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Of all the people Roman thought would be at his door when he heard the knock early Saturday afternoon, Dean was one of the last. He stood there, duffel bag on one shoulder and arms thrown wide, grinning like a loon.
“Surprise,” he said.
“What are you doing here?” Roman replied, confused. Dean was off this weekend as well, so why was he here in Florida and not home in Las Vegas?
“Really, Ro? That’s how you greet me?” Dean grumbled, dropping his hands and pushing past him into the house.
“Hello, Dean, it’s nice to see you,” Roman deadpanned. “Now, why are you here? I thought you were going to bar crawl the strip?”
Dean dropped his duffel on the floor and shrugged. “I changed my mind. Wanna grab some pizza for lunch?”
Before Roman could respond, a small streak with pigtails rushed into the room and launched herself at Dean. “Uncle Dean!” she squealed as he caught her and held her in the air.
“Hey, little darlin’, what do you say, should we have your daddy get us pizza for lunch?”
“Yes!” she said, punching the air. Dean settled her on his hip and stared at Roman, widening his blue eyes and sticking his lip out in a ridiculous pout. Jo emulated him, big brown eyes. “Pleeeassse,” she begged.
Roman felt blindsided. He looked from his lover to his daughter and shook his head in disbelief. He threw his hands in the air in resignation. “Alright. Jo, go get your shoes.”
“Yes!” she shouted, wiggling out of Dean’s grip and running to her room.
“Y’know, I actually had a healthy lunch planned.”
Dean shrugged, unrepentant. “Eh, it’s Saturday, it doesn’t count. So where are you taking us? I want real pizza, too, not anything with pineapples on it.”
“You like pineapples,” Roman reminded him.
“Not on pizza. That’s sacrilege in my book.”
Roman rolled his eyes as Jo came back in the room, shoes on the right feet. They had been working on that lately, and it looked like she was mastering it with ease. An internal flush of pride raced through him as he led their odd little trio out to the car.
***
Dean and Jo were currently in deep conversation about the best method to eating pizza across from him. He kept quiet, watching them interact as he ate. They were in a small booth off to the side of the local pizzeria. Jo had decided to stick to Dean like glue, wrinkling her nose at the pineapple on Roman’s pizza and declaring that she didn’t like it all, and that she was going to sit beside Dean to get away from it.
This despite the fact that just the day before she was snacking on it with her grandfather as they watched Dora the Explorer on TV. Dean was going to explain this one to Galina, not him.
“No, see, you gotta eat all at once, right? That’s what pizza was made for, to mix all the flavors together,” Dean said, taking a large bite of his meat lover’s pizza.
“But I like them one at a time,” Jo explained, exasperation creeping in her voice. She had taken her pizza slice apart, pepperoni in one pile on the side and cheese in another, and the bread and sauce in middle between the two.
Roman just grinned to himself as Dean shook his head at her. There was no changing Jo’s mind when she got it set on something, and not even Uncle Dean was going to succeed at that.
They ate in silence for a while, and Roman let his mind wander. He still wasn’t sure why Dean was here. Sure, it was possible that he had just simply changed his mind, but Roman didn’t believe that. There was an odd look in Dean’s eyes when he thought Roman wasn’t looking. It was… lost? Angry? He couldn’t quite pin it down, but it something was bothering Dean, and it was enough that he had gotten on a plane to go halfway across the country to show up on Roman’s doorstep.
Dean abruptly stood up, shaking Roman out of his thoughts.
“Gotta hit the head,” he said, and walked off towards the bathrooms. As soon as he was out of sight, Jo piped up.
“Daddy?”
“Yeah?”
“Why is Uncle Dean sad?” she asked. Roman blinked in surprise. Yeah, something was definitely off with Dean and even Jo was noticing.
“I don’t know, baby girl. He’ll tell us when he’s ready, okay? Don’t ask him.” She nodded in response, but her expression told him she wasn’t satisfied with that answer. “Hey, maybe he’s just having a bad day, okay? We’ll try and cheer him up. How about when we get back you get out your tea set? He really liked the tea party you two had last time.”
“Good idea,” she said, nodding more strongly this time. He smiled at her, knowing that she would do her very best to make Dean feel better. He hoped it would help.
