Ladies and gents, we are now in the final third of this story so after this chapter we'll be picking up speed as we roll towards our inevitable conclusion. But first, the boys need to get themselves a plan and maybe figure out what to do when it's all over. Hope you enjoy it! Also...anyone watch RAW last night?! *Massive grin*

Hayley1001, Haha, sorry, but you get to find out Dean's feelings below and it seemed like a good point to round the chapter off, sometimes you gotta leave it up to imagination. But I promise this chapter won't end on a cruel note…of course there will be some more cliffhangers to come.

Guest, Thank you, hope you like the rest of it because things are going to get pretty wild before the end!

Cheryl24, Haha, I just got an image of Dean as Bray's prison wife wearing an apron and doing the ironing and now it's stuck there…so thanks for that! If Bray wins the fight then Dean has to become a Wyatt and slope around with them and possibly grow a long beard I guess. Basically Bray will feel like he owns him. Creepy huh?

SkittlezLvr79, Well I'm always happy to make you laugh at something kooky Dean has said. He's so much fun to write because he can literally say anything! Honestly I think that Dean has been through so much now and what with the Sami news, he can cope with Bray. Or at least he thinks he can anyway!

Stingerette1975, Gotta leave you wanting more! Luckily though, I go into that a little bit more in this chapter, so I'm not leaving you hanging completely. Last chapter was the boys getting back on the same page and this one is the next step after that, because they still have a whole bunch of things to talk about…like corrupt jails, swamp men, life when they get out. Boy talk!

Skovko, I would never let them not be on the same page forever, it feels wrong, like the world is out of balance somehow or like something is off somewhere. But all good now, well, not all good obviously because they still have a hell of a lot of problems to figure out (more than the average number probably, oops, my bad).

Yippi-kay yay motherfucker, Dean is kind of used to being on the ropes I guess, with his crappy life. Plus he has concussions still, so that helps to soften the blow (no pun intended but pleased its there!) But still, probably not the best thing that could have happened to him. He can't catch a break here!

Wolfgirl2013, Yay, thank you, its always better when the boys are back together (that wasn't supposed to rhyme by the way). Got them hatching some plans in this chapter, happy reading!

Minnie1015, Back together like they should be, could never keep Roman and Dean at loggerheads for too long. I know you love your drama and discord though, so best of both worlds right?! Honestly I'm not good with complicated TV shows…I watch TV to relax damn it not to take a Mensa entry exam!

Mandy, Oh man, tell me about anxiety, it sucks…mostly anyway. Sometimes I can see the positives. I mean, without my anxiety I wouldn't care half so much about things or have been given my promotion at work. It probably sounds wacky but I wouldn't be as successful without my anxiety. Blessing and curse for sure! *Hugs and solidarity*

Daisysakura, Yep all is now good in Ambreigns brotherland (which would absolutely be the best theme park in the world on a side note). Never could have kept them apart forever, it hurts too much, lol! But yeah, perfect excuse to have Roman fussing about like a big tattooed mother hen. God more of that in this chapter too, so fill your boots!

Cue the Rocky theme music…


No More Oatmeal

Dean takes the news that the resident hillbilly and cult leader stalker wants to fight him pretty well. In fact so well that the next day finds him tucked in the training room in front of punching bag with Roman by his side but wearing a brown eyed look of apprehension that he voices with every last hook or thrown jab since he evidently feels that his battered looking roommate should be tucked up in bed with headache tablets and ice.

"You still good uce?"

His question is a rumble and expressed in relation to the bag swinging back and catching the copper blonde hard on the shoulder which jolts through his body and sets the concussion flames alight.

Dean blinks it out and then shrugs,

"Yeah, m' fine man."

It seems pretty patently clear he is not but because he is a man and a prisoner and fucking stubborn, Roman simply sighs and lets the pretence carry on while constantly scanning their surroundings for trouble in the form of bearded bayou men or anything else and which is so fucking comforting that Dean grins lightly and lets loose a chuckle.

Roman frowns at him,

"What?"

"Nothin' man, keep goin', what were you sayin'?"

Roman lifts a brow back but then quickly casts around the little gym room to make totally sure they're not being overheard and which is pretty unlikely since the other two people in there are pumping heavy beats that sound tinny in the air and are probably slowly laying waste to their hearing but means at least they're not listening and so neither man much cares. Roman speaks quietly just to make sure though,

"I'm going to have to distract him somehow."

Dean blinks,

"The guard?"

"It's how I got in last time and is the best chance we got to get your ass in and out."

Dean punches forward and catches the weight bag which creaks on its rusty little hook overhead and then lunges back where it meets his taped up fist again in a right hook that sends spasms of force through them both.

He nods idly,

"Okay, so what m' I lookin' for?"

"Receipts I'm guessing or numbers and accounts books."

"Y' mean like numbers from sellin' off the drugs?"

In the ten or so hours since he had woken up bewildered and nursing a headache the size of the sun, Dean had insisted on being told everything and his cellmate had responded by leaving nothing out, taking him through the tangled web of evidence and including the strings of deaths and the missing prescription drugs. He had even hesitated but then included the suicides –

Road Dogg, R Truth, Sami Callihan.

Plus a whole bunch more and with every last name that had bled into the darkness, the copper blonde had felt his resolve shore up and had listened to his fingers as they had twitched in frustration at the terror he knew the poor men must have felt and the fact that the victims had been hauled off and murdered like they didn't even matter.

Poor Callihan.

"Fuck."

