Jo | 21 | Aries | I obsessed very easily. I'm part of the Hunters, Echelon, Ackleholics, Sinners, Gladers, Musers, Potterheads, Stirlingites, Winter's Children, Hiddlestoners, Youngbloods, Cumberbitches, Deaners, Firebreathers, Killjoys, Skeleton Clique, and well you get the jest. Also, I love and I mean love quotes, books, and coffee!
summary: while your son is undeniably a mini version of logan, your daughter is turning into a mini version of you
established relationship
warnings: literally just fluff
word count: 1.8k
a/n: 1K CELEBRATION FIC!!! YAYAYAYAY!! i hope you enjoy my loves<3 thank you all so so much for everything, i can’t believe i’ve hit 1k likeeee that’s so insane?!?!? i love and appreciate every single one of you
john logan masterlist off campus masterlist
── ᵎᵎ ✦
people always talked about how much your daughter looked like logan. from the moment she was born, nurses, relatives, strangers in grocery stores — everyone had something to say.
"she has his eyes." "that smile is all logan." "just wait. she's going to have him wrapped around her little finger."
you would smile every time, because they weren't wrong. she had his chocolate brown eyes, the same soft brown hair, the same dimple that only appeared when she smiled hard enough.
standing next to her eight-year-old brother, there was no denying they were siblings. your son had inherited more of you physically, while your daughter looked like someone had simply shrunk logan down into toddler form.
logan loved hearing it. he'd scoop her into his arms with a grin and say, "of course she's my kid."
your son, meanwhile, had never needed anyone to tell him he was his father's son.
by twelve, he was already all elbows and knees, forever smelling faintly of hockey gear, forever coming home with another bruise and another story that started with, "okay, but listen..."
he laughed too loudly, talked with his hands, couldn't sit still through an entire movie, and acted before thinking. he was logan in every possible way. you'd known it for years and logan wore it like a badge of honor.
nobody questioned that your daughter eventually also would grow into another version of her dad.
you found her in the living room one chilly october evening. the television hummed quietly in the background, filling the house with soft voices while rain tapped steadily against the windows.
you'd only stepped into the kitchen to make tea, but when you came back, she wasn't where you'd left her, “sweetheart?"
"in here!" a tiny voice sounded, and when you rounded the couch you stopped.
your favorite knitted blanket, the oversized cream one logan always teased you about, was dragging halfway across the hardwood floor behind her.
it was far too big for her tiny body, so she'd clearly struggled to pull it off the armchair.
she tugged it with determined little huffs until she reached the couch. then, with complete seriousness, she climbed up, tucked both feet underneath herself, pulled the blanket over her lap, wrapped it around her shoulders, and disappeared beneath it until only her little face peeked out.
you smiled before you even realized you were smiling, “cozy?"
she nodded, “very."
you crossed the room, sat beside her, and without thinking reached for the throw blanket draped over the back of the couch.
logan walked in just as you settled beneath it. he looked from from your daughter to you, and then back to you again.
the two of you were sitting in exactly the same position. knees tucked up, blankets wrapped around your shoulders, and cups of something warm balanced carefully in your hands. even the way she absentmindedly rubbed the edge of the blanket between her fingers looked familiar.
by the time she turned seven, your son was fifteen and old enough to tower over you, complain about homework while inhaling enough food to feed three people, and to pretend he was too cool for family baking afternoons.
until chocolate chip cookies were involved, “i'm only helping because someone has to make sure dad doesn't burn them."
logan gasped dramatically, “i have never burned cookies."
your son raised an eyebrow, “mom?"
you looked up from measuring flour, “he burned them last christmas."
"traitor," logan muttered.
the kitchen filled with laughter. your daughter somehow ended up with chocolate on her cheek before a single cookie reached the oven, logan had flour in his hair, and your son kept stealing chocolate chips.
it was chaotic, yes, but also exactly the way your kitchen always seemed to be.
once the cookies had cooled enough to touch, you set the tray on the island, “okay," you said. “everyone gets one."
your daughter studied the tray with surprising concentration. she wasn't reaching, or grabbing whichever cookie happened to be closest. instead, she carefully looked over every single one.
finally, she picked up the most perfect cookie on the tray. it was perfectly round and golden, with the chocolate chips melted just enough.
logan smiled, “good choice, kiddo."
however, instead of biting into it, she walked straight over to your son, “here."
he looked up from his phone, “for me?"
she nodded, “it's the best one."
he showed her a small smile and took it without hesitation, “thanks."
logan watched her return to the tray and choose one of the slightly misshapen cookies for herself, “hang on.” everyone looked at him as he spoke, “why'd you give him the best one?"
your daughter frowned, “'cause i wanted him to have the best one."
"why?"
"because i love him." she shrugged as though that explained everything.
logan slowly turned toward you noticing you'd gone strangely quiet, “you do that."
you blinked, “do what?"
"that." he pointed toward the cookies, “you always give everyone the best one."
you opened your mouth to give a sassy response, but closed it again when you couldn’t come up with anything, “i don't think i do."
your son laughed, “yeah, you do."
you looked at him, “i do?"
"every time,” he said as he started counting on his fingers, “the biggest cinnamon roll, the nicest pancake, the grilled cheese that's the least burnt, and you always switch plates when dad's looks worse."
your cheeks warmed. you honestly hadn't realized. it wasn't something you consciously decided. if one serving looked nicer than the others... someone else got it. you shrugged awkwardly, “i don't know"
"mom," your son interrupted, “last week you literally traded pizzas with me because mine had less cheese."
logan looked back at your daughter, and when he saw she'd already broken her own cookie in half, happily munching away without a second though, he smiled to himself.
when your daughter was eight, your son had just turned sixteen. he was now old enough to drive, but also old enough to leave hockey gear absolutely everywhere in the house despite years of gentle reminders.
and logan... had somehow remained exactly the same. his hoodie landed over dining chairs. keys appeared on the kitchen counter. coffee mugs multiplied throughout the house as though reproducing on their own.
you had long ago accepted that cleaning up after him was simply part of loving him. you teased him about it, and he apologized. then he did it again three hours later.
one saturday morning, he'd left his sneakers in the hallway, his jacket over the banister, and his wallet on the kitchen island. however, by lunchtime everything had disappeared.
logan frowned, “where'd my jacket go?"
"closet," your daughter answered from the living room.
"my wallet?"
"nightstand."
"shoes?"
"shoe rack."
he found every single item exactly where she'd said before he returned to the living room, “did you move all my stuff?"
she looked up from her coloring book, “yeah."
"why?"
she tilted her head, “‘cause you forgot.”
he laughed, “i didn't forget."
she slowly looked toward the hallway, then back at him, “you did."
before he could answer, she climbed off the couch, walked into the kitchen, picked up the coffee mug he'd abandoned five minutes earlier, and carried it to the sink. all with the practiced ease of someone who'd done it a hundred times. logan watched her go, “sweetheart?"
"yeah?"
"you don't have to clean up after me."
your daughter smiled, “i know."
"then why do you do it?"
"'cause you're messy,” she shrugged.
while listening in to their conversation from the kitchen, you let out a laugh. logan, however, looked horrified, “excuse me?"
she pointed toward the chair behind him. his hoodie. again, “you forgot."
he turned slowly toward you, pointing his finger at you from the livingroom, “this is your fault." you didn't even pretend to deny it, “i've been cleaning up after you since college."
your daughter turned ten, your son turned eighteen. life somehow became busier than either you or logan remembered agreeing to. college applications, travel hockey, dance rehearsals, late-night practices, and early mornings. the house never seemed completely quiet anymore.
one rainy friday evening, your son came through the front door looking exhausted. his hockey bag hit the floor with a heavy thud, and his shoulders sagged. he didn't even call out his usual, "i'm home."
you noticed immediately from the kitchen. you'd barely started drying your hands when your daughter beat you to him. she glanced up from the dining table where she'd been working on homework.
one look. that was all it took.
without saying anything, she stood, walked into the kitchen and filled his water bottle before opening the refrigerator to pull out the leftover pasta from the night before and slide it into the microwave.
she didn't ask if he was hungry, because she already knew.
after the microwave beeped, she carried the bowl over, “here."
your son blinked, “thanks."
"practice?"
he sighed, “long."
she nodded once before sitting down beside him. she didn’t talk or try to cheer him up. she just... kept him company while he ate.
logan watched the entire thing from the doorway in silence. you stepped beside him and his arm instinctively wrapped around your waist. neither of you interrupted.
after a minute, your son finally started talking. about a rough practice, a coach who'd been harder on everyone lately, and how tired he was.
your daughter listened; she didn't interrupt, didn't offer solutions, didn't tell him he'd be fine. she simply nodded every now and then, asking quiet little questions that kept him talking. by the time he'd finished eating, the heaviness in his shoulders had eased, and he smiled, “thanks, weirdo."
"you're welcome," she gathered the empty bowl before he could stand. “i'll put it away."
"i can—"
"i know,” she smiled. “i've got it."
logan looked toward the kitchen where your daughter quietly rinsed the bowl and placed it into the dishwasher before looking back at you. his expression had gone unexpectedly soft, “that's you."
your chest tightened at his words. you'd never sat your daughter down and explained those things. you'd never told her to notice when someone was tired, overwhelmed, or hurting. she'd simply watched you.
she'd watched you make logan coffee before he asked. watched you leave snacks outside your son’s room during exam week. watched you rub tired shoulders, remember favorite meals, notice little changes in people's moods before they said a word. she'd learned that love lived in ordinary things.
logan slipped his hand into yours, his thumb brushing gently across your knuckles, “i used to think she'd grow up to be another me."
you smiled, “disappointed?"
he laughed quietly, “not even close."
across the room, your son leaned over to bump his shoulder against your daughter’s. she laughed, and without thinking, she reached over and brushed a stray curl out of his face before returning to her homework. it was another tiny habit. another thing she'd seen you do a thousand times.
logan watched them for a long moment: his loud, reckless son, and his quiet, observant daughter. he couldn't imagine a more perfect balance.
summary: while your son is undeniably a mini version of logan, your daughter is turning into a mini version of you
established relationship
warnings: literally just fluff
word count: 1.8k
a/n: 1K CELEBRATION FIC!!! YAYAYAYAY!! i hope you enjoy my loves<3 thank you all so so much for everything, i can’t believe i’ve hit 1k likeeee that’s so insane?!?!? i love and appreciate every single one of you
john logan masterlist off campus masterlist
── ᵎᵎ ✦
people always talked about how much your daughter looked like logan. from the moment she was born, nurses, relatives, strangers in grocery stores — everyone had something to say.
"she has his eyes." "that smile is all logan." "just wait. she's going to have him wrapped around her little finger."
you would smile every time, because they weren't wrong. she had his chocolate brown eyes, the same soft brown hair, the same dimple that only appeared when she smiled hard enough.
standing next to her eight-year-old brother, there was no denying they were siblings. your son had inherited more of you physically, while your daughter looked like someone had simply shrunk logan down into toddler form.
logan loved hearing it. he'd scoop her into his arms with a grin and say, "of course she's my kid."
your son, meanwhile, had never needed anyone to tell him he was his father's son.
by twelve, he was already all elbows and knees, forever smelling faintly of hockey gear, forever coming home with another bruise and another story that started with, "okay, but listen..."
he laughed too loudly, talked with his hands, couldn't sit still through an entire movie, and acted before thinking. he was logan in every possible way. you'd known it for years and logan wore it like a badge of honor.
nobody questioned that your daughter eventually also would grow into another version of her dad.
you found her in the living room one chilly october evening. the television hummed quietly in the background, filling the house with soft voices while rain tapped steadily against the windows.
you'd only stepped into the kitchen to make tea, but when you came back, she wasn't where you'd left her, “sweetheart?"
"in here!" a tiny voice sounded, and when you rounded the couch you stopped.
your favorite knitted blanket, the oversized cream one logan always teased you about, was dragging halfway across the hardwood floor behind her.
it was far too big for her tiny body, so she'd clearly struggled to pull it off the armchair.
she tugged it with determined little huffs until she reached the couch. then, with complete seriousness, she climbed up, tucked both feet underneath herself, pulled the blanket over her lap, wrapped it around her shoulders, and disappeared beneath it until only her little face peeked out.
you smiled before you even realized you were smiling, “cozy?"
she nodded, “very."
you crossed the room, sat beside her, and without thinking reached for the throw blanket draped over the back of the couch.
logan walked in just as you settled beneath it. he looked from from your daughter to you, and then back to you again.
the two of you were sitting in exactly the same position. knees tucked up, blankets wrapped around your shoulders, and cups of something warm balanced carefully in your hands. even the way she absentmindedly rubbed the edge of the blanket between her fingers looked familiar.
by the time she turned seven, your son was fifteen and old enough to tower over you, complain about homework while inhaling enough food to feed three people, and to pretend he was too cool for family baking afternoons.
until chocolate chip cookies were involved, “i'm only helping because someone has to make sure dad doesn't burn them."
logan gasped dramatically, “i have never burned cookies."
your son raised an eyebrow, “mom?"
you looked up from measuring flour, “he burned them last christmas."
"traitor," logan muttered.
the kitchen filled with laughter. your daughter somehow ended up with chocolate on her cheek before a single cookie reached the oven, logan had flour in his hair, and your son kept stealing chocolate chips.
it was chaotic, yes, but also exactly the way your kitchen always seemed to be.
once the cookies had cooled enough to touch, you set the tray on the island, “okay," you said. “everyone gets one."
your daughter studied the tray with surprising concentration. she wasn't reaching, or grabbing whichever cookie happened to be closest. instead, she carefully looked over every single one.
finally, she picked up the most perfect cookie on the tray. it was perfectly round and golden, with the chocolate chips melted just enough.
logan smiled, “good choice, kiddo."
however, instead of biting into it, she walked straight over to your son, “here."
he looked up from his phone, “for me?"
she nodded, “it's the best one."
he showed her a small smile and took it without hesitation, “thanks."
logan watched her return to the tray and choose one of the slightly misshapen cookies for herself, “hang on.” everyone looked at him as he spoke, “why'd you give him the best one?"
your daughter frowned, “'cause i wanted him to have the best one."
"why?"
"because i love him." she shrugged as though that explained everything.
logan slowly turned toward you noticing you'd gone strangely quiet, “you do that."
you blinked, “do what?"
"that." he pointed toward the cookies, “you always give everyone the best one."
you opened your mouth to give a sassy response, but closed it again when you couldn’t come up with anything, “i don't think i do."
your son laughed, “yeah, you do."
you looked at him, “i do?"
"every time,” he said as he started counting on his fingers, “the biggest cinnamon roll, the nicest pancake, the grilled cheese that's the least burnt, and you always switch plates when dad's looks worse."
your cheeks warmed. you honestly hadn't realized. it wasn't something you consciously decided. if one serving looked nicer than the others... someone else got it. you shrugged awkwardly, “i don't know"
"mom," your son interrupted, “last week you literally traded pizzas with me because mine had less cheese."
logan looked back at your daughter, and when he saw she'd already broken her own cookie in half, happily munching away without a second though, he smiled to himself.
when your daughter was eight, your son had just turned sixteen. he was now old enough to drive, but also old enough to leave hockey gear absolutely everywhere in the house despite years of gentle reminders.
and logan... had somehow remained exactly the same. his hoodie landed over dining chairs. keys appeared on the kitchen counter. coffee mugs multiplied throughout the house as though reproducing on their own.
you had long ago accepted that cleaning up after him was simply part of loving him. you teased him about it, and he apologized. then he did it again three hours later.
one saturday morning, he'd left his sneakers in the hallway, his jacket over the banister, and his wallet on the kitchen island. however, by lunchtime everything had disappeared.
logan frowned, “where'd my jacket go?"
"closet," your daughter answered from the living room.
"my wallet?"
"nightstand."
"shoes?"
"shoe rack."
he found every single item exactly where she'd said before he returned to the living room, “did you move all my stuff?"
she looked up from her coloring book, “yeah."
"why?"
she tilted her head, “‘cause you forgot.”
he laughed, “i didn't forget."
she slowly looked toward the hallway, then back at him, “you did."
before he could answer, she climbed off the couch, walked into the kitchen, picked up the coffee mug he'd abandoned five minutes earlier, and carried it to the sink. all with the practiced ease of someone who'd done it a hundred times. logan watched her go, “sweetheart?"
"yeah?"
"you don't have to clean up after me."
your daughter smiled, “i know."
"then why do you do it?"
"'cause you're messy,” she shrugged.
while listening in to their conversation from the kitchen, you let out a laugh. logan, however, looked horrified, “excuse me?"
she pointed toward the chair behind him. his hoodie. again, “you forgot."
he turned slowly toward you, pointing his finger at you from the livingroom, “this is your fault." you didn't even pretend to deny it, “i've been cleaning up after you since college."
your daughter turned ten, your son turned eighteen. life somehow became busier than either you or logan remembered agreeing to. college applications, travel hockey, dance rehearsals, late-night practices, and early mornings. the house never seemed completely quiet anymore.
one rainy friday evening, your son came through the front door looking exhausted. his hockey bag hit the floor with a heavy thud, and his shoulders sagged. he didn't even call out his usual, "i'm home."
you noticed immediately from the kitchen. you'd barely started drying your hands when your daughter beat you to him. she glanced up from the dining table where she'd been working on homework.
one look. that was all it took.
without saying anything, she stood, walked into the kitchen and filled his water bottle before opening the refrigerator to pull out the leftover pasta from the night before and slide it into the microwave.
she didn't ask if he was hungry, because she already knew.
after the microwave beeped, she carried the bowl over, “here."
your son blinked, “thanks."
"practice?"
he sighed, “long."
she nodded once before sitting down beside him. she didn’t talk or try to cheer him up. she just... kept him company while he ate.
logan watched the entire thing from the doorway in silence. you stepped beside him and his arm instinctively wrapped around your waist. neither of you interrupted.
after a minute, your son finally started talking. about a rough practice, a coach who'd been harder on everyone lately, and how tired he was.
your daughter listened; she didn't interrupt, didn't offer solutions, didn't tell him he'd be fine. she simply nodded every now and then, asking quiet little questions that kept him talking. by the time he'd finished eating, the heaviness in his shoulders had eased, and he smiled, “thanks, weirdo."
"you're welcome," she gathered the empty bowl before he could stand. “i'll put it away."