And he wasn’t entirely lying, Dean actually had seemed to like playing tea party with her when he was in town a few months back. Roman had the pictures to prove it. He had sat on the floor, tiny teacup in hand, a paper hat that Jo had made just for him on his head-- a crown that he declared looked much more realistic than Barrett’s, which had Roman almost dying to tell the Brit that-- and pinkie in the air like a professional tea partier. He had been wearing old, torn jeans and one of his Moxley shirts that had seen much better days, biker boots, and a pink feather boa across his shoulders.
“Pink is a manly color,” he had growled in response to Roman’s half-hearted attempt at stifling his laughter. He had just walked into the living room and had been presented with that image. Of course he had to capture it, and if it was the background to his lock screen on his phone, well, only he knew that.
“What are you smiling about?” the man in question asked, settling back into his seat.
“Oh, nothing,” Roman told him, grinning.
Dean raised an eyebrow at him, then turned to Jo to ask her something, but cut himself off as she grinned at him, too. He leaned back slightly, and glanced between she and Roman.
“I’m sensing a family conspiracy,” he said.
“Maybe,” Roman agreed.
“Shit,” he said, staring down at his plate.
“Bad word,” Jo scolded. “Now finish your pizza, there’s stuff to do at home.”
“Oh, God, she starting to sound like her mother,” Dean muttered, and Roman laughed out loud at that.
***
Jo had decided to go all out for the tea party, using the small desk in her room as a table and a Frozen bath towel as a tablecloth. She even insisted he make little pinkie sandwiches, even though they had just ate. Dean was wearing his hat and boa again, and Roman hadn’t escaped the treatment, either, wearing a purple boa. He didn’t have a hat, but he did have glitter-painted nails.
“I ain’t no good at this, your nails are too freaking small.”
“Practice makes perfect, that’s what Mommy says. Someday, she says, she’ll be perfect at nail painting, and if Mommy can do it, so can you!” Jo chirped in support. She patiently held her hands out on the table, while Dean did his best at painting them. His tongue was stuck out in concentration, and Roman really wished he hadn’t left his phone in the kitchen because this needed to be memorialized. He wondered if he could sneak out past them and grab it.
“Yeah, well, your mommy has had a lot more practice than me, and I see you looking, Ro, don’t even think about getting that phone.”
“Daddy, no, your nails are still wet! They’ll be messed up!”
“Okay, okay,” said, raising his hands with their still wet nails in defeat.
“There, finished. Finally,” Dean said, sticking the brush back in the bottle and shaking the cramp out of his hand. He had held it so tight Roman wondered if it hadn’t gone numb on him.
“Good, then when these dry, it’s your turn!” beamed Jo.
“Uh…” was Dean’s intelligent response.
“Don’t you want pretty nails?” Roman could see a pout beginning on Jo’s face, and thought, oh no, here we go.
“Uh, well… I mean… Do you have any black?”
“Black?” she repeated, confused.
“Yeah, y’know, black. And, uh, then you put the glitter on top. It makes the glitter really stand out,” Dean explained.
“Oh,” she said. She looked around her room. “I don’t have black…”
“Ah, well, maybe next time--”
“But Mommy does in her room! I’ll go get it!” And she was up and out of the room before Roman could call her back.
“Watch your nails! They’re still wet!” he called out to her instead.
“I will!” she shouted back.
“Shit,” Dean hissed.
“Don’t worry, I’ll paint them for her if they get messed up.”
“No, I mean, shit, I had hoped there wouldn’t be any black and I could get out of it,” Dean said, glaring at him, then at his short, partially chewed-off nails.
“Well, I think Galina has some kind of metallic pink color, too. You could say it’s a Bret Hart tribute.” Dean returned his glare to him, then stood up and left the room.
“Get the pink, too,” Roman heard him tell Jo down the hall. He blew on his nails and got up. Perfect time to get his phone.
***
Roman’s new wallpaper on his phone now matched his lockscreen, only it was Dean and Jo in their tea party gear and pretty nails, smiling at the camera. Jo was smiling, anyhow, Dean looked like a wet cat and was not so subtly flipping him off, black and pink nail polish on display. He would have growled him for doing that in front of Jo, but he had been too busy trying to not cackle like a hyena.
