No Strings Attached

Day 138

 Day 138

           "Sweetheart, could you grab that marinara sauce?" Lisa glances over at Dean while placing a bag of pees in their cart. To her dismay, Dean seems to be off in his own world staring intently at the back of a goldfish box. "Babe."

            "What? Oh, yeah, sure," Dean mutters, putting the box of yellow crackers back where he found it before reaching for the sauce.

            Dean loved the grocery store. There was always something new to look at and taste. He loved the meat aisle the most. Shelves upon shelves of salami, ham, ground beef, turkey legs, steaks, chicken breasts, bacon and almost anything else he could imagine. He once tried to get Lisa to buy spam, but she gave it one look and stuck her nose up in the air, refusing to feed her son something so "outdated."

            "So I take it dinner is spaghetti?" Dean puts the sauce in the cart along with the other food. Tonight he is supposed to have dinner with Elena, but with her ever-changing work schedule he wasn't sure.

            Her hours have gotten worse over the past month. Several nurses left to go to a bigger hospital, causing the hospital to close ranks and double the hours of the already over-worked staff. Elena now had to deal with things she wasn't paid for, picking up charts and helping patients she had never met before. Dean was understanding of the chaos, but Damon not so much. Most of her free time now had to be spent at home, forcing her and Dean to move their encounters around a great deal. Dean didn't mind, seeing her was all he wanted. Yet it did cause him to hesitantly agree to a time and place, knowing full well she might have to reschedule and maybe finally break a rule.

            If he was being honest, he was waiting for her to break one. He was waiting for her to break that one rule that would change everything. He knew he couldn't be the one, at least not now. He could see how tightly Elena was wound around Damon, her every move being controlled. She was the puppet to his puppeteer and there wasn't anything Dean could do but help her through it. But if she would just bend one silly, infuriating rule...

            "Lasagna," Lisa corrects, pushing the cart down the aisle. Dean follows behind like a lost puppy as she continues to place things in the cart. He frequently picks up random things, each time being shot down with a cold stare. Finally giving up, Dean asks if there's anything he can get for her. "Actually yes. Can you go get the cheese for the lasagna?"

            "Okay. I'll meet you at the register?" Nodding, Lisa goes back to her shopping as Dean moves toward the dairy. Rounding the corner, a smirk sneaks onto his face when he spots a certain brunet leaning over the feta. "Well, would you look at that? I've got my own personal stalker."

            Startled, Elena drops the cheese and jerks into an upright position. She smiles warmly when she realizes who had spoken, but her eyes quickly narrow at the man before her.

            "You never grocery shop," she accuses as he walks over her. "Lisa doesn't let you 'cause of your obsession with spam."

            "It's not an obsession. I just happen to really like it," Dean says, picking up the cheese she dropped and placing it back in her hand. "And she does if she's here to supervise."

            "Ah, I see." Elena glances behind him, expecting to see the woman watching them. "We could get in serious trouble for this, you know. We did set rules for this very reason." Rolling his eyes, Dean grasps her elbow and pulls her in for a haste kiss.

            "She's on the other side of the store and no one's around. Live a little," he teases, kissing her again before allowing her to continue her shopping. "So we're still on for tonight, right?"