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A story is only as good as its pacing, Dean thinks; as the difference between its beginning and middle and end. He’s not sure what point they’ve reached yet, the three of them, in this masterpiece they’re writing together, but he knows, at least, that it’s far from over. There’s far too much left to say, to do.
The weight of it is carved into his bones, carried in his heart, and that’s something he has learned to live with, along with everything else.
Dean is a book only they have bothered to open. Seth skimmed through, running his finger over every word like he’d been expecting them, stretching the binding and folding the pages. Roman is still reading, even now, finishes only to start all over again, every time, as if no word has ever been recorded that is worthy of his attention but the emotions scrawled across Dean’s face, written in every line of his body. He isn’t bothered by Dean’s missing jacket and cracked spine; in fact, seems to love him all the more for them, adds his own little marks as he goes, highlights the important parts so Dean he doesn’t forget them.
Dean never feels the fragility of his thin paper pages more than when he’s under either of their gazes, and tonight, standing between the two of them, all eyes on him, only two pairs mattered. He feels torn, ripped and bent and water warped, and never, never more well-loved.
Now, hidden away in their hotel room, Dean has his prize laid out before him, the ostentatiousness of the leather and gold and jewels on the belt mesmerizing. It’s difficult to look at, the same way Seth and Roman are hard to look at, sometimes, the way all beautiful things seem like they were not meant for Dean’s eyes. Up close, the title is excessive and gaudy, but it has hugged the curves of Seth’s waist, rested against Seth’s shoulder, and that alone makes it lovely, this piece of Seth that is Dean’s now, to keep and share with Roman.
Roman is standing behind him, looking at Dean as Dean is looking at the belt, fingers pressed into his shoulder, and Dean can feel the scratch as they clench and release, a pen printing Roman’s name in ink yet again, as if he isn’t on every page of Dean already. Roman writes himself further into Dean’s heart, and Dean reaches out for the title, hand hovering over the nameplate, palm pressing down hard into Seth’s initials for seconds. Maybe longer—time seems to hang in the air around them, Roman and Dean and now Seth, too, because when Dean raises his hand again he can feel the engraving without even looking, can feel Seth stamped into his palm the same way Roman is inscribed on his shoulder blade, and Dean could never, ever forget that they are there, but he aches to press that nameplate, Roman’s hand, to his chest, print them both across his rib cage so that everyone will know, everyone will see. People will judge him by his cover so he will wear his heart on his sleeve and the whole world will know what this was all for, what he means, what everything means.
He hefts the belt over his shoulder again, turns to look Roman in the eye. “Look at you,” Roman breathes, awe heavy in his voice, like he’s never seen this passage before. Like there are still new things to discover about Dean, new ways to see him even when Roman already knows every word by heart. “Look at you.”
(That is to say that Roman loves him, because there is nothing that Roman ever says that doesn’t boil down to I love you, in the end, and Dean loves him as well, in spite of this failing.)
The title is heavier than it looks, but it feels so light in his arms, right now, as he lifts Roman’s hand off of his body and presses it, too, against the same spot where Dean’s just rested. Roman’s eyes flash, cold, hot. He has heard that when you are hypothermic, when you are freezing to death, you begin to feel warm, while the opposite is true of hyperthermia, burning in a blizzard, freezing in a fire. Roman is the same, too much of something but Dean’s not sure what, his mouth scalding and glacial where it meets Dean’s, but when Roman’s hand that touched the belt rests itself on the center of Dean’s sternum, it’s not quite pain that brings tears to his eyes.
“Put it on,” Roman breathes into Dean’s throat when they’re both naked, Roman lying on the bed and Dean hovering over him, his hand turning the pages as slow as he dares, like he doesn’t want this chapter to end, though Dean would let him read it as many times as he wants. Dean’s breath stutters out in a sigh, fingers scrambling to tighten the belt on the last notch, and when he falls on top of Roman, Roman moans like this, like everything, was worth it.
Roman’s hands, once he’s inside Dean—burning ice feeling up his spine—grip Dean’s thighs, the left one sliding up inch by inch to run over the title sinking lower on his hips, before coming to a rest just above his waist, touching Dean’s side with more reverence than it had the gold plating. His right hand runs blunt nails up and down Dean’s thigh, before gripping it again, tighter, and Dean looks down at Roman and has to close his eyes. It feels too much like flying, too much like falling, Roman is too much and he’s not enough in equal measure.
“It’s okay,” Roman says, firm hands holding Dean together in this moment, keeping the pages from falling out. “It’s us, baby, it’s you and me.” And Seth, Dean wants to say, taking his right palm emblazoned with SR and covering the center of Roman’s chest with it. There cannot be any of them without the third—they are all three of them between these sheets, whether they want to admit it or not. Whether Seth wants to be, or not. Roman groans like he can feel Seth, too, in Dean’s hands, and Dean feels substantiated, less flimsy than before.
Roman is looking at Dean like he’s burning to, and Dean, he’s burning to be seen. “Never put me away,” he asksbegs, feverhot, page edges starting to curl. The title is heavy around his waist, the cold metal contrasting with the heat of Roman, and he shivers now, even as he’s sweating. Roman’s eyes should always be on him. “Don’t ever put me on the shelf.”
And Roman, he grasps Dean’s thigh even tighter, bruising. Dean is wrinkled and stained and torn at the edges and when everything wound tight in him comes to the surface, his eyes slam shut, the words inside him coming to life, coupled with the melody of Roman’s moans beneath him.
“Tell me your favorite part,” he whispers, after, when Roman’s index finger is tracing the sex scene on his hip (his entire body is a love letter to Roman, to Seth, to both of them at once and each of them separately; that’s the only tale it can tell, really—every story Dean knows has always been about love). Roman’s hand stills like he’s lost his place, like he’s afraid he might and won’t know where to pick up again. And that’s okay, really—Dean will help.
That large hand runs up his side, coming to rest over his heart, again. This, then, is the climax, the part of the story that everyone has been waiting for, the payoff for everything that’s come before, and Dean finds his own breath trapped, waiting in anticipation. He’s making it all up as he goes along; Roman is helping him write it.
“I think I like this best,” the rumble vibrates against Dean’s side. Roman lowers his mouth to the crook of Dean’s neck, right where it meets his shoulder. Dean thinks of a hundred thousand embraces, Roman’s head resting in this spot a hundred thousand times, of celebration and comfort and home, and he knows Roman reads all those things reflected in his eyes, can see it on Roman’s face. Dean wonders if Roman sees other things, too, if he’s glimpsed their last chapter in the curve of Dean’s spine, if he knows how this story ends.
Roman presses his forehead against Dean’s, where everything starts, no space between them. Turns back to the beginning all over again.