Randy and Dolph confessed everything they had been living. However, Randy never spoke of his relationship with Cody and much less of his feelings towards Seth. Both managed to communicate with Sami and convince him that they should contact. In addition to revealing that Seth was alive.
Shortly after Charlotte, Sami and Tony were in a video call with Dolph and Randy. There was always the possibility that it was a trap, but Seth was too important, it was worth the risk. Sami made the respective presentation. Randy understood everything.
"You're Seth's brothers," Randy was astounded, "You're Charlie."
Tony, Charlotte, and Sami looked at each other in shock. How did this guy know such information? However, they understood everything when Randy explained to everyone about the experiments with Seth and how he had saved him by switching the needles for electrodes and the tranquilizer for a harmless one.
Tony looked at Randy curiously, "You've taken a lot of risk for my brother."
Dolph had not thought of this until Tony mentioned it.
"I have my reasons, but that's not what I want to talk about. I want you to rescue Seth, you must take him away. Here, his life is in danger." Randy was firm in this.
"He's under your care. Saving him is a death sentence for you," Tony insisted.
Randy realized that his motives were obvious, but that didn't matter in such a situation.
"I'm going to deal with this." Randy said without wanting to go into details. "I'll give you the coordinates to find us. As soon as I finish this video call, I'm going to get Seth out of the room and take him there. You must be there to take him to a safe place."
"After being in the meeting I understood how wrong we've been, so I'll help Randy to get Seth out of our base. But that's not the biggest problem anyway." Dolph interjected, "Our army already has the tower map. And unfortunately, we are not the only ones to have seen it. There are more leaders in charge and as Dean wasn't here, Bray and his brothers who are next in the chain of command, have a copy of the map. If it's true that there's a weapon inside the tower, my comrades can't get it. They are going to blow your city and its inhabitants."
"Is there anything you can do from your base?" Sami asked.
"In addition to warning you, I can't think of anything else. All this is out of control and we have to come up with something to be faster than my teammates or Roman. That's why we're asking for help." Dolph clarified.
"And Roman told me that no one was worthwhile in the dumpster." Charlotte wasn't even trying to hide her hatred for Roman. "You are proof that if we show these things to the people in the dumpster, we can make a lot of them change their minds."
"And we're going to do that," Randy said firmly, "But it will be after Seth is safe. If they don't believe us and accuse us of traitors, that'll be our problem. Hopefully we will at least convince a group of them."
Tony smiled. Randy was a good boy and it was obvious that his priority was to save Seth. If the dumpster had been able to create people like them all... like Seth. There was hope.
...
Meanwhile in Seth's room. Dean thought he was hallucinating, seeing Seth's memories.
"What?" Roman looked genuinely surprised, "Who was able to bomb the dumpster?"
"Were there any survivors?" Seth was crying.
"According to reports not many, mostly children and pre-teens. A few adults." Sami was outraged. "I don't know how but I'm sure it was Paul."
"If it was him... we'll get that information then Paul will be a dead man." Roman left the room visibly angry.
Seth was crying copiously, "My brothers may be dead."
"He's imagining it!" Dean screamed.
"No Dean, that's a memory and like all his memories is something accurate. There's no room for error in this." Cody was shaking.
"I want to see all the videos. ALL!" Dean demanded desperately.
Cody was shaking as he searched for a memory card that contained the recordings in chronological order. He handed it to Dean.
"Anyway." Cody gulped, "Though Reigns didn't bomb the dumpster. He and his city have marginalized us, this really doesn't change anything for us."
For me it changes everything... Dean thought.
...
Dean was in his bedroom checking the recordings. He felt like a dumbass, he must have done this from the beginning, but he just wanted the map. Seth's memories were not important, grave error. Dean was crying bitterly as he remembered how he had escaped from L.A.
Dean heard the sound of the vehicles approaching the place and saw the body of the man he loved... the man he shot in the chest. He ran without thinking and he was sure that escaping so carelessly, he would be captured... something that never happened.
He finally stopped at several sewers. He slipped through one of the dirty ducts and sat on the floor, further messing up the beautiful suit.
"Roman, I didn't want to. I wanted to live with you in your castle and be your prince and that you love me each damn day."