They ended up accidentally spilling the pink polish on the carpet in Jo’s room, which Galina was probably going to kill him for, but he honestly thought it was worth it just for that picture. He had cleaned up the polish as best as he could, but there was still a stain. He’d pay for professional cleaning and would buy her a new bottle of polish as an apology. She didn’t need a mess to come back to when she got back from visiting her dad.
They had whiled away the afternoon, finishing the tea party and then watching cartoons. They all napped on the couch before Roman roused them for supper, a healthy supper despite Dean’s suggestion of pizza again. He had given Jo her bath afterward, and they were now sitting in the living room again, Dean next to him as he gently brushed his daughter’s hair and began braiding it in one long braid.
“You’re doing it wrong,” Dean told him.
“No, I’m not,” he replied.
“Yes, you are. You’re doing it backwards, it’s over the middle, not under it.”
“This is the way I was taught and I haven’t had any complaints.”
“It’s still wrong.”
“I like the way Daddy does it,” Jo told Dean. Dean looked put-out.
“See?” Roman couldn’t resist adding. Dean rolled his eyes and flopped back against the couch. “There, all done,” Roman told her. She twisted around and hugged him.
“Thank you, Daddy.”
“You’re welcome. It’s bed time now,” he said, nudging off his lap and to her feet. “Say goodnight to Dean.”
She stood, but didn’t say anything. Instead, she bit her lip, looking at Dean. She then looked up at him, and he saw a question in her eyes.
“What’s wrong, baby girl?”
“Daddy, Mommy told me that someday I’d get another mommy or daddy. That you or her would find someone you love very much and they’d be my new mommy or daddy.”
That… was not what he was expecting. He had thought she’d ask to stay up or have Dean tuck her in or something. He had an inkling where she was going with this, and he wasn’t entirely sure how to react to it.
“She’s right. We will always be your mommy and daddy, but someday you might have another mommy or daddy.”
“Is Uncle Dean my new daddy?”
And there it was. Dean was frozen beside him; Roman wasn’t sure if he was even breathing at this point. He wasn’t entirely sure he was breathing at this point.
“What makes you ask that?” he managed to get out.
“You love Uncle Dean very much. You told me that. And he loves you, I heard him say it once,” she stated simply. “He smiles real big when he sees you. And you smile at him a lot, too.”
He couldn’t deny that, at least on his part. Even the few times he wanted to throttle Dean, he usually ended up smiling at him like, he was sure, a complete idiot. How they had ever managed to keep their relationship mostly to themselves was a mystery to him.
“Do you want him to be your new daddy?” he asked, and he heard a sharp inhale next to him. Jo grinned widely at him and nodded.
“Yes! You are Daddy and he can be Daddy Dean!” she said. She turned to Dean and Roman couldn’t resist looking himself.
Dean looked like he had been shot. He stared at her in disbelief, and Roman thought he saw a quick flash of-- fear? Jo took a step towards him and Dean bolted, out of the room so fast that Roman barely saw him move. The slam of the back door echoed through the house.
“...Daddy?” Jo whispered. She looked like she was going to cry. He stood and gathered her up in his arms.
“Shh, it’s okay. You just surprised him is all. Let’s put you in bed, and Daddy will go talk to him, okay?” He felt her nod against his shoulder as he walked toward her room. He pulled back the covers and began to tuck her in, giving her the stuffed lion she loved so much. Dean, damn him, had given it to her on her last birthday.
“Don’t he want to be my daddy?” she asked, and the tremble in her voice broke his heart.
“I think does, baby girl.”
“Then why did he run?”
How does he explain this to a little girl? How does he explain something he’s not entirely sure he understands himself? Roman sighed, and finished tucking her in. He sat next to her and tried to find the words.
“I think Dean is scared. He didn’t have a good daddy himself, and I think he’s scared he’s not going to be a good one.”
“But he’s a great daddy!” she protested. “He really is!”
“I know, baby girl. We both know that. And we’ll try to get him to see that, okay? Don’t worry. I’ll talk to him while you get some sleep.” He kissed her forehead and turned the light off.
“Goodnight, Daddy,” she said, holding tight to the lion. “And you tell Daddy Dean I said goodnight, too. Tell him that.”
“I will.”
“Promise?”
