So time for a nice brother feels chapter I think, plus some Dean musing which is always good for the soul. I hope you like it!
Wolfgirl2013, Hello, yes thank you, my mum is a lot better, all cured (we think/hope) one more scan to go.
Debwood-1999, Hey, welcome back *waves* Mum is doing really well thanks, was pretty scary for a while though. The characters in the last story were Mike and Maria Kanellis, but I didn't make it super clear, I kind of like leaving it a little open sometimes (which I just killed by saying it there, d'oh!) I love the idea of Dean with more animals! So you never know, watch this space!
Yippi-kay yay motherfucker, I love the idea of Dean having to see a scary movie, and an idea has actually popped into my head. Might take a while for me to get around to it, but leave it with me!
SkittlezLvr79, Well, a microchip on Dean is not a bad idea. Plus I can totally see Seth sneaking in one night like a ninja to implant it in Dean without him knowing! But no, the last one was good old fashioned detective skills!
Derick Lindsey, Yep, last week was a close one for Dean. Also, kind of weird (now I think about it) that the closest he's ever come to dying was from nature, not directly from another person (even though Mike and Maria left him in the situation). But don't worry, more of a breather in this one. Time for some brotherness!
Rebel8954, Haha, I'm sorry I missed that scene out now! But yeah, Roman and Seth seeing Dean's watch and realizing they've got the right guys is a good image. Plus that pit in their stomachs at knowing what Dean would have been feeling giving the watch up, or that he would never have done it willingly. They know their boy!
Cherry619, The thing I love most about this series is how the guys literally only have each other (and occasionally Vince, Steph and Bo) and so they are totally in sync and sort of abnormally codependent. Dean will always expect Roman and Seth to come, even when he can't remember who he is. They will come.
Skovko, Yep, pretty much. Plus when I'm feeling low or anxious, writing about Dean being in trouble seems to soothe me. Is that weird? Okay, that's probably weird. But it's all about the brother feels in the end. They are the payoff!
Minnie1015, Aww, thanks, I threw in the stick-y part on the edit. Came to me suddenly and just felt right, so in it went. Honestly, I know you love it, but sometimes I really have to motivate myself to do it. But there are those times when it totally pays off!
Mandy, Oh no, I'm sorry you're going through a rough patch right now. But I'm super happy to help in any way I can. Nothing so stressful for Dean (or you) this week though, so hopefully that will be even better. Plus, added Seth (eventually) for extra happy content! *Hugs*
Womenwrestling010, Thank you, I'm glad you liked the last chapter. The old demon in this one refers to the infamous breakup. Dean does a little more soul searching on it. But in a good way (I hope!)
I defy you not to sing the title for this one...
The Shield Unscripted: In The Kitchen At Parties
Dean thrust his hand into the bowl of roasted peanuts and then bundled a loaded palm of them into his mouth. But in a move that he somehow made so completely clumsy that three or maybe four of them tumbled towards the floor before tucking themselves beneath the feet of the cupboards not to be found until the kitchen was revamped, whereupon nuts would be the least of their problems because the house had not been spruced up since the thing had been built.
Like seriously.
Not one freaking thing had changed since his last visit, which was both a reassuring and baffling thought but on the plus side had helped to soothe his nerves just a little as the wave of people had begun to bustle in, until the chintzy little lounge had been crammed full of bodies stood in a bewildering familial throng, because while they were by no means his own blood relations they were to his little brother and so therefore also belonged to him.
Even so though, there were a freaking lot of them –
Rollins relations had sprung from everywhere. From cousins to freaking twice removed nieces, which Dean had been able to handle at first but who had then pretty hurriedly become way way too much for him, to the point where his heart had begun to sort of pound and then turn his hands all hot and sticky feeling as every last one of them had started to probe.
So then, who are you?
How long have you known my nephew?
Such a handsome boy.
Are you married and why not?
Dean had promptly bailed and headed back into the kitchen which had thankfully been empty save for platters of things, which he figured were maybe being saved for some point later but which helped to ease his mind as he sampled little bits and in particular the peanuts and the little cubes of pineapple which someone had chopped carefully then paired up with cheese, because their hostess clearly missed birthday parties from the eighties and the waning popularity of the cocktail stick and crudités.
