Here we go then, we are now nearly halfway through. Plenty more Bray coming up in the chapters to come but first Roman is back with his first concern…
Stingerette1975, It was nice to write Dean as the one on the warpath for once. Good to switch it up every now and again. Roman calling Dean babe is one of my favourite things ever. It's just such a lovely little part of their friendship IRL and in my stories (I hope!)
Mandy, Aww glad you liked it. I've written plenty about how protective Roman is and how much he hates seeing Dean hurt, but it stands to reason that Dean would be like that too so I thought it was about time that I showed some of that. Bromance forever!
Wolfgirl2013, Thank you, got some more police case information in this one, but over the next few chapters Roman is going to have his hands full with lots of problems. Poor boy!
Daisysakura, Dean is like Toulouse in The Aristocats when he tries to be a big tough alley cat and spits everywhere. Okay, maybe not but not totally unlike that (in my head). Glad you still thought him being protective was fluffy. What can I say? He loves his boy!
Cheryl24, They probably could report Bray to the authorities if they trusted the authorities in that prison at all. Besides, with Roman trying to keep a low profile the last thing he wants is he and Dean bringing attention to themselves by complaining. Our poor boys are a bit stuck!
Guest, Thank you, plenty more drama coming, especially in the next few chapters after this one, so stick around for the fun times (except it's not fun for the boys!)
Hayley1001, Roman is back on the case in this chapters but there is a whole bunch of angst coming up in the chapters that follow this for reasons that will become apparent. But yeah, there are a couple in particular that I know you're going to like on that front!
Minnie1015, Haha, glad you liked it, my other favourite description would be baby giraffe which I kinda wish I'd used instead! Anything clumsy and gangly really. I honestly don't plan to put believe that in as often as I do, but occasionally I hit a point and think oooh it would fit here so voila!
Skovko, Well we've still got a long way to go with this one (we're just under halfway at this point) so there is always the potential for an unholy brawl. Gonna keep you guessing though, because I'm mean for one thing and also…nope, I'm just mean!
Cherry619, Yeah, I know, I'm sure dumping a lot of things on Roman in this story. But he knew that prison was never going to be fun right?! Bray is certainly going to be a flashpoint but he's got even more to deal with first starting with this chapter and then BIG TIME in the next one!
Back to the case and some more Mick Foley…
Bischoff's Office
His expected black eye comes up like a beauty and then stands up proud for all the world to see and could basically be waving a red flag of warning emblazoned with the words –
I got into a fight.
Because it had happened when no one else was watching the only thing he has to deal with is the bruising and affront but that doesn't stop the guards looking at him funny with a mixture of knowing and suspicious alarm.
It isn't a good feeling and he tries to deflect it by dropping his head or trying to come across non-threatening but which is hard to pull off at some two hundred and fifty pounds plus and while topping out at over six foot three with a badass tribal tattoo over one shoulder that takes up nearly the full length of his arm.
He might as well be a walking poster for badass although the truth is far different –
He's a policeman for god sakes.
Dean for his part turns schizophrenic mama bear on him and physically growls at anybody that looks their way and the dual effect of the big man with his glower and the copper blonde with his twitchy fists manages to keep their path clear which is good because Roman hurts kind of all over although he tries not to show it.
His headache lasts for three days.
In the entirety of that time though, Bray Wyatt is absent and so too are his lumbering bayou friends. Roman doesn't see them at breakfast, lunch or dinner and nor is there any sight of them in the hallways, showers or yards. If they weren't in god damn hemmed in prison then it might even seem possible that they somehow upped and moved away to cast their weirdness over a new little location –
Except it isn't that.
Even so, they've gone to ground.
Dean has a theory on that one however which he shares two mornings later when his breakfast shift has been hard won and the larger prison populace is hoovering up food stuffs or picking through the tacky oatmeal of which he has actually grown fond. He is sitting on his own at a table in the corner that has sort of become his regular spot and he is being given looks but left well alone otherwise like the more timid inmates think he might suddenly hulk out.
Dean drops into the spare seat opposite in the puppet without strings way he usually has and then hits his pink palms down hard on the table like he's making a big announcement,
"They're holin' up."
"What?"
He shrugs back then hooks a lazy foot up on the table like he's actually reclining in a lounger at the beach and a prison guard sighs and starts to trudge in towards them which makes the bigger man lean over and shove the prison shoe back off.