“I promise. Now get some sleep,” he said, kissing her forehead again. He left the door partially open, the hall light serving as her nightlight, although it wasn’t dark out yet.
He found Dean sitting on the deck steps out back. He was staring silently into the distance, and Roman felt his heart break again. He hated that thousand yard stare on Dean. He sat down next to him.
“Jo insisted I tell you that she says goodnight,” he told him, leaving off the name change for now. Dean closed his eyes and winced.
“Fuck, Ro, I’m sorry,” he said, sounding exhausted. “I didn’t make her cry did I? Shit.”
“She’ll be okay, she just doesn’t understand why you ran. She thinks you don’t want to be her daddy.”
“I don’t-- I can’t-- fuck,” Dean said, clenching his hands into fists. “She don’t want me as her dad, alright? I ain’t no one’s dad, I can’t be.”
“She does, actually, and she thinks you’re a great dad. I think you are, too,” he told him. Dean shook his head and covered his face with his hands.
Silence fell between them. Dean was bouncing his leg, he was never still for too long, but this time it felt more than just excess energy. Roman thought he’d have to break the silence himself when Dean growled out a harsh ‘fuck’ and slapped his hands down on the wooden step so hard that Roman winced in sympathy.
“I lied, okay? I didn’t come here just because I changed my mind,” he finally said.
“I figured. What happened?” Roman asked softly.
“When I got home there were two letters waitin’ for me. One was from the prison, letting me know that due to overcrowding and good behavior, my dad got paroled out.”
“And the other?”
“From my dad,” Dean ground out. “The son of a bitch sent me a letter. I don’t fuckin’ know how he got my address, probably one of my useless cousins, but there it was, this letter he wrote saying about how I owed him.”
“Owe him?” Roman was confused. Dean didn’t owe that scumbag anything from what Roman knew. If anything, it was the other way around.
“Yeah, owe him. ‘You owe me, and now you gotta pay up ‘cause I’m out of prison and you’re all famous and shit and have the money.’ Like fuck I’m paying him anything!” Dean nearly yelled. “No, no, he’s not gettin’ shit from me. I was so pissed I walked back out and went to the airport. I was goin’ to go Cincinnati to beat his ass, but I flew here instead. I was afraid I’d kill the fucker in front of everyone.”
“Good call,” Roman said. “You know you are always welcomed here, and that piece of shit doesn’t deserve the time of day from you. I just can’t figure out how you owe him anything. Did he get kicked in the head too much in prison?”
Dean snorted. “Probably, but that’s not why.” He paused and Roman just waited him out. If he didn’t go asking or pushing, Dean would usually answer him in his own time.
“He thinks I’m the reason why he is-- was-- in prison,” Dean explained a moment later. “It’s… it’s a fuckin’ long story.”
“I got time,” Roman said, shrugging. “Want a beer?”
“Fuck, yes,” was the reply.
He retrieved the beer and sat back down next to Dean, who drank half the bottle in one go. He rested the cold bottle against his forehead, and Roman waited again, letting Dean gather his thoughts. He drank his own beer slower, looking out over the back yard. He idly thought about things he wanted to do with it, including getting Jo a proper swingset. She just had a small swing off a tree limb now that his dad had put up, but he wanted her to have a slide, a playhouse, the whole shebang. If he got enough time off he’d build one himself, but that wasn’t looking likely at the moment.
“My dad did whatever for cash,” Dean started, drawing Roman from his thoughts. “Sell drugs, petty theft, hawking shit out of the apartment, you name it. Mom hated it, but it helped pay the rent and kept her from needing to sell herself too much. I’d get dragged into it, too, he’d shove a couple of dimebags in my hand and kick me out to go sell to the others in the building.
“One day, this fuckin’ junkie he knew, I don’t even remember the dirtbag’s name, couldn’t pay for his dope. Dad was pissed. I was there, sittin’ in the kitchen, countin’ what little money we had and watching him rage at this idiot, and I’m thinkin’ I’m about five minutes away from witnessin’ a murder. Instead, this junkie says that he knows someone who’s going to rob a drugstore, get some good shit, Oxy and all that, and that he needs someone for backup. The junkie’s too fucking strung out to be any use, but he says that my dad could do it, and that this guy would split it all with him.
