[Samuel x Roman]

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"Ooh, that's cute," Roman said, after pausing the work to look at the dandelion seeds behind her ear. The tattoo artist in him was critiquing the piece, noting that the ink was fading a little bit in some places. But it wasn't that big of a deal and still looked quite lovely.

Roman spent the next two and a half hours working on Sara's floral tattoo. He worked diligently and carefully, making sure that every stroke of ink was placed correctly, making sure that every outline was dark and strong. It was clear that he was meant to do this. It was clear that this was his calling.

"And ... we are all done," he said, pulling away from Sara and licking his lips as he turned off his machine. Roman stood up and stretched his arms, his joints clicking due to sitting in the same position for several hours. He then helped Sara up from the bench and lead her over to the mirror, sitting on the wall of the room.

He took another mirror, this one hand-held, and held it up so Sara could look into it, thus seeing her back in the reflection of the other mirror.

"Do you like it?"
 
Samuel spent the next couple of hours both avoiding looking at the tattooing and sometimes curiously peeking over to see his boyfriend's art, it was quite conflicting. After a while he moved on to texting a little with Gabi, Matthew was a little more busy since starting to date Elissa, and occasionally trying to make some pleasant conversation, but it didn't really go all that well.

Soon the tattoo was done though and Samuel let out a little relieved sighed as it meant his boyfriend would no longer touch this girl. He also peeked over to see the finished piece as Sara looked at it in the mirror.

"Oh god I love it!" She said happily not hesitating even a little, "it's really amazing, I'm really glad I went to you, you're really good at this,"

Samuel couldn't help but smile a little as his boyfriend received the compliment, despite it being from a girl he was being jealous of. And the tattoo truly was amazing, of course, Samuel wasn't surprised about that at all.

"Right?" Samuel agreed, looking over at Roman affectionately rather than the girl, "he's the best.

"For sure," she smiled warmly, maybe thinking he couple was sweet. She was too nice.
 
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Roman smiled, glad that Sara liked her tattoo. Of course, he had had no doubts that she would like it a lot, but still, it was nice to hear such compliments. It didn't help the issue that was his ever growing ego, though.

"I'm very glad you like it," Roman told her honestly. He wrapped up her tattoo and handed her back her shirt, then he cleaned up his needle and bench and moved to the door, stopping beside Samuel for a moment on the way.

"Hang tight, I'll just go and finalise the payment," he told his boyfriend, dropping a kiss to the top of his head before leading Sara out to the front desk.

Roman lead Sara to the desk to finalise her payment, as he had said. The tattoo ended up costing a little over a hundred and twenty dollars, not that that made all that much of a difference to Roman's salary. He made forty dollars an hour, and then got tipped by Mick depending on how much the tattoo cost. The tip usually wasn't too big, but Roman didn't care about the money. He was just thankful to be doing what he loved.

Roman said goodbye to Sara and went back into his studio to see his boyfriend. "So what made you come down?" he inquired as he began to clean up properly. It was only a twenty minute train ride to the city, where Roman's tattoo parlour was, from their suburb, so it wasn't like it was some huge feat for Samuel to get there. Still, he was curious. "Not that I'm complaining, of course. I love having you here."
 
"Aww, can't I just come here because I miss you?" Samuel laughed a little as Roman came back, "or for getting to see how cool you look when tattooing people,"

Samuel smiled, he was feeling a lot more relaxed now that he wasn't alone and now that Sara had left and he didn't have to worry about her. His smile faltered a little, but not completely, as he decided to actually give his boyfriend a proper answer.

"No I uh..." he wasn't sure exactly how to explain it without worrying Roman too much. It wasn't that much of a problem, he got bad dreams sometimes, it was just happening more frequently now and as a result of them he was feeling a little on edge,"I haven't been sleeping well lately," he admitted with a little sigh, "and I dunno, I was feeling weird about being home alone, it felt unsettling,"

Samuel finished it of with a little shrug to signal that it was to big of a deal and then added in a bit of a happier tone, "but it's nice, now we can have lunch together, yeah?"
 
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Roman whipped his head up with a deep frown on his face when Samuel spoke. He had been having bad dreams and hadn't told Roman? How long had this been going on? What kind of weird dreams? Why hadn't he mentioned it, so Roman could help him in any way possible?

"No, no no no no no, don't change the subject," Roman urged. It wasn't a snap, but his voice was urgent, because this was serious. This wasn't something that they could mess around with.

