Big brother to the rescue in this one maybe? What do you think? Let's find out…
Stingerette1975, Glad you had Roman's dad all figured out. I think that means you know him better than Roman does in that case! Don't you worry, the Big Dog is on the hunt!
Wolfgirl2013, Glad you're still enjoying it. This chapter is heavy on the angst and the drama, so I hope you enjoy it (unlike poor Dean, who definitely doesn't!)
xXBalorBabeXx, Haha, I didn't really think about having two stories with kidnappings in them running side by side, I look like I'm obsessed now! Oh well! As long as you're still enjoying both!
Guest, I have been known to be a terrible chapter tease in the past, so I certainly have previous. But what's a drama story without some big, ending drama?! Glad you're still liking it!
Mandy, Can you believe we're almost at the end of this crazy story already? Thank you being there every step of the way with it and I'm glad you're still enjoying it the ride!
June3law, Yep, Roman's dad certainly kept his head the best way he knew how for that. But it's not over just yet, they still need to find their unruly teenager and bring him back home!
Jennyb2609, *Waves* I know you've got a long way to go before you hit this point of the story, but when you get here I just want to say thank you for your review and I hope you've enjoyed the rest!
Raze Olympus, Uh oh, looks like I'm going to have to put eyes in the back of my head until this story is over! Not to worry though, we're nearly there, baby Dean's fate is unveiled below!
SkittlezLvr79, Yeah, poor Dean is certainly going to go through the wringer here. You are so tuned into him and on point! He totally thinks they've abandoned him in this one. But have they?
HannonsPen, Dean's old man has gone past the point of no return now. Glad you liked the mom stuff too, I liked writing that bit and being all super cute (before the kidnapping nosedive!)
Minnie1015, Ha, I don't believe you, I know you like the drama! But yeah, I figured it was about time Dean whipped out the 'mom card', only seemed fitting to follow it up with total disaster!
Skovko, Scrabble! If every my ninety year old grandma comes over and we run out of things to talk about, then bringing out scrabble works every time, except that she's a stickler for the rules!
Rebel8954, Yep, you've got to get up pretty early in the morning to outsmart Papa Reigns, he's a wily old fox. If I tell you Mama Reigns gets to be ballsy in the sequel, would that work for you?!
Tfan23, Aww, thank you, I wrote and rewrote that chapter a million times but was finally happy with it in the end! I'm glad you love Mama Reigns, she is hands down my favourite to write!
Meanwhile, in Dean's world...
Twenty Nine.
For Dean the next few hours are torturous – or maybe it's only minutes, it's difficult to tell. The only thing he does know is that Roman didn't come for him and he is now in deep shit and completely on his own.
On his own and taped up in the trunk of the Mercedes, with his hands behind his back and a thick strip across his mouth. Even his feet have been parcelled together which means he finds it difficult to even kick out. He's watched movies before where people boot the brake lights but he can barely even move –
He is totally trussed up.
Hot tears stream down his face like rivers and his nose is so stuffed up he can hardly even breathe. He snivels and moans behind the duct tape pathetically and it bleeds through the seats so that his father can hear.
"Cryin' boy? I'll give y' somethin' to cry 'bout."
There is a sudden screech of tires and the car swerves violently as somewhere outside another car blasts its horn. Dean is flung hard against the back of the vehicle and it makes him grunt and try to cough behind his gag.
"Piece of shit driver."
His father yells violently, overlooking the irony that the bad driver is him.
On a scale of one to ten in terms of sheer drunkenness, his psychotic old man is probably on a twelve which means his driving is sharp and erratic and bundled up like his is, Dean can do little but pitch and roll. Still, his predicament seems even more painful for one important fact –
Roman hadn't come.
There Dean was being hauled off down the corridor, screaming for him desperately and his big brother hadn't come. The man who had always been there when he'd needed him and saved him from death and yet he hadn't shown up. He must have been able to hear Dean's shouting so why hadn't he come after him?
The question turns his gut.
Maybe he saw it as a chance to get rid of you?
Dean chokes behind the tape strip and shakes his head firmly.
No.
That couldn't be true.
Not after everything.
