Disclaimer: I own nothing.

RUNNING WITH SCISSORS

Dean always carried scissors. It was what his people did. He couldn't ignore it, just like he couldn't ignore a fight breaking out. Makin' his blood pump and his fingers twitch. Some things were carved in stone. Like the spinning, weaving, measuring and cutting. There was too much for three anymore.

The thing was, his mom couldn't do it. Not like she should. Dean had aunts, from his old man's side. They told him all he needed to know – how to make and use a drop spindle, how to grab the thread and cut it just right, how to read what was there. Once his hands stopped shaking and some of his scars healed up, Dean got the style of it and the twisted-up feeling that started once he got the weaving down snagged him hard. It was a fucking awesome high and he wanted more. Aunt Lucia watched over his shoulder, purple scarves like cobwebs, and Aunt Mags made him spin and spin until he could do it in his sleep.

But before all that, there was his mom. Who used to spin but didn't and her weaving was always for shit. She tried and laughed and cursed and made faces that Dean still saw in the mirror. Days like that, Dean learned his favorite curse words. Still spat them out like she did. Same voice sometimes too, with some gravel cut out.

Sometimes Dean thought she'd seen something in the thread of someone she loved or she'd looked too hard at her own thread and saw shit no one was supposed to see. When he was younger and getting scars daily and sinking into that twisted-and-wet-handed feeling of weaving high, he eyed up his thread off and on and on again, touching it, and saw beats of what he was, who he'd be. Now he couldn't separate that from the blur of all nighters, back-in-the-day-blood and Bray's mind crap. Better that way, right? When he tried to remember, his stomach emptied and he couldn't stand up. His aunts had threatened to take away his blades if he ever grabbed his own thread again. That was all his aunts' business now. Thank fuck for that.

The dreams that came with it all fucking sucked. Sleep had always been his opponent but hey, looked like it could get even worse. Handling the threads meant Dean's brain was wired differently or whatever and that meant his dreams got extra vivid and he saw people he wasn't expecting. They weren't always the people he'd been working on either. Saw his old man more than he ever wanted to and woke up retching a couple of times. Saw Roman almost every night, saw Seth a whole bunch too before he disappeared, thank fuck. Dean hated waking up throwing punches; his muscles were always tight like he'd been fighting all night and then he'd get a headache and Seth had to know what he was doing. Fucking rat.

Anyway, the truth was this. Dean's old man had only been a name and a worn thread since Dean had reached double-digits and his mom passed way later in a road crunch that he'd always thought had been her idea. Good times. So he had his threads and his spindle and his scissors and his aunts ringing him all the damn time when he wasn't with them because there was a problem in the weave and they fucking knew it was down to him apparently. They were sick of seeing cinder blocks and a fuck-ton of blood. That'd been his salvation more than once. Dean had always been disappointed that his thread wasn't red.

This was the thing; his aunts were kind of a big deal, though Aunt Sophie swore blind on her good days that she wasn't a crone. Everyone had something down the back of the wardrobe, that was the world and the ones beyond it. No one was a pound of meat and nothing left over. Everyone was other, it was all in the blood and who'd been before and did you own it or not? Like Roman had his Amazon ancestry and there had to be something Fae going on there too because there was no other earthly (ha) way to explain his unreal fucking gorgeousness and athletic abilities. Stamina was no joke either, Amazonian, for sure.

Roman didn't deny the Amazon part, what would have been the fucking point? But claimed Dean had his threads crossed about the Fae. Not that Dean ever examined Roman's thread because he was not gonna lay eyes on Roman's death. Nope.

He thought about looking at Seth's. More than once. Just thought. What was there to explain that fuck? Aunt Lucia always knew when he was thinking down that line and cursed him out and told Dean to remember her lessons. Oh fuck that, some people were more than warp and weft anyway. Seth had made his own fate, shaping it like he'd seen something no one else had and he was fucking sick of it.

Because that was his legacy, the architect, seeing the blueprint of everything, seeing what parts could be reshaped to make it stronger or weaker, working out which domino to pull. He'd always hated that he couldn't see the same in the threads. It'd fucked with his head. That had to have something to do with it, something…Dean held the threads closer and swallowed bile and wished he could taste blood again.

But it was a different era and he had Roman. Bar hops and car rides and fucking into the mattress. Amazon stamina. To have that power at Dean's feet, there was no thread that could explain it. Roman always claimed he didn't need an explanation, he had Dean, and well, that made Dean swallow something other than bile and tangle his hands in Roman's hair and pull.

Roman was…Roman was something else. And he chose Dean. Crazy fucker. Dean liked watching him work out, how fucking beautiful he looked as he punched and ran and lifted weight. Dean missed being there right after a match, being there for a fuck and a mauling, feeling Roman's teeth on his tendons and seeing that flash of dilated pupil. Warrior blood. Roman never fought it with Dean; something about shield brothers (ha fucking ha). Dean took that mantle of trust with roughed-up hands that no amount of spinning was ever going to smooth out, because Roman didn't give it to anybody else, not on that level. There was that swallow again and Dean's hands got shaky on the spindle when he thought about it too long.