“Now Oxy is a fuckin’ gold mine, alright? You can make a shit load of cash on it fast, more than you can make sellin’ dope or dimebags part-time in a month. Dad was all over that, and said if it went well, he’d clear the junkie’s debt. And at first I’m relieved, thinkin’ this will be great, we won’t fuckin’ starve this week. Dad’s just backup, he’s just gonna watch out for the cops, and that’s all.”
“I’m guessing that wasn’t all,” Roman said. Dean chugged the rest of his beer and then shook his head.
“Of course not,” he said after he swallowed. He set the empty bottle on the step below him. “See, this other guy needed a gun to hold the place up. Dad had one, this old .38 revolver, but wasn’t going to give it up to this guy, thinkin’ he’d steal it. See, that’s what he would do, and he thought everyone acted like he did. So he insisted that he’d be the one to do the stick-up part, and the other guy be the backup. I heard them talkin’ about it on the phone, and that’s when I knew this was going to be goddamn disaster.
“See, Dad was twitchy, right? Real twitchy from the shit he snorted or smoked or whatever. You think I’m bad? He practically fuckin’ vibrated, and he was paranoid, and now you give him a loaded gun? I tried to talk him out of it, but he just backhanded me and kicked me out of the apartment. I was so fuckin’ pissed that I just wanted to find the nearest phone and call the cops on his ass. I really wanted to, y’know? But I didn’t, because there was this chance he wouldn’t fuck it up, and we’d be okay for a little while.
“So I crashed at a friend’s place for the night and head back in the morning. Dad’s not there. Mom said that he was afraid I’d rat him out, so he called the other guy and said that they were gonna rob the place that morning instead of the next night. I don’t know how he convinced him to do it, the guy must’ve been damn desperate to agree to this. See, this drugstore was only a block from the precinct, right? And they were gonna do it late at night when most of the cops are too busy breakin’ up fights and shit around the neighborhood and were too tired to respond fast. Instead, it was morning, with fresh cops on a new shift, and the area was as quiet as it ever was. Fuckin’ stupid.
“Damn, I’m craving a smoke,” Dean said off-handedly. “Thinkin’ back on this always makes me want one.”
“I didn’t know you smoked.” Roman was beginning to reel a bit from what Dean was telling him, and he knew the bad part hadn’t come yet. He held up his mostly empty beer bottle. “Another?”
“Yeah,” Dean said. “And yeah, I smoked in high school. Not since I started training, though.”
Roman thought on that as he grabbed two more beers from the fridge. Dean, the scruffy high school kid with a cigarette in his mouth, dimebags in his pocket, and a chip on his shoulder the size of a McMahon’s ego. It was easy to picture, and he didn’t like that. He didn’t like any of this, in truth, but he’d let Dean tell his story and he’d be there for him in any way Dean would let him.
He returned with the beer and they both took a moment to enjoy its coolness. Dean’s leg was still bouncing, but not as violently, and Roman hoped that was a good sign.
“So, anyway, Mom and I are waiting, and I’m thinking we’re just going to be getting a jailhouse call from him later on. Instead, less than an hour later, the door bursts open and there he is, gun in hand, eyes wild like he’s tweakin’ on something, and he’s got blood on him.
“Mom starts screaming, but he just ignores her and slams the door shut. He starin’ at me and he starts walkin’ towards me, bringing the gun up to my head.”
“He did what?” Roman growled, his hand tightening into a fist around the bottle’s neck. Dean’s eyes remained out on the yard, but there was a tenseness in his jaw.
“He puts up against my head, and starts yelling that I sold him out, I fuckin’ sold him out, that the cops were there too fast, and that the other guy was dead, and that the clerk was dead, he had to shoot him because he moved wrong, and that he was going to kill me.
“Mom’s still screaming, begging him to leave me alone. I’m thinkin’, ‘That’s it, I’m dead.’ I guess Mom’s screaming finally gets to him, because he swings the gun around to her and yells at her to shut up or she’s dead, too.
“I just fuckin’ snapped. I don’t even really remember what happened, I just grabbed at the gun. It went off a couple of times, I think, into the wall. He hit me with it, busting my head open. I guess my blood made him lose his grip or something, because next I know the gun’s out of his hand on the floor. I kick him in the nuts and grab the gun off the floor.”