Dean blinked.
Fuck.
He felt a little spacey because the whole thing was like stepping into a time machine then being tossed loose at a point in his history that had taken place before Seth had royally fucked things up and ruined the first time they had been a cohesive unit and had shared their families and their homes and their lives. Not that he wasn't thankful they had managed to make it back there.
But at the same time though –
Christ.
Rollins' were a full on bunch, with the same pep and spark that fuelled their own antsy teammate, except turned up to eleven in practically every case and to the point that Seth almost seemed laidback in comparison, which therefore spoke volumes about the rest of the crowd.
Plus there was the fact that the bulk of the family knew nothing about Seth having spent time inside and so in between being interrogated on his non existent love life, Dean had been trying to not bust that titbit wide or trigger some sort of familial rupture or tarnish his brother in front of his brood.
Roman had blinked,
"Wait, you mean you never told your family about you being in prison?"
"Not all of them, no."
"Why not uce?"
In response to the sentence their littlest brother had shrugged his shoulders a bit and then turned his focus back towards his computer in a hurried manoeuvre to hide his newly reddened cheeks, which had obviously been troubled or embarrassed or both of those but which had carried over anyway in his too casual tones and the fact that he had then cleared his throat like a bomb blast,
"I kinda figured that maybe it was easier to leave it out."
"For real?"
"I mean my memaw never needed to hear that."
Dean had blinked,
"Uh, what the fuck is a memaw?"
"Grandmother babe."
"Really?"
Because in his old neighborhood memaws had not been cuddly or cutesy since typically they had been women in their forties or below, who had worn low slung crop tops in place of crocheted knitwear and who had carried either heroin or condoms in their pockets rather than hard candies or panic alarms for falls. But he had liked that Seth had been raised with a memaw and on top of that he had very much liked the new word.
Memaw.
Ha.
But beyond that the prison lie had made things more complicated, because it meant Dean then having to physically bite his tongue, since the more he knew that he was not meant to say it, the more his brain tried to force the thing out and the pressure of which had nearly turned him half loopy before he had slunk towards the kitchen for a break and which was where he was still propped up on a bar stool when the hinges squeaked merrily and a figure waltzed in,
"Oh."
Dean let a breath out.
Mama Rollins was staring back at him holding what had once been the overflowing roast peanut bowl which she had obviously hoped to replenish from the main stock but which itself was running low for reasons unknown.
He brushed his hands.
Ahem.
In response to his being there she paused for a second then loosely swung the old creaky hinges back into place but using her heel so that the thing wouldn't clatter and turn the clustered heads towards where he was holed up. Honestly Dean could have kissed her he was so thankful, because the last thing he needed was further attention from the pack.
He scratched at the back of his neck feeling awkward,
"Uh, thanks for, y' know – ,"
"Of course, how are you holding up?"
"Y' mean like, here?"
He felt moronic for asking but he was honestly by no means too sure of what she meant, since for the most part when folk tried to lead with that they meant more in terms of his having been bereaved and how he was handling the loss of his fiancée and basically having seen his future fall to hell, but which the woman before him hadn't intended since she nodded sympathetically,
"Here,"
"Um, okay I think."
"Because I know they can be a bit much with the questioning."
"Uh – ,"
"Has someone said something?"
Dean shook his head no because it wasn't the fact that people had been careless or had bulldozed his feelings, it was more the weight of them and the fact that he had never been a particularly social person coupled with then having lost his fiancée and which therefore made him especially twitchy in the company of those he had never met before. Not that he could tell her that though, because those people were her family and so trashing them would probably have been rude.
He took a breath,
"Uh, m' not like used to so many people in one place y' know?"
Damn.
He winced as the words came out, because how in the world could someone born and raised in a city in a one bed apartment claim to need wide open space?
In response to it he let his eyes fall down to his hoodie and then tried to pretend the folds could swallow him whole. It was broken up again by the tinkling sound of roasted peanuts hitting the bottom of not one but two bowls. He looked up to find that Mama Rollins had moved closer, holding out a colossally sized pack of the coveted nuts that was bigger than she was and nearly toppled her over as she replenished the supplies then pushed one his way across the tiles.