"i can—"
"i know,” she smiled. “i've got it."
logan looked toward the kitchen where your daughter quietly rinsed the bowl and placed it into the dishwasher before looking back at you. his expression had gone unexpectedly soft, “that's you."
your chest tightened at his words. you'd never sat your daughter down and explained those things. you'd never told her to notice when someone was tired, overwhelmed, or hurting. she'd simply watched you.
she'd watched you make logan coffee before he asked. watched you leave snacks outside your son’s room during exam week. watched you rub tired shoulders, remember favorite meals, notice little changes in people's moods before they said a word. she'd learned that love lived in ordinary things.
logan slipped his hand into yours, his thumb brushing gently across your knuckles, “i used to think she'd grow up to be another me."
you smiled, “disappointed?"
he laughed quietly, “not even close."
across the room, your son leaned over to bump his shoulder against your daughter’s. she laughed, and without thinking, she reached over and brushed a stray curl out of his face before returning to her homework. it was another tiny habit. another thing she'd seen you do a thousand times.
logan watched them for a long moment: his loud, reckless son, and his quiet, observant daughter. he couldn't imagine a more perfect balance.
pairing – garrett graham x nursing student!reader
summary – after ten hours under hospital lights, the body makes the decision before the brain can catch up: go home to garrett.
warnings – post-shift exhaustion, tired driving, hospital mentions, mild confusion.
notes from me – requested soooo long ago i'm sorry babe!! but here's some NS!reader and garrett fluff 😌
word count – 1.1k
navigation – masterlist |
The drive back from the hospital exists mostly in fragments. The green glow of the dashboard. Her indicator clicking for several seconds after she has already changed lanes.
The heater blowing directly into her face because cold air feels medically irresponsible at six in the morning, even though the warmth keeps making her eyelids drag lower at every red light. Her scrub top scratches beneath her jacket.
Her ponytail has been pulling at the same patch of scalp since midnight, and the backs of her knees ache with that strange, deep heaviness that comes from standing for ten hours beneath fluorescent lighting while pretending crackers eaten beside a medication trolley count as dinner.
She normally takes the bus. The bus requires no decisions beyond getting on and trying not to fall asleep against a stranger.
But Garrett has started paying for food with the irritating consistency of someone who refuses to call it paying for her food. He orders too much. He already has his card out. He tells her she can get the next one and then develops selective amnesia when the next one arrives.
Somewhere between takeaway containers appearing after placement and Garrett filling her fridge shelf with things that contain actual nutrients, she has stopped watching the fuel gauge quite so closely.
So she drives.
She pulls into a driveway just after six with no real memory of choosing it. The engine goes quiet beneath her, and she sits behind the wheel for several seconds with both hands still resting on it, staring at the dark garage door while her body waits for further instructions.
Eventually, she gets out. Her bag catches on the handbrake. She nearly shuts the car door on the hem of her jacket, corrects it with the slow dignity of someone completing an advanced clinical procedure, then walks toward the porch with her keys already in her hand.
The lock opens. Inside, the hockey house is awake in that unpleasant, predawn way usually reserved for airports and men with scheduled ice time. The kitchen lights are on. Something is sizzling in a pan.
Logan's standing at the island in grey sweats, eating eggs directly from a plate with his fork held like a shovel, while Dean leans against the counter in half his practice gear and drinks coffee from a mug that says WORLD’S BEST MOM.
Both of them look up when she comes in.
Dean lowers the mug. “Hey?”
She shuts the door behind her, then remains there with one hand still on the knob. Her hospital badge swings lightly against her chest. “Hi.”
Logan pauses mid-chew.
Dean’s eyes move over her slowly–the creased scrubs, the puffer jacket hanging open, the dark half-moons beneath her eyes, the fact that one of her shoelaces has come undone without her apparently noticing. “You good?”
She frowns at him. It takes more effort than it should. “Why’re you in my house?”
Logan stops chewing completely.
Dean glances at him. Logan glances back. Whatever silent conversation passes between them isn't reassuring.
“Your house,” Dean repeats.
“Mhm.” She steps around the shoes near the door and begins moving toward the stairs. Her shoulder clips the wall on the first attempt. She corrects her trajectory without acknowledging it. “You’re being really loud.”
“Okay,” Logan says carefully. “Sorry.”
Dean watches her start climbing. “Should we stop her?”
Logan looks toward the stairs, then at the fork still suspended in his hand. “From going to Graham’s room?”
“Good point.”
She reaches Garrett’s door and opens it without knocking. Garrett jerks around so quickly the towel around his waist nearly loses its argument with gravity.
He has another towel in his hands, halfway through rubbing his damp curls dry, his bare chest still shining slightly from the shower.
“Hey–!” His hand catches the knot at his hip. Then he sees her properly and the alarm leaves his face in pieces. “Oh. Hi, baby.”
She stands in the doorway, blinking at him.
Garrett drops the second towel onto his desk chair. “You good?”
Her brows pull together. “Baby, why’re you in my dorm?”
For one second, Garrett only looks at her. Then his mouth presses inward around a smile he's clearly trying not to let become disrespectful.
“Baby,” he says gently, coming closer, “you came to my house.”
She stares at him. Garrett waits.
“Oh,” she says eventually. “Did I?”
“Mhm.” The smile reaches his eyes now, soft and helpless and much too fond for six in the morning. He takes her bag from her shoulder before the strap can slide down her arm and sets it beside the dresser. “You did.”
She looks past him at the unmade bed, his Briar hoodie thrown over the desk, the textbook facedown beside his pillow. Familiar enough that her body had apparently navigated here without consulting anybody.
“I came home,” she murmurs, more to the room than him. “To your house.”
Garrett’s expression changes so quietly she nearly misses it. His hand settles at her elbow, warm and steady.
He guides her toward the bed without making the sentence any bigger than she can hold right now. “Sit down.”
She sits immediately, knees parting around his legs when he crouches in front of her. Garrett unties the lace she's been dragging across the floor, then pulls off one sneaker, then the other, setting them neatly beside his bed.
His thumbs press briefly into the arches of her socked feet before he stands. He bends and kisses the top of her head.
“Go shower, baby,” he murmurs into her hair. “Then go to bed.”
She tips her face up toward him. “I’ll… see you later?”
“You will.” His palm smooths once over her ponytail, then he kisses the same spot again, slower this time. “Quickly, though. Before you fall asleep in your scrubs and convince me hospital germs are part of this relationship now.”
Her eyes close for a second beneath his mouth. “They’re not germs. They’re microorganisms.”
“Sorry. You're so right.”
She nods like he's made an excellent point, then stays seated.
Garrett cups her jaw gently. “Shower.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Now, girlfriend.”
Her mouth twitches. She stands, sways slightly into him, and Garrett catches her around the waist without comment.
Downstairs, Dean shouts, “Did she know where she was?”
Garrett looks toward the door. “No.”
A pause, then Logan calls, “That’s kind of cute, man.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Garrett says, but his hand tightens warmly at her waist as he walks her toward the bathroom.
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summary ﹏ When you excitedly ramble about your newest hyperfixation, Garrett quietly proves he's been listening to every single word; even while hopelessly admiring the way your face lights up when you speak. He realizes how much he loves when you speak about the things you like.
Not because he understood every niche hyperfixations you picked up over the time (or the ones you had due to tv shows, movies, new books) and neither because he shared every one of your interests (although he'd certainly try if it made you smile) but because there was something about watching you talk that made the rest of the world fall away.
Whenever you became passionate about something, your voice changed first; it grew brighter, quicker, words tumbling over one another as if your excitement couldn't wait for your mouth to catch up. Your hands came alive, painting invisible pictures in the air, your eyes lit with an enthusiasm that was impossible to fake.
Garrett had fallen in love with you long before he'd realized it, but moments like these reminded him why he kept falling anyway.
The afternoon had settled into one of those quiet stretches neither of you ever seemed to question. Rain drummed gently against the dorm window, muffling the sounds of students wandering the hallway outside, while your room carried the familiar scent of coffee, laundry detergent, and the vanilla candle you always insisted made the place feel less like a dorm.
You sat cross-legged on your bed with a notebook balanced on your lap, eagerly explaining the newest interest you'd thrown yourself into. Garrett had abandoned his bag on the chair at your desk almost immediately after arriving and stretched out beside you instead, one arm draped lazily across the mattress while he laid on his side, facing you.
“...And that's why everyone gets that part wrong,” you explained, flipping to another page covered in hastily scribbled notes. “They're looking at it from the wrong perspective. If you actually compare these two—”
Garrett nodded thoughtfully before you had even finished your sentence. “That actually makes a lot of sense.”
“It does, right?” you said, grinning.
“It really does.” He voiced back, eyes all fond when looking at you.
You continued without hesitation, delighted that he was following along. Garrett asked the occasional question—not enough to interrupt your train of thought, but enough to keep you going. Sometimes he repeated something you'd said in his own words just to make sure he'd understood correctly, and every time he did, you smiled a little wider. He liked seeing that smile; maybe a little too much.
As you launched into another explanation, Garrett found himself studying you almost without meaning to. You were still talking, still enthusiastically connecting ideas with quick gestures of your hands, but his attention drifted between your words and everything else about you like the tiny crease that appeared between your brows whenever you were concentrating, the way your nose wrinkled for half a second when you disagreed with your own point before correcting it or the little laugh you gave yourself whenever you realized you'd skipped ahead in your explanation.
It wasn't that he had stopped listening, quite the opposite. Somehow, listening to you and looking at you had become the same thing. “Garrett?” You called him back to the living world. “Hm?” He blinked at you, surprised for a second.
“You've been awfully quiet.” He blinked once again, before smiling. “Sorry baby, I was listening.” You tilted your head, amused. “You sure about that?”
“Very.”
“What did I just say?” Without hesitation, he answered, “You said people misunderstand it because they're treating those two events separately instead of looking at how they influence each other. You think that's why the conclusion everyone reaches feels incomplete.”
You stared at him for a moment before laughing. “Okay. You were listening, I believe you now.”
“I told you, didn’t I?”
“I just…” You smiled sheepishly. “You had this look on your face.”
“What look?”
“I don't know.” You gestured vaguely toward him. “You looked... somewhere else, Like I look, sometimes.” Garrett chuckled under his breath, his body shifting on the bed which made it creak very quietly. “I probably was.”
“I knew it.”
“But not because I wasn't listening.” You looked at him expectantly, waiting for the rest. He reached over almost absentmindedly, brushing hair away from your forehead before letting his fingers linger lightly against your temple. “I was listening to every word.”
“You just got distracted?” You asked again, tilting your head to the side all while looking at his face and the fond expression he had on. “A little.”
“By what?” His smile softened into something quieter at your question. “By how happy you are.” You frowned, confused. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…” His thumb stroked gently along the side of your head before slipping into your hair, absentmindedly combing through the locks. “You always get this smile when you're talking about something you love, and sometimes you don't even realize you're smiling.” You instinctively touched your own face. “I do?” You can’t help but ask, surprised and full of curiosity.
“Mhm.” He continued threading his fingers through your hair slowly, almost absentmindedly now, and watched your shoulders relax beneath the touch.
“You smile before you've even finished explaining your point and then your eyes get all bright because you're already thinking about the next thing you want to tell me.” You laughed quietly, a little embarrassed at the explanation, realizing how much he had focused on you to see all of that.
“I didn't know you noticed all that.” You whispered then, and he smiled at the words before replying. “I notice everything.” The words came so naturally that Garrett didn't even seem to realize how intimate they sounded until your expression softened. “You really do, don't you?” He nodded once, his head tilting to the side to look at you with a new angle, trying to memorize all of your features. “I love hearing you talk.” Your whole face warmed and so did your stomach; butterflies flying inside.
“Even when I ramble about my hyperfixations and interests?” You couldn’t help but ask. “Especially then.” Garrett nodded his head at the question. “You've listened to me explain this for…” You glanced toward the clock on your nightstand. “...Almost forty-five minutes.”
“I know.”
“You aren't bored?” He looked genuinely surprised by the question, like it didn’t came to his mind that he could have been bored. “No, baby, not at all.”
“You would've told me?” Your eyebrows furrowed but amusement appeared on your face, a bit like a childish expression and your boyfriend smiled at that before nodding. “I would've.” He said back to you.
“You promise?”
“I promise.” His hand paused long enough to cup the side of your face, his thumb brushing lightly across your cheekbone. “I don’t mind listening to you talk for hours,” he admitted quietly. “Whether it's something I already know or something I've never heard of before... I like hearing it because you're the one saying it.”
Your heart squeezed at his words; all the love he had inside of his body flowed around the room like a perfume you only were allowed to smell. “That's disgustingly sweet.” You laughed quietly at him and he chuckled back, rolling his eyes fondly. “I know.”
“No, seriously.”
“I know.”
A helpless smile tugged at your lips despite yourself. “You realize that's probably the most romantic thing you've ever said to me.” Garrett's eyebrows lifted, looking genuinely unconvinced as he absentmindedly ran his fingers back through your hair. “Really? I think I've said more romantic things than that.” His body shifted and the bed creaked as he sat up in front of you, legs crossed to imitate your position.
“You absolutely haven't.” You laughed under your breath, leaning a little closer until your knees brushed. “Most of your flirting consists of calling me cute when I'm half asleep or stealing my fries and saying it counts as affection.”
“It does count as affection.” You scoffed at his answer, amused. “It absolutely does not.”
“It does if I'm the one doing it.”
You rolled your eyes fondly, unable to stop smiling now. “See? That's exactly what I mean. I think you've been confusing romance with flirting this entire relationship.” Garrett let out a quiet laugh, his thumb lightly scratching against your scalp before his hand drifted to the side of your face once more. “Do you have any defense at all for that?”
“I do.”
“Oh?”
His grin softened into something infinitely gentler as he looked at you for a long moment, his gaze warm enough to make your heart stumble. Then he leaned forward, slow enough that you could see exactly what he intended, and pressed a lingering kiss against your forehead before pulling back only far enough for your noses to nearly brush.
“I only flirt with one person,” he murmured. Your smile grew before you could stop it. “Yeah?”
“Mhm.”
“And who would that be?”
“The one sitting on this bed with me.” His fingers found yours where they rested on the blanket, intertwining them with effortless familiarity. “The one who's been talking my ear off for the last forty-five minutes.” A quiet laugh escaped you, equal parts flustered and amused. “You are unbelievable.”
“So I've been told.” His grin widened just enough to show the smile you loved, and he gave your hand a gentle squeeze. “Usually by you.” His thumb lazily traced circles over the back of your hand while his eyes wandered across your face with the same tenderness you'd been trying to describe. “I like looking at you,” he admitted after a moment, when you thought the subject had changed. “I always have.”
You opened your mouth to answer, but nothing came out.
“You get this look whenever you're excited,” he continued quietly. “I think your brain goes super fast and you have a lot to tell me and you have no idea where you should start but I just love it.” Your heart skipped a beat inside your chest and you hummed, like telling him to keep talking. “So, yeah…” He let out a small, almost embarrassed laugh before meeting your eyes again. “I was looking at you.”
“Like I was the greatest thing in the world.”
His expression didn't change; if anything, it softened even more, his thumb brushing absentmindedly over your knuckles as though he couldn't quite help touching you whenever you were close.
“You are, baby, that’s why.”
The answer was so immediate, so matter-of-fact, that it stole every clever response from your mind. Garrett didn't say it to flatter you or to make your heart race. He said it the same way someone might comment that the sky was blue or that it was raining outside: because, to him, it was simply true.
Garrett reached for your hand once more, lacing your fingers together before bringing your knuckles to his lips. His kiss was soft, lingering for only a moment before he rested your joined hands against his chest. “I don't have to choose,” he murmured. “I can listen to you and think you're beautiful and amazing at the same time.”
Your chest felt impossibly warm. “So you really heard everything? You’re sure-sure you were listening to me?” He grinned at the questions but he did understand where you were coming from; he did understand how important it was to you that he was listening. It wasn’t really about the talking, it was about being heard, being visible and seeing.
“You've got three main points, two theories you still aren't convinced about, and you think everyone's missing the obvious connection because they're focusing on the details instead of the bigger picture.”
You stared at him, because even if he had said that he was actively listening to you, you were sure he was exaggerating it a little. “I told you.” His thumb traced lazy circles across the back of your hand. “I was listening. I promised, didn’t I? What you say is important to me, baby.” A smile spread across your face before you leaned forward to steal a quick kiss from the corner of his mouth.
“I love you.” His expression immediately softened into that same hopelessly adoring look you'd caught earlier, one that never failed to make your stomach flutter.
“I know, and I love you too,” he said with a grin. “Now... tell me about that theory again.”
You laughed, settling comfortably against his shoulder while his fingers disappeared back into your hair. This time, when you started talking again, Garrett listened just as closely as before. He asked thoughtful questions, nodded at every explanation, and occasionally repeated your ideas back to you in a way that proved he was following every word.
Still, every so often, you'd catch him smiling at you with that unmistakable, lovestruck expression.
And every single time, you'd realize he hadn't missed a word. He simply thought that hearing you speak and watching you be yourself were two parts of the very same conversation.
I didnt realize how others also realized how much AI is in the Off Campus tag 😭 I can’t tell 100% but some of the writings, not just in that tag, are just sooo emotionless? It’s happening in alot of popular show or movie tags— it’s alarming as it follows the AI pattern
I might be fully wrong but I think it has a lot to do with how fast the show blew up, there was high demand for more content and very little time to respond to it because everyone was rushing to be first on the hype train.
I can't say I fully understand it either, I'm speaking from quite a privileged position. Writing is just what I do, in university and out of it. I'm unemployed at the moment too, meaning I can easily put in 7 hours of writing a day. I have the time and the training to just write and I don't feel that immediate need to constantly put content out without depth just to live in you guys' timelines.
I'm lowkey a big fat hater of immediately popular shows 😭 like I didn't get into Stranger Things until after season 3 aired, I didn't watch Off Campus the day it came out either. I started noticing the edits, the fics (the good ones and the bad ones) got a free Amazon Prime trial about a week later, watched it in one sitting and to my surprise ended up very invested in Allie and Dean's relationship. I creatively become very immersed in media so I told myself I'd enjoy it casually FOR ONCE and then days later I still couldn't get it out of my head, so I sat down and wrote something very surface level, just a "quick fuck". I even wrote a few more things before ever posting Terms and conditions just to see if I could sustain it and if I'd even be interested in finding more out about these characters.
Writing doesn't have to be deep but it shouldn't just be a means to an end either. I might put out some quick smut one day and the next serve you guys a piece of my heart. Writing is SO much about finding a reason to speak and the only reason I still find stories in these worlds is because I have something to say.
Hi! I really like the way you write about off-campus. Dean can you pls do a dad dean omg only if u want thanksss
The Tooth Fairy
Pairing: Dean Di Laurentis x Reader
Word Count: 990
Request open!
Off campus masterlist
The first tooth happened on a Tuesday.
Which, according to Dean, was deeply unfair.
Your daughter had been brushing her teeth in the bathroom with you when she suddenly let out a confused little sound and ran into the hallway holding her mouth.
You and Dean both looked up at the same time.
“She’s bleeding,” she announced in a voice that sounded halfway between panic and offense.
Dean shot up from the couch so quickly he nearly kicked over a throw pillow. “What?”
You hurried over, already smiling a little because you suspected you knew exactly what had happened. “Let me see, sweetheart.”
She opened her mouth and pointed dramatically.
There, in the front, was the tiny gap you had both been waiting for.
Her first tooth had finally come loose.
You blinked, then turned to Dean, who was already crouching in front of her like he had personally been tasked with solving the crisis of the century.
“Oh,” you said softly. “Baby, that’s a loose tooth.”
She frowned. “It came off?”
“Almost,” you said. “It’s supposed to.”