Dean paused and took a deep drink. Up until now his voice had wavered between anger and resignation, but as he started to speak again, it went into a monotone that made the hair on the back of Roman’s neck stand up.
“There he is, on the floor, and I’m holdin’ the gun on him. It’s a revolver, right, so I can see that there’s still two bullets in the chamber. And I’m thinkin’, I could do it. I could just shoot him dead. What would the cops care? It was self-defense, and it was one less scumbag they had to deal with. I just keep thinking that. I should just shoot him in the head, blow his brains out all over the living room wall. Just-- pow-- gone. But I hesitate, because we need his money, and I hate it, but I don’t want Mom out turnin’ tricks all the time, and I can’t decide what to do.
“I don’t know how long I stood there thinking about it. Seconds, minutes, I don’t know. Next thing I know is there’s about half a dozen cops in the apartment, and one of them’s got a gun on me, tellin’ me to put mine down. Shouting it, actually, and Mom’s still screaming, and Dad’s on the floor cussing me out. The gun’s still slippery with my blood, so I just relax my hand a bit and it falls right out. And I just kinda fall down with it, dizzy as fuck, and there’s just so much yelling going on.
“I passed out, and the next I know I’m wakin’ up in the hospital, stitches in my head and a mild concussion. Mom’s out tryin’ to get bail for him, so I’m by myself until a cop shows up and asks me to tell him what happened. I don’t tell him I knew about the robbery, I just tell him about that morning. I can’t get out of that, and I’m still pissed at Dad for fucking everything up anyhow, and besides, they got him dead to rights on everything anyway.
“Anyway, cop tells me that Dad’s going to prison for murder, robbery, assault, and a bunch of other shit. I guess a cop got injured when they showed up and started shooting at them, so they’re putting that on him, too. It was dumb luck he managed to get away out the back without a bullet in him. I wish he hadn’t.
“So the cop’s right. Dad has the one moment of intelligence in his life and pleads guilty to avoid risking the death penalty in a trial. He gets twenty years. And he blamed me for it. Mom did a bit, too, because now she had to work more on the streets. And I helped where I could, I’d kept doin’ what he had me doin’, but she hated that, didn’t want me ending up like him. And I didn’t, but then we had to take my little cousin in, and I had to then, but I was smart about it. I’d just go downtown and pick pockets. I didn’t touch credit cards, just took cash. And I got fuckin’ great at it. But I missed too much school, and they sent someone around, and they saw how we lived, and they took my cousin from us. Tried to take me, too, but I split and they gave up after a while. I guess they thought I was a lost cause. I stayed in school in more, but it wasn’t for me. We got by. I saw my cousin sometimes. They had him with some foster family that had ten other kids, and I still don’t get how that was better than us, but he was fed and clothed and had shelter, and I figured that was good enough. I was still around for him if he needed me. Not long after that I found that Les’s place and started working there. Slept there a lot, too. Never saw Mom much after that.”
Dean laughed suddenly, bitter and harsh, startling Roman. He had been transfixed by Dean’s words and more than anything wanted to pull the man into his arms and never let him go.
“Fuck, here I am, tellin’ you shit you don’t need to hear,” Dean said.
“Hey, no, I’m always here to listen,” Roman replied, emphasizing his words as best as he could. “Always. You want to tell me anything, you can, and I’ll listen.”
“I know,” murmured Dean. The monotone had left his voice, for which Roman was very thankful. “I’m just-- I didn’t mean to dump all this on you.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Then why do you look like you’re about to punch something?”
“Seriously? After what you just told me? I want to go Cincinnati myself and beat the shit out of your dad. You know what, no, he doesn’t even deserve to be called that. He may have helped to create you, but was probably the only good thing in his life he ever did.” Dean snorted at that. “I mean it.”
“I know you do.”
Roman wanted to shake him, wanted to tell him that he was great man, that he was not his father, and that he deserved the goddamn world on a silver platter. And Roman was going to do everything in his power to give him that, and tell him every day how much of a good man he was if he had to, if it would finally sink into that hard head of his.
“You don’t owe him anything.”
