Here I am again! Okay, so this idea popped into my head a little while back and so I had to feed my muse and write it out. Gonna be super heavy on the bromance (but it's me, so you knew that) plus plenty of cameos and twists and turns. As ever, please let me know what you think and I hope you like the kick off...

Murder Is Murder I Guess

The numbered prison cells stretch off into the distance lining the wide and freshly swept ground floor and then carrying on past the spidery steel staircase to the grated mezzanine level suspended up above. The complex is lighter than Roman has been expecting thanks to the abundance of halogen lights, but is otherwise stark and painted pretty plainly with the exception of the grey and thickset cell doors.

He is trooping in a procession with the rest of the newcomers and holding onto the belongings that have been given to him for his stay as well as the few additional items he has been allowed to bring in himself from back in his outside life.

Ear plugs are the first things and had been highly recommended by a couple of guys he knows who have been inside before, alongside a set of headphones for listening to music, bath towels and even flip-flops for the germ ridden shower floors. Frankly Roman hasn't spent much time thinking about the last one because if he had then he likely would have just cut out and run, since the prospect of potentially picking up scabies or hepatitis while washing bothers the shit out of him.

He has photographs too and books and pens and paper and other largely mundane and menial crap, that he never in his life would have thought about packing because being locked up has never been in his plans. Honestly it's still not but he's gone beyond that point now because there he is clad in his bright orange prison scrubs and trampling along at the back of a procession of men who are being spun off into cells one by one.

For whatever reason he is last on the rehoming list and so has to stand watching them go until right at the end and gradually feeling his anxieties rising as the line of men before him slowly falls away to one. From what he can see he's not the only first timer which is clear in the wide eyes that blink around the place, while other men still simply swagger through the cell doors like they're finally home.

Maybe some of them are.

Given that he is by no means a novice to the general penal system – admittedly albeit from completely the other side – the thing that surprises Roman most about the whole thing is the cacophony of noise that rises up from all around and blends together in a burst of rhythmic banging and with shouts that don't contain many actual words.

Intimidation tactics, must be.

He knows that in an instant because he knows enough to figure how the criminal mind works and also enough about big men and bullies to guess that the residents would like to freak new inmates out.

He grunts a little.

Sorry fellers.

Because whatever else happens, no way is he letting that kinda bullshit work on him.

Roman has been assigned a cell up on the mezzanine and right at the furthest end of the first floor, in a room daubed with big numbers that barely fit beside the windows and heavy looking locks that buzz then automatically blast back.

"Reigns, this is you."

Bored hands pull the door wide as the same corrections officer who has been sauntering ahead of them checks his watch for lunchtime then flaps him hurriedly inside.

Roman steels himself a little.

Now or never uso.

Then he steps past the guard and into his new home.

The first thing he sees when he looks around the box room are the big white walls that loom up on both sides and make it seem like they are physically closing in on him, which he knows that they're not but briefly struggles to apply. There are two narrow beds pushed up to the window which is frosted and barred so they can't see outside, but it throws in a tiny little burst of natural lighting which is suddenly so beautiful that it makes his heart sigh. Butting each bed is a plain metal locker and single shelving unit for keeping his stuff and there is also a tarnished and totally unhidden toilet with a basin and built-in paper dispenser above.

Lack of privacy and hygiene notwithstanding though, Roman doesn't really take much of the space in, because his eyes are drawn instead to a figure stretched out lazily and reading a book on the uncomfortable left hand bed. He is long and lean but also pretty skinny if the curve of his lithe waist has any further say and is mostly clean shaven with a mop of tangled copper that sits above a louche but bright looking blue gaze. It is focused for the most part towards On The Road by Jack Kerouac in the most moth eaten paperback that Roman has ever seen, but they flicker up and then study his form momentarily, before sliding back again with a grudging sort of grunt,

"Hey man."

Roman nods back,

"Hey."

It seems fairly positive and clearly thinking the same the corrections officer barks a loose cough out and then bangs the hefty prison door back shut behind him, before triggering the bolts solidly into place again and with a thwacking noise that reminds him there is going back from it. Roman stands silently simply blinking for a moment, then licks his dry lips and opens his mouth,

"So, uh – ,"

His cellmate cuts him off with a brisk looking hand wave, still frowning at the torn book clenched in his hands and the bigger man stops himself pretty much instantaneously then waits for a beat,

"Hold on man, m' readin' here."

Roman lifts a brow but refuses to hold on to anything and so instead takes the locker by what he guesses is his bed, into which he piles his home brought towels and spare clothing as well as the important hepatitis shower shields. He figures that his photos can be pinned to the stark wall to liven the gloomy looking whitewash up a bit and so shuffles past his cellmate and the gap between the bed frames before reaching into the box and pulling a handful out. In the scheme of things they're not the best photos in his collection, but then again that isn't really the point, since all they have to do is make him seem human and like he misses his totally normal life outside.

He has one of his parents but taken many years ago so that no one he meets will recognize them now, one of his sisters at a party from their childhood and one of their former and now very deceased dog. Mostly the snaps are something and nothing with a few of his senior high school football shots too, but they manage to capture the sharp blue orbs of his cellmate who is looking across frowning when Roman turns into the room.

"Is that your family?"

He nods,

"Mom, pop and sisters."

"They look like good people."

Roman blinks a bit at that because he has sort of been prepared to always be on the offensive and therefore hasn't been expecting to hear something that seems – well – nice.

He smiles a little wryly,

"Don't let them fool you, my old man fakes low blood sugar to skip kids in ice cream lines."