Roman liked to get gentle though, when he got to lap at Dean's thighs and gaze up at him and hum like, like something Dean didn't believe in. Hey, he believed in Rome and he always carried his scissors. Roman liked to watch that; how Dean used the spindle and blades. He sat, tucked around Dean, careful not to get in the way and watched avidly as Dean spun and wove and did some humming of his own. Even when Dean's aunts weren't there, the sense of them watching as he worked was so strong he had to keep peeking over his shoulder. Roman laughed when Dean muttered about snooping relatives and ran a hand across Dean's stomach.

"They know you need looking after."

Dean snorted but Aunt Lucia told him later that Roman was a bright boy, even if he was an Amazon, and she'd like to meet him. No deal; she'd offer to read tea leaves and then…Dean's neck itched at that. Aunt Mags laughed at his reply, her measuring stick spinning effortlessly from hand to hand, and sounded nothing like Roman.

"There will be no tea."

Aunt Sophie was darning socks – because she was fucking hilarious, even if she had to hold it all right up to her magnifying spectacles – and her smile was the warm summer-lemonade kind that came on her good days. Dean's hands twitched for thread and spindle and he worked beside his aunts for a few hours before leaving. He felt like he could spin forever when he was thinking about Roman. He stuffed his wallet in a back pocket and told his aunts he and Rome would see them for lunch tomorrow.

Roman brought a bunch of lilacs and a can of tealeaves and Aunt Lucia grinned, showing her gold caps, and threaded her arm past Roman's.

"Welcome to the family, child."

Aunt Sophie listened like a hawk and her fingers moved like she was spinning still even though her thread was packed away and Dean wanted to ask her what she saw but he could see how her eyes had gotten and swallowed again. Aunt Mags made lunch – a gamey stew with the fucking fantastic bread she'd been kneading yesterday flavored with rosemary and garlic – and Roman talked happily about his family, spreading an arm around Dean's waist and not being offended by any of Aunt Mags' questions or how she prodded at the lines of his palm.

He could be a saint and an Amazon. If Dean believed in saints.

Seth was the opposite. No, he wasn't a demon; Dean knew what those looked like. Seth was worse; a friend who'd turned his face around. Dean had never understood how edgy Seth had gotten around the threads, around the not-knowing how it all worked. That was the fucking beauty for Dean – it was all out there and all he had to do was keep it coming. Keep it neat. Yes, he was fucking capable of that, fuck you.

"But where does it all come from?" Seth had asked insistently, looking a little wild around the eyes. It'd been sort of hilarious. "It doesn't make any sense. There's no order."

Dean had rolled his eyes and spun his scissors pointedly around his fingers. "Ta-da."

Seth had scowled. "That's not order. That's you and them doing…something. And that doesn't make any sense either. I can't see it."

That was the shot wasn't it? Seth couldn't control it or make sense of it, couldn't break it down into little manageable boxy pieces. And that made him nervy. Also made him an asshole apparently because then he was swinging chairs and breaking hearts. Dean nearly broke his spindle that day. Only Roman held onto his hands and stopped it happening. By the evening, Dean was spinning again. His aunts all called him and told him "your threads were always-." Yeah yeah, don't say it. They were the ones who spun Roman and Seth's threads, not him.

He and Roman were on different brands now. They saw each other once a week (never e-fucking-nough), messaged constantly and Dean saw him in his own dreams. Roman wasn't freaked out when Dean talked about that – his twin cousins could multiply themselves for fuck's sake. He was…fuck, he was so good. Too good. And thank fuck Seth wasn't there anymore. Meant Dean retched less.

Until, until, Roman called Dean and told him to watch Raw, his voice careful and there was Seth, fighting the McMahons. Dean saw a glint of someone he'd know in Seth's face and turned off the TV and got back to his spindle. It would always make sense. Couldn't rely on anything else. He could see Roman's reaction so clearly and readied himself for a touch that never came. Fuck, he choked on disappointment.

His hands weren't steady but they got the job done. Seth was…Seth was still wearing that leather skin; he was still smirking, acting like he knew better than anybody else. He was also cutting into management; because he'd been betrayed. Ha. Ha.

There was a message from Roman. We talked.

Fuck. Of course that night, for the first time in months, Seth reappeared in Dean's dreams. He was in jeans and a black tank and for the first time in fucking months a chunk of his hair was blonde-white again, like a beacon. He was more Seth, the kind Dean hadn't been thinking about, than he had been in years. He didn't sneer; he watched Dean's hands. Like he had before, a puzzle to be worked out (he shouldn't fucking bother, Dean could go faster). His jaw was tense and he nodded tersely but didn't say a word. He stayed, always poised like he was ready to leave. Roman watched them both, sat close to Dean and rubbed a hand at the sore stiff muscles of Dean's back. Dean slept better than he had in weeks.

It didn't mean, it couldn't…oh fuck.

He woke up with a dry mouth and his finger wrapped so tight around his scissors he'd drawn blood. He ran his hands numbly under the facet. He wasn't gonna bleed on the threads. When he grabbed a handful, he felt level again; like he had in the dream. Fuck.

Aunt Sophie called him, reminding him he was due to have dinner with them that night and "we can't spin and measure their threads without yours."

He hung up without saying goodbye and messaged Roman. He could smell lilacs. He could taste blood.

-the end