pairing: dean di laurentis x neurodivergent!reader
summary: to help you find the words to accurately describe how you feel for Dean, you create a list. you never intended for anyone to see it, least of all him.
contains: reader has behaviors that reflect those on the spectrum! no use of y/n, pet names (baby, sweetheart), sappy romance fluff, allusions to sex, kissing, cursing, teasing, tickling (sorry :/)
author’s note: apparently i’ve got dean on the brain today! this is my sort of sequel to my oblivious fic! i hope u guys like it :))
It felt worth the mention that you had never been in love before.
Had you been, this might not have been an issue. But like most things in your life, you were a little late to the party. You had been in one relationship before Dean, but it hadn’t lasted long enough to create feelings beyond infatuation or mere like. With Dean, it was different, like everything was. You felt out of control—which you didn’t particularly care for, but it felt like a fair trade with how happy he made you—and like there was a constant pull beneath your sternum to be near him at all times.
You liked your solitude, in fact, you needed it most times. People usually drained your social battery; just a simple exchange of pleasantries feeling exhausting some days. It was almost as if Dean had hacked your system and bypassed all the firewalls you’d put in place. You never felt drained after being with him, it was actually quite the opposite, you felt energized.
You had turned into one of those girls who giggled and giddily spoke about their boyfriend. These were emotions you previously wouldn’t have reserved for even your most intense passion, let alone a man. You couldn’t understand it. It was as if some chemical had been released and it was changing your genetic makeup.
You thought perhaps the feelings would fade the longer you were together. It was new and exciting and maybe your psyche was just reacting positively to a new stimuli.
A promising theory, however it did not prove to be correct. If anything, your intense feelings grew the longer you were together. You had considered the possibility that you may love Dean, but you weren’t sure. And since he hadn’t mentioned it to you, you thought the risk was too great to venture a guess on your feelings towards him.
You knew the common solution other people might suggest would be asking a friend, but this seemed utterly mortifying to you. And how were you to know whether or not people’s experiences differ? Were the symptoms universal? And you hadn’t a clue whether popular media, such as romantic comedies, were to be believed and taken as fact. So no, you wouldn’t be seeking the advice of other’s, there were too many ‘what if’s?’
You liked lists. They were functional and proved helpful for various occasions, your current predicament included. You hadn’t intended for anyone to ever see it. It was for you and you alone. A solo experiment you were conducting.
You wanted to both record instances when you felt strong positive feelings towards Dean, and mark down what specifically he had done to warrant that response. Your hope was that after a few entries, you would be able to draw similarities between them and create a solid thesis.
So, alone in your room, you began writing your list in a previously empty notebook in your bedside table.
1.) He doesn’t treat you like a child
There had been times when your lack of social awareness or naïveté had been misconstrued as child-like. This often led to patronization from past partners. It was a common point of anxiety for you; not being in on a joke everyone else seemed to be, not picking up on sarcasm when you assumed someone was being genuine. It made it even worse when your own partner was apologizing for your actions, or explaining things to you like you were dumb.
Dean didn’t do this. Sure, there had been times when he found your ‘face value’ tendencies to be funny, but it never felt as though he was laughing at you. He had a sort of fondness in his eyes when he looked at you, like he enjoyed the way you saw the world and the people in it.
You never felt left out when Dean was around, either. He and his friends had certain bits they liked to do with each other, and at first you found it hard to pick up on, but when you were alone he would break them down for you. He wouldn’t explain why they were funny, you could understand that, but he was letting you in on the inside joke.
He had told you once that Tucker’s mom had shown them pictures of their young friend dressed up like Mr. Mistoffelees from Cats the musical when she came to help her son move in. Ever since then, the guys had teased him mercilessly about not only enjoying Cats the musical, but dressing up as one of the actors at the age of thirteen.
One afternoon, you and Dean were sitting at the kitchen island while Tucker made breakfast, the three of you discussing the Hawks’ latest game, and more specifically Tucker’s success and scored goals.
“What can I say? I’m magical.”
You looked over beside you to find Dean hiding his smile behind his mug filled with coffee.
You spoke before you thought, which was not something you found yourself doing often. “Magical and mystical.”
“Mr. Mistoffelees,” Dean sung the rest, Tucker immedaitely groaning.
