost gentle. Roman kisses back, almost dizzy with sensation.

“Thank you?” Roman half-asks. He thinks he’s blushing. He really hopes Dean can’t tell.

Dean stretches, leaning back on his heels and rolling his shoulders before he tucks himself away. Roman expects him to want to go shower or something, but instead, Dean just flops down beside him, letting Roman move his leg with a wince. Damn, he was in that position for too long. His back’s not thrilled about it, either, but he can deal with that.

There’s a second of nothing, and then Dean’s head rolls against his shoulder. Could have been an accident. Could be nothing at all. But Roman puts his arm around Dean anyway, pulls him closer, pushes his nose into Dean’s hair and breathes.

“You wanna sleep in my room tonight?” he asks, mumbled into Dean’s hair because he kind of hopes Dean doesn’t hear him at all.

“Hm,” says Dean, a nothing-noise, rubbing his cheek against Roman’s shoulder. “Your bed’s bigger.”

“It is,” Roman agrees. He slides his hand down Dean’s arm, and wonders how it’s possible that he waited so long for this. They wasted so much time fighting and bitching and moaning at each other when they could’ve been doing this the whole time. He could’ve had Dean pressed against him like this, smelling like sweat and sex and Old Spice, could’ve kissed him fucking years ago.

But he didn’t, and there’s no use wondering what could have been if only. There’s just now, and right now Roman’s more comfortable than he can remember being in a long time — despite his back, despite Seth, despite his uncertainties. He feels good.

“I’m gonna get a water,” says Roman, his hand slipping further to cup Dean’s elbow, press the knobbly point of it into the center of his palm. It grounds him a little, something to focus on, that point where they’re connected. “You want one?”

“I’ll take a beer, if you’re goin’,” says Dean, and he rubs his face against Roman again. It reminds Roman, in a weird way, of Brody, of the way Brody will push his face into his hand and rub his teeth against Roman’s fingers if he pets him in a certain way. Roman lifts the hand at Dean’s elbow and touches his hair again, gives it something like a ruffle, something more like a caress than he would have thought himself capable of. Dean makes a satisfied noise and pushes against Roman’s hand, and Roman has no idea how he’s going to convince himself to stand up and leave this room right now.

“Okay, I’m going,” he says, as much to convince himself as it is to clarify his intentions.

“‘kay,” says Dean, and he leans back a little, enough to give Roman room to slide off the couch and rise to his feet, cringing as he pushes his fists into his lower back.

It only takes a minute to grab a water from the kitchen and a beer from the fridge, the cold of it bracing against his bare skin. He clings to that, tries to let it bring his thoughts out of the fog they’ve been hovering in.

When he returns to the living room, Dean is still sprawled in the middle of the couch, his jeans zipped but unbuttoned, as he feeds Brody a treat from the pouch in the side table drawer.

“He’s gonna get spoiled while you’re here,” Roman says after he takes a moment to just watch. “I don’t usually give him more’n one a day.”

“He deserves it,” Dean argues, giving Brody a scratch beneath the chin. “You know what a boner-killer it is to have some dog yapping while you’re trying to get your rocks off? And he stayed quiet the whole time, didn’t you? Huh? Didn’t you, good boy?”

Brody is perched on the very tips of his paws, craning his neck as Dean scratches behind his ears and down his back. He flops down onto his side, rolling to his back so that Dean will give him belly rubs.

“Spoiled,” Roman repeats firmly, settling himself back down on the couch, nudging Dean with the bottom of the beer in his hand. Dean takes it with a nod of thanks, popping the top of it with the edge of his watch and taking a long drink. He downs half the beer before he takes it from his mouth.

“Nothin’ wrong with being spoiled when you’re a dog,” says Dean, his voice less ragged now. “Look at him. He deserves it.”

Roman looks at Brody. Brody looks back, tail wagging.

He is damn cute, Roman thinks, scooping the dog up into his arms and ruffling his ears, scratching his chest, letting him half-gnaw on one of Roman’s fingers.

“I’ll allow it,” he finally responds, lowering Brody carefully to the ground. Brody promptly skids, his nails clacking against the floor as he scrambles back up onto the couch, curling up in Dean’s lap and promptly falling asleep.

Roman twists the cap from his water and downs most of it. He hadn’t realized how thirsty he was, but the water is like a soothing balm on his dry throat.

“Can’t believe you drink room temp water when you could get a fridge that’ll give you cold water for free,” says Dean, one hand absently stroking down Brody’s back.

“I just like it better,” says Roman with a shrug. He doesn’t know how to justify it any better than that.

“Freak,” says Dean, but there’s soft affection in his voice, and Roman wants to pull him back against him, toy with Dean’s hair, feel more of his skin.

That would disturb Brody, so he doesn’t. But he thinks about it.

“You want me to put the dragon show back on?” Roman asks, reaching over to give Brody another scritch. Brody’s back leg kicks, but he otherwise doesn’t react, even when Roman accidentally touches Dean’s hand, thinks about holding it, and jerks back with an apology on his lips.

“Yeah,” Dean says before he can, carefully folding his legs up, using his hands to keep from jostling the dog too much. “I wanna know if the short guy gets dead.”

Roman flips the TV to the appropriate app, turning on the show and sitting back in his seat. This is… this is nice. Him and Dean, his dog, quietly watching TV together, the silence comfortable and easy.

This, this is why he can’t think about it too hard. If he thinks about it too hard, he’ll fuck it up, question it too much, start wondering if he should be worrying and spiraling until he ruins everything. Even if — even if — he would die to know what Dean’s thinking, right now, what thoughts are going through his head. He won’t ask, because he doesn’t want to know the answer. Because he’s afraid of the answer.

Instead, he just sits with his best friend and man’s best friend and watches the stupid dragon show, and by the time they separate to go to bed, Roman’s forgotten why he was worrying in the first place.

He wakes unsure of where he is.

It looks and feels like his house, and his bed, but there’s someone in the bed with him, someone whose head is resting on his shoulder, and it takes him a long moment of confusion to remember last night.

Dean, long-limbed and bony, sliding into the other side of his bed. A little self-deprecating smile. Some comment about how he’s not as young as he used to be, probably couldn’t get it up again but he’d give it a shot if Roman wanted. Roman, rolling his eyes, telling Dean to shut up and get some sleep.

It was new, different, for Roman to share a bed with someone — not that he never has, but it’s been a while, and the last time he shared a bed with Dean he didn’t know what his come tasted like, so it’s. It’s different.

When Roman blinks the fuzz from his eyes, the first thing he sees is Dean, still sound asleep, curled into Roman’s side, one arm wound so tightly around Roman’s waist that it’s kind of making him have to pee.

