Chapter Text
There’s nothing like a neat clean up to get Roman’s dick hard, and this is nothing like a neat clean up. The alley he stalks into stinks of piss, ten-thousand-dollar Italian leather stepping into puddles of god-knows-what in this filthy place, but then, it’s not like he doesn’t have another three identical pairs back at the house. Bones crunch underfoot, too, and the drizzle soaks into his thick wool coat, leaves his sleek, curly hair a dew-slicked mess, the dark locks turning black and sticking to his scalp. Despite the mess, his dick is pressing hard against the pants of his immaculately tailored suit, and he’s suddenly glad that he attends these little outings alone, now. Once upon a time – well. What the big bad wolf doesn’t know won’t hurt him.
Roman allows himself a little smile at that, reaching up and loosening his tie; Italian again, red silk, the one that looks so good tied up so neat against his throat and even better dangling around his wrists as he lies in a ragged heap in the bed. He reaches into his pockets and pulls out black leather gloves, the kind Antonio says they only make for the mafia – and he should know – tugging them on, finger after finger, left hand first, covering a shining platinum band studded with a single diamond. He’s always wanted two, but for a time, one has done the trick well enough. The second gloves goes on just as easily, each one made for him, and fitting as perfectly as the aphorism goes.
There’s a low growl, barely on the edge of hearing, but Roman’s been doing this for long enough that he can hear these little things. When he hears him, Roman grimaces, biting back a wince as the smell of ammonia hits his nose, but under that, the thick scent of decaying flesh. Typical. They always call him out for the hard ones, the ones where someone’s been allowed to go dark and feral, to fall into a trap that no one can break out of. There’s the sound of a rattling chain, too; the office told him on the phone that they’d collared this one before, but he’d managed to get away. Roman sighs. He hates the messy ones – but oh, how he loves the messy ones.
The man he’s looking for is crouched in a knocked-over dumpster, in a pose Roman’s deliciously familiar with, one he gets every night at the end of the bed, and it makes him harden further in his suit pants. The man staring at him doesn’t look like anything Roman would let into his house, though, soaked in mud and blood like he’s stopped bothering to wash between kills. And kills, that’s what he’s been doing, that’s why there’s bones crunching beneath him when he shifts his weight, eyes never leaving Roman’s face for a second. Roman doesn’t bother to look at the bones, knows they’ll be a mix of human, animal, and demon; whatever this scavenger could find, Roman doesn’t give a shit what he’s been killing, only that it’s come to this. Calling the best agent away from his one night of freedom a week to put the rabid beast down.
The man snarling at him from behind a mask of blood and dirt isn’t unattractive, Roman’s not blind to that, as he dips back into a pocket for a silver-bladed knife, something he tries not to touch unless he’s wearing his gloves. He’s got long, long dark hair, curling around his face like a mane, even in the rain, and there’s a few pale blonde hairs towards the end of one side that suggest he once sported some bleach – maybe a streak, maybe just tips, who knows how long it’s been since he saw a salon. He’s naked, and his body is like one of those gym-addicted boys Roman sees lifting weights on the pier; possibly there’s something not entirely white behind the golden brown to the skin that peeks out from between the dirt, because there’s no tan lines Roman can see, that bronzed colour trails all the way down. He’s got a thickness to him that’s thoroughly delicious, broad thighs and shoulders, a thick neck. His dick hangs limp between his legs as he crouches, but it’s not over-large, sitting high and forward, like a present. He growls again, and Roman shakes himself out of it. This isn’t what he’s here for.
Most of them prefer to use guns, but Roman’s never got away from the joy of blades, the sing of it as it slices through flesh. A bullet hole through the skull might be efficient, and clean, but there’s nothing like removing the heart from a body to reassure you that it won’t be getting back up, and the weight of a knife has always felt so good in his hand. Besides, there’s something fair in it, he feels, much more fair to get close and give the pitiful creature a chance at killing him, too. Just because one is naked and muddy and the other spends two hundred dollars a time on socks doesn’t make them all that different, and one day, if it’s Roman like this, he hopes his team have enough mercy in them to put him down in a fair fight. He hopes they’re as sure of themselves as he is, because to face something like this, something feral and barely sentient, with nothing but a blade? You have to know you’re the best.
He walks closer, flicking the knife open with a little ‘zing’ noise that makes the man lose focus for a second, eyes moving to the knife and away from Roman’s face before their eyes lock, blue-grey with brown, and Roman sees his pupils dilate as the only warning before he springs. Roman catches him with the blade, an arc of red across his chest as the man scrambles back and away, howling in a way that’s not entirely human, but not entirely animal either. Roman, for his part, wipes the knife clean on the sleeve of his coat, and promises he’ll bemoan the fabric later.