You brought a god damn criminal to his door, no wonder he's decided you're too much of a danger.
More bitter tears squeeze out of him helplessly and he grizzles a little in desolation.
No.
There are still so many things he needs to experience with a family for Roman to up and abandon him now. His birthday next week and Christmas soon after, New Years, Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July –
Events that he has imagined himself actually having for the first time ever.
They can't be all gone.
He tries to kick out and fight his way to freedom but his father slaloms around a corner again and Dean rolls with it and ends up flipped over and stranded face down on his front with a groan.
"Don't you worry boy – you an' me, we'll find a nice place and go on back to the way it always was. Think they can tell me I ain't fit to raise my own child? I'll fuckin' show 'em – do what I want."
Roman.
Dean's weary brain half screams the word out and then repeats it like a back beat on every pound of his heart.
Roman will get him.
But what if he doesn't?
What if he's stuck in his old life again?
The air in the back of the trunk is musty and combined with his frantic panic-driven breathing is growing staler by the minute as the oxygen gets sucked up. Dean feels dizzy and his narrowed vision is spotty and being lit up by bright flashes that perforate the dark.
"Fuckin' kid, causin' all this trouble, shoulda fuckin' just upped and done the job right, not like any folk would've even missed ya before that big fuckin' asshole came along."
Dean's heart clenches in instinct.
Roman.
Dean's father is saying that Roman cares and if he can see it then surely it must be true rather than something Dean just thought he might have had.
"Sittin' up there all pretty with their money and damn fancy cars and their – fuck – learn to drive – ,"
Dean has no idea where they're going and he's not even sure if his father really does. He can't even tell which direction they're going or if they're heading for a place or the edge of a cliff.
Briefly – weirdly – he thinks about his mother and suddenly it's like he can see her again. All crimped red hair and the same dimples that he has although she never had much cause to show them in life. He wonders if she's happier now in wherever or if she ever sometimes misses them or thinks about him. Because – true – she was never a cuddly mother but he got the sense at least that she cared a little bit and she would sometimes refer to him as a good kid which had made him feel warm.
But she wasn't Mama Reigns.
Mama Reigns is all cuddles and genuine affection which she has never yet once been afraid to show. Probably where Roman gets the whole touchy-feely thing and – god – he misses that so damn much. Misses the way that whenever he is nervous there is always someone to tousle his hair, or put a comforting hand on his shoulder or pull him into a bone-crushing hug.
More tears fall out and he chokes on all the moisture as it pours down his face and marches down his throat.
"M' warnin' you boy."
But Dean simply can't stop it and so continues to cry, taped up in the car.
When they finally stop the world seems much quieter and the road surface seems to sort of crunch beneath the tread. The sounds of the city have faded away from them and there is none of the bustle that there usually is.
Dean's wrists are raw from having tried to twist loose somehow, but all he's managed to do is roll the tape up, turning it from a flat sticky surface into a thin but tough wire which digs into his skin. It marks the same spot where the garden twine had done several months earlier and makes him shudder again. There's a creak of a door and then the driver's side slams shut followed by the crunch of footsteps on loose stones. It lumbers towards the trunk and Dean gulps audibly but then tapers off and wanders away,
"Leave you in there to think 'bout what you've done boy, that'll straighten you out."
Dean blinks.
What he's done?
He kicks up his feet and boots at the trunk hatch, but he's awkwardly angled and barely has strength. He's sweaty, exhausted, terrified and tear-slicked and every last bone in his body seems to hurt. He yearns for the comfort of his bedroom back at Roman's or even the room back at Mom and Pop Reigns' house. Spaces that were his and had his minimal amounts of stuff in and where people would come running whenever he cried out. He even misses all of Roman's sisters and their endless screaming hordes because at least they're all love.
Here there is nothing and he has nobody and that seeps into his chest and blooms like a wound.
No one.
No one.
No one is coming.
For a while he falls asleep or – more likely – passes out.
When he wakes up however there are noises like tires, once again rumbling over the loose stones. Instantly he assumes that maybe they're back moving but then slowly realizes that the car is still turned off, which means somebody else is driving up to them and so Dean mumbles and tries to kick his feet up again hard.
