A week. It had been a straight solid week since Bray's sudden departure and for a straight solid week all Dean had heard was silence. He had called only to be sent directly to voicemail. He had sent texts that were never read. He had even tried a direct message to Bray's twitter, but that was rejected as well. It was maddening to be ignored. No, worse than ignored; he had been cut off. Bray had cut him off without another thought or care. Dean imagined it was all too easy for him to. Bray had his stupid family, with their stupid loyalty and their stupid devotion. What did he need Dean for? He had his goddamn family to keep him warm night. Growling, Dean kicked the nearest wall in frustration.
Fucking Wyatts. He hated the thought of that. He hated the idea that he would be so easily replaced with one of those bearded freaks or really anyone else for that matter. Bray had been his. For all intents and purposes, he still should be his. But like everything else in his life, Dean had fucked that up. He had made another wrong choice. Now he was stuck trying to pick up the pieces of what had been.
Picking up the pieces wasn't necessarily a foreign concept to him. He had done it plenty of times before; Regal, Seth, His Mom. He'd had to move on from all of them. But unlike now, someone had been there to help him. Regal had helped him move past his mom. Seth had helped him move past Regal and as for Seth, well both Bray and Roman had helped him move on from that cluster fuck.
Roman. Dean closed his eyes when he thought about Roman. His instinct was to call Roman, but he stopped himself at pulling out his phone. Thankfully they were officially back on speaking terms after their spat last week, but the waters were still icy at best. Roman wasn't over the whole situation, especially the part where Dean had admitted he still loved Bray. Roman had been completely devastated at that. Dean really couldn't blame him. They had spent all summer desperately trying to get Bray out of Dean's life, only to have Bray refuse to go. Now Bray was gone, and Dean wanted him back. It had to be beyond frustrating for Roman. "Fuck." Dean opened his eyes, taking a deep breath as he scanned the area around him. He couldn't call Roman. As much as Dean wanted Roman to help, he knew better. Roman wouldn't give Bray ice water if he was choking on fire in hell, let alone help Dean sort things out with Bray.
In Dean's mind, he was well and truly alone on this one. That meant one thing; he had to take matters into his own hands. If Bray wouldn't answer him via every other form of communication, then that left Dean with no other choice. He had to go see Bray, which meant finding Bray. It wasn't ideal, but it was all he had at this point. He could only hope a better option would fall from the sky. If it did, great. In the meantime he needed to find a way to weasel his way out of work. Given that it was already Tuesday afternoon, he knew there was no getting out of tonight. But that didn't mean he couldn't sweet talk Carrano into letting him out of the weekend. House shows weren't as important as tv. All Dean really had to do was promise to do a little extra on the back end and he was golden.
Brushing his hair out of his face, Dean quickly walked down the hallway he had been sulking in. He felt a renewed sense of purpose. Maybe he could save this. Maybe it would work out after all. Maybe he hadn't fucked this up as bad as he thought he had. He reached the end of the hallway, slowly beginning to weave his way through the maze that was the arena. All he really had were the production signs and those were few and far between. Again they weren't ideal, but it got him where he wanted to be, minus a few wrong turns. It felt like he was standing outside Mark Carrano's office in no time. The only problem was, it didn't look like Mark was in. "Fuck" He peered around the corner, definitely seeing that Mark wasn't in. "Double Fuck."
"Can I help you with something?" Dean jumped about ten feet at the intrusion of a female voice behind him. He turned seeing Mark's assistant standing behind him, giving him a rather curious look.
"Jesus….fuck woman! Don't scare a man like that!" She let out a small laugh.
"Forgive me. Next time I'll get the cattle prod." She walked around him, setting some papers down on the table. "Is there something you need?" Dean couldn't help but smile at her thick southern drawl. It reminded him too much of Bray's not too.
"Yea, is Carrano in?" She looked up at him, smiling back.
"Sadly no. He's indisposed at the moment." Of course he was. "I'm happy to take a message for you. I can relay it once he's done." Dean quickly refused, absently scratching the bridge of his nose.
"I just need to ask him something really quick. Do you know when he's going to be done?" She made a face, glancing down at what looked like a schedule before she responded.
"He's booked up for at least another hour or so." She looked back up at him. "You can try shooting him a message on his phone. He might be able to grab it in between meetings." Dean didn't like the idea of that, and it showed. "Seems like it might be urgent. Is it something I can help you with?" Dean thought better of it for a second, but he realized Evangeline might be a better way to go. Sure Carrano would fix him up with the time off, but Evangeline might be able to give him some insight into Bray's absence. She and Bray had always been very cordial to each other in the past. It wouldn't surprise him if Bray hadn't filled her in on what was really going on.