Dean looked at you like you had just told him the moon was made of cheese. “That’s normal?”
You laughed quietly. “Yes, Dean.”
He turned back to your daughter with a face full of concern and wonder and something a little too emotional for such a tiny event. “Does it hurt?”
She shook her head. “A little.”
Dean’s expression changed completely.
He looked at the gap in her smile, then at her face, and then back at you, as if the reality of what was happening had suddenly hit him all at once.
“She’s growing up,” he said, in the tone of a man who had just discovered a betrayal.
You smiled. “It’s one tooth.”
He looked personally wounded. “It’s her first tooth.”
Your daughter tucked herself into his side then, blissfully unaware that she had just triggered a full emotional response from her father. Dean automatically put an arm around her and kissed the top of her head.
“What do we do with it?” she asked.
You and Dean looked at each other.
That was when it became obvious that Dean had already started spiraling.
He pointed vaguely toward the ceiling. “The tooth fairy.”
She blinked. “The who?”
“The tooth fairy,” Dean repeated, as if all children everywhere should have known this. Then he looked at you. “We are doing that, right?”
You laughed. “Yes, Dean, we are doing that.”
He looked immensely relieved, like this had been a vital parenting issue and he had nearly failed it.
That night, after she had gone to bed with her tooth tucked carefully in a little cup beside the pillow, Dean lingered in the hallway outside her room for far too long.
You found him there just staring through the crack in the door like he was trying to memorize the scene.
“You okay?” you asked softly.
He looked at you with an expression that was equal parts soft and sad. “Her first tooth.”
You smiled and slipped your hand into his. “You are so sentimental.”
“I am not.”
“You absolutely are.”
He sighed and leaned his shoulder against the wall. “She was tiny yesterday.”
You laughed quietly. “That’s not how time works.”
“It is when you’re a parent.”
You looked at him and felt your chest tighten a little at the softness there. Dean had always been emotional in his own way, but fatherhood had only made that part of him more obvious. More open. More vulnerable. Especially when it came to your daughter.
That night, he checked on her three separate times before bed.
He also insisted on writing a note to the tooth fairy “just in case she had questions.”
You were sitting on the edge of the bed when he came back in holding a small piece of paper.
“What’s that?”
He cleared his throat. “I wrote instructions.”
You stared. “Instructions?”
“Yes.”
“For the tooth fairy?”
Dean looked offended. “She needs to know the context.”
You tried and failed to keep a straight face. “Dean.”
He handed you the note.
You unfolded it and read:
Dear Tooth Fairy, Please be gentle. It’s her first tooth. She’s very brave, very cute, and extremely excited. Also, do not wake her up. Sincerely, Dad.
You looked up at him.
He had the decency to look a little sheepish. “What?”
“You wrote that.”
“Yes.”
“It’s very sweet.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I know.”
You smiled and held the note to your chest for a second. “You’re going to make her believe in the tooth fairy until she’s fifteen.”
Dean gave a very serious nod. “That is the plan.”
You laughed softly and leaned in to kiss him.
When you pulled back, he was smiling in that warm, helpless way you loved most.
“She’s going to wake up so happy,” you whispered.
Dean looked toward her room and then back at you. “Yeah.”
Then, a little quieter, “I just hope she knows how loved she is.”
You reached for his hand. “She does.”
He squeezed your fingers once and nodded.
And when your daughter woke the next morning shrieking with joy over the coin left under her pillow and the carefully folded note from the tooth fairy, Dean looked at her like she had just performed a miracle.
She ran into his arms so fast he barely caught her.
“Daddy, it worked!”
Dean laughed and lifted her off the ground. “Of course it worked.”
She grinned, gap-toothed and triumphant. “Can I lose another tooth now?”
He stared at her for one horrified second before looking at you like he needed backup immediately.
You laughed so hard you had to lean against the hallway wall.
And Dean, still holding your daughter, looked between the two of you and shook his head with a smile that said he was already doomed in the best possible way.
pairing – garrett graham x nursing student!reader
summary – after a head injury at clinical, garrett graham gets to be the one doing the looking after for once.
warnings – head injury, concussion, facial bruising, blood, medical care, patient aggression, emotional distress, caretaking, strong language
notes from me – we're getting somewhere my loves!!!! based on this ask, hope u enjoy! <3
word count – 11.9k
navigation – masterlist |
The car smells like hospital hand sanitiser and Maria’s vanilla air freshener and the coppery, unpleasant trace of blood she’s pretty sure is still stuck somewhere under her nose.
She sits very carefully in the passenger seat with her bag clutched in her lap and the discharge papers folded into the front pocket because Maria had put them there for safekeeping after watching her try to read the same paragraph three times and then ask, quietly and with genuine confusion, whether nausea was spelled with an o. The answer is no. Apparently. She knows that. Usually.
Her head throbs with every tiny vibration of the road, a dull, spreading pressure behind her eyes and across the bridge of her nose, pulsing in time with her heartbeat like her skull has decided to develop a second career as a bass drum. The split in her lip keeps reopening every time she moves her mouth too much, which is rude, considering she would very much like to continue pretending this is all fine and fine people generally require functional lips for lying.
There’s dried blood under her nose. She can feel it there, tight and flaky against her skin, the way she can feel the swelling beginning to gather beneath both eyes, heavy and hot and humiliating.
Her scrub top is folded in a plastic bag somewhere near her feet because the front of it’s torn and streaked with blood from the first few awful seconds before anyone could get to her, before security and Maria and Steph from triage had managed to pull her backwards by the waist while the patient screamed so loudly the whole department seemed to go airless around it.
It wasn’t his fault, not really. He was frightened and out of it and nobody expected him to come up that fast, one second curled tight on the bed with his voice climbing, the next swinging blind and hard enough that his elbow caught her straight across the face.
She remembers the crack of pain before she remembers making a sound. Then her own cry seemed to set him off worse, his hand catching a fistful of her scrub top before she could step back, the brutal pull forward, the bed rail coming up too fast.
Her nose had hit first. Or her mouth. Or her forehead. It’s all a little rearranged now, bright flashes and metal and Maria shouting her name and someone saying, “Security, now,” with enough force to make the whole bay move.
She knows it wasn’t anyone’s fault. She knows psych presentations can turn quickly, knows agitation isn’t always a straight line with warning signs and a polite little interval where everyone gets to reposition themselves safely.
She knows all the rational things. She also knows her face hurts badly enough that thinking in full sentences feels like pushing through wet cement, and she is, medically speaking, having a really fucking shit time.
Beside her, Maria drives like a woman who’s spent twenty years transporting compromised student nurses and actual glassware with equal care. One hand on the wheel, eyes on the road, her voice soft enough not to scrape against the inside of her skull when she says, “How’s the head, honey?”
She exhales through her nose and immediately regrets it because her nose doesn’t wish to be involved in breathing at this time. “Super normal. Love having one.”
Maria makes a small sound that could be a laugh if it wasn’t wrapped so tightly in concern. “Nausea?”
“Not worse.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
She lets her head rest back against the seat and keeps her eyes on the blurred glow of streetlights sliding across the windscreen. The movement makes her stomach roll faintly, but not enough to tell Maria about, because Maria has already done enough.
Maria had stood in the consult room while Dr. Patel checked her pupils and her nose and the swelling around her cheekbones, one warm hand resting between her shoulder blades every time she tried to make a joke and ended up going quiet instead.
Maria had found her spare hoodie from the locker room and helped her into it when lifting her left arm made pain streak down through her shoulder. Maria had said, very gently, you’re not catching the bus after getting your bell rung in my department, like that settled the matter.
“A little,” she admits. “But I’m not going to vomit in your car.”
“Kind of you.”
“I’m very thoughtful.”
“You’re concussed.”
She sighs softly. “Also that.”
Maria’s eyes flick over her in the dim light, quick and practised. “You remember what Dr. Patel said?”
She does. Mostly. The words have been looping vaguely around the edges of her head since he handed her the paperwork. Mild concussion. No fracture. Neuro obs stable. X-ray clear. Rest. No driving. No placement until reviewed. Come back if vomiting, worsening headache, confusion, unusual drowsiness, changes in vision, weakness, seizure, or if anything feels wrong enough that you’re trying to talk yourself out of seeking help.
No being alone tonight.
That last one had landed harder than the rest, somehow. Maybe because the ED had been too bright and too busy and she had been sitting there with a wad of gauze under her nose, feeling like a leaking appliance. Maybe because the doctor had said it in that professional, non-negotiable way that made arguing feel childish. Maybe because the idea of someone watching her because her brain had been knocked around made her feel suddenly, horribly small.
“Wake me every few hours,” she says. “Check I’m not getting weirder.”
Maria’s mouth tips. “You said weirder.”
“That’s the clinical term.”
“It’s not.”
“It should be. Easier to spell than altered level of consciousness.”
Maria actually laughs that time, but it fades quickly. “You can’t be home alone.”
“I know.”
“And you’re not going to pretend you’re fine and sit in your dorm by yourself because you feel embarrassed?”
Her eyes drift shut for half a second, then open again when the darkness makes her head swim. “I’m not embarrassed.”
Maria’s silent.
She sinks a little lower in the seat. “Okay. Maybe a normal amount.”
“There is no normal amount of embarrassed after being assaulted by a patient at work.”
“It wasn’t assault.”
Maria sighs. “Honey.”
“He didn’t know what he was doing,” she argues.
“That doesn’t mean you didn’t get hurt.”
Her mouth twitches before she remembers her lip is split. Pain snaps bright and sharp through the swollen skin. “Ow. Fuck.”
Maria’s hand lifts slightly off the wheel like she wants to reach over, then thinks better of it. “Don’t smile.”
“That’s bleak advice.”
“Currently medical advice.”
She presses her tongue carefully to the inside of her lip and tastes blood again. The whole evening keeps arriving in pieces. The patient’s arm. The bed rail. Maria’s face above hers, too close and too worried. Someone cutting away the torn edge of her scrub top.
Her own hands shaking in her lap while she tried to tell everyone, very reasonably, that she could finish the shift if they just gave her a second. As if she hadn’t been bleeding on her own shoes.
The thought makes heat rise under the bruising in her face, which is unfair because her face has already suffered enough. “God,” she mutters. “Everyone saw.”
Maria sighs, not impatient, but close to something sad. “Yes, everyone saw that you got hurt.”
“I’m the student.”
“Yes,” Maria nods.
“I’m supposed to be useful.”
“You were useful all day.”
“I ended the shift with a concussion and a bloody nose.”
“You ended the shift injured because an unpredictable situation escalated. That’s not a performance review.”
She knows that. She does. She would say that to anyone else. She would put her hand on another student’s shoulder and mean it completely. She would tell them they were in the wrong place at the wrong second and that sometimes you can do everything right and still get hurt because hospitals are not made of lesson plans and perfect outcomes.
Unfortunately, she’s not another student. She’s herself. And herself currently has blood in her hoodie sleeve because she keeps forgetting not to touch her face.
They hit a bump in the road, not even a large one, but it sends pain blooming through her skull with such immediate nastiness that she sucks in a breath through her teeth and grips the strap of her bag.
Maria notices. “Almost there.”
She opens her mouth to ask where there is, and then remembers campus, her dorm, her room, the bed with the old sweatshirt shoved under the pillow, the roommate who is not there. Her stomach drops so abruptly it makes the nausea worse. “Shit.”
Maria glances over. “What?”
“My roommate’s not home.”
“Tonight?”
“She’s at her sister’s. Like, hours away.” She closes her eyes, then opens them again because the inside of her head does not enjoy visual privacy right now. “Fuck. I forgot.”
“Okay.” Maria’s voice stays calm. That is possibly the worst part. “Do you have someone else? A friend you could stay with?”
She thinks of Lucy first, because that’s the correct answer. Lucy would absolutely let her stay. Lucy would probably panic and then overcorrect into a level of cheerfulness that could qualify as a secondary head injury. Monique would be better, quieter, but Monique has an exam tomorrow and lives across campus in a building where the lift is always broken, which feels like a personal attack under current conditions.
Then her brain, unhelpfully and immediately, supplies Garrett.
Garrett’s room with the lamp on. Garrett’s hand at the back of her neck. Garrett’s voice low in her ear telling her to stop studying and sleep. Garrett sitting on the edge of her bed taking off her shoes after a bad shift.
Garrett looking at her like competence is something he can be proud of even when she feels like she’s wearing it badly. Garrett, who has been hit in the head enough times that concussion protocol is probably written somewhere in his bones.
Garrett, who’s not technically her boyfriend, except the technicalities feel very stupid when her head is throbbing and her lip is bleeding and she wants him so badly it makes her chest ache worse than her shoulder.
“Yeah,” she says, and her voice comes out softer than she means it to. “Uh. Yeah. I have someone.”
Maria doesn’t look smug. That’s probably part of why she is a good preceptor. “Address?”
She gives her the hockey house. The words feel bigger in the car than they should. Maybe because saying his address out loud to Maria feels like she’s accidentally handed over evidence. Maybe because the last time Maria saw Garrett, he’d been standing in the ED hallway with panic sitting badly under his skin while Logan asked what day it was for the third time.
Maybe because Maria now knows exactly where to take the concussed student nurse with the split lip and the ruined scrubs, and that place is apparently Garrett Graham’s house.
Maria only nods and changes lanes.
The hockey house is lit up when they pull onto the street, every downstairs window glowing warm and yellow into the cold, the porch light flickering faintly over the steps. There are cars out front, some vaguely familiar. The sight of it loosens something in her chest. At least someone’s home. At least there’s a couch, and people who know what pupils are supposed to do, and Garrett somewhere inside if the universe has decided to be kind after all the other things it did tonight.
Maria puts the car in park and turns toward her. “Wait. I’ll help you.”
“I can walk.”
“I didn’t ask,” Maria responds.
She huffs, which hurts less than smiling. Maria gets out first and comes around, opening the passenger door before she can argue again. The cold hits her face and instantly makes her nose ache in a new and innovative way.
She climbs out slowly, one hand braced on the car door, shoulder protesting when she reaches for the strap of her bag. Maria takes it from her without comment.
“Rude,” she murmurs.
“Concussed.”
“Everyone keeps saying that like it explains everything.”
“It explains a lot.”
The walk up the path feels longer than it should. The porch steps require more concentration than she likes, which annoys her because she’s watched drunk freshmen navigate these steps while carrying open cups and zero dignity. Her sneakers scrape lightly over the boards.
Somewhere inside, someone yells something that might be, “You’re cheating,” followed by Dean’s voice saying, “It’s not cheating if the game lets me do it,” which feels like an argument that has existed in this house for generations.
She knocks once because lifting her hand twice seems excessive. There’s a crash inside. A hockey house crash. Male voices overlap, loud and irritated and completely unaware of the fact that sound is currently a weapon. She winces before she can stop herself, one hand coming up toward her temple and hovering there uselessly.
Maria’s mouth tightens. “You okay?”
“Yep.”
The door opens on Logan in sweats and a faded Briar shirt, hair a mess, controller in one hand, expression halfway to annoyed until he sees her. Everything drops out of his face.
He says her name once, startled and low, and then, “What the fuck happened?”
The room behind him seems to quiet in stages. Maybe because of his voice. Maybe because she’s standing on the porch looking like an ED discharge summary with legs.
She becomes suddenly, viciously aware of herself: the bruising already shadowing beneath her eyes, the swollen bridge of her nose, the blood dried under it despite Maria helping her clean up, the split lip, the hoodie zipped crooked because raising her shoulder hurts. She hadn’t thought much about how she looked in the car because looking required mirrors and mirrors required courage she didn’t currently possess.
Then Garrett appears behind Logan, and the whole night rearranges itself around the look on his face. He must have been in the living room. His hair’s damp at the edges like he showered not long ago, curls loose over his forehead, sweatpants low on his hips, a dark t-shirt pulled tight across his shoulders.
He steps into the doorway with his mouth already forming some question, probably a chirp, probably something warm and annoying about why she’s showing up with supervision. He sees her, and all the colour leaves his face, as if something has reached into him and taken it by the roots.
His eyes move over her once, too fast and not fast enough. Nose. Mouth. Bruises. Hoodie. The stiff way she’s holding her shoulder. Maria beside her with the bag and the paperwork. Back to her face, where his attention catches and stays.
She tries to smile. It’s a mistake immediately. Pain sparks through her lip, and she winces instead, which feels like the saddest possible version of flirting. “Hi,” she says.
Garrett doesn’t answer.
Logan steps back at once. “Jesus. Come in. Fuck. Come in.”
Warmth and sound and the smell of boys and pizza and laundry detergent roll over her as she steps into the house. The living room lights make her eyes sting. Dean and Tucker are on the couch, controllers in hand, the TV paused mid-game like they’ve both forgotten the concept of winning. Dean’s mouth opens. Tucker’s face changes quietly, which somehow feels worse.
“Holy fuck,” Dean half-yells.
The words hit too loud. She flinches before she can make herself not do it.
Tucker moves instantly. “Dean, get the lights, man.”
“What? Oh. Shit, yeah.” Dean scrambles for the lamp with the guilty urgency of a man who’s suddenly remembered inside voices exist. The room drops into a dimmer yellow, the overhead going off, the TV brightness turned down under Tucker’s quick hand. It changes the whole house at once, softens the edges, takes the blade out of the light.
Maria watches all of it with a look that would be approving if she weren’t still too professional to be obvious about it.
“She’s had a head injury,” she says, voice calm, eyes moving to Garrett because everyone’s eyes move to Garrett, because this is his house and not-his-girlfriend has arrived at his door concussed and bleeding. “Mild concussion. X-ray was clear, no nasal fracture, but she needs monitoring overnight. No alcohol, no driving, no being alone. Keep the lights low, noise down. She can sleep, but someone needs to check on her as per the discharge instructions. If she starts vomiting, gets more confused, can’t be woken, worsening headache, vision changes, weakness, anything that feels off, take her back in.”
Garrett nods slowly. He’s still staring at her.
Logan, maybe because Garrett looks like he’s briefly lost access to language, reaches out and takes the paperwork from Maria. “Yeah. We’ve got it.”
Maria turns back to her, and her face softens in that way that makes the back of her throat go tight. “I’ll see you in a couple days, honey. Not tomorrow. Rest tomorrow.”
She nods carefully. Even that tiny motion makes pressure throb through her skull. “Thanks for driving me.”
“Text me when you wake up.” Maria’s eyes flick toward Garrett again. “And listen to them for once.”
That almost makes her smile. She resists, heroically. “No promises.”
Maria gives her shoulder the gentlest squeeze, nowhere near the painful side, then lets herself out. Logan closes the door softly behind her, like the whole house has been put on medical quiet time.
For half a second, nobody moves. Then Dean says, much quieter this time, “Who the fuck did that?”
She lets out a breath that doesn’t quite make it to a laugh. “Hi to you too.”
Dean’s on his feet now, controller abandoned on the couch, all his usual lazy beauty sharpened into something pissed and bright. “I’m serious.”
