Hey guys, here's the next chapter for you. It's time for Dean's meeting with his mysterious uncle, but how much can Roman and Seth really learn about it? Rolleigns friendship development approaching quick, and a look into Seth's past. Enjoy~
"Thanks for the ride, guys. I really appreciate it."
"Of course," Roman answered Dean, pulling into the hotel of the parking lot where Dean was meant to meet with "Jeff." "We weren't going to let you walk all that way. You'd freeze to death."
Dean rode shotgun while Seth was alone in the backseat. He sat with his knees pulled against his chest, arms resting atop them. Dean glanced back at him and said, "You still pissed at me?"
Seth cast out a long breath, fogging up the ice-cold window. "I guess not."
"I totally believe it." Dean stretched an arm at an awkward angle behind him and tapped Seth's leg. "Don't worry. Once my uncle takes care of these Wyatt brothers, life will be normal. You, me and Roman can live happily ever after."
"I'll believe it when I see it, Dean." As irked as he came across as, at least he was making eye contact now. "But whenever it does happen, I'll be the happiest guy on the planet."
"I'll tie you for first on that one," Roman said.
Dean zipped up his—Roman's—jacket and put his hand on the door handle. "What are you guys gonna do in the meantime?"
"Dunno," Roman said lightly. Perhaps he should have left it to Seth. He was an awful liar, and his conscience disallowed him to sound any more unvarnished, considering he'd just been upset with Dean for bearing lies. "Maybe…hit up a late-night restaurant. Grab a bite. Something."
"Okay. Just be careful, alright?"
"You too," Seth stated.
"I'll text you when I'm out."
Dean slipped out of the car and let out a howl against the cold wind as he scampered towards the hotel's entrance. Roman half-expected him to slip on ice on his way up. His reckless behavior did assure a certainty of accidents from time to time.
"Wanna park and go inside?" Seth asked. "Should we wait a while?"
"How is this gonna work?" Roman cross-examined. "There's no way we can get closed enough to eavesdrop without getting caught. We're not going to blend in very well. Your hair and my physique make us pretty conspicuous."
Like an instinct, Seth shoved his hair over his face, behind his shoulders. "At this point, I really don't care what they say. Maybe he'll fill us in on that later. I just want to make sure he doesn't hop into a car with this guy and take off. Or leave. Or do something incredibly stupid."
"As he's prone to do," Roman had to agree. He circled the hotel parking lot a couple of times before settling on a spot in the fourth row.
"Exactly," Seth said, undoing his seatbelt. "Let's just sneak inside, make sure he's good, hang back, see what happens. Best case scenario: not a damn thing."
Roman turned the car off. "Okay. I hope he doesn't see us. Might not trust us ever again if he does."
"I think he might be expecting us to do something like this. He knows us as much as we know him."
"Fair enough."
Roman's car thermometer indicated it was sixteen degrees outside. He and Seth stayed close to each other, arms touching, nearly huddling as they scuttled towards the automatic entry doors.
The hotel wasn't fancy. A standard lobby warmed them up inside, complete with a fireplace—turned off for the night—and a sleepy concierge behind a long oak counter. Dean was speaking with her, back turned to the boys. Seth ducked behind a plant. Roman bit back a chuckle. He was across the way from them, so spotting Roman and Seth was unlikely.
"You have a very nice hairdo, Mr. Ficus," Roman whispered.
Seth poked his head between the lengthy, paper-thin leaves of the little tree.
The concierge lifted a corded phone—Roman didn't even think those things existed anymore—and dialed a number. After speaking a few words into the machine, she hung up and waved a hand towards a set of glass doors off to the right, veiled in a white curtain. Roman made out something she said specifically: "He'll be right down. Go ahead and have a seat inside."
Dean thanked her, nodding, and sauntered towards the glass doors. He gave one of them a tug, took a glance behind him—a glance so quick that Roman's heart stopped, then restarted as he realized Dean hadn't even looked his way—and slipped into whatever room the doors were guarding.
Several minutes later, an elevator across from the concierge desk dinged, and the doors pulled open with a groan. A man stepped out, a man who intimidated Roman just looking at him. Long, curly black hair spiraled over his broad shoulders. A long leather jacket and tight pair of jeans failed to obscure the brawn beneath them, nor did the black cowboy-style hat atop his head conceal away his soulless dark eyes, leathery face and grim lips. His hunky boots slapped against the tile floor of the lobby. He lifted a meaty hand to the concierge, who waved back, then the man hauled the glass door open and disappeared behind them.
Roman licked his lips.
"Tell me that's not him," Seth said, stepping out from behind the tree.
"Dunno. Let's go find out."
Roman and Seth approached the glass doors with caution, as though afraid they'd swing open any moment and bash their heads in. Roman used a finger to pull back a bit of the curtain. Seth pressed his view into the room just beneath Roman. The man shook Dean's hand, then pulled him into what looked to be a crushing hug. Dean was smiling, didn't look afraid at all.