Dean doesn't flinch,
"They know they've fucked up here an' they're hunkerin' down in their cell."
"They've got to eat."
"They still can from the commissary – like – maybe those assholes have been hoardin' cans an' shit in preparation for months?"
Roman blinks then casts back to the first evening when he had inadvertently listened into Harper taking a call and talking about having someone back in the fold again who he realizes now likely had to have been Bray. Whoever it was that the lackey had been speaking to had given them warning that their leader was coming home and so the theory on them stockpiling food in the interim was pretty damn feasible and probably not far off.
He nods,
"Maybe uce."
But he still isn't sold on the three bearded giants having nervously skittered off since he cannot imagine the white eyes being frightened or frankly any of them being spooked by a fleeting fight.
Either way though, the three men are absent and after four long days without them a tentative buoyancy settles in, like maybe they really are done with their weird enmity or maybe the sons of bitches have in some way mentally moved on. For all they know Bray could have chosen a new target and the thought of that is fine by them.
Not that it stops the prickling uneasiness.
But then again he's in prison, so perhaps that's simply a standard thing?
Roman still gets up and takes himself to work though and three days after his painful shower room beating, Mick Foley traipses unsteadily back in, toting a pair of ruddy and weeping eyeballs alongside a hacking noise that bubbles from his chest.
Roman lifts a brow at him,
"Hey, you okay man?"
He cannot really help but be genuinely concerned, since the floppy haired monster looks only seconds from collapsing or else crawling beneath a desk and curling himself up. Instead of doing either however, he smiles back broadly which seems to trigger a watery cough and forces the undercover policeman to slap his spinal cord in a feeble sort of gesture that doesn't seem to help much.
Foley sucks a breath in,
"Whoo, that was a big one, but forget about me here, what happened to you?"
He means the black eye and in response to the question the dark headed inmate grumbles mildly in return, because how the hell is he meant to explain it without making it sound like the weirdest thing in the world or without clueing in the eavesdropping prison guard who is pretending not to be hanging on their every last word?
Roman clears his throat,
"I fell in the shower."
In technical terms it's not an outright bald faced lie but it is also evidently in no way believable since Foley lifts a brow up and then chuckles,
"Okay, sure."
It is nice to have him back though as they get down to the cleaning, because the broader man reverts almost at once to humming tunes and telling his usual never ending stories albeit it with a bunch more coughing and spluttering involved.
"Did I tell you about the time I headbutted the Washington Monument?"
Roman grins at that one and shakes his skull,
"No."
Except before he gets the chance to start to hear it, his colleague groans mildly and his eye roll slightly back. Foley stumbles and puts a hand out quickly to brace himself against the nearest office desk and the movement sends the keyboard clattering into a pen pot which then promptly falls over and litters sharpies across the space.
"Whoa – ,"
"Easy."
Roman is there in a second, blitzing over the carpet to help support the big man's weight and then bracing him underneath the armpits with effort while his friend recovers and lets his head get up straight. Far less reactive is the bored looking prison guard, who suddenly shoots up from where he has been lazily perched and comes in towards them with one hand on his holster like the thing might be some previously well thought out ruse.
Roman growls darkly,
"Help me out here will you?"
His policeman tones come instantly back to the fore and bizarrely he must still have them down to an artform because the corrections officer blinks but then hustles across, taking some of the heavy weight from the prisoner and then helping to get Mick sat in a chair. It is a swivel thing and depresses beneath the bulk of the cleaner, but it gets him off his feet and makes him look mildly less pale. He even manages to cough in amusement but he's sweating up a storm and clearly not back to full strength,
"Boy, that was close huh? Nearly wiped out on the desk there."
"How are you feeling man?"
"I'm good, I'm good."
It is probably typical of men who are in prison – or men in general – to act like everything is fine and likely why the bulky man tries swiftly to get up again as if almost passing out is some menial thing. It turns out it isn't however when he stumbles and the blood drops out of his face a second time, at which point he is pushed back into a sit again with the addition of the guard shoving his head between his knees.
"Foley, stay there, the other one can finish up here."
Roman blinks since the other one is clearly him and then tries not to bark in happy astonishment because the only thing left still to clean is one room and in particular the room that has always been closed off to him since in prison terms at least it is virtually hallowed ground.
Bischoff's office.
Roman stands quickly then tries to downplay the rapid beating of his heart which is starting pound in the familiar rhythm that it always strikes up before an arrest or a raid –
Because this is what his mission comes down to.