-Why did you shoot him?!- The voice sounded bitter, angry.
"I had to. It was the only way to end this fantasy. As long as Roman offered me the world I longed for, I was going to be weak. Now, if he's not dead he will hate me so much that we won't be the weakness of the other. If I didn't do this I would surrender to his feet and worship him."
-With that shot, you've destroyed our life- The voice kept on complaining.
"Shut up!" Dean tugged at his hair, "It was him who destroyed our lives! He murdered them all! He's a demon and he had to pay! We promised to Mick, to Eugene..."
The voice stopped talking, even his subconscious knew that Roman deserved that bullet. However, that didn't make Dean feel better about it.
*I didn't bomb anything, you stupid brat.*
Dean shook his head, those words were a curse. Besides being a lie. Roman was an expert manipulator, of course he would try to play with his mind that way.
But if he told the truth...
Dean got to his feet and started to walk like a zombie. Convincing himself that Roman had lied.
"That won't stop me from loving you. Even if I destroy this city, if I leave everything turned to ashes, I will never have peace. I will always think of you, I will never be able to forgive myself, you will never leave my heart. I love you and hate you at the same time... I hate myself for loving you so much, but I hate myself even more for put a bullet in your chest. You may be dead now, and I didn't want to kill you, I wanted to love you."
Dean started banging on the dirty walls. He had to drain his anger, his frustration. He wandered for hours without any direction until he decided to return to the dumpster. In his home things would be better. There he would be forced to function as the leader of an army and not as a man in love.
If the Samoan survived such a shot, which was impossible. Dean and he could never be together. But that was the plan, to do something that would force him away from Roman forever. As he walked away from L.A. Dean remembered the last words Roman had told him:
*You think it was you who couldn't forgive me but now, now it's me who will never forgive you. You hurt me as no other person has hurt me, and I'll never forgive you for this.*
"You will never forgive me, Roman... It does not matter, my love, I can't forgive myself either."
Back to reality. Dean looked at the monitor in his room. Seth's memory was like one of the pieces missing from the puzzle. Seth was crying for his brothers in the dumpster, so he was the teenager Roman rescued when Dean was 9 years old. That's why Roman helped them, but the Samoan stopped that help. Maybe among Seth's memories was the explanation, maybe Cody, Dolph and Randy never saw or cared about that part of Seth's memories.
In this memory, Roman smiled with tenderness, an expression that if Dean hadn't seen that afternoon, when the Samoan dedicated it to him, he thought it would be oblivious to the powerful leader. Roman's eyes emanated nothing but warmth as he kissed Seth's forehead.
"Should I stay here, locked up?" Seth was just a teenager, even younger than Dean.
"Because of your origin, I can't expose you. In addition, this city is still a war zone. Everything is chaos, I want you to be away from those things. Besides you must rest, your life must have been difficult in the dumpster." Roman was sitting on the bed.
Seth climbed into bed next to Roman, "It's soft, I really like it but... I should... give you my body, right?"
"No, of course not." Roman's voice sounded so warm, "I would never take someone by force. I would seduce people... yes, as long as I was sure that their desire is to be with me. It's the only way to seduce a lover."
Seth blushed, "Am I you lover?"
"Only if you want to be. You are the most beautiful thing my eyes have ever seen, but the final decision is yours. I only show you the world that I will put at your feet."
"All this in exchange for my body?" Seth looked around. That room was not the one on the terrace, but it was just as beautiful and comfortable, even though it had no windows.
"If I say I don't want your body I would lie to you. People willing to give me their body there are many, I could have numerous lovers and yet, I don't want that. I want one person, and what I want from you is something I see in your eyes. That's what I want to have. I want someone who is next to me in good and bad. I want someone I can trust. Someone who is like me, who shares my ideals and my desires."
That was what Roman always wanted. Even with Dean, Roman didn't want to be alone. Roman wanted someone to share his life with. Seth looked perfect for that and yet Roman let him go.
"I'm very trustworthy." Seth smiled with the innocence of his young age.
"That's what I see in your eyes. If you are worthy of my trust and you are a good companion for me. I will love you unconditionally."