Mama Rollins winked,
"I can't resist these ones either, so you help yourself."
"Thanks."
"It's so nice to have you back, both of you boys."
Dean froze with one hand half buried in the topped up peanut bowl because ever since the three of them had shown up twelve hours earlier, hauling in their cases and making excuses for being late, the fact that he and Roman had not been there in eons had pretty pointedly not been mentioned by anyone, because that had been a worm can that nobody had wanted opened. Except evidently with the caveat of her.
Dean stumbled,
"Um, I mean, s' nice to be back an' whatever."
"I wanted to come and see you when everything happened," the smaller woman continued, "And then later when you lost – ,"
Her.
Mama Rollins stopped herself short of saying the name openly, but then would never have needed to because he instantly knew and could feel the burn rising steadily inside of him like some perpetual lump he had caught in his throat but which no amount of time or coughing had shifted.
He nodded back mutely, eyes on the peanuts.
"Uh huh."
"I was never too sure you would have wanted to see me, but I thought about you so much."
Dean blinked a bit at that.
Back when the implosion of their team had first happened and he had woken up hurting in a hospital bed with his head bandaged up like some cheap horror movie mummy, he had been too furious and bewildered to think straight and had then been too murderous in the months that had followed to have ever even once thought about how the Rollins family must have felt and so nor had he spared them much thought through the trial or in the period after that because pure hatred had been his world.
By the time his fiancée had then passed on two years later, it was possible he had forgotten the Rollins' existed at all, which was something that he suddenly felt horribly sorry for because the rurally based couple were people he liked and he had always felt content in their home and in their family.
He had lost so much back then.
But of course, so had they.
Not only their son to the recesses of prison but also the teammate brothers of whom the pair had been so fond and the security of knowing that their boy was protected and loved by other people when he had been far away from home. Remembering that made the copper blonde become twitchy, which resulted in him scratching at his neck a little more and gesturing wildly as he spluttered out a sentence which sounded clumsy as hell,
"Uh, m' sorry I never told you 'bout her. Like, when it happened I mean, but I was kinda a mess."
"It must have been hard."
"Worst freakin' thing I ever lived through."
"How are things now?"
"Better," Dean nodded his scruffy head, which he hoped would further help to underline the message without him having to then explain why that was, or else waxing lyrical about needing his brothers and how complete he felt having them back in his life. Emotional outbursts had never much been in his skillset and besides which she wasn't his freaking therapist or his friend and so he simply shovelled in another hand of peanuts.
Crunch-crunch.
Crunch-crunch.
His teeth masked the lack of sound but by which he only meant the lack of sound in the kitchen since beyond them in the lounge there was a heap blasting out, in a constant rising bubble of laughter and chattering. That had been something else his friends had brought back to his life, since before the two of them he had never had a proper family or parties or barbecues or relations and that shit since his own blood kin mostly hated each other or were locked up or missing or were nameless one night stands and which essentially included his own errant father wherever he was.
Meanwhile Mama Rollins sucked in a wobbly little sniffle like she was teary or something,
"I'm so pleased you forgave him."
"Huh?"
"He loves you boys so much. He would do anything for you and hates himself bitterly for what went on back then."
Uh oh.
By which she meant Seth presumably breaking Dean's head open, which once upon a time would have filled him with rage, but which no longer seemed to have the same potent effect on him. Because the more the copper blonde had thought it over, the more what had happened sort of somewhat made sense and fine maybe not the whole fracturing-his-skull-bit, but the fact that their brother had been scared and fucking trapped. Dean suddenly felt like the woman in front of him needed to hear that spoken and so he licked his cracked lips,
"Uh, so like,I know that what happened back then was because of the blackmail – ,"
"Ooh, that man."
"Hunter?"
"I swear if he were here now – ,"
Mama Rollins lowered her brows into something ferocious which sat fast on her usually chirpy looking face, but heavily so that for a minute it made the copper blonde falter, since it seemed like a moment that he needed to let flow and because the man who had earned her maternal ire had been shot long ago. But before that he had been the baddest villain in their town and had mercilessly blackmailed their favorite little brother.
Seth.
Poor Seth.