Instinctively, Roman leans down, presses his face into Dean’s hair and breathes. If he pushes a kiss against Dean’s hairline, well, Dean’s asleep, and nobody’s here to tell on Roman.

He slides his hand down Dean’s back lightly where his arm is curled around him. His hand has pins and needles, like Dean’s been lying on his arm for a while, but Roman doesn’t want to move. He likes it here.

Dean and he have both said that to each other — ”I like it here.” “Here likes you, too.” — it echoes in Roman’s head like a shout. It’s true. Roman just likes it here, holding Dean, waking up with someone. He likes the scratch of stubble against his shoulder, even likes the way Dean’s morning wood is poking him in the hip. He’s too warm and he has to pee and his hand is going numb, but he likes it here.

He’s not sure how long he just sits there, rubbing up and down Dean’s back, staring at his face, but at some point, he becomes aware that Dean is waking up. He’s not sure what he first noticed — Dean’s eyelid twitching, maybe, or his grip loosens. Either way, when Dean opens his eyes, Roman’s looking right at him.

Dean doesn’t jump or flinch or anything. He smiles lazily at Roman, quirking an eyebrow.

“You watchin’ me sleep, man?” he asks, his voice croaky with the morning. “S’pretty creepy.”

“No,” says Roman immediately, even though he kind of was. “Sorry,” he adds.

Dean snorts delicately, finally moving his arm from around Roman’s waist. Roman sort of wishes he hadn’t, but he doesn’t say anything as Dean pushes himself back onto his elbows, pushing his chest up until his sternum pops. “Don’t got anything to apologize for,” he says with a soft sigh of relief.

Roman watches as Dean pushes the sheets down, and he’d forgotten that Dean stripped off his jeans before he got in the bed, but it’s clear now, Dean’s tan line even more obvious now when he turns to get off the bed and his back is to Roman. Roman wants to reach out and trace it, see if there’s a difference between the way Dean’s skin feels above the waist and just below. He doesn’t.

“Make me breakfast,” Dean demands, and it helps Roman shake the cobwebs from his brain, focus on what’s important, which is getting food into them.

“Bossy,” Roman admonishes. He does get out of bed, though, and starts making eggs while Dean showers. He could use one too, but Dean had grinned at him and kissed him on the cheek before ducking into the bathroom, and Roman had been too caught up in that to argue.

It’s funny, he thinks, adding some salt into the pan as he scrambles the eggs, peppers, and onions together. It’s funny how he never would have expected any of this in the slightest, but it feels so normal now. Even when Dean does or says something that takes Roman off his game, it’s not in a bad way. He feels light on his feet, almost.

Or at least, he does until he remembers that today is Friday, which means Smackdown is tonight, which means they’ll have to watch to see what Seth is going to say.

Now lost in thought, Roman almost burns the batch of eggs he’s cooking. He pops some slices of rye bread into the toaster and while he waits for them to toast, he stares out his back door, watching a bird land on his porch and then fly away.

“Penny for ‘em,” comes Dean’s voice from behind him, which startles him enough that he jumps, and then he jumps again when the toast pops up. He’s pretty sure Dean is laughing at him.

“What?” Roman asks when he manages to calm down his embarrassment.

“Penny for ‘em,” Dean repeats. He’s rubbing through his hair with a towel, eyes curious as he looks at Roman. “Looked like pretty deep thoughts.”

“Oh, no, not really,” Roman says with a sigh, retrieving the toast so that he can butter it and scoop some eggs on top. He hands the plate to Dean, who looks at him like Roman just handed him the world heavyweight championship and then begins to scarf down the food at a pace that looks, frankly, dangerous. “Just, thinking about tonight, is all.”

“Mm.” Dean nods, mouth full of egg and toast. He chews frantically, then swallows. “Yeah, me too. What d’you think he’s gonna say?”

“I don’t know.” Roman’s own eggs on toast look supremely unappetizing all of a sudden, but he picks up his piece and bites in. It tastes like sand, but he manages to swallow. “I have no idea. Not a clue.”

Dean nods again, slowly, polishing off the last of his own toast. He sucks his buttery fingers into his mouth, looking thoughtful.

“Maybe that’s for the best,” he finally says. “I think the shit I’m comin’ up with is probably even worse than the real thing.”

Roman can’t even imagine what Dean’s been thinking, what’s been running through his head. He’d seen Dean when Seth walked out the first time, and it fucked him up. Dean was practically rabid that night, even as Roman had been driving them back to the hotel, even as they’d been trying to figure out their shit. Dean hadn’t sat down the whole time, pacing the length of their hotel room during the entire conversation.

“How are you doing?” Roman asks. He should have asked it earlier. He should be asking constantly.

Dean shrugs a shoulder, barely a twitch of movement. “Fine,” he says, which isn’t true at all, Roman can see that clear as day. But if Dean wants to talk about it, he’ll talk about it. Roman has learned his lesson about badgering Dean when he doesn’t want to talk.

“Okay,” he accepts. He takes another bite of his toast. It still tastes like sand. He crams as much of it into his mouth as he can, determined to finish it.

Dean is looking at him oddly. “Okay?” he repeats.

“Yeah,” Roman says, shrugging himself. “Okay.”

“You’re not gonna make me talk about my fee-lings?” Dean asks with something like a sneer.

“Man, you wanna talk about your feelings?” Roman gives up on the toast, tossing the end of it into the garbage can and setting his plate into the sink. “Way I see it, you will if you wanna. I’m not gonna make you. You’re a grown man.”

Dean’s mouth twists, his brow furrowing. Roman takes the time to wash his plate. There’s only a few crumbs and a smudge of grease, but he takes care as he does it, slowly washing and rinsing and then, for good measure, washing again. By the time he turns around, Dean’s expression has cleared.

“Okay,” he says agreeably. He walks over, puts his own plate in the sink. Roman picks it up and begins washing it as well. He freezes when, apropos of nothing, Dean pecks him on the head, quick and smooth, then leans back against the counter. “I don’t think he’s gonna say shit.”

“What?” Roman asks, struggling to keep up with both the conversation and Dean himself.

“Seth,” says Dean. Roman wonders how he can just say it like that, like the name doesn’t burn a hole in his throat. “I don’t think he’s gonna say shit. On Smackdown.”

“Why not?” Roman asks. He doesn’t even think he wants to know.

“Because he’s smart,” says Dean, eyes narrowed. Calculating. “Because he’s always been smart about that shit. Drawing it out. Making sure everyone’s watching. He’s not gonna do that shit and then go blabbing about it on Smackdown. He’ll wait. He’ll wait for a better moment.”

“How do you know that?”

