The Silver Fighter | ✓

A Jolly Good Dinner

As I walked inside, I gazed at the familiar restaurant with a fond smile on my face. As usual, the smell of the best burgers you'll ever try filled the air, and the pink and yellow neon sign that forms the CJ's logo shone throughout the room.

'Some things never change.' I mused, holding back a grin.

The diner itself is a small square building and has a cozy vibe. There are no tables, only booths and a bar. And no, the bar doesn't sell alcohol.

Though Scar tells me over and over again how she wishes it would.

I walked before the guys to the bar and a familiar shaggy brown-haired, blue-eyed boy was cleaning it with a green, dirty rag. I smiled when I saw him. 

'That wanker! I didn't know he was in town.'

I cleared my throat loudly, hoping to get his attention as I announced in an overly dramatic fake southern accent, "Is that my poor husband returned from the war?" 

I watched as Dean's brow furrowed at the counter until he looked at me. Then, his face split into a grin.

"I was told by the general he died from having his head blown off." I continued and put a hand on my forehead as if I was weeping. "And here he is, standing before me like a spectre of doom."

Dean's grin then went away as he kept up with my joke and took on a stoic expression. "Now listen here, darlin'." He started in his own fake southern accent. "I got captured after two long years at war and I was recruited by the enemy to be a spy. So don't blow my cover, missy." 

I gasped in fake shock. "You're a traitor?" I exclaimed, appalled. "Well, I'll be darned."

Dean threw me a charming wink until he saw that I couldn't hold in my laughter anymore. We both broke at the same time and laughed our arses off until there were tears in my eyes.

"Ah, Dean, you son of a bitch." I told him as I wiped my tears from my eyes and walked over to the counter. He returned my grin with a twinkle in his light eyes and clasped my hand, then side hugged me from over the bar.

"As vulgar as ever, I see." He told me amusedly. 

I pulled back from the hug and just shrugged, still smiling. "What can I say? It's in my blood." Dean nodded seriously. He's met my pops before, so he knows what I mean. Pops can swear like a sailor on the ocean blue and can belch like one too.

Just don't tell his investors. They don't take that information too kindly.

"I haven't seen you around here in a while." Dean noted as he gestured to the restaurant. "Where the hell have you been?" He questioned as he grabbed the dirty rag from before and slung it over his shoulder.

'Woo! And he wants to talk about my potty mouth?'

"I've been busy with a few things." I informed him vaguely, trying not to say too much around the Three Stooges behind me.

He nodded, understanding why I couldn't say more. 

Ladies and gents, may I introduce you to Dean Knutson. 

The man who patched my sorry arse up after my second ever fight at The Temple. I broke three of my ribs and two of my fingers on my left hand. Thank God I'm right-handed or else my homework would have looked like shit.

Dean knows the civilian me, Grace, because he had to, you know, bring me back from being nearly dead from internal bleeding and ended up seeing me from behind the mask. He's an EMT in training as a twenty-something-year-old man which, let me tell you, comes in handy more often than you might think.