Roman set down his now clean needle and walked over to Samuel, squatting in front of him so he wasn't towering over him while he was sitting down. He took both of Samuel's hands and looked up at him with a worried look on his face.

"What's going on? Please tell me," he begged. "I want to help you."
 
"I didn't tell you because I've been getting them since high school, I've just been getting them more now" Samuel confessed, he was okay with telling Roman this and he hadn't actually been purposefully hiding it from him, he just didn't want to make a big deal of something that would fade away in a week or so, "it's... uh... they are about dad,"

That was the hardest part to admit and Samuel couldn't help but avoid Roman's gaze a little as he said it.

"But it's okay, I know I'll be okay in a while, I just can't wake you every time I get them because then I'd wake you several times a night and you'd be just as tired as me,"

He had woken Roman once or twice due to feeling bad in the night, not since they got worse but throughout their years of living together, he had also opted not to do it sometimes and now had just been one of those times but then they had gotten not frequent but he had already commuted to not disturbing Roman.
 
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Roman stared at Samuel, a little bit shocked. He had been having these dreams since high school and hadn't mentioned it even once? If he had have told him beforehand, they might have been able to stop the dreams before they had escalated this far.

The frequency that Samuel was having these dreams at was the most shocking part of it all. A few times a night. A few times a night. Most of his boyfriend's sleep time was plagued by these horrid dreams, these reminders of his terrible father. Roman turned his head away for a moment, closing his eyes as he took it all in.

"I ... I wish you had told me sooner," Roman said softly, looking back at Samuel and reaching up to cup his beautiful face with one long hand. "But I'm not going to make a big deal out of that. I want to help you, though. I don't want you to have to go through this."

Roman stood up, leaned down to kiss Samuel on the lips and then stood up properly, pulling Samuel up too. He rubbed Samuel's arms and kissed him on the top of the head. Samuel deserved as many kisses as he could give him.

"I love you." He had said it a thousand times but he would say it again. "I love you more than you're capable of realising."

Roman leaned his head down to nuzzle Samuel's hair while he thought of what to do now. Obviously Samuel didn't think it was that big of a deal, or he would have sought help sooner. Roman didn't think this was something they could simply dismiss, but he didn't want to push Samuel either.

He checked the time, finding that it was about three in the afternoon. "Okay. I'll go find Mick and tell him I'm all done, and then we can go get something to eat, okay?"
 
Roman's soft words and I love yous made Samuel feel a little better and he was almost a little relieved to have told him, it made it feel a little easier and somehow a little more hopeful that it all would pass soon and that things would go back to normal.

"Let's get KFC, I'm feeling junk food," that and he suggested it to show Roman that he appreciated him by suggesting his favourite, "And I'll tell you if it doesn't get better, I promise, I'm just pretty sure it will"

But another week passed and it didn't become better. Samuel still hadn't really properly told Roman that because, for the first couple of days of the week at least, he had still been confident that they'd go away. He'd tell Roman when he got the chance though, he had promised to tell him and he wasn't about to break that.

The dreams weren't necessarily more frequent than the couple of ones he had a night that he had described to Roman, but they didn't get better either, and on top of it he seemed to have gotten even more on edge and jumpy. So he spent a lot of time either clinging to Roman, just like he had after the disaster of their first anniversary two years ago, or being in bed both due to a lack of energy and because he didn't like the idea of going outside while being scared of the tiniest things.

Today though, Samuel was feeling happy, he had actually managed to get some extra undisturbed sleep in the form of a midday nap and while he still was tired and still had dark circles under his eyes from previous nights he felt like he had enough energy for the activities of the day. And said activities were him and Roman picking Allison up from day care and taking her out to the park to have some fun. London had had a seminar to go to at uni and Evan was working late that day, luckily Roman and Samuel would never say no to picking up their favourite kid in the world and both had clear schedules that Friday afternoon.

They arrived at the day care hand in hand, not so much a habitual thing that day is it was Samuel just needing Roman's closeness, to find the yard full of little kids and a couple of adults. Pretty right away as they stepped in through the child proof gates a cute chubby woman in her late twenties or possibly early thirties walked up to them. She was carrying a two-year-old with a snot covered face and puffy eyes, but there was still a bright expression on the woman's freckly face.

"Hello," She greeted them happily, the kid looked at them with a scowl, "Are you picking someone up?"
 