For a moment he's not sure if he's being too friendly or if he's setting himself up to get a beating later on and is therefore flexing his fingers a little when the copper blonde suddenly offers him up a broad snort,

"Dude, that's genius."

He seems stumped he's never thought of it but then drops his tattered book, sits up and spins around, letting his long legs scuff the bare concrete as he puts out a chirpy introductory hand.

"Dean."

"Roman."

The blue eyes twitch accordingly, then shimmer with something that looks a whole lot like mirth as he shakes his head with a light sounding chuckle that makes his copper blonde bangs nearly jump.

"No way man, that can't be your real name."

"Real as I am."

Dean grins back,

"I once knew a kid that was legit called Solomon but I think you got him beat on the kickass name thing, like you totally sound like a real deal action movie star and it's super cool dude."

"Thanks."

"That shit'll help you out in here."

The words filter through as an innocent enough statement because Roman sort of figures that's how the guy always sounds, given that he appears to be vaguely sort of childlike and with a wide eyed wonder that belies his gruff tones. But hidden within the line is a tiny sort of warning or at least a brief allusion to how life in prison is and so the bigger man frowns and then tilts his head a little, looking for something more than concrete than that,

"How?"

Dean shrugs roughly then casts his eyes down again to focus on a loose flap of skin beside his thumb, that he readily starts to pick at in a nervous little tick move that Roman can see masks a type of resignation. Evidently his own name doesn't carry the same currency that he feels his brand new cellmate will have and he then makes that clear as he tries to downplay it with another little shrug that makes his top half sort of bump.

"People fuck less with the guys that sound serious."

"How about you?"

"I take care of myself."

He sounds defiant and mildly offended and it makes the bigger, broader prison newcomer smirk. Roman kind of likes the scruffy man stretched in front of him, looking quite a lot like an overgrown child and considering the type of guy he could have been roomed with, it feels like a genuine lucky break of a sort. Not that he knows what his cellmate is in for, which could potentially be anything from murder to fraud, although evidently he is not the only person with that question, since when he looks up the copper blonde is staring back.

"So – ,"

Dean lifts a hand and scratches at his neckline in a too rough movement that draws marks down his throat, not that he seems to pay the damage much notice like he's immune to the pain or it's a bad habit he's picked up.

Roman lifts a brow,

"So?"

"How did they get you? I mean what did they – like – lock you away for?"

Blue eyes hone in then pause for a second like the tousle haired man is waiting for the bomb to drop and for Roman to let loose that he has a thing for children or has been maybe thrown inside for trying to strangle his wife.

Not that he has a wife.

He sighs back heavily,

"I punched out the guy that was trying to steal my wallet, but I guess I threw too a little hard because the damn guy fell and hit his head on the sidewalk. It killed him pretty much instantly."

There.

For the first time he's actually said it which means the worst of the thing is done –

Except for the fact that his new cellmate is blinking with a raised brow expression that he cannot quite place but which appears to sit right on the borders of sympathy with a little snatch of startlement tossed into the mix.

"Fuck man, that's rough."

"Yeah tell me about it."

"You mean they threw you in here for fuckin' self defence?"

Roman shrugs his shoulders then smiles back ruefully before loosely blinking down at the orange prison threads, the bright tones of which blaze beneath his periphery like a person who has snoozed too long in the sun or else has had some horrible, ludicrous spray tan, neither of which are really his bag.

"Murder is murder I guess."

"Except it isn't."

Dean seems pretty unflinching on that and since he has clearly been there longer than his roommate, he is probably a litmus paper on what constitutes good or bad. Roman blows a breath out and folds down onto the mattress, which he totally expects to bounce beneath his weight but instead merely jars his spine from top to bottom since the thing has the give of a granite countertop.

He winces through it,

"How about you man, what are you in for?"

"Got busted sellin' drugs which I know is a kinda punk move an' everythin' because like what am I twelve years old? Pretty much how it is in the neighborhood m' from though."

"Dealing in pills?"

"That or end up in the ground – if you're not with 'em you're against 'em."

Dean says the sentence lightly but it makes Roman suck in a breath all the same, while simultaneously giving heartfelt thanks for his nice stable childhood and the suburban neighborhood he has lived his whole life in. Not that he's a stranger to how hard others have it and in fact his career path has made him more aware than most, which means that the story should have lost the power to shock him but in the bareness of their surroundings it seems to hit him in the gut. Not least because the copper blonde is not a true criminal in as much as the guy was in the wrong place at the wrong time, which means that they actually have something in common since neither of them belong there.

Not for forever anyhow.

In fact he is still contemplating their misfortunes when his quirky new cellmate brightly launches himself up and leans across the tiny gap between their bedrolls to peer with animation into the sparsely filled box. His blue eyes close in on the paperback novels and he reaches forward keenly and pulls a few out which in anybody else would have triggered a beating but he seems to feel comfortable won't piss the big man off. Really Roman figures he should probably not allow it and make himself seem a whole lot more volatile and harsh, but for whatever weird reason he lets Dean do it and then smirks just a little when the other man lights up.

"You like readin'? I got a bunch I can lend you, been lookin' to trade with someone for like months."

Roman leans back against the wall.

"You can have them, but in exchange for something else."

Dean's brow line rises up and although the bigger man keeps his face impassive, he flinches internally at how the sentence must sound, but more so still at the copper blonde's reaction which is tense and wide eyed like he's heard it before and it fires a certain pulse of something through Roman which might just be fondness or protective alarm.

He continues easily,

"I need someone to show me around here."

Relief floods Dean's features,

"Sure thing man, I'll give you the tour."

How better to make two people bond than throwing them into a small room together? There's method in my madness...or madness in my method, it's one of those things anyway!

Hope you enjoyed!