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Someone in the front office is going to get a paper bag of shit in their mailbox as soon as Dean can get himself to the post office. Roman knows the signs by now; Dean is so pissed off he’s liable to slug the next person who talks to him. He almost snapped at Seth a few minutes ago, and Dean hardly ever snaps at Seth.
But someone in charge fucked up and booked too many of the performers onto the same bus going to the next city, and Dean takes one look at the overloaded vehicle and shakes his head.
“No,” he says flatly even as his luggage is being loaded onto the bus. “No, no fucking way, I’m not getting on there.”
Roman can understand why; even from outside, he can tell that the bus is packed, and Dean doesn’t like strangers touching him on a good day. These may be their colleagues, but they do not know them, and Dean looks like he’d rather walk to Bangor than get on that bus.
“It’s not that long a trip,” says Seth. It might be more convincing had he not been wrinkling his nose as he said it. He’s not looking forward to this, either. “An hour, tops. You’ll be fine.”
“I’ll be fine because I’m not getting on that thing.” Dean still sounds certain. “I’m dead serious. You couldn’t pay me enough.”
“You don’t have a choice.” Roman settles a hand between Dean’s shoulder blades. “Seth’s right, it won’t be long at all. Anybody says a word to you, I’ll knock their teeth down their throat.”
It’s matter-of-fact, and Dean blinks at him, but there’s a hint of a smile there where there wasn’t before.
“That so?” he asks, his eyes narrowed and suspicious. In the time he’s known Dean (less than a year, impossibly, impossible that they’ve become this when they weren’t anything before) he’s learned that Dean’s default emotions are anger, suspicion, and jittery nervousness. At any given moment, he’s any combination of the three. He reminds Roman, sometimes, of a near-feral fox he’d tried to convince his dad to let him keep when he was twelve.
His dad hadn’t let him keep the fox, but so far he’s been allowed to keep Dean. And he plans to do that as long as he can, so he nods.
“Yes,” he answers aloud. “That’s so.”
Dean’s mouth turns down at the corner, and he looks ready to challenge Roman again, that sparkle in his eye like he gets in the ring sometimes when he’s just thought of a way to show off, when Seth interrupts with a yawn.
“Boys,” he says, blinking owlishly through the wispy hairs escaping his ponytail, “it’s like seven in the morning and we’ve got a bus ride ahead of us. Can we get this over with?”
Dean grumbles, but follows Seth and Roman onto the bus. Roman does a quick scan of the occupied space, and the only empty seats he comes up with are two right next to each other in the very back. They’re still surrounded by people, but at least there’s two. He glances behind him at Dean, his eyebrows pulled together, mouth set in a scowl.
“Think I’ll stand,” Dean mutters.
“You sure?” Roman asks, keeping his voice quiet. Cody Rhodes is glaring at them, and Roman glares right back until he turns to look out the window. “I don’t mind standing.”
He can hear Dean swallow. “Nah,” he mumbles. “I’d really, I’d rather stand. I don’t like—“ He cuts himself off, but Roman understands nonetheless, and shrugs.
“Your call,” he says. He takes one of the two seats, and Seth plops into the one next to him after he double-checks with Dean and receives the same answer Roman had.
Seth promptly settles his head onto Roman’s shoulder and falls asleep, the brim of his hat pulled down over his eyes. Roman sighs and rolls his eyes at Dean, who gives him a half-smile where he’s leaning against the pole he’s claimed as his own.
“Guess he wasn’t lying about being tired,” Dean comments, quietly enough that the only person who should be able to hear him is Roman. There are other people around them but most of them are either dozing or reading. It’s too early to really care about rivalries or who’s powerbombed who through what.
“Nah, he—“ Roman pauses as the bus rumbles to life, the driver starting forward on the hour-long journey they’re about to undertake. Dean’s hands clench on the pole until the bus gets up to speed and levels out. He hooks his arm around the pole and if Roman hadn’t known any better, he would’ve thought Dean was the picture of casual boredom.
It’s only that Roman knows him so well that makes him note the way Dean’s fingertips have gone white as they clench on the cuff of his jacket, the way Dean’s jaw is clenched just so.
“He didn’t sleep too well last night,” Roman finishes. He and Seth had shared the double room last night, with Dean in the single connecting room. “Not surprised he’s tired this morning.”
Dean frowns. This is something they have in common, always: worrying about Seth. If there’s anything guaranteed to distract Dean, it’s giving him something else to worry over.
“You got any idea why?” Dean presses. He glances from Roman to Seth, frowns more deeply, and then looks back to Roman.
“Not really,” admits Roman. “Might just be nerves, with the pay-per-view so close. Might be something else. He’ll tell us if we need to know.”
“How do you do that?” Dean asks suddenly, his frown turning to Roman.
“Do what?” Roman frowns back, honestly bewildered.
“Just, just say shit like that. ‘He’ll tell us if we need to know.’ How do you know that? Man can’t even pick out jeans that fit him, what makes you think he’ll tell us if something’s wrong?”
Roman very nearly laughs, but settles for quirking an eyebrow and smiling at him. “I trust him,” he says simply.
Dean snorts, and looks ready to say something else, before he stops himself. He’s still frowning, but it’s thoughtful now, and he falls silent while Roman looks out the window. Sometimes, with Dean, it’s important to know when to stop talking and let him figure out his own shit.