“I know.” Her head’s beginning to pound harder now that she’s standing still. The adrenaline from getting out of the car, climbing the steps, seeing Garrett’s face, all of it drains down through her body and leaves her feeling oddly hollow.
Garrett notices, his hand comes to her elbow, barely touching at first like he’s afraid pressure might break something. The warmth of him lands through the hoodie and her body, traitorous and exhausted, turns toward it before her pride has any say.
She steps into him. She leans forward and presses her forehead against his chest because the angle is the only one that doesn’t put pressure on her nose, one hand curling weakly in the soft fabric of his shirt.
Garrett tenses under her for a fraction of a second, like seeing her had knocked him out of himself and her touching him is what pulls him back in wrong. Then his arms come around her.
Careful. So careful it almost makes her cry. One hand settles at the back of her head without pressing, fingers spread wide over her hair, the other around her waist, holding her there with a gentleness that feels nothing like the boy who body checks men into boards for sport and everything like the one who once took her UGGs off because outside shoes didn’t belong in bed.
She closes her eyes, just for a second. Garrett’s voice, when it finally comes, is rough enough that she feels it against her cheek. “Baby.”
“I’m okay,” she says into his shirt, because she’s decided to start lying as a hobby.
His hand flexes once at her waist. “You’re bleeding.”
“I’m not actively dying.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
She manages a weak shrug. “Clinically significant distinction.”
Logan exhales behind them, shaky in a way he probably wishes nobody noticed. Tucker moves around them quietly, collecting controllers, turning the game off properly, lowering the TV volume until the room becomes mostly the hum of the refrigerator and distant campus noise through the windows. Dean’s still standing there looking like he needs something to hit and has, unfortunately for everyone, found only furniture.
Garrett pulls back enough to look at her, but not far enough that she loses him. His eyes scan her face again, slower now. It’s almost worse than the pain. The way his gaze catches on the swollen bridge of her nose, the blood at one nostril, the split in her lower lip. He looks wrecked by it. Offended, almost, like her body has done something behind his back.
“Come sit down,” he says.
She wants to make a joke about his captain voice. She really does. It’s right there, familiar and easy. Unfortunately, her brain loses the sentence halfway through assembling it, and by the time she finds a piece of it, Garrett’s already guiding her to the couch.
Dean moves a cushion out of the way. Tucker places another behind her back. Logan stands nearby with the paperwork in one hand, reading it with a frown so intense it looks like he’s preparing for finals in head trauma.
They all shift around her with this strange, quiet purpose that makes her chest feel too full and her face feel too sore to hold whatever expression she wants. Garrett crouches in front of her and reaches for her sneakers.
She blinks down at him. “What are you doing?”
His mouth barely moves. “Taking your shoes off.”
“I can take my shoes off.”
He looks up at her, and there is something in his face so taut and helpless that the argument falls apart in her lap. “Can you let me?”
Oh. That’s not fair. That’s wildly not fair.
She swallows and looks away first. “Yeah.”
Garrett unties her sneakers one at a time, slow with the laces, careful of the way moving her leg pulls faintly at her shoulder. He sets them neatly beside the coffee table. When her feet are free, she curls her legs up onto the couch without thinking, tucking herself sideways into the cushions because upright feels like an idea designed by people whose skulls are not currently full of angry bees.
Garrett’s hand hovers near her knee, then settles there. “Did you want water?”
She nods, then instantly regrets the movement. Pain washes across her forehead, hot and thick. Her eyes squeeze shut. “Ow. Fuck. Yes, please.”
Garrett rises. Her hand moves before she decides to move it, fingers catching the loose fabric of his sweatpants at the thigh, barely enough to stop him if he wanted to go. But he does stop. Immediately. She opens her eyes. Garrett’s looking down at her hand on him. Then he looks at Logan.
Logan’s already moving. “I’ve got it.”
Garrett sits beside her instead. He does it carefully, couch dipping with his weight, his thigh warm along the outside of her curled legs. He doesn’t crowd her face. Doesn’t pull her in too fast. Simply sits close enough that she can feel him there, his hand returning to her knee, thumb still because even his restless touching has gone cautious.
Dean hasn’t let the original point go. He sits on the edge of the coffee table across from her, elbows on his knees, all dramatic cheekbones and very real anger. “No, seriously. Who the fuck did this?”
She opens her mouth. The first answer is too long and falls apart before she can get to it. Her head gives one hard pulse. She shuts her eyes briefly, tries again. “A patient.”
Dean stares at her. “A patient did this to your face?”
“He was really agitated,” she explains as Logan comes back with water. He hands it to Garrett, not her, which would be annoying if her hands didn’t feel vaguely unreliable. “It escalated. He didn’t mean it.”
Dean’s expression says that this isn’t helping his blood pressure. “He didn’t mean it.”
“No.” She lets Garrett pass her the glass, taking it with both hands because one feels optimistic. The cold of it is nice against her palms. Her lip stings when she drinks, water catching briefly at the split, but her throat is dry enough that she keeps going anyway. “He was out of it. Psych presentation. It wasn’t– nobody did anything wrong.”
Tucker returns from the kitchen with an ice pack wrapped in a tea towel and offers it out with both hands like a peace treaty. “For your face. Or your shoulder. Or… wherever. I don’t know. I’m not the medical one.”
She takes it and immediately loves him a little for the towel. “Thanks, Tuck.”
Logan, reading from the discharge sheet now, says, “It says shoulder strain?”
“Logan.”
“What? It does.”
“Stop reading my lore out loud,” she huffs.
Dean gives her a look. “Your lore says shoulder strain and concussion.”
She lets her eyes close for a moment. “My lore is private.”
“Your lore showed up bleeding on our porch.”
She would like to laugh. She really would. Instead, the corner of her mouth twitches, pain bites through her lip, and her eyes water instantly. “Ow. God. That’s so annoying.”
Garrett’s hand comes up, stops short of her face. His fingers curl in midair before he lets them drop. “Your lip’s split and you’ve still got dried blood under your nose, baby.”
The baby does something terrible to her. It always does, but right now it’s worse because his voice is stripped down to the bone. He’s looking at her like he’s trying to keep himself from shaking by cataloguing every visible injury.
She shrugs with one shoulder and immediately regrets that too. Pain tugs from the side of her neck down into the joint, sharp enough that her breath catches.
Garrett sees it. His jaw flexes. “Don’t shrug.”
“I forgot.”
“How do you forget your shoulder hurts?”
“Concussion,” she says, because if everyone else gets to use it as an explanation, so does she. “It looks worse than it is. Promise. I’m just drained. And foggy. I keep losing my train of thought, which is the rudest symptom. Like, I was mid-sentence with Dr. Patel and just fully misplaced the rest of it.”
Tucker’s mouth softens. “That sounds scary.”
She looks down at the glass in her hands. The condensation has started to wet her fingers. “Mostly annoying.”
She lifts the ice pack toward her face, but her shoulder protests halfway up and makes the movement jerky. Garrett catches the pack before she can pretend she meant to do that.
Her eyes flick to him. “I can hold an ice pack.”
“I know.” His voice is quieter now. He shifts closer, one knee turning toward her on the couch, the wrapped ice pack careful in his hand. “But how many times have you looked after me, huh?”
She has no good answer for that. Too many. Not enough. In locker room hallways, in his bed, on this exact couch with bruises over his ribs while he tried to convince her hockey was a sufficient medical explanation for all bodily damage. She’s pressed ice to his cheek and taped his fingers and made him take painkillers and once threatened to call Maria for backup if he said manageable one more time.
Garrett’s mouth moves faintly, not a smile, but close enough to hurt. “Let me.”
She lets him. Garrett lifts the ice pack to her face with a care that makes her throat tighten, angling it over the bridge of her nose and the swelling beginning to spread under one eye without pressing too hard.
The cold hurts first, a bright, mean sting over bruised skin, then settles into something almost relieving. Her breath comes out shaky despite her best efforts.
“Too much?” he asks.
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” She shifts her gaze past him because his face is currently unmanageable. Dean and Tucker and Logan are all watching her with varying degrees of poorly concealed worry. Dean looks like he’s biting the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood. Logan still has the discharge paper. Tucker has both hands shoved into the pocket of his hoodie like he doesn’t trust them not to hover. “What?”
Dean blinks. “What?”
“You guys look like this every week and I don’t stare at you.”
Logan snorts, but it comes out thin. “That’s because we’re hot when we’re bruised.”
She manages an eye roll, which is a win. “You’re concussed half the time and deeply irritating the other half.”
“Range,” Dean says automatically.
She points weakly toward the TV with the hand not holding her water. “Relax. Go back to your video games.”
Tucker’s brows pull together. “No, but– but it’s different.”
Her eyes move to him.
He looks briefly embarrassed, then pushes through it anyway. “It’s you.”
Her chest does that awful thing again, too soft and too sore at the same time. She looks down because taking that directly from Tucker feels unfairly intimate, like he’s handed her something warm without warning.
“I’m okay,” she says, and it’s not entirely true, but she tries to make it sound close enough. “Really. I was observed. I had neuro obs. I had scans. No fracture. Nothing’s broken. Just bruised and concussed and mildly tragic.”
“Mildly?” Dean asks.
“Moderately if you keep fucking yelling.”
His face changes instantly. “Sorry.”
The apology is so immediate that she almost smiles again and has to stop herself like a responsible person. “It’s okay.”
Garrett’s hand holding the ice pack is steady. His eyes have barely left her face, and the longer she sits there under that attention, the more she realises he still hasn’t really said anything. Not like Garrett. Not a joke, not an actual question, not one of the bossy little comments that usually lands him in trouble and somehow still gets her to drink water.
His silence has weight. It sits beside her on the couch, pressed into the careful line of his shoulders.
She turns her head just enough to look at him. “You’re being weird.”
His eyes flick to hers. “I’m not.”
“You are.”
His mouth presses together. For a second, he looks younger than he usually does. Less Briar captain, less untouchable campus landmark, more boy on a couch holding an ice pack to a girl’s swollen face with fear making a mess under his skin.
He swallows. “Do you want me to loosen your hair?”
The question is so small and practical that it nearly undoes her. Her hair is still claw-clipped from placement, half-fallen now, strands tugging at her scalp from where it got pulled in the scuffle and then shoved messily back while she was being assessed. She had forgotten about it until he said it, and now she can feel every tight little pull at the roots, all of it feeding into the headache sitting behind her eyes.
“Yes, please,” she says.
Garrett lowers the ice pack and hands it to Tucker without looking. Tucker takes it like an assistant in surgery. Garrett turns slightly toward her, one hand moving behind her head, not touching at first. “Tell me if it hurts.”
“It all hurts.”
His face does something awful.
She softens her voice. “I’ll tell you if it hurts more.”
“Okay.” His fingers find the clip carefully. He’s taken her hair down before, usually with far less medical purpose and far more smugness, but now every motion is slow, almost reverent. The clip gives, and the weight of her hair loosens down her back. The relief is immediate enough that her eyes flutter shut without permission.
Garrett catches that too. “Better?”
“Mhm.”
He combs the fallen strands away from the side of her face with his fingers, avoiding the swelling, avoiding the blood, avoiding every place that might make her flinch. His thumb brushes once near her temple, feather-light.
She opens her eyes and finds him looking at her. “I’m okay,” she says again, quieter this time. “Really.”
Garrett doesn’t argue. That might be worse. He only nods once and takes the ice pack back from Tucker, pressing it carefully to her face again.
For a while, the room adjusts around her. Dean sits back down, but he doesn’t pick up the controller. Tucker goes to the kitchen and returns with a straw for her water like a man who’s discovered a side quest and intends to complete it properly. Logan reads the discharge instructions twice, then starts setting alarms on his phone without announcing it, because subtlety, in this house, is sometimes just everyone pretending they cannot see love doing administrative tasks in sweatpants.
She drinks water through the straw because lifting the glass is annoying and because nobody makes a thing of it. Garrett keeps the ice pack steady. Every so often, he asks a question in a voice too even to be casual. Headache worse? Nausea? Vision okay? She answers as best she can. Same. Little bit. Yeah, mostly.
When Dean shifts too fast and the couch creaks, he freezes like he’s committed assault by upholstery. That makes her huff something dangerously close to a laugh, and Garrett immediately murmurs, “Careful,” like her face is now a team responsibility.
The fogginess comes in waves. Sometimes she’s fully in the room, tracking Dean’s quiet rage and Tucker’s gentle fussing and Logan’s forced calm. Sometimes the edges blur a little, slow, like her thoughts are moving through syrup. Garrett’s thigh is warm against her curled legs. His arm rests along the back of the couch behind her, a soft barrier between her and the world.
She leans into him by degrees until her shoulder touches his chest and her head tips carefully toward the place beneath his jaw that smells like soap and boy and safety.
She doesn’t mean to get sleepy. She has discharge instructions that say she can sleep, she knows that, but the idea of giving in with everyone watching feels embarrassing in a new, stupid direction. Still, her eyelids grow heavy. The headache spreads and dulls under the cold. The room is dim. The boys are quiet. Garrett is warm.
At some point, Dean says softly, “You want me to call Lucy or someone?”
She tries to answer. The name gets halfway through her head and then wanders off. “Tomorrow,” she murmurs.
“Okay,” Dean says, and for once there’s no joke attached.
Garrett shifts beside her. “Baby?”
She makes a small sound that could mean what or I’m alive or don’t make me move, depending on how generous he feels.
“You getting sleepy?”
“No.”
There’s a pause.
Logan says, very quietly, “That was the least convincing thing I’ve ever heard.”
She opens one eye to glare at him, but the room tilts slightly with the effort, so she closes it again. “Your face is least convincing.”
“Strong comeback.”
“Thank you.”
Garrett’s lips brush her hair. It’s quick, maybe accidental, except nothing Garrett does with her feels accidental anymore, no matter how hard both of them have tried to label it otherwise. “I’m gonna take you upstairs, okay?”
Her eyes open properly at that, or as properly as they can. “I can walk.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that and then doing the thing for me anyway.”
His mouth curves faintly for the first time all night. It’s tiny and tired and painfully Garrett. “Yeah.”
She should argue. She’s built a respectable portion of this entire situationship on arguing with Garrett Graham while letting him do exactly what she wants him to do. But her shoulder aches, her face throbs, and her legs feel like they belong to somebody who’s spent the day being chased by weather.
More than that, she wants him. She wants his hands steady under her thighs, his chest close, his room dark and warm around them. She wants to stop being the student who got hurt and start being the girl Garrett carries upstairs because the floor feels too far away.
“Okay,” she whispers.
Dean looks at the TV like he’s never been interested in anything more. Tucker suddenly finds the water glass fascinating. Logan folds the discharge papers with great concentration. Nobody says a word.
Garrett slides one arm behind her back and the other beneath her knees with the same careful strength he uses for everything he takes seriously. “Shoulder?”
“Fine.”
His eyes flick to hers.
“Not worse,” she corrects.
He nods once and lifts her.
It does hurt, a little. Her shoulder pulls, her head pulses, and the movement makes nausea roll faintly through her stomach. But Garrett holds her so close and so steadily that the discomfort never gets sharp enough to scare her. Her hand curls in the front of his shirt, her face turning carefully toward his neck because pressing into his chest would bump her nose and she’s learned at least one thing tonight.
Dean’s voice follows them, low and rough from the couch. “G.”
Garrett stops at the foot of the stairs but doesn’t turn fully, like turning her too much might hurt.
Dean’s eyes move over her once, then to Garrett. Whatever he’d been about to say gets swallowed down and changed into something smaller. “We’re downstairs if you need anything.”
Garrett’s hold tightens by a fraction. “Yeah.”
Tucker adds, “I’ll bring up more ice in a bit.”
“And meds when she’s due,” Logan says, lifting the papers slightly.
She wants to tell them they’re all being ridiculous. She wants to say she’s fine, to make some joke about the Briar hockey team turning into a poorly licensed urgent care clinic. But her throat feels thick, and her eyes sting in a way that has nothing to do with the swelling, and for once the joke doesn’t come quickly enough to save her from feeling it.
So she only says, “Thanks, guys.”
Dean nods, jaw tight. Tucker gives her a small, worried smile. Logan says, “Anytime,” like he means it and hates that there’s a reason to.
Garrett carries her upstairs slowly. The stairwell is dim, the house clutter softened into shadows: a hoodie over the railing, someone’s shoes kicked near the landing, a dent in the wall nobody has confessed to making.
His breathing is steady beneath her ear. His arms don’t shift, don’t tremble, don’t let her feel for one second like she’s heavy or inconvenient or anything other than something he’s decided belongs safely against him.
Halfway up, she murmurs, “Garrett?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re still being weird.”
This time, his breath leaves him in something almost like a laugh. It brushes warm over her hair. “Yeah, baby,” he says, voice low enough that it belongs only to the stairs and the dark and the careful space between them. “I know.”
His room is already dim when he gets there, like he’d been in it before everything happened and left the lamp on low beside the bed, the shade turning the walls a warm, soft yellow that doesn’t stab behind her eyes.
The window is cracked just enough to let in a thin line of cold air, shifting the edge of the curtain and carrying in the far-off sound of campus on a weeknight, car doors and laughter and somebody shouting down the street like the world has not personally offended her face.
Garrett nudges the door open with his shoulder and steps inside carefully, like the room might have developed hazards in the ten minutes since he last saw it. One of his hoodies is thrown over the desk chair. There’s a textbook facedown on the bed that he must have been pretending to read earlier, a roll of hockey tape on the nightstand, his phone charger twisted into a knot on the floor.
The ordinary mess of him sits around them so gently that it makes something behind her ribs go weak. His room. His bed. His detergent and the clean soap smell of his skin under the faint cold of the hallway.
For the first time since the bay, since the rail, since the white burst of pain and Maria’s hand firm between her shoulder blades, her body seems to understand that it’s stopped moving.
Garrett lowers her onto the edge of the mattress with so much care it almost becomes annoying. One arm stays behind her back until she’s properly sitting, the other at her knees, and even after he lets go he keeps his hands there for a second, hovering near her like he’s not fully convinced gravity has been handled.
She blinks down at him because he’s crouched in front of her now, broad shoulders between her knees, face tipped up, eyes moving over her again with that same awful, quiet attention.
She can feel what he’s seeing before he says anything. The blood dried tight beneath her nose. The swelling already darkening around the bridge of it. The split in her lip, tacky and sore. Mascara smudged under both eyes from the crying she doesn’t remember allowing herself to do properly, only the wetness and the sting and Maria saying, breathe for me, honey, nice and slow.
Garrett swallows. His hands rest lightly on her calves, thumbs still. “Did you want to wipe your face?” he asks, voice careful. “You’ve got, uh…” His eyes flick down, then back up, and his mouth tightens around something he doesn’t let out. “Some mascara under your eyes. And some blood still.”
She knows he’s trying very hard not to sound like the sight of it is putting his organs in the wrong order. She loves him a little for the effort, which is a thought she cannot touch right now because her brain is concussed and reckless and clearly looking for loaded weapons.
She nods once, then immediately remembers that nodding is no longer a neutral activity. The headache flares behind her eyes, thick and punishing. “Ow,” she says, small and irritated.