Dean’s mouth curves into a bitter smile. “S’what I’d do,” he says.

Roman doesn’t know what to say to that, so he says nothing, instead concentrating on making sure that Dean’s plate is the cleanest plate the world has ever seen.

The rest of the day passes in a blur. They walk the dog together, and Roman points out anything he thinks might be interesting — the playground where Brody likes to go because little kids give him attention, the coffee place where Roman sometimes stops because they have really good scones.

“Scones?” Dean scoffs when he mentions, but then Roman makes him hold the dog’s leash while he goes inside and gets them both coffee and scones, and Dean shuts up as soon as he takes a bite.

“Scones,” he agrees once he’s finished, brushing crumbs from his fingers to the ground.

“That’s what I thought,” Roman says smugly. He eats his own scone, which only tastes sand-adjacent now, and enjoys the feeling of the sun beating down against his face while they walk home.

They fuck around the rest of the day, watching the dragon show, tossing questions back and forth like they have been. Roman’s not used to spending this much time in his house. It’s weird how not-at-home he’s used to feeling in his home. He thinks it’s something about being here with someone, with Dean, that makes it feel so much more like a home than a house.

But that’s the kind of thinking that keeps almost getting him into trouble, so he shoves it into a box to deal with it later.

All too soon, it’s time for Jeopardy, and Roman hates that his hand is shaking a little when he flips the TV to the right station. He wishes he could treat this like any other time they’ve played together, but it’s not. It’s different. Because after Jeopardy, there’s only half an hour until Smackdown.

“All right, Reigns,” says Dean, sitting up and dropping his heels against the floor with a thud that makes Roman wince. “Get ready to get your ass kicked, ‘cause I’m not going easy on you.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” says Roman with his best attempt at a smile. He’s got to get through this somehow. Better to spend it playing Jeopardy with Dean than moping around for an hour.

“From Soup to Nuts!” Dean crows when the categories are revealed. “I gotta say, I’m pretty sure I know more about soup than you, and I’m damn sure I know more about nuts than you.”

Roman almost chokes on his beer, and he hurries to put it back on the table before he spills it.

“You got me on that one,” he replies, trying to cough as subtly as possible.

They trade back and forth — Roman gets the answers for a chicken soup brand (Campbell’s) and what kind of nuts are in praline (pecans) and Dean makes fun of him for “apparently bein’ some kinda chef when you’re not beating the shit out of guys.” — Dean gets the answers for the original choice for the voice of Shrek and something about the co-founder of The Eagles.

The second batch is harder, but Roman gets lucky with a couple of answers in “Pop Music,” which is the category that had made Dean wrinkle his nose and complain about unfair advantages.

“Not my fault you don’t listen to normal people music,” Roman says, feeling privately pretty pleased he just got the right answer for a hit by the Gin Blossoms.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean mutters, but then the screen announces the beginning of Final Jeopardy, and they both shut up.

It’s about 20th century Americans, and Roman gives Dean a bemused look.

“What’re you betting?” he asks.

Dean gives him a helpless shrug. “Not a damn thing, son.”

“Me either,” Roman admits.

“Come on, bet a dollar,” Dean urges. “I think that’s how much you’re beating me by, anyway.”

Roman laughs. “I’m beating you by way more than a damn dollar,” he says, and he reaches over without thinking, ruffles Dean’s hair.

Dean doesn’t react negatively — or at all, actually, so Roman lets his hand slide to the back of Dean’s head, the back of his neck, curling his hand there over the little bony bump at the top of Dean’s spine.

The answer they’re trying to guess the question for is “In 1911 Glenn Curtiss received this document Number 1,” and Roman has beyond no idea, and when he looks at Dean, Dean is scowling.

“I got no fucking clue, dude,” Dean admits. He cuts his eyes to the side at Roman. “If you get this right, I’m never playing Jeopardy with you again.”

“I don’t know who that is,” says Roman. “Or what the name of any document could even be,” he adds.

“Well, good,” says Dean. They both watch as every contestant also gets the question wrong, which makes Roman feel a little better (the right question was ‘What is a pilot’s license?’ and Dean snorts so hard with outrage that it hurts Roman’s nose to hear it).

With that, the show ends, and they’re left with Wheel of Fortune, and the silence between them.

Roman clears his throat, feels like he should say something.

“So,” he says. “Smackdown soon.”

“Yeah.” Dean rolls his shoulders, and Roman removes his hand, though he’s not sure whether that was what Dean intended.

“Gonna be hard.”

“Yeah.” Maybe that’s all Dean can say. Roman would understand, if so. He doesn’t say anything else, just waits and half-watches Wheel of Fortune and tries not to think about Seth.

He flips the channel over to the right one about six minutes before he has to, and they silently watch the rest of whatever show plays before Smackdown until the opening chords of the WWE intro play.

The show opens with what they should have expected it to open with. Dramatic music, dramatic lighting, and a recap of what had happened Monday. They sit in silence as it plays out, the whole lead-up to everything, and then Seth, with the chair. Laying out Roman. Laying out Dean. Then Orton, picking up the scraps.

“Not easier this time,” says Roman, just to say something, so they’re not just silently watching the worst thing that ever happened to him.

“Don’t think it gets easier,” says Dean as Triple H’s music hits. “Think we just get angrier.”

Triple H saunters out to the top of the ramp, and it’s only moments before he’s joined. Out of the corner of his eye, Roman spies Dean’s fist curling into a ball as Seth slowly makes his way out onto the ramp to join Triple H.

“God,” Roman bursts out with while they walk down the ramp. “God, I hate this.”

“I don’t think anybody likes it,” says Dean. Considering his fist is still clenched, his tone is light. “They’re booing the shit out of him.”

The noise coming from the crowd is deafening, mixing boos with ‘You Sold Out’ chants. Just days ago, they were chanting his name so loud the arena was shaking, and tonight, he’s public enemy #1. A lot can change in a few days.

“Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, don’t it?” asks Dean. Roman doesn’t respond. He just watches Seth’s face as he walks down the ramp at Triple H’s side, no expression on it. He might as well be walking into a bar. He doesn’t look fazed at all.

They stay quiet while Triple H talks, though Roman doubts either of them are listening to what he’s saying. They’re both waiting with baited breath to see what happens when Triple H turns to Seth, asks him to explain what he’s done.

Seth raises the microphone to his mouth. The hair on the back of Roman’s hands stands on end. He doesn’t even know, now, if he wants to hear this.

His voice is the same as it’s always been, Midwest-accented, slightly nasal, but what he’s saying, Roman can’t make it make sense. Seth says he owes nobody an explanation, says he won’t tell anyone why he made the decision he made. He says nothing about why. Not even a hint. Roman doesn’t know what he was expecting. Dean was right. Dean was right after all — Seth’s not going to say anything on Smackdown.

