Remember what happened the last time Roman tried to 'help' when it came to the Wyatts? Um, yeah…
Hayley1001, Mick is such an asset in this story, I'm glad I decided to throw him into the mix! Glad you liked worried nursemaid Roman in this one. I love writing him all fretful over Dean. They just have such a wonderful dynamic that makes it easy to imagine these scenarios! Hope you like this chapter too!
Daisysakura, Roman certainly has payback on his mind, but luckily he's too clever to just go brawling in the middle of the prison. Boy wants to avoid solitary after all! Not sure I can ever top the Mr. Socko cameo to be honest, but hey, if nothing else then I can certainly try! I kind of like the image of Foley giving puppet shows to criminals though!
Cheryl24, Haha, to be honest I think he's such a damn weirdo that even the prison is worried about making Bray disappear because he would probably come back in a puff of smoke since the guy is clearly not human in the least. Or they're worried about him haunting the place, because the only thing worse than Bray is a translucent Bray *shudders*
Yippi-kay yay motherfucker, Awww, glad this makes your Ambreigns heart happy. Pretty much all my stories are based on their friendship dynamic because I cannot get enough of it. Touchy feely boy best friends are the best thing in the world! Hopefully we get some more of that when Dean gets back on TV (come oooonnnnn Summerslam!)
Wolfgirl2013, *Blows kiss* thank you, got some tension in this one and Roman and Bray facing off…kind of anyway. Hope you like it but better get out your swamp lantern!
Stingerette1975, I like to think that for all the crazy Roman has seen since he's been in the prison, watching Mick Foley entertain a bunch of hardened criminals with an anthropomorphic sock on his hand is the thing that he will remember the most! As for his payback on Bray? Well, he…um…he tries…
Rebel8954, Haha, glad you liked Mr. Socko…I wonder what he did in order to be locked up? Hmmm. Roman is certainly going to try and end things with the Wyatts but he is trying to stay on the right side of the guards so he has to be careful about letting those fists fly. But he has plans…sadly however so too does Bray.
Mandy, Don't go celebrating too soon on that one. Remember Bray always has a trick up his sleeve…or up his garish Hawaiian shirt…or in this case up his orange prison jumpsuit! Not that Roman is a slouch on that front either. So this chapter is kind of going to be a battle of wits. Time will tell who's going to win though!
Minnie1015, Aww thanks, I could see Dean rubbing his head into the pillow too. Is there anything better than a cold crisp pillow? Basically I think I will always partly seen Dean as an overgrown puppy, meaning he plays hard and fights rough but then he likes to curl up and be all peaceful and like a little baby when he sleeps…or is concussed as in this case!
Skovko, Hey, Skovko and Mr. Socko nearly rhyme! Have you thought about joining with him for a double act perhaps?! Dean and Roman are going to sit down and have a much needed conversation in the next chapter (lots to be said…lots and lots) but for now we have Roman trying to be a good brother and warn the Wyatts off. Um…yeah.
KyanaM, I never know whose fault it is when email alerts don't come through because sometimes this place can be a little bit technically wormy. Either way, glad you got a double hit of chapters! I know, I'm really being mean to Roman in this one, but on the plus side we get to see the full range of his emotions and especially the protective brotherly/best friend ones!
SkittlezLvr79, Mr. Socko is the one non-human cameo I have ever included...unless that time I made Miz a dog counts?! I think the guards look on Mick as pretty harmless unless he's running headfirst into things so he might be okay on this one. Yep, Bray is not a man that takes threats well besides, the man likes a challenge and Dean and Roman are in his sights now!
Cue creepy music and firefly lights…
Prize Fight
Bray's cell might as well have an exclusion zone around it, since the guys that Roman passes as he tramples towards it seem jittery and super keen not to hang about, like being there for too long will suck them in somehow or earn them a beating.
Roman straight up doesn't care.
Instead he simply sets his glower and crosses the polished concrete in a vengeful looking stalk that carries him right the way to the end of the corridor and then in across the threshold.
He doesn't bother to knock.
"Bray this shit stops now, you hear me?"
