pairings: joe burrow x reader 🩹
wc: 2.4k
an: not gonna pretend the tag isn't a mess right now. i know it's been a little disheartening for some of you, so when this request came through my inbox it lit me up and i had the whole thing out faster than anything i've written in a while. it's barely been edited y'all. normally i'd sit on a draft like this, let it breathe, poke at it for a week. but given everything, fuck it. it's going up. i hope it brings you a little joy.
thank you to the anon who sent this one in 💋
masterlist
The mug is in your left hand and your phone is in your right and you are four steps from the bottom when your foot comes down on the edge of the tread.
There is a sound the socks make on the wood — cartoonish, slick and fast — and then you are not standing anymore.
You get your left arm out toward the rail and you feel your fingers close on it and then not close, and then the stairs come up and take you at the base of your spine.
The rest is fast. Two more steps on your side, your elbow finding the wall, your shoulder finding the floor.
Then you are sitting at the bottom with your legs out in front of you and one sock hanging off your toes and hot coffee everywhere — the wall, the floor, soaking through your thigh where the mug came down with you.
The noise you make is not a word.
It comes out low and it keeps going, and by the time it stops your eyes are already spilling over, and you have not decided to cry, and you are crying.
Upstairs, the bed creaks and then his feet hit the floor and he’s already saying your name.
—
He comes down fast and stops three steps up, and you know he’s seen the coffee before he’s seen you, because there’s a half second where nothing happens.
Then he’s on the floor.
Not lifting you. Sitting down on the wet hardwood in gym shorts, one hand going to the back of your head, the other flat on the floor beside your hip.
“Hey. Hey. I’m right here.” His hand moves in your hair. “Don’t move yet, okay? Just let me look at you first.”
“I’m fine.”
“I know you are.” He says it like he means it, and he keeps going anyway. “Humor me. Shoulder.”
He presses. You shake your head.
“Elbow’s bleeding a little. Not bad, we’ll clean it up.” His hand travels down. “Neck? Anything in your neck?”
“No.”
“Did you hit your head. And I need you to actually think about it, not just say no.”
You think about it. “I didn’t hit my head. I landed on my side.”
“Okay. Good.” He exhales. “That’s good.”
He gets his fingers around your wrist, the one that went for the rail, and turns it. You make a sound and he stops immediately and holds it where it is.
“Yeah, okay. We’re not doing that anymore.” He lowers your hand to your thigh and covers it with his. “You caught yourself on the rail?”
“I tried to.”
“You did, though. That’s why it’s your wrist and not your face.”
Then his face changes. “Is that hot? Baby, is that coffee still hot?”
“It’s not that hot anymore.”
He’s already got the waistband of your shorts in two fingers, pulling the fabric off your skin. It’s pink. It’s not blistered. He looks at it longer than he needs to.
“You’re wearing socks on these stairs,” he says.
“I’m aware.”
“I know you’re aware. I’m not — ” He stops himself. Puts his hand flat on your knee. “You scared me.”
The tears are coming down slower now. You wipe your face with the back of the hand that works and get coffee on your cheek doing it.
“You’ve got — ” He reaches up and thumbs the coffee off your cheek.
—
“Okay,” he says. “Let’s get you up.”
“I can get up.”
“I know.” He’s already standing. He gets a hand under your good arm anyway. “Slow.”
You go slow. You get your feet under you and your weight over them and you’re up, and for about a second it’s fine.
Then it isn’t.
It comes up through the base of your spine and takes your breath, and you hear yourself say something with no vowels in it and grab a fistful of his shirt.
“Whoa. Hey.” His arm comes around you. “What. What is it.”
“My — ” You can’t get to the end of it. “Give me a second.”
“Where.”
You put your hand at the small of your back, low, lower than that, and he watches you do it and his mouth flattens out.
“You landed on it.”
“Yeah.”
“On the edge of a stair.”
He bends and puts one arm behind your knees and lifts you before you can get anything out, and you make a noise and get both arms around his neck, and he turns and takes you into the living room like you weigh nothing, and steps directly through the coffee on the way.
He gets you down onto the couch on your left side, which is the only way you can be, and puts a pillow under your head, and then he stands there over you with his hands on his hips looking at the coffee in the hall and the coffee on his shorts and the coffee soaking through the shoulder of your shirt where he carried you.
“Don’t clean it up. It’s my mess.”
“I’m gonna clean it up once I get you settled.” He crouches down in front of the couch so his face is level with yours. “Do you want ice, or do you want me to sit here first.”
“Sit here first.”
He sits down on the floor.
—
He brings ice wrapped in a dish towel. He brings ibuprofen and a glass of water and stands there while you take it. He goes back for a second pillow and gets it under your hip, and then takes it out again when you tell him it’s worse, and puts it under your knees instead.
He wipes up the hall. He puts your shirt in the wash. He comes back with one of his, and helps you into it, and gets your arm through the sleeve on the wrist side without you having to move the wrist at all.
Then he sits on the floor with his back against the couch and his phone in his hand and reads about tailbones for a long time.
“Coccyx,” he says, at some point.
“I know.”
“Okay, so it’s four vertebrae, fused. Sometimes five. And it says here it’s vestigial, which means — it’s a tail. It’s what’s left of a tail. Everybody’s just walking around with a leftover tail at the bottom of their spine and nobody knows until they fall down the stairs.”
“Joe.”
“They can’t cast it. There’s nothing to cast.” He keeps scrolling. “You can’t splint it, you can’t wrap it, there’s no — ” He stops. Reads. “It says four weeks.”
“Okay.”
“It says four to eight weeks and to take ibuprofen and sit on a cushion.”
“Okay.”
“That’s the whole thing. That’s the entire — that’s the medical advice.” He turns his head and looks up at you over the edge of the cushion. “Sit on a cushion.”
“I’m gonna be fine.”
He doesn’t answer that. He looks at his phone again, at whatever page he’s on, and then he puts it face down on the rug.
He orders a donut pillow. You don’t know that until later that afternoon when it shows up at the door, but he orders it right then, sitting on the floor, without saying anything about it.
Then he gets up on his knees and turns around so he’s facing you, forearms folded on the couch cushion by your ribs, and he looks at you for a while.
“I can’t do anything,” he says.
“You’ve done like nine things.”
“I moved a pillow around.” He puts his chin down on his arms. “Y/N, I did the laundry wrong. You had to yell the settings at me from in here.”
“You did the laundry.”
“Badly.”
“There’s nothing else for you to do right now. Just sit here and be with me.”
He stays where he is. You reach out with your good hand and get your fingers into the hair at the back of his neck, and he lets his head come down onto the cushion beside your shoulder.
“Okay,” he says, into it.
—
He turns his face into your shoulder and kisses it there, through his own shirt, and then he sits back on his heels and takes your wrist.
He doesn’t turn it this time. He holds it the way it wants to be held, and he brings it up, and he puts his mouth on the inside of it.
Your face goes before you know it’s going.
It’s not the crying from the floor. It’s the last of it, and it comes up fast and stops almost as fast, and he holds still with his lips against your pulse until it does.
“There we go,” he says. “Get it out.”
“I’m crying because this is the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done and I feel stupid saying this out loud, but I think it’s actually helping.”
He doesn’t laugh at you. He kisses the same spot again, lower, at the base of your palm.
“Yeah?”
“A little.”
“Okay,” he says, and keeps going.
He works his way up. The heel of your hand. The inside of your forearm where nothing’s wrong. Your elbow, which is scraped open and cleaned and has a bandaid on it that he put on crooked, and he kisses the skin next to it because he can’t kiss the bandaid.
“Roll toward me a little.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s a mark on the back of your leg and you don’t know about it.”
You didn’t know about it. He gets his hand under your calf and lifts, and there’s a line across the back of it, purple already, the width of a stair edge. You look at it for a second and then you have to stop looking at it.
He puts his mouth on it. He stays there.
“Joe.”
“Mm.”
“What are you doing.”
He doesn’t lift his head right away. When he does, he says it like he’s telling you the time. “My mom used to do this.”
You don’t say anything.
“Anything happened, she’d kiss it. Didn’t matter what it was. Broke my thumb in sixth grade and she kissed my thumb.” He sets your calf back down on the couch. “It’s stupid.”
“It’s not stupid.”
“It’s a little stupid.” He moves your hair off your face with two fingers. “It worked, though. Every time.”
He’s quiet then, and you can see him look down toward the wrong end of the couch, at the part of you he’s been avoiding this whole time, and you watch him get an idea about it.
“What if I rubbed it.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Not on it. Around it.” His hand is already hovering. “Everything around it’s gonna lock up by tonight, and then that’s gonna hurt worse than the actual—”
“Joe.”
“I’m just saying I have hands.”
“You are not massaging my tailbone.”
“That’s not what I said.” He’s fighting a smile now. “I said around it. There’s a difference.”
“There’s no difference.”
“There’s a considerable difference.”
You laugh. It hurts, which makes you laugh harder, which hurts more, and you get a hand up to make him stop before he says anything else, and he catches it and kisses that too — the back of it, once, without ceremony, like he’s just going to keep doing this now.
“Lie down,” you say.
“Where.”
“Here. Behind me. There’s room.”
He looks at the couch and he looks at you and you can see him running the math on whether he can get behind you without moving you.
“I’ll be careful.”
“I know you will.”
—
The doorbell gets him up an hour later.
He brings the box in, opens it in the middle of the living room floor with a kitchen knife, holds it up, and looks at it, and neither of you says anything for a second.
“It’s a pool float,” you say.
“It’s medical.”
“It’s a pool float, Joe.”
He puts it on the end of the couch and doesn’t make you use it yet.
You eat dinner sideways, which is not a thing anyone should have to do, and he doesn’t try to make you sit up for it. He eats his on the floor with his back against the couch so you’re not looking at the top of his head.
At nine he turns off the lamp and puts something on you’ve already seen four times, volume at eleven, and then he stands at the end of the couch and works out the logistics.
“Okay. Don’t help.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
He gets a knee up on the cushion by your feet. Then a hand on the back of the couch. He comes over you and down behind you in one long movement with his weight on his arm the whole way, and the couch takes him and you don’t move an inch.
“See,” he says.
“I didn’t say anything.”
He gets an arm under your neck and the other one over your waist and pulls you back into him until there’s no space anywhere.
The room goes blue and then dark and then blue again from the TV. You stop following it somewhere in the second act.
His hand comes off your waist and goes low, and lower, and the heel of it starts working in slow circles into the muscle beside your spine, four inches above where it actually hurts.
You don’t say anything.
He doesn’t either. He doesn’t stop, and he doesn’t get closer to it, and he doesn’t ask, and after a while your breathing does what it does when you’re not in charge of it anymore.
He feels it happen. His mouth finds the back of your head.
“There you go,” he says, to nobody.
—
You come up once, later, for no reason.
The TV’s still going, the same show, a different episode — the one after, or the one after that. His hand isn’t on your back anymore. It’s around your wrist, and he’s holding it against his chest, and he’s kissing it.
The inside of it, the same spot, over and over, because that’s the one he can reach and he’s not done trying.
You don’t open your eyes. You don’t tell him you’re awake.
He does it again. And again after that.
taglist: @honeydippedfiction @harryweeniee @mruizsworld @cixrosie @babygirlburrow @coasttocold @jbnine99 @melanie-15 @renegadebirch @yourfavmahomie @neyessibff @hallecarey1 @nngkay @itsleilabxtch @cozygirljay @nycgblogs05 @wickedfun9 @marvelislove10 @megsinnerthoughts @vroomvroommbtch @britt217 @thatgirltries @edtomh @nanouslibrary @crazygirlinthisworld @leftmyheartinapubinhampstead @savemyempire @xoxonobodyhome @onceuponatimeiwasacowgirl @unlikelystay @londonfog3 am i missing anyone? if you want to be added to the taglist, send me an ask or a dm and i'll add you, loves 🩷
pairings: joe burrow x younger reader (sissy) 🐅
wc: 2.3k
an: OKAY, here she is, this is what i imagine sissy felt like seeing joe when he first started bulking up because who wouldn't feel this way.
this is a repost — it went up first on my other blog @doingjustdivine, which is where i keep all my witchy tarot stuff. it's always linked in my pinned post if you want to follow over there too 🔮
if you are new to the sissy verse this is a jb x younger reader story — sissy is just her nickname. the rest of her is on the sissy verse masterlist, and everything else i've written is on the main masterlist 🩷
The review was on your calendar for ten. You were in the conference room by nine-forty, because two quarters had taught you that he came early, and one quarter had taught you what it was like to still be crawling under the table for the HDMI cable while he stood there watching you do it.
So you set up the way you always set up. Laptop, adapter, the printed copies Rick insisted on that no client had ever once picked up. Water pitcher. Two glasses.
At nine-fifty-one you heard reception say his name in the voice they used for him.
He came in from the gym.
Not a suit — he'd never worn a suit to these, but he'd worn a quarter-zip in December, and today it was a long-sleeve and shorts and hair still wet at the back of his neck. Shaker bottle in one hand. Phone in the other. He said morning and you said morning back and set the second glass down.
The shirt was the first thing. It was not built for whatever he was doing to himself in the offseason.
You'd seen him in that shirt in October. There'd been room in it then.
"You're early," you said.
"You're earlier."
"I work here."
He put the shaker bottle on the table like it was a coffee and pulled out the chair he always pulled out, the one on the window side, and sat down in it while you were still standing — and the shirt went tight across his back when he leaned to do it, and you looked at the adapter in your hand until he was all the way down.
Six months ago you'd have called him lean. There wasn't a version of that word that worked anymore.
"I got a telescope," he said.
"A telescope."
"Yeah." He turned his phone face-down on the table. "Bought it in January. Thing's got a computer in it. You put in what you want to look at and it just — finds it."
You clicked the adapter into the side of the laptop. "That seems like cheating."
"That's what I said." He sounded pleased that you'd said it. "There's a whole thing about it online. People get mad."
"About telescopes."
"About telescopes."
The projector woke up and threw the desktop across the wall, and you turned to check the alignment, which meant turning your back to him, which was fine. That was fine. You had a folder to open.
"What do you do with it?"
"Look at Saturn, mostly." A pause. "It's got rings."
"I've heard."
"They're real."
You laughed before you could decide not to, and you heard him settle back in the chair, and you kept your eyes on the wall.
"What do you do?" he said.
"With a telescope?"
"On your day off."
You clicked to the first slide. Cover page, firm logo, his name in the corner in eleven-point.
"Errands," you said.
"Errands."
"Groceries. Laundry. It's not a good answer."
"It's not an answer at all." He said it easy, no edge on it, the way he'd said is this the same coffee in October and do you like your job in December, and you'd handled both of those the same way you were handling this one, which was by not.
"Water?" you said.
"Sure."
You poured it. He watched you pour it.
"So what've you been up to?"
"That's the same question."
"It's a different question."
"How."
"Broader," he said.
Rick came in at ten with his laptop under his arm and a coffee he'd already spilled some of, and said Joe's name like they were old friends, which they were not, and Joe stood up to shake his hand and you got four seconds to look at the wall and reset your face.
Then you ran the meeting.
You were good at this. That was the thing nobody outside this building understood about you — that you could hold twelve months of somebody's money in your head and walk them through it without a note, that you'd built the model yourself, that Rick brought you into rooms because clients liked you and stayed because you were right. You opened on the year-over-year and moved into the reallocation you'd been building since January, and you did not think about the shirt.
For nineteen minutes.
He had a forearm on the table. He'd been resting it there the whole time, and you'd spent all of it not looking directly at it.
And somewhere in the middle of the muni bond ladder you clicked to the next slide and looked down at the laptop and then back up, and you weren't looking at the slide, and the room was quiet, and you had absolutely no idea what number you'd been about to say.
"Sorry — the projector's cutting the bottom line off," you said.
You adjusted something that did not need adjusting. You found your place in the printout and then lost it again on the way back to the wall and had to run your finger down the column to get it, and your face was hot, and the conference room was sixty-eight degrees like it always was, so there was nowhere to put that.
You got through it. You got through all of it. And the whole way down the reallocation you were talking about tax lots while some other part of you sat in the corner of your own head and thought about him.
Rick didn't notice.
Joe did.
You were closing out on the tax-loss harvesting when Rick asked him about camp.
"April," Joe said. "Offseason program. Real camp's July."
"Big year." Rick said this to every client about every year.
"Yeah."
"You look like you've been busy." Rick gestured at him with the coffee, a vague up-and-down, the way men can just say that to each other. "What are they doing to you over there?"
Joe huffed. Not quite a laugh.
"Eating, mostly."
"Yeah?"
"Six a day. There's a guy who texts me." He turned the water glass a quarter turn on the table. "I ate at eleven-thirty last night. Set an alarm for it."
"That's the life," Rick said.
"It's not, really," Joe said, easy, no self-pity in it at all. "You get so you don't want any of it. You just do it because somebody's counting."
You wrote nothing down. There was nothing to write down. You looked at the printout in front of you and thought about a man setting an alarm for eleven-thirty at night to eat food he didn't want, alone, in a house you'd never seen, and it went somewhere completely different in you than the shirt had.
"Anyway," Joe said. "Sorry. You were on the harvesting."
"I was," you said.
Rick left first. He always did — handshake, something about the game, out the door with his coffee, gone before you'd finished packing up. So it was you and Joe and a conference room and the projector fan winding down.
You closed the laptop. He picked up the shaker bottle he hadn't touched in an hour.
"I'll walk you out," you said.
You walked every client out. You'd walked out a seventy-eight-year-old widow the week before and a couple from Hyde Park who fought about annuities in front of you for forty minutes. It was six steps down the hall past reception and then the elevator bank, and you did it because it was what you did.
You had the laptop up against your chest with both arms around it. You'd never once carried it like that before.
He walked half a step behind you the whole way, which meant that if you wanted to know what his face was doing you'd have to turn around and find out. You didn't. You listened to the shaker bottle instead — the low slosh of whatever was left in it, once per step, right behind your shoulder.
"You'll get the summary Thursday," you said.
"Okay."
"And I'll send the ladder separately. It's easier to look at on its own."
"Okay."
Six steps. You knew exactly what was in the air behind you and you kept walking through it and said a professional thing about a bond ladder, because that was the option available, and because you'd been taking it for three quarters.
Reception looked up. You said something to her about the ten-thirty. Joe said thanks on his way past, to nobody in particular, and she said of course in a voice about an octave off her usual one.
Then the elevator bank, and the button, and the number climbing.
"Y/N."
"Hm."
The doors opened. He got on.
He turned around, and he had the shaker bottle in one hand, and he looked at you standing there in the hallway with your laptop against your chest for about as long as it takes to breathe once.
He leaned out past the doorframe, looked down the hall toward reception, and leaned back in.
Then the doors started to close, and he reached out, grabbed you by the wrist, and pulled hard, and the laptop came off your chest, and you caught it against your hip.
The doors shut on the two of you.
He had you against the back wall before they'd finished. The shaker bottle went down somewhere — you heard it hit and roll and you never once looked at it — and his hand came up under your jaw, and for about half a second it was almost careful, his thumb along the line of it, the way you'd touch something you were checking for damage.
Then his mouth was on yours and it stopped being careful.
You kissed him back so fast it couldn't have been a decision.
Ten. Nine.
He tasted like nothing. Water and gum. His hair was still wet where you got your fingers into it, and you pulled, and the sound he made went into your mouth and stayed there — low, and you were going to be hearing it at your desk in six minutes.
You had the laptop pinned between your hip and the wall. You would not let go of it. Some part of you was still an employee.
Eight.
His hand went from your jaw to the back of your neck, and he tipped your head and got deeper into it, moving you further into the corner, away from the doors, away from the seam of light, and you let him. His other hand came flat on the wall by your shoulder, and every time you moved you came up against him.
The laptop was still between you. He shifted to get closer and it dug into your hip and he didn't take it out of your hands and you didn't offer.
Seven. Six.
You got your hands on him properly for the first time — shoulders, down his back, around — and there was more of him than there was supposed to be everywhere you put them, and he went still for a second like the touching was the part that got him.
Then he wasn't still, and you heard yourself make a sound you had never once made in that building.
He said your name into your mouth. Not a question this time.
He huffed something after it that was almost a laugh.
"Shut up," you said, and pulled him back in.
Five.
You got a fistful of the shirt at his back — and there was nowhere in it for your hand to go, that was the thing, the fabric had nothing to spare — and he came in closer, and he kissed you like he'd been building the whole thing since a Tuesday in July, which he had, and you'd known, which was the part you were going to have to live with.
Four.
He pulled back an inch.
Both of you breathing. His forehead came down against yours and stayed there. His hand was still on your neck and his thumb moved once and then stopped, and you had your mouth open to say something and no idea what it was going to be, and he was waiting for it, and it didn't come.
He didn't say his either.
Three. Two.
He let go of your neck. Stepped back. Bent down and picked up the shaker bottle off the floor and straightened his shirt with one hand, and you got the laptop back up against your chest, and neither of you said anything at all.
The doors opened on the lobby.
He stepped off.
He didn't look back and he didn't say goodbye and you understood exactly why, because there were people in that lobby and one of them was holding a Bengals cup, and you stood there in the corner of the elevator with your laptop against your chest while the doors closed on his back.
Then you were alone, going up.
Ten floors is a long time. You looked at the seam where the doors met. You got your hair back off your face with one hand and pressed your mouth closed and felt how warm it was and stopped doing that immediately.
Reception said something to you when you came out. You said something back.
Your ten-thirty was already in the small conference room, a retired dentist and his wife, and you had their file open on the table and the projector on before you sat down. You were good at this.
You ran the ten-thirty without a hitch. You walked them out. You sat down at your desk, and you looked at the wall of your cube, and you said, "What the fuck was that," out loud, to nobody.
taglist: @honeydippedfiction @harryweeniee @mruizsworld @cixrosie @babygirlburrow @coasttocold @jbnine99 @melanie-15 @renegadebirch @yourfavmahomie @neyessibff @hallecarey1 @nngkay @itsleilabxtch @cozygirljay @nycgblogs05 @wickedfun9 @marvelislove10 @megsinnerthoughts @vroomvroommbtch @britt217 @thatgirltries @edtomh @nanouslibrary @crazygirlinthisworld @leftmyheartinapubinhampstead @savemyempire @xoxonobodyhome @onceuponatimeiwasacowgirl @unlikelystay @londonfog3 am i missing anyone? if you want to be added to the taglist, send me an ask or a dm and i'll add you, loves 🩷
pairings: joe burrow x reader 🏆🌌
wc: 1.4k
an: anon, this was a "fire" idea and i knew immediately i had to write it. sometimes ideas come really slow. this one came really quick.
i hope you love it 💋
masterlist
The category is four away.
Joe’s had your clutch in his lap since the second commercial break. You handed it to him without asking. He took it without looking.
“They’ll cut to me either way,” he says. “Win or lose.”
“How do you know that.”
“I asked Dov.”
You turn to look at him. The tux fits him the way everything fits him and he still sits in it like it belongs to somebody else. He doesn’t look over. His thumb is moving on the inside of your wrist, slow, and you don’t think he knows he’s doing it.
He called your publicist. Sometime before the dress fittings, before the ballots closed. Asked her what was going to happen to his face and then never brought it up again.
You put your hand on his knee and leave it there.
A man in the row ahead turns around and leans across Joe to reach you — something about a lunch, a project, a name you’re supposed to recognize. Joe sits back to make room. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t offer his hand. When the man is done and turns around again, Joe is exactly where he was, thumb still going.
Then he leans in. His mouth comes close to your ear and his voice doesn’t travel past you.
“They pointed a telescope at nothing once.”
“What?”
“Empty patch of sky. That’s why they picked it. Ten days looking at nothing.” He sits back and pulls at his cuff. “Three thousand galaxies in it.”
The orchestra comes up out of the commercial. Somewhere behind you a stage manager is counting people back into their seats, and you have maybe nine minutes left before a stranger reads your name into a microphone, and the man next to you is doing deep field astronomy in a tuxedo.
Then the presenter’s out and the clip package starts and your face is forty feet tall over the stage. Joe turns your hand over in his lap. Runs his thumb across the palm.
“Hey.”
“Hm.”
“Whatever they say in a minute.” He looks over at you now. “I’ve seen that scene more times than you have. I know what it took out of you. I’m proud of you and it’s got nothing to do with an envelope.”
You start to say something. He’s not done.
“I love you. I’d be sitting here if you lost. I’d be sitting here if it never came out.”
He closes your hand and puts it back on his knee and keeps his over it.
———
They read your name.
The row comes up around you. Somebody’s hand on your back, somebody’s train under your heel, and in the middle of it Joe’s mouth is at your ear, close, his hand still on you.
“Don’t look for me. They’ll find me.”
You don’t remember the stairs. They’re steeper than they look on television, and then you’re at the microphone with the thing in your hand and it’s heavier than anyone tells you.
The lights come up. You can see the first two rows. Past that it’s black — four thousand people you can hear and can’t find.
“Okay.” Your voice comes back at you off the far wall. “I’m doing this first, because if you save your person for the end they play you off.”
The laugh rolls up out of the dark and you let it go by.
“Joe — I know there’s a camera in your face right now and I know exactly how much you hate it. I love you to the moon and the stars and the galaxies. You know which ones.”
Four thousand people make a noise at once and you have no idea what a single one of their faces is doing.
You keep going. Your agent, thirteen years. The director, by name, twice, because she earned it twice. Three of the cast, fast, and the crew as a category because there isn’t time and they know there isn’t time. The red light starts up at the back of the house and you’re already wrapping, thank you, thank you, and the orchestra takes the last two words off you.
A woman with a headset has your elbow. At the top of the stairs you turn and look back at the room.
It’s just dark.
———
The suite’s too big. The statue’s on the bathroom counter next to your earrings because that’s where your hands were when you took the earrings out, and you haven’t decided where it actually goes. Somebody sent champagne. It’s sweating in the bucket. Neither of you has touched it.
Joe’s jacket is over the back of a chair. His tie’s on the dresser. He hasn’t said much since the car, but he’s been inside four feet of you since the door closed, and every time you move he moves.
“Can you get this.”
You turn your back to him and pull your hair over one shoulder. His hands come up. The zipper’s small and the fabric’s stiff and it takes him a second to find it, and then he takes it down slow, knuckles dragging the whole length of your spine.
He doesn’t step back when he’s done.
“That was the proudest I’ve ever been of anybody.”
You go still under his hands. He doesn’t take it back or put anything on top of it.
“Joe.”
“I mean it. Anybody.” His hand flattens on your arm. “I’ve been in a lot of rooms.”
You wait. You’ve learned to wait.
“Proud’s not the word.” He turns you around by the shoulders. “I’ve been saying it all night because it’s the one they hand you at these things. It’s not the word.”
“Joe.”
“Hang on.” He shuts his eyes. Opens them. He’s looking at you like the tux is on too tight. “You’ve wanted this since you were nine. You told me that on the second date and then you didn’t bring it up again for three years because you didn’t want to be somebody who talked about it.”
You don’t say anything.
“And you get up there tonight and the first thing out of your mouth is me.” His hand comes to the back of your neck. “I don’t have anything that’s the right size for —”
He quits. Pulls you in instead, the dress half off you and his shirt still tucked, his mouth against your hair, holding on with both arms, and he doesn’t make a joke.
You stand there in the middle of a suite you didn’t pay for with an award on the bathroom counter and let him.
After a while, into your hair: “You said I’d know which ones.”
“You do.”
“I’ve been going through them since the car.” He doesn’t move his mouth out of your hair. “Sombrero. Whirlpool. Pinwheel. Sunflower. There’s one called the Tadpole.”
“You’re making that up.”
“I’m not making up the Tadpole.”
His hand goes flat between your shoulder blades.
“Those,” he says. “I love you to those.”
———
You find it at two in the morning.
Joe’s asleep on his stomach with one arm hanging off the side of the bed. The room is dark except for your phone. It’s everywhere — your name, the clip, forty accounts posting the same eleven seconds.
You turn the sound almost off and watch yourself say it. You look calmer than you were.
Then it cuts to him.
He isn’t clapping. Everyone around him is, and his hands are on his knees, and he’s looking up at the stage at you. He doesn’t stop. Not when the room laughs. Not when it comes up under you. The woman on his left turns to say something to him and he doesn’t turn.
His eyes are wet and none of it has come down. He blinks and it doesn’t fix anything. He blinks again and gives up on it, and his jaw sets, and he just lets his face do what it’s doing in front of a camera he asked about two weeks ago so he’d know exactly when it was on him.
Somewhere in there he nods. Small. You almost miss it.
It cuts away while he’s still looking at you.
he’s CRYING. this man has never emoted in his life. nobody has ever been loved the way that man loves that woman.
You watch it four times.
You put the phone face down on the mattress and the room goes black, and you can’t see him anymore. You can hear him. Slow, even, out through his nose.
Nothing on his face at all.
taglist: @honeydippedfiction @harryweeniee @mruizsworld @cixrosie @babygirlburrow @coasttocold @jbnine99 @melanie-15 @renegadebirch @yourfavmahomie @neyessibff @hallecarey1 @nngkay @itsleilabxtch @cozygirljay @nycgblogs05 @wickedfun9 @marvelislove10 @megsinnerthoughts @vroomvroommbtch @britt217 @thatgirltries @edtomh @nanouslibrary @crazygirlinthisworld @leftmyheartinapubinhampstead @savemyempire @xoxonobodyhome @onceuponatimeiwasacowgirl @unlikelystay @londonfog3 am i missing anyone? if you want to be added to the taglist, send me an ask or a dm and i'll add you, loves 🩷
pairings: joe burrow x younger reader 🩷
wc: 2.1k
an: the long awaited companion to simple math. joe's pov. he calls home.
you have been asking me for this one since the day simple math went up, and i wanted to get it right. it's the same five months from inside his head — the math he keeps doing, the sentence he's been rehearsing since june, and what it costs him to finally say it out loud to the two people who made him. the full equation lives here if you want to read it in order.
and thank you to the anon who reminded me about this one
The plate's been under its cover a while. He'll eat it cold. He's eaten worse.
He's at the island, phone face up on the counter in front of him, October light coming in long and orange across the marble. She's at her place. Laundry, a stack of emails, she'd be over later. He kissed her at the door and watched her back down the driveway and came back in and hasn't sat down since.
He knows how he's starting. He's known since the guest room. I've been seeing somebody for five months. All of it in one sentence, because if he stops anywhere in the middle of it she'll get to five months before he does.
He calls his mother.
—
It rings twice.
“Joey.”
“Hey, Mom.”
“Hold on, let me — ” Something clatters. Set down on a counter, run under the tap. Her kitchen comes up behind her: the TV on low in the next room, the dishwasher mid-cycle. “Okay. Hi, honey. How are you?”
“Good. How are you?”
“I'm fine. Your dad's outside doing something to the gutters that does not need doing.” A chair scrapes. “How'd practice look?”
“Good. Short week, we play Thursday.”
“You eating?”
“Yeah, Mom.”
“The house okay?”
“The house is fine.”
“Okay,” she says.
And then she stops.
She's known since he called. Four in the afternoon on a Tuesday, no game to talk about that couldn't wait. She's not going to ask. She raised him and she knows exactly what it does to him to be left in a quiet room, and she'll stand at her sink and let the dishwasher run as long as it takes.
“Mom, I've been seeing somebody for five months.”
The water shuts off on her end.
“Five months.”
“Yeah.”
“Joseph.”
He waits. There's a stool two feet from him and he's not going to move to it.
“Five months,” she says again, not to him.
“Yeah.”
“Are you being careful with her?”
“Yeah.”
“Is she being careful with you?”
He looks at the window. “Yeah, Mom.”
“Okay.” He hears her pull out a chair and sit down in it, which she does not do in the middle of the afternoon. “What's her name.”
—
“Y/N.”
“Y/N,” his mother says. Trying it. “Tell me about her.”
He puts his forearms on the counter.
“She teaches second grade. Here — in the district, west side. This is her second year.” The light's coming across the marble at an angle now and he watches it move while he talks. “And she's getting her master's at the same time. Education. Nights, weekends, summer sessions. She's got a group she does it with. They're texting at all hours — assignments, whatever's due.”
“Lord.”
“She's tired all the time. She doesn't run on it, though. She's not — ” He stops, finds it. “She doesn't make it anybody else's problem.”
“That's rare.”
“Yeah.” He turns his hand over on the counter. “I went by her room once after hours, she needed help moving some furniture around. Mom, she's got everything labeled. Bins, hooks, the cubbies, there's a chart on the wall for who's got the pencil sharpener that week. Laminated. And I'm standing in the middle of it thinking I put less into a Thursday night than she puts into a Tuesday morning.”
His mother laughs.
“She talks to them like they're people,” he says. “Not like they're seven. She'll get down on the floor and have an actual conversation with a kid about why he's mad, and she doesn't rush him, and she doesn't do the voice. She just lets him get to the end of it.”
“Mm.”
“She's from here. Grew up here. Her mom's twenty minutes from her, her grandmother's in the same house she's always been in, she does Sunday dinner over there most weeks. She knows this city better than I do.”
The dishwasher clicks over on her end.
“And she doesn't let me get away with anything,” he says. He's aware he's gone on. He doesn't stop. “I do the thing where I go quiet and say I'm fine. She'll sit there. She won't fill it in for me and she won't get up. She'll just wait.” He hears it as it comes out of his mouth. “She waits me out.”
“Does she.”
“Yeah.” He looks at the window. “She's funny, Mom. She's the funniest person I know. Half of it's at me.”
“Good.”
“She's good to me,” he says. “She's — yeah. She's good to me.”
His mother lets it go a long time.
“Joey.”
“Yeah.”
“Why'd it take you five months to tell me that.”
—
He doesn't answer her.
“I'm asking you, Joey.”
“I know you are.”
The dishwasher on her end. The TV. He can hear a car going by out on her road.
“I've been doing math on it,” he says.
“On what.”
“She's twenty-two.”
—
The screen door goes somewhere behind her and swings shut. Her voice stays where it is.
“Okay.”
“I keep doing it. Where I was when she was in eighth grade, what I was doing that year. She'll bring up some band teacher she had and I'm already working out where I was.” He turns his hand over on the counter. “It's not about her. There's nothing about her that's twenty-two. It's mine. I don't always keep it off her.”
“Mhm.”
“That's why five months.”
His mother doesn't say anything for a second.
“What does that mean, you don't always keep it off her.”
—
He looks at the window over the sink. The light's off the counter now, up on the cabinets.
“There was a night a couple weeks ago.”
“Okay.”
“She'd posted something. Nothing — a picture of a Sunday, a plate on a table, and my hand's in the corner of it. You can see the bracelets. She didn't think about it, and it's her account, it's her friends.” He turns the plate a quarter inch back the other way. “Sam saw it. Sent me the screenshot.”
