[Samuel x Roman]

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Roman glowed at Evan's compliments. Even if they were from his arch nemesis, it felt good to hear them. Though, the glow and the smile slipped from his face at Samuel's questions pertaining to his current place of employment.

"Oh, dammit, I didn't think of that!" he exclaimed, using the PG swear word because he still sat in Allison's company. "Fruit loops. Well, hopefully I'll make heaps of money from my new tattoo job and then we can buy our own bath bombs."

It wouldn't be as good as getting them for free, but Roman had been working at Lush for two years so he knew it was time to move on. Besides, he was greatly looking forward to working at Mick's tattoo parlour.

"Right, from this moment onward, if any of you get a tattoo from anyone else I will never speak to you again."
 
"Why would we get tattoos from someone who isn't the best," Samuel said in a somewhat joking tone as he was petting little Lola, but it was honestly true. Roman was good at this, even if they weren't close to him he should be their first option simply because of that.

Allison chose that moment to promptly decide that she too was going to pet Lola, so as the very nice honorary uncle he was he gave the bunny up for the little girl and Even lifted the white fluff ball up and placed her in Allison's lap, to which she adorably mumbled, "cute little bunny,"

"Samuel stop feeding his ego and come set the table I don't know where you keep everything," Samuel stood up and did as he said without complaining and soon they were all gathered around the table with food on their plates, Allison had her own chair in their apartment so they wouldn't have to carry hers up and down the stairs every time she came over to eat.

"Before we start, should we be cheesy as fudge and toast about it?" Samuel asked.

"You're lame," Evan said, but filled his glass up with the half empty coke bottle on the table and held it up in the air, "To Roman getting his dream job?"
 
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"To Roman," everyone but Roman said and they all clinked their glasses together. Roman was smiling like a dumbass. He was very very happy.

They ate their meal, which was honestly pretty good. Roman made sure to tell Evan this. "Hey, this is nice," he said to him over the table.

"That wasn't mean!" London exclaimed in surprise.

"Well, he's been complimenting me all afternoon so I guess it's only fair to return it," Roman said to his sister with a shrug.

"Nah. You're totally becoming friends."

"Ugh, you disgust me." Roman turned to Allison. "Allison, sweetie, tell your mum she's lame."
 
"No oh my god don't teach her to insult people and be salty like you," Evan complained "Allison tell your mum she is very nice,"

The little girl looked between the two men with a puzzled expression, not knowing whose instructions to follow, she settled for the last one she received, looked at London and let out a very adorable, "you're very nice"

"Hah," Evan exclaimed victoriously and then switched back to the sweet voice he used to address his daughter with, "Now tell uncle Roman that he is the lame one,"

"And so, they are back to their normal selves," Samuel chuckled quietly to London, but Samuel really didn't care if they complimented or insulted each other because at the end of the day they were still friends, "Allison, don't listen to them, they are being dumb, you can just focus on cutting your food,"

"okay!" Allison said happily and did just that, she was getting better at it, it was fantastic how much she was learning with every passing day.
 
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A couple of weeks later, Roman had been working at the tattoo parlour for a week, and he couldn't have been happier. He missed Lush but not so much that hit made him sad. In fact, he felt quite the opposite.

Now, he and Samuel were going to the movies to see a film. He had his hand securely in Samuel's as they looked at the posters being displayed to them, in order to decide what they wanted to watch. It had been a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing, they hadn't planned it at all but that didn't matter. Nothing mattered when he was with his true love.

"American Assassin looks good, but only because it has Dylan O'Brien in it," Roman commented, pointing to the poster for the action movie. He then looked down at his lovely boyfriend and smiled.

"You look better though."
 
