Time to slow things down a little bit this week.
xXBalorBabeXx, Well, as always, everyone has their own story to tell and Henry's is going to be coming up soon. Which means you can either include him as a suspect, or rule him out. But first, I think we need a little bit of fluff…
Minnie1015, Ooh, I haven't gone back and reread Hard Time in ages. I forget what I've written sometimes! Not much more to add to the guessing game in this chapter, but I felt it was time I gave Dean something good :-)
Wolfgirl2013, Thank you!
Mandy, I'm so sorry to hear about your father. Cancer sucks in the worst possible way and being the relative looking on isn't easy. Sending big hugs. Hopefully this chapter with some nice family feels for Dean will help put a smile on your face. You deserve one.
Rebel8954, Ooh, you've come up with so many good theories! Not that I'm going to say if they're right though ;-) As for Seth, well, let's just say he isn't always as irritable as he likes to make out!
Not-that-kinda-gurl, Haha, yes! My plan is working! Plenty more confusion to come before this story is over, but for now, let's decompress a little bit (and let Dean have a night to get over being beaten up!)
LHisawesome4ever, Yep, except lots of cuteness and family vibes!
Skovko, Have you ever seen some of the old British Carry On comedy films? They are pretty much all about chasing women, getting things wrong/mixed up etc. Poor Christopher Hurley could be straight from one of those!
ViolentHugger03, Yep! But who doesn't love a big thick plot though?!
XwwecoyoteX, Not having the Shield boys together still breaks my heart. I loved them in the ring with each other, being all smiley and touchy *sigh* which is why I'll just have to keep the bromance alive here (even if Seth is a dog in this one. Puppy power!)
Phoenix lord of rebirth, I feel like Dean's in ring persona was born to be a PI really; a rule breaking good guy who does his own thing. And of course, Roman was born to keep him out of trouble and temper his crazy! They make the perfect team!
Dinner time...
THIRTEEN
"But it was him, right?" Roman's wife frowns over the table as she swipes up their near enough licked clean dinner plates. Or at least, Dean's plate is locked clean anyway, since it's been months since the last time he had eaten a home cooked meal. Or anything that hadn't come out of a packet. Or the hatch of a fast food joint, "It has to be him, this Christopher Hurley, or whatever his name is. Who else could it be?"
"The son, Henry," Roman suggests, "Or maybe the roommate that everyone keeps talking about. Jennifer something,"
"Boseman," Dean supplies, proving something which Roman is fast realizing. Namely that Dean has a great eye for detail but half the time can't remember to take care of himself or eat, which is part of the reason that when Hurley had left them, Roman had forced Dean to come back to his house and take him up on the offer of dinner, instead of staying at the office on his own and running the risk of getting beaten up again, which Roman is damn well determined to stop. Although admittedly the black eye had kind of startled his wife a bit when he and Dean had walked through the door. Not that she lets on with her pitch perfect hosting,
"So now, Dean sweetie, what can I get you for dessert? Blueberry pie or would you just like some coffee?"
Dean's eyes widen,
"Pie? Fu – uh, fudge, I mean. Pie please."
Roman's tiny daughter is knelt in the living room, wearing a crown and a pair of fairy wings and in definite earshot of the grownups at the table. Hence Dean's sudden desperation not to swear. Seth is perched like a Mayan god on the coffee table draped in Barbie clothing and with hair bobbles in his fur, which the beaming little girl has been adding all evening. Well, in between chatting to him and singing Disney songs. None of which the fiery little dog is enjoying but – to his credit and as Dean had made him promise – he hasn't tried to growl or curl his lip at her once.
"But just for the record," Roman's wife calls from the kitchen, where she is pulling the precious pie out in a cloud of blueberry steam, "I really don't think this Henry kid could have done it. I mean, killing his own mother?"
Roman sits back with a grunt,
"I don't know," his stomach is full of Samoan chop suey and he feels almost weirdly contented for once, since pretty much everyone in life that he cares about is sat under one roof. Well, except Brock and maybe even Carl the pigeon, "You didn't see some of those letters he wrote."
"He's angry," she reasons, coming back across the dining room and then slapping his hand as he reaches for the cream, before handing it over to their guest for the evening along with a piled high bowl of dessert. Dean shoots her a not so subtle wink across the rim of it,
"Fudge. You know, if you ever get tired of uce, I would marry you in like, a freakin' heartbeat."