“And.”
“And I came upstairs and I got cold with her about it.”
His mother waits.
“I made it about her age,” he says. “I said it at her. Not — I didn't explain it, I didn't tell her what I was actually scared of, I just put the number down in front of her like she'd done something with it.” He stops. “It wasn't about the picture.”
“No,” his mother says. “It wasn't.”
“She figured it out. She sat there and put it together in about four minutes — that I hadn't told anybody. That that's the thing.” He hears his own voice go even. “She was ahead of me on it. She'd been ahead of me on it a while.”
“And you apologized.”
“Yeah.”
“Joey.”
“I did, Mom.”
“I'm not asking whether you said the words.”
He doesn't answer that.
“I told her it's mine and not hers,” he says. “That I'm working on it. I didn't tell her it was handled.” He turns his hand over. “It's not handled.”
“Mhm.”
The dishwasher stops on her end. It goes quiet enough that he can hear the TV through the wall of her house, some laugh track, and he waits for her to come back to the picture. She doesn't.
“You came upstairs,” she says.
“Yeah.”
“She was upstairs in your house on a Sunday, and I'm hearing about her on a Tuesday in October.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay,” his mother says.
—
“Hold on. Let me get your dad.”
There's a clatter. The acoustics open up — further from the phone, further from the sink. He hears her say something he doesn't catch.
“Joe.”
“Hey, Dad.”
“How was practice.”
“Good. Short week.”
“Body good after Sunday?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
His dad doesn't say anything else. Joe can see it — hat still on, at the kitchen table, looking at his mother for a read on what this is. And his mother standing at the counter not giving him one, because she's not going to do it for him.
He hears her, off the phone, quieter. Go ahead, Joey.
“Dad, I've been seeing somebody for five months. Her name's Y/N, she teaches second grade here, she's getting her master's. She's from Cincinnati. She's twenty-two, and I should have called you in June.”
It comes out better than it did the first time. Cleaner order, no gaps. He didn't plan it that way and he hears the difference.
The chair creaks.
“Okay.”
“Yeah.”
“Five months.”
“Yeah.”
“Joseph.”
“I know.”
His dad exhales. Somewhere on the other end the TV cuts off.
“You happy?”
He wasn't ready for that one. He has to set it down and pick it up again before he can answer it, and his father lets him, the way he's let him do things at his own speed his whole life.
“Yeah,” he says. “More than I've been. Yeah.”
“Okay.”
Joe waits for the next one. It doesn't come. His father asked the only thing he came to the table to ask, and now he's sitting there with his hat on, waiting.
“You're not gonna ask why it took me this long.”
“You gonna tell me?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I don't gotta ask.”
—
“I do math on it,” he says. “Constantly. Where I was, what year, what I was doing when she was in the eighth grade. I've been doing it for five months and it doesn't come out any different.”
“Mm.”
“And I think I've been waiting for somebody to look at it and tell me it's a problem.” He hears it come out and lets it. “So I can stop carrying it. So it's somebody's call besides mine.”
The chair creaks. His father takes his time.
“Nobody's gonna make that call for you, Joe.”
“Yeah.”
“That's yours.”
“Yeah.”
His father lets it sit. And then, no different in his voice than the gutters or the short week:
“Your mother's fourteen years younger than me.”
Joe doesn't say anything.
“You know that.”
“I know.”
“Thirty-four years next spring.”
“I know, Dad.”
“I'm just sayin'.”
That's all he does with it. He sets it down on the table with everything else and doesn't push it across.
“How old was she,” Joe says. “When you met her.”
“Twenty-two.”
Joe reaches over and takes the cover off the plate.
“Huh,” he says.
“Mhm.”
He picks up the fork. He hasn't eaten since eleven and it lands on him all at once that he's hungry.
“Bring her down here sometime.”
“Yeah. I will.”
“Your mother wants to meet her.”
“She told me.”
“Don't make it a thing.”
“I won't.”
“Joe.”
“Yeah.”
“I love you.”
“Love you too, Dad.”
Rustling. His mother saying something with her hand over the phone. Then her voice close again, and different — she's been standing in that kitchen listening to the whole thing.
“See you Thursday.”
“Okay, Mom.”
“I love you.”
“Love you, Mom.”
She hangs up.
—
The kitchen's dark. He didn't turn a light on when the sun went and he doesn't now.
He eats standing up at the island. The chicken's cold and the potatoes are worse and he eats all of it. The phone's face down by his elbow where he set it.
He goes back through the call. Not to fix it. Just to see it.
And he gets to the part where he told her I came upstairs and he stops on it, because he hasn't moved off this spot all night.
That's where he was. Sam's text came in and he stood right here and looked at it, and he didn't go up. He got the water on for the pasta and turned it off again. He put his phone face down on this counter and looked out that window at nothing for a minute, and he wasn't losing his temper. He was deciding. He went up eleven, twelve minutes later and said the thing about her age, and he'd had eleven minutes to pick something else.
I came upstairs and I got cold with her about it.
His mother heard a man walk into a room and lose his footing. That's not what happened. And nothing he said to her was a lie, and he could call her back right now and tell her the rest of it, and he isn't going to.
He puts the plate in the sink and runs water over it.
He picks the phone up off the counter and stands there in the dark with it in his hand.
taglist: @honeydippedfiction @harryweeniee @mruizsworld @cixrosie @babygirlburrow @coasttocold @jbnine99 @melanie-15 @renegadebirch @yourfavmahomie @neyessibff @hallecarey1 @nngkay @itsleilabxtch @cozygirljay @nycgblogs05 @wickedfun9 @marvelislove10 @megsinnerthoughts @vroomvroommbtch @britt217 @thatgirltries @edtomh @nanouslibrary @crazygirlinthisworld @leftmyheartinapubinhampstead @savemyempire @xoxonobodyhome @onceuponatimeiwasacowgirl @unlikelystay @londonfog3 am i missing anyone? if you want to be added to the taglist, send me an ask or a dm and i'll add you, loves 🩷
pairings: joe burrow x younger!reader 🩷
wc: 1.5k
an: anon, remember when i told you i had several of your requests written? here's the latest installment 🤭 i LOVED writing this one because it reminded me of me and my partner. he never gets the tiktok reference. or any pop culture reference, if i'm being honest — he's basically a dinosaur.
simple math masterpost | masterlist
it’s giving
the suit bag’s laid over the back of the couch where the stylist left it for saturday. you unzip it and pull the front open. charcoal, sharp, probably worth more than your rent.
“okay, this is giving.”
he’s at the counter, measuring scoops into his shaker. doesn’t look up. “giving what?”
“it’s giving life. it’s giving sexy. it’s giving grown man, it’s giving wedding guest, it’s giving you’re gonna walk in saturday and i’m gonna lose it —”
“those can’t all be true.”
“they’re all true. that’s how it works.”
“that’s not how anything works.” he caps the shaker. “you listed five things. pick one.”
“i’m not picking. it’s giving everything.”
“then it’s giving nothing.” he shakes the cup, takes a drink. “you described one suit five ways and not one of ’em was a word.”
“giving is the word.”
“giving’s a verb.” he says it like he’s correcting game film. “it needs an object.”
you stare at him.
“did you just grammar me the teacher about giving?”
he shrugs. drinks. doesn’t take it back.
—
babygirl
he’s on the floor of the living room, back against the couch, reading you something off his phone — tardigrades, how you can freeze one solid for thirty years and it’ll just get up and walk it off — lit up about it the way he only gets when it’s just you.
“god, you’re so babygirl right now.”
he stops reading.
“what.”
“nothing. keep going.”
“no.” he sets the phone face down on his knee. “what did you call me.”
“babygirl. it’s a compliment.”
“it’s not.”
“it is. on the internet it is. it means soft. endearing. you reading me water bear facts at eleven at night — that’s babygirl. it’s working for me.”
“i’m a man.”
“you can be both.”
“i can’t be both. one of those is a man and one of those is a girl.”
“that’s what makes it good.”
he picks the phone back up. doesn’t read from it. just holds it. you watch him try to file the word somewhere and fail, the whole concept sitting on the floor between you with nowhere to go.
“i’m not babygirl,” he says, to the phone.
“okay, babygirl.”
he doesn’t answer. but he doesn’t stop being soft about the tardigrades, either. just does it quieter now, like if he keeps it down you won’t catch him at it twice.
—
the audio
it’s been in the house two weeks. you don’t even hear it anymore — the sped-up sound under every video, the one that loops six seconds and starts over. you’ve played it enough that it stopped being a song and turned into furniture.
he’s at the kitchen counter on his laptop, answering an email, jaw set, focused. and he’s humming it.
you go still.
not the words — he doesn’t know the words. just the tune. that exact six-second loop, under his breath, on pitch, hands never leaving the keys. he hits the part where it does a little turn at the top, and he does the little turn at the top.
“joe.”
“mm.” he doesn’t look up. keeps typing.
“what are you humming.”
he stops. thinks about it. you can see him reach for where it came from and find nothing there.
“i don’t know,” he says. “something. why.”
“that’s the sound off my phone.”
“what sound.”
“the one i’ve been playing. for two weeks. you just told me you don’t know it, and then you hummed the whole thing.”
he looks at the laptop. then at you.
“that’s not mine,” he says.
“it’s in your head.”
“it got in there illegally.”
he goes back to the email. and a few seconds later, quieter, under everything, he does the little turn at the top again.
—
the ick
“so she dumped him over the ick,” you say, thumb still going on your phone.
he’s next to you on the couch, one arm behind your head, not really listening. “the what.”
“the ick. they’re driving, he goes to parallel park, can’t get it, gives up, drives around and finds another spot. and that was it. she said she felt it leave her body.”
“he found a different spot.”
“he gave up and found a different spot, yeah.”
he’s quiet a second. “that’s the smart move, though. why fight a spot you can’t get.”
“it’s not about the spot, joe.”
“then what’s it about.”
“it’s not about anything. that’s the whole thing. it’s not logical. it just hits and then you’re done.” you scroll a little. “like flip flops. men in flip flops, that’s one i know for sure. grown man, flip flops, something in me just shuts off.”
he files it. you can see him file it.
“okay,” he says. “so. no flip flops.”
“sure. but that’s just the one i know about.”
“meaning there’s others.”
“there’s definitely others. i just haven’t met them yet. you never know when it’s gonna hit.”
he doesn’t say anything next to you. you don’t look up, but you can feel it.
“what are the others,” he says. casual. too casual.
“i told you. i don’t know them yet.”
you turn your head. he’s looking at the tv, which is off.
“joe. are you trying to game-plan my icks?”
“no.”
“you are.”
“i’m not.” his jaw’s doing the thing. “i just think if it can be anything, i should know what the anything is. so i can not do it.”
“you can’t get ahead of it. that’s the whole point.”
“that’s a terrible system,” he says.
“i know.”
“you should fix that.”
“i can’t. nobody can.” you put your hand on his chest and lean back into him. “you’ve never given me one, if that helps.”
he doesn’t answer. but his arm comes down off the couch and around you, and you feel him exhale, and you decide not to tell him that you almost did, once — the first time you watched him try to fold a fitted sheet.
—
eighth grade
you’re scrolling and you find it — the old one, the sound you knew every word of once — and you turn the phone toward him.
“oh my god. i had this memorized in eighth grade. like every word. it was all over musical.ly.”
he doesn’t say anything.
you don’t catch it at first. you’re still talking, scrolling for the original, telling him how everyone in your grade did the same fifteen seconds of it in the cafeteria. then you notice he’s gone quiet next to you. you’ve heard him quiet all week — caught humming, busted mid-audit. this isn’t one of those.
you look up. he’s looking at the phone in your hand, and you can see him doing the math — eighth grade, you, thirteen, which makes him, which puts him — and you watch it cross his face for half a second before he catches it.
you know this part. you’ve seen it before. this is where he goes somewhere else. where his jaw sets and he says something true and cold and makes it your problem to hold.
you brace for it.
it doesn’t come.
he reaches over instead. takes the phone out of your hand, sets it face down on the couch. then he pulls you in, your back against his chest, his chin coming down on top of your head.
“play it again,” he says.
“the sound?”
“the cafeteria thing. the fifteen seconds.” his voice is low against your hair. “show me the dance.”
“you don’t actually want to see the dance.”
“i do.” his arm tightens a little. “i’m trying real hard right now. work with me.”
you laugh. you feel him feel it.
he’s not over it. you can tell — there’s still something working in him, something he’s holding off to the side so it doesn’t get on you. but he’s holding it off to the side. he’s staying.
you pull the video back up. you do the fifteen seconds, badly, sitting in his lap.
he watches the whole thing.
—
the deploy
it’s days later. you’ve stopped counting the bits. he’s been a brick wall about all of it — doesn’t get it, doesn’t want to, files every conversation under things that happen to him.
you’re getting ready for dinner at zac’s. you’ve changed twice. you come out of the closet in the third thing, still not sure, tugging at the hem, and you do a little turn for him.
“okay. be honest.”
he’s on the end of the bed, putting his watch on. he looks up. takes his time about it — top to bottom, slow.
“that’s giving don’t talk to other men tonight,” he says.
you stop.
“…what.”
“you asked.” he stands, works the clasp on the watch. “it’s giving that.”
“you said giving wasn’t a word.”
“it’s not.” he comes over, kisses the side of your head on his way past. “but it’s giving that.”
you don’t move.
“joe.”
“in the car,” he says, from the hall.
you go to the car.
taglist: @honeydippedfiction @harryweeniee @mruizsworld @cixrosie @babygirlburrow @coasttocold @jbnine99 @melanie-15 @renegadebirch @yourfavmahomie @neyessibff @hallecarey1 @nngkay @itsleilabxtch @cozygirljay @nycgblogs05 @wickedfun9 @marvelislove10 @megsinnerthoughts @vroomvroommbtch @britt217 @thatgirltries @edtomh @nanouslibrary @crazygirlinthisworld @leftmyheartinapubinhampstead @savemyempire @xoxonobodyhome @onceuponatimeiwasacowgirl @unlikelystay @londonfog3 am i missing anyone? if you want to be added to the taglist, send me an ask or a dm and i'll add you, loves 🩷
pairings: joe burrow x reader 🏆🌌
wc: 1.4k
an: anon, this was a "fire" idea and i knew immediately i had to write it. sometimes ideas come really slow. this one came really quick.
i hope you love it 💋
masterlist
The category is four away.
Joe’s had your clutch in his lap since the second commercial break. You handed it to him without asking. He took it without looking.
“They’ll cut to me either way,” he says. “Win or lose.”
“How do you know that.”
“I asked Dov.”
You turn to look at him. The tux fits him the way everything fits him and he still sits in it like it belongs to somebody else. He doesn’t look over. His thumb is moving on the inside of your wrist, slow, and you don’t think he knows he’s doing it.
He called your publicist. Sometime before the dress fittings, before the ballots closed. Asked her what was going to happen to his face and then never brought it up again.
You put your hand on his knee and leave it there.
A man in the row ahead turns around and leans across Joe to reach you — something about a lunch, a project, a name you’re supposed to recognize. Joe sits back to make room. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t offer his hand. When the man is done and turns around again, Joe is exactly where he was, thumb still going.
Then he leans in. His mouth comes close to your ear and his voice doesn’t travel past you.
“They pointed a telescope at nothing once.”
“What?”
“Empty patch of sky. That’s why they picked it. Ten days looking at nothing.” He sits back and pulls at his cuff. “Three thousand galaxies in it.”
The orchestra comes up out of the commercial. Somewhere behind you a stage manager is counting people back into their seats, and you have maybe nine minutes left before a stranger reads your name into a microphone, and the man next to you is doing deep field astronomy in a tuxedo.
Then the presenter’s out and the clip package starts and your face is forty feet tall over the stage. Joe turns your hand over in his lap. Runs his thumb across the palm.
“Hey.”
“Hm.”
“Whatever they say in a minute.” He looks over at you now. “I’ve seen that scene more times than you have. I know what it took out of you. I’m proud of you and it’s got nothing to do with an envelope.”
You start to say something. He’s not done.
“I love you. I’d be sitting here if you lost. I’d be sitting here if it never came out.”
He closes your hand and puts it back on his knee and keeps his over it.
———
They read your name.
The row comes up around you. Somebody’s hand on your back, somebody’s train under your heel, and in the middle of it Joe’s mouth is at your ear, close, his hand still on you.
“Don’t look for me. They’ll find me.”
You don’t remember the stairs. They’re steeper than they look on television, and then you’re at the microphone with the thing in your hand and it’s heavier than anyone tells you.
The lights come up. You can see the first two rows. Past that it’s black — four thousand people you can hear and can’t find.
“Okay.” Your voice comes back at you off the far wall. “I’m doing this first, because if you save your person for the end they play you off.”
The laugh rolls up out of the dark and you let it go by.
“Joe — I know there’s a camera in your face right now and I know exactly how much you hate it. I love you to the moon and the stars and the galaxies. You know which ones.”
Four thousand people make a noise at once and you have no idea what a single one of their faces is doing.
You keep going. Your agent, thirteen years. The director, by name, twice, because she earned it twice. Three of the cast, fast, and the crew as a category because there isn’t time and they know there isn’t time. The red light starts up at the back of the house and you’re already wrapping, thank you, thank you, and the orchestra takes the last two words off you.
A woman with a headset has your elbow. At the top of the stairs you turn and look back at the room.
It’s just dark.
———
The suite’s too big. The statue’s on the bathroom counter next to your earrings because that’s where your hands were when you took the earrings out, and you haven’t decided where it actually goes. Somebody sent champagne. It’s sweating in the bucket. Neither of you has touched it.
Joe’s jacket is over the back of a chair. His tie’s on the dresser. He hasn’t said much since the car, but he’s been inside four feet of you since the door closed, and every time you move he moves.
“Can you get this.”
You turn your back to him and pull your hair over one shoulder. His hands come up. The zipper’s small and the fabric’s stiff and it takes him a second to find it, and then he takes it down slow, knuckles dragging the whole length of your spine.
He doesn’t step back when he’s done.
“That was the proudest I’ve ever been of anybody.”
You go still under his hands. He doesn’t take it back or put anything on top of it.
“Joe.”
“I mean it. Anybody.” His hand flattens on your arm. “I’ve been in a lot of rooms.”
You wait. You’ve learned to wait.
“Proud’s not the word.” He turns you around by the shoulders. “I’ve been saying it all night because it’s the one they hand you at these things. It’s not the word.”
“Joe.”
“Hang on.” He shuts his eyes. Opens them. He’s looking at you like the tux is on too tight. “You’ve wanted this since you were nine. You told me that on the second date and then you didn’t bring it up again for three years because you didn’t want to be somebody who talked about it.”
You don’t say anything.
“And you get up there tonight and the first thing out of your mouth is me.” His hand comes to the back of your neck. “I don’t have anything that’s the right size for —”
He quits. Pulls you in instead, the dress half off you and his shirt still tucked, his mouth against your hair, holding on with both arms, and he doesn’t make a joke.
You stand there in the middle of a suite you didn’t pay for with an award on the bathroom counter and let him.
After a while, into your hair: “You said I’d know which ones.”
“You do.”
“I’ve been going through them since the car.” He doesn’t move his mouth out of your hair. “Sombrero. Whirlpool. Pinwheel. Sunflower. There’s one called the Tadpole.”
“You’re making that up.”
“I’m not making up the Tadpole.”
His hand goes flat between your shoulder blades.
“Those,” he says. “I love you to those.”
———
You find it at two in the morning.
Joe’s asleep on his stomach with one arm hanging off the side of the bed. The room is dark except for your phone. It’s everywhere — your name, the clip, forty accounts posting the same eleven seconds.
You turn the sound almost off and watch yourself say it. You look calmer than you were.
Then it cuts to him.
He isn’t clapping. Everyone around him is, and his hands are on his knees, and he’s looking up at the stage at you. He doesn’t stop. Not when the room laughs. Not when it comes up under you. The woman on his left turns to say something to him and he doesn’t turn.
His eyes are wet and none of it has come down. He blinks and it doesn’t fix anything. He blinks again and gives up on it, and his jaw sets, and he just lets his face do what it’s doing in front of a camera he asked about two weeks ago so he’d know exactly when it was on him.
Somewhere in there he nods. Small. You almost miss it.
It cuts away while he’s still looking at you.
he’s CRYING. this man has never emoted in his life. nobody has ever been loved the way that man loves that woman.
You watch it four times.
You put the phone face down on the mattress and the room goes black, and you can’t see him anymore. You can hear him. Slow, even, out through his nose.
Nothing on his face at all.
taglist: @honeydippedfiction @harryweeniee @mruizsworld @cixrosie @babygirlburrow @coasttocold @jbnine99 @melanie-15 @renegadebirch @yourfavmahomie @neyessibff @hallecarey1 @nngkay @itsleilabxtch @cozygirljay @nycgblogs05 @wickedfun9 @marvelislove10 @megsinnerthoughts @vroomvroommbtch @britt217 @thatgirltries @edtomh @nanouslibrary @crazygirlinthisworld @leftmyheartinapubinhampstead @savemyempire @xoxonobodyhome @onceuponatimeiwasacowgirl @unlikelystay @londonfog3 am i missing anyone? if you want to be added to the taglist, send me an ask or a dm and i'll add you, loves 🩷
pairings: joe burrow x reader 🩷
wc: 2.2k
an: okay! here it is. the council approved it so i bring it to you.
anon i hope i captured what you wanted. me and the council are in full agreement that dude is actually affectionate as fuck.
masterlist
Courtside. Actual courtside — no rows in front of you, your feet almost on the hardwood, the photographers kneeling six feet away with their lenses swinging back and forth like windshield wipers.
Joe didn't dress down for it. Black leather jacket over a knit, the good pants, boots, one chain sitting just under his collar. He looks like he's supposed to be here. Two people have already asked for a picture, and he said of course both times, and both times he was watching the court again before they'd made it back to their seats.
He's watching it like film. Tracking the ball two passes before it gets there.
Late in the first, somebody misses a wide-open three and he makes a noise in the back of his throat.
"That's a shot he makes."
"Is it?"
"Ninety times out of a hundred." He leans back, knees wide because there's nowhere else for them to go. "Watch. He'll be pissed about it on the next possession."
Your hand is already halfway up before you know it's moving — the back of his neck, above his collar, where you put it on the couch and in the car and in line at the airport when it's just the two of you. You get as far as his shoulder.
Then you think about the lenses. And the broadcast camera on the dolly that's rolled past you twice. And how someone put him on the jumbotron in the first four minutes and the whole arena made a sound.
You put your hand in your lap.
Two seats down, a guy has his arm along the back of his girlfriend's chair, hand on her shoulder, and she's leaned into him with her head almost on his chest like it's her own living room. She's been like that since tipoff. Nobody's looking at them. Nobody's going to.
You watch it a second longer than you meant to and make yourself look back at the court.
The Lakers get a stop. The guy who missed pulls up from the same spot and buries it, and Joe says, "There it is," and puts his hand out for you to hit without looking over.
You hit it.
He glances at you then. Quick, sideways, down at your hands in your lap and back up to your face.
He turns back to the game.
—
Second quarter, official timeout, and the arena goes loud in that manufactured way — music up, some sponsored thing at half court involving a guy in a giant foam costume.
Joe stands up to get the blood back in his legs. He's been folded into a chair built for a person eight inches shorter than him since tipoff. You stand with him because sitting alone at courtside feels stranger than standing.
His hand settles on your lower back. Whole palm, low, warm through your shirt. He isn't doing anything with it. It's just where his hand goes.
He says something at your ear, under the music. Something about the foam costume. You don't fully catch it, but you catch the tone, and you laugh.
And then you sit down.
That's all you do. You don't lean back into his hand before you go. You don't turn your face toward his while he's that close. You put six inches between you and fold your hands and look at the guy in the costume.
His hand comes off your back.
He sits. Picks his water up off the floor, drinks, sets it down. Says nothing.
The timeout ends. The teams come back out and the noise drops to a normal noise, and he's got his forearms on his knees now, watching the inbound.
He doesn't look at you for a while.
—
He drives. The arena empties out around you in the garage for twenty minutes before you're even moving, and then you're on Figueroa and the city's going by orange and dark through the tint.
You're tired in a way that isn't about the game.
"You good?"
"Yeah."
He doesn't say anything to that. Doesn't ask it a second way. He takes his right hand off the wheel and puts it on your knee.
You look at it. His thumb moves once, then stops.
At home you'd have your hand over his by now. Or your legs turned toward him. Or something. You keep your knee exactly where it is and you say, "That was a good game," and he says, "It was alright," and you watch a gas station go past.
His hand stays. He drives the rest of the way like that, one-handed, and he doesn't ask you anything else.
—
The house is dark except the light over the stove that neither of you ever turns off. He drops his keys in the bowl, gets a glass down, fills it at the sink. Drinks the whole thing standing there with his back to you.
You're at the island taking your earrings off.
"You were weird tonight."
"I wasn't weird."
He turns around. Sets the glass on the counter. Leans back against it with his arms crossed and waits, and the waiting is the problem, because you can outlast a question but you can't outlast Joe not asking one.
"I was tired."
"You weren't tired." He says it without any edge on it. "You didn't touch me all night."
You put the second earring down on the counter. It makes a small sound.
"Come here."
You don't move.
"Babe."
You go. He uncrosses his arms and you end up between his knees where he's leaned against the counter, and he puts his hands on your hips like it's nothing, like they've been waiting to go there all night.
"You think I don't want it."
"I think it's not fair to want it from you when I know what it costs you."
"You don't know what it costs me." His thumb moves against your hipbone. "It costs me nothing. Getting on a stage with a microphone costs me something. Doing an ad read costs me something. You putting your hand on my neck during a Lakers game is not on that list."
"There were photographers six feet in front of us."
"There were." He nods, agreeable, like you've made a nice point about the weather. "And they were gonna take the picture whether you touched me or not. That's the part you're not — " He stops. Restarts. "I keep it off my face in public because I don't want a hundred strangers in it. That's about them. It was never a rule about you. You made it a rule about you."
You don't say anything, because he's right and you're not ready to say he's right.
He takes your wrist. Brings your hand up and puts it on the back of his neck himself, under his collar, exactly where you started to put it in the first quarter and didn't.
"That's all I wanted all night," he says. "You've been sitting on your hands and I've been sitting there wondering what I did."
"You didn't do anything."
"I know. That's worse."
His arms come around you then and he pulls you into his chest, chin on top of your head, and you feel him let a breath out that he's been holding since the second quarter.
—
Thursday he gets back a little after nine from lifting with Micah, and you hear the shower go, and then he comes out in sweats with his hair still wet and stands in the doorway of the living room for a second like he's deciding something.
Then he crosses the room and lies down and puts his head in your lap.
You're in the middle of an episode of something. You pause it. He's got his face turned in toward your stomach, one arm hooked around your waist with his hand at your lower back, feet hanging off the far end of the couch because there was never going to be enough couch.
You put your hand in his hair.
He makes a sound. Not a word. Something out of his chest that you feel more than hear, and then he goes heavy in a way he only goes heavy here.
You do it for a while. Wet hair, temple, down behind his ear, back up. The dishwasher runs. Somewhere out on Beverly Glen somebody's alarm goes off and stops.
"This is my favorite place to be," he says.
Your hand stops. "Do what?"
"You heard me."
"Over Paycor?"
"Mhm."
"Joe. Over any football field in America on a Sunday."
"I didn't say it was an easy decision." He shifts his face further into your stomach. "But yes. And I'm confident in it."
You start again — behind his ear, back up through the wet at his crown. His arm tightens around your waist and stays that way.
After a minute he turns his face up toward you, eyes closed, and says, "Don't stop doing that."
You don't.
His breathing goes slow. You think he's gone, and then he says something into your stomach that you only get half of.
"What?"
"I said I love you." He doesn't open his eyes. Doesn't move.
You bend down and put your mouth against his hair and stay there for a second.
He's asleep before ten, which is early even for him, and you sit there with the TV paused and your hand in his hair until your leg goes numb and then a while after that.
—
Two weeks later, a place on Melrose with no sign on the door and eleven tables inside.
He pays. You get your jacket. He holds the door and you're two steps onto the sidewalk before you register the guys on the curb.
There are more than four or five. The first flash goes off close enough that you lose the street for a second — everything white, then everything purple, and you put a hand up before you can stop yourself, which you know is the worst thing you can do with your hands out here.
"Joe! Joe, over here — "
"Who's the girl?"
They say it again. Somebody says it a third time, louder, like you might answer.
You don't know where to look. Not at them, not at the ground, and forty feet suddenly reads like a very long distance in these shoes with white spots in your vision.
Joe takes your hand.
He doesn't slow down and he doesn't speed up. He just reaches over and takes it, laces his fingers through yours, and his grip is tighter than he holds your hand at home — tight enough that you feel exactly where he is when you can't see well enough to check.
You hold on. You hold on harder than you'd let yourself if there weren't cameras.
He doesn't answer any of them. Doesn't look at them. He walks you to the valet stand at a completely normal speed, and when the kid takes too long with the car he stands there in it with his thumb moving on the back of your hand.
He lets go to open your door. Then he shuts it behind you, walks around, gets in.
Two blocks of nothing. The city sliding by.
"You okay?"
"Yeah."
He looks over. Waits.
"That was a lot," you say.
"It was a lot." He puts his hand back on your knee, squeezes once. "You did so good, baby. Held onto me the whole way."
You reach across and put your hand on the back of his neck.
He leans into it, and his right hand comes off the wheel and settles on your thigh, and neither of you says anything about either one.
You keep your hand on him the whole way up the canyon. He doesn't ask you to move it.
taglist: @honeydippedfiction @harryweeniee @mruizsworld @cixrosie @babygirlburrow @coasttocold @jbnine99 @melanie-15 @renegadebirch @yourfavmahomie @neyessibff @hallecarey1 @nngkay @itsleilabxtch @cozygirljay @nycgblogs05 @wickedfun9 @marvelislove10 @megsinnerthoughts @vroomvroommbtch @britt217 @thatgirltries @edtomh @nanouslibrary @crazygirlinthisworld @leftmyheartinapubinhampstead @savemyempire @xoxonobodyhome @onceuponatimeiwasacowgirl @unlikelystay @londonfog3 am i missing anyone? if you want to be added to the taglist, send me an ask or a dm and i'll add you, loves 🩷
summary: when your fierce independence collides with hockey’s favorite playboy, a hidden reality forces you both to rewrite the rules of your future. (7.2k)
pairing: dean di laurentis x reader.
content: accidental pregnancy, pregnancy, generational trauma, feelings of loneliness, childbirth (implied), angst, language, initial lack of communication, domestic fluff, hurt/comfort.
author’s note: this is based on a request by @maellatargaryen (this request is from a long time ago i do apologise i didn’t forget). this is the first time i’ve wrote a fic that is heavily related to pregnancy i think so first time for everything i guess (hehehe).
you kept your eyes glued to the frayed cuff of your knitted sweater, deliberately avoiding the couple sitting three chairs down.
you had been staring at that loose thread for at least ten minutes, tracing the weave of the yarn just to keep your gaze from wandering.
but you could still see them in your periphery.
the man was gently rubbing the woman's lower back, his thumb making small, reassuring circles through the fabric of her shirt.
every few seconds, he would lean in, whispering something in her ear that made her laugh—a soft, tired sound. she looked exhausted, but she looked completely safe.
a heavy, suffocating lump formed in your throat, and you looked down, your fingers instinctively pressing lightly against the flat expanse of your stomach.
there was nothing there yet, not to the casual observer. just a secret wrapped in layers of wool and denim.
it was your choice, you reminded yourself, repeating the mantra that had kept you upright for the last twelve weeks. you chose to walk out of his room. you chose not to call.
"he's not your father," your roommate and best friend, trinity, had argued just the night before.
she had been pacing the worn linoleum floor of your shared campus apartment, her eyes tracking you with a mix of fierce worry and frustration while you sat on the bathroom floor, throwing up into a plastic trash can.
"dean is a lot of things. he's a flirt, he's loud, he's a massive distraction, and he lives in a house that smells like stale beer and hockey sweat. but he isn't a monster. you have to tell him, or i swear to god i'm going to find tucker at the rink and have him do it for you." she sighed as you shook your head.
you knew trinity meant well.
you really, truly did.
she was the one who bought you saltine crackers at two in the morning, the one who held your hair back, and the one who looked up single-mother grant programs on her laptop when you were too exhausted to think.
she wasn't trying to force your hand out of malice; she just hated seeing you carry an entire universe on your shoulders when there was a perfectly capable guy who helped put it there.
but trinity didn't have your history.
she hadn't grown up listening to the bitter, cautionary tales of a mother who got pregnant at a college party by a boy (your father) who vanished into thin air the second the test turned pink.
she hadn't seen the quiet, exhausting toll of a woman working two jobs just to buy school supplies, always reminding her daughter that boys with bright smiles and big reputations were nothing but a beautiful trap.
to you, dean di laurentis was the ultimate manifestation of that danger.
he was briar university's golden boy, a hockey legacy with a jawline carved by the gods and an easy, effortless charm that made everyone in his orbit feel like the center of the universe.
he possessed a reputation for a rotating door of admirers that preceded him everywhere he went, from the campus coffee shops to the crowded lecture halls.
you had been one of those quiet admirers for semesters, harboring a private, desperate crush from the safety of the upper student section at the arena.
you were a psychology major, someone who spent her days analyzing behavior and defense mechanisms, yet you couldn't analyze yourself out of the way your chest tightened every time he took the ice.
then came a party in early november.
emboldened by a little too much vodka and the sheer, infectious electricity of the team's victory, you had actually pursued him.
you hadn't just watched from the corner this time; you had walked right up to him at the kitchen island, matched his easy, arrogant banter with a sharp wit he hadn't expected, and when the chance arose to leave the noise behind and go up to his room, you took it.
and god, he had been wonderful.
that was the part that terrified you the most.
he wasn't the careless, selfish playboy you had braced yourself for; he was attentive and entirely intoxicating.
he had asked you questions, looked at you like he actually wanted to hear the answers, and held you like you were something fragile and precious.
but when you woke up the next morning wrapped in his sheets, the freezing weight of reality had set in.
the morning sun filtered through his blinds, illuminating the hockey medals on his dresser and the stray red plastic cups on the floor.
you were just a tuesday night after a massive win.
to save yourself the humiliation of a polite, dismissive text three days later, you had gathered your clothes from the floor, slipped your shoes on, and walked out of his life before he even stirred.
three weeks later, the morning sickness had started.
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
"patient 114?" a nurse called out, holding an electronic chart and looking around the waiting room with an expressionless, practiced gaze.
you swallowed the lump in your throat, stood up completely alone, and smoothed down the front of your sweater.
you walked past the couple, feeling the immense, crushing gravity of a secret that was growing bigger by the second.
