Here we are then, chapter two already and time for Dean to show his new cellmate around the place. Thanks for all the interest this far, this story is going to have plenty of ups and downs!

LHisawesome4ever, Haha, well, you know me so some angst is pretty much a given at this point! Dean and Roman both have things going on in this one and you get a hint of Dean's in this one...Roman's in the next!

Cheryl24, Nope, sorry no slash, not opposed to it but I prefer to write the boys as sort of dysfunctional heterosexual life partners (Starsky and Hutch style I suppose). But they're pretty close and touchy all the same!

Minnie1015, I knew you would be happy to see it pop up! Hope it turns out to have been worth the wait and if nothing else then you liked the first chapter. Let's keep our fingers crossed for the second one then!

SkittlezLvr79, I know what you mean, prison stories can be a bit dark for me sometimes, but hopefully I can get you on board with this one. Plus lots of bonding and drama and peril which I know you love!

Wolfgirl2013, Thank you, it's always nerve wracking throwing out a new AU story and waiting to see if anyone will bite, so thanks for being one of them!

Cookiethewriter, I know what you mean about being content starved, every week I go mad wondering if he's going to pop up on screen. He has to be nearly ready to return right?! Lots of bromance ahead!

Mandy, No Seth in this one (I'm sorry I know he's your boy) but lots of Roman and Dean bonding and getting into trouble and lots of cameos too so hopefully that will make up for the lack of a Rollins!

Skovko, Yeah, I didn't want either of our boys to be a hardened killer or something too huge because then it wouldn't be them. But Roman has a secret too...which of course he does because when do I not have tricks?!

Cherry619, Aww, thank you, my mind is a strange place sometimes but I couldn't resist the boys being locked up together. Yep, lots of twists and turns to come and plenty of drama and tension...well, I hope!

Hayley1001, Aww, thank you, I'm super excited to share this story and I've been sitting on it for so long waiting to post it up! Hope you enjoy the rest of it and thank you so much for reviewing too!

Wwe21, I know what you mean about Dean being more of a natural fit for prison than Roman...but Roman has a secret! It's only a T because other than the swearing this isn't too explicit or violent etc. Enjoy!

Daisysakura, Oops, sorry, I'm an 'always something on the go' gal, so there is a small chance that you may never end up reading my old things unless you go for sudden binge read! Plenty of brotherly stuff in this one to come though!

Time for the grand tour then...


Home Away From Home

Once the new intake of prisoners is settled, the heavy bolts are slid back and the prison populace is let loose, to flood the mezzanine in bright flashes of orange and more shaven heads and tattoos than Roman can even count. He knows from the notes he read over before arriving that the facility can house a total of three hundred guys and although that theoretically makes the complex a small one, it sure doesn't feel like that now he's inside.

He blinks at all the bodies,

"Damn."

Dean laughs,

"Yeah, I know right?"

He is leaning casually on the thick steel railings that overlook the bustling prison expanse, rhythmically working a stick of gum over his molars like a substitute for chewing his own cheek or maybe worse.

Roman blows a breath out,

"So, these are the neighbors?"

Dean grins back at him,

"Most fucked up ones you're gonna have."

"Do you know them all?"

"Some of 'em sure," Dean shrugs at him and his mood is easy and sort of relaxed –

Like it has been from the second the cell doors had sprung open and he had hustled them both out to impart his promised tour which had then been delivered at so much of a gallop that Roman's poor head is still spinning from it all.

In so much as he can figure it the prison complex is hexagonal, with the cell wings securely in the middle of the show and then further surrounded by the general trappings of life there such as libraries, phone rooms, shower blocks and the chow hall. Roman had started off calling it the dining room but Dean had barked pretty derisively at that and then offered the comforting little nugget of information that using outside terms was likely to get them both knocked out.

Roman had nodded –

Chow hall it was then.

But irrespective of the name the room itself had been obvious given the tables bolted into the floor, with built-in seats which then couldn't be ripped upwards and therefore used as projectiles in the case of a riot or full-scale gang war.

"Do many of those happen?"

His cellmate had shrugged,

"Not too much."

Dean had then pointed proudly to a point across the counters where the food was clearly served out from big metal trays and beyond the sneeze glass to an industrial kitchen where machinery glinted in the bright synthetic blaze.