“You told her?” He screeched. Dean laughed so hard he almost fell out of his chair.
2.) He doesn’t make you stay the night at his place
As much as you loved his friends, you didn’t love spending the night at the hockey house. And it really had nothing to do with the other boys at all. It was more to do with…routine.
You had little things. Things most people didn’t see unless they spent the night with you, which was a very few number of people, and you intended to keep it that way.
You hadn’t always felt ashamed of displaying these behaviors that you couldn’t control, but after your last boyfriend broke up with you over them, it became something you thought to hide. Especially from Dean.
For as long as you can remember, you had a routine before bed. You would check the front door lock three times, check all of the stove burners to ensure they’re off, and unlock and re-lock each of the windows. Once you finished your routine, you could sleep peacefully. If you didn’t… you did not sleep.
Your therapist had ensured you this was a behavior that was harming no one, and therefore saw no reason why you should have to stop. Usually, that validation would have been good enough for you, but now you couldn’t help but feel insecure.
You’d tried sleeping at Dean’s house on two different occasions, and both left you feeling unrested and unsettled.
It was around the fifth time that you declined his invitation to stay over that he questioned you about it.
“How come you never wanna stay at my place? Are you uncomfortable there?” He asked you.
“No,” you rush to say. He gives you a look like he knows your lying. “Well…yes, but not because of anything you’ve done.”
“Okay,” he trailed off like he wanted you to continue.
You took a deep breath. “I like my sheets,” you confess.
“You…like your sheets?” He repeats like he doesn’t understand.
“Yes. I got them because they’re the perfect texture and yours are itchy. And my toothpaste is here. Yours is the weird charcoal toothpaste and I don’t like the taste, it leaves my tongue feeling dry. And your TV has a broken pixel in the top left corner that I can’t help but get distracted by every time we try to watch a show, and your front door doesn’t have a chain lock like mine does, and your air purifier is too loud, and—“
“Okay, baby.” He moves to take your hands in his, smiling and laughing lightly at your nervous rambling. “Why don’t we just stay at yours?”
You blink at him. You hadn’t known that was an option. It hadn’t been in your last relationship.
“Of course.” He laughs incredulously. “I just want to spend time with you, I don’t care where it is.”
You tackled him onto his bed with a hug, pressing kisses to his face as he laughs and holds you to him like he doesn’t want to let go. You hope he doesn’t.
Your list began with the more serious reasons, and at some point over the weeks turned into the smaller stuff that left you feeling warm and gooey like a freshly baked cookie.
Before Dean, you hadn’t really considered the perks of having a richer partner. Yes, obviously having money was nice, but you weren’t sure what benefit it would have specifically for you. You didn’t intend on being financially dependent on your partner; you had dreams of your own.
Then you felt cashmere and the world made sense.
“Hey, baby?” Dean called from inside his closet. You were sat criss-cross on his bed with your physics notes in your lap and your computer open in front of you.
“Yeah?” You call back without looking up.
“Do you have any idea where all my cashmere sweaters might have gone?” You look up to find him leaning against one of the doors to his closet, his face looking like he knows exactly where all his sweaters went. And you knew too.
“No,” you reply in your most innocent voice you can muster. “I have no clue.”
“Huh.” He walks towards you, a towel slung low on his hips and his skin still damp from his shower. “That’s so weird, because what you’re wearing right now kind of looks like one.”
The both of you look down at your top at the same time, your eyes trailing back up to his guiltily.
“It’s so soft,” you whisper your explanation.
“I know,” he whispers back. “That’s why I bought it.”
You sigh and then slip the material over your head. You hadn’t been wearing anything underneath, but Dean had seen you naked mulitiple times now, you didn’t think it would affect him as much as it did.
You go back to your notes, but when you notice him still standing beside the bed, the sweater you tossed to him hanging off the tips of his fingers, his eyes alight with something, you ask, “what?”
He throws the sweater over his shoulder and moves to crowd you on the bed. “It makes it even hotter that you have no idea how much you affect me.”
Dimples are caused by slight anatomical variations in facial tissue. A separation of muscle. It made absolutely no sense to you why Dean’s had the affect on you that they did.
Maybe it was because they didn’t always come out. It was only when he smiled or laughed hard that the indents in his cheeks showed. And you did love his laugh. And his smile.