Dean still only knew off bits of story, since it was something their tech man never talked about too much but basically at some point when their team had been flying their boss' crooked husband had inserted himself in and then began to try and pull favors from their teammate which had culminated in telling him to steal evidence from the lockup room and the enticement for which had been threatening the woman who was frowning hard before him with the roasted peanuts still in hand and which their littlest brother had therefore seen no way out of but to follow through with it.
But Dean did remember what came next. His battered cranium remembered that part of things too well and to banish the image he super awkwardly cleared his throat,
"Uh huh, look the guy was like, a real freakin' craphole – ,"
"Absolute craphole," she nodded in response,
"But my point is I know why uce felt like he had to go through with it, I mean, maybe not the chair bit but the panic part sure, an' like honestly if I had been in his shoes or somethin' an' it had been her on the line then I might 'a hit him too an' still could I figure since technically he owes me, besides which your son can be a little bitch sometimes."
Mama Rollins chuckled,
"Oh believe me I know it, that boy can be far too stubborn when he wants."
"Amen."
Behind them from the lounge the soft lilting background music turned in a flash to heavy rap instead and the sweet woman before him rolled her eyes in long suffering and then waved her hand loosely as if to say kids. But it made the copper blonde man smile even wider because he knew for a fact whose music choice it was, since Roman had made them listen to it pretty much unendingly since they had set off hours before, to the point where the lyrics were ingrained on his brain stem.
Uce.
But with their little brother likely helping too, since he was the one with the technical knowhow, as the both of them conspiring to pump the party up. Their hostess however was clearly less impressed by it since she frowned and then let out an unhappy motherly huff,
"What in the world – ,"
"Looks like somebody screwed the playlist."
"I bet I know who."
His brother was toast but the thought of their technical whiz bickering with his mother at his very own party put a smile on Dean's face and made him newly thankful for the return of their friendship, not to mention resolved to never letting it go again. Which was probably the reason he then blurted out a sentence he hadn't even known was building.
"I'll take care of him."
"What?"
"Seth," Dean mumbled, blushing a little bit and resorting to more hand waving which was clearly becoming his thing, "I'll look out for him an' have his back or whatever."
Mama Rollins smiled,
"I know that you will and I cannot tell you how happy that makes me."
"Thought you should know – ,"
Dean tapered off and then shrugged before looking back towards the nineteen seventies tiled counters, which had clearly been installed back when taupe had been a thing and had remained ever since like some homage to bad kitchens and which contrasted beautifully with the horribly stained wood.
Both of which he had missed though.
Completely.
Mama Rollins smiled and then suddenly reached across at him to pinch his cheek in a tight little clamp, but which then tapered off to a maternal little patting as the woman then cupped his chin so that his blue eyes were forced up. Their eyes met briefly in a moment of understanding but was then broken up by the appearance of an uncle or cousin perhaps, who burst in bellowing over his shoulder before moving to the cooler and plucking loose a bottle of wine.
"Time to put a little life into this part – oh."
He stopped short on seeing their hostess in front of him, who lowered her hand from her soothing chin cup to heft them instead to a spot on her hip bones and which turned the newcomer several shades of red,
"Uncle Bruce – ,"
"I thought alcohol might help is all."
"Help what?"
"This."
"Get back in that lounge before I boot you there myself."
Mama Rollins was clearly in no mood for taking prisoners and in response the man retreated thumping the bottle of wine down. The older woman snorted but then turned back to Dean again, smiling super sweetly,
"Lunch will be coming up soon,"
"Sounds good,"
"But that means the kitchen will start getting pretty crowded, so I suggest that you maybe head out into the yard."
Dean nodded,
"Thanks for the tip."
"Oh and take that wine with you,"
"I – ,"
Mama Rollins leaned in to squeeze his hand once more, then turned and stalked back out over the threshold to more than likely whip her precious party back into shape, which left him sitting blinking after her in bewilderment because she honestly was a pretty unholy force and so was therefore where their own brother had taken his pep from, but in a far less motherly floral-perfume kind of a way.
Memaw.
Ha.
