The weight of his worry is choking the life out of Dean.
He can feel it from across the crowded locker room, bouncing from person to person to person until it lands on him and envelopes him, like he's stuck in a bubble of worry.
Of course, maybe he deserves it. It's been a while.
A month and a half, if the calculations he'd struggled through are correct.
Roman's waiting for him at his locker, all six-foot-whatever and 250 pounds of him impeding Dean's ability to open his locker and use it.
"Gonna move, big guy?" Dean asks him when he stops in front of Roman, staring him down as if his extra inch in height intimidates Roman, even though he's pretty sure Roman could pick him up and toss him across the locker room if he so desired.
"You're back," Roman responds, eyes dark and searching as he studies Dean. "Where've you been?"
"Out. Around." He purposely doesn't look at Roman anymore. "Surprised ya even noticed. Thought you'd be too busy stickin' your tongue down ol' Sethie's throat to notice I was gone."
Roman flinches a little, and Dean grins, digging his teeth into his bottom lip.
"I haven't been doing anything with him," Roman says a little too quickly, his composure obviously affected. Dean grins wider, stepping forward to put himself in Roman's personal space, his chest pressing against the other man's.
"Right. So who was that with the bad dye job I saw you makin' out with when I walked in? Not lil' Sethie, huh?"
"That wasn't—never mind."
Dean curls his hand around Roman's bicep, but Roman barely blinks.
"So," the other man continues, "really, Dean, where were you?"
Dean digs his nails into the flesh of Roman's arm, stares at his lips and wonders if they still taste the same. "Ya wouldn't believe me if I told ya," he finally drawls, words slurred on a lazy tongue.
"Try me," Roman says, and Dean knows the other man's trying too hard.
The guy just doesn't know it yet.
"'Member Jimmy Jacobs?" Dean asks, and Roman twitches a little; Dean can feel the flex of his bicep under his hand. Glancing at his bicep, he smirks at the little red half-moon marks that are appearing from the bite of his fingernails.
The wilder part of him that he's never learned to put down wants to sink his teeth into that flesh, taste it and tear it and make it his, but he doesn't think he'll be so lucky.
"Yeah."
"Weeeeeell," he begins, unnecessarily dragging out every last syllable just to piss Roman off, "he 'n our Sethie boy went 'n kidnapped me so Sethie could 'make things right with you'."
"Really?" And now Roman looks just as worried as Dean knows he is, brows furrowed and forehead creased with concern, and somehow Roman's hand has ended up on Dean's hip.
Well, he's not gonna complain.
"Mm-hmm," Dean hums, sliding his hand down to Roman's forearm, pretending not to notice that somehow, the side of his shirt has been rucked up and Roman's thumb is stroking across his hipbone.
"Are you okay?" Sometimes Roman's more like an overprotective mother than a potential lover.
…And Dean definitely did not just associate the word 'lover' with Roman.
Nope. Nuh uh.
"Yeah." And it's the truth, really; that he's so sick in everything he likes, everything he is, that the best way to make him feel better when something's wrong is to put him so far under that he knows nothing but the too-tight bite of a leather collar around his throat, the ache in the bones under the skin of his palms and knees from being on all fours on a hard floor, the tremble in his body from trying to be good, from accepting being used. "Can I get in my locker now?"
Roman steps to the side, but his hand doesn't leave Dean's hip—and Dean has to force himself not to make a wanting noise when he realizes Roman's fingers have dipped below the top of his jeans, pressing like he wants to leave a mark.
Dean opens the door to his locker and snatches his abandoned duffel bag from the floor, hastily cramming it into his locker. Beside him, Dean hears what sounds like a muffled snicker.
"What?" he asks.
"Do you seriously have a bottle of maple syrup in your locker?"
"Duh."
"I ain't judgin', but… why?"
"'Cause I get hungry. 'S not your business anyway."
When Dean shuts his locker, Roman moves back in front of it, and their chests are touching once more and there's a weird kind of tension between them.
'Weird' meaning Dean refuses to acknowledge it or its obvious meaning.
Because that's how he deals with all his problems. And it seems to have worked for the past twenty-six and a half years, so why stop now?
"Listen… I got somethin' I wanna talk to ya about. But not here, not in front of all of these nosy motherfuckers," Dean says, spotting Mike Dalton looking too smug for his own good a couple feet away (Dean shoots him a glare and a raised pinky finger, because why not). "'S private. Know a place?"
"Could go back to my place," Roman murmurs, and there's an all-too-familiar glimmer in his eyes. Dean smiles, all sharp teeth and wicked ideas.
"Lead the way, big guy."
Dean's sitting on the couch pouting.
Maybe not pouting. Sulking might be a better choice of words.
Once he and Roman had gotten through the door of Roman's (much nicer than his) apartment, Dean had all but thrown himself at Roman, only for Roman to (gently) peel Dean off of him and tell Dean he wouldn't do anything like that with him until Dean had made his choice.
Of course, he hadn't let Dean go without kissing him a few times, enough to leave Dean dazed and breathless and wanting more, because apparently Roman wanted to be a dick and leave him with blue balls.
But Dean's decided; he knows what he wants.
He shifts on the couch, runs a hand through his already messy hair, and yells Roman's name, knowing the other man's still somewhere in the apartment.
Roman appears after a few seconds—whoa, where the fuck did his shirt go, and what happened to his stupid manbun (that's what they call it, right)—smiling at Dean and making Dean feel some kind of warmth in his chest that he hates. "Yeah?"
"I think, uh, I think, um…"
Goddamnit. Dean's always been excellent at talking, so what the hell's going on now?
"What do you think, Dean?" Now Roman's probably mocking him. Great.
"I think we should, er… makethisathing."