"That's where I work, they got me on breakfast which isn't a bitch since it I get the rest of the day. Downside is I have to be up by five thirty to help get things started though."

Roman blinks.

Having jobs.

It is something that he has been informed beforehand will be happening but which he is evidently still waiting to be formerly assigned and which kind of baffles the living heck out of him because the concept of the thing seems pretty damn wild. In theory the idea behind it is simple in that it teaches the prison populace to be responsible for once and to pledge to something potentially for the duration in a way that they might never have otherwise done. On top of which it also allows them to earn money to buy nicer food stuffs or longer phone calls back home.

But beyond that there is still a pretty big problem –

Prisons simply don't have three hundred plus jobs, which is likely why they pass three separate bored inmates attempting to mop the same patch of the chow hall and another five clearing breakfast crap from the tables which it seems pretty clear is more a one person role. Dean at least though seems pleased with his allotment and so Roman merely nods then continues the tour, lightly debating what role he might get stuck with.

Knowing his luck, likely flushing the drains out.

Dean then leads them past the furniture workshops, the therapy room and the designated teaching block, where those still struggling to earn their high school diplomas are dropped into lessons whether they want them or not. More rooms still are set aside for television and one houses a tiny but fully functioning kind of gym that leads them onto the obligatory outside yard space filled with burly guys stood in sour faced groups.

Dean murmurs at him,

"Keep your eyes down man, this is where the fuck knuckles like to hang out an' I mean the real bad types you definitely don't screw with unless you got a hankerin' for a rearranged brain."

Roman lifts a brow at him lazily,

"Not today anyway."

Dean in turn throws him back a grin.

By the time they make their way back into the cell block and up the stairs to the mezzanine floor, Roman feels positively wiped by their excursion not to mention the new rules and way of life he's in. Little wonder that a headache is building up steadily and blooming like a total bitch right behind his eyes, which makes his features twist up in an agony that his gabbling cellmate clearly doesn't realize.

"So that's the tour dude, home away from home huh?"

He slaps the thick metal railing with his hand, then keeps on banging like he's playing a drum kit, while at the same time throwing in a rhythmic grunting sound.

Roman winces,

"Uh, can you stop that?"

Dean sort of blushes then quickly stops the beat, but has to clamp his hands to the metal to prevent the itchiness from surging straight back and making him start up again. It is obviously a deeply subconscious little pattern that channels the anxieties down from his head and likely saves the copper blonde from totally losing it, which Roman can't help but figure must be common in there.

Dean shrugs in apology,

"Sorry man, can't help it – been doin' this twitchy shit since I was a kid. Doctor here told me I could take somethin' for it an' wrote me out a ticket but I never saw the drugs. Whatever though y' know? I mean it's not like I need 'em, besides that kinda thing happens all the time."

Roman frowns rapidly,

"What kind of thing happens?"

"People not gettin' their pills an' shit man – like – it happened to Sami Callihan my old cellmate pretty badly. He had this condition where his brain sorta scrambled an' tended to get itself all kinda fried an' he needed this drug to stop from goin' loco 'cept they never even gave him a single fuckin' dose."

For a second the blue eyes flicker in anger as the copper blonde tightly screws his twitchy fingers up, bunching them into hot fists of sheer resentment that bleed into the sudden fierce clenching of his jaw.

Roman prods lightly,

"So what happened to him?"

He feels that he might be pushing his luck, or forcing the one friend he has in the whole system into sharing the sort of thing that he likes to keep locked up. In fact it makes him feel pretty much like an asshole but isn't that the reason he's even in there at all? It's stuff like this that he is trying to uncover and therefore essentially simply has to know.

In response the copper blonde tips his head sharply to bring it down towards his shoulder with a haphazard little bump before repeating the movement on his other side absently as a memory shivers through his wide unblinking orbs. It lasts for a second or maybe even longer since neither one of the pair of them is wearing a watch, but seems to be over with a sudden loose head shake and a long blown out breath that he follows with a shrug,

"He got shipped off – they transferred him outta here when he smashed our damn cell up."

"You miss him?"

"I guess, but wherever he is I hope he's gettin' what he needs now, or I mean otherwise what's the fuckin' point of all this shit?"

Roman blinks at him for a second sympathetically, then fiercely resists the urge to put a hand out because he's obviously trying to paint a brave face on it and which means that whatever said former cellmate had going on mentally, Dean and he had evidently been tight and had a friendship or brotherhood that had provided them protection and a certain stability against the thrust of prison life.