Dean snorted a little and then slid from the barstool before snatching the bottle up and then trampling past the food which he made sure not to pick at because he figured it was likely the others needed to eat too and then headed out onto the covered little porchway where he sucked a long breath in. It had recently rained and so therefore the landscape beyond him felt heavy as it waited for a thunderstorm to push the mugginess away, but which had also sent everyone else running for cover and so the backyard was empty.
He liked it that way.
In terms of outside space it was pretty suburban standard since the yard comprised merely a fenced in lawned square, but it had a few trees and some loungers and a barbecue, not to mention a lush and rolling country style view that charted the crest of a wooded horizon over a hillside of neatly and newly runnelled farming fields and the whole scene of which was so peaceful and rural that the copper blonde felt his tensions and awkwardness melt away.
Seth was super lucky to have been raised in the country.
Well –
Seth was lucky in a whole lot of ways and not least because he still had parents that loved him and family members that turned up on his birthday to celebrate and a childhood home that he still liked to be in and two older brothers to take with him and have his back.
Little uce.
Beyond him somewhere up and over the hill crest there was a flash of something then a rumble of low sound, but instead of heading back the copper blonde kept on walking in a purposeful plod towards the back line of the fence and the large trampoline tucked beneath a heavy cover, which was how their technical man had wiled his teenage boredom away in the perpetual need to keep moving and busy that he had carried right into his normal adult life and which had totally become a crucial part of their unit, not to mention the reason they were always so fast.
Breakneck fast sometimes.
Dean snorted a little as he peeled back the sheeting with a spatter of cold wet rain, because sometimes their backgrounds seemed so freaking opposite that it was practically too much to even be believed. After all, while his little brother had been bouncing in a backyard he had been out on the city's mean streets, trying not to piss off the local drug kingpins or have his sorry little teenage ass kicked.
Beneath the protective cover the trampoline was moist but working and so he rolled the wine bottle up followed swiftly by himself, before flopping over onto his back like a beetle and peering up with a sigh into the thick clouds beyond. They were beginning to bunch up like they were waiting on something, which was further underlined by another rumble not far off which seemed to be moving in ever more rapidly.
Dean eased the cork from the bottle then sipped some.
Fuck.
He freaking hated red wine. But what the hell, it was alcohol and so he took a longer inhale and still had the bottle tipped up into the stratosphere when two familiar figures trampled out beneath the porch where they stood momentarily like they were looking for someone before finding the copper blonde on the trampoline like a child.
"Dean, hey man, what the hell are you up to?"
"Drinkin' wine."
"Why is that babe?"
The copper blonde waved a hand, pointing it loosely in the direction of the tech man and sounding mildly accusing,
"Because his mom told me too, like m' not kiddin' uce the woman is one of those enablers."
"Like you need an excuse?"
"Hey, m' tryin' to live a clean life."
"Sure."
By the time his brothers had crossed the lawn towards him they both had the same look painted on their face, which bordered on bewildered but with familial loving and which they underlined further by then hauling themselves up and onto the mildly bobbing taut trampoline flex to sit alongside him. It was where they belonged and not simply in the pre-storm mid-birthday moment either but also in life and mushy stuff like that. Not that Dean would ever have wanted to say it openly. But then luckily he never had to because they already knew and so instead he snorted then passed the bottle over towards their birthday boy.
"Hey, cool party man."
Seth snorted,
"Dean, come on, it sucks and you know it."
"Mom busted the rap music huh?"
"Oh yeah, but you know, we managed to blame the switch on my cousin, so technically we're fine."
"Smart."
"That's because I'm a smart man."
"Real humble too."
Roman chuckled at the banter and then reached his paw over as the bottle was held out, before taking the sort of mouthful that to him was a soupçon but which to normally sized people was like an inhaling whale and which managed to lower the level in the bottle by about a neat third or potentially even half.
Dean took it back.
"How'd you know I was out here?"
"Mom told us."
"Wanted to see how you were holding up babe."
He shrugged,
"M' okay."
"That right huh?" Roman grumbled back at him, "Because one minute you were in there and the next minute you were gone."
Dean blinked but chose to remain silent at that part. But he did snatch back the bottle to take another hit, because the truth was that he had actually been functioning pretty reasonably right up until the moment a large sort of woman had burst her way super loudly into room. She had been a blood aunt or a long lost sister or something, Dean had never quite figured out the family tree, but he had certainly taken notice when she had started to question him and generally probe like she was border patrol and which had made his head spin and then his heart lurch a little as she had turned first to careers and then marriage and kids.