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
the briar u campus was experiencing an unseasonably warm spring afternoon two months later.
winter had finally cracked, leaving the quad packed with students lounging on blankets, tossing frisbees, and desperately trying to absorb enough vitamin d to survive the final stretch of the semester.
you sat under the deep, cool shade of a massive oak tree near the psychology building. you were wearing a loose dress—a highly tactical choice. at five months, you couldn't hide the changes with just oversized hoodies and clever posture anymore. the dress camouflaged the distinct, rounded curve of your belly perfectly, as long as you remained sitting down with your knees pulled slightly toward your chest.
you opened your heavy developmental psychology textbook, trying to focus on a chapter about early childhood attachment styles, but the heat and the persistent, dull ache in your lower back were making your eyes heavy.
your mind kept wondering how you were going to afford a crib and how you were going to explain to a child one day why their father was just a face on a hockey trading card.
more than anything, you were determined to continue your studies.
you hadn't spent years maintaining a high gpa just to drop out.
you were going to graduate from briar, baby or no baby.
your due date was calculated for mid-august, right before the fall semester began.
it was going to be a logistical nightmare, juggling a newborn and upper-level psychology seminars, but you were already mapping out a rigid study schedule in your planner.
you would survive it.
you had to.
a loud, booming laugh echoed across the lawn, instantly making your chest tighten so fast you lost your breath.
you looked up from the pages.
a dozen yards away, the hockey team was walking back from an afternoon workout at the campus gym.
they were a loud, boisterous pack, trailing duffel bags over their shoulders and laughing at some inside joke.
at the very center of the group was dean.
his damp hair was pushed back from his forehead, his gray briar athletics t-shirt clinging to his chest, and that trademark, effortless smile was polished across his face as he joked with garrett graham.
your hand moved automatically to your stomach, protectively covering the life growing inside you.
you pulled your massive textbook higher up against your chest, freezing like a deer caught in the high beams of a semi-truck.
please don't look over here. please just keep walking to the dining hall.
dean was laughing, his shoulders shaking as garrett gestured wildly, but as his eyes scanned the quad, his gaze inadvertently drifted toward the shade of your tree.
you looked down instantly, staring so hard at a paragraph on cognitive dissonance that the black ink blurred into meaningless lines.
dean paused mid-stride.
his brow furrowed, his sneakers digging into the soft grass.
the easy, permanent smile faltered as a sharp, incredibly vivid memory flashed through his mind.
the specific, soft scent of your skin, the quiet, grounding confidence you had shown when you walked up to him at the party, and the sudden, confusing sting of disappointment he had
felt when he woke up to a cold, empty bed.
he had looked for you for weeks after that night.
he had asked around, looked through social media, but briar was a massive university, and you had intentionally made yourself a ghost.
"hey, dean, you coming or what? the burrito place fills up fast on thursdays," tucker called out, noticing his friend had suddenly dropped back from the group.
"yeah. go ahead, man. i'll catch up with you guys in a minute," dean muttered, his eyes locked entirely on the girl under the oak tree.
he started walking across the grass.
every step he took felt like a countdown to an explosion you couldn't prevent.
you saw his shadow fall over your open textbook, blocking out the filtered sunlight, before you finally forced yourself to look up.
"hey," dean said. his voice was softer than it usually was, completely stripped of the loud, easy bravado he carried around his teammates.
he rubbed the back of his neck, looking uncharacteristically nervous, his fingers twitching against his duffel bag strap. "it's... you. right? from my place, a few months ago? you kind of vanished into thin air."
"dean. hi," you managed to choke out. your heart was hammering against your ribs so violently you were certain he could see it through your clothes.
your palms were slick with sweat against the cardboard cover of your book. "yeah. i—i have a class to get to, actually—"
terrified of what he might see if he looked too closely at your posture, you scrambled to gather your things.
but your balance was off, your center of gravity completely shifted by the pregnancy.
your coordination failed, and the heavy psychology textbook slipped from your fingers, hitting the grass with a dull thud.
papers and highlighters tumbled out.
you instinctively reached down to grab it, but the physical restriction of your five-month belly made the movement clumsy.
as you bent over, the fabric of your dress pulled tight across your torso, outlining the unmistakable and beautifully rounded curve of your stomach.
dean bent down at the exact same time to grab the book for you, his large hand reaching for the cover, but his movements froze entirely.
from his angle, right at eye level with your lap, there was no hiding it.
the truth was standing between you, loud and undeniable.
dean's eyes widened, the blue of his irises bright with absolute shock.
his mind, usually so quick with a joke or a strategic play on the ice, ground to a screeching, chaotic halt.
he looked from your stomach, up to your terrified face, and back down again.
the timeline crashed into his head like a brutal body check against the boards. late fall. the championship party. five months ago. the night she left.
"is that..." dean's voice cracked, losing all of its usual suave composure. he dropped the textbook entirely back into the grass, his hands hovering in the air between you as if he were afraid to touch reality, his fingers trembling slightly. "wait. hold on. is that mine?"
panic, cold and sharp as ice water, flooded your veins.
the judgment of the campus, the ghost of your mother's past, the terrifying fear of him laughing or calling you a liar—it all hit you at once, blinding your senses.
you grabbed your tote bag, shoving the loose highlighters inside with trembling hands, and pushed past him, your boots skidding on the dirt.
"i have to go, dean. just leave it alone."
"hey, wait. please. stop." dean scrambled after you, his long, athletic strides easily catching up before you could even reach the paved pathway.
he didn't grab you roughly, but he placed a gentle, pleading hand on your forearm, just enough to anchor you, his grip warm and remarkably steady despite his shock.
when you spun around to face him, you had tears blurring your vision, the quad spinning around you.
dean looked entirely breathless, his chest heaving under his t-shirt as he stared at you. there was immense shock in his eyes, yes, but beneath it, moving in like a tidal wave, was an intense, unexpected expression of sheer protectiveness.
"please don't run away again," dean whispered, his gaze dropping down to the curve of your dress, then right back up into your tear-filled eyes. "just... talk to me. please. you don't have to run."
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
an hour later, you were sitting in the farthest corner booth of a quiet, dim, off-campus diner that was usually empty between the lunch and dinner rushes.
the jukebox in the corner was dark, and the only sound was the low sizzle of the kitchen grill behind the counter.
dean had bought you a grilled cheese sandwich and a massive, condensation-covered glass of milk.
he hadn't forced you to say a word since he had guided you into his car. he just sat across from you, his large frame filling the vinyl booth, watching you with an intensity that made your skin prickle, his hands clasped tightly on the table.
"why didn't you tell me?" he asked quietly, breaking the long silence.
his fingers traced the ring of water left by his glass on the tabletop. "i've been racking my brain for the last hour trying to figure out if i did something wrong that night. what did i do? did i hurt you? did i make you feel like i wouldn't care? did i say something stupid?"
"no," you said, your voice cracking as you looked out the window at the passing traffic.
your fingers tore off a tiny piece of the sandwich crust, though your stomach was too twisted to eat. "you were great, dean. it wasn't you. it was... everything else. it was me."
"it's obviously not just you," he said gently, leaning forward, his eyes locking onto yours with an intensity that demanded honesty. "help me understand. please. because waking up to an empty room was bad enough, but finding out you've been carrying this around for five months by yourself? that hurts."
and then, because the weight of the last twenty weeks was simply too heavy for your shoulders to bear anymore, the dam broke.
the psychological walls you had meticulously built up over years crumbled into dust.
you told him everything.
you told him about your mother.
you told him about growing up in a tiny house where every bill was a crisis, listening to the story of a popular college athlete who had promised your mother the world under the red solo cup lights of a fraternity house, only to pack his bags and transfer schools the second the word baby was spoken.
you told him about the terrifying statistics of single-parent households you read in your text books, the deep-seated fear of being a burden, and the agonizing weight of those clinic appointments where you sat alone in a sea of happy, supportive couples.
"i looked at them, dean," you whispered, a tear finally escaping and slipping down your nose. "i sat there every month, watching these guys hold their wives' hands, carrying their bags, looking at the sonogram photos like they'd just won the lottery. and i was just... patient 114. i didn't want to see the look on your face if you thought i was trying to trap you. i didn't want to see you walk away like he did."
dean listened to every single word, his body perfectly still.
his jaw clenched tighter and tighter with every sentence that left your mouth, not with anger directed at you, but with a profound, simmering fury at the ghost of the man who had raised you to believe that all men were cowards.
his chest rose and fell heavily.
when you finished, wiping your cheek with the back of your hand, dean didn't hesitate.
he reached across the table, his arm bridging the distance between your separate worlds, and took your hand in his.
his palm was rough from hockey sticks, warm, and incredibly solid.
"i am not him," dean said, his voice dropping an octave, completely fierce and steady. there was no hesitation in his eyes, no panic, no calculation. "i don't care about my reputation. i don't care that we're still in college. this is my kid, too. and more importantly, it's you. i'm not going anywhere. do you hear me? i am right here."
you looked down at his large hand covering yours, desperately wanting to believe the warmth of it, but the old survival instincts were hard to kill.
"dean, you don't have to pretend for my sake. you have a life. you have scouts coming to games, you have a professional career ahead of you, you have your friends—"
"hey," he interrupted gently, his thumb rubbing circles against the back of your hand, mimicking the gesture you had envied in the waiting room months ago. "let's make a deal. no pressure. i know i have a lot to prove to you. just let me be your friend. let me carry your bags. let me take you to the doctor. let me show you that you don't have to do this alone anymore."
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
true to his word, dean shifted his entire universe within forty-eight hours.
the transformation was nothing short of a statistical anomaly to anyone who knew him.
the guy who used to sleep until noon on days off and survive on cold pizza and protein shakes was suddenly standing outside your dorm building at 9:00 am.
he would be waiting in his idling car, the passenger seat already stocked with saltine crackers and pre-packaged ginger ale because he had spent the previous night reading medical forums about morning sickness trends in the second and third trimesters.
at first, it was kind of awkward.
you were protective of your routine, used to relying only on yourself and trinity but dean was persistent in the most gentle way possible.
he became your shadow on campus.
he would meet you outside your difficult seminars, completely unbothered by the lingering stares and whispers of his teammates or the girls who used to follow him around the quad.
he would silently take your heavy canvas backpack from your shoulders, slinging it over his own massive arm alongside his hockey gear, and walk at your slower, deliberate pace without a single complaint.
"you know people are talking, right?" you asked him one afternoon as you walked toward the library, your hand resting on the small of your aching back.
"let them talk," dean said, shrug of his shoulders easy and unbothered. "they're just jealous i get to hang out with the smartest girl on campus. besides, tucker tried to ask me about it yesterday, and i told him if he didn't shut his mouth i would chuck him into the net during practice. he hasn't brought it up since."
you couldn't help the small laugh that escaped you, the sound surprising even yourself.
dean looked down at you, his eyes softening at the sound, a faint spark in his gaze that made your stomach do a completely different kind of flip.
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
by the sixth month, your apartment had become a secondary storage unit. dean had told his parents. you had been terrified of that phone call, expecting high-society rejection, but his mother had apparently gone into full grandmother mode within thirty seconds.
huge boxes began arriving weekly—baby blankets, organic cotton onesies, a high-tech stroller, and specialized maternity pillows.
but the most significant change was inside dean's shared house. he had cleaned out the small spare room on the first floor, moving out old fitness equipment and broken hockey sticks.
in its place, he had moved in a massive, incredibly plush velvet rocking chair.
"what is this?" you asked, standing in the doorway of the room during a saturday visit where he had insisted on making you lunch.
"it's a glider," dean said proudly, wiping his hands on a kitchen towel as he stood behind you. "i read that the movement helps with lower back pain during the third trimester.
and, you know... just in case you ever want to visit and your back hurts, you have a place that's yours."
you looked at the chair, then at the hockey star who had bought it, feeling the cold, icy edges of your old trauma melting away a little bit more every day.
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
the true turning point came during the eighth-month ultrasound appointment.
the clinic waiting room looked exactly the same as it had during your first trimester—same low hum, same couples holding hands.
but this time, the space felt completely different. you weren't hiding under an oversized sweater, and you weren't staring at a frayed thread.
you were sitting next to dean. his large frame was crammed into the small plastic waiting room chair, his knees nearly touching his chin, but he didn't look impatient at all.
he was reading a pamphlet on newborn sleep cycles with a level of concentration usually reserved for analyzing a rival team's defensive plays.
"patient 114—sorry, i mean, by your last name?" the nurse called out, correcting herself with a warm smile as she recognized you.
you stood up, and before you could even reach for your purse, dean was already on his feet, grabbing your coat and slinging your tote bag over his shoulder.
he extended his free hand to you, his fingers open, waiting.
you hesitated for a fraction of a second before sliding your hand into his, letting his warmth steady you as you walked down the narrow hallway.
the ultrasound room was dim, the monitor glowing with a soft blue light.
you laid back on the paper-covered table, pulling up your shirt to expose the massive, high, tight curve of your eight-month belly.
dean sat in the chair right next to your head, his eyes wide as the technician squeezed the cold, clear gel onto your skin.
he didn't look away for a second, his grip on your hand tightening as the technician pressed the transducer against your stomach.
at first, there was only static—a rushing, hollow sound of fluids and movement. then, with a slight adjustment of the plastic wand, the audio cleared, and a loud, rhythmic sound filled the small room.
thump-thump, thump-thump.
"there we go," the technician said gently, pointing a finger at the grainy, gray-and-white screen. "there's a strong heartbeat. looks like baby is growing right on schedule."
you looked over at dean, expecting him to look overwhelmed by the sheer finality of the sound.
instead, you found him staring at the monitor with thick, silent tears streaming straight down his cheeks.
his jaw was slightly slack, a soft, breathless laugh escaping his lips as he stared at the little flickering shape on the screen.
"that's... that's our baby," he whispered, his voice thick and raspy with an emotion so raw it made your own eyes well up with tears.
he leaned over the edge of the table, completely unbothered by the technician's presence, and pressed a gentle, lingering kiss to the back of your knuckles, his forehead resting against your hand for a long moment. "look at that, sweetheart. we made a little athlete. listen to that pace."
in that exact moment, the final, stubborn, defensive walls around your heart—the ones built by your mother's warnings, the ones built by years of watching men walk away from hard things—completely crumbled into nothing.
you realized that trinity had been right from the very start. dean wasn't your father.
he was entirely, undeniably his own man.
and he was already a father.
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
by the time your ninth month arrived, the unseasonably warm spring had turned into the suffocating heat of late summer.
walking across the campus pavement felt like trekking through a desert, and your ankles had reached a level of swelling that made shoes feel like instruments of torture.
the platonic friendship dean had insisted on maintaining had grown desperately fragile over the last few weeks—not because it was failing, but because the sheer, undeniable gravity of the romantic tension between you had become too loud to ignore.
every touch lingered a second too long; every look held a weight that had nothing to do with doctor's appointments or crib instructions.
one evening, a thunderstorm was rolling in over the campus, the sky a bruised purple color that brought a temporary coolness to the air.
you were sitting on the plush sofa in dean's living room, surrounded by a mountain of freshly washed baby clothes that needed to be sorted into bins.
dean's teammates were away for the weekend, leaving the house uncharacteristically quiet, save for the low rumble of thunder outside.
dean was sitting on the hardwood floor right by your feet, a bottle of lavender lotion in his hand.
he had your bare, swollen left foot resting on his knee, his large, calloused thumbs working in slow, rhythmic circles across your arch with a level of focus that made your heart ache.
"dean?" you said softly, breaking the steady sound of the rain against the windowpane.
"yeah, sweetheart?" he murmured, his gaze remaining down on his hands, his thumbs never stopping their steady, soothing pressure.
"why are you doing all of this?" you asked. the question had been sitting on your tongue for weeks, a final, lingering piece of uncertainty that needed to be aired out. "the baby isn't even here yet. you've spent every weekend for months building furniture, reading parenting manuals, handling my moods, and taking care of me. you didn't have to go this far just to prove you're a good guy. you proved that a long time ago."
dean stopped his movements.
his hands remained cupped around your foot for a long, silent moment while the thunder rolled outside the house.
slowly, deliberately, he let go of your foot and shifted his weight, rising until he was kneeling on the floor right in front of you, his face level with yours.
he reached up, his hands large and incredibly warm as he placed them gently on either side of your face, his thumbs wiping away the sudden, familiar spike of anxiety in your eyes.
"you really are a psychology student, aren't you? always trying to find the hidden motive," he said, a soft, incredibly tender smile breaking across his lips—a smile that was completely devoid of his usual arrogance, leaving only the raw truth underneath. "i stopped doing this just for the baby a long time ago."
your breath hitched in your throat, your fingers tightening against the fabric of the baby blanket in your lap. "dean..."
"i love this kid, yeah. i would do anything for them," he confessed, his blue eyes burning into yours with absolute, unshakable certainty. "but i fell completely, totally in love with you. i love how fierce you are. i love how hard you tried to protect this baby from the world, even when you were terrified. i love the way you laugh when you think i'm being an idiot. i don't want to just be a great co-parent, and i don't want to just be the guy who carries your backpack. i want the whole thing. i want you."
your tears, warm and entirely relieving, spilled over your eyelashes, wetting his thumbs.
for the first time in your entire life, the ghost of your mother's past was entirely gone, vanished into the air like smoke.
there was no trap here.
there was only the beautiful, terrifying, certain reality of the man kneeling in front of you.
"took you long enough to finally say it," you whispered, a watery, breathless smile breaking through your tears.
dean let out a low, rough laugh as he leaned up the remaining few inches to press his lips against yours.
the kiss was sweet, slow, and full of a million quiet promises he had already spent the last four months keeping.
it tasted like rain and lavender lotion and home.
his fingers slid through your hair, holding you close, while his other hand moved down, flattening completely against the large, warm curve of your belly, feeling the faint, rhythmic kick of the life you had created together.
when he finally pulled away, just enough to breathe, he rested his forehead against yours, his thumbs tracing your cheekbones.
"we're going to be completely fine," dean whispered against your skin, his voice a fierce, unbreakable vow meant for both you and the little heartbeat inside you. "the three of us. i promise you. i'm right here."
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
the rhythmic click of a ballpoint pen was the loudest sound in the massive, tiered lecture hall.
you sat in the middle row of your advanced cognitive psychology seminar, your notebook laid out flat on the folding desk, your hand flying across the page to copy down the professor's slides on memory retrieval mechanisms.
beside your desk, tucked safely into the wide aisle, sat a heavy car seat wrapped in a soft navy blanket.
inside, just thirteen weeks old, rowan di laurentis was dead to the world.
his tiny fists were curled up next to his cheeks, a soft, rhythmic whistle puffing past his parted lips with every breath.
when the professor paused to switch slides, you glanced down, your heart swelling with a fierce, possessive warmth.
rowan had been born right on schedule in mid-august, and while the rest of your class spent the last week of summer partying, you and dean had been operating on two-hour sleep cycles, mastering the art of the swaddle, and staring at this tiny boy like he held the secrets to the universe.
some of your classmates had looked surprised to see you walk in three months after college had began with a stroller, but you had just offered them a polite, unbothered smile.
you were going to be a psychologist and rowan wasn't a reason to stop—he was the reason to run faster.
you dipped your hand down, gently brushing your index finger against rowan's minuscule knuckles.
his tiny hand instinctively locked around your finger, holding on tight even in his sleep.
you smiled, unhooked your finger, and went right back to typing your notes.
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
across campus, the atmosphere was entirely different.
coach jensen's whistle blew, a sharp, piercing sound that sent the players scattering toward the benches for a two-minute hydration break.
dean skated hard over to the boards, his chest heaving under his heavy briar jersey, his face flushed red from the intense cardio drill. but he didn't reach for his water bottle first.
instead, he skated right toward the end of the team bench where a familiar, high-tech stroller was parked just behind the safety plexiglass, safely out of the way of any stray pucks.
trinity was sitting on the bench next to it, typing on her phone, fulfilling her promised shift of baby duty while she studied for her own classes.
dean ripped his heavy padded gloves off with his teeth, dropping them onto the ice, and leaned over the boards.
rowan was awake now, wearing a miniature, custom-made briar hockey jersey over his onesie, his massive brown eyes staring up at the bright stadium lights.
"how's my little winger doing?" dean breathed, his voice dripping with an absurd, high-pitched softness that made garrett graham laugh from three feet away.
dean reached over the plexiglass, his hand gently resting against rowan's tiny chest, his thumb stroking the soft cotton of the jersey. "you being good for auntie trinity? you watching daddy's skating form?"
rowan let out a tiny, erratic gurgle, kicking one foot up.
"he's been perfect," trinity said, looking up from her phone with a smirk. "a lot better behaved than you usually are during practice, di laurentis. now drink some water before jensen screams at you."
"yeah, yeah," dean grinned, finally grabbing his water bottle and taking a long swig. he looked back down at his son, a fierce, determined spark in his blue eyes.
balancing division one hockey and fatherhood was the hardest thing he'd ever done, but he had never felt more alive.
he was going to give his kid the world, and he was going to do it right alongside you.
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
later that evening, the winter heat finally broke as dusk settled over the town.
dean's black suv pulled into the gravel driveway of a small, neat house on the edge of the university district.
the porch light was already on, casting a warm, golden glow over the front steps.
dean hopped out of the driver's seat, walking around to your side to open the door before you could even reach for the handle.
he offered you his hand, pulling you up gently, his fingers lingering against your palm before he turned to unbuckle rowan's car seat from the back.
you walked up the steps together, the familiar scent of garlic and homemade pasta sauce drifting through the screen door long before you even knocked.
before your knuckles could even touch the wood, the door swung open.
your mother stood there, her apron tied around her waist, her eyes instantly bypassing the two of you to lock onto the plastic car seat in dean's hand.
a massive, radiant smile broke across her face, smoothing away the lines of a lifetime of hard work.
"there's my grandson," she beamed, her arms already reaching out as she stepped onto the porch.
dean smiled, handing the car seat over with a practiced ease that showed just how natural this had become for him.
"hi, mom. he slept the whole ride over." you smiled as your mother carried the seat inside, cooing at the sleeping baby.
you and dean stood on the porch for a quiet second.
dean looped his arm around your waist, pulling your back flush against his chest, his chin resting comfortably on the top of your head as you both watched your mother unbuckle her grandson through the front window.
there was no ghost of the past in this house anymore.
there was no fear of a running man or a broken promise.
there was only the smell of a warm dinner, a grandmother's laughter, and the solid, heavy weight of the man who had promised to stay—and meant every single word.
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
the dining room of your childhood home was small, but tonight it felt entirely full. the air was thick with the rich, comforting scent of your mother's signature marinara sauce, a recipe that had historically been reserved only for birthdays or the rare moments when a budget stretch allowed for a celebration.
dean was sitting at the worn wooden table, a space that had only ever known the quiet presence of two women.
his massive, athletic frame practically engulfed the modest chair, his broad shoulders casting a long shadow against the floral wallpaper.
yet, he looked completely at ease.
he had rolled up the sleeves of his cotton blue shirt, exposing his forearms as he expertly navigated a massive bowl of spaghetti, passing it to your mother with a respectful, easy smile.
"seriously, alisha, this is incredible," dean said, calling your mother by her first name just as she had insisted he do three visits ago. "if you ever want to open a restaurant near campus, the entire hockey team would probably fund it. tucker survives entirely on frozen burritos and sheer willpower. he would cry if he tasted this."
a sound of genuine, lighthearted laughter escaping her lips as she leaned over to scoop another portion onto his plate. "don't flatter a woman, dean. but please, eat up. god knows you burn enough calories on that ice rink."
you watched them from across the table, your fork twirling slowly in your pasta.
a strange, dizzying wave of emotion hit your chest.
for twenty-one years, this room had been a fortress of caution.
it was the place where you sat while your mother meticulously balanced checkbooks, reminding you that reliance on anyone else was a vulnerability.
it was where you learned to be fiercely independent, wrapped in the protective armor of her warnings.
and now, briar university's golden boy was sitting in the center of it, arguing playfully with her about whether garlic bread should be baked or broiled.
from the corner of the room, a soft, low grunt came from the portable bassinet.
rowan was waking up, his tiny limbs stretching beneath his blanket.
before you could even set your fork down, dean's hand was already moving.
he caught your eye across the table, offering a reassuring nod.
"i got him, sweetheart. finish your dinner," he murmured, his voice dropping into that quiet, intimate tone he reserved just for you.
you watched as he stood up, his tall frame moving with a practiced, gentle fluidity as he navigated the tight space between the table and the bassinet.
he reached down, his hands completely cradling rowan's tiny torso as he lifted him out.
rowan let out a tiny, soft squeak, his little face puckering before he settled instantly against dean's chest, his small head tucking perfectly into the crook of his father's neck.
dean walked back to the table, shifting rowan effortlessly to one arm while he picked up his fork with the other, completely unfazed by the logistics of eating one-handed.
your mother stopped eating.
she watched dean—watched the way his thumb absentmindedly traced small circles on the back of rowan's custom jersey, the way his eyes constantly flicked down to check on the baby's breathing, the way he didn't even hesitate to put his own comfort second.
when she looked back at you, her eyes were bright with a quiet, profound sheen of tears.
she didn't say anything out loud but she didn't need to.
the unspoken apology and the sheer validation of your choices was entirely written in the soft smile she gave you across the table.
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
by eleven o'clock, the drive back to the campus apartment was quiet, save for the hum of the car tires against the asphalt and the steady, rhythmic breathing of a fast-asleep baby in the backseat.
the apartment was dark when you unlocked the door.
trinity was out for the weekend, leaving the small living space peaceful.
dean carried rowan inside, the car seat clicking quietly as he set it on the floor, while you carried the diaper bag and the heavy tote containing your psychology textbooks.
you dropped the bags by the kitchen counter, a heavy, bone-deep exhaustion finally settling into your limbs.
finals week was creeping up, the stack of case studies you needed to analyze was growing, and your body was still recovering from the monumental task of bringing a human into the world.
you leaned against the counter, closing your eyes for just a second.
two warm hands slipped around your waist from behind, a familiar, solid chest pressing into your back.
dean buried his face in the crook of your neck, his breath warm against your skin.
"hey," he whispered, his lips brushing against your jawline. "go take a hot shower. i'll handle the nighttime bath and get him down in his crib."
"dean, you have a 6:00 am video review session" you protested softly, turning around in his embrace to look up into his tired, beautiful blue eyes. "you spent three hours on the ice today. let me do it."
"absolutely not," dean smiled, a faint, stubborn dimple appearing in his cheek.
"we're a team, remember? you aced your seminar quiz today, you took ten pages of notes, and you didn't complain once when rowan spit up on your favorite sweater earlier. let me take the night shift, sweetheart. go relax."
you stared at him, the old, defensive instinct to say 'i can do it myself' rising to your throat out of sheer habit. but looking at the absolute, unwavering certainty in his gaze, you let it go.
you let the breath out of your lungs, your forehead coming to rest against his chest, right over the steady, pounding rhythm of his heart.
"thank you," you breathed into his shirt.
"anytime," he murmured, pressing a lingering, sweet kiss to the crown of your head before stepping back and picking up the sleeping bundle from the floor.
half an hour later, you stepped out of the bathroom, wrapped in a plush robe, your skin warm and smelling of vanilla soap.
the apartment was silent.
you padded softly down the short hallway toward rowan's small nursery.
the dim, amber light of the moon-shaped nightlight illuminated the room.
dean was sitting in the massive velvet glider he had proudly bought months ago.
rowan was freshly changed, wrapped tightly in a swaddle blanket, fast asleep against his father's bare chest.
dean was rocking back and forth in a slow, hypnotic rhythm, his hand completely cupping the back of rowan's head.
he wasn't asleep.
he was staring down at his son, his expression so fierce, so intensely protective, it took your breath away.
in his lap, balanced precariously on the armrest of the chair, was his hockey playbook, his eyes flicking between the diagrams of defensive strategies and the tiny, perfect face of the boy in his arms.
he was balancing it all. the pressure of the scouts, the demanding expectations of his legacy, the exhaustion of college life—he was holding it all in his hands, and he wasn't letting a single piece drop.
you leaned your shoulder against the doorframe, a soft smile tugging at your lips.
dean looked up at the sound of your breathing, his eyes softening instantly as he caught sight of you. he didn't speak, not wanting to break the fragile silence of the nursery, but he extended his free hand toward you, his fingers open.
you walked across the small room, sliding your hand into his warm palm.
dean pulled you down gently until you were sitting on the wide armrest of the glider beside him.
he leaned his head against your hip, his grip on your hand tightening into a silent, unbreakable vow.
you looked down at the two of them.
the future was going to be chaotic.
there would be exams to study for while rocking a crying infant; there would be away games where you would have to manage the nighttime routine alone and there would be endless loops of exhaustion.
but as the glider rocked gently in the quiet apartment, the absolute certainty of his warmth against your skin told you everything you needed to know.
New York gets smaller in the rearview mirror, London is older and wetter than you expected, and Camille packed something in your suitcase that she absolutely should not have.
word count: 5.3k
authors note: cover photo by @zclhes
You wake up on Wednesday with nowhere to be.
That's the thing. You lie there waiting for the alarm. It doesn't come because you turned it off last night for the first time in six years. The morning just sits there, open and entirely yours. You stare at the ceiling and think: okay.
Okay.
You lie there longer than you normally would. Not because you're tired, just because you can. Nobody needs anything from you this morning. No piece waiting to be filed. No planning committee meeting on Thursday. No opening sentence to rewrite for the fourth time. You let the morning just be a morning.
Eventually you get up.
You make coffee slowly, actually waiting for the water to reach the right temperature, standing in your kitchen in your socks with your hair still doing whatever it wants. You think about how many mornings you've stood in this exact spot rushing. Six years of rushing through this kitchen, coffee in hand before you've even properly woken up, already thinking about the first thing on the list.
You are not thinking about a list this morning.
You take your coffee to the couch, pull the blanket up, turn the television on. Something comfortable, something you've seen before. You sit there and drink your coffee and let the morning happen around you.
It's nice.
It's also a little strange.
Not bad strange. Just the strangeness of a life that has changed shape overnight. You keep waiting for the thing you're supposed to be doing. It keeps not appearing. Which should feel like relief and mostly does, but occasionally feels like standing in a room where the furniture has been moved and your body hasn't learned the new layout yet.
You finish the coffee, make toast, eat it at the counter looking out the window at the street below. People with their bags, their coats, their places to be. Yesterday you were one of those people. Today you're just someone watching them from a window.
You go back to the couch.
You watch the rest of the episode. Then another one. Then you switch to something you haven't seen before, a film you've had on your list for two years, and you get about twenty minutes in before you realize you're not really watching it, just looking at it, your brain drifting when it has too much space and not enough direction.
You switch to something easier. A reality show about people renovating houses, which is not something you would normally watch but which turns out to be exactly the right amount of engaging for a Wednesday when your life has just changed shape and your brain hasn't quite caught up.
You watch three episodes.
You make more coffee.
You think about the about page. The three paragraphs you wrote yesterday in the corner café, the ones that felt true when you wrote them and still feel true when you think about them now. You think about what comes next, where the first proper post comes from, what the first person looks like. You think about Manchester and whether there's a story there, in the market or the pub or the streets he grew up on.
You think about February.
You check the time. Not even noon.
You look at the ceiling.
You are going to need to find a routine. Not today, today is a decompression day, today is for the blanket and the reality show and the toast, but at some point the open unstructured expanse of a life without a desk is going to require some kind of shape or you are going to spend a lot of time lying on this couch watching people argue about kitchen backsplashes.
Which is fine actually. For today.
You reach for your phone to check your work email and get halfway through opening the app before you remember. You close it. You sit there with the phone in your hand and feel the absence of it. The shape of a thing you did every morning that you are not doing anymore. Relief and vertigo at the same time. That's probably just what this is supposed to feel like.
You put the phone face down on the couch cushion.
You watch another episode.
Someone on the television is crying about a kitchen backsplash. You find this oddly comforting.
You get up and make lunch, something simple, eggs again because you are apparently a person who eats a lot of eggs during significant life transitions, and you eat at the kitchen table instead of the couch, which feels like a reasonable concession to not completely dissolving into the furniture. You look at your laptop on the counter. You think about opening it.
You don't open it.
Today is not a laptop day. Today is a blanket day. The laptop can wait until tomorrow when you have had one full day of doing absolutely nothing and feel sufficiently restored to do something again.
You go back to the couch.
You are halfway through another episode, the one where they're arguing about whether to do an open plan kitchen, and you have opinions about this actually, open plan is not always the answer, sometimes you want a wall, sometimes a wall is the whole point, when your phone buzzes on the cushion beside you.
Harry: are you busy? can I call?
You look at the message. You look at the television. The couple is still arguing about the kitchen wall.
You: of course
Your phone rings almost immediately.
You pick up on the first ring.
"Hey," he says. Warm and a little amused already. "How's the free woman life."
You laugh. "Rotting," you say.
A pause. "I'm sorry?"
"On my couch. I've been rotting on my couch all day."
"Rotting," he repeats slowly, like he's trying to work out if this is an American expression he should know about.
"It's a thing," you say. "It means doing nothing. Intentionally. Horizontal."
"Right," he says. "And is the rotting going well."
"Really well actually. I watched four episodes of a show about people renovating houses and I have opinions about open plan kitchens now."
"Do you?"
"Sometimes you want a wall, Harry. A wall is not a failure."
"I'll keep that in mind," he says, and you can hear him trying not to laugh. A pause. "Okay. So. I was thinking."
You pull the blanket up slightly. "About what."
"We said Manchester in February," he says. "Which is the plan. That's still the plan." Another pause, shorter. "But you're free now. You have nothing keeping you there. And I'm in London for the next few weeks and I was thinking." He stops. Starts again. "Why don't you come here. This week. I'll fly you out and we can spend some time together before the whole big move happens. Properly. Just the two of us."
You sit very still on your couch.
"This week," you say.
"If you want to. I know it's fast. But I keep thinking about you sitting in your apartment rotting—"
"It's a good rot—"
"I know it's a good rot," he says patiently. "I just think it might be a better rot in London. With me."
You look around your apartment. At the blanket. At the television, paused now on the couple and their unresolved kitchen wall situation. At the laptop on the counter you didn't open today. At the life that is currently in the process of changing shape and hasn't quite filled in yet.
"This week," you say again.
"Thursday if you can manage it," he says. "Or Friday. Whatever works."
You think about your apartment, fully paid up for the month. You think about Cami, who already knows you're leaving and will be insufferably smug about how fast it's happening. You think about the about page saved on your laptop, the first post that doesn't exist yet, the sofrito woman in all her counterparts in cities you haven't been to.
You think about London.
"Okay," you say.
A beat. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," you say. "Thursday."
"Send me the price of the flight once you book it," you say.
