Thank you for the reviews, favorites, and alerts, guys! I'm glad you guys seem to like it. As usual with all of my fics that I usually write tiredly at 3am, sorry for any mistakes lol! Please let me know if you find any.
CHAPTER 2 - Take a Picture
The following Tuesday, Dean found himself in his living room again, waiting on the couch with his phone in hand. He was excited, but it's not like he had been thinking about this all day or anything.
Ok, he had been thinking about this all day. He barely paid attention to the lecture his professor gave today because all he could think about was calling in to speak to Roman again, even if it was for a minute or two.
Currently, on air, Roman was still playing music. He hadn't begun to take calls yet since it was early in the show, and Dean was honestly thankful for that because he still needed to psych himself up. He needed to think of something to talk to Roman about.
Did he want to sound intelligent?
"So, how do you feel about fossil fuel pollution and people's ignorance about it? How can we, as influential young adults, bring it to the attention of the masses?"
Did he want to sound like a bro?
"Dude, let's discuss Pineapple Express. Oh, man! 22 Jump Street deserves a fucking Oscar, man. Anyway, I love beer."
Did he want to sound like a health conscious hippie since Roman's friend Daniel was one and he seemed to like him well enough?
"You ever feel like… kale is a miracle food?"
Or maybe he should just call to request a song? If so, what song would he request? By now, Dean had a fair idea of what Roman liked (hip hop, blues, and many different types of rock) and what he disliked (pop music), so picking a song shouldn't be hard. However, for some reason Dean imagined picking a song that Roman, due to Dean's bad luck, actually hated, and then Dean would forever be known to Roman as 'the guy who requests shitty music'.
"Fucking stop," Dean mumbled to himself, sitting up straight as if that would immediately push his bad thoughts downwards. "Honestly, I feel like you go out of your way to think up ways in which your life will be ruined."
"Ok, late night listeners, tonight we are talking about movies," Roman said, when the show returned from commercial break. "I wanna hear what your favorite movies are. And your REAL favorites, not just the ones that got stellar reviews and not the list you pull out to impress people. If you love Fifty Shades of Grey, tell me, I won't judge."
There was a slight pause, and Dean raised an eyebrow.
"Actually, I will, but hey my opinion doesn't matter," Roman said. "I'm gonna open phone lines up. In case you forgot the number: 376-9820. Call me while I play one of the most popular movie songs ever: Don't You (Forget About Me) by Simple Minds. You know what movie it was in, I don't even have to say."
Won't you come see about me?
I'll be alone, dancing, you know it baby
Tell me your troubles and doubts
Giving me everything inside and out
Dean's stomach did a weird lurch thing when he reached for his phone. He hesitated as all the confidence he had spent an hour building up started to slowly fade away and sink down like the sun setting. But, no matter how off he was starting to feel, he was determined to make that call. Without thinking about it a second longer, he hit the call button.
Busy tone.
Dean groaned and hit redial.
Busy.
He redialed again.
BUSY.
He waited until the end of the song.
B U S Y.
"I've got Kim on the line." Roman said, after the song went off air. "I've actually been talking to Kim for the last couple of minutes about the X-Men films while Daniel was stuck taking calls. I'm sorry, Daniel. Anyway, Kim, tell the listeners what your favorite movie is and why."
"Hey, yall," Kim said with a strong southern accent. "I was just tellin' Roman that my favorite movie is Toy Story…"
Dean listened, a little distressed and impatient, as Roman and Kim talked about Toy Story and their other favorite Pixar movies for a few minutes before Roman let her off the line. Soon, he was inviting callers again.
"Alright, guys. I'm gonna play a few commercials because we have to make money to stay on the air. When I get back, I'm gonna play some more movie hits and we'll talk about some more of your favorite films. Don't forget you can still call in while we're on commercial break, and keep it here on WKRC 88.1 FM if you know what's good for you."
Dean's fingers immediately hit redial on his phone. Yes, he was aware that he was seeming desperate, but he'd been thinking about this moment all day and he felt like if he got another busy tone he was going to-
"Thanks for calling into The Night Dose, who do I have the pleasure of hopefully entertaining tonight?"