He swallows down a lump,

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Dean however doesn't respond and although Roman figures he is muted with emotion, when he looks across he finds it being triggered by something else, since instead of being sad the copper blonde is sharply focused on a bulky pair of figures swaggering past them underneath and standing out a mile in the sea of the orange jumpsuits purely on account of their impressive hair growth.

Roman blinks,

"Who the hell are those guys?"

"Harper and Rowan."

"Are they friends of yours?"

Dean snorts roughly and his lips twitch a little but he keeps on glaring as he flexes against the rails, like maybe he is thinking of throwing himself across them and taking the pair out in a kamikaze rage. Roman even has to fight back the latent instinct to grip his cellmate in a tempering hold, in the way he has been taught to cling onto the bridge jumpers until the trained negotiator can turn up and talk them down.

Looking back again, Roman studies the gorillas who have managed to get his new buddy so riled and the more he stares the less he likes about them –

Not least the way the populace skate out of their way.

Both of the guys are built like towers and sporting pretty heinous quantities of long facial fluff that move between red on the taller of the giants to black with grey flashes on his friend to the left. Neither of them speak but they walk at a shamble, like they literally have all the time in the world and it is possibly that and the way they are so silent that sends the big man's senses into instant overdrive.

Dean looks across at him,

"Those two aren't friends with anyone 'cept for Bray Wyatt and his ass is long gone."

"Bray Wyatt?"

"Their mentor come creepy cult leader who used to get his kicks by bein' damaged as fuck."

"Meaning?"

Dean shrugs but it comes off too jerky like he is trying to shake the memory off and Roman feels his brows furrow closer on instinct because the movement is too reactive and it feels kind of wrong.

Rough hands wave,

"Bray used to have favorites, people that he kinda – like – fixated on y' know?"

"Why?"

Dean snorts,

"I mean, who the fuck knows man? I never really felt like goin' over there to ask."

"Did that include you?"

Blue eyes flicker over and then hold the brown gaze for a fraction too long although it at least saves Dean from having to answer because the look and resurgent twitchiness say everything at once.

Roman clears his throat and tries to sound casual,

"Where did he go?"

Dean waves airily again but in a move that makes it look like he's batting away a hornet that is trying to lay a clutch of eggs in his hair and it makes the bigger man smile just a little because already he is fond of the ever twitchy man, in the way an older brother might look at a kid sibling who is totally chaotic but largely means well.

"He turned state evidence on some guy he used to bunk with, but that was – like – three months back now, which might as well be a fuckin' lifetime in this place, so I'm gonna take a punt here and say his ass has moved on. Maybe to a nice place that has the death penalty, because – hey – I mean, a guy can hope, right?"

He grins like a loon and the bigger man chuckles then tousles the hair before he realizes he has.

Roman freezes –

Crap.

Dean however lets it happen, like the gesture is something that his cellmates have always done, or like he perhaps hasn't registered the contact or has done but at the very least doesn't seem to mind very much. Roman falters, not sure how to address it but is luckily cut off by a sudden buzzing sound, which blares out loudly to an instant wave of movement as all around them orange jumpsuits start to lumber towards the hall.

He frowns,

"What's that?"

"Dinner time brotha."

Roman blinks brightly and potential floods his veins as he watches the exodus clearing the cell floor then realizes that the solitude is precisely what he needs. He turns to Dean and tries to look casual before gesturing lightly across his shoulder with a thumb, adding in a tone that he hopes to god sounds easy and doesn't flag up the rapid beating of his heart,

"Actually man, they fed me in holding so I think I'm gonna skip it and make a few calls."

Dean falters briefly,

"Want me to come with you?"

"Nah, I'm a big boy but – you know – thanks though."

In response to the teasing but smiling expression, his scruffier cellmate shrugs and then bites back a grin, like he maybe has missed having somebody to bounce off in the however many weeks since his last buddy was hauled away.

"Yeah alright man, but just be careful."

Roman nods back at him,

"Same goes for you."


Next chapter we find out a bit about Roman because it turns out that boy has a surprise. As ever guesses are welcome but you should know that I pout horribly when you folks get them right!

P.S. I may up the posts to once every two days in a week or two once my crazy life has settled back into a rhythm (I hope!)