"Guess if they were strangers, they wouldn't be hugging like that," Roman noted aloud.
"Probably is family, then," Seth said. "Still. Damn. That guy scares the shit out of me, and I don't even know him."
The room appeared to be a conference area. "Jeff"/Uncle Mark/Uncle "Und" and Dean sat down at one of the long tables across from one another. Dean, facing the general direction of Roman and Seth, meshed his hands on the table and began shooting off a dialogue. A couple of inches to the right and he'd see them for sure.
"Excuse me," came a woman's voice.
Roman and Seth swung around to find the concierge standing behind them, arms folded over her chest like a teacher ready to bust a couple of students for skipping class.
"The conference room is closed for a private meeting," she stated.
"Right, sorry," Roman said, standing up straight. "We know him. Just wanted to make sure he got here safely."
"Sorry," Seth said, wincing.
She lifted an eyebrow, but returned to her post behind the counter, leaving them alone.
"What do we do now?" Seth asked. "Can't go inside. Can't hang around here much longer. She might tell on us."
Roman inspected the entire hotel lobby. Another set of doors caught his eye. Propped up beside the open doors was a sign welcoming hotel guests to the Residence Bar as well as drink specials.
"Excuse me," Roman said, approaching the concierge. "How late is the bar open?"
"Till midnight," she answered.
"Want to wait out in there?" he asked Seth.
"Sure, but should you be drinking, driver?"
"No, of course not. I'll order a club soda or something. But it's better than bumming around here."
"Okay. Sure."
One bartender was working the late-night shift. Roman stayed faithful to his word and ordered a club soda with lime, as tempting as a White Rascal sounded. Seth helped himself to something called "Angry Balls": a blend of cinnamon whisky and crisp apple cider.
"Holy shit," he asked after one drink, putting a fist to his mouth. "That shit packs a punch."
Roman speared the lime in his drink with a straw and swirled it around the bottom of the glass, beneath the floating ice cubes. "Dean doesn't drink much, right?"
"He'll help himself to a drink once in a while. But he's picky. He hates anything too bitter. He's got too big of a sweet tooth for that."
"So I've gathered." Roman took a small sip of the soda. "So…and I'm sorry if this is way too personal to talk about, but hey, we're two dudes drinking in a bar. I think small talk's out."
"Small talk's been out since our lives collided, Ro."
"True." Roman wrapped his massive fingers around the tiny cold glass. "Dean told me you're a three-time college dropout."
"Yes," Seth said slowly. He took another shot of the whiskey/cider combo, and his face twisted at the obscure taste.
"And I remember you telling me it's because you didn't have a real passion for anything in life. And I get that. The whole waste of time, waste of money, I get it. If I hadn't gotten a scholarship to my university and cared as much about health as I did, I bet I'd feel the same way."
"Maybe. You seem to be a really passionate person, Roman. You've got a lot going for you. Me? I never got so lucky." Seth leaned into the bar. "First time I went was for my dad, essentially. It was the norm. Graduate high school, go to college. I wanted to stay at home, I didn't want to leave the state when I didn't even care that much about going to college in the first place. Dad paid for a semester. Tried it. Hated it. Basic classes are so fucking dull. All the shit I left behind in high school, I was now relearning in a different facility. So I told him, I want to focus on work for a semester, then think about going back. He didn't like the idea, but he agreed to it. Saved him some money for a few months." He paused for another drink. "Then August came around, and he asked if I was willing to go back yet. Nah, I said, give me another semester. And that turned into another semester, which turned into 'just one more.' A year passed, and he demanded I go back. Demanded I get a degree. Like suddenly I was legally obligated to go back to school. At this point I'd been thinking about getting my own place. I'd been saving up for a while. But I couldn't go to school and live on my own, and I was actually kind of afraid if I didn't go back to school, he could kick me out of the house for 'going nowhere with my life.'"
Roman was baffled by the statement. "You really think he would have kicked you out?"
"Now, no, I don't," he said, shaking his head. "But that was the motivation I used to get my ass back into college. Enrolled for a semester at the community college. Hated it. Quit halfway through the semester. Left for school every day to hang out somewhere else, then came home with a bullshit story about what I learned that day. Don't know why I didn't just suck it up and go, but I hated it. I hated being confined in a room and told what to think, and that everything I was for the benefit of my future. What did they know about my future? What did they know about my life? Since I didn't have that passion, I didn't care about whatever I was learning, and I was so against it."
Seth paused again to order another Angry Balls. Roman would let him drink as much as he wanted to, but if it got excessive, he'd warn Seth to ease off. He didn't want Seth to get blackout drunk. That wasn't a good time for anybody.