“We should’ve gone,” Dean says. His curled fist bangs down onto his knee and he sits back on the couch. “We should’ve gone tonight. Gone out there now and kicked the shit out of him until he spilled.”

“Would it have done any good?” Roman says in return, slowly sitting back as well. Now Dolph Ziggler is out there for some reason, saying something to the men in the ring. Roman’s not paying attention to what. It doesn’t matter. It’s not coming from Seth, and that’s all he wants, is some fucking reason Seth did what he did.

“Would’ve made me feel a hell of a lot better,” says Dean, who springs to his feet and begins pacing the length of the room. Roman watches silently.

On the screen, there’s a match beginning now, Seth vs. Ziggler. Normally, it’d be an easy call, who he’s rooting for, and Roman doesn’t know if things have changed so much that he can root for Dolph against Seth, so he turns away from the screen.

Finally, Dean stops pacing. “I gotta book a flight,” he announces suddenly, and then disappears into the hall.

It takes Roman a moment to blink, realize what Dean had said, and then follow in his general direction.

He finds Dean in the guest room, suitcase on his bed, shoving clothes into it.

“Walk me through this,” says Roman. There’s panic edging into his thoughts. He doesn’t want Dean to leave. That’s the last thing he wants. “Where are you going?”

“Iowa,” Dean answers without looking at him. “I’m gonna go to this motherfucker’s house and I’m gonna beat some answers out of him.”

“Okay,” Roman says slowly. “Are you sure that’s a great idea?”

“I think it sounds pretty fucking spectacular,” says Dean. He closes his suitcase and struggles to get the zipper up. “I’ll get a taxi to his house and punch him in the head until he tells me why the fuck he did this.”

“You don’t even know if he’s there,” points out Roman. “You don’t know if he has other people there to watch his back. We’re working blind here.”

“Then I’ll work blind!” Dean shouts, giving up on the zipper and slamming a fist into his suitcase. He glares at Roman, his shoulders heaving with the breaths he’s taking. “Look, I’ve been patient. I’ve been more than patient. I waited until tonight, thinking, well, he’s gotta say something. I knew he wouldn’t, I knew it’d just be some bullshit nothing answer, but still, I thought, maybe. And he fucking didn’t!”

“I know he didn’t!” Roman replies. His own voice is raising despite himself. “I know he didn’t say shit! But we’ve got to deal with this as it comes, not run off with some half-cocked plan to break into the man’s house and beat an explanation out of him!”

“I think it sounds like a fucking great plan.” Dean grins at him, all teeth, like the bared growl of a wolf.

“Look, let’s just watch the rest of the show, okay?” Roman tries. “Maybe he’ll—”

“Maybe he’ll what, Ro?” Dean asks. He spreads his hands. “We got nothing. We have no plan, no allies, no nothing! And he’s got the guy in charge of this place in his back pocket! What exactly are we supposed to do?”

“You told me we’d stick together and figure it out,” says Roman. He takes a step closer. He doesn’t want to crowd Dean, especially as Dean looks like a cornered wild animal, but he needs Dean to hear him. “You told me we’d figure out a plan, and we’d do it together. You going back on that?”

Dean lets out a snort like an angry rhino. “Don’t do that, don’t turn this around on me — you don’t even know what you want.”

“What do you mean?” Roman asks. There’s a ball of hot lead forming in his stomach.

Dean gestures angrily, wildly. “Do you think I haven’t fucking noticed? The second-guessing, the hesitations? Please. Give me a little fucking credit.”

“Look, it’s not—”

“Shut up. Shut up.” Dean waves his hands, then goes back to the zipper, yanking at it. “I thought, it’s fine, you know? We’re just fuckin’ fooling around, gotta have something when everything goes to shit, but it’s not fine, is it? It’s not fucking fine.”

“It is,” Roman tries. “It’s not — it’s not you.”

“Are you serious?” Dean stares at him, and the directness of his gaze makes Roman want to look away, but he can’t. He can’t let Dean think this is something it’s not. “I’m not your fucking girlfriend, don’t give me the ‘it’s not you it’s me’ shit.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Roman feels helpless. He needs to say something to get Dean not to leave, but everything he’s saying is the wrong thing. “I just meant — I don’t know what this is, okay? I don’t know. I don’t know what you want. I don’t know what I want.”

“I think I’ve been pretty damn clear about what I want considering you had your dick in my mouth last night,” says Dean. It’s a challenge, meant to make Roman balk, back down. He won’t.

“Then I think it’s pretty clear where I want my fucking dick to be,” says Roman. He takes another step closer. He’s almost close enough to touch Dean, but he doesn’t.

“You just told me you don’t know what you want,” Dean says, but he’s at least stopped screwing around with the zipper.

“Maybe I don’t,” says Roman, and he reaches a hand out, finally, puts it on Dean’s shoulder. Dean’s skin feels alive under his hand, warm and tense, unyielding. “But I know I don’t want you to go to Iowa. Or Vegas, or anywhere. I just want you here. I need you here,” he emphasizes. He can’t even imagine what he’d do if Dean left. If all he had left in this fucking house were his thoughts.

“You don’t need me,” says Dean. He stiffens like he wants to pull away.

“Yeah, I fucking do,” Roman says, looking into Dean’s eyes. “Jesus, I need you here more than anything. I’m a fucking mess.”

Dean keeps looking at Roman, his mouth pursed, the corners pulled into a frown. He narrows his eyes.

“I listened to that Shooter Jennings album,” he says suddenly.

“What?” asks Roman, a bit confused. “The one I listened to in college?”

“Yeah.” Dean steps back, and Roman’s hand falls from his shoulder. “I listened to it a couple times. Thought it might help me figure out stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?” The tonal shift is making Roman uneasy.

“Who you are,” says Dean plainly. “What you want. What we’re doing.”

“What are we doing?” asks Roman. That’s all he wants to know. All he wants is an answer to one of the fucking questions bouncing around his head.

Dean sighs, shoves a hand through his hair, and then shrugs a shoulder. “Fuck if I know,” he mutters. “I thought it was one thing and then, now, it’s… I don’t know. I thought we were just fucking around.”

“Is that what you want?” Roman asks. He can do that. If he knows that’s what it is, not to, not to get attached, he can do that. He’s had friends with benefits before, and he can do that.

Sure, it’ll be a little harder now that he’s noticed things like the freckles on Dean’s shoulders, now that Dean’s fallen asleep on his shoulder and Roman just watched him for a while. It’ll be hard. But he can do it. If he has to.