Once again, Dean froze. However, his desire to not sound like a lame ass on the phone with Roman again was slightly higher than his anxiety. Slightly.
"Uh," He said before he pinched his own thigh to get him talking. "Dean?"
"Dean?" Roman mimicked, and for a horrible moment, Dean thought that he had forgotten him already.
Of course he did. He spoke to maybe 30 people on a slow night. Besides, it wasn't like Dean was memorable. Unless you count the fact that he almost chocked to death when they last spoke.
"Um, I called last week," Dean said, and then cringed.
Roman laughed loudly and the sound of it caressed Dean's ear through his phone. "I remember you dude. I was just messing around since you said your name like you wasn't sure what it was."
"Oh!" Dean exclaimed, then he sighed in relief. He was, for once, memorable. "I wasn't expecting you to remember me."
"You've got a distinct voice," Roman said. "Now, do you wanna talk about movies, or just talk?"
"We can talk about movies," Dean said. He decided to play it safe with the preloaded topic. Besides, he loved movies and he wanted to use this as an excuse know what Roman liked. He wanted to know a lot about Roman.
"Cool. So, let's start off with the most generic question ever: What is your favorite movie?"
"Pulp Fiction," Dean answered, without hesitation, and then he threw in for good measure, "And I'm not saying that because it's a typical default answer. It's my favorite movie and Tarantino is my favorite director."
"Nice," Roman chuckled. "I love Tarantino, as well. I'm more of a fantasy/scifi person, though. I love Lord of the Rings, Avatar, Star Trek… all that nerd shit."
Dean turned the radio down and kicked his feet up on the coffee table. Something he couldn't do if Kofi was there.
"I would have never guessed that about you," he admitted.
"Why?"
"I don't know," Dean shrugged. "You just seem like the kind of guy that would only love action movies and stuff. Like Fast and the Furious."
"Do I?" Roman said, and then he let out a soft laugh. "What can you guess about me?"
"I'm sorry I made presumptions!" Dean said, hastily.
"Oh, don't worry," Roman assured him. "I'm not upset. I'm just genuinely curious. I want to know what my listeners think I'm like out here in the real world."
Dean smiled. "Well, I imagine you're fun and adventurous, since you spoke about hiking and surfing and stuff. Maybe you're athletic, too, since you said you used to play football in high school. And I think you're also popular, or maybe you just have a lot of friends, because I feel like every week for the last year, you've mentioned a new friend."
Dean was about to continue, but he suddenly noticed the silence, so he paused his rambling. There was a long pause before Roman spoke up again.
"Wow," Roman muttered, "Should I be creeped out right now?"
Dean's smile faded. Oh, no! He'd said too much and came off like a stalking weirdo! How could he forget that it was not normal to tell a complete stranger about their own damn life? Dean could feel his hands starting to sweat. He had to fix this. He could hang up and never listen to the show again, or he could make up some lie.
He didn't want to not speak to Roman again. He was sure that if he did hang up, he would confirm Roman's "this guy's a weird" suspicions, and just the thought of that would make Dean never listen to his show again because he wouldn't be able to handle the shame!
So, lie it was.
"I'm not stalking you or anything," Dean said hastily. "I just… this station is the only one they play at work and, uh, I catch your show a lot. Also, I've got a super good memory, so I remembered a lot… about you…"
Dean trailed off and eventually gave up. That was a bad lie and he stuttered way too much. He was really contemplating hanging up when he heard Roman laugh again.
"Dean, it's fine," Roman said after he'd finished laughing. "You're not the only caller to tell me about my life. I've been doing this for 2 years. Of course people are gonna know some stuff about me."
Dean sighed in relief and he chuckled nervously. "I didn't want you to think I was a freak stalking you or something."
"Nah," Roman said, and then added almost thoughtfully, "Well, you could be a freak stalking me. I don't really know you all too well."
"I'm too awkward to stalk someone," Dean mumbled into the receiver. "I'd probably fall out of the bush I was hiding behind."
