2010 (5 Years Later)
Cleveland, Ohio
Winchester Residence
Pulling the Impala into the driveway, Dean turned the key in the ignition off and sat back in the driver's seat releasing a deep breath. The case in Wisconsin had definitely done a number on him emotionally and physically. Ugh, shit, I hurt like hell. The shape-shifter had seriously bruised his entire body and might have even cracked a rib or least bruised it.
He spent eight and a half hours trying to come up with some reasonable excuse for why he was walking strangely or why he didn't want any nooky. Some excuse he hadn't used before but as the years went on it was getting harder and harder to keep lying to his wife.
Dean got out of the car and went to the trunk to take out his duffle bag. He winced, gritting his teeth when he lifted his arm a bit too high. "Sonofvabitch," Dean cursed.
He closed the truck and started for his home when the next door neighbour Jeff Parkins approached him.
"Oh, Dean! It's great that you're back!"
Fuck me. Dean plastered forced a smile on his face though inside he really wanted to kick the smug look off of this sweater-vest wearing dick-weed. "Isn't it?" Dean cleared his throat feeling his fingers twitch for the gun in the left pocket of his duffle bag.
"It sure is! You missed another neighbourhood watch meeting!"
Shaking his head not even pretending to give a damn, Dean muttered, "Bummer."
"We don't take this lightly Dean-o," Jeff leaned forward towards Dean and whispered, "there has been a lot of strange and very suspicious activity happening in this very neighbourhood… if you know what I mean?"
"I'm reading between the lines." Dean didn't bother hiding the sarcasm from his words.
Jeff nodded not catching onto Dean's polite hostility, "You should talk to your wife, she's been an active participant in the nightly watch brigade."
Dean frowned and glanced towards the house wondering just why his wife would be into the local neighbourhood night watch brigade. She has never shown an interest in community activities before unless it somehow involved shopping or a function at the private school she ran.
What is she up to? Dean wondered and started for the house completely forgetting about Jeff.
"So you'll talk to her?" Jeff yelled.
Dean grumbled a response and waved off his neighbour as he entered the house.
Setting the duffle bag down at his feet, Dean glanced into the living room noticing the television was turned off.
The soft sounds of the radio in the kitchen drew his attention. He smirked and followed the song when he paused in the doorway. Dean leaned back against the open door frame watching the woman standing at the sink with her back facing him swaying to the slow rock melody.
"Yeah, if I'm not such a sweet thing,
I wanna do everything,"
Dean's eyes locked with her hips amazed at how unconsciously sexy she was.
"What a beautiful feelin',
Crimson and clover,
Over and over,"
Unable to stand by as a spectator a moment longer and ignoring the stabbing-like pain shooting through his body, Dean crossed the kitchen to stand behind his gorgeous wife of five years.
He pushed her long blonde softly curled hair off of her shoulder and dipped his head down, brushing his lips against the side of her neck.
"You're back," Buffy's smile widened as Dean kissed her neck.
"Mm-hm…" Dean mumbled still kissing her neck and letting his hands wrap around her waist feeling her slender curves under his fingers. "I missed you," he muttered, biting her earlobe and breathed in her familiar and intoxicating scent.
Buffy laid her head back against his chest and felt him shutter behind her, "Are you okay?" Buffy turned off the faucet and faced her husband. Her hand went to his cheek examining him closely.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Sore from driving that's all…" Dean hated how easy it was lying to her. The one person he never wanted to lie to was always the victim of his secret life. When he proposed to her, he basically offered a lifetime of lies and secrets, except, she didn't know he was lying and keeping secrets. But he loved her too damn much to come clean about his actual whereabouts, afraid he'd ruin everything he's built thus far with Buffy. "The man I was arresting, uh, wasn't very happy he was being arrested."
On one of their first dates, Dean had created an occupation identity which his entire family and friends followed in suit was that he was a private investigator with Sam under his late father's company. It was an identity cover that was an easy disguise for frequent out of state trips doing what he really was, a demon hunter. Luckily for him, Buffy never asked too many questions. But Dean knew his wife very well and when she's laying on the 'dumb-blonde' routine thick, Buffy really knew a lot more than he was excepting. Fortunately, his demon hunting life had never crossed her suspicions.
"Was Sam not with you?"
Dean inwardly winced and said, "He was, uh, preoccupied." With the second shape-shifter that attacked us. Dean hated himself for the constant lying and the worry in her eyes. He held his hand against her cheek and brushed his lips over hers. "I'm fine. Sammy's fine. The bad guy is in jail… All is well."