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Roman had been keeping a gentle, watchful eye on Samuel for the last week, looking out for any sign that he was getting worse. He found none, and he figured that it would be best if he let Samuel approach him with his problems rather than pushing it out of him himself. So, he didn't bring up the subject again.

"Yeah, we're looking for Allison Johnson," Roman told the lady on that nice Friday afternoon. He stood at the edge of the playground with his hand in Samuel's. All around them, kids were staring at him, most likely due to his staggering height and the shiny highlighter he wore on his cheekbones.

The lady went off to fetch Allison from wherever she was playing. Roman looked around at the kids and smiled at a few of them. Then he turned to Samuel.

"These kids love me. I am total father material. You should let me knock you up right now."
 
"Roman, ew," Samuel chuckled a little and gave his boyfriend's arm a gentle and half-hearted slap, "don't make jokes about knocking me up you weirdo, although, you're definitely father material, I'm not going to argue about that,"

Samuel didn't have much time to reflect on what an amazing father his boyfriend would be one day though, because Allison had been alerted of their presence and was now coming towards them. She was wearing a cute little pastel purple floral dress over a white shirt and no some longer very white tights, paired with a bright purple jacket since it was a little colder, despite being a nice day. There was also a huge excited smile plastered on her face as she adorably hurried over the quickest she could over to Roman and Samuel. As soon as she reached them she wrapped her little arms around Roman's legs.

"Allison, didn't you have something you wanted to show your uncles?" the same woman from before said as she caught up to her, now seeming to be caught up with who they were. Either because Allison had told her or because her parents had informed the day care that they would be picking her up that day. Possibly both.

Allison pulled away from Roman's legs, nodded vigorously and reached for something the teacher was holding for her. A paper. Allison gripped it with both hands and held it up as far as she could to show her uncles.

"It's us!" She said excitedly. And it indeed was a drawing of them. She was still only two so while it wasn't the random scribbles it would have been a couple of months ago it wasn't really much more detailed than a couple of coloured blobs, but they were three distinguishable blobs, two big ones and one small one. It was absolutely adorable.
 
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Roman grinned widely when their baby niece came running up to them and clung to his legs. God, she was absolutely gorgeous. Roman couldn't believe she had grown so much from the tiny bean in his sister's womb, but here she was, looking grown and perfect and he could not have loved her more.

"Oh, wow, sweetie, that's lovely," he told her honestly, crouching down so he could get a better look at the picture. Even if it was just a couple of blobs, it was still very endearing and Allison had tried her damn best, therefore it was perfect. "You did a very good job."

Allison was allowed to take the picture home, so Roman carefully slipped it into her backpack as she went around and said goodbye to her little friends. After thanking the nice woman, Roman picked up his niece and carried her out to the car. He buckled her up in her car seat and then slipped into the driver's seat.

"Okay, princess, where do you want to go?" Roman made a very good salary already -- he made about three hundred dollars a day -- so he could afford to take his niece places and spoil her rotten. London didn't like him spending too much money on the infant, but he did anyway.
 
"Mmmmm…" Allison hummed making an exaggerated thinking face to show the adults that she was thinking, "Playground!"

"The playground it is!" Samuel said happily and the little girl grinned.

They drove to the playground, Frozen soundtrack playing in the background and everyone singing along, Allison and Samuel to the best of their abilities and Roman perfectly, of course.

They parked their car outside the park and made their way to the playground, since it was such a nice Friday afternoon the place was full of kids in varying ages accompanied by their parents or whoever was watching over them. Right away Allison grabbed at Roman's pant leg to drag him off somewhere but Samuel stopped them with a "hang on," and crouched down to close Allison's jacket. She squirmed a little but it was better than her catching a cold or something.

"I just don't want you to be cold," Samuel explained to the little girl and she stopped making a fuss about it and once again proved that she was a really smart kid.

"Oh, okay," She said and nodded and then adorably looked up at Samuel with wide eyes, "Can we play now?"

Samuel nodded and she shone up and grabbed Roman again to get the adults to come with her, "I wanna go on the slide!"
 
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"Okay, okay, Jesus."

Roman allowed the tiny girl to drag him into the playground. Of course, he towered over everyone else there and also over the playground equipment, which wasn't very tall due to the average height of children. Therefore, he was able to simply pick up Allison and set her on the landing before the slide. He did so, and watched her tenderly as she got ready to slide down the slide.

"Okay, you slide down now and Uncle Sammy will catch you at the bottom, alright, Princess?" he said to her sweetly, leaning against the side of the slide and holding her tiny hand in his own and kissing it.