Roman laughed again, louder this time, and it brought a smile to Dean's face.
"So, your name's Dean, you're awkward, you like Quentin Tarantino, and you like my show," Roman said. "Now I know some things about you, too."
Dean smiled, and he was about to respond when he heard yelling in the background. He could tell that it was Daniel.
"Shit, shit!" Roman said. "Be right back, ok? You hold on."
Suddenly the line was filled with elevator music. Dean cocked his head back in confusion at first, but then it finally clicked with him that Roman had to do his job. He turned up the radio and caught the end of the song that was currently playing on the station.
"That was Crawl by Kings of Leon," Roman said, sounding a little rushed. Dean smiled a little because he knew why Roman sounded so hurried. It was kind of like an inside joke. Well, so far it was an inside joke with himself.
"Also, I really wanna apologize to anyone who called in. I got a little tied up with a caller AGAIN," Roman said sheepishly. "You see, guys? This is why I need Daniel here. If he didn't start yelling at me I'd still be on the damn phone."
Dean's smile widened. Maybe he didn't suck on the phone as much as he thought he did if Roman would have kept talking to him if he hadn't been interrupted.
"Anyway, I'm gonna play a couple more requests, and then put some of you on the line, so go ahead and call in," Roman said. "88.1 FM. The only station where your host can forget he has other callers? Keep it here."
Dean turned down his radio just as Roman came back on the line.
"Hey, you still there?" Roman asked.
"Yeah!" Dean said quickly, and then he lowered his voice, shoving down his excitement. "I mean, yeah. I'm here."
"Cool," Roman said. Dean could practically hear his smile. "Look I gotta go, but, uh, you have a Facebook or something? Twitter? Instagram?"
Dean didn't have enough friends, confidence, or interesting things to say for him to have twitter or Instagram. He had a facebook, but he only had about 40 friends and most of those people were his family. He barely used it and only got on to wish people happy birthday or to play Facebook games. If Roman saw the lack of friends and comments he had, would he think he was a loser? Oh, God! Roman would also see his pictures. He should delete them! But then, what if Roman wants to see what he looks like?
Dean must have spent too long worrying in his own head because Roman spoke up.
"Hey, just search me on Facebook under Roman Anoa'I. A-N-O-A-APOSTROPHY-I. I'm on twitter and Instagram under RomansReign. If you don't have any of those, you can call in whenever," Roman said, and then he laughed when Daniel started yelling in the background again, "But not tonight because we both used up enough of Daniel's patience."
"Yeah, okay," Dean mumbled. "I'll, uh, add you."
"Awesome, man!" Roman said excitably, and Dean was jealous of how easily he showed his enthusiasm. "Catch you later."
And then he hung up.
Dean immediately pulled his phone away from his ear and opened his Facebook app. With eager fingers, he typed Roman's name into the search bar.
ROMAN ANOA'I. Enter.
Dean held his breath as two pages popped up. One with a picture and information and one without. He ignored the empty one and clicked the one with the picture. Immediately he was greeted with a very impressive profile picture.
There were two very good looking guys in the picture. It seemed to be taken at a restaurant somewhere. Even though one of the guys had chopsticks in his mouth and was pretending to be a walrus, Dean could tell he was very attractive. And so was the other guy, too. Most definitely. It didn't matter which one was Roman. They were both extremely easy on the eyes.
Dean scrolled down and was greeted with yet another picture. This one was posted to his wall the night before. It was just one guy this time, and yeah ok, this was probably Roman. In this picture, Roman was in the middle of a crowd with his hands up, shirtless and sweaty. Two twin girls in shorts and bras were next to him, and one of them as hanging onto him, kissing his cheek and touching his impressive chest. They looked like they were having a lot of fun. The girls themselves were beautiful, but Dean could only focus on Roman. On his long, wet hair, and his toned upper body. On his amazing intricate tattoo that started from his shoulder and carried on down to his wrist. On his big smile and blissed out, happy expression.
Dean's mouth went dry.