"Naww thanks," Samuel chuckled, they were going to watch a movie outside their apartment for once, just a nice little spontaneous date which Samuel appreciated, it was nice doing something a little different and cinema popcorn always tasted different than the ones they made at home for some reason so if anything that was a reason to get their asses out of their own couch, "You do too, but I wouldn't mind watching something with Dylan O'Brien for the sake of Dylan O'Brien to be honest,"

Samuel glanced over at the rest of the posters to try to see if there was anything else, but he honestly didn't care about what they watched, he was just happy to be there with Roman. A happy moment after a happy week for Roman. Samuel had been coming down to the tattoo parlour once to see how things were going and his boyfriend seemed to be settling just fine, Samuel was really happy about it and going to the movies felt like a nice way to wrap up the week, nothing too crazy, just the two of them doing something nice and fun.

"Is there anything else that looks interesting or should we just settle for watching it?"
 
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Roman had stopped listening, because he had turned his head to the left and sighted two people who he definitely did not want to see.

Brooklyn and Indie were standing only a few feet away. Indie looked gorgeous in a purple sundress with leggings and a thin cardigan -- it was May, meaning slightly colder weather. Her hair was short now, just brushing her shoulders. Brooklyn stood beside her with an arm around her shoulders, a carefree smile on his face as they looked at the movie posters.

They looked happy, and relaxed, like a proper couple. Roman felt like he was going to throw up.

He didn't answer Samuel. He just clenched his hand tighter as he made his way over to the two people he hated most in the universe.

Brooklyn noticed him before he said anything, and his eyes widened in shock. Indie looked up and her face held that same innocent smile she had worn for years, the same angelic look that always managed to get people on her side.

"Oh, wow, Roman! Samuel! What a nice surprise!" she chirped.

Roman ignored her and looked at his brother with gaunt eyes and shaking hands. "Are you seriously doing this to me?"

Brooklyn gritted his teeth. "Doing what?"

Roman's eyes flickers down to Indie for a split second before he returned them to his brother. "Dad would kick your ass if he saw this, Brooklyn."

Brooklyn scoffed. "Because he always has to protect you, right? Because you're so delicate? It's either him or London, but she's probably off being a whore and getting pregnant again. Why don't you fight your own fucking battles?" He sounded like he was trying to be angry, but there was definitely an edge of uncertainty to his tone.
 
It took Samuel a moment to realize what was happening when Roman suddenly was dragging him off somewhere. But then he saw where they were going he followed Roman loyally. He kind of wished he had spotted Indie and Brooklyn first so he could have directed Roman to somewhere else, but If Roman was choosing this moment to confront them and truly felt like he could do that Samuel supposed he wasn't going to stop him.

He was, however, going to keep holding his hand firmly to make sure he knew he was there in case it got to be too much, and he was going to be there and ready to defend Roman in case someone said something that was out of line.

Which Brooklyn managed to do in a matter of seconds.

"Maybe you should stop giving him a reason to be involved by not dating her," Samuel gave Indie a hasty look but other than that he pretended like she wasn't there. There was no point in bothering with her, Brooklyn at least seemed to sound less sure of the whole thing every time they talked to him, "and why would you even drag London into this if you think this shouldn't involve them? Stop contradicting yourself,"

Samuel kept his voice kind of calm, clearly angry, but not loud or anything, they were as in public as they could get, hopefully, that meant the other two would at least keep somewhat civil. Samuel didn't want a repeat of Brooklyn shoving Roman and causing him to bleed. Actually, he was going to be ready to stop him even if he doubted he would do that around non-family members.
 
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"Look, Roman, things might not have worked out between you and Indie but that doesn't mean --"

"This isn't about her," Roman interrupted. His voice was shaking as well as his hands. "This isn't about her, Brooklyn. If you weren't fucking around with her I would have forgotten about her by now."

That wasn't true. He might have gotten over the shit that Indie had done to him, but he would not have forgotten about her entirely. However, he didn't regret saying it, because Indie looked incredibly offended at hat comment. Good.

"This is about what you are doing to me," Roman continued in the same shaky tone. "You're meant to be my brother, you're meant to be loyal to me. I never did anything to you but you're treating me like a piece of shit."