Garrett’s hands tighten on her legs. “Hey.”
“I’m good.” Her tongue touches the split in her lip and she tastes metal again. “Can you?”
His face changes. Barely. A little fracture through the tight worry, something softer underneath it. “Course.”
He stands, and the second his hands leave her, her body reacts before her mind catches up. Her fingers snag in the hem of his t-shirt, clumsy and sudden, and the movement pulls through her bad shoulder so sharply that a soft, wounded sound slips out of her before she can bite it down.
Garrett freezes instantly. Entire body going still. “Hey. Hey, you’re good.” He turns back toward her, one hand coming carefully to her wrist, covering her fingers where they’re twisted in his shirt. “I’m just going to the hallway, yeah? Bathroom’s right there. Two seconds.”
She knows that. Obviously she knows that. She’s been in this house enough times to know the bathroom is six steps from his door and usually contains at least one towel on the floor and Dean’s body wash in a place where it doesn’t belong. She knows Garrett’s not leaving. She knows the door is open, the house is full, Logan’s downstairs reading concussion instructions like the exam is tomorrow.
Still, her fingers don’t let go right away.
Her head hurts. Her mouth hurts. Her shoulder is a hot, sharp line down one side of her body. And the small, rational part of her brain that usually handles dignity and sarcasm is sitting in a dark room somewhere with a blanket over its head, because all she can think is that she wants him where she can reach him.
Garrett’s thumb moves once over her knuckles. “I’ll keep the door open.”
She nods more carefully this time. “Okay.”
He waits until her fingers loosen, then steps backward instead of turning right away, eyes on her the whole time. It would be funny, maybe, if it didn’t work. If she didn’t feel her ribs unclench slightly because she can still see him, because he backs into the hallway like she’s a wild animal he’s trying not to spook and not a nursing student with blood under her nose and one of his sleeves somewhere in her fist.
He disappears only when he reaches the bathroom, and even then he keeps talking. “Still here,” he says, and the water starts a second later, soft against porcelain. “Just getting a washcloth.”
“I know,” she calls back, then winces because even her own voice feels too loud inside her skull.
Garrett comes back with the washcloth damp and folded in one hand. His other hand shuts the door halfway, enough to soften the rest of the house into a distant murmur. The mattress dips when he sits beside her, turned toward her with one knee bent on the bed.
He smells like clean skin and laundry and something faintly sweet from the kitchen downstairs, and she has to swallow around the childish, humiliating urge to press her face into his chest and stay there until her body stops feeling like it has been borrowed from a car crash.
“Here we go,” he says.
The cloth touches just beneath her eye first.
She stiffens on instinct, because everything has hurt tonight and her body is no longer trusting innocent objects, but Garrett pauses immediately. “Too cold?”
“No.” Her voice comes out thinner than she likes. “Just surprised.”
“Okay.” His face stays close, intent in a way that would normally make her flustered for more interesting reasons. “I’ll go slow.”
He does. He wipes the smudged mascara from beneath one eye with feather-light strokes, the washcloth barely dragging over skin, then folds it to a clean corner and does the other side. He works like he has been given something fragile and a little dangerous. Like every movement is being negotiated with the injuries on her face and the dull heaviness behind her eyes.
His jaw flexes when the cloth comes away grey-black with makeup and faintly pink with old blood, but he doesn’t comment. He only turns it again and brings it to the place under her nose.
“That might hurt,” he murmurs.
“It already hurts.”
His eyes lift to hers. “Yeah.”
She looks down at his wrist, at the veins there, at the old tape mark near his thumb, at the little scrape over one knuckle from practice or a game or some Garrett-related misuse of his own body. Usually she would notice and ask. Usually she would press her thumb near it and say, what’s this? and he would say, nothing, and she would call him annoying and make him let her look anyway.
Tonight she just watches his hand hold the cloth and lets him clean the blood away. The dried parts tug where they have hardened on her skin, and she sucks in a breath through her mouth when the washcloth brushes too close to the swelling at the bridge of her nose.
Garrett stops every time, waits for the little movement of her fingers in his shirt to settle, then continues. He wipes around the split in her lip last, his mouth flattening when fresh blood beads at the edge.
“You’re gonna bruise like hell,” he says, almost to himself.
She tries not to smile. It becomes a tiny, crooked thing anyway and immediately hurts. “Hot.”
His eyes flick back to hers, and for the first time since she arrived, something almost like Garrett moves across his face. Small. Tired. There and gone. “Yeah, baby. Real intimidating.”
“Good. I’ve always wanted to look tough.”
“You already look tough.”
“That’s because you have questionable standards.”
“No,” he says, and the softness in it makes her look away first. “I don’t.”
The room goes quiet except for the dull throb of the house underneath them, the creak of something downstairs, Logan or Dean moving around, the low murmur of the boys trying and failing not to sound worried through the floor. Garrett folds the washcloth over itself and sets it on the nightstand, then looks down at the rest of her.
The hoodie Maria put on her is zipped to her collarbone, dark fabric stained rusty near the cuff where she must have touched her face. Her scrub pants are still on, wrinkled and creased from the shift, one knee smudged faintly with something she refuses to identify. There is a hospital sticker on her shoe that nobody noticed until now, bright and stupid and stuck to the edge of the sole.
Garrett’s gaze catches on the blood at her sleeve. “You want out of these scrub pants?” he asks quietly. “And your hoodie has blood on it, baby.”
She looks down, as if this is new information. Her brain takes a second to make sense of the stain. “Oh.”
“It’s okay.”
“Yeah,” she says after a moment. Then, because the word seems to have scraped something loose on the way out, she adds, “Sorry.”
Garrett’s head lifts. “Why the fuck are you sorry?”
The sharpness of it makes her blink. He says it too quietly, all the force held under his tongue. But it lands somewhere tender anyway. She presses her lips together and immediately regrets that too. “Ow.”
Garrett’s expression softens, but his eyes stay fixed on her. Waiting.
She sighs, and it comes out shaky enough that she would like to file a formal complaint with her nervous system. “Because you…” The thought keeps slipping. She can see it, vaguely, but reaching for it makes her head pulse harder. “You didn’t sign up for this. I should’ve gotten Lucy or Monique. Or stayed with Maria, or– I don’t know.”
“No.” Garrett shakes his head once, and then stops himself, like maybe he’s remembered that head movement isn’t anyone’s friend right now. His hand comes to the side of her face, careful of the bruising, thumb brushing just below her temple where the skin is untouched. “Don’t do that.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re apologising for coming here.”
Her throat tightens. She looks at his shoulder because his face is too close and too much and still not close enough. “I just didn’t want you to feel like you had to.”
“Had to what?”
“Look after me.”
For a second, he only stares at her. Then he exhales through his nose, rough and almost disbelieving, and his fingers slide into her hair at the side of her head, holding it back from her face like the gesture can stand in for all the things he’s trying not to say too fast or wrong. “You think I’m sitting here because I feel obligated?”
She has the very strong, very pathetic urge to cry, which is inconvenient because crying would involve her face. “I don’t know.”
“Baby.”
She closes her eyes.
“Hey.” His thumb moves once. “Look at me.”
She does, reluctantly, because Garrett’s voice has gone into that low place that usually gets him what he wants and because her resistance is currently running on fumes.
His face is steadier now. Still pale underneath the warm lamplight, still tight around the edges, but steady in the places he’s offering to her. “I want you here.”
Her breath catches around something that hurts in a completely separate way from her nose. “Are we…” She stops, partly because the sentence is embarrassing and partly because she loses the middle of it for a second. The fog rolls in, cottony and irritating. She blinks, and Garrett waits. He doesn’t hurry her. Doesn’t fill the gap with a joke. Just keeps his hand at her face until she finds the rest. “Are we okay?”
His expression breaks so gently it makes her chest ache. “Course we are.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He brushes her hair back again, knuckles barely grazing the side of her neck. “We’re okay.”
She nods carefully. A tiny movement. “Good.”
Garrett’s mouth lifts at one corner, soft and sad and warm all at once. “Good?”
“Yeah.” Her fingers curl in his shirt again. This time, she doesn’t pull. “Because I really…” She swallows. Her throat is dry. Her head is thick. The truth comes out before she can dress it up in something safer. “I just wanted you.”
Something in him goes still. A held breath somewhere in the centre of him, then he nods, and the smile that comes with it is small enough that it feels private, even with the door half open and the boys downstairs and the whole house softly rearranged around her injury. “I know the feeling.”
She sniffs, because her body is committed to making the worst possible choices, and pain snaps up through her nose so sharply her eyes water. “Ow. Fuck.” She presses two fingers near the side of her face. “You do?”
Garrett’s smile shifts. “You want me to say it again while you look like you’re about to sneeze blood?”
“Maybe.”
“I know the feeling,” he says, and this time he doesn’t look away. “Because who better to nurse me back to health than you, huh?”
The laugh that escapes her is tiny and breathless and immediately followed by a wince, but it’s real. “I’m not even good at it today.”
“That’s okay.” He leans in and kisses the top of her head, nowhere near the bruising, lips warm against her hair. “I’ll cover this one.”
He gets up slowly this time, one hand staying in hers until the last possible second, then moves to his dresser. She watches him pull open drawers.
He finds a pair of grey sweatpants first, soft and old and definitely his, then a zip-up hoodie because it will not need to go over her head. She can see the moment he chooses it for that reason. The little pause, the glance back at her shoulder, the jaw tight enough to tell on him.
When he comes back, the clothes folded over his arm, he crouches in front of her again. “Alright. We’ll do this slow, okay?”
She nods, then corrects it into a verbal answer before her head can punish her. “Okay.”
“Pants first.”
“Romantic.”
His mouth twitches. “I’m known for it.”
He helps her stand only as much as she needs, one hand at her good elbow, the other at her waist. The room sways faintly when she gets upright, unpleasantly loose at the edges, and Garrett’s hand firms at once. “Dizzy?”
“Little bit.”
“Sit?”
“No, I’m good. Just…” She looks down at the drawstring of her scrub pants, then at him. “This is a very low dignity moment for me.”
Garrett’s gaze flicks up, and there it is again, the smallest spark of him through the worry. “Baby, you’ve fallen asleep drooling on my chest after telling me I had slutty veins.”
She frowns. “I said that?”
“You did.”
“That does sound like me,” she accepts.
“Exactly. Dignity’s been dead.”
She huffs, almost laughing, and he helps ease the scrub pants down her legs without making a production of it. Nothing in his face changes in the way that would make her feel watched, despite the fact that he’s, technically, undressing her in his bedroom.
His touch stays practical, warm, almost painfully respectful. He holds the sweatpants open for her one leg at a time, keeps a hand at her hip while she steps in, then draws them up slowly over her thighs.
They’re too big, of course. They sit low on her hips and pool at her ankles in a way that would be funny if everything didn’t hurt. Garrett ties the drawstring in a loose knot and pats it once.
“There,” he says. “Very fashionable.”
“Shut up. I’m concussed.”
“I know. That’s why I’m letting you get away with that tone.”
Her mouth threatens a smile, so she bites it back and looks down at herself instead. The hoodie is next. Garrett reaches for the zipper, then stops. “Where’s the top?”
She blinks at him. “What?”
“Your scrub top.” His voice stays even, but not naturally.
Her mind searches the department and comes back with torn fabric, scissors, someone’s gloved hands. “Um.” She rubs her fingers against the seam of his sweatpants, trying to make the thought stay still long enough to look at it. “Um. Bag. Maybe. They had to cut it off, I think.”
Garrett’s jaw tenses. It’s quick. A muscle jumping once, his mouth going flat, his eyes dropping away from her face for half a second like he needs to put the reaction somewhere she can’t see it. But she sees it anyway. She’s concussed, not blind.
When he looks back up, he’s forced something lighter onto his face. It’s not quite convincing, but the attempt is so Garrett it makes her ache.
“Damn,” he says. “Liked that pair.”
She stares at him. “Pair?”
“Set. Outfit. Whatever.” He lifts one shoulder, careful to keep his voice mild. “Made your ass look great.”
The giggle escapes before she can stop it. Immediately, pain blooms across her lip and nose, and she presses her fingers to her mouth with a muffled, “Ow. Don’t flirt with the concussed.”
Garrett’s smile is barely there, but warmer this time. “Can’t help it.”
“You should try.”
“I’ve been trying for months. Terrible at it.”
That one sits in the room longer than it should. Her eyes lift to his, and for a second, neither of them moves. Then Garrett clears his throat softly and reaches for the zipper of her hoodie.
“This one’s gonna suck,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
That’s somehow worse than if he had lied. “Okay.”
He unzips the bloodstained hoodie slowly, easing one side down her good arm first. That part is fine, or close enough. The bad shoulder is different. Even with the zip-up, even with him going painfully slowly, the fabric drags over the sore joint and catches near her elbow, and the strain of lifting even a fraction sends pain snapping hot and deep through her shoulder and up the side of her neck.
She makes a sound she hates. Small and broken enough that Garrett’s whole face changes.
“Stop, stop, stop,” he murmurs immediately. His hands freeze, one holding the fabric, the other at her waist. “I’ve got it. You’re okay. Don’t move.”
Her eyes burn fast. Too fast. The pain isn’t even the worst she has felt tonight, which somehow makes crying more insulting, like her body has chosen this as the point to become unreasonable. A few tears slip out anyway, hot and humiliating over her swollen cheeks.
“Sorry,” she whispers.
Garrett’s eyes flash. “Do not.”
“I know. I know, I’m just–” Her breath catches in that horrible little pre-sob way, and her face hurts too much to do anything with it. “It hurts.”
“I know.” His voice drops, low and steady. He shifts closer, bracing her gently with his own body while he works the sleeve down by tiny increments. “I know. I’m sorry. Almost done. There you go. Good girl. That’s it.”
The praise lands somewhere stupid and warm under all the pain, and she would make fun of him for weaponising it if she were not currently trying not to cry into his shirt. The hoodie finally comes free, and Garrett gets his zip-up around her without making her lift her arm higher than necessary, guiding the sore side in first, then the other, then drawing the soft fabric closed around her body. It smells like him immediately. Clean laundry, cold rink air, skin.
The relief of being out of the hospital clothes hits harder than she expects. She folds forward into him.
Garrett catches her like he has been waiting for it, one arm firm around her waist, the other cradling the back of her head before she can tip into the wrong angle. “There we go,” he murmurs into her hair. “Got you.”
She nods against him, but it’s barely a movement. “Hurts.”
“I know, baby.”
“I’m being a baby.”
“No.” His hand spreads over her back, broad and warm through the hoodie. “You’re being concussed with a fucked-up shoulder.”
She breathes against him for another minute, letting the warmth of him settle over the sharper edges. His heart is steady under her cheek. Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe that’s just what she needs it to be. Either way, his arms stay around her until her breathing evens out, until the tears stop sliding hot under her eyes, until she can pull back without feeling like she might tip sideways into the nightstand.
Garrett helps her lie down against his pillows. He has her on her back at first, then adjusts when she makes a face, turning her slightly onto her good side with slow hands and a pillow tucked near her shoulder so it isn’t pulling strangely. He moves like he’s learning her injury as he goes, like the map of her pain matters enough to memorise. It makes something soft and sore press up behind her ribs.
When he climbs in beside her, he doesn’t pull her in immediately. He waits, lying on his side facing her, one arm bent under his head, the other resting near the blanket between them. Giving her space to decide how much contact feels possible. Which is very considerate of him and also deeply annoying because she has no interest in space.
She curls into him as best she can, awkwardly, her bad shoulder protected between them, her forehead carefully finding the safe hollow below his collarbone. Garrett lets out a breath that sounds like he has been holding it since the front door.
“There,” he says softly. “That okay?”
“Mhm.”
His hand comes to her hair again. Fingers sliding slowly from her temple back over her scalp, loosening what the clip and the shift and the panic left behind. The motion sends a dull, pleasant ache through her, somewhere under the headache, a different kind of heaviness.
She sighs before she can stop herself. “Feels nice.”
Garrett’s thumb moves near her hairline. “I’ll keep doing it then.”
She lets her eyes close.
For a while, the room stays still around them. The lamp glows behind her eyelids. The house below makes small, careful sounds, a cabinet closing softly, footsteps pausing in the hallway and then retreating, the quiet evidence of three hockey players trying very hard to be normal about the girl in Garrett’s bed with a concussion.
Her head throbs anyway, steady and deep. Her lip pulses. Her shoulder aches in its own miserable rhythm. But Garrett’s hand keeps moving through her hair, slow enough that her breathing starts to follow it.
She’s almost asleep, or something near it, when Garrett speaks. “What happened?”
His voice is quiet. He asks like he’s been holding the question in both hands for too long and needs to set it somewhere.
She opens her eyes to the dark cotton of his shirt. Her brain takes a few seconds to come back online. She breathes out slowly through her mouth because her nose is still a disaster.
The memory is there at once, too close and too bright around the edges, and her body reacts to it before the words arrive. Fingers curling lightly in the front of his shirt. Shoulder tightening, then complaining. The ghost of the rail coming up fast.
Garrett’s hand pauses in her hair. “You don’t have to.”
“No.” Her voice is quiet. “It’s okay.”
He starts moving his hand again, slower now.
“It was a psych patient,” she says. “He was really agitated. Not like… violent, at first. Just scared, I think. Curled in on himself, wouldn’t really let anyone near him. Maria was with me. We were trying to keep the room calm, but the ED was so busy and loud and everyone was stretched thin, and he just…” She stops, trying to find the order of it. Everything feels slippery when she looks too directly. “He lashed out. His elbow got me in the face. Accidentally, I think.”
Garrett’s chest goes very still under her cheek.
“And I cried out,” she continues. “I don’t know. It just hurt and it surprised me, and I think that freaked him out more. Or the noise did. Or maybe he just didn’t know what was happening.” She swallows. Her throat feels raw. “He grabbed my scrub top before I could move back. Pulled me forward. My nose hit the bed rail. Or my mouth did. I’m not sure. It happened really fast.”
Garrett’s arm tightens around her, then loosens immediately like he’s afraid of hurting her. His hand remains in her hair, but the fingers have gone still.
“Security came in,” she says. “Another nurse pulled me back. Steph, I think. Or maybe Maria. Both, maybe. I don’t know. I remember Maria saying my name a lot.” She looks down between them, though there is nothing to see but the dark fold of his shirt and the edge of his hoodie on her body. “He didn’t mean it.”
Garrett is quiet for long enough that she starts to wonder if he has stopped breathing.
Then he says, “You keep saying that.”
“He didn’t.”
“I know.” His voice is rough, scraped thin at the edges. “I know he didn’t, baby. I just…” He takes a breath. It moves carefully through his chest. “You got hurt anyway.”
The words land with the same awful simplicity as Maria’s had in the car. That doesn’t mean you didn’t get hurt. She closes her eyes, because everyone has decided to be kind in the exact way she cannot defend against.
“I know,” she whispers.
Garrett’s hand finally moves again, fingers sliding over her scalp, then down to the nape of her neck where he can touch without brushing bruised skin. “Is this how you feel?”