"Sorry babe," Roman grins at him, pulling her close, "She's all mine. Except for when she makes us go and stay with her mother, because then you can have her."
"Hey," his wife slaps his chest and then drops down into her seat at the table, where she curls her feet up underneath her like a cat and picks her mug of peppermint tea up, "So, tell me more about this Henry guy. What does he do since he got disinherited?"
"Nothin'," Dean snorts around mouthful of pie, before briefly losing his focus in ecstasy, "Oh fudgin' fudge. Ho man this is good."
"Thank you."
"He runs a conspiracy website," Roman fills in for her as Dean takes another bite, "Nine eleven. The moon landing. The pyramids. You name it, he believes it."
His wife grins,
"Bigfoot as well?"
"Yeah, but that's like, totally real though," Dean informs them spitting crust everywhere.
Roman's sweet wife grins back in his direction,
"Good to know," then turns to clap her hands, trying hard to signal their daughter who is draping some long plastic beads around Seth, presumably to bring out the whites of his eyeballs which are locked tight on Dean as if to say, can we leave? "Okay baby. Time's up. It's a school night, which means that we need to get you into bed."
In response the little girl's eyes turn orb-like,
"But momma, me and Seth were going to play mermaids next."
Roman can swear he hears the dog sighing, but his wife however remains unmoved,
"Sorry kid, but mermaids will just have to wait until next time. Now come along baby, say goodnight to Seth."
"Goodnight Seth," the little girl pouts at him, before leaning in close to hiss into his furry ear, "Ugh. My mom never lets me do anything."
Roman snorts but turns it into a cough noise as his wife lifts a brow at him,
"And what are you laughing about?"
Roman bangs his chest and then clears his throat loudly,
"Who me? Uh, nothing. I had a tickle."
"Uh huh."
"Night night papa," their daughter huffs super dramatically, slouching across the room like her feet are made of lead, in six year old protest at her inhumane treatment.
Roman pats her tush,
"I'll be up in a minute baby girl, so now why don't you go up and pick out a story?"
His kid bites her lip,
"Can Mr Dean read it to me?"
"Huh?"
The man himself jerks up from his cleared dessert bowl with a blueberry smeared finger wedged inside his mouth and a look of total bafflement on his features,
Roman grins at him,
"Of course he can. Right babe?"
"Fu – uh, fudge," Dean plucks loose his finger and then wipes it on his shirt front, "Uh, I mean, sure. I guess."
"Yay," the little girl does a guinea pig popcorn and then grabs his hand, "You have to come and see my room. It's really cool because it's pink and has unicorns and I have a nightlight to keep the monsters out."
"Uh, uce?" Dean blinks as he's dragged from the living room looking panicked,
"Be right there babe," Roman grins back, as Seth pads over trying to shake the Barbie cape off and the bangles and the beads. Roman's wife bends down to help and then smiles up at her husband,
"I like him."
"You mean Seth?"
"I mean Dean," she grins, "He's like an awkward child-man. Plus he seems to care about you a lot, which makes me feel better about this Ella Hurley thing and the fact that the two of you are trying to track down a murderer."
Roman shrugs,
"Well I'm not. I'm just the secretary here."
"Office manager," his wife corrects absently, peeling the last of the pearl strings off Seth, who shakes himself and then snorts for good measure, "So does that mean that you didn't go to Blue Skies with Dean? Or that you weren't in his car when that woman was murdered?"
He opens his mouth,
"Uh – ,"
"Roman Joseph Reigns. You'd better not be about to lie to me right now."
Her hands are on her hips, which is not a good sign and her eyebrow is raised so high above her lashes that it's practically buried up into her hair. Seth drops his tail and creeps closer to Roman who scoops him up to soothe him. Or to use as a shield. He puts his hand up,
"Okay, I'll admit it. I might have been out with him a couple of times," not a lie, "But only because uce doesn't have backup and I was worried about him. I mean, you saw his eye. Ambrose needs someone to have his back out there."
His wife sighs,
"Ugh. But does it have to be you?" coming in closer she pulls him towards her so that his big shaggy head is buried into her chest with her hands in his hair as he loops his arms around her, "I mean, what if those same people come after you?"
"They won't," he rumbles, "Because I'm not the detective here. I'm just the office manager, remember?"