He then let her go and stepped aside so the lovely child could slide to her heart's content.
 
Allison wooshed down with a happy squeal and once she was down at the bottom Samuel grabbed her and hauled her up in the air. The little girl giggled in delight and Samuel pulled her back to carry her normally and safely again. Samuel didn't carry Allison a lot, Roman usually just claimed her before anyone else, Samuel didn't mind though, because they were just so adorable together.

"Was that fun?" Samuel asked Allison and she nodded.

"Again, please!"

"Okay dokay, her we go," Samuel handed her back to Roman so he could put her up on the top of the slide and so they repeated the action, Allison just as amused by it as the first time.

She requested to go again so they let her go another couple of times since no other kids seemed to be interested in the slide at the moment. That is until a chubby little boy came up to them and just stared with fascination as Roman with ease carried Allison up on the landing.

The kid turned around to a woman who looked like she was in her late twenties, "Mummy I wanna be carried up too!" the little boy demanded, he was probably a year or two older than Allison

"No, Billy, I'm not tall like that nice girl's dad is, you'll have to climb up the stairs," The mother said sweetly and the boy pulled a grumpy face, it was nicer than saying that he was too heavy for her petite frame to carry that far up. That wasn't interesting though, the interesting part was the fact that she had just to Roman as Allison's dad.

Allison herself hadn't seemed to notice as while this had happened she had slid down to Samuel and was now demanding to get back to Roman to go down again. So Samuel handed her over to him again, with an amused smile playing on his lips. Evan wasn't here to get upset this time, so it was all just something fun.
 
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Roman quirked an eyebrow when he heard someone call him Allison's dad. He turned around to look at the woman with a slightly amused expression on his face. Of course, that was the logical assumption -- out of him and Samuel, he obviously resembled Allison a lot more, since he was actually her biological uncle. And, he was always very sweet and nurturing with the child, quite like how Evan was with her. So, he did not blame the woman for assuming he was Allison's father.

But, even if Evan wasn't there, Roman couldn't help but remember how he had reacted the last time something like this had happened. So, he felt obliged to set the record straight.

"Oh, no, actually, I'm her uncle," he told the young woman pleasantly, a smile on his lovely face. He then turned to the small child in his arms and said to her, "Allison, sweetie, you should let the nice boy go down the slide, you've had lots of turns."

So, he transferred his niece onto his back, where she clung to him like a spider monkey. It wasn't too hard, due to how skinny he was. Then, once he had obtained permission from his mother, he reached down and picked up Billy, putting him on the landing before the slide like he had requested. Roman wasn't the strongest person alive, but due to his height, he was able to lift up the slightly heavy child with no problems.

"I'm Roman, by the way," he said to the nice lady. He then nodded to his boyfriend. "And this is Samuel, and this --" he reached around and pulled Allison to the front, wrapping her in a huge hug, "-- is Allison."
 
The boy went down the slide and Samuel picked him up like Allison as well, with ease, he was heavier than her, yeah, but he was still a little kid so it wasn't too hard. Then he set him back on the ground and he hurried back to his mother with a delighted smile on his face.

"Hello Allison," The woman said sweetly to Allison, "My name is Anna, and this is my son Billy, say hello to Allison, Billy,"

Suddenly the boy seemed to have gotten shy and hid a little behind his mother as he waved up to the little girl with a small, "Hello," Allison said a bright and happy hello back.

"I'm sorry for assuming, you just looked a lot alike so I thought it was a safe bet," She smiled apologetically.

"They have confused people like that before," Samuel assured Anna, even though she didn't seem too torn up about it. It was obviously an easy mistake to make. Allison seemed a little confused however and was looking back and forth between the adults.

"Did she think Uncle Roman was your dad? How silly is that?" Samuel said as an explanation to Allison.

"Super silly!" Allison giggled as if it was the silliest thing she had ever heard, then she squirmed a little in Roman's arms, adult conversation was probably pretty boring in her two-year-old mind, "Down, please"

Once she was let down she grabbed Billy by the sleeve and they adorably ventured up the stairs to the slide together, the older boy trying the help making sure she didn't fall as she crawled up. Her tights were getting even dirtier than before and Samuel silently vowed to refuse to let his and Roman's future kids wear white until they were, like, seven.