"Maybe." He scratched his nose again. "I'm looking for Bray." She raised an eyebrow at that. "It's nothing bad I promise." She didn't look like she really believed him. "I just…I haven't seen him since the last loop. Do you know where he is?" She gave him an odd smile, nodding slightly.
"He had a family emergency. He should be back in the next week or so." That really didn't do Dean any good.
"Are you sure?" Again she raised an eyebrow. "I mean he was just…upset and all." Evangeline paused what she was doing, setting the piece of paper that had been in her hand down onto the table.
"Is there any reason I shouldn't be sure?" Dean blinked, panicking slightly. He meant to play this cool, but in his desperation, he'd obviously forgotten the cool part.
"No!" Dean brought his hand up, rubbing his collarbone. "I just need to talk to him. Like really need to talk to him and he's not here."
"Have you tried giving him a call?" Dean paused, giving her an uncertain look for a moment. "I won't be coy and pretend I don't know what went on between you two." She leaned in slightly, not doing much to stop the terror that was ebbing through him. He had been sure that he and Bray's relationship had private. Apparently it hadn't been. "The make-up ladies know everything." She leaned back, smiling at him again. "So have you called him?" Dean swallowed, nervously nodding his head yes. It still terrified him to think that other people knew, but Evangeline knowing made his little fact finding mission a little easier.
"He won't answer." Dean started rubbing his collarbone again. "I've called and texted like twenty times, but they're all being ignored." She gave him a sympathetic look. "I just really need to fucking talk to him and he won't pick up."
"I can tell you from experience that he's awful about charging his phone. He's always losing his charger and when he does have it, he never plugs his phone in." Dean hadn't thought about it like that. It made complete sense that Bray's phone was dead. He didn't really need it anymore, so why bother to charge it? "I've told him that one of the boys should take care of it for him, but he tells me they're as bad as he is about it. I usually have to call the house just to get a hold of him." The house. Dean paused again, staring down at her in wonder. Evangeline had Bray's house number. Of course she had Bray's house number. She was the assistant to the Director of Talent. She probably had a way to reach everybody. But that didn't really matter to Dean. He didn't care about everybody, he only cared about Bray. "Give him…"
"Can you call it?" He hadn't meant to blurt it out like he had, but he couldn't help it. The idea of there being another way to reach Bray excited him way too much not to.
Evangeline paused, looking at him slightly confused. "I mean the house. Can you call his house for me?" The confusion quickly vanished. I was replaced by a stern look.
"No."
"Then can you give me the number so I can call it?" The look got sterner.
"No. He would kill me if I did that." Dean shook his head.
"I won't tell him it was you. Come on Evangeline. I need to talk to him." Again she refused.
"He would know, because I'm the only one that has it. If you really need to talk to him then try his cell again. If he doesn't answer then you'll have to wait till he gets back." Dean stepped closer to her, forcing her to back up a bit.
"Evangeline please." He gently grabbed her by her arms, startling her. "You're my only hope. I can't wait a week, because I don't know if he'll be back in a week." She gave him an odd look.
"What do you mean you don't know he won't be back?" Crap. Dean hadn't meant to say that. He ignored her question, pulling her closer. If she wouldn't call the house, fine. He could sort of respect that. But that didn't mean she couldn't reach out to him another way. "If you won't call the house, then call his cell for me." The stern look returned.
"Dean. No."
"I just want to see if it's working. If you go straight to voicemail then I know it's off. I can wait if it's off." And if it didn't then he could easily get the phone from her without too much trouble. Evangeline only came up to his chest. He doubted she could do him any harm, especially in heels. "Just do this for me."
"NO" She wrenched herself free from his grip. "Even if I wanted too, which I don't, I can't. It's against company policy. Mark would have my ass if he found out I was making personal calls like that to other employees." Her look softened slightly. "Just give him space, okay?" He would give Bray all the space he wanted, once Dean managed to talk to him. "I need to go meet Mark. Do you need anything else before I go?" Dean paused, wanting to rebut, but then he saw it. Behind her was her purse and sticking out of her purse was her phone. It dawned on him that maybe he didn't need Evangeline to do anything for him after all. He just needed her phone.
He quickly looked back at her, shaking his head no. "Okay then." She offered a forced smile, easily picking some of the files up off the table. "Best of luck tonight." Dean gave her an equally forced smile, mumbling a thanks as she walked off; leaving him and her phone behind.