He barks the words out in a vicious sounding snap and is rewarded as three bearded faces swing towards him with a measure of surprise that he has never seen on them before and in the moment is damn pleased to have been the one to place there because it shows that maybe the three big bayou monsters are flesh and bone humans in spite of it all.
Bray is sitting cross legged on the mattress like he is summoning some deity from the shadowy spirit world while his ever present lackeys stand hovering around him either waiting for orders or the command to sit down. In response to the sudden and unexpected arrival, they each of them tense up in furious alarm and for a second it feels like the fallout will be unstoppable or the beginning of some bloody and unholy prison war.
Roman is ready though –
If that's what it comes down to, because the sight of his cellmate prone on the linoleum and being downright molested has turned the screw a notch too far and the campaign of stalking or obsession or whatever needs to be stopped.
It's the reason he's there.
It is also the reason that he will happily fight for it since he figures that fists are the currency that work best and which proves to be true when Harper lumbers towards him like the bouncer of a nightclub running a no tattoos rule. Roman tenses and then wills the man in further as his fists twitch to bury themselves into a face and the urge for which is so god damn powerful that he would happily face solitary if it gets rid of the thumping rage.
Foley had warned him as he had stalked out of the cell room,
"Go easy pal, be smart about this."
But in the moment it is hard to remember much of anything beyond the copper blonde man comatose back in their cell with a raised red bump sitting high above his eyebrow and curled into the sheets like a battered burrito roll.
Harper is almost fully on top of him and the tension is thick enough to cut with a credit card but then a raspy voice barks out loudly towards them and stops the bearded hulk pretty much dead,
"Luke, simmer down."
Bray has reached a hand out and is pulling his child of the corn back by the hem his prison issue shirt which technically shouldn't make a difference to the mammoth but seems to have an instantly magical effect.
Roman keeps on glaring but to a point beyond the lackey and focussed instead on the hillbilly boss who is still sat cross legged but less proudly than he had been like for once he's not the one who is holding all the cards. He still smiles though in a knee jerk sort of movement that is beginning to seem more reactive than forced, like maybe the eerie beaming is a fracture in his psyche or else has been adopted over years of abuse.
Maybe not though.
Maybe he's just a psychopath.
Bray then fuels that notion by throwing back his head and letting loose a laugh that bounces in off the walls at them and is so harsh sounding that it hangs in the atmosphere like in the first few seconds after a bomb has gone off and that seems to suck the air from around them as if the hillbilly stalker is some god damn natural force.
He knows it too, which is why he keeps grinning,
"Your boy belongs with me and my family."
"Nah, see now that ain't gonna fly because your ass don't get to make that decision."
Bray blinks too slowly,
"It's out of my hands, it isn't my choice to make now, it's hers."
Bray points skywards and god actually help him if the policeman doesn't briefly look up too like maybe there is some deity pinned to the ceiling or a clue to what the hell he is talking about, which could quite literally be anything between a mere flight of fancy, a living breathing person or else some spurious sun god from which the hell ever weird ass cult they choose to worship.
But instead there is nothing and so he replies with a growl,
"If you come near him or try to touch him again ever – ,"
"You'll what?"
It comes out as a genuine question and is accompanied once more by the violent head quirk as if the beard growth is somehow hampering his hearing or like the swamp monster is having trouble finding a meaning in the words.
Roman doesn't flinch,
"I'll kick your ass so badly not even your own mother will recognize what's left."
"Like last time, huh?"
Bray revels in his comeback because clearly he thinks that the taller man should remember the last time they met it was he who came off best and at the memory of the beating he had received in the showers, the policeman grinds his teeth and then snorts out a breath,
"Easy to get the jump when you got a god damn yellow streak."
Roman knows the sentence will get a reaction the moment he lets the thing fall from his lips and so finishes it up with a smirk of satisfaction because he wants to see the swaggering hillbilly pissed. He wants to see what it takes to get him riled and how far he has to force it before he loses his shit and stops engaging the messed up brainstem and starts reacting on a base level instead.
It turns out to be even easier than he'd figured –
Bray twitches a single eyelid,
"What did you just say?"