She opens her eyes. “What?”
“When I come home after a game all bruised and shit.” He shifts just enough that she can feel him looking down at her, though she doesn’t lift her head to meet it yet. “Is this what it feels like?”
A tiny breath leaves her. Not quite a laugh. More tired than that. “You mean do I also go weird and silent and look like I might throw up?”
“Yeah.”
“Then yeah.” Her fingers smooth over the fabric of his shirt because she needs something small to do. “Kind of, I guess.”
Garrett doesn’t answer.
She turns her face slightly, enough to look at the line of his jaw in the low light. He’s staring at the wall beyond her head, mouth set, brows drawn, hair falling messily over his forehead. He looks angry and young and helpless, which is such a strange combination on him that it makes her chest ache.
“It’s different,” she says softly. “You’re playing a game you love. You know the risks. I know that. And you guys are all… insane about pain, which I’ve accepted against my will.”
His mouth twitches without humour.
“But I don’t enjoy seeing you hurt.” Her voice goes quieter around the admission. “Even when it’s normal hockey hurt. Even when you’re smug about it and standing in the kitchen telling me it’s fine while your ribs look like someone used you as a doorstop. It still makes my stomach feel weird.”
Garrett’s eyes come down to her then. She tries to hold the look for a second and manages maybe half. His attention is too raw tonight. Too stripped of the things he usually wears over it.
“I know you’re tough,” she says, looking at his collar instead. “I know you can take it. I know half the time you think me worrying is funny or hot or both, because you have a very damaged sense of romance.”
“That’s fair.”
“But I still…” She frowns slightly, the thought losing shape, then finding it again. “I still hate it. Not because I think you’re weak. Because you’re not. Obviously. It’s just your body, you know? And I like your body.”
Garrett’s eyebrows lift faintly.
She narrows her eyes at him. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to become insufferable.”
“Maybe a little.”
“I have a concussion. Be kind.”
His face softens again, the almost-tease folding back into something warmer. “I’m being so kind.”
“You’re doing okay.”
“Glowing review.”
She breathes out through her mouth, and for a moment the room feels almost normal. Almost. Garrett’s hand in her hair. His chest under her cheek. The two of them managing to find the familiar shape of each other even through the bruising and the blood and the fear still sitting somewhere near the foot of the bed.
Then Garrett’s thumb brushes the side of her head again, light and careful, and his voice drops. “I hated seeing you like that.”
She looks at him this time.
He doesn’t look away. His eyes are dark in the low light, all the usual teasing stripped out of them. “At the door,” he says. “I hated it.”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.” His mouth tightens, then releases. “You were standing there with blood on your face and Maria next to you and you looked at me like you were sorry. Like I was gonna be upset that you came here.”
Her throat works. “I didn’t want to be too much.”
Garrett makes a sound under his breath, small and rough. “You got hurt.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re allowed to be too much.”
The sentence is so simple it feels dangerous. Her eyes sting again, and she presses her face carefully into his chest before the tears can do anything stupid to her already stupid face.
Garrett’s arm comes around her, careful of her shoulder, his hand settling between her shoulder blades where he can hold without hurting. “Especially here,” he murmurs into her hair. “Especially with me.”
She doesn’t answer. She can’t, really. Not without crying, and crying hurts, and she’s tired of things hurting. So she only curls her fingers more tightly in his shirt and lets him keep his hand in her hair.
After a while, she says, very quietly, “I’m really tired.”
“I know.” Garrett kisses the top of her head. “You can sleep.”
“Logan set alarms.”
“Of course Logan set alarms.”
She manages the faintest smile. “He looked very serious.”
“He loves a protocol.”
“He does have the head injury experience.”
Garrett huffs a soft laugh against her hair, the sound loosening something in the dark. “Unfortunately.”
She lets her eyes close again. The headache is still there. The bruising is still swelling around her nose, hot and heavy. Her shoulder still aches beneath his hoodie. None of it has gone away.
But Garrett’s fingers keep moving through her hair, and his body is warm where hers has gone cold and wrung out, and downstairs the boys are quiet in a way that makes the whole house feel like it is holding its breath around her.
“Garrett?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“If I say something weird, it’s the concussion.”
His hand pauses for half a second. “Okay.”
“And if I say something nice.”
His mouth brushes her hair. “Also concussion?”
“Probably.”
“Got it.”
She’s quiet long enough that he likely thinks she’s drifted off. Maybe she has, a little. The edge of sleep is soft and close, pulling at the corners of the room, blurring the pain into something thick and manageable. Then she murmurs, “You’re good at this.”
Garrett’s chest rises slowly beneath her cheek. “At what?”
“Looking after me.”
His fingers resume their movement through her hair, slower than before. “Yeah?”
“Mm.”
His voice, when it comes, is barely more than warmth in the dark. “Only because you taught me how.”
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pairing – garrett graham x nursing student!reader
summary – after a head injury at clinical, garrett graham gets to be the one doing the looking after for once.
warnings – head injury, concussion, facial bruising, blood, medical care, patient aggression, emotional distress, caretaking, strong language
notes from me – we're getting somewhere my loves!!!! based on this ask, hope u enjoy! <3
word count – 11.9k
navigation – masterlist |
The car smells like hospital hand sanitiser and Maria’s vanilla air freshener and the coppery, unpleasant trace of blood she’s pretty sure is still stuck somewhere under her nose.
She sits very carefully in the passenger seat with her bag clutched in her lap and the discharge papers folded into the front pocket because Maria had put them there for safekeeping after watching her try to read the same paragraph three times and then ask, quietly and with genuine confusion, whether nausea was spelled with an o. The answer is no. Apparently. She knows that. Usually.
Her head throbs with every tiny vibration of the road, a dull, spreading pressure behind her eyes and across the bridge of her nose, pulsing in time with her heartbeat like her skull has decided to develop a second career as a bass drum. The split in her lip keeps reopening every time she moves her mouth too much, which is rude, considering she would very much like to continue pretending this is all fine and fine people generally require functional lips for lying.
There’s dried blood under her nose. She can feel it there, tight and flaky against her skin, the way she can feel the swelling beginning to gather beneath both eyes, heavy and hot and humiliating.
Her scrub top is folded in a plastic bag somewhere near her feet because the front of it’s torn and streaked with blood from the first few awful seconds before anyone could get to her, before security and Maria and Steph from triage had managed to pull her backwards by the waist while the patient screamed so loudly the whole department seemed to go airless around it.
It wasn’t his fault, not really. He was frightened and out of it and nobody expected him to come up that fast, one second curled tight on the bed with his voice climbing, the next swinging blind and hard enough that his elbow caught her straight across the face.
She remembers the crack of pain before she remembers making a sound. Then her own cry seemed to set him off worse, his hand catching a fistful of her scrub top before she could step back, the brutal pull forward, the bed rail coming up too fast.
Her nose had hit first. Or her mouth. Or her forehead. It’s all a little rearranged now, bright flashes and metal and Maria shouting her name and someone saying, “Security, now,” with enough force to make the whole bay move.
She knows it wasn’t anyone’s fault. She knows psych presentations can turn quickly, knows agitation isn’t always a straight line with warning signs and a polite little interval where everyone gets to reposition themselves safely.
She knows all the rational things. She also knows her face hurts badly enough that thinking in full sentences feels like pushing through wet cement, and she is, medically speaking, having a really fucking shit time.
Beside her, Maria drives like a woman who’s spent twenty years transporting compromised student nurses and actual glassware with equal care. One hand on the wheel, eyes on the road, her voice soft enough not to scrape against the inside of her skull when she says, “How’s the head, honey?”
She exhales through her nose and immediately regrets it because her nose doesn’t wish to be involved in breathing at this time. “Super normal. Love having one.”
Maria makes a small sound that could be a laugh if it wasn’t wrapped so tightly in concern. “Nausea?”
“Not worse.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
She lets her head rest back against the seat and keeps her eyes on the blurred glow of streetlights sliding across the windscreen. The movement makes her stomach roll faintly, but not enough to tell Maria about, because Maria has already done enough.
Maria had stood in the consult room while Dr. Patel checked her pupils and her nose and the swelling around her cheekbones, one warm hand resting between her shoulder blades every time she tried to make a joke and ended up going quiet instead.
Maria had found her spare hoodie from the locker room and helped her into it when lifting her left arm made pain streak down through her shoulder. Maria had said, very gently, you’re not catching the bus after getting your bell rung in my department, like that settled the matter.
“A little,” she admits. “But I’m not going to vomit in your car.”
“Kind of you.”
“I’m very thoughtful.”
“You’re concussed.”
She sighs softly. “Also that.”
Maria’s eyes flick over her in the dim light, quick and practised. “You remember what Dr. Patel said?”
She does. Mostly. The words have been looping vaguely around the edges of her head since he handed her the paperwork. Mild concussion. No fracture. Neuro obs stable. X-ray clear. Rest. No driving. No placement until reviewed. Come back if vomiting, worsening headache, confusion, unusual drowsiness, changes in vision, weakness, seizure, or if anything feels wrong enough that you’re trying to talk yourself out of seeking help.
No being alone tonight.
That last one had landed harder than the rest, somehow. Maybe because the ED had been too bright and too busy and she had been sitting there with a wad of gauze under her nose, feeling like a leaking appliance. Maybe because the doctor had said it in that professional, non-negotiable way that made arguing feel childish. Maybe because the idea of someone watching her because her brain had been knocked around made her feel suddenly, horribly small.
“Wake me every few hours,” she says. “Check I’m not getting weirder.”
Maria’s mouth tips. “You said weirder.”
“That’s the clinical term.”
“It’s not.”
“It should be. Easier to spell than altered level of consciousness.”
Maria actually laughs that time, but it fades quickly. “You can’t be home alone.”
“I know.”
“And you’re not going to pretend you’re fine and sit in your dorm by yourself because you feel embarrassed?”
Her eyes drift shut for half a second, then open again when the darkness makes her head swim. “I’m not embarrassed.”
Maria’s silent.
She sinks a little lower in the seat. “Okay. Maybe a normal amount.”
“There is no normal amount of embarrassed after being assaulted by a patient at work.”
“It wasn’t assault.”
Maria sighs. “Honey.”
“He didn’t know what he was doing,” she argues.
“That doesn’t mean you didn’t get hurt.”
Her mouth twitches before she remembers her lip is split. Pain snaps bright and sharp through the swollen skin. “Ow. Fuck.”
Maria’s hand lifts slightly off the wheel like she wants to reach over, then thinks better of it. “Don’t smile.”
“That’s bleak advice.”
“Currently medical advice.”
She presses her tongue carefully to the inside of her lip and tastes blood again. The whole evening keeps arriving in pieces. The patient’s arm. The bed rail. Maria’s face above hers, too close and too worried. Someone cutting away the torn edge of her scrub top.
Her own hands shaking in her lap while she tried to tell everyone, very reasonably, that she could finish the shift if they just gave her a second. As if she hadn’t been bleeding on her own shoes.
The thought makes heat rise under the bruising in her face, which is unfair because her face has already suffered enough. “God,” she mutters. “Everyone saw.”
Maria sighs, not impatient, but close to something sad. “Yes, everyone saw that you got hurt.”
“I’m the student.”
“Yes,” Maria nods.
“I’m supposed to be useful.”
“You were useful all day.”
“I ended the shift with a concussion and a bloody nose.”
“You ended the shift injured because an unpredictable situation escalated. That’s not a performance review.”
She knows that. She does. She would say that to anyone else. She would put her hand on another student’s shoulder and mean it completely. She would tell them they were in the wrong place at the wrong second and that sometimes you can do everything right and still get hurt because hospitals are not made of lesson plans and perfect outcomes.
Unfortunately, she’s not another student. She’s herself. And herself currently has blood in her hoodie sleeve because she keeps forgetting not to touch her face.
They hit a bump in the road, not even a large one, but it sends pain blooming through her skull with such immediate nastiness that she sucks in a breath through her teeth and grips the strap of her bag.
Maria notices. “Almost there.”
She opens her mouth to ask where there is, and then remembers campus, her dorm, her room, the bed with the old sweatshirt shoved under the pillow, the roommate who is not there. Her stomach drops so abruptly it makes the nausea worse. “Shit.”
Maria glances over. “What?”
“My roommate’s not home.”
“Tonight?”
“She’s at her sister’s. Like, hours away.” She closes her eyes, then opens them again because the inside of her head does not enjoy visual privacy right now. “Fuck. I forgot.”
“Okay.” Maria’s voice stays calm. That is possibly the worst part. “Do you have someone else? A friend you could stay with?”
She thinks of Lucy first, because that’s the correct answer. Lucy would absolutely let her stay. Lucy would probably panic and then overcorrect into a level of cheerfulness that could qualify as a secondary head injury. Monique would be better, quieter, but Monique has an exam tomorrow and lives across campus in a building where the lift is always broken, which feels like a personal attack under current conditions.
Then her brain, unhelpfully and immediately, supplies Garrett.
Garrett’s room with the lamp on. Garrett’s hand at the back of her neck. Garrett’s voice low in her ear telling her to stop studying and sleep. Garrett sitting on the edge of her bed taking off her shoes after a bad shift.
Garrett looking at her like competence is something he can be proud of even when she feels like she’s wearing it badly. Garrett, who has been hit in the head enough times that concussion protocol is probably written somewhere in his bones.
Garrett, who’s not technically her boyfriend, except the technicalities feel very stupid when her head is throbbing and her lip is bleeding and she wants him so badly it makes her chest ache worse than her shoulder.
“Yeah,” she says, and her voice comes out softer than she means it to. “Uh. Yeah. I have someone.”
Maria doesn’t look smug. That’s probably part of why she is a good preceptor. “Address?”
She gives her the hockey house. The words feel bigger in the car than they should. Maybe because saying his address out loud to Maria feels like she’s accidentally handed over evidence. Maybe because the last time Maria saw Garrett, he’d been standing in the ED hallway with panic sitting badly under his skin while Logan asked what day it was for the third time.
Maybe because Maria now knows exactly where to take the concussed student nurse with the split lip and the ruined scrubs, and that place is apparently Garrett Graham’s house.
Maria only nods and changes lanes.
The hockey house is lit up when they pull onto the street, every downstairs window glowing warm and yellow into the cold, the porch light flickering faintly over the steps. There are cars out front, some vaguely familiar. The sight of it loosens something in her chest. At least someone’s home. At least there’s a couch, and people who know what pupils are supposed to do, and Garrett somewhere inside if the universe has decided to be kind after all the other things it did tonight.
Maria puts the car in park and turns toward her. “Wait. I’ll help you.”
“I can walk.”
“I didn’t ask,” Maria responds.
She huffs, which hurts less than smiling. Maria gets out first and comes around, opening the passenger door before she can argue again. The cold hits her face and instantly makes her nose ache in a new and innovative way.
She climbs out slowly, one hand braced on the car door, shoulder protesting when she reaches for the strap of her bag. Maria takes it from her without comment.
“Rude,” she murmurs.
“Concussed.”
“Everyone keeps saying that like it explains everything.”
“It explains a lot.”
The walk up the path feels longer than it should. The porch steps require more concentration than she likes, which annoys her because she’s watched drunk freshmen navigate these steps while carrying open cups and zero dignity. Her sneakers scrape lightly over the boards.
Somewhere inside, someone yells something that might be, “You’re cheating,” followed by Dean’s voice saying, “It’s not cheating if the game lets me do it,” which feels like an argument that has existed in this house for generations.
She knocks once because lifting her hand twice seems excessive. There’s a crash inside. A hockey house crash. Male voices overlap, loud and irritated and completely unaware of the fact that sound is currently a weapon. She winces before she can stop herself, one hand coming up toward her temple and hovering there uselessly.
Maria’s mouth tightens. “You okay?”
“Yep.”
The door opens on Logan in sweats and a faded Briar shirt, hair a mess, controller in one hand, expression halfway to annoyed until he sees her. Everything drops out of his face.
He says her name once, startled and low, and then, “What the fuck happened?”
The room behind him seems to quiet in stages. Maybe because of his voice. Maybe because she’s standing on the porch looking like an ED discharge summary with legs.
She becomes suddenly, viciously aware of herself: the bruising already shadowing beneath her eyes, the swollen bridge of her nose, the blood dried under it despite Maria helping her clean up, the split lip, the hoodie zipped crooked because raising her shoulder hurts. She hadn’t thought much about how she looked in the car because looking required mirrors and mirrors required courage she didn’t currently possess.
Then Garrett appears behind Logan, and the whole night rearranges itself around the look on his face. He must have been in the living room. His hair’s damp at the edges like he showered not long ago, curls loose over his forehead, sweatpants low on his hips, a dark t-shirt pulled tight across his shoulders.
He steps into the doorway with his mouth already forming some question, probably a chirp, probably something warm and annoying about why she’s showing up with supervision. He sees her, and all the colour leaves his face, as if something has reached into him and taken it by the roots.
His eyes move over her once, too fast and not fast enough. Nose. Mouth. Bruises. Hoodie. The stiff way she’s holding her shoulder. Maria beside her with the bag and the paperwork. Back to her face, where his attention catches and stays.
She tries to smile. It’s a mistake immediately. Pain sparks through her lip, and she winces instead, which feels like the saddest possible version of flirting. “Hi,” she says.
Garrett doesn’t answer.
Logan steps back at once. “Jesus. Come in. Fuck. Come in.”
Warmth and sound and the smell of boys and pizza and laundry detergent roll over her as she steps into the house. The living room lights make her eyes sting. Dean and Tucker are on the couch, controllers in hand, the TV paused mid-game like they’ve both forgotten the concept of winning. Dean’s mouth opens. Tucker’s face changes quietly, which somehow feels worse.
“Holy fuck,” Dean half-yells.
The words hit too loud. She flinches before she can make herself not do it.
Tucker moves instantly. “Dean, get the lights, man.”
“What? Oh. Shit, yeah.” Dean scrambles for the lamp with the guilty urgency of a man who’s suddenly remembered inside voices exist. The room drops into a dimmer yellow, the overhead going off, the TV brightness turned down under Tucker’s quick hand. It changes the whole house at once, softens the edges, takes the blade out of the light.
Maria watches all of it with a look that would be approving if she weren’t still too professional to be obvious about it.
“She’s had a head injury,” she says, voice calm, eyes moving to Garrett because everyone’s eyes move to Garrett, because this is his house and not-his-girlfriend has arrived at his door concussed and bleeding. “Mild concussion. X-ray was clear, no nasal fracture, but she needs monitoring overnight. No alcohol, no driving, no being alone. Keep the lights low, noise down. She can sleep, but someone needs to check on her as per the discharge instructions. If she starts vomiting, gets more confused, can’t be woken, worsening headache, vision changes, weakness, anything that feels off, take her back in.”
Garrett nods slowly. He’s still staring at her.
Logan, maybe because Garrett looks like he’s briefly lost access to language, reaches out and takes the paperwork from Maria. “Yeah. We’ve got it.”
Maria turns back to her, and her face softens in that way that makes the back of her throat go tight. “I’ll see you in a couple days, honey. Not tomorrow. Rest tomorrow.”