Nope.
From that point on the kitchen had seemed safer but he should have known that his brothers would have noticed his being lost and then slipped from the party to hunt him like bloodhounds. Or more like a chihuahua in the case of Seth. Not that he would have liked that comparison in the least though, since he probably thought he was something fierce and big.
But nah –
Seth was one hundred and fifty percent pure chihuahua.
Dean snorted and then leaned over to ruffle the nearby head but then turned the hold swiftly from a brotherly noogie into a head lock which toppled them backwards and made the birthday boy bark and then try to fight himself free as he protested and pretended to hate it,
"Dean, hey, cut it out,"
"Nope,"
"Dean – ,"
"Come on dude, consider this your present,"
"I want something better."
Dean pretended to look appalled,
"You mean the pleasure of having me here at your house with you isn't enough?"
"No."
Reaching an arm up their littlest brother twisted and then flipped Dean in an unexpected reverse hold, which threw the copper blonde face first onto the meshing and made the trampoline flex beneath their crazy brawl,
"Hey – ,"
"Ha, now who's on top, huh asshole?"
"Neither damn one of you."
"Roman no — ,"
But it was too late as he threw himself in too, in a haphazard launch which landed his bulk right on top of them and crushed them both beneath his sizeable weight and pretty much flattened their lowest placed undercover man who coughed in a mixture of pain and breathlessness,
"Fuck – ,"
Not that he minded the total crushing too much. Because honestly it had been too long since they had scrapped and basically acted like big old massive morons or the overgrown teenagers they essentially were. Dean lifted his fingers and then tangled them in the hairline of one of his way too shaggily maned best friends before pulling on it hard which brought a reaction as their powerhouse hissed,
"What in the hell, that's my hair – ,"
"Get off me then uce."
"Make me."
Dean took up the challenge by beginning to squirm from beneath the brother pile which he totally thought would be like pulling off a tablecloth. Instead though it turned out to be impossible to work, because the weight of the two men was pinning him too tightly, as their wheelman seemingly knew only too well, since he then reached in and ruffled his bangs heavily before handing their birthday boy the same treatment as well in a way that left them protesting pretty heavily but totally helpless to hold back their fate,
"Roman – ,"
"Uce."
In response to the mewling the bigger man chuckled and then leaned further in until the three of them were basically tangled in each other in a grumbling knotwork of muscles and limbs but which also brought the smaller men face to face beneath the bundle. It meant that they could create a counterattack.
"Three, two, one – ," Dean began to counter backwards, but was then interrupted by Seth bellowing at him,
"Now."
Between them they both bench pressed up from the trampoline, which was hard work but managed to heave the powerhouse off, so that he slithered to one side in a bulky sort of bundle and then turned him into the target.
He blinked,
"Hey wait a minute now."
"Get him – ,"
Dean led the charge in a full bodied spear tackle,, which piled into their big man and turned him hard onto his back, with the scruffy copper blonde pressed head first into his ribcage but with their birthday boy only seconds behind. Dean threw in a few false stomach punches for good measure and then crowed out in triumph,
"Ha, suck on it uce."
"Uh, no thanks to that babe."
Dean frowned,
"Fuck – ,"
Nor was Seth all that impressed,
"Hey, can you two idiots stop being freaking weird on my birthday?"
Roman shook his head beneath the pile,
"Nope."
Between them they were laughing a veritable storm up, or possibly even channelling the weather somehow, because above them the fast blackening sky suddenly lit up brightly and a colossal fork of lightning blitzed a path towards the ground, before being followed up by a biblical clap of thunder which practically blew the blood clean from their ears and then made the house and the whole freaking world shake.
"Whoa."
Hot on its heels the burdened heavens then opened, in the form of unholy fist sized splotches of rain which began to batter them over the head, neck and shoulders like some neighborhood kid was throwing water balloons. Cold, heavy and super accurate water balloons, which made them shiver. Dean bit out a curse,
"Fuck."
"Damn it, come on."