"Anyway. Finished off that semester. Failed every class since I quit halfway through. He never found out. It's not like high school where parents get an email if you get an F. I got lucky. I told him I wanted more time to think about what I wanted in life. When the time came again for him to start nagging me about going back, I told him I hated the educational system in this country, and as much as I hated myself for not being a studious little saint like my brother, it didn't change the fact that I hated school. All forms of school. I'd rather teach myself, learn at my own pace, study what I want to study, for free. But I was tired of my dad making me feel like shit for quitting college a second time. So I thought, fuck it, and moved out. Lived on my own for a while before I took Dean in. And for a while there, I thought about going back to school. As much as you hate it, you can't help but miss it a little when you're away from it. So I enrolled in just a couple of classes, classes I thought would just be interesting, without a degree in mind just yet. Nope. Still couldn't find any interest in it. But since I paid for those two classes, I felt really obligated to finish them. Didn't pass, but at least I finished."
"Progress," Roman praised.
"So yeah. I'm done with that particular field of life. Ready to move onto better things. Don't know where my life is going from here. With Dean, every day is a new adventure."
"Dangerous adventure."
"Maybe things'll get better," Seth said, sitting up straight.
"Whoa, look at you, sounding all glass-half-full."
Seth grinned deviously as he took down another drink. "It's the alcohol. I'm still the cynical asshole I've always been. Don't be fooled."
"You're not an asshole. And being cynical is just a more practical view on life. As long as you don't approach everything negatively, and rather, realistically, there's nothing wrong with it."
"So I'm a realist. Not a cynic."
"Sure, let's go with that. That sounds a lot less douchy."
"Sorry to be confessing all my problems to you, Roman. You're just a really good listener. I can't talk about this kind of stuff with my parents or my brother, or even Dean. I'm too busy trying to keep Dean's life under control that it's too easy to forget about my own. In a way, I'm lucky I don't have more going on than looking after the kid."
"Seth, he's your best friend. He's not your responsibility. You look after him because you love him, not because you're babysitting him. It's great what you do, but you have to remember to live for yourself once in a while."
Seth nodded. "'s true. I do love him. Just forgot what it's like to have a life of my own. My whole life, I feel I've been living for others."
"Yeah, it's definitely time for you to live for yourself. Doesn't mean you have to be alone. Dean's attached to you, I'm pretty attached to you." Roman had to turn away, pretending to be distracted by something off to the right, so Seth wouldn't catch his cheeks burning red. He hadn't meant it the way it sounded. "We're not going anywhere. You definitely don't have to cater to us."
"Thanks. Means a lot, hearing that. Sometimes I care so much about people that I forget whether or not they care that much about me in return."
Roman turned back. "I care. And Dean cares. Look at what he goes through for us." He referred to their very setting, their current circumstances, with a wave.
"Take the good with the bad, like I've said," Seth muttered. "Just wish he'd stop acting so stupid."
"We still love him."
"We do. I do, and I know you do. Very much." Seth looked up at Roman with weary eyes. He was coming off his buzz already. "I'm glad he's happy with you."
"Thanks. Me too. And hey. That doesn't make you any less important to him. Or me, for that matter."
Seth smiled. "Roman, you gotta stop being such a fucking great guy over here. I'm way not sober, and I don't want to get any feelings for you."
Something tweaked at Roman's heart. "Well," he said, clearing his throat, "I could always start acting like a total dick. Turn you right the hell off."
"Nah. I prefer good guy Roman. Don't worry. I've way too much respect for you and Dean to ever try anything. Drunk or not."
Now Roman definitely didn't want Seth any more trashed than he already was. Seth finished up his drink, and Roman suggested he take in some water next. He even offered some of his club soda. Seth complied.
Roman's phone buzzed. Ready when u are. I'll be in the lobby.
"Shit," Roman said. "Dean's out. Can't sneak out from in here, can we?" His eyes searched for a different exit to the bar.
"It's fine. We can tell him the truth," Seth said. "Besides, he'll wonder where I've been drinking."
"Okay. Sure."
Roman paid for the drinks, helped Seth to his feet, and together they slowly made their way out of the bar. Sure enough, Dean was planted in a chair. He was surprised to see them already in the lobby just seconds after he sent that text.
"You guys hung out here?" he queried.
"Yeah. Figured, not a lot of places around here are gonna be open this time of night. Way too cold to wait in the car, too," Roman babbled on, stopping himself before it sounded like he was covering a worse story.
"Oh. Okay."
"Everything go okay?" Seth asked.
"Oh, yeah." Dean flashed a grin, tongue gliding between his teeth. "Everything went smoothly. My uncle is such a…"
"Good man?" Roman guessed.
"Nope. Hard-worker, we'll say. He said to lay low for a couple weeks, and he'll have them." He punched a cupped palm with the backs of his fingers. "Then life will be normal again."
"Maybe not normal," Seth groaned. "Not with you."
Dean's smile stretched further. "Okay. Not normal. But one thing is for sure: starting tonight, it's gonna get way fucking better."
Sorry if that chapter was a little slow, but I have SO many ideas - from fluffy to angsty - for where this story is going to go from this point, and I can't wait to share them with y'all! Don't forget to leave a review!