Releasing a heavy breath, Buffy nodded and lifted her eyes to his, "Okay." Dean felt a weight of relief that she was going to stop with the questionnaire. "You hungry?"
"Is that even a question?" Dean teased getting her to smile widely.
He sat back on the counter island and watched his love move around the kitchen and poured the pasta from the stove into a strainer placed in the sink.
Rubbing a hand over his tired face, Dean went to the cabinet to take out two plates. He placed them on the counter island then went into the refrigerator for a beer. He tossed the little bottle cap into the trash and disappeared into the dining room.
A minute later, Dean returned to the kitchen holding a glass of red wine. He slid the glass across the counter towards Buffy as she scooped red sauced pasta onto a plate.
Together they sat in silence taking the first bites of pasta. Dean lifted his eyes to her face and watched as she studied the red wine for a moment then sipped it.
"How was it here?" Dean asked breaking the silence in the room.
With a shrug, Buffy replied, "It was inactive to the active capacity."
Dean looked at her strangely. Her play with words had always spun his head on his shoulders. Half the time he didn't understand a word she said unless he sat long enough to piece it all together. But her odd wordplay was one of the many, many traits he loved so much about his girl.
"And the Academy? Any good parent-teacher stories?"
Buffy thought over the events in the last month; with the sudden uptick in vampire and demon activity. She had to distribute teams of five Slayers all across the state. She gave the order to the witches and warlocks under Willow's supervision to create a protective border around the Hellmouth's seal for as long as possible. The rise of vampire and demon gangs only hinted towards one thing; something terrible was going to happen.
"Not really," Buffy kept her eyes firmly on her food not wanting Dean to realize that she was lying. He was very good at reading her, he'd know in an instant that she was hiding something from him. It was easier to squish the conversation before it ever got any further, unlike her, Dean asked a lot of questions.
Dean released a heavy breath which only hurt his cracked rib. He winced but swallowed his pain with another swig of beer.
Sitting against the headboard of the bed, Dean watched Buffy step out of the bathroom wearing only his flannel shirt which swallowed her petite frame. He smirked watching her roll up the sleeves that covered her fingers.
He crossed his arms and admired his mini floor show. Honestly, Dean could just watch her move around the room all day long if he could. Shit, she makes folding laundry sexy as hell. Dean ran his eyes over her bare tanned legs.
Her hair was in a messy bun which she had pulled back to wash her face. Her perfectly sun-kissed skin smelled like lavender.
Hot damn, my wife is fucking hot. Dean smirked proudly of himself for snagging such a beautiful woman. She could have easily have had any man on the planet but she chose him and that's why Dean was determined to make his marriage last forever and ever, just like the vows suggest.
"Jeff talked to me today—"
"—Uh-oh," Buffy said as she closed the door of the closet.
Dean frowned, "Why do you say, uh-oh?"
"Only because you can't stand him. Which is dumb because he's sweet and thoughtful," Buffy said, laying her freshly pressed dress pants aside near the blouse she'll wear tomorrow morning.
"He's only 'sweet and thoughtful' because you're fucking hot and—" Dean paused with a frown, "When was Jeff Parkins thoughtful?" His eyes went to her accusingly.
Buffy smirked, "He stopped by a few times to make sure I was doing okay while you were gone. He does that."
Dean frown deepened, "You mean, this… him checking up on you wasn't the first time?"
Shaking her head, Buffy said, "No. It's a sweet and thoughtful gesture—"
"—How many times?" Dean interrupted.
"A few," Buffy replied.
Dean comically narrowed his eyes on Buffy, "'A few' is a lot. How long has this been going on?" He pursed his lips together.
Releasing a breath, the last thing she wanted to do was argue with Dean, especially when he just returned from his month-long trip. "We've been married for what? Five years? And four of those five years we've lived in this neighbourhood."
"That's a long ass time," Dean grumbled hating the overly nice neighbour in the house to the right of them.
"Dean, it's nothing to get jealous over." She tried to reassure him.
"I am not jealous," Dean told her pointedly. "That preppy asshole could never make me jealous."
Buffy let out a sarcastic laugh with an eye-roll, "Right."
"I'm never jealous." He sounded almost too confident in his straight up lie.
With a widening smile, Buffy went over to him and sat on the edge of the bed, "Then why is there invisible steam blowing out from your ears?"