“I’m aware--”
“No, let me finish,” Roman interrupted. He turned and waited until Dean finally looked at him. “You don’t owe him jack shit. And everything you just told me only proves to me what I’ve always thought about you-- that you have a good heart, that you would do anything for those you love, and that you are the toughest bastard I have ever known. Life tried to screw you over, but you told it to go fuck itself and made something of yourself. Anyone else would be bitter as hell, and yeah, you got some in you, but you also have happiness and love and laughter and this fighting spirit that I stand in awe of, and you are this fantastic person that I am so grateful to have met.”
“Ro…” Dean tried to turn away, but Roman put his hands on either side of Dean’s face and held him there. He leaned in and pressed their foreheads together.
“Listen to me: I want you. I want you in my life. I want you in my daughter’s life. You think you’d be this horrible dad, I know you do, but you’re not. You are great dad to her. She loves you. And I know you love her, too, because you told me you’d kill for her, and I know you’d die for her, too, just like I would. And I get that maybe you’re still not comfortable with being a dad to her, but at least think about it, would you?”
“I don’t know how to be a dad,” said, jerking his head back to look Roman in the eyes.
“Dean, I love you, but you’re being an idiot,” Roman said. “You already are doing it, and you’re good at it. You talk to her, you listen to her, you play with her, you let her paint your nails, you paint her nails and I know you hate it, but you do it because it makes her happy. When we’re on the road, you talk to her on Skype as much as I do. That stuffed lion you gave her? Remember what you told her about it?”
“It would protect her while you were away.”
“Exactly. You know what she named it? Dean. I asked her about it, and she said that Dean the Lion protects her like you protect me. That Dean will always keep the monsters away.”
Dean was silent at that. Roman let go of his head and sighed. He was pushing too much, he was certain, and he always told himself he wouldn’t do that to Dean, but damn it, Dean needed to know.
“I’m not asking you to decide right now or tomorrow or next week. Just think about it, okay? I know we never exactly planned on this, us, ending up here, but I like it. I like you here, and I want you here. Any way you can give, and if that means you stay Uncle Dean, that’s okay. I still love you, and she does, too.”
Slowly Dean began to nod, and Roman nearly breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay,” Dean whispered. “I’ll think about it.”
“Good,” Roman said, and kissed him, short and sweet. “Now I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted. Bed?”
“Yeah, just give me a minute.”
Roman kissed him again and stood, taking their empty beer bottles with him to put in recycling. When Dean showed up at his door earlier that day, he hadn’t expected him, and now, he certainly hadn’t expected how this day would go. He had just thought he’d spend a quiet Father’s Day weekend at home with Jo, away from work and that psycho that was after his family. Dean’s arrival had thrown that out the window in typical Dean fashion, but Roman found he didn’t really mind.
He got ready for bed, and was already under the covers and halfway to sleep when he heard Dean come in and climb in next to him. He didn’t say anything when Dean pressed up against his back, arm thrown over him and nose rubbing against the back of his neck. He just took Dean’s hand in his and let himself drift off.
***
His alarm clock glowed 1:27 AM in the dark. He wasn’t sure what woke him, but now that he was awake he realized he was alone in bed. He frowned, at first thinking Dean was in the bathroom, but the door to his en suite was open and it was dark inside. Where was he?
He got up and padded to his bedroom door, which he noticed was ajar. He pulled it open further and glanced out in the hall. The hall light glowed dimly, and he could make out a figure standing at the end of the hallway in Jo’s doorway. A shot of panic rushed through him, before his eyes adjusted enough and he realized it was Dean.
He was about to ask what he was doing, when he heard Dean saying something. He strained his ears and caught the last part.
“...Okay? I’ll try. Your dad says I’m already doing good. I want to believe him, but I don’t know. I’ll just try.”
Roman smiled softly, and quietly pushed the door almost closed and headed back to bed.
***
“Daddy!”
A giggling cannonball landed on his chest. He huffed out a breath and groaned. Jo was better than any alarm clock Galina swore, and he was inclined to agree. He blinked sleep from his eyes and took in the grinning face, which he noticed was already dressed and had braided pigtails in her hair. He glanced at the clock, and started when he realized it was after nine in the morning. He rarely slept in that long.
“Mornin’, baby girl,” he said, his voice rough with sleep still. “Did Mommy come back early and get you ready?”