I'm here, please find me.
But it saps the strength out of him and makes him feel dizzy as he drags quick breaths in too fast. There's a scuffling off feet and then the sounds of his father sounding angry and alarmed,
"How the fuck did you – oof."
There's a sharp sounding smack and then a deep throated rumble that Dean's whistling ears unhelpfully tune out.
He can identify words though –
Ever again.
Touch him.
Dead man.
He blinks.
The voice is familiar somehow.
Then there is a second sound of skin hitting knuckles which Dean knows almost instinctively from a lifetime of getting hit. It is accompanied by a final earth splitting bellow that even rocks the trunk of the car where he's been dumped.
"Where is he?"
Roman?
Dean's heart flips clean over but it can't be because that isn't how it works –
Except it is when it comes to the Big Dog because that's what Roman does.
Roman always saves his ass.
There is a sudden rush of footsteps marching in closer and Dean almost forgets to breathe in suspense. Keys jingle near him and then scratch into the trunk lock and there's a heavy thunk of bolts and then the hatch is levered up. Moonlight and some nearby orange lighting shine in on him and half-blind his blackness adjusted eyes until he blinks. Standing above him is a large and bulky figure, silhouetted against the brightness, features lost in the dark. There is an exhale of breath and then rough hands fall down on him and Dean sort of flinches and then whimpers beneath the tape.
"Easy uce, easy, I've got you."
Warmth floods through him.
It is Roman.
It is.
More tears tumble out and streak down his cheekbones and he chokes out a sob beneath the strip of sticky tape. As his eyes become accustomed he can see Roman's expression and he looks completely heartbroken at seeing him like this, which – frankly – in itself is just so damn Roman as to be a really good thing.
As warped as that is.
The big hands slide in and pillow his cheek gently, lifting up his head as Roman peels off the tape. While he's doing that, hands are working on Dean's ankles and unwinding the wrapping that is securing them in place. Dean doesn't need to know they're Papa Reigns' broad hands.
He already does.
He just – he just knows.
His mouth comes free with a sudden blast of freshness and he gasps at the sensation as the air assaults his damp face.
"Ro – Roman – ,"
"Sssh, easy, we've got you."
"My – my dad, he's – ,"
"Don't worry about him, he's not going to hurt you."
"H-how do you know?"
"Because I knocked his ass out."
With the words sort of buzzing around Dean's system – knocked him out, as in unconscious, the way he was before – Roman leans in and helps him sit upright and as soon as he's up he sweeps fingers through Dean's hair, ruffling it with that much longed for familiarly and then pulling his skull in to press forehead to forehead,
"I thought – I thought you were going to let him take me."
Dean's voice is a whisper and Roman pulls him closer while leaning across to free his tied hands up,
"I know, I know you did."
"How did you find us?"
"Dad's car has a tracker, that's why he let him have the keys."
"You followed us?"
"Uh huh. Would've never let him take you. Never, you hear me? Just couldn't risk it with that knife."
At about the same moment that Papa Reigns gets his legs free, Roman unravels the tape from his hands and Dean scrambles upright – or, well, onto his knees at any rate – and launches himself like a dart at Roman's chest. It knocks the big man backwards a little and he chuckles but the arms fold back quickly around and then hold him in close.
"M' sorry I didn't believe you were comin',"
Roman snorts,
"It's alright uce, you must have been pretty scared."
"You always come," Dean murmurs, not answering the question but saying what he feels instead needs to be said, "You always come through for me, always, always."
Roman tousles his hair,
"An' I always will kid."
A hand arrives on his shoulder in comfort by care of Papa Reigns as Dean breaks down and sobs, partly because he's been kidnapped at knifepoint but most of all because he is now safe and loved. His family have come and rescued him from danger.
Dean's family.
Roman shushes him,
"It's okay, you're safe uce."
Okay, so I know a lot of you have been waiting for Dean's dad to be beaten into next week, but I made the decision not to do it in front of Dean because he's already seen enough violence and probably doesn't want to see his squeaky new brother making anyone bloody.
But Roman did knock his ass out, believe that!
Only two chapters left now, time to find out how Mama Reigns reacts to all this...