She nods carefully. Even that tiny motion makes pressure throb through her skull. “Thanks for driving me.”
“Text me when you wake up.” Maria’s eyes flick toward Garrett again. “And listen to them for once.”
That almost makes her smile. She resists, heroically. “No promises.”
Maria gives her shoulder the gentlest squeeze, nowhere near the painful side, then lets herself out. Logan closes the door softly behind her, like the whole house has been put on medical quiet time.
For half a second, nobody moves. Then Dean says, much quieter this time, “Who the fuck did that?”
She lets out a breath that doesn’t quite make it to a laugh. “Hi to you too.”
Dean’s on his feet now, controller abandoned on the couch, all his usual lazy beauty sharpened into something pissed and bright. “I’m serious.”
“I know.” Her head’s beginning to pound harder now that she’s standing still. The adrenaline from getting out of the car, climbing the steps, seeing Garrett’s face, all of it drains down through her body and leaves her feeling oddly hollow.
Garrett notices, his hand comes to her elbow, barely touching at first like he’s afraid pressure might break something. The warmth of him lands through the hoodie and her body, traitorous and exhausted, turns toward it before her pride has any say.
She steps into him. She leans forward and presses her forehead against his chest because the angle is the only one that doesn’t put pressure on her nose, one hand curling weakly in the soft fabric of his shirt.
Garrett tenses under her for a fraction of a second, like seeing her had knocked him out of himself and her touching him is what pulls him back in wrong. Then his arms come around her.
Careful. So careful it almost makes her cry. One hand settles at the back of her head without pressing, fingers spread wide over her hair, the other around her waist, holding her there with a gentleness that feels nothing like the boy who body checks men into boards for sport and everything like the one who once took her UGGs off because outside shoes didn’t belong in bed.
She closes her eyes, just for a second. Garrett’s voice, when it finally comes, is rough enough that she feels it against her cheek. “Baby.”
“I’m okay,” she says into his shirt, because she’s decided to start lying as a hobby.
His hand flexes once at her waist. “You’re bleeding.”
“I’m not actively dying.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
She manages a weak shrug. “Clinically significant distinction.”
Logan exhales behind them, shaky in a way he probably wishes nobody noticed. Tucker moves around them quietly, collecting controllers, turning the game off properly, lowering the TV volume until the room becomes mostly the hum of the refrigerator and distant campus noise through the windows. Dean’s still standing there looking like he needs something to hit and has, unfortunately for everyone, found only furniture.
Garrett pulls back enough to look at her, but not far enough that she loses him. His eyes scan her face again, slower now. It’s almost worse than the pain. The way his gaze catches on the swollen bridge of her nose, the blood at one nostril, the split in her lower lip. He looks wrecked by it. Offended, almost, like her body has done something behind his back.
“Come sit down,” he says.
She wants to make a joke about his captain voice. She really does. It’s right there, familiar and easy. Unfortunately, her brain loses the sentence halfway through assembling it, and by the time she finds a piece of it, Garrett’s already guiding her to the couch.
Dean moves a cushion out of the way. Tucker places another behind her back. Logan stands nearby with the paperwork in one hand, reading it with a frown so intense it looks like he’s preparing for finals in head trauma.
They all shift around her with this strange, quiet purpose that makes her chest feel too full and her face feel too sore to hold whatever expression she wants. Garrett crouches in front of her and reaches for her sneakers.
She blinks down at him. “What are you doing?”
His mouth barely moves. “Taking your shoes off.”
“I can take my shoes off.”
He looks up at her, and there is something in his face so taut and helpless that the argument falls apart in her lap. “Can you let me?”
Oh. That’s not fair. That’s wildly not fair.
She swallows and looks away first. “Yeah.”
Garrett unties her sneakers one at a time, slow with the laces, careful of the way moving her leg pulls faintly at her shoulder. He sets them neatly beside the coffee table. When her feet are free, she curls her legs up onto the couch without thinking, tucking herself sideways into the cushions because upright feels like an idea designed by people whose skulls are not currently full of angry bees.
Garrett’s hand hovers near her knee, then settles there. “Did you want water?”
She nods, then instantly regrets the movement. Pain washes across her forehead, hot and thick. Her eyes squeeze shut. “Ow. Fuck. Yes, please.”
Garrett rises. Her hand moves before she decides to move it, fingers catching the loose fabric of his sweatpants at the thigh, barely enough to stop him if he wanted to go. But he does stop. Immediately. She opens her eyes. Garrett’s looking down at her hand on him. Then he looks at Logan.
Logan’s already moving. “I’ve got it.”
Garrett sits beside her instead. He does it carefully, couch dipping with his weight, his thigh warm along the outside of her curled legs. He doesn’t crowd her face. Doesn’t pull her in too fast. Simply sits close enough that she can feel him there, his hand returning to her knee, thumb still because even his restless touching has gone cautious.
Dean hasn’t let the original point go. He sits on the edge of the coffee table across from her, elbows on his knees, all dramatic cheekbones and very real anger. “No, seriously. Who the fuck did this?”
She opens her mouth. The first answer is too long and falls apart before she can get to it. Her head gives one hard pulse. She shuts her eyes briefly, tries again. “A patient.”
Dean stares at her. “A patient did this to your face?”
“He was really agitated,” she explains as Logan comes back with water. He hands it to Garrett, not her, which would be annoying if her hands didn’t feel vaguely unreliable. “It escalated. He didn’t mean it.”
Dean’s expression says that this isn’t helping his blood pressure. “He didn’t mean it.”
“No.” She lets Garrett pass her the glass, taking it with both hands because one feels optimistic. The cold of it is nice against her palms. Her lip stings when she drinks, water catching briefly at the split, but her throat is dry enough that she keeps going anyway. “He was out of it. Psych presentation. It wasn’t– nobody did anything wrong.”
Tucker returns from the kitchen with an ice pack wrapped in a tea towel and offers it out with both hands like a peace treaty. “For your face. Or your shoulder. Or… wherever. I don’t know. I’m not the medical one.”
She takes it and immediately loves him a little for the towel. “Thanks, Tuck.”
Logan, reading from the discharge sheet now, says, “It says shoulder strain?”
“Logan.”
“What? It does.”
“Stop reading my lore out loud,” she huffs.
Dean gives her a look. “Your lore says shoulder strain and concussion.”
She lets her eyes close for a moment. “My lore is private.”
“Your lore showed up bleeding on our porch.”
She would like to laugh. She really would. Instead, the corner of her mouth twitches, pain bites through her lip, and her eyes water instantly. “Ow. God. That’s so annoying.”
Garrett’s hand comes up, stops short of her face. His fingers curl in midair before he lets them drop. “Your lip’s split and you’ve still got dried blood under your nose, baby.”
The baby does something terrible to her. It always does, but right now it’s worse because his voice is stripped down to the bone. He’s looking at her like he’s trying to keep himself from shaking by cataloguing every visible injury.
She shrugs with one shoulder and immediately regrets that too. Pain tugs from the side of her neck down into the joint, sharp enough that her breath catches.
Garrett sees it. His jaw flexes. “Don’t shrug.”
“I forgot.”
“How do you forget your shoulder hurts?”
“Concussion,” she says, because if everyone else gets to use it as an explanation, so does she. “It looks worse than it is. Promise. I’m just drained. And foggy. I keep losing my train of thought, which is the rudest symptom. Like, I was mid-sentence with Dr. Patel and just fully misplaced the rest of it.”
Tucker’s mouth softens. “That sounds scary.”
She looks down at the glass in her hands. The condensation has started to wet her fingers. “Mostly annoying.”
She lifts the ice pack toward her face, but her shoulder protests halfway up and makes the movement jerky. Garrett catches the pack before she can pretend she meant to do that.
Her eyes flick to him. “I can hold an ice pack.”
“I know.” His voice is quieter now. He shifts closer, one knee turning toward her on the couch, the wrapped ice pack careful in his hand. “But how many times have you looked after me, huh?”
She has no good answer for that. Too many. Not enough. In locker room hallways, in his bed, on this exact couch with bruises over his ribs while he tried to convince her hockey was a sufficient medical explanation for all bodily damage. She’s pressed ice to his cheek and taped his fingers and made him take painkillers and once threatened to call Maria for backup if he said manageable one more time.
Garrett’s mouth moves faintly, not a smile, but close enough to hurt. “Let me.”
She lets him. Garrett lifts the ice pack to her face with a care that makes her throat tighten, angling it over the bridge of her nose and the swelling beginning to spread under one eye without pressing too hard.
The cold hurts first, a bright, mean sting over bruised skin, then settles into something almost relieving. Her breath comes out shaky despite her best efforts.
“Too much?” he asks.
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” She shifts her gaze past him because his face is currently unmanageable. Dean and Tucker and Logan are all watching her with varying degrees of poorly concealed worry. Dean looks like he’s biting the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood. Logan still has the discharge paper. Tucker has both hands shoved into the pocket of his hoodie like he doesn’t trust them not to hover. “What?”
Dean blinks. “What?”
“You guys look like this every week and I don’t stare at you.”
Logan snorts, but it comes out thin. “That’s because we’re hot when we’re bruised.”
She manages an eye roll, which is a win. “You’re concussed half the time and deeply irritating the other half.”
“Range,” Dean says automatically.
She points weakly toward the TV with the hand not holding her water. “Relax. Go back to your video games.”
Tucker’s brows pull together. “No, but– but it’s different.”
Her eyes move to him.
He looks briefly embarrassed, then pushes through it anyway. “It’s you.”
Her chest does that awful thing again, too soft and too sore at the same time. She looks down because taking that directly from Tucker feels unfairly intimate, like he’s handed her something warm without warning.
“I’m okay,” she says, and it’s not entirely true, but she tries to make it sound close enough. “Really. I was observed. I had neuro obs. I had scans. No fracture. Nothing’s broken. Just bruised and concussed and mildly tragic.”
“Mildly?” Dean asks.
“Moderately if you keep fucking yelling.”
His face changes instantly. “Sorry.”
The apology is so immediate that she almost smiles again and has to stop herself like a responsible person. “It’s okay.”
Garrett’s hand holding the ice pack is steady. His eyes have barely left her face, and the longer she sits there under that attention, the more she realises he still hasn’t really said anything. Not like Garrett. Not a joke, not an actual question, not one of the bossy little comments that usually lands him in trouble and somehow still gets her to drink water.
His silence has weight. It sits beside her on the couch, pressed into the careful line of his shoulders.
She turns her head just enough to look at him. “You’re being weird.”
His eyes flick to hers. “I’m not.”
“You are.”
His mouth presses together. For a second, he looks younger than he usually does. Less Briar captain, less untouchable campus landmark, more boy on a couch holding an ice pack to a girl’s swollen face with fear making a mess under his skin.
He swallows. “Do you want me to loosen your hair?”
The question is so small and practical that it nearly undoes her. Her hair is still claw-clipped from placement, half-fallen now, strands tugging at her scalp from where it got pulled in the scuffle and then shoved messily back while she was being assessed. She had forgotten about it until he said it, and now she can feel every tight little pull at the roots, all of it feeding into the headache sitting behind her eyes.
“Yes, please,” she says.
Garrett lowers the ice pack and hands it to Tucker without looking. Tucker takes it like an assistant in surgery. Garrett turns slightly toward her, one hand moving behind her head, not touching at first. “Tell me if it hurts.”
“It all hurts.”
His face does something awful.
She softens her voice. “I’ll tell you if it hurts more.”
“Okay.” His fingers find the clip carefully. He’s taken her hair down before, usually with far less medical purpose and far more smugness, but now every motion is slow, almost reverent. The clip gives, and the weight of her hair loosens down her back. The relief is immediate enough that her eyes flutter shut without permission.
Garrett catches that too. “Better?”
“Mhm.”
He combs the fallen strands away from the side of her face with his fingers, avoiding the swelling, avoiding the blood, avoiding every place that might make her flinch. His thumb brushes once near her temple, feather-light.
She opens her eyes and finds him looking at her. “I’m okay,” she says again, quieter this time. “Really.”
Garrett doesn’t argue. That might be worse. He only nods once and takes the ice pack back from Tucker, pressing it carefully to her face again.
For a while, the room adjusts around her. Dean sits back down, but he doesn’t pick up the controller. Tucker goes to the kitchen and returns with a straw for her water like a man who’s discovered a side quest and intends to complete it properly. Logan reads the discharge instructions twice, then starts setting alarms on his phone without announcing it, because subtlety, in this house, is sometimes just everyone pretending they cannot see love doing administrative tasks in sweatpants.
She drinks water through the straw because lifting the glass is annoying and because nobody makes a thing of it. Garrett keeps the ice pack steady. Every so often, he asks a question in a voice too even to be casual. Headache worse? Nausea? Vision okay? She answers as best she can. Same. Little bit. Yeah, mostly.
When Dean shifts too fast and the couch creaks, he freezes like he’s committed assault by upholstery. That makes her huff something dangerously close to a laugh, and Garrett immediately murmurs, “Careful,” like her face is now a team responsibility.
The fogginess comes in waves. Sometimes she’s fully in the room, tracking Dean’s quiet rage and Tucker’s gentle fussing and Logan’s forced calm. Sometimes the edges blur a little, slow, like her thoughts are moving through syrup. Garrett’s thigh is warm against her curled legs. His arm rests along the back of the couch behind her, a soft barrier between her and the world.
She leans into him by degrees until her shoulder touches his chest and her head tips carefully toward the place beneath his jaw that smells like soap and boy and safety.
She doesn’t mean to get sleepy. She has discharge instructions that say she can sleep, she knows that, but the idea of giving in with everyone watching feels embarrassing in a new, stupid direction. Still, her eyelids grow heavy. The headache spreads and dulls under the cold. The room is dim. The boys are quiet. Garrett is warm.
At some point, Dean says softly, “You want me to call Lucy or someone?”
She tries to answer. The name gets halfway through her head and then wanders off. “Tomorrow,” she murmurs.
“Okay,” Dean says, and for once there’s no joke attached.
Garrett shifts beside her. “Baby?”
She makes a small sound that could mean what or I’m alive or don’t make me move, depending on how generous he feels.
“You getting sleepy?”
“No.”
There’s a pause.
Logan says, very quietly, “That was the least convincing thing I’ve ever heard.”
She opens one eye to glare at him, but the room tilts slightly with the effort, so she closes it again. “Your face is least convincing.”
“Strong comeback.”
“Thank you.”
Garrett’s lips brush her hair. It’s quick, maybe accidental, except nothing Garrett does with her feels accidental anymore, no matter how hard both of them have tried to label it otherwise. “I’m gonna take you upstairs, okay?”
Her eyes open properly at that, or as properly as they can. “I can walk.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that and then doing the thing for me anyway.”
His mouth curves faintly for the first time all night. It’s tiny and tired and painfully Garrett. “Yeah.”
She should argue. She’s built a respectable portion of this entire situationship on arguing with Garrett Graham while letting him do exactly what she wants him to do. But her shoulder aches, her face throbs, and her legs feel like they belong to somebody who’s spent the day being chased by weather.
More than that, she wants him. She wants his hands steady under her thighs, his chest close, his room dark and warm around them. She wants to stop being the student who got hurt and start being the girl Garrett carries upstairs because the floor feels too far away.
“Okay,” she whispers.
Dean looks at the TV like he’s never been interested in anything more. Tucker suddenly finds the water glass fascinating. Logan folds the discharge papers with great concentration. Nobody says a word.
Garrett slides one arm behind her back and the other beneath her knees with the same careful strength he uses for everything he takes seriously. “Shoulder?”
“Fine.”
His eyes flick to hers.
“Not worse,” she corrects.
He nods once and lifts her.
It does hurt, a little. Her shoulder pulls, her head pulses, and the movement makes nausea roll faintly through her stomach. But Garrett holds her so close and so steadily that the discomfort never gets sharp enough to scare her. Her hand curls in the front of his shirt, her face turning carefully toward his neck because pressing into his chest would bump her nose and she’s learned at least one thing tonight.
Dean’s voice follows them, low and rough from the couch. “G.”
Garrett stops at the foot of the stairs but doesn’t turn fully, like turning her too much might hurt.
Dean’s eyes move over her once, then to Garrett. Whatever he’d been about to say gets swallowed down and changed into something smaller. “We’re downstairs if you need anything.”
Garrett’s hold tightens by a fraction. “Yeah.”
Tucker adds, “I’ll bring up more ice in a bit.”
“And meds when she’s due,” Logan says, lifting the papers slightly.
She wants to tell them they’re all being ridiculous. She wants to say she’s fine, to make some joke about the Briar hockey team turning into a poorly licensed urgent care clinic. But her throat feels thick, and her eyes sting in a way that has nothing to do with the swelling, and for once the joke doesn’t come quickly enough to save her from feeling it.
So she only says, “Thanks, guys.”
Dean nods, jaw tight. Tucker gives her a small, worried smile. Logan says, “Anytime,” like he means it and hates that there’s a reason to.
Garrett carries her upstairs slowly. The stairwell is dim, the house clutter softened into shadows: a hoodie over the railing, someone’s shoes kicked near the landing, a dent in the wall nobody has confessed to making.
His breathing is steady beneath her ear. His arms don’t shift, don’t tremble, don’t let her feel for one second like she’s heavy or inconvenient or anything other than something he’s decided belongs safely against him.
Halfway up, she murmurs, “Garrett?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re still being weird.”
This time, his breath leaves him in something almost like a laugh. It brushes warm over her hair. “Yeah, baby,” he says, voice low enough that it belongs only to the stairs and the dark and the careful space between them. “I know.”
His room is already dim when he gets there, like he’d been in it before everything happened and left the lamp on low beside the bed, the shade turning the walls a warm, soft yellow that doesn’t stab behind her eyes.
The window is cracked just enough to let in a thin line of cold air, shifting the edge of the curtain and carrying in the far-off sound of campus on a weeknight, car doors and laughter and somebody shouting down the street like the world has not personally offended her face.
Garrett nudges the door open with his shoulder and steps inside carefully, like the room might have developed hazards in the ten minutes since he last saw it. One of his hoodies is thrown over the desk chair. There’s a textbook facedown on the bed that he must have been pretending to read earlier, a roll of hockey tape on the nightstand, his phone charger twisted into a knot on the floor.
The ordinary mess of him sits around them so gently that it makes something behind her ribs go weak. His room. His bed. His detergent and the clean soap smell of his skin under the faint cold of the hallway.
For the first time since the bay, since the rail, since the white burst of pain and Maria’s hand firm between her shoulder blades, her body seems to understand that it’s stopped moving.
Garrett lowers her onto the edge of the mattress with so much care it almost becomes annoying. One arm stays behind her back until she’s properly sitting, the other at her knees, and even after he lets go he keeps his hands there for a second, hovering near her like he’s not fully convinced gravity has been handled.
She blinks down at him because he’s crouched in front of her now, broad shoulders between her knees, face tipped up, eyes moving over her again with that same awful, quiet attention.