The picture had 307 likes. The caption read "Throwback to when I stole the twins from Daniel and John at the last Highlight Festival in Cali. Hope 2 see yall again this year! 3 weeks! Hide ur girls. Tagged in this photo: Brie Bella, Nikki Bella".
All the comments were about how good he and the girls looked and how they couldn't wait to party with him at the festival
The rest of Roman's Facebook was just like that. Pictures of him with various friends, by himself, out adventuring, at the radio station, etc… And all of his pictures and statuses had a lot of likes. It wasn't surprising. Roman was gorgeous and seemingly had a lot of friends and associates.
Dean suddenly felt very self-conscious.
Dean expected Roman to be good looking, but not THIS good looking. He was out of Dean's league by far. Looking this good, Roman could have any girl he wanted, or guy if he was into that sorta thing.
Roman's Facebook page gave no clue towards any other orientation besides the default "straight". It didn't even say if he was single or not. A guy like Roman had to have a girlfriend. Or maybe Roman didn't want to be tied down. Maybe he had a string of women and one night stands. Who would pass up on a one night stand with a fun, outgoing, popular guy who looked like he did?
Not Dean.
That is, if he ever got past his anxiety and crippling shyness.
And if he ever even had a chance with Roman.
Not like that would ever happen.
However, Dean did want to try being his Facebook friend at least. After having a short internal debate with himself on whether he should add him as a friend or not, he left Roman's page and went to look at his own profile to make sure everything looked ok.
His currently profile picture was one he'd taken when he graduated High School. That was 3 years ago. It needed to be updated.
Dean opened the camera app on his phone and stared at himself on the screen. He looked alright. He didn't consider himself overly attractive or anything, but he knew he at least looked decent, even though his hair was a little greasy and if he concentrated too hard on something, his eyes started to widen, giving him a slightly manic expression.
One of Kofi's female friends tried hitting on him once before he awkwardly shuffled away from her, and she was gorgeous so maybe he had a little something going for him in the looks department. He still felt awkward as hell trying to take a picture, though. He wished Kofi was here to help him.
In total, he spent at least 20 minutes trying to take a decent selfie AND THEN he then took an extra 10 minutes going through all the options and deleting the ones that made him look like a 40 year old dad.
Dean was self-conscious and sometimes he really wanted friends, yes, but he'd never went to this extent to try to impress someone. At least, not since high school. In high school, he'd failed at making friends and at not being a super nervous weirdo so badly that he just kinda… gave up after a while. Now, however, he was actually trying to make an effort to look decent so Roman's wouldn't think ill of him. Even though Roman was out-of-this-world hot, seemingly super popular, and would probably think Dean was a loser with a weird hairline, suffered from a bad case of gravel voice, and had eyes that got too big sometimes…
Dean still wanted to try. That was a major improvement.
When he finally found a picture he didn't hate, he uploaded it and sent Roman the friend request. Almost immediately, before he could even start to panic or undo the request, he got a notification saying that Roman had accepted it.
That was fast. It was almost as if… Roman was… waiting for him to send it…?
Dean pushed that ridiculous thought away because there was NO WAY that was possible in this galaxy, space, and time. Maybe Roman just had his phone notifications on or something.
Regardless, they were Facebook friends now. Dean felt an odd sense of accomplishment. He turned up the radio again as he pulled out his phone to text Kofi the good news.
Sometimes, he felt silly for texting Kofi as much as he did, but Kofi never seemed to mind. In fact, he always responded with enthusiasm. Still, Dean wished that he had someone else to talk to when good or bad things happened to him. Kofi wasn't always there anymore.
Dean had started to feel an emptiness in his stomach like he usually did when he began to think about his loneliness, but he pushed the thoughts away. He had something to be happy about.
On the radio, Roman was laughing at something a caller had said. Dean wasn't listening to their conversation so he didn't know what the joke was. He just wanted to hear Roman's voice.
TBC...
Shout out to those who said they suffer/suffered from social anxiety as well. I feel you. :(
I reblogged the "Facebook" picture of Seth and Roman I described on my tumblr, if you've never seen it go look at it. It's adorable.