"No."
"Harry."
"Absolutely not."
"I just want to know what it costs so I can—"
"So you can what," he says. "Transfer me money I don't need for a flight I want to buy you?"
"You're crazy," you say.
"You're crazy," he says back, pleasantly. "You just quit your job. Keep your money."
You sigh. Long and pointed.
"I just feel a little bad," you say. "That's all. I just feel a little bit bad about it."
"Stop," he says simply. "You're fine. Literally fine."
"I know I'm fine."
"You know you're fine."
"I just." You pull the blanket tighter. "Part of me feels bad."
"That part of you is wrong," he says. "That part of you can take the week off."
You laugh despite yourself. "Okay."
"Okay," he says. A pause, shorter than the others, the kind that means he's about to say something. "Also. When you're here."
"Yeah."
"I'd like you to meet my mum."
You go very still.
"Oh," you say.
"Obviously," he says, like it's the most natural thing in the world, like he isn't saying something enormous in the most understated way possible, which is of course exactly how he does everything.
"I would love that," you say quietly. And you mean it completely.
"She already knows about you," he says. "She's been asking." A pause. "She's going to love you."
"You don't know that."
"I do actually. I wouldn't bring anyone home to mum that she wouldn't like," he says. Simply. Completely certain.
You sit there on your couch in your blanket, apartment paid up for the month, thinking about meeting his mother in London in three days. Something warm and slightly enormous moving through your chest.
"Okay," you say. "London. Thursday. Your mum."
"Thursday," he confirms. And then something shifts in his voice, lighter now, properly happy. "I'm going to pick you up from the airport."
"You don't have to do that."
"I know I don't have to," he says, and you can hear the smile in it. "I want to. I've been thinking about it actually. You coming through arrivals. Me being there." A beat. "It's my turn."
You think about JFK. About standing near the arrivals exit with your hands in your coat pockets trying to look like someone who was just casually in the neighbourhood. About him stopping when he saw you. About the smile.
"Your turn," you say softly.
"My turn," he says. "I'm going to be there with a sign and everything."
"Do not bring a sign."
"A big one," he says. "Very embarrassing."
"Harry."
"With your name on it in large letters."
"I will turn around and get back on the plane."
He laughs, properly, the full one, and you smile at your blanket. Thursday and London and a man standing in an arrivals hall with a sign he absolutely should not bring and probably will anyway.
"Listen," he says, and his voice shifts slightly when he's about to wrap something up but wants to make sure it lands first. "I have a meeting in a few minutes."
"Go," you say.
"But I love you," he says. "Truly. And I don't want you to feel bad about any of this. Not the flight, not the move, not any of it." A pause. "This is going to be so great. I genuinely think this is going to be so great."
Something in your chest does that thing it does.
"I love you too," you say.
"I love you," he says again. Just once more. Like he wanted to say it twice.
"Go to your meeting," you say.
"I'm going." A beat. "I'll book the flight tonight and send everything over. All the details."
"Okay."
"Okay," he says. "Thursday."
"Thursday," you say.
He hangs up.
You sit there with the phone in your hand, blanket around your shoulders, the television still paused on the couple and their kitchen wall. You think about Thursday. An arrivals hall somewhere in London. A man who wants to be there with a sign.
You pick up the remote.
You unpause the television.
"Open plan is a mistake," you tell the couple on the screen.
They don't listen. They never listen.
You watch anyway.
The text comes through just after nine.
You're back on the couch, different show now, something with a lot of dramatic pauses and people staring meaningfully at each other across rooms, and your phone lights up on the cushion beside you.
Harry: okay. here's everything.
And then the itinerary. All of it. Flight details, times, terminal, the confirmation number. Thursday morning, early, Heathrow arrival just after nine pm London time. One week.
You stare at it for a long moment.
One week.
You read it again. The flight number. The departure time. The seat. Not economy, and it makes something complicated happen in your chest that you choose not to examine too closely right now.
Thursday.
Two days away.
You put the phone down and look at the television, at someone staring meaningfully across a room, and think about the fact that in two days you are getting on a plane to London. Meeting Harry's mother. Seeing the city that is about to become your city. Taking the first real concrete step into the life you decided to have on Camille's floor in free Selena Gomez pyjamas approximately forty eight hours ago.
You pick the phone back up.
You are nervous. Properly nervous, the kind that sits in your sternum and doesn't have a clean explanation. Not about Harry. Not about London specifically. Just a general low hum of something you can't quite pin down, which is almost more unsettling than if it were about something specific.
Maybe it's this, you think. Maybe this is just what the first big step feels like. The difference between deciding something and actually doing it, between Cami's floor and the departure gate, between a plan and a plane ticket with your name on it leaving in forty eight hours.
You've been making decisions for weeks. Quiet internal ones, the kind that happen in the back of your chest while you're doing other things. But this is different. This is a confirmation number. This is real.
You open Cami's thread.
You: he sent the itinerary. I'm going to London Thursday. one week.
You put the phone down.
It buzzes almost immediately.
Cami: OMG
Cami: YOU'RE GOING
Cami: THURSDAY????
Cami: babe
Cami: you're going to love it
Cami: like genuinely you are going to absolutely love it
You smile at your phone.
You: I'm nervous
Cami: of course you are. it's the first big thing
Cami: but like. in the best way nervous right?
You think about it. You look at the itinerary still open in Harry's thread. The flight number. The seat. Thursday morning.
You: yeah. in the best way nervous.
Cami: exactly
Cami: now go pack. you have two days and I know you're going to repack at least three times
You look at your suitcase in the corner of your bedroom, visible through the open door.
She's not wrong.
You: goodnight cami
Cami: goodnight babe 🫶🏼
You put the phone down and look at the television, at the people staring meaningfully at each other, and think about Thursday and London and a man who is going to be standing in arrivals possibly with a sign.
You get up.
You go to the bedroom.
You start to pack. Cami comes a day later to pack all the things you forgot.
Thursday arrives all at once.
You wake up before your alarm. You lie there in the dark and listen to the city outside. A garbage truck somewhere down the block. A cab. Someone's dog. All the ordinary noise of a place that doesn't know today is significant.
You get up.
Your suitcase is by the door where you left it last night after the third repack, which Camille predicted and you will never admit to her. It's not a big suitcase. You thought about that, about how much to bring for a week that is also the beginning of something longer, and you landed on light. You can buy things. You can send things. You don't need to carry your whole life onto a plane.
Not yet anyway.
You make coffee and drink it standing at the kitchen window, looking out at the street below, the light coming up slowly over the buildings. Cold out there. You stand there with your hands around the mug and look at your street. All the mornings you have stood here. Rushing and not rushing. Good mornings and bad ones. The ordinary accumulation of a life in one place.
You think: this is not the last time but it might be one of the last times for a while.
And then, quieter, somewhere underneath that: and that's okay. That's actually okay.
You finish your coffee. Wash the mug. Put it on the drying rack. You do a lap of the apartment, stove off, windows locked, the plant on the sill watered. You stand in the middle of your living room for a second and just look at it. The bookshelf. The desk by the window. The couch with the blanket folded over the arm.
It'll be here when you get back.
Or it won't need to be.
You put your coat on. Pick up your suitcase. Lock the door behind you.
The Uber is already outside when you get downstairs.
You load your suitcase into the back, get in, and the driver pulls out without a word, which you appreciate, because you are not a person who needs conversation at six in the morning on a significant Thursday.
You watch the city go past the window.
It's early enough that the streets are thin, just the people who have to be somewhere before the rest of the world wakes up. The buildings are dark against a sky that hasn't decided what colour it wants to be yet. Everything quieter than you're used to, softer around the edges.
You think about the first time you drove to JFK. Eight years ago, visiting a friend who had moved there and couldn't afford to fly home. You remember looking out the window exactly like this and thinking New York is so much bigger than I thought.
It still is.
You think about how much of it you haven't seen yet, and you haven't even left the country.
Your phone buzzes.
Harry: morning. you awake?
You: in the Uber. heading to the airport now.
Harry: good. text me when you land.
You: it's a nine hour flight
Harry: I know. text me anyway.
You smile at your phone. Outside the city thins out further, the expressway opening up. The skyline appears behind you in the window as you pull away from it, all that light stacked up against the morning sky. You look at it for a long time.
Then you face forward.
The airport is its own world at this hour. Not chaotic yet but building toward it, people moving through the terminal with their bags, their coffee, their various degrees of alertness. You check in. Go through security. Find your gate, sit down, look at the departures board. Your flight. London next to it. The nerves settle somewhere low in your chest.
Not bad nerves. Just the real kind.
You get a coffee from the place nearest the gate. Sit back down. Put your headphones in without putting anything on, just the quiet of them, a small buffer between you and the terminal noise. Coffee in hand. Carry on between your feet.
Your phone buzzes.
Cami: are you at the airport
You: gate 42
Cami: okay good. how are you feeling
You think about it honestly.
You: nervous. good nervous though.
Cami: good nervous is the only nervous worth having
Cami: also I put some things in your suitcase last night when you weren't looking
You stare at your phone.
You: what things
Cami: nice things. you'll find them.
You: Camille.
Cami: you're welcome in advance. go live your life. I love you 🫶🏼
You put your phone in your pocket and look out the gate window at the plane already sitting on the tarmac, waiting.
You drink your coffee.
You think about Harry standing in an arrivals hall in London in nine hours.
You think: okay.
You think: let's go.
The flight is long and uneventful, which is exactly what you want from a flight. Two films. Something that is supposed to be pasta. A few hours of sleep with your head against the window and the dark Atlantic somewhere far below. At some point the cabin lights come up, the seatbelt sign chimes on, and outside the window the sky is doing something grey and British.
There it is.
London.
Customs is long. It's always long from what you've heard. You stand in the queue with your passport and your carry on, moving forward a step at a time, trying to look like a person who is completely calm about this, which you are not, which is fine.
The officer stamps your passport without looking up.
You walk through.
Baggage claim. You find your belt and wait.
You: landed. in baggage claim.
The three dots appear almost immediately.
Harry: I'm here. take your time.
You look at the message for a second.
You: you're actually at the airport.
Harry: told you I would be.
Harry: how was the flight
You: long. good. watched two films and ate something that was supposed to be pasta.
Harry: supposed to be.
You: it was fine. I've had worse.
Harry: your bag will be last. it's always last.
You look up at the belt. Everyone else's bags are coming around. Yours is not.
You: how do you know that.
Harry: it's always last. it's a rule.
You stand there watching the belt and sure enough your suitcase is the last one to appear, coming around the corner long after everyone else has collected theirs and gone.
You: you were right.
Harry: I know. come through. I'll be easy to spot.
You put your phone in your pocket, take a breath, and push your suitcase toward the doors.
Beyond them is arrivals.
Beyond arrivals is Harry.
You push through.
The arrivals hall is busy. Families, drivers, couples finding each other, children who have been sitting still for too long making up for it now. You scan the crowd.
And then you see him.
No sign. You note this immediately and with some relief. Cap on, dark coat, standing slightly to the side of the main crowd with his hands in his pockets, not on his phone, just watching the doors. Just waiting.
He sees you at almost exactly the same moment you see him.
He smiles. The real one. The quiet one.
He doesn't move toward you, just stands there and lets you come to him, and something tightens in your chest as you cross the hall toward him, your suitcase rattling on the floor, people moving around you in every direction.
You stop in front of him.
"No sign," you say.
"I thought about it," he says.
"And?"
"And I thought you might actually get back on the plane."
You laugh. He pulls you into him properly, both arms around you, your face against his neck. You hold on. Nine hours of travel, nine weeks of distance, one very significant life decision all quietly dissolving into the warmth of him in an arrivals hall in London at nine thirty at night.
He presses his face into your hair and says, quietly, like it's just for you: "You're actually here."
"I'm actually here," you say.
He pulls back just enough to look at you. Takes you in, like he has all the time in the world.
"Welcome to London, love," he says.
You look at him. The cap, the dark coat, the real smile, the arrivals hall buzzing around you both — indifferent, loud, completely irrelevant.
"Thank you for coming," you say.
"I told you I would," he says simply.
He takes your suitcase without asking and puts his other hand at the small of your back and steers you toward the exit, easy and certain.
You walk out into the cold London night together.
He takes your suitcase, leads you through the terminal, out into the cold. You follow him across the drop off lane toward the car, a dark Range Rover, familiar. You go to get in on the left side out of pure muscle memory and reach for a door handle that isn't there.
You stand there for a second.
Harry has already put your suitcase in the back and is watching you from the other side of the car with an expression that is trying very hard to be neutral.
"The other side," he says.
"I know," you say. "I know that."
"Of course."
"I just forgot for a second."
"Nine hour flight," he says generously. "Completely understandable."
You walk around the front of the car. Get in the correct side. Pull the door closed. He gets in beside you, starts the engine. You look straight ahead and say nothing.
He says nothing either for approximately four seconds.
Then you both laugh at the same time, properly, filling the car. You sit there laughing at yourself in a car park at Heathrow and think this is maybe one of your favourite moments in recent memory.
He pulls out of the car park onto the road. London starts going past the windows. Dark and wet and lit up, the roads wider than you expected, the signs different, everything slightly other than what your brain keeps reaching for. You pass a row of houses, all terraced, all exactly the same height, their windows glowing gold. A night bus. A pub on a corner still going at this hour, people spilling out onto the pavement in the cold.
"It's so old," you say, before you've thought about it.
He glances over. "What is."
"All of it." You look out the window. "In New York everything is loud about being new. Here it just." You pause. "It just is what it is."
"I told you," he says. "Honest city."
You look at him.
"Like you," you say.
He looks back at the road. Something in his expression shifts, just slightly. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't need to.
"I'm excited to see your house," you say, after a moment.
"Yeah?"
"And to meet your mum." You pause. "I'm nervous about that part."
"Don't be," he says. Simply. Like that settles it.
"Easy for you to say."
"She's going to love you," he says. "I already told you that."
You look back out the window at London going past, at the streetlights and the wet roads and the dark of a city that isn't your city, not yet, and you think about what he said on the phone. Soon it'll be your house too.
"Hey," you say.
He glances over.
"You said soon it'll be my house too."
"It will be," he says.
You go quiet for a second. Outside a street sign goes past that you can't read fast enough. A bus. A row of houses with their lights on, ordinary and golden and full of people living their lives.
"Yeah," you say quietly. "It will be."
He reaches over and puts his hand over yours on your knee, easy and warm. You turn your hand over and let him. Look out at the city. Feel the whole strange ordinary miracle of being exactly where you're supposed to be.
He pulls onto the driveway, cuts the engine, gets out, and has your suitcase out of the back before you've fully registered that you've stopped moving. You get out, stand there for a second, and look at the house.
A proper house that has been here long enough to mean something. A front garden, small and tidy, a path to the door. Warm light through the downstairs window.
He's already at the door with your suitcase, keys out, and you follow him up the path. He pushes the door open and steps back to let you in first.
You step inside.
Warm. That's the first thing. Warm and quiet, smelling like him, which you weren't prepared for, that specific familiar warmth of a person's home. You take a few steps in and look around. High ceilings. Wooden floors. A hallway that opens into something larger beyond, art on the walls, a lamp casting everything soft and gold and —
He puts his lips on yours.
Your back finds the wall, his hands find your face, and you stop thinking about the house entirely. The ceiling, the floors, the lamp, the art, the nine hour flight, the wrong side of the car, the arrivals hall — all of it. Gone. Just this, just him, just the two of you in the hallway of a house in London at half past ten at night.
He pulls back just enough to look at you.
"I've been waiting," he says. Quiet. Certain. "For this." A beat. "For you."
You look at him in the warm light of the hallway.
"Hi," you say. Properly this time. Like you're only just arriving.
He smiles. Kisses you again, slower this time. Then he pulls back, nods toward the stairs.
"Come on," he says. "I'll show you the room."
You follow him upstairs, your hand in his, the house quiet around you. He pushes open a door. A room with a big window, a bed, everything soft and dim and exactly right.
You set your bag down on the bed and unzip it.
You move a few things aside.
And then you stop.
Sitting right on top, folded neatly and absolutely not packed by you, is a set of lingerie. Black. Very nice. A small note tucked under the strap in Camille's handwriting that says simply: you're welcome.
You stare at it.
Harry appears in the doorway behind you. You hear him stop.
"What's that," he says.
You hold it up without turning around.
A beat of silence.
"Cami," you say.
"Right," he says.
Another beat.
"You should put that on," he says.
You turn around. He's leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed and that expression, the patient one, the one that isn't quite a smile yet but is close.
i’m begging like on my hands and knees for more i would’ve done that sober please please please it was like so amazing you are so talented keep it up!!
I hate being sober
Pairing: Dean Di Laurentis x childhood best friend!reader
⟡ Main Index | ⟡ Archive for Earth-66
☆ Read part 1 here!!
a/n: Big thank yous all around for your patience. I hope you guys enjoy this part! Let's all be responsible readers and keep some tissues nearby. Don't blow your snot on your shirts and keep your underwear on!!
Classification: Smut +18 | Alcohol consumption at a college party (background), confrontation, insecurity and anxiety around sexual performance and orgasm, references to a past bad relationship, emotional vulnerability, fear of rejection or disgust from a partner, overthinking and anxiety in romantic/sexual communication, sensory deprivation, mild nipple play, oral sex, conversations during sex/talking you through it and praise, unprotected p-in-v, creampie, mild cum play??, multiple intense orgasms, crying during sex and aftercare and past references.
Word count: 14 k
Divider by me ;)
Hockey boys disappeared.
You wished you had known that before you let Dean slip out of your place two nights ago.
They didn’t do it intentionally, never maliciously either but the season swallowed them whole. They vanished into six a.m. skates and afternoon lifts, into physical therapy appointments that patched together bruised shoulders and strained knees. Into mandatory media interviews the athletic department insisted would make the team more marketable, more approachable and into lectures they attended only long enough to collect notes before hurrying off to practice again, then came the exams they'd postponed because hockey had always come first until suddenly it couldn't.
Their schedules folded in on themselves until entire days disappeared without warning.
You only ever seemed to find them again at parties, ones Allie and Hannah practically dragged you to, insisting fresh air, loud music and cheap drinks counted as emotional healing.
Your skin had been buzzing ever since that night, an awareness sitting right beneath the surface no matter how hard you tried to ignore it. Every time you opened your dresser, the tangled pile of Agent Provocateur lace shoved unceremoniously into the back of your drawer stared back at you like evidence from a crime scene. You'd stuffed it in there without folding a single piece, too flustered to deal with it afterward, yet you still couldn't bring yourself to move it somewhere less obvious.
Then there were Dean's texts, you answered them eventually, right after rewriting each reply sufficient times to make yourself question your own sanity. Was starting a sentence with a capital letter too serious? Did ending it with a period make you sound annoyed? Was “okay” different from “ok”? You caught yourself deleting perfectly normal messages simply because they looked too eager before sending something shorter that felt even stranger.
You hadn't mentioned that night once.
You tried not to think too much about the kiss or what had come before and especially not how it had ended. He'd watched you pull your pajamas on without a trace of impatience, giving you the privacy of looking away whenever your eyes met before inevitably finding you again, you kept your focus away from the memory of the gentle press of his lips against your forehead before he'd left, so tender you could still feel the warmth after he’d stepped away. You'd looked completely wrung out, limbs heavy, emotions stripped bare, too tired to pretend you were anything but vulnerable and he'd treated you like something precious instead of fragile.
You hadn't reached for him.
Even now, the memory made your fingers twitch uselessly at your sides. If you'd caught his wrist and tugged him back for even another minute, would anything feel different now? Or would you still be dissecting text messages like they were evidence in a court case, wondering how you had become shy after years of knowing each other better than anyone else?
“So that's what it feels like,” you breathed, the words escaping before you realized you'd spoken them aloud as your heeled boots scraped lazily against the sidewalk.
A few steps ahead, Allie stopped so abruptly she nearly caused a collision. She turned on her heel, her brows knitting together as she looked first at Hannah walking beside you, checking whether she'd heard the same thing, before her attention landed squarely on you.
“That's what what feels like?” she asked, curiosity overtaking whatever conversation you three had been having.
You could feel another exchange of glances pass between them, so quick most people would've missed it. Hannah's eyebrows lifted ever so slightly, Allie's mouth pulled into a thin line before she gave the smallest shrug in return.
Years of friendship had made you fluent in conversations that didn't require words. If you had to guess, it translated roughly to “Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe it was too soon to drag her to a party.” You pretended not to notice. Instead, you let your gaze drift down the street.
Cars lined both curbs, squeezed bumper to bumper beneath the streetlights, while clusters of students spilled across lawns and sidewalks with red cups already in hand. Music pulsed from somewhere ahead, bass so heavy it vibrated faintly beneath your feet and every few seconds another burst of laughter erupted from the overcrowded house at the end of the block where people continuously filtered through the front door, the party breathing them in and out.
You let out a quiet sigh, wondering whether turning around now would actually be more awkward than simply going inside.
Hannah spoke first, her voice light. “We don't have to stay long,” she reasoned, slipping her hands into the pockets of her jacket as she smiled at you. “There's free booze. Let's just treat it like a pregame, then we can head back to the apartment, order something greasy and play poker.”
“No offense, girls,” you replied with the ghost of a smile, “but I'm not stripping naked in front of you two tonight. Sorry to disappoint.”
Allie snorted. “I think she means the normal kind of poker.”
You looked at her with exaggerated disbelief. “We're in college, Allie. There is no other kind.”
A laugh escaped Hannah while Allie rolled her eyes so dramatically you were surprised they didn't disappear into the back of her head permanently.
“Okay…” Allie muttered under her breath, drawing the word out as she pointed an accusing finger at you. “Pessimist.” Then her entire expression brightened again, optimism returning with alarming speed. “Let's not waste good outfits by turning around prematurely. One hour.” She held up a finger. “Two, tops.”
“And no boys–” Hannah added.
You watched Allie's head whip toward her so quickly a strand of hair stuck briefly to her lipstick. “What?” she protested.
Hannah ignored her entirely, keeping her eyes on you instead. “We'll keep them at bay.”
“Who's we?” Allie demanded, her eyes widening in horror. She turned toward Hannah, raising both eyebrows in an elaborate series of expressions that looked suspiciously like she was trying to negotiate exceptions without saying them openly.
“Yeah,” you chimed in before Hannah could answer, “let's not be rash.”
Both of them looked at you at once and you blinked innocently. “I mean…” you amended, scratching lightly at the side of your neck. “Talking's fine, right?” Your shoulders lifted in a small shrug. “If Tucker came up to me, I wouldn't ignore him.”
“You like Tucker?” Hannah asked carefully, the question so gentle that it almost sounded like she was testing the ice before stepping onto it. Her eyes narrowed, though the corner of her mouth betrayed the beginning of a smile. “Though he's not the demographic I'm worried about.”
Your head snapped toward her. “No, I–” You stumbled over the words, making a vague gesture in the air between you. “It was just an example. He's a boy–” You caught yourself. “Man.” The correction did absolutely nothing to restore your confidence as both of them continued staring at you expectantly. You winced. “Okay, it was a bad example,” you admitted, ducking your head.
Before either of them could capitalize on it, you slipped neatly between them and continued walking toward the house, hoping physical distance would somehow end the conversation…It didn't.
“Surprised you didn't use Dean,” Allie remarked quietly.
Your entire body locked up and your next step faltered before stopping altogether. Slowly, you turned back to face them, your expression caught somewhere between horrified and deeply offended. “Let's pick another word.”
Allie blinked. “…What?”
You shrugged awkwardly, refusing to elaborate for a second before mumbling, “‘Use’ just sounds wrong.”
“I meant ‘use him’…” Allie's grin spread wider the second she realized what could’ve happened inside your head. “As in ‘use him as an example’.” She pointed at you dramatically. “Though if you're into that dominatrix shit, I'll just ask you not to do it in the apartment.” She tilted her head thoughtfully. “And much less with Di Laurentis. I doubt his ego could handle physically being under a woman and–”
Your eyes widened a little more with every passing sentence. Your mouth opened twice, each time thinking now was the moment you'd interrupt, only for Allie to barrel cheerfully into the next thought before you could squeeze a single word in.
“…he'd probably have trouble performing or something. I don't remember Six Flags having a ride where you stand in line for forty minutes just to leave disappointed. He'd spend more time advertising himself than actually delivering and fuck forbid he finds a captive audience…we'd never hear the end of how 'life-changing' he thinks his d–”
“Allie,” you finally managed weakly, which thankfully made her rant stop.
A few steps away, Hannah made a strangled sound that was half laugh, half cough. “Okay!” she wheezed, trying and failing to compose herself. “I think we'll all stay away from boys tonight.”
A huff of laughter escaped you, the tension finally cracking. “So if Garrett waltzes in,” you asked, “you're just going to keep that man away?” Your eyebrows lifted knowingly. “If what slips through the thinnest walls ever made is any indication, I'd like to see that work in your favor.”
Hannah didn't even have the decency to look embarrassed. “Well, that's different,” she replied with unmistakable pride. “We're together.”
“Better wrap up your French lesson then, Madame,” Allie declared, already marching ahead with exaggerated determination. She shook her head dramatically, muttering loud enough for both of you to hear. “We? Who's we? Far as I know this is still a free country…” She threw one hand into the air in theatrical protest without ever slowing her pace, leaving you and Hannah exchanging an amused glance before following after her.
You grimaced before leaning slightly toward Hannah, lowering your voice as though the woman in question might somehow overhear you from halfway up the walkway. “I think we should start putting the news on as background noise,” you reasoned with complete sincerity.
A laugh escaped Hannah before she bumped your shoulder lightly with hers as the two of you started walking again, unhurried despite Allie steadily increasing the distance between you.
“College is torture enough,” Hannah sighed. “Let's at least wait until we get this semester's grades.”
You nodded thoughtfully. “And gauge exactly how much pain we actually deserve…smart idea.”
Hannah breathed out dramatically. “Or the worst I've ever had.”
You laughed under your breath just as Allie's voice carried across the front lawn. “Are you guys coming or what!?” She stood on the porch with one hand on the doorway of the open front door, the music spilling out around her while impatiently waving both of you over.
“Yeahhh…no,” you replied, motioning toward the overflowing house in the distance, the one she'd insisted would be a good idea in the first place. “I think this one already beats it.” You let out a long, defeated sigh as you and Hannah finally caught up to Allie, meeting her expectant stare. “Poor choice of words again, babe.” You told her, pressing your lips into a thin line.
Allie rolled her eyes with exaggeration, muttering something under her breath that was completely swallowed by the music pouring from the open front door before disappearing inside. The bass had grown strong enough to rattle the loose wooden steps with every beat.
You stepped through the doorway last.
Warm air, thick with perfume, sweat, beer and something unmistakably fruity from whatever jungle juice someone had mixed in the kitchen, hit you instantly. Every room seemed packed wall to wall with students, some danced with complete disregard for personal space while others shouted conversations directly into each other's ears. Plastic cups littered every available surface, laughter rose above the music in uneven bursts and somewhere upstairs someone cheered so loudly, it briefly overpowered the speakers.
“…Or what,” you echoed quietly to yourself as the front door swung shut behind you.
The phrase lingered in your head while your eyes swept over the crowded rental. You spotted Hannah and Allie weaving confidently through the bodies ahead of you, Hannah reaching back once to make sure you were still following before the crowd swallowed her hand again.
“I'm gonna get us something to drink!” you called over the music once you'd caught up.
Allie answered with an enthusiastic thumbs-up that quickly dissolved into dancing with whoever happened to be beside her, already swaying to the beat without a hint of self-consciousness. Hannah, meanwhile, had her phone out before you even finished speaking, her attention dropping to the screen with a smile you recognized instantly as she typed what was almost certainly a message to Garrett letting him know the three of you had made it there safely.
You smiled back at everyone who greeted you on the way through the house, returning waves and quick hellos even when you barely recognized the faces. If you acted normal for a while longer, maybe your brain would eventually believe that this was just another party, another late night. No tangled thoughts or awkward tension sitting beneath your skin, no constant awareness of a pair of hands that had learned you with impossible patience only two nights earlier.
You kept searching for the kitchen instead, hoping the simple task would occupy your mind before it drifted back to your bedroom, to the mirror the two of you had stood in front of, to the way he'd looked at you through your own reflection, the quiet praise, the tenderness and how he'd made you feel seen by expertly opening the walls to your own pleasure.
By the time you reached the kitchen, you were relieved by the mundane sight of overcrowded counters. You pulled it open, grabbed three cans of soda and decided they were probably the smarter choice, experience had already proven that alcohol loosened your tongue far more than your common sense appreciated.
You cracked yours open, taking a long sip as the cold, fizzy sweetness settled pleasantly in your throat, cooling the nervous warmth that had been building there all evening. For a moment, you simply stood there, your eyes wandering over the crowded kitchen. People leaned against countertops with red cups in hand, someone laughed loudly, making the room glance over and two strangers debated mixers in front of the freezer.
Then your gaze caught on the one face you had hoped not to see, your ex.
His eyes found yours in the same instant, his posture straightening automatically. You recognized that look, that subtle shift that always came a second before he decided on his next move which was toward you.
Instinctively, you took a step backward, only to bump into a cluster of people reaching for drinks behind you. Someone muttered a quick apology without looking up, another squeezed past with a bag of ice and before you could sidestep out of the way, the kitchen had filled in around you completely. There was nowhere left to retreat.
He threaded through the crowd anyway, slipping between shoulders and conversations with determination until he stopped in front of you, wearing the careful expression of someone approaching a frightened animal he believed he could still coax closer. “Haven’t seen you around in a while.”
“Let’s make that a little longer then, wouldn’t that be nice?” you replied with a smile that never quite reached your eyes.
He exhaled through his nose, already looking faintly irritated in that familiar way that told you he'd remembered one of the things he'd disliked most about dating you, your sarcasm. “Come on, don’t be like that–”
“Don’t be like what?” you cut in flatly.
He hesitated, his rehearsed opening clearly unraveling. “I just meant…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m trying to apologize here, okay?”
You let out a humorless laugh. “Great fucking job you’re doing,” you noted with a careless shrug. “Fantastic timing too, just like in the cafeteria.”
He sighed heavily, rubbing a hand across his face as though he could erase the last few weeks with the gesture alone. “I know I fucked up, okay? I tried to text you–”
“You’re blocked.” The interruption came so automatically you barely thought about it.
He paused for half a second before giving a slow, unimpressed nod. “I figured.”
“Good.” You took another sip of your soda before looking back up at him. “I was worried guessing would use up the rest of your brain cells and you wouldn’t have any left by the time exam season came around.”
A dry, humorless laugh escaped him. He glanced around the kitchen instinctively, checking whether anyone had overheard the exchange before his attention settled back on you. “This is all just a fucking game to you, huh?” His eyes dragged over you with thinly veiled annoyance.
“Isn’t that what made you leave?” You shot back, “Only one of us hates losing badly enough to flee.”
“Fuck you,” he bit out sharply. “I didn’t flee.”
“You didn’t stick around to try either.” You stepped forward to press a finger firmly against the center of his chest, the contact making him stiffen. “I fucked you.”
His jaw flexed so hard you thought you heard his teeth grind together. Slowly, almost unconsciously, he took a step backward, your finger slipping away from his shirt.
“Don’t text again,” you finished, your voice suddenly much quieter than before. “I think you’ve wasted enough of each other's time.”
He stared at you for another second, searching your face for something that wasn't there anymore, then he looked away first. Without another word, he turned, disappearing back into the crowd until the moving bodies swallowed him entirely.
You remained where you were, blinking slowly as your pulse settled, willing the humiliation from the cafeteria and the anger sitting hot in your chest to dissolve together into something less exhausting. They stubbornly refused.
Your eyes dropped to the soda can still clutched in your hand. You frowned at it as if it had failed you before lifting it for another long drink, the carbonation stung pleasantly at the back of your throat. You swallowed, exhaled through your nose and muttered under your breath, “I fucking hate being sober.”
“No you don’t.” The voice reached you immediately and it made every muscle in your shoulders relaxed before your brain had even caught up. You turned around so quickly a few drops of soda sloshed over the rim of the can. Relief settled into your chest the second you saw him.
Dean stood just a few steps away, both hands shoved into the pocket of a dark hoodie thrown hastily over a wrinkled Briar hockey T-shirt. A baseball cap sat low on his head, hair escaping around the edges and there were faint shadows beneath his eyes that spoke of too many early practices and not nearly enough sleep. He looked nothing like someone who planned on staying at the party and despite looking completely worn out, seeing him made the crowded kitchen feel infinitely less suffocating.
“Get me out of here,” you sighed, the words leaving you in one long breath. “Please.”
Dean's eyebrows lifted in genuine surprise before one corner of his mouth curled upward. The tiredness hanging around his eyes didn't disappear but it softened beneath a grin he was clearly trying and failing to suppress. “Is that begging I hear?”
Your eyes narrowed sharply. “Make yourself useful, Di Laurentis.”
He nodded with exaggerated thoughtfulness, accepting the challenge as he reached over to pluck the two unopened soda cans from your hands, balancing them effortlessly in one hand. “Front jean pocket,” he instructed, nodding toward your right side. “On your right.”
Your gaze followed the gesture before immediately flicking back up to his face, then, despite yourself, it drifted lower to his jeans. You looked back up at him with unmistakable suspicion and slowly shook your head. “I'm not putting my hand in there,” you decided, lowering your voice instinctively beneath the music. “It's inappropriate…and there's a…” Your eyes darted downward again before returning to his. “…lump.” Doubt colored the last word.
Dean stared at you for a beat before an incredulous laugh escaped him. “Those are my car keys,” he clarified, amusement bleeding into every syllable. “I figured you should wait in my car.” His grin only widened the longer he watched realization dawn across your face. Tilting his head slightly, he studied you with obvious delight. “You think I'm hung like that?”
You straightened, refusing to give him the satisfaction of looking embarrassed. “There was a point where we bathed together before it got weird,” you reminded him matter-of-factly. “I think I know exactly how hung you are.”
His eyebrows climbed. “Seen it recently?”
You snorted. “Your pants don't leave much up to the imagination.”
“Trust me,” he replied with effortless confidence, giving a small shake of his head. “They do.” He nodded once more toward his pocket. “Front pocket. Go on.”
You groaned quietly. “You saying ‘go on’ doesn't somehow make this better, you pervert,” you whisper-yelled, stepping closer so your complaint wouldn't carry past the people milling around the kitchen.
Dean mirrored the movement, leaning down until the two of you were close enough that neither of you had to raise your voices. Around you, the party rolled on without a second glance. Someone behind you was arguing over whose turn it was at beer pong, another group erupted into cheers from the living room and a couple squeezed past carrying more drinks, nobody spared the two of you so much as a curious look.
Dean's eyes lingered on your face, taking in the fake indignation you weren't quite managing to sell.