"Best one in town," his wife smiles back, before murmuring into his hairline, "Just make sure that you're careful okay? And if it gets too freaky or dangerous, just promise me, promise me that you'll pull out."
"It's a fair enough ask and so he nods,
"I promise babe."
"Good," she leans down to kiss him sweetly on the lips, then pokes his shoulder and points at the hallway, "Now go make sure our kid isn't scaring Dean."
Because their daughter's room is right opposite the staircase Roman can hear her before he hits the first floor. Or rather he can hear his daughter and his employer, the latter of whom sounds completely confused as he clearly grapples with a difficult concept,
"So, this Barry kid is like a wizard or somethin', right?"
Roman hears his daughter snort,
"Harry Potter."
Dean grunts,
"Oh, Harry. I mean, that's what I said, an' like why is he livin' under the stairs in some closet?"
"Because," his charge huffs in long suffering tones, "His uncle and auntie are really, really mean to him. But, it's okay in the end Mr Dean, because Hagrid comes and rescues him out of there and he buys him an owl."
Roman peeks around the door. His daughter is sitting tucked up beneath her bedsheets, busy scrabbling through the book that is perched on Dean's lap, from where he is sat on the edge of the mattress looking bewildered,
"He buys him a what?"
"Here," the little girl chirps, ignoring him as she tracks down the page Roman had got to the night before and then brushing some of her staticky long brown hair back, "Read from here."
"Well, alright," Dean still looks slightly dubious about it, "But if you get nightmares then don't blame me."
She shrugs,
"I won't."
"Now, let's see here," he creases the book backwards and then clears his throat loudly several times, before launching uncertainly into the story with the frown of a man who hasn't read to kids before.
Actually it's pretty adorable.
"There were a hundred and forty two staircases at Hogwarts – holy fu-fudge. That's a whole lotta stairs,"
Roman stifles a grin in the doorway and then watches as his daughter blinks sleepily,
"Mr Dean – ,"
"Alright, alright. Where were we? Oh, got it. Like, big wide sweepin' ones, real freakin' narrow ones, some that lead somewhere different on a Friday? Huh?"
Roman's daughter blinks sleepily a second time. It has been a long day between school and their guest, not to mention her having played with Seth for hours and hours. Wriggling from his arms the tiny pooch pads in silently and then makes himself comfy on the unicorn quilt, tucking himself up right next to Roman's daughter and then shutting his eyes as she gently twirls his fur. She's sucking her thumb which means she's nearly a goner.
"Some with a vanishin' step halfway up 'em an' – ,"
"Babe?"
"Huh?" Dean looks up mid-breath, seeming startled to see his office manager in the doorway, grinning like an idiot.
Roman points,
"I think you're good."
The tiny little girl has turned out like a lightbulb and so for that matter evidently has Seth.
"Oh," Dean shuts the book super carefully then levers off the bed like he's trying to diffuse a bomb. Or ducking through lasers like in that Catherine Zeta Jones film he'd been singing about randomly earlier on in the day. Which works pretty well until he steps on a Barbie and crashes extra hard into a bookcase,
"Ho crap."
Across in the bed Roman's daughter stirs mildly and Seth curls his lip, although they both stay asleep. Dean looks up and then scratches his hair sheepishly,
"Fudge, that was close."
"Nah, don't worry about it babe. Because that kid could sleep through a nuclear fallout," he winks at his employer, "She takes after her old man."
Dean looks down,
"Uh, thanks for havin' me round uce. Been nice to be like, part of a real family for once. Hope, uh, I didn't like, show you up too much."
Roman smiles fondly,
"Nah. You could never do that. Plus it helps you called my wife the best cook in the universe."
"Dude," Dean gapes back at him wide eyed, "She freakin' is. Because that like, Samoan chop suey? Holy cow man."
"Then I guess I'd better bring some tomorrow for lunch."
Dean's face lights up,
"So you're like, comin' back then? Your wife didn't see the black eye an' make you quit? Or like, not want you workin' with a crazy private detective?"
Roman rubs a hand through the smaller man's hair, then fights the urge to find out who told him he was crazy and grab them and make them die a slow and painful death. In the though, end he simply tousles him harder and then snorts,
"Damn straight babe, we got a murder to solve."
He just hopes that he never has to choose between solving it and putting his wife and his baby girl first.
Next week we return to our scheduled viewing as the boys get back on the case. Next stop: Henry Hurley.