“Nope, Daddy Dean did! And he braided my hair. I like your way better, but I don’t want to hurt his feelings. And he says it’s time to get up, sleepy head, there’s stuff to do before you hafta go to work! Actually he said bad words, too, but I don’t want to say those.” And with that declaration she jumped off him to the floor and ran out of the bedroom.
“Daddy Dean! Daddy’s awake!” he heard her shout. The name clicked, and he wondered if he’d have to tell her stop. He remembered what he saw last night, but he didn’t want to assume anything.
He walked out into the kitchen, where both Dean and Jo sat at the table. Dean had a notebook in front of him, the page full of writing. He was tapping the pen against the table. Jo had a coloring book in front of her, crayons and markers all over her side of the table.
“See? Told you,” she said when she saw him. Dean smiled up at him.
“Enjoy your little lie-in?” he teased.
“You could have gotten me up,” he half-heartedly groused.
“Eh,” Dean said, shrugging. “You were sleeping so beautifully… snoring like a chainsaw, drooling into your pillow.”
“I was not,” he said, following his nose to the coffee pot and set to pouring himself a cup.
“You totally were, wasn’t he, Jo?”
“You were loud,” she said, not looking up from her coloring. He ignored them both and drank his coffee. He did not snore.
“Oh, stop pouting and get over here. I want you to look at this.”
“What is it?” Roman asked, not moving.
“I’m writin’ a letter to my partial creator.”
“What?”
“He means his daddy who’s not really a daddy,” Jo explained, still intent on coloring.
“Ah,” he said. He remembered what he had called the man the night before. He moved to sit next to Dean, thinking he wasn’t awake enough for this. Still, he put his mug down and dutifully took the notebook to read Dean’s scrawl.
Dear Sack of Shit,
Fuck you, I owe you nothing. Your own stupidity got your ass arrested. You disowned me anyway, remember? And don’t think you can say shit about me. There’s only two people on this planet that I give a fuck what they think of me. One already knows, and the other is too young, but she knows you’re a shitty person. You know who they are? My boyfriend, yeah you read that right you fucker, my boyfriend and his amazing little girl. I know how much you hated the fact that I liked guys, too, you always manage to tell me in your worthless postcards. Guess what, shitbag, I love this man and I love his little girl, and there’s fuck all you can do about it. I’m happy, and I hope that fucking guts you.
And don’t even think you can start shit about it, because I know so much shit about things you’ve done and I have no problem letting everyone know. Your pathetic ass would be back in prison for the rest of your life so fuckin’ fast you’d get whiplash. So leave me the fuck alone and you can spend the rest of fuckin’ life outside a cell.
Rot in hell.
“Well?” Dean prompted after a moment.
“Well…” Roman started.
“There’s a lot of bad words,” Jo stated, finally looking up from her coloring.
“How do you know?” Dean asked.
Jo’s expression of ‘are you kidding me’ made Roman bite his lip so he didn’t laugh. He set the notebook down and drank the rest of his coffee in a swift gulp. He set the mug back down and grabbed the pen out of Dean’s hand, and began to add on to the letter.
This is the boyfriend writing. I’m sitting in my kitchen with my wonderful daughter and this amazing man that you somehow helped to create. I love Dean, and he deserves so much. What he doesn’t deserve is you in his life, you fucking worthless asshole. So for once in your shitty existence, do the right thing by him and stay the fuck out of his life. He’s my family, not yours. And if you ever try to hurt him, I will destroy you.
“There, now it’s perfect,” he said, pushing back over to Dean.
“More bad words?” Jo asked.
“Yup,” he said, standing to get another cup of coffee. He needed it.
“Bad men should get bad words,” she said solemnly, then went back to coloring. They certainly did, he thought.
“Why are you even sending him anything?” he asked as Dean tore the page out of the notebook and folded it up.
“I never replied to any of his postcards. Haven’t actually talked to him since he went to prison. I figure replying this time might actually get the message through to him. I’ll mail it tomorrow before the show, it should get to him pretty quick then. And I don’t want him to know where you live.”
“Makes sense,” Roman agreed. Dean stuffed the folded letter into his back pocket.
“Okay, Jo! So, it’s Father’s Day. What shall we do?” he asked her. Roman saw her eyes light up and just knew what was coming.
“Tea party!”
Dean’s groan was covered by Roman laughing.