Hey, guys. Here's a chilling chapter to hold you over during my crazy work weekend. ;) I promise to get more finished in the hours I'm not stranded at my job. Enjoy~
Roman caved to Dean's wishes and allowed him to sleep in his bed with him.
Roman's room tended to get very cold at night, especially with whipping winter breezes just outside his window, so he pulled the comforter over their heads and held Dean tight to keep him warm, keep him safe. Dean's natural scent was compelling, his skin heated and silken except for areas such as his hands, calloused and rough from living out his passion of music each day. Roman hadn't noticed the coziness shift out of his hold at some point during the night, a missing Dean until the next morning when Roman woke in a routine early awakening.
The uncertainty activated his mind and muscles. He opened his eyes and peered around the room. Dean wasn't with him.
Had he left?
Had he gone to the apartment?
Roman punted the comforter off himself and pulled on a wrinkled sweatshirt and pair of sweats from the floor. His room was freezing. Remaining in his boxer shorts, he pushed out of the bedroom and rounded into the living room.
Dean and Seth were both there, thank God, still asleep on the couch. Seth was on his back, one arm under Dean, the other under his head. Nestled up to him, facing away, was Dean, two hands tucked underneath his cheek.
Jealousy tried to choke him out, but Roman banished it. Dean hadn't left, making off for the apartment or wherever he could find the Wyatt brothers; that was what was most important. Dean wanted to stay with Seth. Clearly Seth was the important figure here, the one who'd been brutally assaulted the night before. They'd been together, as friends or more, for much longer than Roman had known either of them. They were family. Dean cared for Seth, and Seth cared for Dean.
This was nothing to get jealous of.
At least Dean still had his clothes on.
His being Roman's.
Roman wandered into the kitchen, then stopped. He considered something. Now was his chance to get on their apartment. Seth and Dean would be out of harm's way—after all, Bray Wyatt didn't know where he lived—and he could be there and back again in less than half an hour.
Perhaps a bit longer, if he arranged for an alibi.
He hoped the boys would stay asleep long enough for him to arrive home before they realized he'd even gone. But by how exhausted they'd both been the night before, by how little either of them were moving now, Roman expected them to remain in their dreams for a little while longer.
He pulled on a coat, slipped into his gloves, grabbed his keys and Dean's, and quietly made his exit.
The only snow was residue from yesterday's nimble storm, yet the sun was shrouded in a deep of pale, fat billows. The roads should have been fine.
Roman let the radio soundtrack his drive. It wasn't a long trip. He was ready for anything—and nothing at all. He always carried a pocketknife with him, often leaving it behind in his car for tool purposes rather than defensive. He was not afraid to use it for it true intent, after what these bastards had done to Seth. What they were doing to Dean. What they threatened, serving chilling words as a warning, to do to Roman.
Dean and Seth's place was on the second floor. The only means for a break-in was through the front door, unless they somehow scaled the brick skeleton of the complex like Spider-Man and gained access through the high window. Roman did not believe Bray Wyatt or his accomplices were capable of such a feat. Approaching the door, Roman couldn't make out any signs of forced entry. He reached for the knob and gave it a tug.
Locked. There wasn't a chance in hell it would have been left unlocked by mistake; not with how rightfully paranoid Seth was.
Roman took it as a good sign that he had to struggle with the doorknob, as Dean so often had to do, to unlock it.
So far things were looking alright.
But he had to be thorough.
Roman pushed the door open with his foot. It swung against the wall.
A draft shoved Roman on his feet. The apartment was freezing. Somehow it was just as cold inside as it was outside.
Roman realized both windows in the living room were wide open. The screens had been removed completely.
No chance in hell the boys would have done that on purpose.
Roman slinked like a secret agent into the apartment. The only noises his ears picked up was the gentle rocking of the bathroom door while a mighty winter wind blustered through the wide open windows. Roman hurried to shut these windows.
Had they been in here, after all?
But how had they gotten past a locked door?
Through the windows? Roman found it near impossible for them to ascend the apartment's exterior, remove the screens and get in through what were probably locked windows, without breaking them.
Roman inspected the rest of the apartment, back against each wall Sam Fisher style, wielding his pocketknife as though it was a sword and not a merely two-inch blade. There was nobody else here, luckily for them; he was alone.
In Dean's bedroom—Roman felt it wasn't the time to swoon over the fact that he was in the resting area of the love of his life—he had a photo of him and Seth on the nightstand. Roman found the picture frame was broken, the glass cracked. Inside Seth's face had been slashed through with a red marker. Dean's face had been circled countless time in thick, bleeding ink.
Shit.
They had been here.
Roman had had enough. He left the bedroom and came into the living room, ready to get the hell out of here.
That's when he noticed one last hint the intruders had left behind.
A message was carved into the wood behind the door. The carving didn't go deep into the lumber, but the four words were accentuated with red marker, perhaps the same marker used to vandalize Dean's picture.
"COME HOME. I'M WAITING."
Outside the violated apartment, Roman got a text from Dean's phone.
Where are u? :/
He replied that he was getting breakfast and inquired Dean and Seth's preferences.
And that they needed to talk.
Roman brought home "breakfast" from Taco Bell: an A.M. crunch wrap for Seth, a biscuit taco for Dean, and an A.M. grilled taco for himself. He added an order of Cinabbon Delights, knowing how much Dean loved sugary treats.
The boys were awake when Roman arrived. He tossed the bag of food onto the dining room table.