"Well, your little niece is very adorable,"
 
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Roman set down his niece and allowed her to scurry off with her new friend. Billy seemed like a trustworthy kid -- or, well, his mother seemed nice -- so Roman didn't have a problem with him playing with Allison. Besides, Billy seemed to be making sure that she got up the ladder safely, which was very adorable in Roman's opinion.

"Thanks," he said to Anna with a smile, like he had anything to do with Allison's cuteness. "Yeah, we get confused like that quite a bit -- I'm her mother's twin and we're practically identical so me and Allison look pretty similar. She got my eyes." Roman made a little victorious gesture with his fist.

He affectionately watched as Allison slid down the slide. God, she was beautiful. Roman treated her as if she was his own child, which he was acutely aware was not the case, and he would never try to take the credit for how she turned out from his sister and Evan. But still, he loved her too much for words to describe.

"Your son is very cute, too," he told Anna conversationally as he watched Billy slide down the slide after Allison. Hopefully they would make friends. "I like his dinosaur shirt. Samuel, we should get a dinosaur cushion for the apartment."
 
"You say that now, but the moment I bring one home I can guarantee that you will tell me it doesn't look nice with the other cushions" Samuel chuckled a little, grabbed Roman's hand now that he was free from Allison and bumped his shoulder affectionately into Roman's arm, "But I won't ever object to dinosaur cushions, dinosaurs are the coolest,"

Anna looked between them for a moment before putting two and two together but didn't actually say anything about it.

"Billy would agree with you on that," Anna smiled, she seemed like a good mother in Samuel's opinion, "He's a little shy so it's nice to see him play with another kid for once,"

The adults continued to talk while Allison and Billy went up and down the slide a couple of more times, giggling and shrieking like kids tended to do. After a while, though Anna and Billy had to go, she explained that her husband had dinner ready around this time. Before leaving and before Allison and Billy made their very adorable goodbye's Anna gave Roman and Samuel her number in case Allison wanted to go out play in the park again sometime, she was probably making sure to not miss up on an opportunity for a friend for her shy kid.

Allison seemed a little disappointed that her friend had left and seemed a little lost as to what she wanted to do next, Samuel still asked her though, "What do you wanna do now then Allison?"

The question seem to open up the possibility to do other things than to go on the slide for her and after a moment she pointed towards a sand box with a couple of abandoned buckets and shovels in it. Samuel could appreciate her choice of activity, it was a little calmer and Samuel could really sit down for a while because despite that nap he had gotten in he could feel a mild headache coming on due to the sleep deprivation.

"Good idea! Do you want to build a castle?" Samuel said, still smiling despite the dull pain and the girl nodded happily and led them over to the sand box.
 
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Roman said goodbye to Anna and Billy and did not protest when Allison and Samuel decided they wanted to play in the sand box. How could he not, when they were both too cute to handle? He smiled as he let the tiny girl drag them over to the sand box, where he sat down next to his lovely boyfriend.

His lovely boyfriend who was obviously in pain. Roman physically hurt far too much for him not to notice when his favourite human was in the same position. And besides, he could read Samuel like an open book at this stage. So, he pulled his backpack to him, opened it, pulled out a sheet of painkillers, popped two and pressed them into Samuel's hand.

Roman said nothing, and only handed him a water bottle before he turned to Allison and took off her shoes before she got sand stuck in them.

"Okay, sweetie, let's get started on this castle."
 
Samuel let out a quiet "thanks" as Roman handed him the pain killers and the water. He truly loved his boyfriend a lot and he hated worrying him like this, but he was there for him and didn't make a big deal of it and Samuel really appreciated that a lot.

Samuel swallowed the medication with a slight grimace on his face, he wasn't used to swallowing pills like Roman was, and then just turned his focus on Allison who seemed to have found some of the plastic shovels and small buckets and was splitting them quite randomly amongst them before starting to fill hers up. It had to be nice to be so young and not have to worry about anything than filling up a bucket with sand.

"I am going to inform you both that I'm actually incredible at making sand castles, It's a secret skill I have," Samuel joked as he started to fill his bucket up too, although it wasn't too much of a joke, he had spent a lot of time playing in sand boxes alone as a kid since he had been such a shy child. He wasn't sure if his proclaimed skills were something that had stuck with him throughout the years but he at least thought it was fun.

Allison seemed to decide she was done with shovelling sand and flipped the bucket upside down to make a castle but of course the sand mostly just fell out of the bucket and the little girl looked incredibly disappointed at it before turning to the adults with the same expression to ask for help.
 
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