"I am not --"

"Why?" Roman was clearly on the verge of tears. "Tell me why you're with her, and I'll leave you alone."

Brooklyn looked down at Indie and she looked back up at him with those pretty eyes. She clutched at his hand and silently commanded him with her gaze. She had done that to Roman a million times.

"Because I love her," Brooklyn told Roman, looking back at him. "And because I don't owe you anything."

Roman deflated, even if that was what he had been expecting. He took a few steps away and nodded slightly, as if accepting it. Then he said, "Brooks, if she cheated with you, she'll cheat on you."

And with that, he turned around and walked with Samuel out of the theatre and back to their car. He sat in the driver's seat and clenched at the leather covering of his seat.

And then he broke.

Sobs, first, followed by desperate gasps for air. Chokes. Roman couldn't breathe. He reached up and clutched at his throat as he leaned back into the seat and closed his eyes. He felt horrible. He felt shattered.
 
Samuel swore silently under his breath as he was dragged of again this wasn't a good sign not at all. And it wasn't because as soon as they were in the car he recognized Roman's forced breathes as an anxiety attack and Samuel's heart dropped instantly.

He fucking hated Brooklyn for doing this to Roman.

Samuel didn't touch Roman he knew that wouldn't lead to any good and he wasn't sure what he could say to talk him through it. But he could try.

"Hey Roman, it's okay, he'll figure out that she doesn't want him sooner or later and then you won't have to be reminded of her existence anymore and he will learn that he's been wrong about this," Samuel said and decided that was enough about Indie and Brooklyn, he didn't want to remind him of them when he was in this state. So, he continued talking in the calmest and steadies voice he could, keeping calm in an attempt to calm down Roman, "you're right in this, and you're amazing and you don't deserve this. But it's okay to be upset, alright? No one is going to blame you for being upset about this,"
 
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Roman listened to Samuel and the sensible part of his mind knew he was right, but the dominating part told him he was wrong. Told him that he deserved all of this, that he wasn't good enough for Indie, that his brother was right. That he didn't deserve anything good in life.

Roman's chokes slowly dissolved into coughs, and then turned into sobs. His face was red and his eyes were brimming over with tears. Roman opened them and glared up at the ceiling of the car.

"I'm sorry I ruined our date," he mumbled, his voice thick with tears. A searing pain met his head and he lifted a hand to press against his temple. He immediately recognised the pain as that of a budding migraine.

"Ow," he mumbled. "I'm getting a migraine. I think I need to go home." And besides, if they went inside they might see Brooklyn and Indie again and that was the last thing he wanted to do.
 
"Okay. That's okay. Don't worry, don't apologise," Samuel was glad to see Roman able to calm down a little, but he hated that he was blaming himself for it and he hated that this was all going to cause Roman so much more pain through a migraine, "Let's trade places, I'll drive and if we hurry we'll be home before it gets too bad,"

So Samuel stepped out of the car and headed over to help Roman out and around to the passenger seat and then he drove them home as fast but as safely as possible, while still throwing worried glances over at Roman to make sure the pain hadn't gotten too bad yet or that he wasn't going back to having another anxiety attack.

As soon as they were home Samuel tucked Roman into bed and made sure to close the door so none of the animals could get in and start something.

"How are you feeling?" Samuel said quietly, he was crouched down next to the bed, ready to go get Roman the things he needed in case this was getting to be a proper migraine, but first, he needed to make sure how Roman was doing in that moment.
 
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By the time they reached home Roman had a minor migraine that was sure to get worse in the next few minutes. Laying down was a relief, both physical and mental. Roman let out a deep sigh and pressed the pained side of his head to the pillow, which he found helped a little in the moment, but not much in the grand scheme of things.

"Like shit," he replied in a weak voice. He pulled the blankets up to his chin and kept his eyes closed. God, he hated Brooklyn in that moment.

But he hated Indie more. Indie was playing Brooklyn like a finely tuned instrument. Indie was ruining Brooklyn like she had ruined him.