“See, if you’d kept yourself to animals, we might have had another month before I had to leave date night to massacre you,” he says, coolly, and dives forwards again. This time, the other man doesn’t move, just stands there, waiting. Roman pauses with the knife inches from his throat, the fatal cut – probably a mistake, but he just had to know. “Anything left in there?”
“Shield,” the man says, so quiet that Roman almost thinks he doesn’t hear it.
“What?” he asks, flatly, pressing the knife in, ready to slice if the answer isn’t what he wants.
“Shield,” the man says, again, and this time Roman definitely hears it. “Shield, shield, shield, shield….”
He continues muttering, but Roman’s already flicked the knife shut and shoved it into his pocket, is pulling his coat off and wrapping it around the man’s bloody, filthy form.
“And this is why we’re not meant to work alone,” he says, dryly.
The heavy oak door creaks open, footsteps on the floorboards, one, two, three – and there’s a knife at Roman’s throat, keeping him back against the hallway wall, painted a vicious crimson that Roman thinks would look fairly interesting with fresh blood smeared on it. It’s just not something he’s going to try today.
“Hello gorgeous,” Dean grins, slicing his lover’s top button off deftly, a testament to his skill with a blade and the sharpness of the knife, although Roman can see Dean’s hand shaking a little, which means he’s using the silver set, and they’re already starting to burn. He leans forwards and lets the blade press in for a moment, then Dean lets the knife drop, and leans over the bundle in Roman’s arms to kiss him soundly. It’s passionate but unhurried, like Dean knows he doesn’t have to rush any more, and Roman savours the soft lips of his partner. “Now, what the fuck have I told you about bringing your work home with you?”
Roman smiles like a shark smiles at prey, and leans forwards again for another kiss, his husband pushing him back easily, with one hand.
“Been picking up strays,” he says, voice quiet to stop the man he’s carrying from waking. “You know me, it’s a bad habit.” And Dean does know, know what it’s like when Roman gets it into his head to save something, rather than put it down like he’s been told.
“Meal, or toy?” Dean asks, and snaps his jaws like a hungry puppy, making Roman smile. He’s brought bits and pieces home from cases before, but this is the first time he’s bringing a whole person back to Dean.
“Neither. One of yours, I think.” Roman says, quietly. “He said shield.”
That stops Dean in his tracks. Before there was the agency, there was Shield, and while Roman wasn’t brought in on that, he knows that when they came apart, everything was pretty messy. Half the operatives had to be slaughtered, and half lost their minds. No one’s ever said if those two halves were different, or had some overlap, but Roman’s aware that Dean was part of it, a long time ago, and that he sometimes still has nightmares about the deaths of his partners, the way that they were slaughtered indiscriminately once they’d served their purpose. When Roman had found Dean, he’d been part of a clean-up crew in the old Shield buildings, and Dean had come at him with a knife. It’s still Dean’s favourite way to greet him, and Roman would be lying if he said he didn’t love it, that it didn’t make the blood sing in his veins to have a lover so sweet and dark and dangerous all at once.
When he’d first come across Dean, dirty and snarling, shouting the name of the organisation at him, Roman hadn’t been sure what to do, other than disarm him and pin him down to be slaughtered, but when he realised the man burned at silver just like he did… he’d hidden him, and come back with food, and a blanket, baby wipes, and bandages for the wounds on his hands. And Dean had surprised him by being pretty eloquent once he’d drunk two bottles of water and scarfed down a ham sandwich. It had been barely any time at all before Roman had brought him home and let the stranger wander his house, taking an hour long bath before coming out to find Roman napping on the bed. Roman had woken up with both his hands tied to the bedpost with his own neckties, and his own knife set at his throat, Dean staring down at him, steadily, as the knives burned welts into his hands. The kiss had been unexpected, but Roman would be lying if he said it had ever been unwelcome.
Now, Dean carefully takes the bundle from him, carrying the sleeping man, wrapped in Roman’s coat, into their sitting room. Roman takes a moment to bemoan the clean, cream linen of the couch as Dean settles the filthy man onto it, but it’s not like he can’t get another just like it. Pulling Roman’s coat away, Dean sees the man’s face for the first time, and sucks in a breath.
“Fuck,” he mutters, and then leans in, lifting a section of the man’s hair, the bit where Roman had spotted the bleached ends, just barely hanging on. “Seth.”