“Yes. No. I don’t know,” Dean stresses. He rubs his fists against his eyes. Sighs. “I don’t know,” he repeats. “I thought I knew. And then I didn’t.”

“What changed?” Roman asks. He wants to reach out and touch Dean again, but Dean looks like he might well punch Roman in the face if he does.

“Nothing.” Dean laughs, but it doesn’t sound amused. “Nothing. That’s the best part. Nothing changed at all.”

“I don’t understand,” says Roman. He doesn’t know if Dean is still planning on leaving, but his suitcase is still sitting on the bed like an elephant in the room.

“Course you don’t,” Dean says, nodding. He sighs again, then grabs the suitcase. Roman’s heart thumps out of time once, but Dean just drops the suitcase onto the ground and sits where it had been. “Look, I don’t talk about shit like this, okay? And that’s always worked out pretty well for me, so maybe let’s just ignore this.”

“Don’t think I can,” says Roman. He gingerly lowers himself to the bed next to Dean, half-expecting to be shoved off.

“Okay. Okay.” Dean rolls one of his shoulders. “I didn’t know you were into guys,” he says. Roman waits for him to say something else, but that appears to be it.

“Okay,” Roman says. “I didn’t, either, so… so we’re on the same page.”

“No.” Dean finally looks at Roman head-on. “I didn’t know. You were into guys.”

Clearly, Roman is more stupid than he thought he was. “Okay…?” he says.

Dean huffs. “I’ve been into you for like a year and I didn’t know you were into guys.”

“A ye—” Roman chokes on his own spit, has to cough twice before he can get more words out. “You… me?”

“Christ, that’s what I fuckin’ said, isn’t it?” Dean says, and he’s twitchy — it reminds Roman unpleasantly of times when they hadn’t gotten along so well, when Roman had always felt itchy around Dean, when Dean would work himself into a state Roman didn’t know how to deal with.

“But… you never, I mean, I didn’t… know,” Roman concludes. It feels weak.

“Well, yeah, I kind of didn’t fuckin’ want you to know,” says Dean, his hands twisting together in his lap. He’s not looking at Roman, and he’s still scowling. “We were — you know. Not getting along great. Didn’t want to give you more of a reason to think I was fuckin’. Useless.”

“I never thought you were useless,” Roman has to clarify. “I thought you were loud and obnoxious and wanted to be the center of attention all the time.”

“Whatever,” Dean says. Roman wants to say more about this, wants to make sure Dean knows, but Dean’s continuing before he can. “Point is, I don’t handle. Shit. Well. I guess. And I didn’t want you to know so I did what I could to keep you from finding out. And it worked. ‘Til it didn’t.” Dean’s knuckle cracks from the way he’s wringing his fingers together. “‘Til you had to go and fuckin’ kiss me and fuck everything up.”

“Sorry,” Roman says quietly. He’s not sure what else he can say. He doesn’t regret kissing Dean that first time, doesn’t regret any of the times after that, but Dean clearly does, or he wouldn’t be so pissed off about it.

“Don’t fucking apologize,” Dean grits out, his fingers curling into his jeans, gripping his thighs with enough force that it looks like he’s going to give himself bruises.

“Sor—” Roman cuts himself off, clears his throat. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” he admits. “Do you want to stop?”

He will, if Dean wants to. He can stop. Sure, it’s addictive, the way he’s been with Dean, casual touches and kissing and sleeping in the same bed, but he can stop. He’s pretty sure he’ll do anything if Dean so much as asks.

“No,” is what Dean says, though, shaking his head. “God, ain’t you been fuckin’ listening? The problem is that I don’t wanna stop. You make me want to do weird shit and I don’t like it but I don’t wanna stop.”

“What weird shit?” Roman asks. Dean makes him wanna do weird shit like reach over and grab one of his hands, trace the backs of his knuckles with his fingertips.

“Like, I dunno, like go to dog nights at pools just to hang out with you and your stupid dog,” says Dean, spreading his hands like he’s presenting something to Roman. “Like sleep in the same goddamn bed with you and not even fuck around.”

They hadn’t, last night. After they got into bed, they just… slept. And then Roman woke up all twisted around with Dean, and watched him sleep for a little while, and yeah, maybe he wants to do weird shit with Dean, too.

“Maybe I wanna do weird shit with you, too,” he says quietly, an offering.

Dean finally looks at him, and there’s still a furrow between his brows, but his eyes are bright and blue, and Roman wants to kiss him, so he does. Dean meets him halfway, and then they’re clinging to each other, hands sliding up backs, mouths open and breathless.

“Don’t leave,” Roman whispers, pulling Dean against him, mouthing kisses down his jaw, nosing up behind his ear.

Dean’s hands clench, one in Roman’s hair, the other gripping his shoulder. “You either,” he says, and he pulls Roman’s head up to press their foreheads together. “You can’t,” he says, breathing hard, his voice tight and desperate. “You can’t.”

“I won’t,” Roman promises. He slants his mouth over Dean’s again, sealing it.

If there’s anything he can promise, it’s that. He won’t leave Dean like Seth did, won’t turn his back and walk away when shit gets tough. He knows now like he hadn’t before, that this is it for him. He’d thought the Shield was it, but maybe it’s him and Dean, maybe the Shield was just a name.

Dean’s wearing a tank top, and Roman doesn’t know where it ends up when he yanks it over Dean’s head, but he doesn’t care, either. All he cares about is getting Dean closer, getting him as close as he can, skin-to-skin.

“I’m not gonna leave,” he says into Dean’s ear. He bites his earlobe because he wants to, and Dean moans.

“Don’t,” Dean says against his throat, his teeth latching on hard enough that Roman winces, but he doesn’t pull away. Dean needs him.

“I won’t, never,” he whispers. He slides a hand up into the back of Dean’s hair, uses it to pull him into another kiss. This one is almost vicious, teeth and tongue and lips all melding into one sensation that makes Roman dizzy.

When they separate, Dean looks wrecked, his hair a mess, his mouth wet and red, and Roman wants to — he wants — he wants everything. He wants to crawl inside Dean and make a home there.

“I love you,” Roman says. His neck stings where Dean had bitten him, and he wonders if he’ll have a bruise there, a semi-permanent reminder. “You gotta know that, right? You gotta know.”

Dean half-smiles, rolls his eyes, scoffs and cuts his eyes away.

“Yeah, I — I know.” Dean takes in a deep breath and lets it out in a whoosh. “I — me, too. I — you know. Me, too.”

That’s good enough for Roman. He draws Dean into another kiss, this one gentler, and he lets it linger.