Roman didn't know how to prove that to him.

"Can you please draw the curtains?" he asked his boyfriend softly. "And get me a glass of water?"
 
"Of course," Samuel mumbled, he stood and did just that. Then he headed out to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water, he also grabbed the bucket they kept with the cleaning supplies, partially for this purpose. Once back he placed the glass with water on the bedside table, set the bucket down next to the bed and also grabbed some of Roman's pain killers from the bedside table I case he needed them. As much as he hated it that he was getting used to Roman's migraines and health issues it meant he at least could take care of him better in this situations.

"Tell me if you need something else," Samuel whispered, keeping as quiet as he could to avoid causing Roman more pain, "We can talk about what happened tomorrow,"

That wasn't important now though, right now the most important thing was that Roman was as comfortable as possible to make it easier for him to go through the pain, "Do you want me to stay?"
 
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"Yes, please." Even if every sound that touched his ears felt like nails down a chalkboard, even if every movement in the room disturbed him, Roman didn't want Samuel to leave. He hated to be alone when he felt like this.

So Roman lifted up the blankets to allow Samuel to climb inside, before his arm slumped down as if it took him a tremendous amount of effort to even keep it up.

He feel asleep soon after that.

The morning after a migraine was always really weird. It felt like coming up out of water in a way; the migraine felt like you were trapped in a bubble of pain, and waking up was the bubble popping. They had been at the cinema in the late afternoon, but now it was eleven the next morning, meaning Roman had slept for a solid eighteen hours.

He sat up groggily and searched around for Samuel, finding him absent, so he went out into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of orange juice. The house was quiet, which was good. He wasn't sure if he could handle an excess of noise at that time.
 
Samuel stayed with Roman until he fell asleep, and then some more to make sure he wasn't waking up anytime soon. It was still too early for Samuel to really fall asleep so after that, he got up and quietly did some reading for school, he was back to studying regularly at the university until the next time they would be doing student teaching. He went back to sleep not too long after, he didn't like being in another room when Roman could wake up and still be in pain.

He didn't sleep very well at all that night and woke up pretty early after a nightmare he couldn't remember what it was about but he couldn't get back to sleep so he opted for drinking a cup of coffee and going out for a morning jog with Lady to wake himself up a little. He wasn't planning on being out for long but ended up stopping by the store to get some fresh fruit.

When they came back inside Lady yipped happily but Samuel hushed her and told her to be quiet because Roman was sleeping, she at least got the hushing part, upon looking up though, he was actually awake and in the kitchen drinking some juice.

"aw, you're awake, I was going to make you breakfast, I got strawberries and everything," Samuel said a little disappointed but voice calm and a smile on his face. It was nice to see that he was doing well enough to be up and walking again but Samuel knew he still wanted some peace and quiet after sleeping off a migraine, "I'll still make you something, sit down and tell me how you're feeling?" Samuel pressed a quick kiss to Roman's shoulder, it was easier than his cheek with how tall he was now a days, and placed the grocery bag down on the kitchen counter.
 
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Roman smiled at Samuel and kissed him on the top of the head. Roman was usually the one to cook, which he didn't mind and actually liked, but he also didn't mind being fussed over occasionally. And he loved his boyfriend, more than anything, so if Samuel wanted to make him breakfast he sure as hell wasn't going to stop him.

"Hey, princess," Roman said to Lady, picking her up and sitting down on a stool with her in his lap. He scratched her behind the ears and watched as Samuel moved around the kitchen.

"I feel a lot better than yesterday," he said honestly. His head wasn't pounding like it had been before, and he wasn't choking for breaths due to anxiety. "I just ... I can't believe he can't see what she's doing to him."

Part of Roman wanted to feel bad from his brother, but a bigger part of him couldn't. He couldn't feel sorry for Brooklyn when he knew that his brother was going this to himself. He couldn't feel sorry for him when he knew that he was hurting him.
 