His smile softened, more playful than teasing. “Don't let those fingers stray, then,” he murmured, his tone light, you couldn't tell whether he was trying to fluster you or simply enjoying how easily you flustered yourself. “I'd hate for you to get distracted.”
You reached forward, hooking a finger through one of Dean's belt loops and giving it a small tug that drew him a step closer without either of you thinking much about it. The movement brought him within arm's reach, the familiar scent of clean detergent, cedar and the lingering bite of cold night air clinging to his hoodie crowded out the smell of beer and cheap liquor filling the kitchen.
You intentionally looked everywhere but at his face as you slipped a cautious hand into his front pocket, determined to keep your attention fixed on finding the keys rather than on the warmth radiating through the denim beneath your fingertips. Your fingers searched carefully until they brushed cool metal.
The two of you stood almost chest to chest now, neither acknowledging just how little space remained between you. “New perfume?” he asked conversationally, though the amusement in his voice was impossible to miss. It was probably the safest compliment he could give you, anything more direct and there was a decent chance you'd retaliate by driving a knee into somewhere he valued quite highly.
Then again, he thought with private amusement, doubling over from the pain would technically put him even closer to you.
“Shut up,” you mumbled, refusing to look at him as you heard him unsuccessfully swallow a laugh. Your index finger finally caught the loop of the keychain and with a victorious little huff you pulled the keys free before quickly retreating a full step as though distance alone could erase how aware you'd just become of him.
You held the keys up between two fingers. “Couple of lumps you've got in there.”
Dean stared at you for half a second before slowly shaking his head. “Poor choice of words.”
You pointed vaguely in the air between the two of you. “Yeah, say that to Allie.”
His brows pinched together. “…What's that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” You answered far too quickly before he could pry further. Gesturing toward the crowded rooms beyond the kitchen, you added, “I don't care if they drink, just make sure they have a driver home. We drove here.”
“Yes, ma'am,” he replied with an exaggerated nod and a mock salute. “Garrett's with them anyway. I'll tell him.” Moving to the side, he tipped his head toward the hallway in a silent gesture for you to go first. You squeezed back through the crowd, Dean falling into step close behind you without needing to be asked.
“Alright,” you muttered, fishing your phone out as you carefully navigated around a couple dancing in the middle of the hallway. “I'll text them too.” Your thumbs were already opening the group chat. “Seeing my fuckass ex is enough of an excuse to call it a night.”
Dean's expression, playful until then, quieted as he glanced back toward the kitchen you'd just left before looking down at you, his pace never slowing to make sure you never had to push your way through the crowd alone.
“He's here?” Dean asked, every trace of amusement now fully gone. His shoulders straightened instinctively as his eyes swept back toward the kitchen over his shoulder. “Where?”
You caught him halfway through turning, already reading exactly where his mind was headed. Before he could take a single step, you reached out, your fingers slipping into the waistband, lightly catching against his jeans to tug him back in the opposite direction. “Not the mission,” you reminded him.
Dean's attention dropped briefly to your hand before he let himself be redirected without resistance, falling back into step behind you. “I'm willing to make an exception,” he muttered, though there wasn't much conviction behind it anymore. After a beat, his voice softened. “Did he talk to you?” The concern sat plainly beneath the question.
You hummed in acknowledgment. “And I talked back.” You shrugged as if it had cost you nothing, even if your heartbeat hadn't entirely settled yet. “He won't invade Troy tonight…problem solved.”
By the time you reached the main room again, you rose onto your toes, scanning over the sea of heads for Hannah and Allie. “I saw them over there last.”
Dean followed your gaze before nodding. “They went out back. I'll go find them.” He jerked his thumb toward the street outside. “My car's up there.”
“No detours,” you warned, pointing a finger squarely at his chest. “I'm serious.” You didn't have to explain which detour you meant.
Dean looked at you for a second before lifting both hands innocently. “I'd say I'll keep my eyes down,” he replied, “but then we'd come face to face.” He punctuated the joke with the most exaggerated, insincere shrug imaginable, very intentionally mocking your ex's height.
You couldn't help the laugh that escaped you. “Face to nose if he's wearing his lifts,” you corrected.
“Told you he wasn't that tall,” Dean added, unable to resist sounding just a little smug as he began walking backward toward the sliding door leading outside, keeping his eyes on you until someone bumped into his shoulder and forced him to glance away.
“Yeah, well,” you mumbled as you headed toward the front door instead, weaving between conversations and dancing bodies, “one pair of fakers we were.”
The cool night air met you the second you stepped outside, washing away the suffocating warmth and noise of the packed house. You drew in a deep breath, the distant bass now muffled behind closed walls and doors instead of vibrating through your ribs. Following Dean's directions, you walked up the street beneath the glow of scattered streetlights until you found his car parked along the curb. You unlocked it with a press of the key fob, climbed into the passenger seat,and shut the door behind you. The silence that settled around you felt almost foreign after the chaos inside. You leaned back, letting your head rest against the seat, absently turning the unfinished soda can between your hands while condensation dampened your fingertips.
It wasn't long before the driver's door opened. Dean slid into the seat beside you, shut the door with a solid thud and for a moment neither of you said anything, both simply appreciating the quiet. The two of you sat without moving, facing the windshield as warm orange streetlights painted long streaks across the hood of the vehicle.
“Forgot how to drive?” you asked quietly, turning your head toward him. The question died when you realized he was already looking at you. He hadn't been watching the street ahead at all.
“Forgot I can't read your mind?” he countered, one eyebrow lifting.
“We both know you can,” you replied just as quietly, the corner of your mouth threatening the smallest smile. “Just won’t advertise it.”
Dean held your gaze for another second, searching your face as though deciding whether to challenge that. Instead, he looked away first. He reached for the ignition, started the engine and shifted the car into drive. It wasn't surprising in the slightest when he drove toward your apartment without asking where you wanted to go.
The drive passed in comfortable silence, it didn’t beg to be filled but still acknowledged some conversations deserved better than red lights and passing traffic. Every now and then your eyes drifted toward him, only to find his attention fixed on the road, one hand resting loosely on the steering wheel while the other tapped absentmindedly against the stick shift in time with a song only he seemed to hear.
He glanced at you once at a stoplight, offering a faint, reassuring smile before looking ahead again.
When he parked on campus, neither of you commented on the fact that he killed the engine immediately instead of lingering in the driver's seat. You climbed out together, your footsteps falling into an easy rhythm as you crossed the silent pathways toward your building.
The night air had cooled further, carrying the scent of damp grass and distant rain and Dean stayed close without crowding you, matching your pace while occasionally glancing your way as though weighing a dozen different openings to a conversation he hadn't quite found yet.
You unlocked your apartment door and stepped inside. He followed a second later, pulling the door shut behind him until the click of the lock left the apartment wrapped in familiar silence.
“Not much of a talker these days, I see.” The words carried no accusation. If anything, there was relief in finally saying them aloud after days of carefully skirting around the obvious.
Your replies had shrunk from paragraphs to sentences, then from sentences to a handful of words. Phone calls that once stretched lazily into the early hours now barely lasted a few minutes before one of you found an excuse to hang up. You wandered farther into the living space, slipping your jacket off your shoulders and draping it over the back of the couch.
Beneath it, the fitted top you'd worn out suddenly felt much less out of place than it had at the party. At home, there was no reason to pull the fabric loose or check how much skin it revealed. Hiding from Dean had never really been an option and after everything the two of you had shared, it felt pointless to start now.
“Not much of anything lately,” you mumbled, avoiding his eyes as you smoothed an imaginary wrinkle from the hem of your top.
Even without looking, you could feel his gaze settle on you. It carried none of the hunger that had unsettled you in front of your bedroom mirror days before. Instead, it was patient, concerned, impossibly attentive and that made it even harder to meet. Warmth crept across your skin anyway, a shiver tracing lazily up your spine under the weight of being so thoroughly seen.
Dean took a couple of measured steps forward, stopping before the space between you disappeared entirely. He tilted his head slightly, trying to catch your eyes and finding only your profile. “Did he get into your head?” he asked gently.
The question lingered for barely a heartbeat before you shook your head and finally looked up.
Your eyes found his. “No,” you answered. “You did.” The words came out quietly, stripped of frustration or blame. They weren't meant as an accusation, they mostly sounded like the first honest thing you'd managed to say all week.
“Well,” he breathed, the corners of his mouth lifting into an easy smile, “think I should've gotten first dibs on it before anyone else anyway.” As he spoke, he closed the remaining distance between you with unhurried confidence, leaving barely enough room for a breath to pass between your bodies.
“Funny,” you answered dryly, though the effort it took to keep your expression straight was entirely wasted. Your lips betrayed you, twitching upward despite your best attempts. You rubbed absently at your eyebrow before letting out a sigh, trying to smooth away nerves that refused to settle. “I don't know how to talk to you anymore,” you admitted, the confession falling somewhere between frustration and vulnerability.
It explained the clipped texts, the shortened calls, every conversation that had ended long before either of you had actually wanted it to. Dean's expression softened as he gave the smallest shake of his head, his voice matching the gentleness in his eyes. “That's okay.”
“No, it's not.” Your gaze dropped to your heeled boots, suddenly fascinated by the floor beneath them.
“You're doing it to me,” he replied with certainty. “I would know.” He stepped forward until there was nowhere left for the distance between you to exist. “Look at me.”
The request carried none of the sharpness of a command. It was patient, warm, spoken with the confidence that you'd meet him there eventually. Slowly, you lifted your eyes just as his hands came up to cradle your face, his palms warm against your cheeks, his thumbs resting lightly close to your ears. “It's okay,” he repeated, searching your face as though he intended to make you believe it through persistence alone.
You exhaled through your nose. “Of course you'd think that.”
“Mhm.” The sound vibrated quietly in his throat as he leaned in, brushing the tip of his nose gently against yours. The tiny gesture stole another reluctant smile from you. “Though if you ever say you're not much of anything again,” he murmured, “I'm afraid we're gonna have issues.”
Your hands rose instinctively, settling against his biceps, feeling familiar muscle beneath the soft fabric of his hoodie. “Don't we already?” you asked, smiling properly now.
“My only issue,” he replied without hesitation, “is that I haven't kissed you in two days.” His thumbs brushed lightly across your cheeks. “What's yours?”
“I already told you.” Your smile lingered as he began guiding the two of you backward through the apartment with tiny, measured steps, never pushing or assuming. Every movement left you room to stop him if you wanted to, though you never did.
“And I know you have a close second,” he said quietly.
You hesitated, swallowing once before admitting the thought you'd spent days trying to bury. “…It's embarrassing when the wanting shows.”
Dean's expression softened further. He shook his head once. “And the only person who ever made you feel ashamed of that isn't here anymore.”
Your fingers tightened around his arms without thinking. “It's gonna take a while to unlearn that,” you whispered.
“I can wait,” he answered. There wasn't a trace of impatience in his voice, only certainty. “I happen to know that what comes after is worth a lot more than passing time.”
Your breathing caught slightly. “What comes after, Dean?” you asked, your hands holding him a little tighter as though the answer might slip away if you didn't.
He leaned down until his lips barely grazed yours, close enough for every word to be felt as much as heard. “You.” The single word lingered between your mouths before he continued softly, “Everywhere else it can wait. Until that happens, you cum first.” A teasing smile slowly returned to his lips. “Still think my choice of words is poor?”
A quiet laugh escaped you, so warm it dissolved the last remnants of tension sitting in your chest. “Not if you prove it to be right.”
That was all the encouragement he needed. His mouth found yours with restrained hunger, patient for only the first heartbeat before deepening the kiss. One hand slipped from your cheek to the place where your jaw met your neck, tilting your face upward to meet him fully, while your own fingers disappeared into his hair, threading through the soft curls at the back of his head as every uncertain conversation from the past two days quietly gave way to something the two of you had always understood better than words.
Your tongues moved together with an ease that made the last two days of awkwardness feel impossibly far away, every hesitant thought dissolving into this. Your fingers gradually slipped from his hair, lingering there for a heartbeat before finding the front clasps of your top instead.
You worked at them absentmindedly, your attention never truly leaving him until the kiss eventually broke with a soft, audible pop, though neither of you moved very far.
Dean rested his forehead lightly against yours, his breathing still uneven as his eyes searched your face rather than wandering elsewhere. “Do you need anything?” he asked, his voice low enough that it barely disturbed the silence filling your room. Even as you continued undoing the clasps, he never looked away from your eyes. “Tell me what I can do.”
A small smile tugged at your lips, heat pooling low in your belly at the intensity of his gaze. You finished with the last fastening and shrugged the fabric from your shoulders, letting it slide carelessly to the floor beside your feet. Your breasts spilled free, nipples already tight and aching from the cool air and the weight of his stare before folding your arms loosely across yourself more out of habit than discomfort. “I was hoping you had a plan.”
Dean nodded, his expression turning thoughtful. His gaze drifted around your room instead of lingering on you, as though sorting through possibilities rather than impulses. The lingerie crossed his mind only briefly before he dismissed it, that had helped once but it wasn't something he wanted either of you to rely on.
He pressed a gentle kiss against your forehead before turning away entirely and walking toward your dresser. Pulling open the top drawer, he began looking through it with surprising confidence, as though he vaguely remembered where things belonged from years of friendship spent around you.
“Sure…” you nodded, watching him with growing amusement as you bent to unzip your boots, kicking each one aside before slipping out of your skirt and underwear as well, letting them pool at your feet, leaving you completely bare before him. “Make yourself right at home.”
“We can argue about it later,” he answered without looking over his shoulder, continuing his careful search. “You'll tell me how forward it was of me and I'll agree with whatever punishment or compensation you decide on afterward.” His hand paused before finally lifting a long, narrow scarf from beneath a folded sweater. “This'll do.”
Your eyebrows lifted. “For what?”
Turning back toward you, he crossed the room at an unhurried pace, stopping within arm's reach. The teasing had disappeared from his face, replaced by the same patience he'd shown you all evening.
Holding the scarf loosely in one hand so you could see it clearly, he asked, “Do you trust me?”
You tilted your head, studying him, trying to read whatever idea was taking shape behind his eyes. “I don't think I've ever had to ask myself that.”
“I need you to ask now,” he replied gently. “Do you trust me?” He let the question sit between you before adding, “And if you don't like where this is going, we stop. Immediately…at any point.” His certainty wasn't performative, it was calm, leaving no room for doubt about whether he meant it.
You held his gaze for another moment before answering, your voice barely above a whisper. “I trust you.” A faint smile softened your features. “It's not something I've ever questioned.”
He waited a beat before speaking again, giving you every opportunity to change your mind.
“Turn around.” The instruction was patient, offered rather than imposed. He didn't repeat it when you hesitated, didn't fill the silence that settled between you.
His eyes simply remained on yours as you swallowed, searching his face one last time before slowly turning your naked body away from him until your back faced his chest. You felt him move closer, heard the faint rustle of fabric as he stretched the scarf carefully between both hands. It rested gently over your eyes, the material impossibly soft against your skin before he drew the ends behind your head and tied a secure knot with care.
His fingers lingered, checking that nothing tugged uncomfortably. “Is this too tight?” he asked.
You instinctively shook your head before remembering he would probably request for it to be spoken. “No,” you managed softly.
His hand settled lightly against your hip, the simple contact making your breath catch. With the gentlest pressure, he guided you back around until you faced him once more. Deprived of your sight, every other sensation sharpened, from the warmth radiating from where he stood, to the rhythm of his breathing and the subtle creak of the floor beneath shifting weight.
You heard the soft thud of fabric landing somewhere nearby once he peeled off his hoodie and t-shirt, followed by another low rustle before his footsteps returned. His hands found yours gently, wrapping loosely around your wrists before guiding them upward until your palms rested against the warmth of his bare chest.
He didn't move them any further, leaving the choice entirely to you. Tentatively, your fingertips traced across firm muscle, learning the shape through touch alone. Your confidence grew by degrees, hands exploring broader paths over his shoulders and chest, your nails lightly grazing the contours beneath his skin before drifting lower over the firm lines of his abdomen, pausing briefly at his navel before following the faint trail of hair disappearing beneath the waistband of his jeans.
Your fingers came to rest just above the button. “I want these off,” you breathed.
Dean couldn't help the smile that spread across his face, though you only heard it in the warmth that colored his reply. “You think you're in a position to make demands?”
“That's exactly what I think, Di Laurentis.” You nodded once beneath the blindfold, a small smile tugging at your own lips. “If you want me to play the game, you're going to have to comply a little sooner.”
A quiet chuckle escaped him before it faded just as quickly. When he spoke again, his voice had lost almost all of its teasing edge. “I don't think this is us playing around anymore.” You felt him lean in, his breath brushing against your forehead as he spoke. “I hate that we used that as an excuse.” The frustration threaded through his words was unmistakable, directed inward rather than at you, carrying the weight of every feeling the two of you had hidden behind jokes because admitting them outright had always seemed far more frightening.
You couldn't help but smile at the memory, warmth creeping into your expression. There had been something absurdly innocent about the two of you back then, trusting each other so completely that curiosity had outweighed embarrassment, stumbling into questions neither of you had been old enough to answer, only to leave them hanging for years.
“We were getting too curious,” you murmured, a quiet laugh escaping with the admission.
“Isn't that what's happening now?” he asked, his voice carrying the faintest hint of amusement.
You tilted your head beneath the blindfold, the smile on your lips widening. “You know how to tie your own laces now, don't you?” you teased. He laughed softly before leaning in to press a gentle kiss to your lips. Your hands rose instinctively, finding the sides of his face, your thumbs brushing lightly along his jaw as you returned the kiss with an ease that had finally replaced the uncertainty of the past few days.
His tongue brushed yours, drawing a soft moan from your throat as heat pooled heavier between your thighs and while you kissed, his hands worked open the button of his jeans. You heard the metallic rasp of the zipper, followed by the rustle of fabric as he shoved them down his hips along with his boxers. He kicked off his shoes and stepped out of the rest of his clothes, leaving him gloriously bare. The heat of his body radiated against yours and you could feel the hard length of his cock brushing against your stomach, hot, heavy and already leaking at the tip.
His strong hands slid down your sides, then gripped your waist, lifting you effortlessly as a surprised yelp escaped you, quickly dissolving into a breathless laugh. Your legs wrapped around his hips as you kept kissing, mouths moving together in perfect sync while his muscles flexed beneath your palms as he carried you across the room, the thick head of his erection nudging teasingly against your inner thighs with every step.
He knelt carefully onto the bed, the mattress dipping under your combined weight and gently laid you back against the pillows. Your legs fell open shamelessly, knees bending and parting wide to make room for him. The cool air kissed your dripping pussy, making you acutely aware of how soaked and ready you already were.
Dean settled between your spread thighs, hips brushing the sensitive skin of your inner legs as his lips left yours to trail hot, open-mouthed kisses along the corner of your mouth, your cheek and down the sensitive column of your throat. Then he pulled back, leaving you waiting in the dark, blindfolded and aching.
You reached for him, fingers tracing and caressing every inch of his face from his cheekbones, the slight stubble on his jaw and the curve of his lips, trying to paint his expression in your mind.
His nose nudged affectionately against yours and you felt the warmth of his breath mingle with your own, the thick tension between you crackling like electricity.
He swallowed. “Can I kiss you?” His voice was hesitant, it didn't belong to the confident grin he usually wore. The uncertainty made your brows draw together for the briefest moment before your expression softened into a small, helpless smile.
“I think we're beyond you asking,” you replied, your heartbeat quickening as the silence stretched comfortably between you.
Dean's eyes lingered on your face, before landing on your lips for only a moment before lifting again. “Not on your mouth, Y/n,” he specified shamelessly.
You swallowed hard and nodded softly against the pillows, chest rising and falling faster as you heard the mattress shift under his weight.
His warm lips finally landed on your shoulder, pressing a slow, open-mouthed kiss there before trailing lower. They brushed along your sternum, then settled between your breasts, his hot breath fanning over the sensitive skin. When his mouth closed around one peaked nipple, you gasped sharply. The wet heat of his tongue swirled around the stiff bud, flicking and sucking with just the right pressure, sending jolts of pleasure straight to your core. Your back arched instinctively, pushing more of your breast into his mouth as slick arousal coated your outer lips.
The hand not supporting his weight traced a feather-light path from your knee upward, fingers grazing the soft skin of your inner thigh before reaching the neglected breast. He cupped its full weight, massaging slowly, rolling the nipple between thumb and forefinger while he continued devouring the other, gauging every reaction, squeezing harder when your breathing turned ragged and gentling when you whimpered, learning exactly how you liked to be touched.
When the first nipple was glistening and throbbing from his attention, he switched sides. His mouth claimed the other peak with the same hungry reverence, sucking deeply while his fingers continued to knead the slick, sensitive flesh he’d just left behind, all while low, needy sounds spilled from your throat.
Satisfied, Dean let his tongue drag lower, licking a slow, wet trail down the underside of your breast. He pressed lingering kisses along your ribs, then your stomach, each one audible and intentionally placed, his lips brushed over your navel, teasing the sensitive skin there before venturing even lower. He took his time, kissing the crease where your thigh met your pelvis, then settling fully between your spread legs.
Your heart thundered so loudly in your ears that the rest of the world felt distant. Blindfolded and trembling with need, every other sense was amplified, the heat of his breath against your dripping pussy, the faint scent of your arousal mixing with his and the slight tremble in his hands as he gripped your thighs. He was clearly trying to pace himself, wanting to savor you without rushing, refusing to give your doubts any room to surface.
A broken moan tore from your lips the moment his mouth finally sealed around your swollen clit. The wet heat, the perfect suction and the slow swirl of his tongue, were nearly too much, your hips jerked upward, fingers fisting the sheets as pleasure spread outwards.
He reached up, finding your hand where it gripped the sheets and laced his fingers through yours, squeezing once. The simple touch pulled you back into the moment when your mind threatened to drift.
“Tell me what you like,” he murmured against your pussy, the low vibration of his voice making your clit throb.
Your mind reeled. No one had ever been this patient with you, this attentive, this unwaveringly focused on what you needed instead of how quickly things could move forward. It felt unfamiliar, so much so that part of you didn't quite know what to do with it and the comparison arrived before you could stop it. Your ex had tried a handful of times but his enthusiasm had always faded the moment your body didn't respond on the timeline he expected. He would pull away with a shrug, muttering excuses about not enjoying it or not liking the taste, always making it sound like a matter of preference while leaving the weight of it squarely on your shoulders.
Every abandoned attempt had left you feeling increasingly self-conscious, wondering whether there was something wrong with you, whether you simply asked too much by needing patience instead of urgency.
Your throat tightened around the words before they ever had a chance to leave it. You wanted to explain why his patience mattered so much, why every careful pause and every moment he gave you without expectation made something in your chest ache but the memories felt too tangled, too embarrassing to lay bare.
“I wouldn’t know,” you breathed, voice shaky.
Dean didn't ask what you meant, he didn't press for details you clearly weren't ready to give, nor did he try to fill the silence with speeches that would only skim the surface. He pressed a soft, open-mouthed kiss right over your clit, then answered calmly, “Feel it. I know you can.”
He accommodated, strong hands sliding under your ass to tilt your hips slightly, giving himself better access. His tongue flattened and licked a long, slow stripe from your entrance up to your clit, gathering your wetness and savoring it with a quiet hum of approval. The sound was so genuine it made your cheeks burn.
He repeated the motion again and again with broad strokes that coated his tongue and lips in your slick arousal, then circled your clit with the tip of his tongue, learning the exact pressure that made your thighs twitch. He sucked the swollen nub gently between his lips, holding it there while his tongue flicked it softly. The suction was warm and rhythmic, never rushed or demanding and when your breathing grew uneven, he eased off enough to drag his tongue back down, licking through your folds and pressing the flat of his tongue against your entrance, tasting you deeply.
His saliva mixed with your own arousal, dripping down over your ass and soaking into the sheets beneath you. He kissed your pussy like he was kissing your mouth, slowly and attentively, alternating between gentle licks, soft sucks and lazy swirls of tongue that explored every inch of your most sensitive regions.
The blindfold made it impossible to predict where his tongue would go next, keeping your body in a constant state of anticipatory tension while Dean kept your hand firmly in his, thumb stroking soothing circles over your knuckles whenever he felt you start to tense or overthink.
Every so often he would pull back to press a tender kiss to your mound or the crease of your thigh, murmuring soft, wordless sounds of encouragement against your skin before diving back in. The sensations were overwhelming in their gentleness, relentless patience that made your pussy feel swollen and pulsing under his mouth.
After another slow, savoring pass of his tongue through your folds, he moved lower and pressed the tip of his tongue against your entrance. He circled the tight ring of muscle first teasingly, before pushing inside, gently but insistently. The thick of his tongue slid into you, stretching you open in the most intimate way possible. He fucked you with it in slow, shallow strokes, curling and thrusting, coating himself in the fresh rush of slick that leaked around his mouth while his nose pressed firmly against your clit with every forward motion, rubbing in time with the rhythm of his tongue.
Your skin grew damp with sweat, a light sheen covering your chest and stomach, nipples tightened into painful peaks, aching in the cool air. Your hips rolled and twitched against his face, thighs trembling as they tried to close around his head only to fall open wider again.
Your breathing turned into soft, broken whimpers that even you could tell sounded strained and uncertain. Dean noticed and slowed his movements but didn’t yet stop, still fucking you gently with his tongue, still licking up every drop of your arousal like he couldn’t get enough.
“Mngh…Dean–” you barely managed, his name catching on a shaky breath before your voice gave out entirely. His head lifted rapidly as he pulled away, concern replacing concentration as he searched your expression for any hint of discomfort. Every trace of certainty vanished from his posture, his brows drawing together as he studied you.
One of your hands reached down blindly, grabbing at his shoulder and pulling him upward. Your chest heaved as you struggled to steady your breathing, each inhale feeling a little too shallow to quiet the thoughts racing through your mind. Words crowded against one another, half-formed confessions and old fears tangling together until you couldn't tell where one ended and the next began.
Your other hand shook as it slid down your body, covering your throbbing, soaked pussy, clit pulsing hard under your palm, slick, swollen and too painfully sensitive to keep going. You still weren’t anywhere close to coming and all you could think about was saying the wrong thing, about ruining the fragile safety he'd spent so much time building around you. More than anything, you were terrified of disgust, that subtle withdrawal, the excuses and the feeling of being left unfinished.
Your voice came out small and fragile. “I’m sorry. I’m–fuck, I’m so sorry.”
His hand found your cheek, palm warm against your skin as his thumb brushed slowly beneath the blindfold. He studied your face in silence first, as though making sure you were really listening before he spoke and when he did, there wasn't an ounce of frustration in him. “You don't apologize,” he said firmly, thumb stroking gently across your cheek once more before coming to rest beneath your jaw, encouraging you to keep your chin up. “Not to me.”
One hand stayed wrapped tightly around his arm, fingers digging into the firm muscle as if you were afraid he might pull away despite his words. Your heart hammered so loudly in your ears that you barely registered his words at first. “It just takes really long–”
“Hey…” Dean nudged your face gently with his palm, guiding you back to the present until your racing thoughts quieted. “I would’ve sucked you clean off the bone if you hadn’t pulled me up,” he smiled.
The moment you registered his words, you let out a shaky sob that melted into soft laughter, the tension in your chest finally easing.
“We can try again some other time if you want–”
You were already eagerly nodding before the words had fully left his mouth.
He chuckled, the sound low and breathy against your skin. “Yeah? Did you like it? Was that okay?” His fingertips traced feather-light paths along your sides, your ribs and the curve of your waist, keeping the connection gentle but constant, which he knew you needed.
“Overwhelming,” you breathed, still feeling the lingering slick between your thighs as it cooled and the heavy pulse of your swollen clit against your palm.
“Mmm…Yeah?” His voice dipped with interest.
“Overwhelming’s good,” you continued softly. Your body felt flushed and sensitive all over, like it needed that intensity just to begin learning how to let go. “I like feeling you close.”
“How close?” he teased, his nose brushing slowly along the side of your jaw, warm breath tickling your skin.
“Really fucking close,” you whispered, guiding his face until his lips met yours in a deep, slow kiss. You could taste yourself on his tongue, tangy, slightly sweet and undeniably intimate, nothing like you had imagined. Dean moved his tongue against yours with the same patience he had shown between your legs, licking into your mouth with quiet groans of pleasure that vibrated through your chest.
“Tastes like fucking heaven,” he rasped when you finally parted for air.
Your nails dug into his shoulders as you pulled him closer, until your chests pressed together, skin hot and slightly damp with sweat as the hard length of his cock rested heavily against the soft inside of your thigh, twitching every time you moved.
You smiled against his lips, letting out a teasingly doubtful hum. “Careful there…might be disappointed when you go.”
“Doubt it. If there is one, you’re going there too.” The smug happiness in his voice made you laugh, the sound light and breathless. He responded by pressing a flurry of soft kisses all over your face, cheeks, nose, forehead and the corner of your mouth, while his cock dragged teasingly along your inner thighs, leaving a faint trail of precum on your skin.
Your laughter quickly faded into quiet, needy moans, inciting your own hand to apply pressure against your still-throbbing pussy, fingers slipping through the mess of slick there in an attempt to relieve the area. Dean lifted his upper body slightly, looking down between you as he stilled the accidental roll of his hips and you moaned again at the loss of friction.
“I could get closer,” he breathed, voice rough with want. “Want me to do that?”
Your legs parted wider in silent invitation as you nodded against the pillow, heart racing.
“Let me see you,” he spoke softly. It wasn't a command, more of a gentle suggestion, one he waited patiently for you to consider. You slowly moved your hand away, exposing your glistening, swollen pussy to him once more while you tried to picture the expression on his face, the way his eyes would darken with hunger and affection. “Do you have condoms?” he asked carefully.
“Closer, Dean,” you echoed, voice small but sure. “I want you as close as you can get right now.” You paused, ears straining for any change in his breathing. “I’ve never…” You trailed off, taking a deep, steadying breath. “I’m clean. I take my birth control–”
“Me neither.” His forehead dropped against yours, breath warm on your lips. “I just want you to be sure.”
You swallowed, nodding as your hands roamed up and down his arms and across his broad shoulders, feeling the tension and warmth of his muscles. His pulse jumped under your touch. “I would want it to be with you,” you confessed, bare and vulnerable.
He went still above you, the words knocking something loose. “I've always wanted it to be with you,” he breathed, the honesty in his voice wrapping around you like a second skin.
With a deep, measured breath, he wrapped his hand around the thick base of his cock, stroking it once before pressing the blunt, leaking head right against your slick entrance. Hovering over you, he braced his forearm beside your head, eyes remaining locked on your face as he pushed in leisurely until he sank deep in one long, continuous thrust.
Both of you moaned openly, lips falling slack at the intense sensation. He filled you completely, stretching your walls around his girthy length, stealing the breath right from your lungs. At the same moment, he reached up and gently tugged the blindfold away, letting you finally see him, your eyes glassy with overwhelmed tears as they met his, the eye contact undoing you more than the fullness between your legs.
You whimpered, voice breathless. “I hate that you might be right.”
“About?” he chuckled softly, staying buried to the hilt while he gave you time to adjust, eyes tracing over your face like he was trying to memorize it.
“Thinking highly of your dick…” You swallowed hard, your pussy fluttering and clenching around the solid invasion. “It sure is there.”
“Focus on it then,” he grinned, that cocky yet tender expression making your chest tighten. His gaze dropped to your lips, then back up as though he couldn't settle on one place to look.
“Not much else I can do,” you admitted, voice shaky, the words barely making it out whole.
Dean leaned down, catching your mouth with his, searching and wanting to swallow the shakiness right out of you. Only when you softened against him did he begin to move, shallow at first, drawing back only a few inches before sliding back in, letting you feel every inch of him dragging along your sensitive inner walls. Each time he bottomed out, his pelvis pressed firmly against your clit, sending sparks of sharp pleasure through you. Your body rocked beneath him with every careful thrust, the wet, intimate sound of your joined bodies filling the room alongside your shared breathing.
“Talk to me,” he murmured, eyes never leaving your face as he kept an unhurried pace, rolling into you repeatedly. He watched for every flicker, every little crease between your brows and twitch at the corner of your mouth, searching for the exact angle and depth that made your expression soften with bliss instead of tension. “What’s on your mind?”
“You,” you answered immediately, the most honest thing you could say.
His smile deepened with satisfaction but he wanted more than what was at the surface, what he knew you thought he wanted to hear. His thumbs brushed tenderly across your temples, easing your mind. “What’s around it?”
“How…” A moan interrupted you as he rolled his hips just right, cock stroking a spot inside you that made your toes curl. “Just how much I’ll want you to believe me when I say this was good…once it’s over. I know it will be.” Your breathing came in heavy pants now, chest rising and falling against his. “Even when…when I won’t–”
“If,” he corrected gently but firmly, still thrusting steadily as the head of his cock dragged deliciously along your walls on every withdrawal, then pushed back in deep. “That’s if you don’t.” He paused, “Listen to me, I don’t think there’s anything you’d tell me that I wouldn’t believe.”
“Well…I need you to be sure,” you pressed, blinking rapidly to keep the tears from spilling. Vulnerability sat raw in your throat, each word feeling like it cost you something you couldn't get back. Your nails dug crescents into his sides, holding on like he might disappear the second you finished the thought. “Please, be sure.”
“Certain,” he nodded, then leaned down closer, forehead nearly touching yours, eyes locked so you could see the sincerity burning there. “I’m right here with you, now and after this.”
He maintained the thrusts long and measured, pulling almost all the way out until only the swollen head remained inside you, letting you feel the stretch as he sank back in again, its slick glide was audible with every meeting of your bodies. Sweat beaded along his collarbone and dripped onto your chest as he held himself above you, muscles flexing with control.
His pelvis kissed your clit on every downstroke, rubbing in slow circles when he stayed buried deep, grinding the sensitive bundle of nerves until your thighs trembled around his hips.
When your brows creased a little too tightly, he adjusted the angle, tilting his hips until the sensation smoothed your expression again. He watched your eyes and mouth, learning your body in real time, focused entirely on making this feel safe and good rather than chasing his own end, he simply wanted to be connected to you.
Your walls hugged him tightly, fluttering with every push, your wetness coating his shaft and easing each deep slide while you could feel the way his cock throbbed inside you, the subtle twitch it gave when you clenched around him. He drew his cock back slowly so you could feel every ridge and vein dragging along your inner walls before sinking back in.
Your breath hitched sharply, as if that alone told him everything he needed to know, he repeated the motion, slower this time letting you feel the full drag and press of him. He pulled out almost completely on the next stroke, just the swollen tip resting inside you, before sliding back in with one smooth thrust that forced a whimper from your throat, strokes that let you savor the way your pussy stretched around his thickness, the way your walls fluttered and clenched trying to keep him inside.