Dean was mesmerized watching this Roman. Seth had the opportunity to meet Roman at his best. What the hell did this bitch do for Roman to be the person he was now? Roman just wanted someone to support him.
Dean continued watching other memories. Now he understood why his comrades had not noticed anything strange. Without the memory of the actual perpetrator of the bombing, Roman's actions had no further explanation more than him, being an evil man. That memory was the missing piece.
In another memory Seth was in the room on the terrace.
The young man was complaining angrily. "Paul is dead and all those monsters who are your subjects are calmed! Why don't you send help to the survivors?"
"Are we going to have this argument again?" Roman was as angry as Seth, "I tried to send a vehicle and those wild brats set him on fire. They hate me and there is no way to change that. In addition this city requires a lot of work. It's too much pressure and instead of finding support when I go back to my fucking house, what I find is more complaints! "
"And I'll keep complaining until you come back to help them!" Seth screamed out of control.
"You know what?" Roman was done, "I won't do it. Tell me what you're going to do about it?"
"I'm leaving you!" Seth began to pick up clothes from a drawer.
"That's your supposed love for me! You loved me madly while I was useful to help your fucking fellows from the dumpster. My life is chaos, I'm being under pressure everywhere and I can't pay attention to that place and then your love is gone and you leave me. These years living together, indulging you in all that I could, trusting you as an idiot. Nothing cares if I can't be of use to you!"
"I love you, but I also love my origin. I should never have left the dumpster!" Seth put his things in a small backpack and left the room.
That was one of the routes marked on the map. That's how Dean's comrades had gotten that part of the map, from this memory.
Seth advanced almost to one of the exits and was overtaken by Roman. The Samoan grabbed his arm.
"I have given my childhood and my youth to this damn city and its inhabitants and although I hate them both I won't lose them after everything that has cost me. The same applies to you Sethie. You're not going to use me and when I'm no use to you, you're going to leave me."
"You can't force me!" Seth began to beat Roman, "You're going to hit me, you're going to tie me!"
Roman never returned the punches, "No, I'm going to follow the advice one of my scientists, Doctor Jericho, gave me."
Dean looked for other memories and the next thing he saw was Seth looking in the mirror.
The young man was naked as if looking for something somewhere on his skin. Roman entered the room shortly afterwards.
"You won't find the device." Roman's smile wasn't warm. It was similar to his current smirk, but there was still some warmth in it.
"If I move 100 meters away from the tower this thing inside of me will electrocute my body," Seth looked at Roman with disappointment.
"I have not touched you, I have not beaten you and if you don't want to have sex with me again I won't force you. But I won't let you go after being used by you." Roman was angry.
"I never wanted you to think I used you. You're right. I have not supported you and I behaved just like them, than the inhabitants of this hell. I want us to fix our relationship." Seth took Roman's hands.
"And so I'll take the device off your body..." Roman looked at Seth sadly, "I never wanted to put that on your body, but I can't let you go. If you want to fool me-"
Seth shook his head, "No. Leave the device inside me. If that's the only way I can regain your trust after trying to escape, that's fine. I still love you even if you don't believe it. If you can't help them, that's fine. But... my brothers, at least to them. You promised me when you got me out of the dumpster."
Roman reassured at Seth's words, "It's true. I'll find a way to find them and take them to a safe place for both. I must keep the promise I made you."
Dean was breathing heavily. Whatever changed Roman, Dean was sure Seth was the one to blame. A knock on the door took him out of his abstraction.
"Dean, Seth is remembering more things," Cody said.
Dean was again in Seth's room watching this new memory.
"I sent your brothers to Europe. I fulfilled the promise and now that both escaped without a trace, you feel free to make my life a chaos. I have enough with this damn city. Everything I thought I would have with you when I fell stupidly in love with you has collapsed." Roman said bitterly and seemed on the verge of tears.
"You are a tyrant, you like power, like to have these people under control. No one is free. What's the fucking change you've made? You're just like them, like Paul and Vince. No matter how hard you try to convince yourself that you are doing things different. You're more of the same." Seth spat bitterly. The young man now had his hair dyed two colors and he looked totally adult. "You took the device from me, now that everyone knows my face. You did it because you know that now that everyone knows I'm your boyfriend, I can't go back to the dumpster. I'm even more trapped than I was."