They trade kisses for a few minutes. Roman is considering leaning Dean down against the bed when a tinny ringing sounds from his pocket, and he leans back, surprised. His whole family had called the first couple days, but those calls have trickled off, and when he pulls his phone from his pocket, he doesn’t recognize the number on the screen.

He solidly considers not answering, as he’s rather preoccupied at the moment, but he’s always worried it’s going to be someone telling him one of his cousins is in the hospital, or something’s wrong with his mom, so he slides the button to answer with an apologetic look at Dean.

For his part, Dean just shrugs, still panting a little, and scoots himself back to sit against the headboard.

“Hello?” Roman says. He fights the urge to clear his throat when he hears how raspy his voice sounds.

“This Roman Reigns?” comes the voice on the other end. It sounds familiar, and not necessarily in a good way.

“Who’s asking?” he says, narrowing his eyes at nothing.

“John Cena.”

Roman pulls the phone away from his ear, looks at it. The call is still going. He looks at Dean, who tilts his head curiously. Roman flips it to speaker mode.

“Say again?” he says.

“It’s John Cena,” the voice repeats, and Dean suddenly sits up straighter, his eyebrows going up.

“And what can I do for John Cena?” Roman asks, placing the phone on the bed between Dean and him to make sure they can both hear.

“It’s more about what I can do for you,” Cena’s tinny voice comes from the phone. “I watched Raw, and I caught the beginning of Smackdown, and it seemed to me like you could use an ally.”

“An ally,” Roman repeats. He looks at Dean. Dean looks back like he’s completely lost, giving him a confused look.

“Look, I’ve been fighting against Triple H and his royal band of suck-ups for a long time,” Cena says. “I’m not gonna say I’ve been where you are, but I know what it’s like to feel like you’re going up against something impossible to beat. I wanted to let you know, if you need a tag partner or something, I’ll be around on Monday. Or if you just want someone in your corner you know hates the other guys.”

“... Thanks,” says Roman, unsure of what else he should say. He doesn’t trust Cena as far as he can throw him, but he doubts strongly that he’s working for the other side.

Then again, he hadn’t thought Seth was working for the other side, either.

“How d’we know we can trust you?” Dean asks, the first time he’s spoken aloud since the phone call started.

There’s a pause on the other end like maybe Cena hadn’t known there was anyone else listening in.

“All you need to trust is that I hate Triple H and Stephanie McMahon more than I care about still having beef with you two,” says Cena. “Simple as that. I don’t expect you to want to be buddies, just want to even the odds when they don’t look fair to me.”

Roman looks at Dean, whose nose is wrinkled again. His mouth is curled to the side, and he looks at Roman with raised eyebrows. In return, Roman shrugs, then makes a face to indicate that whether he likes Cena or not, the man’s making sense. Dean snorts, sits back against the headboard again, and makes a ‘go ahead’ gesture with his hand.

“Sounds good,” Roman replies, keeping his eyes on Dean. “We’ll let you know if it comes down to that.”

“All I’m asking,” Cena says, and there’s a noise like he just shifted the phone. “I won’t take up any more of your time. Just wanted to give you an option, if you need it.”

“We appreciate it,” says Roman.

“Ehh,” says Dean, loud enough that Cena can probably hear it. He just laughs, though, and bids both of them a good night before they hang up.

“That was weird,” Roman says as soon as the call ends.

“You’re tellin’ me,” says Dean, shuffling forward. “How’d he even get your number?”

“I have no idea,” Roman replies. Maybe one of his cousins? He doesn’t know. “Guess that’s good, though.”

“It’s something,” says Dean. “I don’t know if I’d call it good, but it’s something.”

“It’s more than we had,” Roman says, and that’s all they can really ask for at this point.

“Well, I don’t know about you, but that guy’s kind of a boner-killer for me,” says Dean, stretching and swinging his legs off the bed. “Let’s catch the rest of the show or something.”

“Okay,” Roman accepts. He thinks maybe they should talk about what just happened before the phone call, but he can tell by Dean’s body language that he’s not going to be down for that. So they return to the living room where Smackdown is still playing, and watch the rest of the show.

The final match is Big Show vs. Orton, and Seth interferes on Orton’s behalf, knees the Big Show in the head and gets Orton disqualified. The show ends with Triple H raising both Seth and Orton’s hands.

“I don’t get it,” says Dean once it’s faded to black. “He hated Orton. We all hate Orton. And now he’s best buds with the guy?”

“I got no more of an idea than you do,” says Roman. He feels exhausted. He feels like he’s just been through an hour long match. Seth’s face is one of the most familiar things in the world to him, and he feels like he doesn’t recognize it anymore.

“I don’t get it,” Dean says again. He has his legs pulled up onto the couch with his arms wrapped around his knees. When he looks at Roman, he looks defeated. “I don’t understand,” he says more quietly.

Roman slings an arm around Dean because he can’t not be touching him right now, pulls him into his shoulder. Dean leans his head against Roman and sighs.

“I want it to be like it was,” Dean says, closing his eyes. He relaxes into Roman a little, and Roman rubs his hand down Dean’s back. “I don’t know — I want to rip his beady little eyes out but the thought of laying hands on him makes me wanna fuckin’ puke.”

“Yeah,” Roman says. He swallows. The longer he goes, the more he sees that Seth isn’t coming back to them. He’s where he wants to be, and it wasn’t with them. And Roman wants to hurt him for it, but the thought of hurting Seth, Seth... It’s unconscionable. “I guess we’ll do what we have to.”

Whatever show is on after Smackdown is stupid and so quiet that Roman can’t hear whatever’s going on, so he clicks the TV off, letting the silence settle around them.

“You want another beer?” Roman asks, noting Dean’s empty bottle loitering on the side table.

“Yeah,” says Dean, finally uncurling his legs. He stays resting against Roman. Roman tries at first not to read too much into it, then realizes that he’s allowed. He’s allowed to like this, Dean leaning against him, he’s allowed to like the way Dean’s back curves, he’s allowed to like the way he can smell his own shampoo in Dean’s hair. “Get yourself one while you’re at it. Live a little, you big lug.”

Roman laughs as he gets off the couch reluctantly, can’t resist ruffling Dean’s hair again.

When he returns with two beers, Dean’s on his phone, frowning and slowly scrolling with his index finger.

“Anything interesting?” Roman asks as he sits, handing Dean’s beer to him and popping the top of his own.

“I got a text from Daniel Bryan,” says Dean, nibbling on the edge of his thumb as he gestures with the phone. “And one from Dolph, like, three days ago. Guess that explains more about why he went out there on the show.”

“Guess so,” Roman allows. He leans over to look at the screen of Dean’s phone, and Dean doesn’t stop him. “Jesus, dude, you have like three hundred unread messages.”