Your hands roamed his back, nails lightly scoring his skin as another deep thrust made your feet arch and when your brows drew together in concentration, he moved again, tilting his hips, changing the depth. Near the end of a dragging stroke, he reached down and hooked one hand behind your knee. He lifted your leg slowly, draping it over his hip and higher along his side, opening you up further, the new angle letting him press deeper. He rolled his hips upward on the next thrust, driving his cock into you with a smooth, upward grind that rubbed directly against a spongy pillow inside while his pelvis continued to crush against your clit.
Your whole body reacted at once, back arching hard as a broken moan spilled from your lips.
“Right there, mmh?” he cooed, voice low and warm, repeating the exact same rolling motion. “Try that for a bit?”
You nodded quickly, eyes falling shut as you surrendered to the sensation. His cock stroked along that perfect angle with every upward push, the head pressing right where you needed it most, pussy clenching tightly around him and soaking his cock even more with every grind.
Dean kept watching you, even as your eyes stayed closed. He studied the way your head tilted back against the pillow, the rapid rise and fall of your chest, the way your lips trembled on every moan. He adjusted the angle of his hips in tiny increments, searching for the rhythm that would keep those creases of wonder on your face. The emotional weight of his attention made your throat tight, he wasn't just fucking you, he was tuned in completely, making sure you felt safe and cherished in every stroke.
“M–middle,” you moaned, voice breaking on the word.
Dean adjusted accordingly, angling his cock exactly where you needed him but before he could even settle into the new position, a raw, wanton moan tore from your throat and your back arched sharply off the bed as your eyes opened.
“Breathe,” he instructed gently, locking eyes with you and giving a slow, reassuring nod. His thumb brushed over your parted lips. “Breathe,” he repeated, “Focus on what you know.”
He kept moving in that centered, precise rhythm, strokes that dragged his thick cock along the same devastating path inside you.
“Mmpppff,” Your eyes fluttered shut as the pleasure built higher, one hand dug into his shoulder, nails biting into his skin while you struggled to draw full breaths. You tried to focus only on the slick drag of his cock entering and leaving your pussy, the way your walls stretched and clenched around his girth, the constant wet sounds of your bodies meeting.
“There you go. That's it,” he husked, bending lower to press a soft kiss to each of your closed eyelids. The new angle drove him even deeper, he pressed forward, settling his weight fully over you and nudging his face into the crook of your neck. Your moans became continuous, loud and broken, spilling from your open mouth without pause.
Dean groaned against your neck, low and desperate sounds vibrating through your skin and making you even hornier. His own unfiltered whimpers and heavy breathing mixed with yours as the position allowed you to breathe him in, sweat, skin and sex, chest heaving beneath his weight.
For several thrusts, no sound came out of you at all. Your mouth hung open in a silent cry, breath caught somewhere between your chest and your throat, refusing to let go. The pressure inside you coiled tighter than you'd ever known, winding higher with every drag of him, every muscle in your body drawn taut and ready to snap.
It was new, unfamiliar with an edge of fear threading through it, a building intensity you had no name for or memory to compare it to. Your fingers curled hard into his shoulder, keeping yourself against a feeling that seemed too big for your body to hold.
A sudden, sharp gasp tore from your lungs, followed immediately by a sob that shook your entire frame. The orgasm crashed over you, deep, vaginal and violently intense, unlike anything you'd known your body capable of. Your pussy clamped down hard around his cock in rhythmic contractions that squeezed him in waves as pure ecstasy ripped through you. For one disorienting second you didn't know whether to cry or laugh, caught between the shock of it and the sheer relief of finally breaking. You sobbed openly, tears spilling down your temples and into your hair, a startled laugh bubbling up right alongside them.
“Mmhnhgh…fuck, fuck, fuck!” you cried, voice wrecked and trembling as the pleasure kept rolling through you in devastating pulses. Your walls fluttered and pulsed wildly around his thrusting cock, soaking him even more.
Dean groaned deeply at the sensation, his hips stuttering for a moment before he forced himself to keep moving, drawing out every last tremor of your orgasm. A quiet laugh escaped him, disbelieving and reverent, the sound punched loose from his chest before he could stop it. He stared down at you, eyes wide, drinking in the sight of your face gone soft and open, tears streaking your temples and lips parted around broken breaths. You looked undone in the most beautiful way he'd ever seen and for a second his vision blurred, his head going light with it.
He blinked hard, jaw tight, willing himself to hold it together as your walls kept squeezing him greedily, refusing to let him go.
He fucked you through it with careful, deep strokes, prolonging the pleasure until your body trembled beneath him. You felt impossibly wet, your arousal and his precum mixing and leaking out around his cock with every thrust.
The first orgasm had barely begun to fade when his pelvis ground harder against your swollen clit with each rolling thrust. The added stimulation pushed you straight into a second, clitoral orgasm that blindsided you, entirely different from the first and brighter too now as many sensations arrived all at once for your mind to sort through. Your thigh quivered violently against his side as bright pleasure exploded outward from your clit, blending with the deep, pulsing contractions still rippling through your core. You cried out again, fresh tears streaming down your face as the dual sensations overwhelmed every nerve in your body.
Your vision whited out for several seconds, your entire body locking up and then shaking apart in his arms. Sobs mixed with desperate moans as wave after wave rolled through you, leaving you raw and shattered in the best possible way.
Dean bent down and kissed away your tears, the salt of it lingering on his lips. “That's how you're supposed to feel,” he hushed against your temple, voice rough with awe and restraint.
“Nnngh, can’t–” you managed, lips parted, chasing words that wouldn't come.
“I know, I know,” he soothed, voice thick. “Gotta let it happen.”
Dean kept thrusting for as long as he could, fucking you through the tail end of your orgasms. His hips snapped forward a few more times, chasing his own release, less controlled than anything he'd let himself be before.
With a wanton whimper, he buried himself to the hilt and came hard, harder than he ever remembered coming, raw and unguarded, shaking with the force of it. Thick, warm pulses of his cum spilled deep inside you, flooding your pussy with heat that made you shudder, your oversensitive body twitching around him as his cock throbbed and jerked against your walls.
He stayed inside you, breathing heavily against your neck, neither of you speaking and just letting the last tremors settle.
After a moment he pulled back reluctantly, until there was just room between your bodies for both of you to look down and watch. He gave a few shallow, unhurried thrusts, fucking his cum deeper into you, the creamy mixture leaking out around his cock with every small movement. You were both transfixed by the filthy, intimate sight, watching each slow slide, neither of you willing to look away until his cock finally stopped twitching.
With one final thrust he stilled completely, buried deep inside you and let his forehead drop to your shoulder.
Neither of you moved.
The room went quiet except for your shared, rasped breathing and underneath it, the faint hitch of his breath catching, over and over in quiet little hiccups he couldn't smooth out no matter how he tried. You ran your hands slowly up and down his back, soothing the tremor still running through him and caught the small, wet sniffle against your skin, proof that he'd cried too, that this had undone him just as much as it had undone you.
You finally felt like you could breathe again. Every muscle in your body went limp as you melted into the mattress, utterly spent, tears still drying on your cheeks and Dean's warm weight pressing you down in the most comforting way possible.
You kissed while stubbornly blinking back tears, holding yourselves together until you simply couldn't anymore. Time dissolved into something shapeless, measured only by slow breaths, racing hearts and bodies pressed together. The sheets twisted around your limbs and for the first time, your body didn't feel like something you had to apologize for.
When Dean finally moved, he did it with an achingly slow pace. He kissed you deeply, tongue dancing with yours while he began to pull out, as though the press of his lips could somehow stop the inevitable. You whimpered softly into his mouth at the feeling, his thick cock sliding from your sensitive, cum-filled pussy in one continuous, wet glide.
A thick trickle of your shared release followed, leaking slowly down your folds and onto the sheets. The sudden emptiness left you aching and strangely bereft, even as his tongue continued to stroke gently against yours through the loss.
Whatever this was afterward, it was unlike anything you'd ever experienced.
“Stay right here,” he murmured against your lips once they parted.
Dean eased himself out of bed shortly to start the shower, testing the water with the back of his hand until the temperature was just right before returning for you. He wrapped an arm around your waist and picked you up bridal style, carrying you into the bathroom and taking your weight without making you feel incapable.
Then guided you beneath the warm stream. Steam gradually filled the room while he took his time cleaning you, soapy hands moving with care over every inch of your skin, washing away sweat and the evidence of your shared pleasure, pausing every so often to brush a kiss against your shoulders, the back of your neck, the curve of your spine, or inside of your wrist.
He slipped away for a moment with a parting kiss, only to strip the bed and remake it with fresh sheets before returning the instant he heard the water stop.
You couldn't help but stare as he stepped into the bathroom doorway. A clean towel was already waiting in his hands, along with clean underwear and a pair of pajamas he'd unearthed from your dresser, and with obvious satisfaction, one of the hoodies he'd been insisting had mysteriously disappeared months ago.
Another towel hung dangerously low on his own hips, barely clinging to the sharp cut of his pelvis. Droplets of water still clung to his skin, tracing slow paths down the defined lines of his abs and the deep V that disappeared beneath the towel. The sight made your breath catch all over again, his body glistening, relaxed and impossibly attractive in the soft bathroom light.
Dean noticed your gaze and gave you a small, knowing smirk but said nothing. He set the clothes aside and got to work, drying your skin carefully section by section, working moisturizer into every inch of you with soothing strokes and helping you into the soft fabric of your clean underwear and pajamas. Then he carried you back to the freshly made bed despite your quiet insistence that you could walk.
After fluffing your pillows and tucking the blankets around you, he finally took a moment to dry himself off and pull on his boxers. Only then did he return to your bedside, lean down and press a gentle kiss to the crown of your head before lingering there for a moment, as though reassuring himself that you were comfortable and finally at peace.
“I'll go raid your cabinets for something to eat,” he said quietly, palm moving slowly over your hair in absent, soothing strokes as he looked down at you. His thumb brushed lightly against your temple before his hand slipped away.
It was far too late to order food and even if somewhere nearby was still open, you doubted you had the energy for anything more substantial than a few bites. A tired smile tugged at your lips as you gave him a small nod but the moment he stepped away from the bed, your chest tightened unexpectedly, eyes following him across the room as though distance alone suddenly felt wrong.
Dean noticed the movement out of the corner of his eye but kept walking toward the bedroom door. “If you hear something heavy drop,” he said over his shoulder, a teasing grin returning now that the weight of the evening had begun to lighten, “that's probably just me hiding from Hannah and Allie if it comes down to it.”
A quiet chuckle escaped you as you turned your head toward the clock resting on your bedside table, the glowing numbers confirming just how late it had become. “Doubt they'll be back tonight,” you murmured, your voice rough with exhaustion.
Dean paused with one hand resting against the doorframe. Instead of leaving, he turned back to look at you properly. His teasing expression faded as he searched your face, trying to read what you needed without making assumptions but he knew tonight had been overwhelming in more ways than one. Maybe you wanted to be alone now, to untangle your thoughts in private before either of you tried putting words to everything that had changed between you.
He wouldn't force that conversation tonight if you weren't ready. “I can go,” he relented, the offer sincere enough that you knew he'd leave without hesitation if that was what you wanted.
Your hands fidgeted restlessly with the edge of the blanket gathered over your lap, smoothing wrinkles before twisting the fabric between your fingers again. You gave the smallest shake of your head, so slight it was nearly impossible to notice.
“I'd rather you didn't.” The words came out quietly. Your gaze drifted away from him, settling instead on the dark window across the room where your reflection stared back faintly against the glass.
You drew in a slow, steadying breath. If there was ever such a thing as good timing, you doubted either of you had managed to stumble across it tonight, then again, maybe there never would've been a perfect moment for this. All you knew was that you were tired of keeping parts of yourself hidden from him.
Dean remained exactly where he was. He didn't move closer, didn't interrupt or rush to fill the silence stretching between you.
“I think I love you,” you admitted at last, it felt strangely fragile once spoken.
Your eyes finally lifted to meet his as you blinked quickly, trying to keep the fresh sting of tears from spilling over, you'd already cried enough for one night.
Dean's expression didn't morph into surprise. Instead, he nodded once, his head tilting and his answer arriving with a tenderness that marked you more than if he'd been shocked. “I know that.”
A breathy laugh escaped you, your head shaking as you smiled weakly. You should've known he’d say that. The two of you had said those words before, they'd existed between you for years in birthday cards, sleepy phone calls, goodbye hugs and reassurances before exams or after bad days, less frequently as you'd grown older, perhaps but they had never truly disappeared.
This was different, though, you'd hoped he'd hear it in your voice. “No…not like that.” You swallowed, clearing your throat before trying again. “The…the other way.” The confession sat awkwardly on your tongue, still too new to fit comfortably. “It's probably going to take me a while to figure out that one too.” You let out a self-conscious laugh that barely qualified as one. “I just thought…I'd give you a heads-up.” Your fingers tightened around the blanket. “In case…you have time to stick around for that too.”
Your eyes dropped back to your hands, unable to bear watching disappointment if it appeared.
For a long second, the room remained perfectly still, then Dean smiled. It was far from the teasing grin he wore so effortlessly, a smile touched with years of memories only the two of you shared.
“I know, baby,” he ventured.
His fingertips tapped absently against the doorframe as scenes from years ago drifted through his mind of the two of you, younger and convinced you were being impossibly sneaky, sitting shoulder to shoulder in playgrounds you'd long since outgrown after the sun had gone down, hiding behind climbing frames and plastic tunnels simply because they gave you somewhere to be alone together.
Memories of fingers laced together in the dark, shared laughter muffled into sleeves and the first time your mouths had met almost by accident, followed by another and another, both of you pretending each one had been just as thoughtless as the last since acknowledging it felt far more frightening than simply letting it happen again.
“I never thought we'd grow out of it,” he admitted, his eyes never leaving yours. “You've never been an enigma to me…Of course, I have time,” he murmured. “I've loved you for as long as I can remember. For you, I’ve always had time.”
He smiled softly and everything inside you slid into place.
Oh, love. The nostalgia returned with childlike wonder. How long had it been waiting for you to find your way back to the playground?
a/n: Comments, likes and reblogs really do mean the world and help more than you know! More stories will be added to the archive soon, so stay tuned for new content. Thank you so much for reading! 🤍
pairings: joe burrow x younger reader 🩷🧮
wc: 1,250
an: hi it's me clogging the tag with the same boring ole picture 🥲 this one's based on a mixture of two requests i think — if i can find them in my inbox i'll link them so you can see them.
thank you for being here 🩷
joe burrow masterlist | simple math masterlist
It’s his week, which means you’re under a blanket on his couch watching something about the bottom of the ocean.
The rules are his. Phone face down on the coffee table — he set yours there himself when you sat down, screen to the wood, like a man confiscating something. You watch the whole thing. No scrolling. No, I’m listening while you answer a text. He doesn’t say all that out loud anymore. He just held out his palm when the title card came up, and you handed over the phone.
So now your feet are in his lap, and a narrator is talking about a part of the ocean where the light doesn’t reach, and Joe’s thumb is moving slow over your ankle bone, back and forth, like he doesn’t know he’s doing it.
He probably doesn’t.
On screen, something with teeth drifts up out of the black, a little light hanging off a stalk above its head. The narrator says its name.
“That’s the female,” Joe says.
You don’t ask. You know better. It doesn’t matter.
“The male’s like a tenth the size. He finds one, bites onto her, and then he just—” he folds his fingers in, slow. “Fuses. Her skin grows over him. He’s part of her body at that point. Just there to—”
“Please don’t finish that.”
“—reproduce. He loses his eyes. His organs. Everything but the part she needs.”
“Joe.”
“What.”
“You’re doing the thing.”
He looks over at you like he doesn’t know what thing. He genuinely doesn’t.
On the screen, the little light moves through the dark. You watch it longer than you mean to.
“Wait. So she just carries him around.”
“Rest of her life.”
“That’s the most depressing thing I’ve ever heard.”
“It’s efficient.” He presses his tongue to the inside of his cheek and looks back at the TV like he’s won something.
You hate that you want to know what’s further down. You ask anyway.
“So what’s deeper than this?”
He slides down the couch and takes you with him, gets comfortable, like it’s going to take a while.
“You’re gonna love this,” he says.
———
The ritual sticks. It turns into a thing you have — Sunday nights, mostly, a Tuesday if his week’s open, his place and yours trading off, a running fight about subtitles that neither of you ever wins.
Your weeks, you make him watch the movies that raised you. You put on How to Train Your Dragon, the one you’ve seen so many times you mouth the words, and you wait for him to make fun of you. He doesn’t. He goes quiet in the good way, and twenty minutes in he says “the dad’s wrong about him,” flat, like it’s bothering him, and you have to look at the floor so you don’t grin and ruin it.
His weeks are whatever he’s deep in that month — space, the bottom of the ocean, how mountains move — plus Heat and one cult thing after another, each one “important,” each one earning him a pillow to the face.
Then it’s a Sunday, and he puts on The Dark Knight, and you can tell it’s not like the others before it even starts — he sits up, phone all the way across the room, like the movie deserves his hands free.
“I watched this probably a hundred times the year I got my license,” he says.
You’ve seen it too. Your brother had it on in the basement so many weekends that it became the background noise of being a kid. Without thinking about it, you do the math. “God, so I was like nine.”
His thumb stops on your ankle.
He doesn’t say anything. He’s looking at the screen, the city, the title coming up over it. You watch the side of his face for a second, then let it go.
“The Joker scared the hell out of me,” you say. “I used to leave the room.”
“You can leave the room.”
“Shut up. Start it.”
His thumb starts moving again.
———
A few weeks in, you push your luck. It’s your night. You put on a show.
“This isn’t a movie.”
“The deal was favorites.”
“The deal was movies.”
“The deal was never movies. You just kept picking movies.”
He opens his mouth. Closes it. You can see him deciding whether this is worth dying over, and you watch him decide it isn’t.
“Fine.” He gets his phone. “I’m not watching it, though. Background noise.”
You start it from the beginning.
That first night he’s on his phone the whole time, thumb going, and at the end he says it was fine, he guesses, and you let him have that. The next week the phone goes down somewhere in the back half. The week after that, it doesn’t come out at all.
He keeps saying background noise. He says it while he’s leaning forward. He says it the week he asks, too casual, whether the dark-haired brother is coming back — and when you tell him the guy’s name is Conrad, he says he didn’t ask for a name; he asked if he’s coming back. He says it the week he calls the blond one “that kid” in a tone that has opinions. He doesn’t know the names. He refuses to know the names. He knows exactly who everyone is.
By the time you get him to the third season, you’ve stopped pretending it’s background noise.
He hasn’t.
———
Season three, you don’t even have to fight him for it. You put it on, and he’s already settled, arm out for you, eyes on the screen before the recap’s done, like he’s been waiting for this all week.
“Background noise,” he says, to nobody.
“Sure.”
The premiere doesn’t waste time. There’s a party. A girl you don’t recognize yet is talking to her friends, loud and careless, and across the room Belly goes still.
Joe sits forward.
“He did it,” he says.
“What?”
“The blond one.” He doesn’t look away from the screen. “Whatever she just heard — he did it.”
“You don’t know that yet.”
“He’s gonna say ’I can explain.’ Watch. Guilty people explain. Innocent people just say no.”
Belly crosses the room and asks him straight out. The first thing out of his mouth is that he can explain.
Joe breathes out through his nose, slow, like he just watched a ref blow a call, and now he’s personally offended.
“Cabo,” he says, when it comes out where it happened. “He did it in Cabo and sat on it. Look at his face — he’s not sorry he did it. He’s sorry she found out.”
You’re not watching the show anymore. You’re watching him.
When Jeremiah gets to the part about how they were technically on a break, Joe’s jaw sets.
“That’s not an explanation,” he says. “That’s a loophole.”
On screen, Belly’s coming apart, and Joe watches her like he’d fix it if he could reach.
“She’s gonna take him back,” he says, low. “Don’t. Belly. Come on.”
You look at him.
“You know her name.”
He doesn’t answer. His eyes stay on the screen. Then he catches it — what he said, the way he said it — and his jaw works, and he keeps very busy not looking at you.
“…How many of these even are there?”
“Three seasons. We’re in the last one.”
“How many episodes left?”
“Like ten.”
He pulls you into his side, chin landing on the top of your head.
“Don’t watch them without me.”
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Description: Dean’s away game was supposed to be the worst part of your night. A creepy guy and several drinks later, you’re calling the one person who would drop everything to come get you, and suddenly, whatever you two are doing doesn’t feel so casual anymore.
Note: This can be part 4 for 'Special Girl' or a standalone. The divas yearn for Dean, so hopefully this is a bountiful harvest for those who requested! I got carried away... sorry in advance. Feedback is appreciated! Enjoy!
Tags/Warnings: Mentions of parties, alcohol, swearing. HURT/COMFORT ANGST SOUND THE ALARM!!!
The game lasted way too long.
Every whistle felt unnecessary. Every timeout dragged. By the third period, Dean had checked the clock above the scoreboard so many times that Coach finally barked his name from the bench.
"Eyes on the ice, Di Laurentis!"
Dean muttered an apology and forced his attention back to the game.
It wasn't like he had somewhere to be. Not technically. The team was still hours away from campus, and even if the game ended right that second, he wouldn't make it home before midnight.
Still, he couldn't stop thinking about the disappointed little crease that had appeared between your brows earlier that afternoon when he reminded you about the away game.
You'd tried to hide it quickly.
"Oh... Right. I forgot that was tonight."
But he'd seen it.
And because he was whipped, the knowledge that you'd wanted to see him had left him feeling embarrassingly pleased with himself for the rest of the day.
That feeling had disappeared as soon as you mentioned your plans.
Hannah and Allie were taking you to a party at some off-campus house. A friend of a friend's place, apparently. Dean hadn't recognized the name, but he didn't get any relief when you mentioned some football players were attending. He immediately disliked everyone who might be there.
He knew how ridiculous that was.
You'd only been hanging out for a couple weeks since the fall festival. One night at Malone's. A few increasingly long conversations after class. Several text exchanges that had somehow gone from teasing to telling each other things neither of you usually shared with people you barely knew.
And of course, he couldn't forget the handful of hot make-out sessions in between.
He had no right to care who spoke to you at a party.
You weren't his girlfriend.
Unfortunately, that didn't stop him from caring.
The final buzzer sounded with Briar up by two, and Dean was off the ice before the crowd had even finished reacting. He showered in record time, dragged on some sweats, and practically herded his teammates toward the bus.
"Move," he ordered when one of the freshmen stopped in the aisle to rummage through his bag.
The kid glanced up nervously. "I can't find my headphones."
"Tragic. Keep walking."
Garrett snorted behind him. "You got a hot date waiting at home?"
Dean dropped to his seat and stretched his legs onto the aisle. "No."
"Then why are you acting like the bus is about to leave without us?"
"Because some of us don't enjoy standing around a freezing parking lot while Stevens conducts a full inventory of his backpack."
"I found them!" sounded from a few rows ahead, Stevens holding up his AirPod case like the frozen four trophy itself.
A chorus of tired laughter moved through the bus.
Dean shoved his own AirPods in, although he didn't turn anything on. The moment Garrett looked away, he pulled out his phone and opened your text thread.
The last message you'd sent had come six hours ago.
Good luck at the game!
He'd hearted it before immediately second-guessing himself. The reaction had felt too eager, so naturally he'd followed it with something even more eager.
Text me when you get home?
You hadn't answered.
That wasn't weird. You were at a party. You were probably dancing with Hannah and Allie, drinking something bright blue and laughing at whatever dumb story one of them was telling.
You were fine.
Dean locked his phone and rested his head against the window.
Less than a minute later, he checked it again.
Garrett reached across the aisle and landed a hand on his shoulder.
His knee had begun bouncing without him even realizing.
"You're shaking the entire bus."
Dean glanced down. "Huh."
"What's wrong with you?"
"Nothing."
"You've checked your phone twelve times since we pulled out of the parking lot."
"I'm popular."
"You're anxious."
Dean scoffed, pulling one AirPod out. "I'm not anxious."
Garret studied him for a moment before his mouth curved into a slow grin.
"This about y/n?"
Dean stared at him.
"You've already disappeared with her every day this week."
"I haven't been disappearing."
"You skipped lunch with us yesterday."
"I was busy."
"At Malone's?"
Dean's expression tightened. "Do you have surveillance on me?"
"No. I'm dating Hannah. Y/n tells her everything."
"Of course she does."
Garrett leaned back in his seat, entirely too pleased with himself. "So she's at a party and you're freaking out."
"I'm not freaking out. She asked me to tell her how the game went."
"She did?"
"No."
Garrett laughed.
Dean shoved the AirPod back into his ear. "Go to sleep."
"You're so screwed."
Dean ignored him, although the words stuck with him as the bus carried them onto the dark highway.
He wasn't screwed.
He was curious.
Interested, maybe.
Concerned in a normal, causal way.
Nothing more.
The party had been fun at first.
That was the frustrating part.
You'd spent most of the afternoon pretending you weren't disappointed about Dean's away game, only for Hannah and Allie to see through you immediately.
"You're pouting," Hannah had announced from the foot of your bed.
"I'm getting dressed."
"You can do both."
Allie had glanced at you through the mirror as she applied mascara. "She's definitely pouting."
"I am not."
"You made that exact face when he told you he was leaving," Hannah said. "Like someone told you documentaries were getting taken off of Netflix."
You threw a shirt at her. "I've hung out with him like twice."
"And?"
"And I don't miss him."
Allie's lip twitched. "Nobody said you did."
You'd hated how warm your face became.
By the time the three of you arrived at the party, they had mostly stopped teasing you.
Mostly.
The house belonged to a guy Hannah knew from one of her classes. It sat just far enough from campus that the neighborhood had bigger yards and fewer people walking around, but close enough that every room was packed with students.
Music rattled the windows. People crowded around a beer pong table in the dining room, and the kitchen counters were covered with liquor bottles, half empty cups, and open boxes of pizza.
A red cup appeared in your hand before you had made it ten feet through the door.
"Drink," Allie said.
"I just walked in."
"Exactly. You're behind."
You rolled your eyes but took a generous sip.
The first hour passed quickly. You played flip cup with Hannah, danced badly with Allie, and laughed until your stomach hurt when a guy attempted to jump over the back of the couch and his toes caught onto the top of the cushions instead.
Someone refilled your cup.
Then someone else did.
At some point, you stopped noticing when it happened.
By midnight, the warmth from the alcohol had spread through your entire body, softening the sharp edges of the crowded room. Your face hurt from smiling, and every song seemed like the best one you had ever heard.
You pulled out your phone when it vibrated in your pocket, expecting a message from Dean.
It was an email from the campus bookstore.
Disappointment sank through you before you could stop it.
"You are so bad at being casual," Hannah observed.
You looked up to find her watching you over the rim of her cup.
"I was checking the time."
"You were smiling before you looked at the screen."
"I smile all the time."
"Not like that."
Allie leaned against your shoulder. "Text him."
"He's playing."
"The game ended twenty minutes ago," Hannah said.
You narrowed your eyes. "Why do you know that?"
"Because unlike you, I'm capable of checking a score without staring longingly at someone's contact."
"I wasn't staring longingly."
Allie reached for your phone. "Give it to me. I'll do it."
You jerked it out of reach, laughing. "Absolutely not."
For several minutes, the three of you argued over what would constitute a normal message. Eventually, you gave up and locked your phone without sending anything.
You didn't want to seem clingy.
Whatever existed between you and Dean was still too new to poke at. You liked him more than you'd expected to, which made every text feel strangely important. You didn't want to be the person waiting around for him after only a couple of weeks.
"All right," Hannah said, pointing towards the kitchen. "I need water."
"You need water?" Allie repeated skeptically.
"I'm thirsty! You took a shot off of someone's stomach fifteen minutes ago and I still feel gross about it.”
"It was hygienic."
You followed them toward the kitchen, but a group of people surged between you near the doorway. Someone grabbed your hand and pulled you into a conversation about a professor you didn't even know. By the time you politely escaped, Hannah and Allie were gone.
You weren't worried. They did this all the time, vanishing into different corners of a party before eventually reappearing with stories you could barely follow.
You checked the kitchen, found neither of them, and poured yourself some water.
"Switching to the hard stuff?"
You glanced over.
A guy stood beside you, smiling as though you were already halfway through a conversation. You vaguely remembered him from earlier. He had introduced himself during flip cup, but his name immediately disappeared beneath the alcohol.
"Trying to be responsible," you muttered.
"That's boring."
"I've had enough fun."
"I doubt that."
His gaze lingered on you long enough to make you aware of the short hem of your skirt. You tugged at it without thinking.
He noticed.
The smile remained on his face, but something had shifted.
"You here with somebody?"
"My friends."
"I meant a guy."
You lifted the cup of water to your lips. "No."
"Good."
The answer was too immediate.
You laughed lightly, more out of habit than amusement. "Why?"
"Because I've been trying to talk to you all night."
"We're talking now."
"Exactly."
He leaned closer to be heard over the music. His breath smelled sharply of beer.
You stepped to the side and looked toward the doorway. "I should find my friends."
"They're probably fine."
"I'm sure they are."
"Then stay."
His hand brushed your elbow.
The touch was light enough that you could have pretended it was accidental. You moved away anyway.
"I really do need to find them."
He raised both hands with a laugh. "Relax. I'm not stopping you."
The word relax bothered you more than it should have.
You smiled politely and slipped into the hallway.
The air felt thicker away from the kitchen, and the alcohol that had seemed pleasantly warm twenty minutes earlier was beginning to weigh down your limbs. You pulled out your phone and opened the group chat.
Where did you two go?
The message delivered instantly.
You waited.
Nothing.
You called Hannah. The music on your end was so loud that you couldn't tell whether the call had even connected before it went to voicemail.
Allie didn't answer either.
You reminded yourself that they were somewhere in the same house. They hadn't abandoned you. One of them was probably in the bathroom while the other was trapped in a conversation.
There was no reason to panic.
You returned to the living room and stood on your toes, searching over the crowd. No familiar brunette hair. No flash of Allie's red top.
Someone bumped into you hard enough to spill part of your water down your wrist.
"Sorry!"
"It's okay."
You wiped your hand on your skirt and continued toward the stairs.
"There you are."
Your steps faltered.
The guy from the kitchen appeared beside you, carrying a fresh drink.
"I thought you ditched me."
"I told you I was finding my friends."
"And did you?"
"Not yet."
He held out the cup. "I made you something."
"No, thanks."
"You don't even know what it is."
"I'm drinking water."
"Come on. One drink."
"I've had enough."
His smile tightened briefly before returning. "You sure?"
"Very."
He lowered the cup, although he didn't move out of your way. "You seem nervous."
"I'm not."
"You keep looking around."
"I'm looking for my friends."
"You've said that."
Because you were drunk, it took you a second to recognize the irritation in his voice.
Something cold slid beneath the warmth in your stomach.
You moved toward the stairs. "I'm going to check upstairs."
"I'll come with you."
"No, that's okay."
"It's crowded. I'll help."
"I don't need help."
He laughed as though you were flirting with him.
Normally, you would have been firmer. Sober, you would have told him to leave him alone without worrying whether you sounded rude.
But your thoughts were sluggish, and every response seemed to arrive a second too late. By the time you figured out what to say, he had already stepped closer.
"You know," he said, "you've been giving me mixed signals all night."
You stared at him. "I've barely talked to you."
"You kept smiling."
"I was being polite."
His expression changed again. Not anger exactly, but something petulant and ugly enough to make your pulse jump.
"Right."
You stared past him.
His fingers closed around your forearm.
Not hard.
That almost made it worse.
It was casual, as though he had every right to stop you.
You looked down at his hand before meeting his eyes.
"Let go."
For a moment, he didn't.
Then he released you with another laugh and raised his hands. "Jesus. I was just trying to keep you from falling."
"I wasn't falling."
"You're obviously wasted."
"I'm fine."
"You don't look fine."
The room seemed to tilt around you, not because you were about to fall but because suddenly every instinct you had was screaming that something was wrong.
People moved around the two of you without noticing. Someone shouted from the beer pong table. A group near the couch erupted into laughter.
Nobody was watching him.
Nobody knew that you wanted to leave.
You backed away. "I need some air."
"I'll come."
"I want to be alone."
His smile disappeared completely.
"You don't have to act like I'm some creep."
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to."
You didn't answer. You pushed through the crowd and headed for the front door, resisting the urge to look behind you.
The cool night air hit your face as you stepped onto the porch. You gripped the railing and drew in a slow breath, trying to calm the sudden pounding in your chest.
Maybe you were overreacting.
He hadn't hurt you. He had held your arm for all of three seconds. He was probably drunk too and terrible at reading social cues.
But that explanation didn't make you feel better.
You unlocked your phone again.
Still no response.
You typed another message.
Where are you guys? I'm ready to leave.
Your thumb hovered over Dean's name afterward.
You pictured him on the bus, tired and sore after the game. Calling him would be dramatic. He was hours away and couldn't do anything except worry.
You locked your phone.
The screen door creaked open behind you.
"Getting some air?"
Your entire body stiffened.
He stepped onto the porch and let the door swing shut, sealing off most of the noise from inside.
"I figured I'd keep you company."
"I'm waiting for my friends."
"They'll find you."
He settled against the railing beside you, close enough that his shoulder brushed yours.
You moved several steps away.
His eyes followed you.
"I think I'm going back inside," you said.
"I'll walk with you."
"You don't need to."
"I know."
The answer came with a smile, but there was no warmth in it now.
He moved when you moved, matching your pace toward the door.
You stopped.
So did he.
"You don't have to follow me."
"I'm not following you."
"You've been everywhere I've gone for the last half hour."
"I'm trying to talk to you."
"And I've told you I'm looking for my friends."
He tilted his head. "Why are you being like this?"
The question caught you off guard.
"Like what?"
"Acting scared."
"I'm not scared."
"You look scared."
He took another step.
Your fingers tightened around your phone.
"I'm going inside."
His hand landed at the small of your back as though he meant to guide you.
You jerked away so quickly that your heel caught on the edge of the porch. The railing stopped you from falling, but the movement sent a painful jolt through your ankle.
"Don't touch me."
He stared at you.
Then he laughed.
The sound made your stomach turn.
"Okay. You're being dramatic."
You pushed through the screen door before he could move again.
The party swallowed you immediately.
You didn't run, but your steps were fast and clumsy as you searched for somewhere to go. The bathroom at the end of the hall was occupied. You knocked once, received no answer, and tried the handle anyway.
Locked.
You crossed the kitchen, nearly colliding with someone carrying a tray of shots. The stairs were crowded. Every doorway seemed blocked.
Behind you, you heard his voice.
"Hey, wait."
Panic sharpened your thoughts for the first time all night.