"Thanks for this, Roman," Seth said, drawing a chair for himself at the table.
Dean was quick to sense Roman's unease.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"I went by the apartment."
Dean knitted his brows. He was displeased. That was to be expected. "Without us—"
Roman wasn't about to argue over something that was over and done with. "I'm glad I went alone, though. It wasn't good." Roman felt his heart sinking to his stomach as all he'd seen resurfaced in his mind.
"What?" Seth asked, panic rising in his voice.
"Did you see them?" Dean asked, grabbing Roman's hand.
"They weren't there, no. But they got in somehow. Don't know how. All the windows were opened, it was fucking cold. But I really don't think that's how they got in."
"Yeah, the Wyatts aren't exactly acrobats over here," Seth said, unwrapping his crunch wrap.
"Or Spider-Man," Dean said, smiling grimly.
"That's what I thought. But the door was locked when I got there. So how did they get in?"
"Shit!" Seth declared, slamming a fist against the table. "Oh, shit!"
"What?" Dean and Roman cried in unison.
"It was me. My key. They took everything else from me; they must have taken my keys, too. Can't believe I didn't even fucking realize that…" He laughed with a tough of insanity, what could have twisted into sobbing if he let the noise carry on.
"What's crazy is they locked the door behind them," Roman said.
"To make us think it was all safe to go inside?" Dean guessed.
Roman nodded once. "To let you guys know they have full access. Inside and out." It was a subtle message, subtle and chilling. Not a complete assault on Dean and Seth or their property, but an insistent enough missive to declare one prominent piece of information: we are here. It was a brutal mind game, psychological warfare.
And they'd be back. They hadn't left the key behind. It was still under their possession.
"Guess I better call the cops," Seth mumbled. He reached for Dean's phone.
"They can't help us," Dean said, staring off somewhere that was neither at Roman nor Seth. "They never do. They never will."
"I still have to report the break-in, Dean." Seth pushed away from the table, abandoning his crunch wrap for the time being. He made the call in Roman's bedroom.
"Was anything taken?" Dean asked, shifting his straying gaze back onto Roman.
"No, I don't think so. The windows were open…there was a picture of you and Seth they drew on…then a message carved into the door."
"What was the message?" Dean so obviously hated to ask but needed to know.
"'Come home. I'm waiting.'"
Dean shook his head. He looked drained, defeated. A glowing gray light Roman had never seen his musician in before.
All he could do was hold Dean close and tight while Seth spoke with the 911 operator.
Roman had to go to work that afternoon, leaving Dean and Seth under the protection and jurisdiction of the Colorado Springs Police Department. He went about his shift on autopilot, only hearing the orders from his customers but not listening to them, making coffee after coffee and wiping down table after table without being completely aware of all he was doing.
These Wyatt brothers weren't just dangerous. They were sick. Sadistic, grisly beings that were less than human. Roman wasn't afraid of them, he loathed them. He wished the police would arrest them, lock them away for good, and wondered with an anxious mind why the bastards weren't already locked up.
Unless the gangsters were simply that crafty.
What if they come after me next…?
"Hey, Roman, you doing alright, man?" Dolph asked him. Roman realized he'd been staring out the window the past few minutes, breath trapped in his lungs.
"Oh, yeah, I'm fine."
"You sure? You don't look it."
"It's nothing, Dolph."
"Okay, I won't nag you. Was just trying to help, that's all."
Roman sighed. He shouldn't take his aggression out on kind hearts like Dolph Ziggler. No wonder I don't have too many friends. "Sorry, Dolph. It's just, Dean's in a little trouble, and I'm trying to find out how to help him."
"What kind of trouble? Like, with the law?"
"Not exactly."
"Like…"
"Like I don't really want to share because it's his business, not mine. But he's freaking out, and I'm trying not to freak out with him."
"Okay. Well, I know you and I are hardly the BFFs, let alone me and your boy, but Lana and me, we're really good at getting out of sticky situations ourselves. So just let us know how we can help. If he needs money, you can take out a loan from me. You need a shoulder to cry on?" Dolph flexed his arm muscles and said, "Got plenty of room on here."
Roman smiled. He'd managed to help a little. "Thanks, Dolph."
Sometime later, when the crowds had died down and afternoon rolled into an arctic evening, a customer dressed all in black shoved through the glass doors. "Roman," he said.
Roman was about to enter a mixed combination of panic mode and a fighter's stance. He realized under the black coat, gloves, boots and beanie hat was Seth. Not Bray Wyatt or any of his morbid abettors.
"Hey, Seth," Roman said. "Everything taken care of?"
"Yeah, we talked to the police, the landlord, filled out all kinds of reports and shit. I arranged to stay at my parents' place, so good call there."
"Good. What about Dean?"
"He said he was gonna swing by here and see if he could stay with you. If not, my parents'll take him in, too."
"He said he was coming by here?"
"Yeah." Some color drained from Seth's frozen face. "Is he not…here?"
Roman chewed the inside of his cheek. "No…but maybe he's just not here yet."
"This was two hours ago."
Roman and Seth stared each other down. All sense of serenity was swept away in the cold wind Seth had ushered into the coffeeshop with him. Roman's eyes punctured Seth's. His had lost all color. Nothing but gray bleak as the realization skulked over both of them.
Where the hell was Dean?
Ooh, please don't hate me for that ending, guys! I promise I'll be back soon to bring you more of this tale! :)
PS; Reviews make my day!