Hell yeah.
Roman shrugs back in response to the question and then absently begins to rub at a wrist in a gesture that is meant to look purposefully indifferent or like the bearded cult leader is below his pay grade and which he emphasizes further by making his tones looser and borderline bored,
"Ain't that the reason for these two?"
He lifts a finger and then waves it casually between the two hovering overgrown beards, who stiffen but otherwise remain frozen like statues since they haven't been given the orders for their release and which is pretty much the most unnerving feature out of all of it because he has no damn idea why they are loyal to him.
Mind control?
Emotional abuse?
Plain old blackmail?
Briefly he imagines what the scene might look like were the eerie cult leader to get his hands on Dean and turn him into another mindless sheep of a lackey but that he knows in an instant could never be a thing. Dean is too bright and too god damn lively to ever be beholden to someone like that. He is too pumped full of varied quirks and personality for a person or force to be able to hold that back or turn him into something grey and shapeless.
Dean is too alive and besides, Roman has his back.
Back on the bed on the thin little mattress, the bearded bayou savant is breathing too hard and forcing out a tiny little whistle sound on the exhales which squeaks out loudly in the stillness of the room. His meaty fists clench and then unclench rapidly and his eyes catch fire and light up the whole space until they positively crackle with unbridled fury which carries in his tones,
"I could still beat your ass."
"You keep on believing that."
Roman leaves the rest unspoken like he finds the thought of them being any match physically a pretty damn humorous sort of a leap and which fuels the next sentence which snaps out predictably and just like he had figured,
"Name your time and the place."
"If I win you back the hell away from my cellmate and you keep your ass back."
Bray narrows his gaze and then smiles like he realizes the bigger man has played him but appreciates the sportsmanship nevertheless,
"So what happens when I win this little royal rumble?"
"That ain't gonna happen."
"Does it mean I get to have our boy without another fight?"
Roman feels an icy sort of shiver ripple through him as the never-ending back and forth verbal one-upmanship swings back in the favor of the bayou man once more, like some warped and potentially life changing game of tennis being played across a cell block instead of some neatly trimmed lawn.
He shakes his head,
"You ain't getting nothing."
"Maybe little lamb should be the judge of that hmmm?"
"You leave his ass out of this."
Bray snorts in response to him and then waves an all too airy hand around, like he is fast getting bored of the whole damn situation and which he then underlines further by looking beyond him with a stare.
"We'll meet in the shower block in five days to settle this and I'll make sure it's empty."
He chooses not to say how he will managed that or elaborate on his sway with the other inmates in the place but is probably based on nothing more than raw terror and the fact that is eight kinds of creepy and weird in a way that not even the most hardened of criminals know what to do with or want to have to cross, but which for once might actually work in their favor since the smaller the audience the better it will be.
Roman sucks a breath in,
"I'll see your ass there bitch."
Harper steps forwards at that point in warning and the policeman takes the movement as a subtle hint to go, which he does in a backwards trample towards the threshold, never taking his eyes off the glowering man. He has got what he came for in his shot at resolution and not wanting to try his luck or trigger things early he inches from the room and then turns swiftly to go but is stopped by a barked out amendment to the bargain which chills his bloodstream and ices his bones,
"I won't be fighting you, I'll fight little lamb for his freedom, only seems right and fair don't you think?"
Roman spins back in barely held fury as the words filter through him and he clenches his fists, only holding off from unleashing them bodily because both Harper and Rowan are blocking his way and thanks to the prison guard sloping towards them and checking each cell idly for signs of affray.
"Damn it that isn't the shit we agreed on, this is my fight."
"Then I'm changing the bill, take it or leave it."
"Wyatt – ,"
"Five days, then it's over."
It is the final word he has to say and in response to it his lumbering lackeys move forward, responding to the unspoken signal to get him out and leaves Roman no option but to grit his teeth and exit with as much of a sense calm as he can feasibly muster up.
From saving his brother to booking him into a prize fight in the space of five minutes.
How in the hell had it gone so wrong?
Next chapter Dean and Roman have a much needed conversation. But will it go better than their last one?