You slipped down a narrower hallway and found another bathroom tucked near the laundry room. The door opened.
You hurried inside, locked it, and leaned your back against the wood.
The sudden quiet was almost painful.
You breathing came too quickly. Your eyes burned, and when you looked down, your hands were shaking so badly that you nearly dropped your phone.
A knock sounded behind you.
Soft.
Patient.
"You okay in there?"
You covered your mouth to keep from making a sound.
"Come on," he continued. "I said I was sorry."
He hadn't.
Another knock.
"I'll wait."
The words made something inside you crack.
You opened your phone and pressed Dean's name before you could talk yourself out of it.
He answered before the first ring had finished.
"Hey."
You could hear his smirk over the phone.
The relief of hearing his voice was so intense that your eyes filled instantly.
"Dean?"
Silence stretched for less than a second.
When he spoke again, every trace of warmth and teasing had vanished.
"What happened?"
You tried to answer, but your throat closed around the words. All you managed to mutter was a jumbled mess of 'Is' and 'hes’.
"Hey." His voice softened without losing its urgency. "Take a breath for me. Are you hurt?"
"No." The word came out wet and uneven. "I don't think so."
"What do you mean, you don't think so?"
"I'm drunk."
"I know, baby. That's okay. Where are you?"
The endearment nearly undid you.
You pressed a hand to your eyes. "I'm in a bathroom."
"What house?"
"I don't know."
Dean swore under his breath. You heard movement on his end, then Garrett asking him something.
"Open your messages," Dean instructed. "Send me your location."
"I don't want to hang up."
"You don't have to. Put me on speaker."
You did as he said, fumbling through the screen until the location sent.
"Got it," he said immediately. "Stay where you are."
A knock sounded again.
"You still in there?"
Dean went silent.
Your stomach dropped.
"Is that him?" he asked.
You nodded before remembering he couldn't see you. "Yes."
"Who is he?"
"I don't know."
"What did he do?"
"He won't leave me alone. He grabbed me, and he followed me outside, and I told him to stop, but he keeps saying I'm being dramatic."
Dean's breathing changed.
The quiet anger in it frightened you almost as much as the guy outside.
"Did he hurt you?"
"No."
"Did he put anything in your drink?"
"I don't know."
"Okay. Listen to me." His voice remained steady, each word clipped and controlled. "You are not opening that door. I don't care what he says. Hannah and Allie are there, right?"
"I can't find them."
"I'm calling them now."
"Dean, please don't hang up."
"I'm not hanging up. Garrett's calling."
There was muffled conversation on the bus. Seats shifted. Someone cursed. Dean was clearly moving toward the front.
"You're still hours away," you whispered.
"No, I'm not."
"You said-"
"We've been driving for over an hour. We're close enough."
"How close?"
"Doesn't matter."
The bus driver shouted something in the background.
Dean responded sharply, then returned to you. "I'm coming."
Guilt pierced through the fear. "You don't have to."
"Stop."
His voice wasn't harsh, but it left no room for argument.
"You called me because you're scared. I'm coming."
Another knock rattled the door.
"Are you seriously hiding from me?"
You flinched.
Dean heard it.
"Back away from the door."
You moved toward the bathtub.
"Good. Sit down if you're dizzy."
"i'm not dizzy."
"You sound drunk enough to be friends with the floor, so sit."
Despite everything, a broken laugh escaped you.
Dean exhaled. "There you are."
"I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"For calling you."
His answer came so quickly that it almost overlapped yours.
"Don't ever apologize for calling me."
Your face crumpled.
You lowered yourself onto the edge of the bathtub and hugged one arm around your stomach, your breath coming out in shaky pants.
Dean barely remembered getting off the bus.
He knew Coach had yelled after him. Garrett had followed long enough to toss him his keys, while Logan remained on the phone with Hannah.
The bus had reached the outskirts of campus, but the party was still twenty minutes away.
It took Dean twelve.
He stayed connected to you the entire drive, forcing himself to keep his voice calm whenever you went quiet. The angrier he became, the gentler he spoke to you.
Hannah and Allie had finally answered Logan. They had been upstairs helping a friend who had gotten sick, both of their phones buried underneath a pile of purses. The moment they understood what had happened, they started searching for the bathroom.
Hannah reached you first.
Dean heard her pounding on the door and shouting your name.
"It's her," he told you. "You can open it."
"Are you sure?"
The question made his grip tighten around the steering wheel.
"I'm sure."
There was the sound of a lock clicking, followed by Hannah's horrified voice.
"Oh my God."
You burst into tears.
Dean listened to Hannah reassure you until the headlights swept over the crowded driveway. He parked crookedly along the curb and was out of the car before the engine had fully stopped.
The front door opened as he approached.
Allie stood there, pale and furious. "She's in the bathroom."
"Where is he?"
"I don't know. Hannah told him to get lost, and he disappeared."
Dean's jaw locked.
Every instinct urged him to search the house, find the guy, and make sure he never followed anyone into a hallway again.
Then he heard you crying.
The anger disappeared.
He followed Allie through the house, pushing past clusters of confused partygoers until he reached the narrow hallway.
Hannah sat on the floor beside the bathroom door. You were curled against her, your face hidden in your hands.
Dean stopped.
He had spent the entire drive imagining you injured, unconscious, or trapped behind that door. Seeing you upright should have relieved him.
Instead, the sight of your shaking shoulders hollowed out his chest.
Hannah looked up. "He's here."
You raised your head.
Your mascara had smudged beneath your eyes, and fear still clung to your expression. The moment you saw him, something in your face softened.
"Dean."
He crossed the remaining distance and crouched in front of you.
"Hey."
Your bottom lip trembled. "You came."
The words nearly broke him.
"Of course I came."
He wanted to touch you, but he didn't know what would make you feel safe. His hands hovered uselessly until you reached him first.
Your fingers closed around the front of his sweatshirt.
Dean moved immediately.
He slid one arm around your back and the other beneath your knees, lifting you from the floor as though you weighed nothing.
You curled against his chest, pressing your face into his neck.
"I can walk," you mumbled.
"I know."
"You're carrying me."
"I noticed."
"I'm heavy."
"Now you're insulting me."
A weak laugh warmed his skin.
Dean closed his eyes briefly, breathing through the rush of relief.
Hannah gathered your purse and followed outside with Allie.
"We're coming with you," Hannah said.
Dean glanced down at you. Your eyes were already drifting shut against his shoulder.
"I'm taking her home."
"Our apartment," Allie urged. "We'll meet you there."
Before Dean could respond, your weak voice sounded below him.
"I want to stay with Dean. If that's okay."
Dean tried to fight his smile as he waited for Hannah and Allie's approval, his mouth coming down to your ear to whisper a quick "Of course it's okay, baby." before shooting a pleased look Hannah's way.
"Fine. But make sure she's okay, Dean. I mean it."
Dean nodded his head vigorously as the girls came to crowd around you. Apologies and forgiveness flew back and forth between you and them, the others finally deciding you were good to leave when you promised to call them first thing tomorrow.
He lowered you carefully into the passenger seat of the car, then crouched beside the open door to inspect you.
"Where did he grab you?"
You looked down at your forearm.
Dean found a faint red mark near your wrist.
His jaw clenched so hard it hurt.
"Does anything else hurt?"
"My ankle a little."
"What happened?"
"I tripped when he touched me."
Dean stared at you.
Your eyes widened. "It's not bad."
He closed his eyes and pressed his thumb against his brow.
"Dean?"
"I'm fine."
"You don't look fine."
"I'm trying really hard not to commit a felony."
That earned him another tiny laugh.
He took off his jacket and draped it over your lap before fastening the seatbelt across you.
Your fingers caught his wrist before he could stand.
"I'm sorry you had to leave the bus."
Dean looked down at your hand around him.
"You really have to stop apologizing."
"I ruined your night."
"You did no such thing."
"You won."
"How do you know?"
"Hannah told me."
Despite himself, he smiled. "We did."
"I knew you would."
The trust in your voice was so uncomplicated that it hurt.
Dean turned his hand beneath yours and squeezed your fingers.
"Let's get you home."
The drive to the hockey house was quiet except for the low hum of the heater.
You kept one hand wrapped around Dean's sleeve, as though you were afraid he might disappear if you let go. He didn't comment on it.
Every few minutes, he glanced over to make sure you were awake.
"I'm okay," you mumbled the third time you felt his gaze on you.
"Didn't ask."
"You keep looking at me."
"You're very pretty."
Your face warmed.
He immediately cleared his throat. "And drunk. Mostly drunk."
"You think I'm pretty?"
"You're hearing things."
"You said it."
"I've taken a few pucks to the head. Nothing I say is legally binding."
You smiled and leaned your cheek against the seat.
For several turns, neither of you spoke.
Then you whispered, "I missed you."
Dean's hands tightened around the steering wheel.
The thrum in his chest drowned out the turn signal as he took another left.
He let his hand fall to your lap as he brought his gaze to yours.
"I missed you, too."
Your eyes filled again.
He softened immediately. "Hey. No more crying."
"I can't help it. You're sweet to me."
Dean stared at you. "That's what's making you cry?"
"It's been a long night."
The light you had been stopped at turned green.
He rotated his wrist to hold his hand palm-up.
After a moment, you placed yours in it.
He drove the rest of the way one-handed.
The house was dark when he pulled into the driveway.
You stirred when the engine shut off, lifting your head.
"Where are we?"
"My place."
"Oh."
"You remember agreeing to that, right?"
Your brows furrowed.
"I think so."
"Very reassuring."
Dean climbed out and walked around to your side. You had already opened the door by the time he reached you, but the moment your foot touched the pavement, your face pinched.
Dean noticed immediately.
"That hurt."
"No."
"That was absolutely a pain face."
"I don't have a pain face."
"You do now."
Before you could protest, Dean slid an arm around your waist to steady you. You stiffened for half a second, and he felt it immediately.
His grip immediately loosened.
"Is this okay?
You looked up at him, and something in your expression softened.
"Yeah."
"Okay."
He kept his arm around you as you crossed the driveway, letting you decide how much weight to put against him. Halfway to the door, your head tipped against his shoulder.
"You still with me?"
"Mhm."
"Compelling argument."
"I'm tired."
"I know."
The house was empty, which Dean was privately grateful for. The last thing he needed was Garrett or Tucker wandering downstairs and making some comment that would send you into another spiral.
He guided you into the living room and eased you onto the couch.
"Sit."
"You're bossy."
"You're drunk."
"You keep saying that."
"You keep proving it."
Dean disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a bottle of water and a sleeve of crackers.
You frowned at the crackers. "Those are depressing."
"They're preventative."
"Preventative of what?"
"You throwing up on the rug."
You looked down. "Is it expensive?"
"Not even a little."
That made you laugh again.
"Drink."
Dean twisted the cap off the bottle and handed it to you. You took two tiny sips.
He stared.
"More."
"You're annoying."
"I've been told."
You drank again, then handed the bottle back with a dramatic sigh.
"Happy?"
"Thrilled."
He sat on the coffee table across from you, and for the first time since leaving the party, the room went completely still.
Without the music or the crowd or the urgency of getting away, the night seemed to settle over you all at once. Your fingers tightened around the edge of Dean's jacket.
He noticed.
"You okay?"
You opened your mouth to give the automatic answer, then stopped.
"I don't know."
Dean's expression softened. "That's allowed."
You stared down at your hands. "I should've just been mean."
"What?"
"To him." Your voice grew quieter. "I kept trying to be polite because I didn't want to look crazy."
"You weren't crazy."
"I know that now."
"You should have known it then."
You looked up at him.
Dean leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. "You never have to be nice to someone who makes you uncomfortable."
"I know."
"No." His voice lowered. "I mean it. You don't owe anybody politeness if they're scaring you."
Your throat tightened.
Your eyes filled again.
Dean saw it immediately and panicked.
"Oh, no."
You gave a watery laugh. "What?"
"Don't cry."
"I can't help it."
"I'm terrible with crying."
"You're doing okay."
"I'm panicking internally."
That pulled another small smile from you.
Dean reached toward you, then stopped himself before touching you.
"Can I?"
You looked at his hand for a second before nodding, and the hesitation on his face loosened as he let it settle lightly against your knee. The touch was careful, almost tentative, which felt strange coming from someone who normally carried himself with so much confidence. But tonight, he seemed determined to let you control every inch of space between you.
You tugged at his hand gently, his body instantly responding and sliding onto the couch next to you. You tucked yourself into his side, one had wrapping around your shoulders as the other remained on your knee. For a few minutes, neither of you said anything. The house was quiet around you, so different from the pounding music and crowded rooms you'd spent the last several hours trying to escape.
You stared down at his hand.
"I called you."
Dean's eyebrows pulled together slightly. "Yeah."
"I mean..." You swallowed, suddenly feeling stupid for bringing it up. "I don't know why I called you."
His hand shifted against your knee, and you caught the brief flicker of something on his face before he covered it with a crooked smile.
"Wow. This night just keeps getting better for me."
"No." A laugh slipped before you shook your head. "That's not what I meant."
"I know."
"I just mean I didn't really think about it." You picked at the edge of your skirt, trying to figure out how to explain something you barely understood yourself. "I was sitting in the bathroom, and I was scared, and I kept trying Hannah and Allie, but then I saw your name and just... called."
Dean didn't immediately respond.
When you looked up at him, the teasing expression had disappeared. He was watching you with an intensity that made your already warm face feel hotter.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"That's not nothing."
He gave you a quiet laugh and glanced away, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. "You're drunk."
"I'm aware."
"Which means I'm definitely not having this conversation with you right now."
You frowned. "What conversation?"
"Exactly."
"Dean."
He looked back at you, and you could tell he was trying very hard to keep things light.
"You called me. I came. That's all."
You smiled faintly, but your chest tightened again.
"I knew you would."
That wiped the amusement from his face.
Dean stared at you for long enough that you started wondering if you'd said something wrong.
"Knew I would what?"
"Come get me."
Your voice was quieter now.
Something changed in his expression then. It was subtle, but you saw it. His jaw shifted slightly, and his thumb moved once against your knee before going still.
"You can't say things like that when you're drunk," he finally said.
Your brows knitted together. "Why?"
"Because I'm trying very hard to be a decent person here."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
Dean let out a disbelieving laugh and leaned back slightly. "You really are drunk."
"You keep saying that like I've forgotten."
"You asked me ten minutes ago if my rug was expensive."
"That was a valid question."
"You were worried about throwing up on it."
"I was being considerate."
He grinned despite himself. "You're adorable."
The word slipped out so naturally that neither of you seemed to process it immediately.
Then Dean did.
His grin faltered.
Your eyes widened slightly.
He cleared his throat. "Drunk. I meant you're an adorable drunk."
"That wasn't better."
"I panicked."
That pulled another laugh from you.
Dean smiled, clearly pleased with himself, before standing and holding out his hand.
"Come on."
You stared at it. "Where are we going?"
"Bed."
Your eyes snapped up.
Dean immediately sighed.
"My bed. You sleep in it. I sleep somewhere else." He shook his head. "Jesus. Get your mind out of the gutter."
"My mind isn't in the gutter."
"You looked terrified."
"I was surprised."
"Sure."
You took his hand and let him pull you carefully to your feet. Dean caught you around the waist before you could stumble.
"I'm fine."
"You know, I think we should ban that phrase from your vocabulary."
"It barely hurts."
"Great. You can tell me all about it while you're not walking on it."
Before you could ask what he meant, Dean bent and lifted you into his arms.
A startled noise escaped you as you grabbed onto his shoulders.
"Dean!"
"What?"
"I can walk."
"I know. We've discussed this. I just want to help you up the stairs."
"Jerk."
His laugh rumbled beneath your ear.
You should have felt embarrassed being carried through the house by a guy you'd only been seeing for a couple of weeks, especially after everything that had already happened.
Instead, you felt safe.
Dean pushed open his bedroom door with his shoulder and lowered you carefully onto the edge of his bed.
"Stay."
You raised an eyebrow. "Am I a dog?"
"No, because dogs listen."
You rolled your eyes while Dean disappeared into his closet. He returned a moment later and with a folded T-shirt.
"Arms up, baby."
You raised your arms, heat dusting your cheeks as the slid it over your clothes.
It smelled like him.
That seemed like an observation you should keep entirely to yourself.
When you returned from the bathroom after cleaning yourself up and removing your party clothes, Dean was pulling an extra pillow from the bed.
"Where are you going?"
"Couch."
The answer came so easily that something in your chest sank before you could stop it.
"Oh."
Dean paused.
You immediately hated how much disappointment had slipped into that one stupid syllable.
"What?"
"Nothing."
He stared at you.
You climbed beneath the covers and busied yourself adjusting the pillow.
"I'm fine."
"Banned phrase, remember?"
You sighed.
Dean waited.
Finally, you looked at him.
"Can you stay?"
The teasing disappeared from his expression.
You rushed to explain before he could misunderstand.
"I don't mean... I just don't really want to be alone yet."
Dean's face softened so quickly that you almost wished you hadn't looked at him.
"Yeah."
He put the pillow back without another word.
"Of course."
He lay down beside you, careful to leave a respectable amount of space between your bodies. For someone who had spent the last couple of weeks flirting with you at every available opportunity, he was suddenly acting like crossing the invisible line down the middle of the mattress might kill him.
You turned onto your side.
Dean stared up at the ceiling.
"You're really far away."
His head turned toward you.
"I told you I was trying to be a decent person."
"You look like you're afraid of me."
"I'm afraid of myself."
You frowned.
Dean immediately shook his head. "That sounded significantly worse than I intended."
You laughed softly.
"Dean."
"Yeah?"
"Come closer."
He hesitated.
Then he shifted across the mattress until only a few inches remained between you.
"Better?"
You nodded.
For a while, neither of you spoke. The exhaustion you'd been fighting all night finally began pulling you under, but every time your eyes closed, you remembered the bathroom door.
The knocking.
The voice on the other side.
Your eyes opened again.
Dean noticed.
"You okay?"
You nodded, then stopped yourself.
"No."
He waited.
You stared at the space between you.
"Can I..."
You trailed off, embarrassed by what you were about to ask.
Dean seemed to understand anyway.
He slowly opened one arm.
"Come here."
You moved before you could second-guess yourself, curling into him and resting your cheek against his chest.
Dean went completely still for half a second.
Then his arm settled around you.
Carefully.
His hand rested between your shoulder blades, warm and steady, and the tension that had been sitting inside you all night finally began to loosen.
"This okay?" he murmured.
"Mhm."
"You sure?"
You smiled against his shirt.
"You ask that a lot."
"Tonight seems like a good night for it."
You couldn't argue with that.
Your fingers curled tightly into the fabric of his shirt.
"Dean?"
"Yeah?"
"You won't leave?"
His chest rose beneath your cheek as he took a slow breath.
"No."
"Even if I fall asleep?"
"Especially then."
You were quiet for a moment.
"Promise?"
Dean's arm tightened around you just slightly.
"I promise."
You believed him.
Dean stayed awake long after you stopped moving.
He stared into the darkness with one arm wrapped around you and your hand curled loosely into his shirt, trying not to think too hard about how natural it felt to have you there.
Two weeks.
That was it.
Two weeks of burgers and texts and stupid jokes. Two weeks of pretending the rush he got whenever your name appeared on his phone was just because you were new and interesting.
Tonight had ruined that lie.
Because when he'd heard your voice crack through the phone, there hadn't been a single part of him that had considered doing anything other than getting to you.
And now you were asleep against his chest because you trusted him enough to close your eyes.
Dean looked down at you, his hand slowly moving over your back before he could stop himself.
He should have been terrified by how much that meant to him.
Maybe tomorrow, he would be.
Tonight, he only pulled you a little closer and closed his eyes.
For the first time since his phone had rung on that bus, Dean finally felt like he could breathe.
pairings: joe burrow x reader 🌿
wc: 980
masterlist | stoned joe masterlist
an: okay i lied — i was SUPPOSED to be doing tax returns for class tonight but instead you're getting stoned joe 🫠 no regrets tbh. writing stoned joe is one of my favorite things in the world so a huge thank you to the anon who requested this 🩷
also — psa to anyone who's ever sent me an ask that hasn't been filled yet, i promise i haven't forgotten. sometimes the inspo just takes a minute to hit. every single one is on my list and i love you for sending them 💌
daisy 💋
The door goes and you don’t move fast enough to do anything about the tin.
You hear his keys hit the bowl in the entry, then nothing — and you know, you know, he’s standing back there doing the thing he does, taking the whole room in before he says a word to it. The TV’s on something you stopped following twenty minutes ago. There’s a glass of water sweating a ring into the coffee table and his tin sitting open right beside it, lid off, grinder out, the whole scene about as subtle as a crime.
Footsteps. He comes around the back of the couch and stops, and you tip your head back against the cushion to look at him upside down — and lose it. Caught, giggling before you can stop yourself, hand coming up too late to do anything about it.
“Hi,” you manage.
Joe looks at the tin. Looks at you. The laugh’s already in his voice when he drags a hand down over his jaw.
“So this is what I come home to.”
He toes his shoes off where he stands, nudges them toward the wall, and comes around the front of the couch. Picks up the tin. Tilts it toward the lamp to see how much you’ve gotten into without him, and the look he gives you over the top of it could not be drier.
“You didn’t even text me.”
“You were working,” you say, like that’s reason enough.
He doesn’t dignify it. Taps the lid back half-on, sets the tin down, and drops onto the cushion beside you — close, so you have to fold your knees up over his thigh to make room. His hand lands on your shin like it lives there.
“Scoot.”
“I am scooted.”
“You’re sprawled.”
You giggle again and he reaches for the grinder, slow about it, like the whole evening just got rearranged and he intends to take his time. You walk your fingers up his forearm while he works, smug as anything.
“That was good,” you tell him.
“Babe.” He doesn’t look up from the grinder. “I don’t buy mid.”
By the time he's caught up the room's gone soft at the edges and so has he. Sunk low into the couch, head tipped back, one arm slung along the cushion behind you, the other hand still wrapped loose around your ankle.
You're not doing anything with your hands. That's a lie. Your hands have ideas — the hem of his sleeve, the line of his collarbone through his shirt, the spot under his jaw where his pulse is. He lets you. Eyes half-lidded, watching you do it.
“You’re being weird,” he says, no heat in it.
“I’m being affectionate.”
“You’re being weird and affectionate.”
You press your palm flat to his chest just to feel him breathe, and he goes quiet under it. When you look up, his eyes are already on you, and they’re not lazy anymore.
His hand leaves your ankle. Travels up. Stops at the back of your knee.
"C'mere," he says, lower now.
You come. Knees planted on either side of his thighs, you settle your weight and feel exactly how hard he is through his sweats. The sound he makes is low, almost a growl. Both hands slide under your shirt — one spreads wide at the small of your back, the other fists in your hair and tips your mouth down to his.
He kisses you slowly. Tongue, teeth, the faint taste of weed still on him. You rock against his lap, and his grip tightens, fingers digging into your hip like he's deciding whether to let you keep control.
"You started the night without me," he murmurs against your lips. "Figure you owe me."
"That how it works?"
His laugh is rough. "That's how it works."
His hands find the waistband of your shorts. You lift up just enough for him to drag them down your thighs along with your underwear. Cool air hits your skin for half a second before his palm is back between your legs, two fingers sliding through how wet you already are. He curses under his breath, presses them inside you once, slow and deep, then pulls them out and brings them to his mouth.
You're the one who gets his sweats down. He's heavy in your hand, hot, the head already slick. You line him up and sink down in one slow glide. The stretch pulls a broken sound out of you. His head drops back against the couch, jaw tight, one hand locked on your hip to keep you right there while he throbs inside you.
You move. Lazy rolls at first, grinding deep, letting the haze stretch every second. He watches you — eyes heavy, lips parted — thumb finding your clit and rubbing tight little circles that make your thighs shake. Every time you take him all the way, his fingers flex harder.
When you start to lose rhythm, he takes over. Arm banded around your waist, he fucks up into you with these slow, filthy thrusts that punch the breath out of your lungs. His mouth is at your neck, sucking a mark you'll feel tomorrow. "Right there, baby. Fuck."
You come hard, clenching around him, forehead pressed to his as his name fractures in your mouth. He follows right after — hips snapping up once, twice, burying himself deep, both arms locking around you. The groan he lets out vibrates against your skin, low and open-mouthed.
After, you stay exactly like that. Still joined, boneless and sticky, his heart hammering under your cheek before it starts to slow. He's still half-hard inside you, twitching every so often with the aftershocks. His hand runs up and down your spine, fingertips dragging lazy lines over your skin. The room smells like weed and sex and the blanket he eventually drags over your bare ass.
taglist: @honeydippedfiction @harryweeniee @mruizsworld @cixrosie @babygirlburrow @coasttocold @jbnine99 @melanie-15 @renegadebirch @yourfavmahomie @neyessibff @hallecarey1 @nngkay @itsleilabxtch @cozygirljay @nycgblogs05 @wickedfun9 @marvelislove10 @megsinnerthoughts @vroomvroommbtch @britt217 @thatgirltries @edtomh @nanouslibrary @crazygirlinthisworld @leftmyheartinapubinhampstead @savemyempire @xoxonobodyhome @onceuponatimeiwasacowgirl @unlikelystay @londonfog3 am i missing anyone? if you want to be added to the taglist, send me an ask or a dm and i'll add you, loves 🩷
pairings: joe burrow x reader 🖤
wc: 3k
masterlist | worth the risk masterlist
an: he broke dark. for a girl. what can i say. 🖤
The girls are already unbuckling and pushing out of the car before you’ve fully got it in park. Well — Lola is unbuckling herself, then Gemma. Gemma runs at the door because Gemma runs at all doors. Lola takes her time getting out.
“Hey, Mom.” Lola turns before she goes in. “Bye.”
“Bye, baby.”
She stands there a second longer. You wait. She goes.
The door closes behind them, and it’s five past ten on a Sunday, and you have your afternoon back and your evening back and the whole quiet stretch of a day you didn’t plan for.
You put the car in reverse.
—
You’re two blocks out when the dash lights up with Joe’s name.
Your stomach drops.
He shouldn’t be calling. He’s been dark since yesterday morning — he always is, home or away. You know the rhythm. You stopped texting him Saturday.
You pick up on the third ring.
“Baby, everything okay? You’re supposed to be dark.”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
You breathe out. He isn’t done.
There’s a sound like him running a hand down his face. Then, quiet, mostly to himself: “Fuck.”
“Joe.”
“I’m here. Just — hang on.”
You hear him move. A door opens somewhere on his end, then closes. The hallway sound is gone. He’s somewhere quieter now.
“Nothing’s wrong,” he says again. “I just — ” Another stop. “I don’t want to come home to an empty house tonight.”
He keeps going. “Head over whenever. Kai’ll send you the codes. Just wanted to ask before I turned my phone back off.”
“Okay,” you say.
“Okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.”
He exhales. Not a laugh — the breath he’s been holding since he decided to make the call.
“You sure?” he asks.
“I’m sure.”
There’s a stretch of nothing on the line. Not empty. Just him being on the phone with you and not hanging up.
“Go be dark,” you say, gentle. “I’ve got it.”
“Yeah.” He clears his throat. “Yeah. I’ll — see you.”
“See you.”
The call ends. You drive.
You take the long way home. Your body is a minute or two behind where you are, and you don’t feel like arriving until it catches up.
—
You pull into your driveway and sit with the engine off for another minute.
Then you go inside and pack a bag.
You don’t overthink it. Underwear, a t-shirt, your toothbrush, your face stuff. You put it all in the small duffel, then stand in your bedroom for a second, looking at the bag on the bed, and think about how strange it is to pack for his house on a Sunday morning, with the sun coming through your bedroom window.
You put your phone on the charger while you shower. You come back to a text from a Kentucky area code you don’t recognize. Wheels down around 10:45. He’ll be home around midnight. — Kai
You save the contact. Text back a thumbs up.
By 11:30 you’re locking your front door behind you.
—
You’ve made the drive a dozen times. Never alone.
The gate opens for your car — you’ve been on the list for a couple of months now — and you drive up the long approach. His cars are all in the garage. The driveway is empty except for you.
You let yourself in.
The alarm chirps its warning tone, and you punch in the code before it goes off. The house is very quiet. The kind of quiet a house has when its person isn’t in it.
You take your shoes off in the entryway because that’s what he does, and you carry them and your bag through to the kitchen because that’s the room you know best.
There’s a plate in the fridge with a note on it. Mr. B — heat 3 min if you want it warm. Extras in the container. — Anthony.
You didn’t know his chef’s name was Anthony. You learn it now, from a Post-it, in his empty kitchen, on a day he didn’t know he was going to ask you to be here for.
You don’t heat the plate. You pour yourself a glass of water, stand at the island, drink it, and look around.
—
Kickoff is at 1:00.
You know that because you looked it up on the drive. You didn’t have to. Joe has never once asked you to watch. He doesn’t watch when other people are playing. He doesn’t want you to feel like you have to.
You’re going to watch.
You find the remote after some looking — it’s in a drawer, because of course it is — and you turn the game on and the volume down and you sit on the corner of the sectional and tuck your feet under you and watch him play football in his house.
It’s strange. The camera does a wide shot of the stadium, and then a tight shot of him in the tunnel, and the tight shot is a face you have kissed. He looks like himself and also like the thing he becomes on Sundays — jaw set, eyes forward, the specific stillness he has before he goes to work.
He is very good at this. You forget sometimes. You spend so much time thinking of him as the guy who overpays for turkey pinwheels that you forget the entire country understands him primarily as this.
The first drive stalls at midfield. Punt. The camera finds him on the sideline with a tablet in his hand, and he doesn’t look angry. He looks like he’s already three drives ahead. His off-hand is doing the thing it does when he’s thinking, thumb tapping his own knuckle.
They score in the second quarter. He throws a ball to Ja’Marr that the announcers spend forty seconds talking about, and you find yourself in the empty room saying nice out loud, quietly, to no one.
By the third quarter you can tell it’s not their day.
Nothing catastrophic. Just a series of small things — a hold that erases a first down, a throw that goes off Tee’s fingertips, a coverage that keeps closing faster than it should. You watch him on the sideline between drives, and you watch his hand, and you watch him not sit down.
In the fourth quarter, he takes a hit, and your hand is at your mouth before your brain has caught up. He’s fine. He’s up in a second, waving off the trainer, but you sit on the edge of the couch in his empty house with your hand still there for a full minute afterward, and you understand, then, why he doesn’t like you to watch.
They lose by three.
The camera catches him shaking hands with the opposing QB — a line, a nod, whatever it is you say when you lose — and then walking off with his helmet in his hand, his face doing exactly nothing. You know him well enough now to know he’s already back in the film.
You turn the TV off.
—
The house is quiet again.
You wash the water glass. You take the plate from the fridge, put it in the microwave, and eat it while standing at the island. Anthony has done something with chicken, rice, and a green sauce, and it is very good in a way that reminds you that Joe eats extremely well, and that you have been eating cheese and crackers over the sink for eight years.
You wash the plate. Wipe down the counter. Turn the kitchen light off.
You walk through the house the long way because you can. Because he isn’t in it and there’s something specific about being in his space without him — like being trusted with a room. You don’t touch anything. You just look.
His office. A whiteboard covered in his handwriting, half of it in a shorthand you don’t understand. His book on the corner of the desk with a bookmark two chapters further in than the last time you noticed. A framed photo of him and Robin from a long time ago that he has never mentioned and probably never will.
You go upstairs.
His bedroom is neat the way his bedroom is always neat. Bed made. Nothing on the nightstand except a lamp and a water glass and a paperback with a receipt tucked into it. You look at the receipt without touching it — a coffee shop in Cincinnati, three weeks old, a large black and something you can’t read the ink of.
You take a hot shower. His soap. His shampoo. You put on the shirt you brought, then you take it off and put on one of his instead, from the top of the folded stack in his second drawer.
You get in his bed.
—
You mean to stay up.
You lie on your back and think about him doing whatever he does after a loss — the walk to the bus, the flight, the seat he sits in, whether he talks or whether nobody talks to him. You wonder if his teammates know that he called you this morning. You wonder if he’s told anyone. You wonder if he’s tried to picture walking into his house tonight and finding you in it, and can’t.
The pillow smells like him. The sheets smell like him. Your body has been running since 9:30 this morning.
You lie on your side facing the door.
You close your eyes for a second.
You do not open them again.
—
You surface once when the garage door hums somewhere below.
You don’t open your eyes. You’re not fully with it. You register the sound and let it move past you, the way you register Gemma coughing in the middle of the night — enough to know she’s fine and it isn’t your turn to get up.
Time slips.
The house is quiet again, and then it isn’t. A door closing. The soft mechanical sound of the alarm being reset. Nothing comes into focus. You are aware of him in the house the way you would be aware of weather.
The bedroom door clicks open.
You don’t move. Your face is turned toward it, and your eyes stay closed, and you can feel him standing there, or you’re inventing it — you can’t tell. The floor doesn’t creak in this house. He doesn’t announce himself.
Water runs. Runs a while. Stops.
The lamp doesn’t come on. His phone touches the nightstand. His watch after it, quieter.
The mattress dips.
He gets in slow, the way he moves when he’s trying not to wake you, and settles onto his side facing you, and the sheet lifts and comes back down over his shoulder, and his hand finds your hip under the blanket the way it always finds it.
He breathes out.
His breath is what wakes you.
—
You open your eyes.
He’s already looking at you.
His hand is on your hip under the blanket. The rest of him is a shape in the dark — hair damp, one arm folded under his head, the specific stillness he gets when he’s been watching you sleep and doesn’t want you to know it.
“Baby.” Quiet. Just to make sure you’re really there.
For a second neither of you moves. You’re close enough to feel the heat coming off his shoulder. He smells like his soap.
Then his hand pulls, and you go — sliding across the sheet until you’re chest to chest, your face against his throat, his arm coming up over your back to hold you there. His other hand finds the base of your spine and stays.
He exhales into your hair.
You don’t say anything. Neither does he, for a while.
“Wasn’t our day,” he says finally.
“I know.”
“You watched.”
“I watched.”
His arm tightens. That’s it. You feel his ribs expand against you as he breathes out.
—
The house is very quiet.
His jaw rests against your temple. His fingers move slowly across your back.
“That was weird,” he says.
“What was?”
“Calling you. This morning.”
You wait.
“Sat there in the hotel and couldn’t picture coming back here alone.”
“Kept trying. Couldn’t.”
You slide your hand up to the back of his neck. His hair is still damp.
“So you broke dark.”
“Yeah.” His mouth moves against your hair. “For you.”
You smile into his throat. He feels it. His palm spreads flat at the base of your spine and presses once.
A long stretch of nothing.
Then, very quiet:
“Come do this again.”
You go still. His hand doesn’t move.
