*antiquated meme voice* SURPRISE BITCH
"Dean, it's too late."
He feels nothing at first, because the words take a while to sink in, swirling around in some empty void in his head before his brain finally starts to process what Roman's said, and when his brain decides the words have been fully, completely processed, with no other meaning to be found, he starts to feel the first white-hot licks of anger coursing through him, warming him.
"The fuck you mean 'it's too late'? If you're fuckin' with me, big guy, I swear…"
"I'm not, Dean," Roman says, and his voice is strangely quiet and Dean knows, like a rock in his stomach, that Roman's not fucking with him.
Not fucking him, either, which is equally disappointing.
"Then… then… tell me what the fuck you're talkin' about, so if it ain't good, I can get outta here before I end up breakin' one of your nice-ass things. 'Cause even insurance ain't gonna help ya out once I get ahold of shit."
Roman sighs and crosses the room to sit down on the couch next to Dean, who immediately tenses, poised to jump off the couch at any second, 'cause he knows something's not right and he knows what usually happens to him in wrong situations.
"I thought you were never going to make up your mind," Roman says, and Dean fights to tell him that it's true, he didn't, because he'd come in here with such a great plan, a plan to get everything he wanted and more, and now he's sure won't be able to get shit and he's fucking pissed.
"I thought you were never going to make up your mind," Roman repeats, "and you honestly seemed… happy, with Seth, I guess. I've just never been able to reconcile with him, and I've tried, but… it still hurts, you know. I haven't been able to rebuild any trust with him. I still feel like, if I ever got back together with him… he'd just go and cheat on me again. I just haven't been able to trust him again, and I don't know if I ever will, especially not since Jimmy's back. And I didn't think I was ever gonna get you, Dean, 'cause you seemed like you were always gonna pick Seth over me, if you ever made up your mind. So… I found someone."
Roman's words are the equivalent of a spear in the ring gone wrong, and Dean feels like he's been knocked on his back with all the wind knocked out of him and all the fight in his bones gone, left unsure, confused, still angry, but maybe hurt, too.
"You… found someone?" Dean doesn't recognize his own voice.
"Yeah, and it's serious."
"Who is it?"
The smile Roman gives him is sad, pitying, and Dean tastes a little bile in his throat.
The last thing he wants from Roman is his goddamn pity.
"I'm not gonna tell you his name, because I know you'll just go out and find him and probably beat the shit out of him. But he works with us at FCW. That's all I'll tell you."
Dean processes this for a moment, his mind cycling through the nameless faces he's seen there, trying to identify which one he's seen with Roman, because he knows he's seen one.
It clicks, and Dean feels like he's going to vomit.
"Are you fucking kidding me?!"
It's the last thing he offers Roman before he bolts.
Dean has always had trouble with anger management. When he was a kid, while still in school, he'd get sent to the principal's office on a near-daily basis for getting in fights, physical or verbal (usually both simultaneously, because he never missed an opportunity for some good trash talk).
But he's always had one rule about directing his anger: never hit anyone unless they deserve it. He's tried very hard to follow that rule, but back when he was trapped in a haze of drugs and sex and what he thought was love, he'd forgotten it, and he's been trying to get it back ever since.
What he directs his anger to, instead, is the wall of a conveniently-located alley he stumbles across. It's weird in a nicer area of town like Roman's, but it seems to be the spot that sticks out unfavorably, dingy and disgusting, permeated with the scent of something rotten.
But for Dean's needs at that very moment, it's perfect.
He screams and shouts at the wall, listening to his voice echo down the length of the alley. He digs his fingers into the rough, grimy edges of the bricks that make up the wall until the tips of his fingernails break and bleed, seeking some sensation to ground him, to give him relief from the anger and pain welling up inside his chest.
And then, to his surprise, the scale tips, but not in his favor, and he breaks and slumps to the ground, and he's shaking, and his face is wet with tears.
It's uncharacteristic of him, but when he's angry enough and that anger dies out, all he's left with is sadness, and his sadness tends to express itself in unusual ways. Today, it just happens to be in tears.
It reminds him of days and nights he thought he had abandoned long ago, days and nights of time spent in alleyways, begging and pleading just to get by; until he thought he had been rescued.
But his past is still with him, an irrevocable scarlet letter, tainting him and whatever value he had to begin with.
And he'll always end up back here; alone, in a deserted alley, with no place to go, no one to call home.