“I talk to like two people,” Dean argues, opening another text message from a number Roman doesn’t recognize.

Actually, none of the texts Dean is opening are from contacts; they all just have a string of numbers as the sender followed by the message.

“Do you… not save people as contacts?” he asks.

Dean grunts at him, opening another text and exiting dismissively once he’s read it. “Don’t know how to do that,” he says.

“How do you know who anyone is?” Roman wants to know.

Dean frowns at him, then shrugs. “Don’t, mostly. Lotta ‘who the fuck is this.’”

That’s so Dean that Roman has to laugh, rub fingers into Dean’s hair again while Dean balks and slaps at his hand.

“I love you, man,” Roman says because it’s all he can think to say. “Seriously. I don’t know why you do half the weird shit you do but I don’t wanna miss any of it.”

“Well, good, ‘cause I don’t really got anyone else to do weird shit around,” Dean reasons. He locks his phone and shoves it back into his pocket. “Well, that was a nightmare. Wanna make out?”

Roman has to pause and think over the last few seconds to figure out whether that was a series of connected thoughts or not. He settles on not. He can’t lie and say that the thought isn’t appealing, and he’s just a man, so he says, “Fuck yeah,” and leans in to press his lips against Dean’s.

It feels like an hour by the time they separate, and Dean is breathing hard again, eyeing Roman with a glint in his eye.

“I want you to fuck me,” he says plainly. Roman almost chokes on his own tongue. “You cool with that?”

Roman doesn’t know if cool is the word. He catches flashes of thought, Dean underneath him, a breathless mess, his skin flushed with exertion, looking up at Roman with stars in his eyes, and Roman has to swallow thickly.

“Yeah,” he says. He sounds ruined. “Yeah, I’m cool with that.”

He doesn’t remember how they get to his bedroom, just remembers finally getting to push Dean down against the bed, kiss him hard, heave him closer with an arm around his waist.

“I like that you can toss me around,” Dean says, makes something fizzle in Roman’s brain, makes him want to hold Dean’s hands above his head and make him come apart with his mouth.

“Whatever you want,” Roman says, grasping one of Dean’s wrists and pinning it to the bed. Dean still has a hand free, and he uses it to get a hand in Roman’s hair, pull him down into another messy kiss.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Dean murmurs against his mouth, tugging Roman’s bottom lip with his teeth.

Roman gets his hand around Dean’s other wrist, presses it into the pillow and leans down, bites Dean’s neck and earns a groan.

“Whatever you want,” he repeats, soothing the spot he bit with his tongue. Dean’s stubble scrapes rough against his tongue.

“What I want is to get your big fuckin’ dick in me,” Dean pants, right in Roman’s ear. Roman lets out a moan of his own at the thought — sinking into Dean, how tight and hot it’d be, how Dean would yield for him. “Been thinking about it since I got it in my mouth, how much I want it.”

Roman has to adjust himself in his sweatpants. It’s not that he hadn’t known, really, that Dean’s a talker, but his mouth had been rather occupied the last time, and it’s hard to talk while you’re kissing. This, this is different, electric, makes Roman’s groin tighten.

“I got stuff in my bag,” Dean says, keeping eye contact with Roman as he settles back against the pillows. “And I’m gonna need it,” he adds, his eyes darting down to Roman’s dick where it’s straining against his sweats. It might as well be a grope, the way Roman feels that look in his bones.

“Stuff in your bag,” Roman says agreeably. “Right.”

He manages to make himself move, releasing Dean’s wrists and rolling off the bed to dig through Dean’s bag, stripping off his pants as he does.

“Side pocket,” Dean prompts when Roman begins to get frustrated, and Roman makes a victorious noise when he emerges with both lube and a condom in his hand. He gets back on the bed, drops them on the pillow next to Dean’s head, and kisses him again. It doesn’t take long for his erection, which had begun to flag as he searched through Dean’s back, to return with a vengeance.

“Am I right in thinkin’ you ain’t done this before?” Dean asks, popping the button on his jeans and shimmying them down his legs before he throws them somewhere in the room. There’s no judgement in his tone, only frank curiosity.

“With a woman,” Roman admits, distracted for a moment by Dean’s dick and the way it curves toward his belly, flushed at the head and thick. Roman’s mouth is watering. Has he always been like this? Or is it just Dean, who he can’t control himself around? “Never…”

“Gotcha.” Dean nods, then grabs one of the pillows and shoves it under his hips. “I can do this part, if you don’t wanna.”

“I wanna,” Roman says immediately. He’s only vaguely certain of what ‘this part’ involves, but he wants to be touching Dean again already.

“‘Kay,” says Dean, leaning back and giving Roman another little challenging look. Well, Roman’s nothing if not always prepared to accept a challenge.

He keeps looking at Dean while he reaches over and grabs the tube of lubricant, twisting the cap off and squeezing some of the slippery substance onto his fingers. He knows the basics here — he’s done anal with women and can’t be too different. Everyone’s got an asshole. He lowers his fingers and, carefully, presses one of his fingertips to Dean.

Dean hisses quietly and Roman almost pulls back, but Dean shakes his head, grabs Roman’s wrist to keep him where he is.

“S’just cold,” he explains, and Roman nods, gently touches him again, sinks the tip of his finger into Dean, and Jesus. Jesus, he’s got no idea how his dick’s going to fit into this space, it’s so tight that Roman feels like his fingertip’s circulation is cutting off. He presses forward, though, and Dean shudders when Roman’s finger bottoms out. “Been a minute,” he says, almost reluctantly.

“S’okay,” Roman mutters, smoothing a hand over Dean’s thigh where his muscles are jumping. He slides his finger back, then forward again, and Dean sighs, his head tipping back against the pillow.

Roman leaves it at one finger for probably longer than he has to, but by the time he’s pressing two fingers into Dean, the other man is pushing back against him, opening up nice and easy like Roman had thought he would, his body relaxing into the bed like this is the best thing he could possibly be doing.

“Fuck,” Dean groans as Roman’s two fingers press into him. His hips jerk helplessly, and Roman thinks, suddenly, about sucking his cock, about feeling the weight of it on his tongue, tasting Dean like he’d tasted him last night but right from the source.

And, well, he’s here, and Dean’s here, and there’s no fucking reason not to, so Roman dips his head and licks the length of Dean’s cock. It tastes like skin, mostly, salt-bitter at the head, and Dean makes a sound like he’s been shot when Roman mouths up over the head.

He doesn’t push himself too far — he doesn’t know much about his gag reflex but he doesn’t really want to test it out right now — but even this, the fullness of his mouth, the way Dean’s cock twitches every time Roman twists and pushes his fingers farther in, it’s fucking beautiful.