“Do what.”
“Be here. When I get back.”
“Every game?”
“No.” A breath. “Just — more.”
You think about the girls. About your house. About the door he’s asking you to leave open a little wider.
“Okay,” you say.
He goes very still. Then his arm pulls you in tighter, and stays.
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
—
You don’t know what time it is. You don’t check. His breathing slows. His hand stays heavy on your back.
You reach up and slide your fingers into his damp hair.
He shifts once, presses deeper into you, and falls asleep first.
His hand doesn’t move.
You close your eyes.
—
The room is different in the morning.
Not bright. His blinds don’t allow that. But the dark has thinned — you can see the shape of him now. His face against the pillow. His arm still across you, heavy, exactly where it fell asleep.
You are looking at him before you decide to.
His eyes open.
Not a slow surface — just open, the way athletes wake up. He looks at you for a second like he’s confirming you’re actually there.
You watch his mouth. He watches you watching.
You lean in first. It starts as a morning kiss — and lasts maybe four seconds before his hand slides up under the shirt of his you slept in, palm hot on your back, pulling you closer.
He tries to roll you under him. You feel the intention in the shift of his body — and then he hisses through his teeth when his ribs protest. His hand goes to his side for a second, quick and frustrated.
You push him gently back down before he can try again. He goes, eyes dark on your face.
“Stay,” you say, already breathless.
“Okay.”
“I’ve got you.”
You swing your leg over him fast and settle on his hips. He’s already hard against you. The exhale he lets out is rough, needy.
—
You take your time at first, but the urgency is already there.
You kiss down his chest, careful of the bruise on his shoulder, then lower. You pull his boxers down and take him in your hand, stroking once, twice, before you lean in and lick up the length of him. You don’t tease long — you suck him into your mouth, wet and eager, taking him as deep as you can right away.
“Fuck,” he groans, hand fisting in your hair. “Baby — yeah, like that.”
You work him fast, hollowing your cheeks, tongue pressing along the underside, moaning around him when his hips twitch. He’s breathing hard already, fingers tight in your hair, trying not to thrust into your throat.
You pull off when you can’t wait anymore, climb back up, and sink down onto his cock in one urgent slide.
The moan you both let out is loud in the quiet room.
“Baby.” Against his jaw.
You ride him hard — hips rolling fast, taking him deep with every stroke. You keep your weight off his sore shoulder and ribs, bracing on his chest, but there’s nothing slow about it now. You fuck him like you need it, hips grinding on every downstroke.
His hands grip your waist tight, thumbs digging in. “That’s it,” he rasps. “Ride me, baby. Just like that. You’re so fucking good for me.”
You lean down, forehead to his, moving faster, grinding on every downstroke. The wet slap of skin and your shared breathing fills the room. His hand slides between you and finds your clit, rubbing desperate circles.
“Come on,” he pants against your mouth. “Come for me, baby. Let me feel it.”
“Close.”
You come hard, clenching around his cock, moaning his name into his neck. He follows with a rough groan, hips jerking up as much as he can, spilling deep inside you while his arms lock around your back.
You stay collapsed on his chest afterward, both of you panting, hearts hammering. His hand strokes down your spine, shaky but soothing.
Eventually you shift off him carefully and curl into his good side. His arm pulls you in immediately and stays.
“You okay?” you whisper.
“Yeah.” His voice is hoarse. His fingers thread into your hair. “Needed you.”
You listen to his heart slow. His hand stays heavy in your hair.
You feel him fall asleep. You don’t fight it.
taglist: @honeydippedfiction @harryweeniee @mruizsworld @cixrosie @babygirlburrow @coasttocold @jbnine99 @melanie-15 @renegadebirch @yourfavmahomie @neyessibff @hallecarey1 @nngkay @itsleilabxtch @cozygirljay @nycgblogs05 @wickedfun9 @marvelislove10 @megsinnerthoughts @vroomvroommbtch @britt217 @thatgirltries @edtomh @nanouslibrary @crazygirlinthisworld @leftmyheartinapubinhampstead @savemyempire @xoxonobodyhome @onceuponatimeiwasacowgirl @unlikelystay @londonfog3 am i missing anyone? if you want to be added to the taglist, send me an ask or a dm and i'll add you, loves 🩷
The back deck of the hockey house had always felt like an afterthought.
It was made of old timber, sun-bleached in places and darkened by rain in others. One of the railing posts leaned slightly to the left, as though it had given up trying to stand straight years ago. The steps creaked if you put your weight too close to the edge, and the outdoor light above the door flickered whenever someone inside turned on the microwave.
It was not beautiful, exactly.
But at night, when the windows of the house glowed gold behind you and the noise of the boys became muffled by glass and distance, it felt like its own small universe.
A place outside of the house.
Outside of the jokes.
Outside of the version of Dean Di Laurentis everyone knew.
Rain tapped gently against the roof above the deck, soft and steady, turning the world beyond the backyard into a blurred watercolour painting. The lawn shone dark beneath the streetlight. The trees at the end of the fence swayed slowly in the wind, their branches whispering to one another.
Inside, someone yelled at the television.
A burst of laughter followed.
Then music—too loud, too bass-heavy, someone’s terrible attempt at a party playlist—shook faintly through the wall.
Dean sat beside you on the outdoor lounge, his shoulder pressed against yours.
Not touching by accident.
Not the casual brush of arms that happened when two people shared a couch.
His whole side was tucked against you, warm and solid. His thigh rested against yours. His knee was angled toward you. One of his hands was loosely curled around your wrist, thumb stroking back and forth over the inside of it.
He had been quiet for nearly ten minutes.
For Dean, that was almost a miracle.
You glanced over at him.
His curls were damp from the rain he had run through earlier, the ends of them curling against his forehead. His mouth was soft, no sharp grin cutting across it. No dramatic expression. No joke waiting at the edge of his tongue.
Just Dean.
The version of him that only seemed to exist when there was no one else around.
“You’re thinking too loud,” you murmured.
His thumb paused against your wrist.
He turned his head slowly, looking at you from beneath his lashes. “I’m not thinking.”
“You are.”
“I’m literally sitting here.”
“You can sit and think at the same time.”
Dean frowned as if this was deeply offensive information. “That sounds exhausting.”
A small laugh slipped from you.
His expression changed immediately.
Not into the grin he wore downstairs. Not the bright, sharp smile that made everyone look at him, the one he used to pull attention toward himself like gravity.
This smile was quieter.
It was just for you.
There was something almost shy about it.
“You laugh at everything I say,” he told you.
“That is not true.”
“It absolutely is.”
“You say a lot of stupid things.”
“And yet,” he said, leaning closer, “you’re still laughing.”
You rolled your eyes, but your smile stayed.
Dean watched you for a moment too long.
He did that sometimes.
Looked at you like he was trying to memorise you without letting you know. Like he wanted to keep every tiny thing—the way your mouth curved when you smiled, the way your eyelashes lowered when you were tired, the sound of your breathing beside him—in a place no one else could touch.
Then, as if he had caught himself doing it, he looked away.
His gaze landed on the rain.
“You know,” he said quietly, “I think I like this more than parties.”
You blinked.
Dean hated silence in public.
He filled every gap in conversation with something—an impression, a dramatic retelling, a joke so ridiculous it made people groan before they laughed. At parties, he moved from room to room like he belonged everywhere at once. He joked with strangers, shouted over music, stole drinks from people’s hands and somehow convinced everyone that it had been their idea.
Dean was sunlight and noise.
Dean was impossible to ignore.
But here, in the rain-soft dark, he looked like someone who had finally put down something heavy.
“You?” you asked gently. “The Dean Di Laurentis who once made a speech at a party about why beer pong should be an Olympic sport?”
“It should be,” he said automatically.
You waited.
He sighed.
“Okay, maybe not more than parties.” His fingers tightened slightly around your wrist. “But I like this differently.”
The words sat between you.
The rain kept falling.
Inside, someone shouted Dean’s name.
He did not move.
“Dean!” Garrett called again from somewhere inside. “Are you alive?”
Dean’s eyes closed.
You bit back a smile.
“Tell him you’re dead,” you whispered.
His mouth twitched.
“I’m busy,” he called, his voice loud enough to carry through the door.
There was a pause.
Then Garrett’s voice again. “Doing what?”
Dean looked at you.
A wicked smile began to form.
You shook your head before he could say anything.
“Nothing!” he yelled.
Garrett laughed from inside. “That sounds suspicious.”
Dean muttered something under his breath, then turned back to you.
For a second, the funny version of him was still there. You could see it in the curve of his mouth, the spark in his eyes. He was always there, that version. Always ready to step forward.
But then the spark softened.
His shoulders lowered.
And he rested his head on yours.
The weight of him was gentle.
Warm.
Familiar.
“You know why I like it out here?” he asked.
You tilted your head slightly against his.
“Why?”
“Because nobody expects anything from me out here.”
The answer was so quiet you almost missed it.
Your chest tightened.
Dean stared out at the yard, his expression unreadable in the dim light.
“Inside, everyone kind of…” He paused, searching for the words. “They expect me to be on. You know?”
You did know.
Dean was the one who made the room feel lighter when someone was upset. He was the one who turned an awkward silence into laughter. The one who could make even the worst day feel less serious by saying something outrageous at exactly the right moment.
People loved him for it.
But sometimes, you wondered if anyone ever asked what happened when Dean did not feel like being funny.
“When I’m quiet,” he continued, “people always ask if something’s wrong.”
“Is something wrong?”
He looked at you.
The rain caught in the curls at his temple. His eyes reflected the porch light. His face was open in a way that made your heart ache.
“No,” he said. “Not right now.”
Then, after a moment, “But sometimes I just don’t want to be entertaining.”
“You don’t have to be.”
“I know.”
His voice softened further.
“I know that with you.”
The words landed slowly.
Like rain gathering on the edge of a roof before falling.
Dean shifted closer until he was nearly half in your lap, his arm sliding around your waist. He tucked his face into the curve of your neck with a long, quiet exhale.
You ran your fingers through his damp curls.
He made a small sound—barely there, almost embarrassed—and tightened his hold on you.
“Clingy,” you teased.
“Shut up.”
“You are.”
“I’m not clingy.”
“You are physically attached to me right now.”
“That’s because you’re warm.”
“It’s not cold.”
“It is emotionally cold,” he argued.
You laughed again, softer this time.
Dean smiled against your skin.
There he was.
Not the loud version. Not the version who made everyone laugh until their stomachs hurt. Not the version who always had a story, a flirtatious line, a joke ready to throw into the air before anyone could notice he had gone quiet.
This Dean was softer.
This Dean let himself be held.
The rain became heavier, tapping harder against the roof. The air smelled like wet grass and summer storms. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled low across the sky.
Dean did not move.
Neither did you.
You stayed like that for a long time, tangled together beneath the dim porch light.
At some point, the music inside changed. Someone began singing badly along to it. Someone else yelled for them to stop. A door slammed. Laughter rose and fell.
The hockey house continued spinning around itself.
Messy.
Loud.
Alive.
But out on the deck, there was only the sound of rain.
Only the warmth of Dean against you.
Only his breathing, slow and even now, each exhale brushing softly against your collarbone.
“You know,” he murmured, half-asleep, “I think I could stay out here forever.”
You smiled into his hair.
“You’d get hungry.”
“I’d survive.”
“You’d complain in twenty minutes.”
“I would not.”
“You would.”
Dean lifted his head just enough to glare at you.
Then he smiled.
Not the smile everyone knew.
The one he saved for you.
The one that looked like trust.
“Okay,” he admitted. “Maybe I’d complain.”
“I knew it.”
“But only if you weren’t here.”
The teasing in your voice disappeared.
Dean looked at you for a moment, his expression softening again.
Then he reached up, cupping your cheek with one hand.
His thumb brushed beneath your eye.
“You make everything quieter,” he said.
Your heart stuttered.
The rain fell around you.
The house roared behind you.
And Dean Di Laurentis, who had spent so much of his life making sure everyone else had something to laugh about, leaned forward and pressed his forehead to yours.
“I like who I am when I’m with you,” he whispered.
You kissed him slowly.
Not because the moment needed to become anything more.
Not because the rain made it romantic or because the night had softened every edge between you.
You kissed him because he was Dean.
Because he was loud and ridiculous and impossible and brilliant.
Because he made people laugh until they cried.
Because he carried the weight of every room he walked into and somehow made it look easy.
And because here, beneath the rain-dark sky, he did not have to carry anything at all.
He only had to be yours.
When you pulled away, Dean stayed close.
His nose brushed yours.
His eyes were half-lidded behind his glasses.
“Are you going to tell anyone I’m secretly a huge sap?” he asked.
“Definitely.”
His eyes widened. “Babe.”
“I’ll tell Garrett first.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“I’ll tell Hannah too.”
“Cruel,” he whispered.
You smiled.
Dean looked at you for another second, then tucked himself back into your side, his arm pulling you closer.
“You can tell them whatever you want,” he said quietly. “I don’t care.”
“You don’t?”
“No.” His voice was muffled against your shoulder. “Because they don’t get this part of me.”
The rain softened again.
The storm moved farther away.
And beneath the old porch light, wrapped in the quiet that belonged only to the two of you, Dean held you like he had nowhere else to be.
Like for once, he did not need the world to laugh.
pairings: joe burrow x reader 🩷
wc: 2.7k
an: this one is for the anon who sent in this ask. bb — i hope this holds you a little. you are so loved, and there is nothing dramatic or bothersome about needing a soft place to land. sending you the biggest hug. 🩷
cw: depression, crying, being hard on yourself. take care of yourselves reading this, loves. 🩷
The song comes on somewhere between Kenwood and home.
It's one of yours. He knows it's one of yours because he's watched you sing it in the driver's seat, in the kitchen, in the shower with the door open — head back, eyes closed, absolutely wrecking the high note every time and not caring. He liked that about you the first month he knew you. He still likes it.
You're looking out the window.
He waits through the first verse. Fingers on the wheel, one hand, the other resting on the console between you. You don't reach for it. That's a new thing. You used to put your hand under his on long drives, palm up, and leave it there.
Chorus comes. He starts singing it himself. Quiet. He gets the harmony wrong on purpose — pitches down where the song goes up, mumbles the word he knows you love — and waits for you to look over and tell him he's butchering it.
You smile at the windshield.
You don't look over.
He lets the second chorus play out and turns the radio down.
“You good?”
“Yeah.” You're already answering before he's done asking. “Just tired.”
“Yeah?”
“Long day.”
He nods. He puts his hand on your thigh, palm flat, and leaves it there. You cover it with yours after a second — not the way you used to, threaded through his fingers, just laid on top — and he doesn't say anything about that either.
At the light, he looks at you.
Your head's against the window. Eyes on the road ahead of the car. You're not on your phone, which is the other new thing — three weeks ago you'd have been showing him something a mutual sent you, laughing before he could even see the screen. Your phone is face-down on your thigh under his hand. It hasn't lit up in a while.
The light turns green.
“You want anything?” he says. “I can swing by somewhere.”
“No, I'm okay.”
“Sure?”
“I'm sure, babe. Thank you.”
The thank you gets him. You don't thank him for asking if you want a milkshake. You never have. You'd say only if you're getting one and then eat half of his no matter what you ordered. He almost points it out and doesn't.
He drives you home.
———
You're in the kitchen when you get home.
He's watching from the doorway. You've got the fridge open and you're looking at it like you don't remember what you came in for. You do this now. He's seen you do this three times this week.
“Hungry?” he says.
“No, I —” You close the fridge. “I don't know. I don't think so.”
“I can make you something.”
“You don't have to.”
“I know I don't.”
You look at him. You almost smile. It's the little one. It sits there for a second and then it's gone, and you say, “Maybe just toast.”
“Toast it is.”
He makes you toast. Butter, cinnamon, the way you like it. He puts it on your plate and hands it to you and you take it with both hands like it's more than toast, and he watches you eat half a piece standing at the counter before you say you're going to go get ready for bed.
It's nine.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I'm just —”
“Tired.” He finishes it for you. He doesn't mean to. It comes out gentle. You look at him like you've been caught at something and he wants to take it back immediately.
“Sorry,” you say.
“For what.”
“I don't know.”
He sets the pan down. He crosses the kitchen and he puts his hand on the back of your neck the way he does, thumb behind your ear, and he leans down and kisses your forehead. You close your eyes. You lean into his hand a little. Not much. Enough.
“Go to bed, babe.”
“You coming?”
“In a bit. Gonna clean up.”
“Okay.”
You go. He listens to you go — bathroom, the water running, the medicine cabinet, the water again, the bedroom door. He cleans the kitchen slower than he needs to. He wipes down a counter that isn't dirty. He puts the butter back in the fridge and stands there with the door open the way you were doing ten minutes ago and doesn't know why.
When he gets to the bedroom, the light under the door is off.
He knows before he opens it that you're not asleep. He can just tell. Something about the way the room feels — you're too still, or you're not still enough, or he's known you long enough that your sleeping body sounds different than your awake one and this is the awake one. He gets in bed. He doesn't turn a light on. He rolls toward you and puts his arm over your waist and pulls you back against him, and you come — you always come, you've never once not — but you don't reach back for his hand. You used to find his fingers under the covers and lace them through yours before he'd even settled.
Tonight your hand stays where it is.
He puts his face in the back of your neck and breathes.
He doesn't say anything.
He's not going to say anything tonight.
———
He's up before you.
He's downstairs making matcha when he hears you moving around in the bedroom. Drawer opening. Drawer closing. Another drawer. He finishes his and starts one for you the way you like it, and he's on the landing with it when he hears the small sound.
He wouldn't have heard it from the kitchen. It's that small.
He sets the mug on the hallway console and goes.
You're on the bedroom floor. You're in one of his shirts and nothing else and you've got the top drawer of your jewelry stand pulled all the way out, in your lap, and you're going through it with both hands — sorting, pushing things aside, checking the same corner twice — and you're crying. Not loud. You haven't made the sound again. Your shoulders are doing it and your face is wet and you haven't looked up.
He says your name.
You don't hear him. Or you hear him and you can't stop.
“Babe.”
“I can't find them,” you say. You're still looking. Your hands are still moving. “I can't find them, Joe, they were right here, they're always right here —”
“Okay.”
“They're the — you know the ones, the little gold ones, the — I got them at that place in Athens, they're not — I don't even know why I —”
You stop. You put both hands over your face.
He's already moving. He's on the floor before you've gotten the next word out, sitting behind you, pulling you back against his chest with one arm around your ribs and the other hand where it goes — palm at the back of your neck, thumb behind your ear, holding. You come back against him hard. Your whole body does. Like you've been holding yourself up for a long time and you finally get to stop.
He doesn't say anything for a while.
He just holds on.
Your hands are still over your face. He can feel you trying to breathe and not being able to. He puts his mouth against the top of your head and keeps it there.
“Hey.”
You shake your head.
“Hey. I've got you.”
“I'm sorry,” you say into your hands. “I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, it's — it's earrings, Joe, it's stupid earrings, I don't know what's —”
“Shh.”
“I don't know what's wrong with me.”
His arm tightens.
“Nothing's wrong with you.”
“Joe —”
“Nothing's wrong with you, baby.”
You cry harder. He feels it in his chest, the whole shape of it, and he doesn't move. He doesn't try to turn you around and look at you. He doesn't ask you anything. He puts his chin on top of your head and he holds on, and his hand stays where it is, thumb moving slow behind your ear, and he lets you.
The drawer is still in your lap. He reaches around and lifts it gently and sets it on the carpet next to you, and then he puts his arm back where it was.
You keep crying.
He keeps holding on.
He's not going anywhere.
———
You stay there a while.
He doesn't count how long. You're not crying as hard anymore — it's coming in slower now, the shape of it changing, and he can feel you starting to breathe again. His hand is still where it was. Thumb still moving. He hasn't said anything in a while and you haven't either, and the sun is coming through the blinds in the flat morning way it does, and the drawer is on the carpet next to your knee.
You take your hands off your face.
You don't turn around. You keep your back against his chest and you look at the drawer on the floor and you say, “Joe.”
“Yeah.”
“I'm —”
You stop. He waits.
“I'm sorry.”
“Baby —”
“No, I — I mean it, I'm — I've been like this, I know I've been like this, and I didn't want to —”
You stop again. He can feel you trying to get the sentence out and not getting there. He doesn't help you. He wants the shape of it from you, whatever shape it comes in.
“I didn't want to make it your thing,” you say. “I didn't want to be a — I know it's been weeks, I know you can tell, I'm not — I know I haven't been, and I just — I didn't want to load it on you when it's not even — I don't even have a reason. Nothing happened. I just feel like this and I couldn't figure out how to tell you that without it sounding —”
“Without it sounding what.”
“Dramatic.”
He closes his eyes.
“Or like I was — I didn't want to be a bother. You've got so much going on and I'm just —”
“Stop.”
You stop.
He turns you around. Not fast. He shifts and he gets his hands on your shoulders and he moves you so you're facing him on the floor, cross-legged, knees against his, and he waits until you look at him. It takes you a second. Your eyes are red and your face is a mess and you won't quite meet him at first, and he waits, and you do.
“You're not —” He stops. He can hear himself about to get it wrong and he stops. He tries again. “There's no version of this where you're a bother. Okay? That's not — you don't get to be that. To me.”
“Joe.”
“You're just mine.” He says it like it's the answer to a question. “The sad part too. That's mine too. That's not — you're not loading it on me. I'm already carrying it, I've been carrying it, that's — that's the deal.”
You start crying again.
He pulls you back in. Your forehead against his collarbone, both his arms around you, one hand at the back of your head now, the other flat between your shoulder blades. You've got a fist in the front of his shirt. He can feel it. He doesn't let go.
“I've been trying,” you say into him.
“I know you have.”
“I didn't want you to —”
“I know.”
“I love you.”
“I love you.” He says it into your hair. “I love you. I love you when you're like this. That's not — that doesn't turn off, babe, that's not how it works.”
You nod against him. Small. He feels it more than he sees it.
He keeps holding on.
———
You've stopped crying.
You're still against him. You haven't moved and he hasn't moved you. His shirt is wet where your face is and neither of you cares. He can feel you breathing. You're doing it deliberately now — the long inhale, the slow release — and he recognizes it. It's the thing you taught yourself for the anxious nights. He didn't know you'd been using it lately. He does now.
“Hey.”
“Hm.”
“Come here.”
He stands up first. He does it slow so you can hold onto him if you need to, and you do — one hand at the hem of his shirt, the other braced on his forearm — and he pulls you up with him. You're smaller like this. You're always smaller like this and he never gets used to it.
He walks you to the bed.
You sit on the edge and he crosses the room and opens the second drawer down, the one that used to be his and became yours, and he pulls out the black hoodie. The one you steal. The one that lives in there now because there was no point pretending it was his anymore. He brings it back and he crouches in front of you and he holds it open at the hem, and you lift your arms without him asking.
He pulls it over your head.
He fixes your hair for you where it caught in the collar. He does it with both hands, careful, one piece at a time, and you close your eyes.
“Water,” he says.
“Joe —”
“I'm getting you water. Get in bed.”
You get in bed.
He goes downstairs. He's back in ninety seconds with the water and the matcha he made for you an hour ago, cold now, and he sets both on your nightstand and gets in bed next to you on top of the covers. He puts his back against the headboard. He opens his arm.
You come.
He arranges you against him the way you like — your head on his chest just under his collarbone, one of your legs between his, his arm across your back, his hand where it goes on the back of your neck. You tuck your hand up under his shirt against his ribs the way you always do. First time in weeks. He feels it and doesn't say anything.
His other hand finds the top of your head. Fingers in your hair. Slow.
“You don't have to talk,” he says.
“Okay.”
“I mean it. Not right now. Not later either if you don't want to. Whenever.”
“Okay.”
“But I'm here for it. When you want to. All of it.”
You nod against his chest.
He keeps his hand in your hair. He looks at the ceiling. The sun has moved a little on the wall and he watches it and he doesn't move and you don't move and after a while your breathing starts to change — slower, deeper, that different sound — and he realizes you're actually asleep. First time in maybe a week that you've actually slept.
He stays exactly where he is.
He's not going anywhere.
———
It's almost dark when you come downstairs.
You woke up around six in his hoodie with his arm still around you. You cried again for a minute, quiet, and he didn't move. You told him you'd come down in a minute and he kissed your forehead and left the room, and you heard him downstairs a while later. You washed your face. You took your time.
He's in the kitchen. He's got a pan going and he doesn't turn around, just holds out an arm, and you go to him and he pulls you into his side and kisses the top of your head and hands you the wooden spoon.
“Sit,” he says. “I've got it.”
You sit on the counter. He cooks. He asks you what you want to watch after and you say you don't care, and he says that means Bravo, and you almost smile.
He turns the water on to rinse something at the sink.
He stops.
He reaches for something on the counter by the faucet and turns around and holds out his hand.
“Babe.”
You look.
In his palm — the little gold ones. Both of them.
You don't say anything. You take them from him. You hold them in your closed fist against your chest and you look at him, and he's looking at you, and he doesn't say see, they were here the whole time and he doesn't say anything about the morning at all. He just puts his hand on your knee and squeezes once.
“I love you,” he says.
Then he goes back to the pan.
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☄︎ Warnings: Phil Graham mention, trauma mention (not explicit), P in V.
☄︎ Pairing: Graham!Reader x Dean Di Laurentis
☄︎ Rating/Genre: Mature (🔞). Smut. (Light) Angst.
☄︎ Words: 1942
☄︎ Summary: You use Dean to help you to deal with the aftermath of your father's visit.
💭: i wrote this in a rush before the concert as i couldn't get it out of my mind, i'll come back to proofread after heheh. if you enjoyed, please consider leaving a comment, ask, reblog etc, it means a lot xx
Original request here. 〣 Off Campus Masterlist here.〣 Dean Masterlist here.
Standing in the open doorway of the hockey house, you can feel the sharp bite of the autumn wind on your face and the heavy weight of a lie on your chest. Telling Garrett the truth about your life would basically be begging him to lock you in the house forever, but lying to him today of all days leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.
Your father made an unwarranted visit to the rink today. His visit, like always, sent you both into a downward spiral. A piece of you screams that you should stay and be there for your brother. Another piece says it is selfish to pretend you are spending the night at Hannah's, knowing that you are essentially taking away his ability to seek comfort from her tonight, too.
But then, you remind yourself of how he shut down the second you left the ice. He refused to talk, insisting he wanted to be left alone. If he is going to shut the both of you out anyway, you might as well seek out your own comfort.
Garrett leans against the doorframe, checking his watch. “I could drop you off, you know,” he offers, his voice carrying that familiar heavy protectiveness that always flares up whenever your father tries to force his way back into your lives.
“Thanks, but I’m good,” you say, your voice unnecessarily short as the guilt of your deception pricks at your conscience. The screen of your phone illuminates, a little banner reading ‘Your Uber has arrived’. “Plus, my Uber is here, so...”
Lifting your fakely packed overnight bag higher onto your shoulder, you step out onto the porch. Garrett follows you.
“Text me when you get there,” he calls out.
“I will,” you promise. You turn to walk down the steps, but a sudden surge of guilt stops you in your tracks. You turn back, catching his worried gaze. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” Garrett says, a fond smile briefly touching his lips.
Over his shoulder, through the still-open front door, you catch Dean lounging on the sofa in the living room. His posture is relaxed, his eyes casually tracking the scene, but there is a knowing smirk on his face as he pretends not to listen in.
Only once you’ve climbed into the waiting Uber and it’s pulling away from the curb does Garrett finally close the front door.
Once you are halfway down the block, you tap on the driver’s shoulder. “Could you just drop me off around the corner? You don’t need to cancel the trip, though.”
“Sure thing, miss,” the driver replies with a nod, turning the next corner. You step out onto the quiet street and pull out your phone, quickly firing off a text to Hannah.
You (20:40): left about a min ago, still okay to cover for me??
Hannah (20:41): Always. I’ve got you covered if he calls.
You (20:42): thanks sis❤️
You double back, moving quietly until you reach the rear of the hockey house. The metal of the fire escape is cold beneath your boots as you climb upward, aiming for Dean’s second-floor window. As expected, he’s left it cracked open just for you.
He’s cleared the stuff from the table under the windowsill, so you’re able to quietly slip inside the dark bedroom. You don’t need to turn on the light; you know your way around well. Moving in the dim light of the hallway spilling through the doorway, you strip off your clothes, leaving yourself in just your panties and a matching bra, as you slip beneath the cool sheets of his bed.
Downstairs, the house is alive with commotion as they start to pregame for their night out. You hear Garrett saying he’ll meet them out, but the way he storms up the stairs and slams the door tells you he’ll likely spend the rest of the night locked up in his room.
“I’m not out tonight boys,” Dean’s voice floats up from the bottom of the stairs, dripping with faux-exhaustion. “Some of us actually worked hard at practice today.”
There’s a series of boos and loud, mocking groans from Tucker and Logan.
It feels like an agonisingly long wait as you lay in the dark, waiting for Dean to come up. A minute later, the bedroom door pushes slightly open as Dean slips into the room.
“You took your time,” you hiss quietly once he’s closed the door.
He chuckles, pulling off his shirt in the dark. “Sorry. Wasn't easy to convince them that I'm sleepy at nine fucking thirty. I’m pretty sure Graham saw right through me.”
“Are you scared of Garrett?” you ask, watching as he strips out of his trousers.
“He’s a psycho when it comes to you and Hannah,” Dean admits, a dry laugh escaping his lips as he crawls into bed beside you. He pulls the covers off of you and gives an approving nod as he notes your matching set. “Hot.”
He pulls you closer, shifting so that he’s on top of you. Instinctively, you wrapped your legs around his waist and arms around his neck, breath hitching as you watch his eyes flicker down to your lips.
Usually, you tried to avoid kissing Dean, it brought about feelings you were too scared to try and dissect. But he kissed you now and you welcomed it. His body is warm against yours, the kiss so messy and passionate that it leaves your mind dizzy.
He pulls away from the kiss and an uncomfortable feeling of pride settles within you as you see how utterly dishevelled he looks, his eyes lidded and lips swollen.
“Do you wanna talk about today?” he asks gently.
The mention of the day immediately sours your mood. The sudden anxiety and old family baggage come rushing back, and even though you know Dean is just trying to be supportive, the frustration immediately takes over.
You push slightly against his chest. “If I wanted to talk, it wouldn’t be with you.”
“Oh. Ouch,” he says, looking genuinely wounded.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” you sigh, the tension turning into exasperation. “I just meant if I needed to address my daddy issues, I’d do that with a licensed therapist or some shit.”
“Daddy Dean can help,” he offers, his eyes flashing with a playful glint.
“And just like that, I’m dry,” you deadpan.
He reaches between your bodies, touching the damn of your panties. “The lie detector determined...”
“Dean.”
He laughs, a deep rumble vibrating against your chest. “I just mean I can be there for you.”
“I know, Dean,” you whisper, shifting closer to look into his eyes. “But right now, I just need you here.”
Dean closes the distance between you again. This time, he kisses you with deliberate purpose. It’s a kiss meant to prove a point, an unspoken promise that he can be so much more to you than just a fun hookup or your brother's teammate.
His hands are warm and sure as they glide over your skin, touching you everywhere apart from where you need them. He traces the curve of your waist, the line of your ribs, his fingers brushing the waistband of your lace panties before maddeningly pulling away to map the skin of your thigh.
“Dean,” you whisper against his mouth, a quiet plea wrapped in a gasp. You tug at his hair, trying to pull him down, trying to force him to skip the foreplay and just give you the distraction you are craving.
He hums against your lips. “That desperate for me, Graham?”
“Shut up,” you breathe, shifting your hips against his.
He whines softly as you keep shifting your hips up into him.
“How do you want it?” He manages out.
“I just need you to fuck me, and I don’t want it slow.”
Dean does as he’s told, shedding off his boxers before helping you out of your panties. “I’ll kiss you next time, baby,” he says to your pussy before lining himself up to your entrance, and bottoming out. Dean holds himself there for a few seconds, pupils blown.
“Move,” you whined, purposely clenching around him.
Dean grips your hips, fingers sinking into your skin with a pressure that you know will leave a bruise. He snaps his hips into you at a relentless pace, just as you asked. Your body and mind is consumed with him, the little grunts and pants he lets out as he gives you all he can.
It’s exactly as you wanted, hard and fast and makes you forget your own name. Your body revels in the burn of being used like this. You look down and watch as his length disappears within you, reaching the spot that had you seeing stars easily.
No amount of biting your lip is able to stop the loud moan that rips from your throat. Dean instantly leans over you, his palm covering your mouth as he keeps fucking into you.
“Shh, baby,” he says, his eyes locking onto yours. “They’ll hear you.”
He doesn’t move his palm from your mouth or take his eyes off of you as he keeps fucking you. Sweat’s rolling down his neck now, dampening his hair. A sudden burning desire to pull him closer, to lick the sweat off of his neck before kissing him deeply hits you.
“Do you want to cum?” He asks, ever so considerate.
You nod against his palm and he reaches between your bodies, three fingers pressing down as he rubs on your clit.
You cum as quietly as you can, biting down on his palm to keep quiet. As you come down from your high, he finally moves his hand from your mouth, his fingers locking with yours against the pillows.
When he finally cums in you, he holds you fiercely. It’s too much, too intimate. His hips move slower and with a passion that forces you to feel every single second of his orgasm.
The adrenaline fades, and the reality of the evening comes crashing back down on you. The heavy weight of the day hits you all at once, made worse by Dean’s spoken, and unspoken, confessions. You can feel the tears begin to prick at your eyes.
Before anything can truly settle, you slide out from beneath him, ignoring the uncomfortable feeling of the cum dripping from your hole. You stand up and immediately start grabbing your clothes from the floor, pulling them on with hurried, trembling fingers.
Dean props himself up on his elbow, watching your frantic movements in the dark. “Wait, where are you going?”
You had planned to spend the entire night here, tucked safely away in his bed, but you can't breathe in this room anymore.
“I’m going to Hannah’s,” you say, your voice tight as you pull your shirt over your head.
“But I thought you were going to stay?” Dean asks, his brow furrowing in confusion as he looks up at you.
“I don’t think I can,” you say softly, unable to meet his eyes.
“Please don’t leave,” he begs. The vulnerable tone in his voice is a rare thing, and it is almost enough to pull you right back into the bed, back into the safety of his arms.
But the voice in your head is too loud. “Sorry, but I have to.”
You pull on the last of your clothes and grab your overnight bag. He doesn’t stop you as you climb back down the metal fire escape. Tears stream down your face as you pull out your phone, typing in Hannah's address to call an Uber for real this time.
💭: thank you so much for reading! the ending of this one honestly broke my heart a lil to write. i've not really gone into the graham family drama before but i think it makes for an intersting fic... thoughts on this one? 🎤
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