His lack of response only proved his jealousy.
"My point exactly," Buffy pressed her mouth against his lovingly.
Dean's jealousy was not because he feared Buffy looking at other men. No, his jealousy was that Dean hated every man that looked at his wife. In reality, he knew not one of them would ever get within drooling distance of his girl but it didn't mean, he didn't hate their wandering eyes.
There weren't many things Dean could call his own. His car, his jacket, the music he listened to, his favourite gun were all his father's. All Dean ever wanted was something all to himself, which included everything about his wife, especially her beauty. He wanted all of her; her eyes, smile, laugh, hands, toes, heart—everything. Dean was also very well aware of how irrational his jealous reasoning was because his wife was the devoted loyal type. She has never gone into something half-way. As she described herself one time, Buffy was an 'all-in' kind of girl. Which worked out perfectly for Dean because he was an 'all-in' kind of guy. Since the moment he met, Buffy Summers, Dean wanted that, 'apple-pie' life he feared for so long.
Mister and Missus Winchester could be described as a classic case of 'opposite attraction'. Dean was a beer drinking, mischievous, some might say immature personality, who loves classic rock music and crude humour. In contrast to her husband, Buffy had always been more of a straight-edge, sarcastic, and the matriarch of her marriage. She is the down-to-earth and definite realist, unlike Dean. Consistently, Buffy has always been the first to recognize disadvantages and weigh them appropriately; a trait Dean appreciated because it was an amazing and incredibly rare trait to possess.
But where they 'yin' they 'yang'; They are known to be the two most hard-headed people on the planet, according to their family and friends. Fighting with each other was nearly impossible because neither would ever admit defeat. In the heat of their arguments, they were both ruthless and aggressive; unafraid to hit below the belt. But their fights never lasted more than thirty minutes, because the sexual passion for each other usually outweighed their disagreements. Sex was a language they understood and spoke very well together. All of their best and biggest decisions happened in the bedroom; to get married, to buy a house, to get that patio furniture set, and most recently, to start trying for children.
Despite their similarities and their obvious personality clashes, the love they have for each other was real. Though much of their foundation is based on their separate lies and deceit, their love was the glue that holds them together for the long hull… at least that's the hope if the time finally came to tell each other's big dark secret, which could ruin everything they've spent the last five years building.
"Why are you doing that lame-ass night watch thing?" Dean asked.
As an excuse to patrol without anyone asking questions. Was what Buffy really wanted to say but instead, she replied, "The number of burglaries in this neighbourhood is getting ridiculous."
"No! Did that stupid yapping dog take another newspaper from Parkins' doormat?" Dean pulled the knot holding up her messy pun. He watched her long blonde hair waterfall around her face and over shoulders hypnotizing him.
Buffy cocked an unamused brow easily suppressing her smirk.
With an eye-roll, Dean released a heavy breath, "Who's getting burglarized?"
"Dan and Sandy," Buffy said.
"That old couple up the block that lock themselves out of their car every fucking day?" Dean rolled his eyes. "Please, those old geezers couldn't see two feet in front of them, let alone realize something was taken."
Slapping her hand against his chest lightly, minding his bruises, Buffy narrowed her eyes at him, "Hey, don't be mean. They're a sweet old couple."
"Yeah, we'll be like that someday," Dean said with a boyish smile as he tucked the long strands of her blonde hair behind her ear. "I can just see us living that, 'apple-pie' old married couple dream." He pressed his mouth against her forehead.
"Only with you," Buffy muttered running the tip of her finger over the column of his throat. She lifted her eyes to his and fell in love with him all over again. "You are the only one I wanna grow old with."
Pushing back his injuries, Dean wrapped his arm around Buffy's slender waist and hoisted her up to his body. Buffy smiled and straddled his lap catching his mouth in a searing kiss. His fingers moved from around her waist to the buttons closing the flannel shirt around her body. "We're not old yet, Princess," Dean told her teasingly as he unbuttoned the buttons revealing her naked skin under the material.
Laughing into their kiss, Buffy wrapped her arms around his neck as he rolled them across the bed. He could listen to her laughter all day and night long but at this exact moment all he wanted to feel her completely surrounding him and forget about his guilt for his constant lying and Jeff Parkins drooling over Buffy's stilettos.
Just for a little while, all he wanted to think about was how hot his smokin' wife was when she did that thing with her tongue or that thing with her hands.
Song Used: "Crimson and Clover" by Tommy James & the Shondells 1968