Roman adds a third finger and Dean shouts, fully shouts, his hips lifting off the bed until Roman pushes him down with his free arm. That one tickled the back of his throat, and he’s really not looking to cough all over Dean’s dick.

“Okay, okay,” Dean pants, one of his hands scrambling into Roman’s hair. It pulls a little but it’s not unpleasant — it makes Roman think Dean’s unable to concentrate, can’t even focus, and that makes him want to preen. “Okay, big guy, I think we’re ready for the main event.”

Roman couldn’t agree more. His dick is throbbing, pressed into the bed. He slides his fingers out of Dean, and Dean moans helplessly again, and his hips would jerk if Roman wasn’t still holding them down.

“You sure?” he asks, even though he’s dying to get his dick in something.

“If you don’t fuck me right now, I’ll never speak to you again,” Dean informs him, spreading his knees wide, giving Roman a glare that’s not as intimidating as he probably wants it to be, not when Roman’s fingers were just inside him, not when Dean’s chest is heaving with desire.

“Can’t have that,” says Roman, and he kneels between Dean’s legs, pushes one of them up and back. Dean’s more flexible than Roman had ever considered and it makes him shiver. He wants to see how well he can fold Dean up, make him bend just for Roman.

He watches Dean’s face as he grasps the base of his cock, guiding it forward. It catches for a moment on Dean’s inner thigh, and then he’s pressing into the hottest, tightest space his dick has ever been into. He has to stop for a second because it’s dizzying, how much he wants this, how hot he is for Dean, for his body. He’s never — but he won’t think about it too hard, because he’s over-thought every single thing about this and he’s tired of it.

“Jesus,” he grits out between his teeth.

“C’mon,” Dean urges, his free leg curling behind Roman’s ass. “C’mon, I can take it, I want it, please—”

And Roman can’t, he can’t hear Dean beg for it, beg for his cock, not without coming apart entirely. He pushes forward in a roll of his hips, and Dean’s mouth falls open, his head slipping back against the pillows.

“Fuck,” says Dean, and Roman’s never heard his voice like this, weak and wrecked, and it makes him want to fuck into him over and over and over. He grinds his teeth together and holds back, breathes hard. His arms are shaking.

“You good?” Roman asks, and Dean nods his head frantically, his leg pressing against Roman from behind.

“Yeah, yeah, fuckin’ perfect, Jesus fucking Christ I’m good, I’m good,” he confirms. “C’mon, fuck me, I know you want to, you don’t gotta hold back, not gonna break, fuck me—”

That’s all Roman needs to hear to pull back and then push, and Dean is smooth like silk inside, clinging to Roman’s cock, his body so alive and responsive, Roman can’t, he can’t.

“Fuuuck,” Dean moans again, his body arching against Roman’s, his cock caught between them, hard and leaking against his stomach. He puts his hand back in Roman’s hair, uses it to yank him down, slam their mouths together. Roman can’t focus on the kiss and he doesn’t think Dean can either, the way their kiss gets so messy so fast, spit and tongue and teeth, and Roman needs to slow down or this’ll be over way too fast.

He eases up on the kiss, pulling back just enough that Dean has to crane his neck to reach him, mouths gentle kisses to Dean’s lips until Dean sighs, relaxes against him.

His head feels less like it’s spinning now, and he has to smile, pressed against Dean’s mouth, and it feels like Dean is smiling, too, the curve of his mouth beneath Roman’s lips.

“I want you to fuckin’ ruin me,” whispers Dean, nosing up against Roman’s ear. “I want you to fuck me so hard I forget my name, want you to take—” He bites Roman’s neck. “—what’s yours,” he finishes, and Roman nearly blacks out, pushes Dean’s leg even higher and fucks into him hard enough that Dean moans again, and it sounds like it was punched out of his throat, harsh and breathy.

Roman keeps the pace he’s set, hard but not fast, his hips moving like they know exactly what to do, and every time he fucks into Dean again it wrings another moan from Dean’s throat, another whine, another whispered fuck.

It’s building, his orgasm, he can tell, feels almost like his hair is standing on end.

“Want you to come in me,” Dean murmurs, his eyes on Roman like he’s never seen anything like him before, and Roman has to get a hand around him, stroke him in long, deep pulls, thumb over the head of his cock like he knows he likes himself. “Fuck,” Dean moans, and his back arches again, unimpeded by Roman’s arm. “Fuck, fuck, fuck—“

Dean spills over Roman’s hand, and he’s squeezing tight, clenching around Roman, and Roman can only manage two more thrusts before he’s coming so hard he thinks he loses his hearing for a long moment.

When he’s next able to focus on anything, Dean is breathing hard underneath him, and Roman has a hand on his chest, pressing him down into the bed. Roman moves his hand and Dean makes a quiet disgruntled noise, so Roman lowers the leg he’s holding, uses that hand to slide up into Dean’s hair, pull him into another kiss, this one gentle, soft, easy.

Easy. It’s easy, to do this with Dean. In fact, it feels like the easiest thing in the world.

“Pullin’ out,” he warns, and Dean winces a little when he begins to do so, shifting his hips and sighing when Roman’s finally out.

“Nice cock,” Dean compliments, and Roman laughs, his ears red as he pulls the condom off and ties it. He drops it into the trash can by his bed, sitting back on his heels. He feels wrung out, like a dish rag that’s ready for the wash.

“Yours ain’t bad either,” he replies, releasing Dean’s leg and letting him lower it back to the bed.

“So I am definitely gonna pass out here in a couple,” Dean says. He already looks a little woozy, eyes adrift as he breathes out, pokes Roman with his toes. “But when I wake up, we should one hundred percent do that again.”

Roman has to grin. “Sure you don’t wanna shower first?” he prompts, eyeing where he accidentally got come all over Dean’s chest when he had pressed him down into the bed, but Dean doesn’t seem to mind.

“We’ll wash the sheets,” he mutters, already visibly drifting off. “After we fuck on ‘em again.”

Roman twists until he can recline next to Dean, reaching over with his clean hand to ruffle Dean’s sweaty hair.

“Sounds good to me,” Roman replies. Actually, it sounds perfect. It sounds like everything he wants to do for the rest of forever.

And maybe, he thinks, if they’re lucky, the rest of forever is what they’ve got to work with.

“Get some sleep,” he says softly, pulling Dean closer until his head is resting on Roman’s shoulder. Dean leans up and pushes a kiss against Roman’s jaw, and then he’s out like a light, practically snoring right next to Roman’s ear.

Roman smiles, rubbing Dean’s back, and closes his eyes.

Right now, he’s exactly where he wants to be.