Being on top of the bundle of brothers Seth was easily the first man back off, with Dean freeing up his tangled kneecaps behind him and their hefty powerhouse being the last to tumble loose. It then took another minute to put the cover back on the trampoline, which Seth and Roman handled while Dean snatched up the wine, but by which time the rain had turned into a torrent and then begun to whip as a hefty breeze struck up. Because evidently the thunder and the lightning and the wetness had not been enough.
Freaking Mother Nature man.
Dean blinked through the rainfall and then was still standing hovering when his brothers charged past him having slotted the cover on, which then forced the powerhouse to pluck at his collar and half haul him behind them as the three of them ran. They burst back up onto the little porch laughing, then let themselves through into the kitchen once more.
Dean beamed widely,
"Uce, you run like an elephant – ,"
"Hey, what do you want from me babe? I'm a meatball okay?"
In front of them their birthday boy leaned forward and shook his hair out and then stepped aside to let them follow him in, but whereupon they all stopped frozen in embarrassment because the little tiled kitchen was full to the brim and packed full of aunties and cousins and uncles pulling platters from the oven or ferrying stacks of clean plates. Except every last one of them was blinking in confusion towards the three men who were a teensy bit wet.
Mama Rollins stood somewhere in the middle of the Rollins' gathering, hissed in pure horror,
"Oh my word, what in the – boys."
"We're fine mom."
"Go upstairs and put new clothes on this instant, before you catch your deaths."
To underline her point she even flapped a cloth their way, in a little chivvying move which propelled them through the Rollins' who were still watching and which included the aunt that had been hassling Dean before and who looked like she had a whole bunch of new questions that she wanted to put to him.
He blew a sigh out.
Crap.
Roman must have heard him murmur however because he put a meaty paw out and then laid it over his nape, before pulling him closer and mumbling into his hairline as they threaded through the hallway leaving wet footprints on the floor and in a way that told Dean his two brothers had been looking and watching over his sorry ass pretty much the whole time,
"Don't worry uce, me and Seth'll shield you from her."
"That a pun?"
"Nope, that's a pinky promise babe."
Dean snorted back but then smiled sort of crookedly as they trudged into the room they had been given for the night, which had belonged to their tech man throughout his whole childhood and so as a result was still studded by teenage things. Like the poster of the woman in a bikini on his ceiling right over the spot where his bed had been set and the tack marks on the wall from what had once been a shrine of sorts, to a former police icon but which had recently been removed and then to the trophies framed proudly over the mattresses that had been blown up and laid out on the floor for the guests.
Seth plucked his shirt,
"Geez man, I'm freakin' soaked here, I might need a shower."
"Also, bad news, but you smell."
Brown eyes rolled upwards and then narrowed pretty heavily as the copper blonde smirked like an idiot child, but the sheer familiarity of the look was pretty warming, so in the end Seth simply tried to fight back his smile, which he then managed to turn into a frown of suspicion as he stripped off his wet clothes,
"Hey, so come on, spill man, what exactly were you and my mom busy talking about?"
Dean blinked,
"When?"
"What do you mean when? In the kitchen before."
"Oh – ,"
Dean blinked a little. He wasn't sure what to say to them since he and Mama Rollins had talked up a bunch of things, including love and loss and then coming full circle and so pausing momentarily he looked around the room and then back to the two men who were staring expectantly at him waiting for an answer, or for anything at all.
Dean cleared his throat,
"I – uh – like, I mean, I have your back out there. Um, like, I mean in life or whatever. Both of you guys, y' know?"
For a second his brothers simply looked at one another like between them they were trying to fill in the blanks, but at the same time knowing that an epiphany had happened and so Roman nodded gently in return,
"Back at you uce."
Folding himself back onto the little air mattress which squeaked beneath the sudden forceful shift of his weight and then nearly threw him off altogether, the copper blonde blew out a steadying breath and then laced his hands behind his wet tousled birds' nest while brushing off the feeling of his shirt being soaked, because somehow none of the sogginess seemed to matter.
His life was pretty awesome.
"Hey Seth? Happy birthday man."
Next week, the boys are on a stakeout, except this time they have someone along for the ride, who may or may not turn out to be more trouble than they're expecting. Make that a lot more trouble!
See you next time!