"Trapped between luxuries, comfort. Having saved the butts of your brothers thanks to me. Destroying my trust in you." Roman could not hold back the tears, "I gave you all I could and although you accuse me of having changed, there was something that never changed in me: my love for you. I still love you and the only thing I have received in return have been claims, absurd demands. You want me to abandon everything I fought for. I almost died several times in my struggle to be where I am and these people never appreciated it, that's why I had to oppress them. None of that mattered because I just wanted to be appreciated by you! And the only thing I wanted, I don't have it."
"You want to know why?" Seth was insanely angry, "Because I don't love you. Because I stopped loving you more than a year ago. Because this person you are now is someone who I despise. And even if you changed, I couldn't love you again."
Dean saw Roman's expression. The leader of the dumpster had never felt empathy for others than his dead family members. But at that moment he absorbed all the pain, the disappointment, the anguish reflected in Roman's gaze.
"You've been faking love for more than a year..." Roman was breathing hard and the tears of pain were now pure anger.
"So is. I have nowhere to go, it was just a matter of survival. But it doesn't matter anymore, if you kill me now, I don't care!" Seth shouted out of control.
"I could never kill you. I could never hurt someone I love. But you stabbed me in the back. We have an image to take care of, you and me. I will never touch you again and you will not live here anymore. I will send you to an isolated part of the tower. We will only see each other to keep up appearances at public events." Roman was crying, "You have accused me of having no heart, yet all that was left of my heart was yours. Now you destroyed that little part of me. And I will not be an idiot to fall in love again. After this you have done to me, things in this city and my damn life will change forever."
Roman's face, the expression of pain was identical to the one the Samoan gave Dean shortly after the shot. That was the final frontier, which the inhabitants of L.A. and Roman's enemies had failed, Seth succeeded: Roman was totally bitter.
The samoan wiped his tears and then smirked, that trademark smirk between evil and sexy.
"I'll never forgive you." Roman told Seth and called his security team.
At that moment Dean could see that Seth realized the huge mistake he had made. The men dragged Seth to his new location, the last part of the memory showing Roman's impassive face and his smirk. That was the final stage of his transformation.
Dean had seen enough. He ran into a garbage can and began to vomit. Cody didn't understand what was happening to his friend. While this revelation showed that Roman was not as bad as they thought, that didn't change things. After that Roman became the devil they all hated. The boys of the dumpster had no responsibility for anything that had happened in Roman's life, so they didn't care about that. But Dean cared.
The auburn-haired man was crying. He was breathing hard and looking at Seth with pure hatred.
"You had one mission, only one damn mission in your life and you ruined everything! Dean was screaming, "You destroyed him, you damn bitch!"
Cody didn't understand his friend's behavior.
"But… what am I complaining about? I... I did the same... no ... I was worse than you even." Dean was rambling
Dean started to kick things around and Cody tried to stop him, but Dean was so out of control that he hit his friend. Cody was on the floor with his mouth bleeding. Then Dean grabbed Seth from the neck and began choking him.
"It's your fault!" Dean screamed out of control, "If you had not ruined him that way, I wouldn't have had to do what I did. He and I could love each other and be happy. You ruined everything, you bitch!"
Cody activated the alarm, looking for help while trying to separate Dean from Seth, who couldn't defend himself.
...
Randy, Dolph, Sami, Charlotte and Tony heard the alarm.
"What's going on?" Charlotte asked in a frightened voice.
Randy saw the monitor looking for where the signal was coming from. "Seth's room. Something is wrong there."
The young man ran in a hurry. Dolph closed the call promising to keep in contact with them and tell them what was happening. Then, he rushed to help Randy.
I tried to shorten this episode so Roman's memories about the shot will be in the next chapter. I posted another fanfic, take a look at it if you want :) The new story is an ambreigns fic about an angel, it will have maybe 7 or 10 chapters no more. It's something simple as I explained in the first chapter of that story, no complicated plots.
Let me know what you think. Remember to review your favorite stories that always encourages the authors to keep going.