Samuel had already decided to make Roman bacon and eggs because that seemed simple. And of course, some fresh fruit because he couldn't really burn that. What would go better with fresh fruit was something like pancakes, but that was way too advanced for Samuel, not that he had really tried to make it, but it seemed hard and if he would make that he would need Roman's help and he really just wanted to spoil his boyfriend after having gone through such a difficult evening the day before.

He opened the package of bacon, placed the slices on a plate and popped into the microwave. That way he knew he wouldn't burn them. Then he moved over to start frying some eggs.

"Well maybe It's harder for him to realize since he's in a relationship with her right now," Samuel said, "I'm not defending him though, everyone has told him this is bad for him enough times that he should have been able to realize by now,"

He cracked an egg into the pan, sadly he wasn't very good at that at all and swore under his breath as he realized there were little pieces of egg shells in the pan as well. He tried getting them out, and did but messed up the egg in the process… He supposed scrambled eggs tasted about the same. So he cracked a couple of more eggs into the pan and committed to scrambling them instead.

"And it shouldn't be your job tell him either, that's not fair," Talking about Brooklyn made Samuel angry, but he kept himself together, talking calmly because this was about Roman and how he was feeling about it all, "What is it that bothers you the most about it? Is it that she's doing this to your brother and you can't make him realize, or that he's still doing this to you despite all the evidence of her not really caring about him?"

They didn't talk much about Brooklyn obviously and this was the first time they saw him and Indie in over a year so Samuel needed to know what page they were on and how he was going to approach the situation when talking about it with Roman and "I can't believe he can't see it" could really mean any of those two things.
 
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"I ... a little bit of both, to be honest," Roman admitted. He watched Samuel cook and petted Lady, unable to really do anything else because he was too wrapped up in his own thoughts. He sighed and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. He hated talking about this.

"I mean, I might think that I hate him sometimes but I don't. I can't. He's still my brother." That was something that Roman had accepted quite a while ago. He didn't and couldn't hate Brooklyn. "So I don't like seeing him in that position. I don't like seeing him with her, because I know she's just using him and doesn't care about him at all."

Indie was cold and calculating, and frightfully patient. She would keep this up for years if she needed to, Roman had no doubt about it. So it was up to Brooklyn to realise what was going on and get himself out of there, but he was too deluded, and it depressed Roman to know that.

"But I know that part of him is just doing this to get to me. I think he thinks that it's hurting me because she's my ex or something. That's not true. It's hurting me because he's my brother. It has nothing directly to do with her."
 
It probably wasn't a good idea for Samuel to multi task on top of laying most his focus on what Roman was saying but Samuel couldn't really be bothered to care so he moved on to removing the leaves from the strawberries while trying to stir around the eggs when he remembered.

"It seems like he's starting to hesitate about the whole thing," Samuel was sure Roman had seen that too, "I honestly think that if he breaks up with her it will be more for his sake than yours, though, but I've only really known this side of him so I might be wrong,"

Samuel knew what he was saying wasn't something that could be fun to hear and he didn't actually want to say something that could make Roman feel worse, but he also didn't think it could be healthy to twist it around and pretend as if Brooklyn breaking up with her would make everything okay.

"It's okay that you still love him though, he doesn't deserve it at all, but it shows that you're the better person I guess," Samuel, of course, knew you didn't have to love someone who was hurting you just because they were family and had Brooklyn gone more out of his way to shove this relationship in Roman's face Samuel wouldn't have encouraged it at all. He supposed there was a part of him that kind of believed that Brooklyn could turn around, in dating Indie he was a bit of a victim too, like Roman had said, it was a little bit of both kind of situation, Brooklyn was a piece of shit but he was also being manipulated by Indie, "It would be easier if Indie could just fuck off, so he could see it didn't have anything to do with her, I mean."

He took one of the strawberries and handed it to Roman, giving Lady some ear scratches while he was at it, and headed back to the eggs who seemed to be a little over cooked and dry by now, so he turned off the heat and focused on the fruit.
 
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