Half an hour goes by without a word from either of them, though the rest of the bus gets progressively louder as everybody begins to wake up. In the WWE, even if you’re not friends with everybody, everybody’s at least linked in some way or another, so most find it easy enough to have a conversation with the people around them.
Well, except for the Shield, of course. Roman smiles to himself. They stick to each other and that’s about it.
With the elevated noise returns Dean’s white-knuckled grip on the pole, his face set in a determined scowl that would deter anybody from speaking to him even if they’d wanted to. His head’s ducked low and he’s glaring at the ground, and as Roman watches, the fingers of one hand tap against his thumb in a pattern; pinky, ring, middle, index, pinky, ring, middle, index.
Roman watches him wind himself tightly until he swears if Dean clenches his hands into fists any harder his tendons are going to snap. He reaches out without thinking and closes his own hand around Dean’s, his fingertips curving around to rest against Dean’s pulse, thump-thump-thumping erratically. Dean tenses even more at first, then relaxes. Just a little, but it’s something.
“You okay?” Roman asks, still looking out the window, using his hair to cover the movements of his mouth. It’s a stupid question; Dean’s clearly not okay, but he doesn’t know what else to ask.
Dean coughs, shrugs, his fingertips tap against the pole in the same pattern as they’d been tapping against his thumb. He doesn’t say anything, and Roman sighs.
“Hey,” he says quietly, giving Dean’s wrist a tug. He’s not bothering to look out the window now, instead keeping his eye on the way Dean’s paler than he usually is and he’s sweating even though it’s fairly cold on the bus.
“What?” Dean coughs again, but shuffles his feet forward.
“Turn around,” Roman says, and it says a lot about them when even as Dean is frowning at him, he does it, shifting himself around the pole enough that his back’s to Roman and looking over his shoulder to keep an eye on him.
“What’re you doing?” Dean asks suspiciously. At least that’s what Roman assumes he was going to say. He only manages to say “What’re you—“ and then squawk when Roman tucks three fingers into the back of his jeans and yanks him back and down, until he’s sat firmly on Roman’s lap.
“What are you doing?” he hisses, already trying to stand up again. Roman sets a hand on Dean’s hip, not nearly enough pressure to keep him there if he doesn’t want to be, and Dean stops squirming. “What are you doing?” he asks again, in a more normal tone, though his shoulders are still locked tight.
“Calming you down,” Roman says, keeping half an eye on where Seth is still dozing against his shoulder while he balances Dean. This is his team. These are his boys and watching Dean get progressively antsier standing there had given him a surge of emotion that he didn’t want to ignore. Sure, there’s probably about fifteen minutes left in the bus ride, and Dean could’ve done it, of that Roman has no doubt, but he shouldn’t have to.
He’s responsible for them, just like they’re responsible for him, and if there’s any way he can help then he’s going to do it. Whatever they might need.
“I’m fine,” says Dean, but he doesn’t try to stand back up again. He gropes down his side until he finds Roman’s hand on his hip, and squeezes it. Their hands are hidden down between them and the side of the bus, and even if they weren’t, nobody’s looking at them. The bus is too crowded for anybody to pay attention to them in the back.
“I know,” Roman says. What he knows is that Dean would never in a million years admit to Roman that he’s anything but fine because he feels like he has to be the strong one when it’s them. That’s how it’s always been and Roman’s learned to live with it like he’s learned to live with everything else about Dean.
He learned to live with Dean’s tendency to steal food off other peoples’ plates when they ate out. He learned to live with the way Dean seems to dance for absolutely no reason and then have no recollection of it afterwards. He learned to live with knowing that Seth always, always, always comes first. And he’s learned to live with Dean being Fine, always, whenever it’s Roman asking.
He doesn’t know how to tell Dean that it doesn’t have to be like that, that he can let Roman be fine for him without Roman thinking him weak for it, that Dean can let someone else take care of him for a change and it doesn’t have to mean anything other than what it is, and Roman won’t expect anything in return. Dean doesn’t know how it works, to let somebody do something for you and not constantly be on edge waiting for the moment they’ll call in your return favor.
Dean doesn’t know unconditional friendship works. But he doesn’t need to know how it works for Roman to give it to him anyway.
Roman slides his fingers between Dean’s, and Dean still doesn’t move away. He’s still tense, but it’s not as obvious as it was when he was standing, and from what Roman can see at this angle, he’s not as pale as he was.
Dean clears his throat. “I am fine,” he murmurs, as he relaxes, his back pressing against Roman’s chest. Roman wonders what this would look like to everybody else on the bus, but he doesn’t care, really. As far as he’s concerned, the three of them are all that matter, and Seth wouldn’t care even if he was awake.
“I know you are,” Roman says. He smiles, and pats Dean’s side where his hand is resting. “Not much time left in the ride. Might as well stay there.”
Dean sighs heavily, and Roman can tell he makes a face even without being able to see it. “Yeah, alright,” he mutters. “You fight dirty, y’know.”
“You’re one to talk,” Roman points out. Dean laughs, which is reward enough, and he looks out the window the rest of the way to Bangor. Roman wonders if he’s thinking about weakness, or debts, or friendship. Most likely, he’s thinking about stealing Seth’s hat and hiding behind Roman when Seth tries to get it back, and that’s just fine with him.