It is his best chance yet to get the evidence he needs, or at least put eyes on something vaguely helpful or that ties the prison warden to the drugs or wrongful deaths and so therefore even better is the fact that he is solo, with the guard still preoccupied with the sick and hefty man.
He nods his head,
"Sure thing man, I got this covered."
But then walks off quickly before the guard can change his mind, or possibly realize the breadth of his error in sending a total greenhorn to clean the crucial room.
Shit.
Roman crosses the carpet in a heartbeat, half expecting to called back with every wide step, but instead makes it right the way across the open office and then in through a partition to where Bischoff's personal assistant sits. Reaching out a hand he twists the chrome door knob and then throws a look over his shoulder to be sure and is relieved to find the guard still crouched next to Foley and even testing the man's forehead with the back of his hand.
He lets himself in.
Familiar shades of plain white paint stare back at him, but instead of concrete flooring it is offset by carpet tiles in the same shade of blue that covers the offices and which is thin but at least splashes some tone into the place. There is a big bright window on the outside wall in front of him, but which is pulled and shuttered down so makes the room feel oppressed and casts a weird sort of zigzag of sun beams across the sparse and hard furniture –
Filing cabinets, chairs and desk.
Bischoff either isn't a man who is keen on personalizing or else doesn't care about the outward impression of the room because looking around there isn't so much as a hint of him, not in family photos or scribbled notes or anything and in the end the only piece that stands out with clarity is a pile of open topped, classic car magazines, many of which have been thumbed near repeatedly and bear the turned corner tabs of a man making a list.
Maybe he is selling drugs to get his dream racer?
Roman grunts –
It is not a good excuse.
Moving towards the desk in the dulled and slatted daylight he rounds the thing quickly and pushes back the chair, his brown eyes sweeping in over the item and then down to a small three-drawered inbuilt cabinet.
That was it.
Foley had told him about where the warden stashed his paperwork back on his first day as a part of the cleaning crew and the crucial information had stayed fast within him, burrowing itself deeper like a parasitic bug. If the evidence for what has been happening in confinement is going to be anywhere then it is going to be in there and so he stoops and pulls at the handle optimistically but is totally unsurprised to find the damn thing locked tight. It rattles a little but doesn't budge otherwise and Roman sucks a breath in because he needs another plan.
He needs the key or he needs a lockpicker which seems pretty unlikely given –
He checks himself.
"Dean."
Hadn't his cellmate made a throwaway comment about being able to pick locks a few days before? More to the point had it been a random statement designed to draw a little smile or laugh or was he being unusually serious in sharing that he can actually break into stuff? Frankly with the copper blonde either thing is possible but the potential is enough to cause a flicker of hope and is why Roman is clambering back up onto his feet again when the prison guard suddenly appears in the door, having realized his error thirty seconds too late probably and who then eyes him with suspicion,
"What are you doing in here?"
Roman drops a cloth down onto the desktop and then swipes it across in a slow and easy move, looking up coolly like he doesn't see the problem and then meeting the gaze,
"I'm doing my job."
"Well make it quick and just finish up with that part, we're packing up early and calling it a day."
"Foley alright?"
"I said to get moving."
Roman gives the keyboard a cursory sort of sweep and then flaps the cloth out in a hail of dust particles before throwing it loosely across his shoulder blade and holding his hands up to show he isn't trouble as he moves his big frame steadily back towards the door.
His head is buzzing –
He needs to get back in there and might get his chance if Foley goes sick again, but the problem is that being there on his own isn't helpful, unless his quirky cellmate is in there with him that is, or maybe can give him a lesson in lockpicking although that route might take more time than either of them have. He squeezes past the guard back out into the office where the big form of Mick Foley takes up almost all of the view and also fills the room with a volley of sneezes which burst free from him as his body jolts in the chair. Behind him the prison guard locks the door pointedly and then blows a sigh out,
"Come on, we're done here."
Roman follows slowly.
He now knows that the answer is in the tightly locked desk drawers, but is struggling to come up with a workable solution, because he needs to engineer a specific situation or else somehow wait for the stars to again align. In front of him Foley hacks another bubbly cough out but the big man barely hears it since his brain is firing hard and helping him plot the next step of his mission.
It seems obvious on the face of it.
He needs to call the boss.
Next chapter...well, let's just say that things happen and you won't want to miss it (at least I hope!)