You were lying in your bed, your skin still slightly tacky from your earlier excursions, and normally that sensation would bother you, but it never did with Dean. You loved to trace over different parts of his body and watch the muscles beneath the skin work, or the goosebumps rise over his flesh and know you caused it.
When you trace over his ribs, you feel his abdomen flex and a strange, high noise leave him in a rush. You look up to him.
“Nothing,” he answers, a bit too quickly.
So you do it again, gently tracing your fingers over his ribs, and he squirms a little more intensely.
“Are you ticklish?” You grin.
You run your fingers over both sides of him this time and you’re rewarded by his real laugh, full and loud, with his dimples digging deep into his cheeks.
You don’t know what makes you do it, but you lean up to kiss them. First, the one closest to you, then the other. Though, they fade into just faint indents with how his smile shrank from wide to small, almost shy.
“I love…” you watch his irises expand at your words, his chest stalling for a moment like his breath stuttered. “your dimples.”
His smile isn’t as wide as before, but you watch the indents grow deeper and feel the divots with the tips of your fingers. You feel like he wants to say something else, but he doesn’t.
5.) The noise he makes when you kiss his neck
Dean made plenty of noises you loved.
You loved his laugh, obviously. You loved the noises he made while working out. But you especially loved the noises he made when you teased him.
In your previous relationship, you hadn’t really enjoyed making out. You couldn’t help but focus on the texture of their saliva or the taste in their mouth. You didn’t understand the appeal until Dean, like many things.
You loved the firm and somehow also soft feel of his lips. You loved the delicate way his tongue would brush over yours. You loved how his hands gripped the flesh of your hips and tangled in your hair.
And you loved the noise he made when your mouth would move from his mouth to his neck.
It was technically his jaw, closer to his ear, but your technical thoughts were inconsequential at the moment. You had no appetite to be contrarian when his hips were moving beneath yours uncontrollably and his mouth was open and panting.
You liked conducting experiments, and you were fairly sure that Dean felt the same. After all, it had been an experiment that resulted in your finding the spot that made him whimper. So you decided to conduct another and see how far you push it before he was begging you to stop.
You bit his skin lightly and then soothed it with your tongue, his breath shuttering in his throat and the sweetest noise surfacing. You smile against his skin.
“Baby,” he breathlessly spoke. You moved to the other side of his throat, trying to spread your attention evenly. “You keep doing that, I’m not gonna last.”
It sounded like a warning, but it wasn’t one you cared to heed. So you hummed against his skin and continued your ministrations. You didn’t even have to take your clothes off to get the response you wanted from him.
6.) The fact that he loves you too
In hindsight, you shouldn’t have left something out that you didn’t want your boyfriend to see who had unrestricted access to your apartment.
You could blame the exhaustion, but it was entirely possible that you had subconsciously left it out for him to potentially find, alleviating you of your obligation to confess your feelings.
You’d come home later than usual to find him lying on your couch with a book in his hand. It wasn’t an unusual sight, but the book made you do a double take once you recognized the leather-bound cover as your journal. Your love list journal, to be exact.
“Dean!” You squeal, diving for the book and completely missing it when he moves it out of your reach, your body falling over his onto the couch.
“I feel honored my dimples made your list, baby. I knew you had a thing for them.”
“Oh my god.” You cover your face with your hands, feeling like you could potentially throw up from embarrassment. You hear him set the book down on the coffee table and then gently place his hands over yours.
“Hey.” He moves to uncover your face, his eyes gentle as he takes in your undoubtedly red face. “You know I love you too, right? Because I do. I was just waiting because I didn’t want to move too fast and scare you.”
“Well that’s dumb,” you deadpan. He laughs abruptly. “You wouldn’t have scared me.”
“You don’t have the best track record when it comes to being aware of my feelings towards you, sweetheart. You can be a little oblivious sometimes.”
You smile sadly. “Sorry.”
“No, don’t apologize. I’m just glad you finally caught up.” You roll your eyes before he leans in to kiss you, far too quick and chaste for your liking. Then he’s speaking again. “And to think, all it took was realizing you love when I whimper.”
“Oh my god!” You hide your face in his chest again and feel it rumble beneath you as he laughs. You refuse to look up to show him, but you can’t help but laugh as well.
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