He expresses the sentiments in time with a right hook that bursts from his shoulder joint and into the bag and which represents easily his most impressive haymaker since he had sloughed his way in there an hour before, but which also knocks the energy right out of him and slips a damn knife between the cracks in his head. In response to it he groans and then moves to grip his temples in an instinctive sort of hold to counteract the pain but in the process forgets about the body bag blasting back at him until the very last second. Luckily Roman steps in and wraps his arms about the casing to bring the weighty pendulum into a steady and much needed halt before reaching out a hand and tugging his cellmate back a bit to a spot where he is well away from the swing.

"Uce, you alright?"

"Hurt like a mutha, y' know m' pretty sure someone just stabbed me in the eye."

Roman grunts back and hefts a brow,

"No kidding, in that case I think that's enough for one day."

He puts his broad hands out before his roommate can protest it and turns him like a spinning top back towards the threshold before forcibly marching their asses on out, which the copper blonde pretends to grumble at a little but is actually pretty thankful for,

"C' mon uce, I gotta train, otherwise m' gonna be pickin' teeth outta my eyeballs."

"You really think I'm planning on letting this shit go down?"

"Can't stop it big man."

"I'm not letting him touch you, he's done that twice before and he's not doing it again."

Roman seems pretty unflinching on that point and has been since delivering the news of the brawl, because alongside trying to bring down a corrupt prison he has apparently adopted his cellmate's health and happiness as well and so has therefore banned any notion of fighting but which has so far been totally and roundly ignored. Dean reaches over to pet his friend's shoulder,

"Listen man, not that m' not grateful for this parent shit or whatever the hell y' got goin' on – ,"

"Dean,"

"But m' a big boy an' it's not my first turn on the dance floor plus I'll see it comin' this time y' know?"

Brushing past an inmate who is slouching along the corridor, they turn the corner back onto the cell block floor and then strike out for the stairs to their own space where they are free to discuss things openly once more. Not that it doesn't stop them entering carefully in case their lingering nemesis has daubed blood on the walls again or is somewhere else doing some type of weird shit, like hanging from the ceiling or hiding underneath a bed. Roman merely sits down however heavily and although he clearly isn't concerned about the bed thing, if the swamp man is under there then he has probably been squashed dead.

"Uce?"

"Huh?"

"Where did you go babe?"

Dean blows a breath out and then vaguely shakes his head, like he is trying to brush away a lingering fog patch or else trap a little bit of common sense back in.

"M' good, still here."

He copies his brother and folds onto the sheets of his own thin bed before lying himself flat and tucking his arms behind his neckline to prop up and pillow his fucking still thumping head.

Brain trauma is a bitch.

"Foley is putting in the transfer, so it should be good by tomorrow I guess."

"No more breakfast shift huh?"

"You gonna miss it?"

"Who's gonna make the oatmeal gloopy an' shit?"

He grins as he says it though because the wrench is not a big one and honestly he is better on clean up anyway and not solely because it pays him more credits but since it also lets him hang out like a teenager with his friend.

Roman snorts,

"Oh yeah, I'm gonna miss that, what am I gonna use to fill the cracks in the walls?"

"Fuck you man, you didn't deserve my oatmeal."

"Nobody deserved that."

"Asshole."

"Bad cook."

In the silence that follows he lets his blue eyes flicker shut again but beneath a happy if not still heavily concussed brow and for a minute it feels like the two of them could be anywhere instead of in a reinforced concrete prison cell. He blows a short breath out,

"You lookin' forward to gettin' outta here?"

He knows without a doubt that the answer will be a yes and so therefore isn't sure why he has even posed the question, or why the response he knows it will engender is already starting to turn over in his gut.

Roman pauses mildly,

"I'm looking forward to my own bed and seeing my family."

"It's gonna suck for me, I'll probably end up stuck with a pedophile or somethin'."

It is possibly the reason that the betrayal has sat so heavily and why it initially made him freak the fuck out, because it isn't so much the fact the truth was kept from him as the realization that Roman wasn't one of them and therefore would be leaving as soon as shit was over. Dean doesn't want that to happen at all. Luckily however the bigger man gets it and sees through the typically bullish retort and softens his tone just a little around the edges and lowers it to something that is soothing and warm.

"Hey, I'm not gonna let that happen, I'll put a word in and get you a single."

"Still won't be the same."

"I know uce, I know."

"Be a sucky nine months without you."

"But then you'll be a free man."

"Free an' homeless, fuckin' great."

He honestly doesn't mean to sound so bitter because wallowing in shit has never really been his thing, but at the same time the thought of rattling around the prison without his best friend is a pretty hard thing. Not least because he has a habit of losing those he cares about and mostly through no freaking fault of his own, so maybe he should be prepared to wave off his big dog?

Fuck that though, he's really god damn not.

"That's why your ass is gonna move in with me uce."

His eyes snap open in bafflement,

"What?"

Roman is staring across the space in between them but there isn't a hint of teasing on his face and instead he looks even and totally serious in a way that makes the smaller man's battered heart hitch.

"You're shittin' me right?"

"Nope."

"You'd let me fuckin' live with you?"

"If you wanted to."

"I – you can't be – ,"

Dean can't find the right words and so instead tapers off with a blink of bewilderment and the heavy anticipation that the roommate offer is still a prank and that the bigger man will suddenly whip the rug out from under him except he doesn't because Roman just is not that kind of man.

"One thing though uce."

"Uh huh – I mean – anythin'."

"No more oatmeal."

"You got it man."


Is Roman not the best? Roman is the best right? What do you mean I'm possibly leaving the door open for a future sequel?!

Next chapter the boys go back to work and Dean gets his first shift on cleaning detail...