She can feel what he’s seeing before he says anything. The blood dried tight beneath her nose. The swelling already darkening around the bridge of it. The split in her lip, tacky and sore. Mascara smudged under both eyes from the crying she doesn’t remember allowing herself to do properly, only the wetness and the sting and Maria saying, breathe for me, honey, nice and slow.
Garrett swallows. His hands rest lightly on her calves, thumbs still. “Did you want to wipe your face?” he asks, voice careful. “You’ve got, uh…” His eyes flick down, then back up, and his mouth tightens around something he doesn’t let out. “Some mascara under your eyes. And some blood still.”
She knows he’s trying very hard not to sound like the sight of it is putting his organs in the wrong order. She loves him a little for the effort, which is a thought she cannot touch right now because her brain is concussed and reckless and clearly looking for loaded weapons.
She nods once, then immediately remembers that nodding is no longer a neutral activity. The headache flares behind her eyes, thick and punishing. “Ow,” she says, small and irritated.
Garrett’s hands tighten on her legs. “Hey.”
“I’m good.” Her tongue touches the split in her lip and she tastes metal again. “Can you?”
His face changes. Barely. A little fracture through the tight worry, something softer underneath it. “Course.”
He stands, and the second his hands leave her, her body reacts before her mind catches up. Her fingers snag in the hem of his t-shirt, clumsy and sudden, and the movement pulls through her bad shoulder so sharply that a soft, wounded sound slips out of her before she can bite it down.
Garrett freezes instantly. Entire body going still. “Hey. Hey, you’re good.” He turns back toward her, one hand coming carefully to her wrist, covering her fingers where they’re twisted in his shirt. “I’m just going to the hallway, yeah? Bathroom’s right there. Two seconds.”
She knows that. Obviously she knows that. She’s been in this house enough times to know the bathroom is six steps from his door and usually contains at least one towel on the floor and Dean’s body wash in a place where it doesn’t belong. She knows Garrett’s not leaving. She knows the door is open, the house is full, Logan’s downstairs reading concussion instructions like the exam is tomorrow.
Still, her fingers don’t let go right away.
Her head hurts. Her mouth hurts. Her shoulder is a hot, sharp line down one side of her body. And the small, rational part of her brain that usually handles dignity and sarcasm is sitting in a dark room somewhere with a blanket over its head, because all she can think is that she wants him where she can reach him.
Garrett’s thumb moves once over her knuckles. “I’ll keep the door open.”
She nods more carefully this time. “Okay.”
He waits until her fingers loosen, then steps backward instead of turning right away, eyes on her the whole time. It would be funny, maybe, if it didn’t work. If she didn’t feel her ribs unclench slightly because she can still see him, because he backs into the hallway like she’s a wild animal he’s trying not to spook and not a nursing student with blood under her nose and one of his sleeves somewhere in her fist.
He disappears only when he reaches the bathroom, and even then he keeps talking. “Still here,” he says, and the water starts a second later, soft against porcelain. “Just getting a washcloth.”
“I know,” she calls back, then winces because even her own voice feels too loud inside her skull.
Garrett comes back with the washcloth damp and folded in one hand. His other hand shuts the door halfway, enough to soften the rest of the house into a distant murmur. The mattress dips when he sits beside her, turned toward her with one knee bent on the bed.
He smells like clean skin and laundry and something faintly sweet from the kitchen downstairs, and she has to swallow around the childish, humiliating urge to press her face into his chest and stay there until her body stops feeling like it has been borrowed from a car crash.
“Here we go,” he says.
The cloth touches just beneath her eye first.
She stiffens on instinct, because everything has hurt tonight and her body is no longer trusting innocent objects, but Garrett pauses immediately. “Too cold?”
“No.” Her voice comes out thinner than she likes. “Just surprised.”
“Okay.” His face stays close, intent in a way that would normally make her flustered for more interesting reasons. “I’ll go slow.”
He does. He wipes the smudged mascara from beneath one eye with feather-light strokes, the washcloth barely dragging over skin, then folds it to a clean corner and does the other side. He works like he has been given something fragile and a little dangerous. Like every movement is being negotiated with the injuries on her face and the dull heaviness behind her eyes.
His jaw flexes when the cloth comes away grey-black with makeup and faintly pink with old blood, but he doesn’t comment. He only turns it again and brings it to the place under her nose.
“That might hurt,” he murmurs.
“It already hurts.”
His eyes lift to hers. “Yeah.”
She looks down at his wrist, at the veins there, at the old tape mark near his thumb, at the little scrape over one knuckle from practice or a game or some Garrett-related misuse of his own body. Usually she would notice and ask. Usually she would press her thumb near it and say, what’s this? and he would say, nothing, and she would call him annoying and make him let her look anyway.
Tonight she just watches his hand hold the cloth and lets him clean the blood away. The dried parts tug where they have hardened on her skin, and she sucks in a breath through her mouth when the washcloth brushes too close to the swelling at the bridge of her nose.
Garrett stops every time, waits for the little movement of her fingers in his shirt to settle, then continues. He wipes around the split in her lip last, his mouth flattening when fresh blood beads at the edge.
“You’re gonna bruise like hell,” he says, almost to himself.
She tries not to smile. It becomes a tiny, crooked thing anyway and immediately hurts. “Hot.”
His eyes flick back to hers, and for the first time since she arrived, something almost like Garrett moves across his face. Small. Tired. There and gone. “Yeah, baby. Real intimidating.”
“Good. I’ve always wanted to look tough.”
“You already look tough.”
“That’s because you have questionable standards.”
“No,” he says, and the softness in it makes her look away first. “I don’t.”
The room goes quiet except for the dull throb of the house underneath them, the creak of something downstairs, Logan or Dean moving around, the low murmur of the boys trying and failing not to sound worried through the floor. Garrett folds the washcloth over itself and sets it on the nightstand, then looks down at the rest of her.
The hoodie Maria put on her is zipped to her collarbone, dark fabric stained rusty near the cuff where she must have touched her face. Her scrub pants are still on, wrinkled and creased from the shift, one knee smudged faintly with something she refuses to identify. There is a hospital sticker on her shoe that nobody noticed until now, bright and stupid and stuck to the edge of the sole.
Garrett’s gaze catches on the blood at her sleeve. “You want out of these scrub pants?” he asks quietly. “And your hoodie has blood on it, baby.”
She looks down, as if this is new information. Her brain takes a second to make sense of the stain. “Oh.”
“It’s okay.”
“Yeah,” she says after a moment. Then, because the word seems to have scraped something loose on the way out, she adds, “Sorry.”
Garrett’s head lifts. “Why the fuck are you sorry?”
The sharpness of it makes her blink. He says it too quietly, all the force held under his tongue. But it lands somewhere tender anyway. She presses her lips together and immediately regrets that too. “Ow.”
Garrett’s expression softens, but his eyes stay fixed on her. Waiting.
She sighs, and it comes out shaky enough that she would like to file a formal complaint with her nervous system. “Because you…” The thought keeps slipping. She can see it, vaguely, but reaching for it makes her head pulse harder. “You didn’t sign up for this. I should’ve gotten Lucy or Monique. Or stayed with Maria, or– I don’t know.”
“No.” Garrett shakes his head once, and then stops himself, like maybe he’s remembered that head movement isn’t anyone’s friend right now. His hand comes to the side of her face, careful of the bruising, thumb brushing just below her temple where the skin is untouched. “Don’t do that.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re apologising for coming here.”
Her throat tightens. She looks at his shoulder because his face is too close and too much and still not close enough. “I just didn’t want you to feel like you had to.”
“Had to what?”
“Look after me.”
For a second, he only stares at her. Then he exhales through his nose, rough and almost disbelieving, and his fingers slide into her hair at the side of her head, holding it back from her face like the gesture can stand in for all the things he’s trying not to say too fast or wrong. “You think I’m sitting here because I feel obligated?”
She has the very strong, very pathetic urge to cry, which is inconvenient because crying would involve her face. “I don’t know.”
“Baby.”
She closes her eyes.
“Hey.” His thumb moves once. “Look at me.”
She does, reluctantly, because Garrett’s voice has gone into that low place that usually gets him what he wants and because her resistance is currently running on fumes.
His face is steadier now. Still pale underneath the warm lamplight, still tight around the edges, but steady in the places he’s offering to her. “I want you here.”
Her breath catches around something that hurts in a completely separate way from her nose. “Are we…” She stops, partly because the sentence is embarrassing and partly because she loses the middle of it for a second. The fog rolls in, cottony and irritating. She blinks, and Garrett waits. He doesn’t hurry her. Doesn’t fill the gap with a joke. Just keeps his hand at her face until she finds the rest. “Are we okay?”
His expression breaks so gently it makes her chest ache. “Course we are.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He brushes her hair back again, knuckles barely grazing the side of her neck. “We’re okay.”
She nods carefully. A tiny movement. “Good.”
Garrett’s mouth lifts at one corner, soft and sad and warm all at once. “Good?”
“Yeah.” Her fingers curl in his shirt again. This time, she doesn’t pull. “Because I really…” She swallows. Her throat is dry. Her head is thick. The truth comes out before she can dress it up in something safer. “I just wanted you.”
Something in him goes still. A held breath somewhere in the centre of him, then he nods, and the smile that comes with it is small enough that it feels private, even with the door half open and the boys downstairs and the whole house softly rearranged around her injury. “I know the feeling.”
She sniffs, because her body is committed to making the worst possible choices, and pain snaps up through her nose so sharply her eyes water. “Ow. Fuck.” She presses two fingers near the side of her face. “You do?”
Garrett’s smile shifts. “You want me to say it again while you look like you’re about to sneeze blood?”
“Maybe.”
“I know the feeling,” he says, and this time he doesn’t look away. “Because who better to nurse me back to health than you, huh?”
The laugh that escapes her is tiny and breathless and immediately followed by a wince, but it’s real. “I’m not even good at it today.”
“That’s okay.” He leans in and kisses the top of her head, nowhere near the bruising, lips warm against her hair. “I’ll cover this one.”
He gets up slowly this time, one hand staying in hers until the last possible second, then moves to his dresser. She watches him pull open drawers.
He finds a pair of grey sweatpants first, soft and old and definitely his, then a zip-up hoodie because it will not need to go over her head. She can see the moment he chooses it for that reason. The little pause, the glance back at her shoulder, the jaw tight enough to tell on him.
When he comes back, the clothes folded over his arm, he crouches in front of her again. “Alright. We’ll do this slow, okay?”
She nods, then corrects it into a verbal answer before her head can punish her. “Okay.”
“Pants first.”
“Romantic.”
His mouth twitches. “I’m known for it.”
He helps her stand only as much as she needs, one hand at her good elbow, the other at her waist. The room sways faintly when she gets upright, unpleasantly loose at the edges, and Garrett’s hand firms at once. “Dizzy?”
“Little bit.”
“Sit?”
“No, I’m good. Just…” She looks down at the drawstring of her scrub pants, then at him. “This is a very low dignity moment for me.”
Garrett’s gaze flicks up, and there it is again, the smallest spark of him through the worry. “Baby, you’ve fallen asleep drooling on my chest after telling me I had slutty veins.”
She frowns. “I said that?”
“You did.”
“That does sound like me,” she accepts.
“Exactly. Dignity’s been dead.”
She huffs, almost laughing, and he helps ease the scrub pants down her legs without making a production of it. Nothing in his face changes in the way that would make her feel watched, despite the fact that he’s, technically, undressing her in his bedroom.
His touch stays practical, warm, almost painfully respectful. He holds the sweatpants open for her one leg at a time, keeps a hand at her hip while she steps in, then draws them up slowly over her thighs.
They’re too big, of course. They sit low on her hips and pool at her ankles in a way that would be funny if everything didn’t hurt. Garrett ties the drawstring in a loose knot and pats it once.
“There,” he says. “Very fashionable.”
“Shut up. I’m concussed.”
“I know. That’s why I’m letting you get away with that tone.”
Her mouth threatens a smile, so she bites it back and looks down at herself instead. The hoodie is next. Garrett reaches for the zipper, then stops. “Where’s the top?”
She blinks at him. “What?”
“Your scrub top.” His voice stays even, but not naturally.
Her mind searches the department and comes back with torn fabric, scissors, someone’s gloved hands. “Um.” She rubs her fingers against the seam of his sweatpants, trying to make the thought stay still long enough to look at it. “Um. Bag. Maybe. They had to cut it off, I think.”
Garrett’s jaw tenses. It’s quick. A muscle jumping once, his mouth going flat, his eyes dropping away from her face for half a second like he needs to put the reaction somewhere she can’t see it. But she sees it anyway. She’s concussed, not blind.
When he looks back up, he’s forced something lighter onto his face. It’s not quite convincing, but the attempt is so Garrett it makes her ache.
“Damn,” he says. “Liked that pair.”
She stares at him. “Pair?”
“Set. Outfit. Whatever.” He lifts one shoulder, careful to keep his voice mild. “Made your ass look great.”
The giggle escapes before she can stop it. Immediately, pain blooms across her lip and nose, and she presses her fingers to her mouth with a muffled, “Ow. Don’t flirt with the concussed.”
Garrett’s smile is barely there, but warmer this time. “Can’t help it.”
“You should try.”
“I’ve been trying for months. Terrible at it.”
That one sits in the room longer than it should. Her eyes lift to his, and for a second, neither of them moves. Then Garrett clears his throat softly and reaches for the zipper of her hoodie.
“This one’s gonna suck,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
That’s somehow worse than if he had lied. “Okay.”
He unzips the bloodstained hoodie slowly, easing one side down her good arm first. That part is fine, or close enough. The bad shoulder is different. Even with the zip-up, even with him going painfully slowly, the fabric drags over the sore joint and catches near her elbow, and the strain of lifting even a fraction sends pain snapping hot and deep through her shoulder and up the side of her neck.
She makes a sound she hates. Small and broken enough that Garrett’s whole face changes.
“Stop, stop, stop,” he murmurs immediately. His hands freeze, one holding the fabric, the other at her waist. “I’ve got it. You’re okay. Don’t move.”
Her eyes burn fast. Too fast. The pain isn’t even the worst she has felt tonight, which somehow makes crying more insulting, like her body has chosen this as the point to become unreasonable. A few tears slip out anyway, hot and humiliating over her swollen cheeks.
“Sorry,” she whispers.
Garrett’s eyes flash. “Do not.”
“I know. I know, I’m just–” Her breath catches in that horrible little pre-sob way, and her face hurts too much to do anything with it. “It hurts.”
“I know.” His voice drops, low and steady. He shifts closer, bracing her gently with his own body while he works the sleeve down by tiny increments. “I know. I’m sorry. Almost done. There you go. Good girl. That’s it.”
The praise lands somewhere stupid and warm under all the pain, and she would make fun of him for weaponising it if she were not currently trying not to cry into his shirt. The hoodie finally comes free, and Garrett gets his zip-up around her without making her lift her arm higher than necessary, guiding the sore side in first, then the other, then drawing the soft fabric closed around her body. It smells like him immediately. Clean laundry, cold rink air, skin.
The relief of being out of the hospital clothes hits harder than she expects. She folds forward into him.
Garrett catches her like he has been waiting for it, one arm firm around her waist, the other cradling the back of her head before she can tip into the wrong angle. “There we go,” he murmurs into her hair. “Got you.”
She nods against him, but it’s barely a movement. “Hurts.”
“I know, baby.”
“I’m being a baby.”
“No.” His hand spreads over her back, broad and warm through the hoodie. “You’re being concussed with a fucked-up shoulder.”
She breathes against him for another minute, letting the warmth of him settle over the sharper edges. His heart is steady under her cheek. Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe that’s just what she needs it to be. Either way, his arms stay around her until her breathing evens out, until the tears stop sliding hot under her eyes, until she can pull back without feeling like she might tip sideways into the nightstand.
Garrett helps her lie down against his pillows. He has her on her back at first, then adjusts when she makes a face, turning her slightly onto her good side with slow hands and a pillow tucked near her shoulder so it isn’t pulling strangely. He moves like he’s learning her injury as he goes, like the map of her pain matters enough to memorise. It makes something soft and sore press up behind her ribs.
When he climbs in beside her, he doesn’t pull her in immediately. He waits, lying on his side facing her, one arm bent under his head, the other resting near the blanket between them. Giving her space to decide how much contact feels possible. Which is very considerate of him and also deeply annoying because she has no interest in space.
She curls into him as best she can, awkwardly, her bad shoulder protected between them, her forehead carefully finding the safe hollow below his collarbone. Garrett lets out a breath that sounds like he has been holding it since the front door.
“There,” he says softly. “That okay?”
“Mhm.”
His hand comes to her hair again. Fingers sliding slowly from her temple back over her scalp, loosening what the clip and the shift and the panic left behind. The motion sends a dull, pleasant ache through her, somewhere under the headache, a different kind of heaviness.
She sighs before she can stop herself. “Feels nice.”
Garrett’s thumb moves near her hairline. “I’ll keep doing it then.”
She lets her eyes close.
For a while, the room stays still around them. The lamp glows behind her eyelids. The house below makes small, careful sounds, a cabinet closing softly, footsteps pausing in the hallway and then retreating, the quiet evidence of three hockey players trying very hard to be normal about the girl in Garrett’s bed with a concussion.
Her head throbs anyway, steady and deep. Her lip pulses. Her shoulder aches in its own miserable rhythm. But Garrett’s hand keeps moving through her hair, slow enough that her breathing starts to follow it.
She’s almost asleep, or something near it, when Garrett speaks. “What happened?”
His voice is quiet. He asks like he’s been holding the question in both hands for too long and needs to set it somewhere.
She opens her eyes to the dark cotton of his shirt. Her brain takes a few seconds to come back online. She breathes out slowly through her mouth because her nose is still a disaster.
The memory is there at once, too close and too bright around the edges, and her body reacts to it before the words arrive. Fingers curling lightly in the front of his shirt. Shoulder tightening, then complaining. The ghost of the rail coming up fast.
Garrett’s hand pauses in her hair. “You don’t have to.”
“No.” Her voice is quiet. “It’s okay.”
He starts moving his hand again, slower now.
“It was a psych patient,” she says. “He was really agitated. Not like… violent, at first. Just scared, I think. Curled in on himself, wouldn’t really let anyone near him. Maria was with me. We were trying to keep the room calm, but the ED was so busy and loud and everyone was stretched thin, and he just…” She stops, trying to find the order of it. Everything feels slippery when she looks too directly. “He lashed out. His elbow got me in the face. Accidentally, I think.”
Garrett’s chest goes very still under her cheek.
“And I cried out,” she continues. “I don’t know. It just hurt and it surprised me, and I think that freaked him out more. Or the noise did. Or maybe he just didn’t know what was happening.” She swallows. Her throat feels raw. “He grabbed my scrub top before I could move back. Pulled me forward. My nose hit the bed rail. Or my mouth did. I’m not sure. It happened really fast.”
Garrett’s arm tightens around her, then loosens immediately like he’s afraid of hurting her. His hand remains in her hair, but the fingers have gone still.
“Security came in,” she says. “Another nurse pulled me back. Steph, I think. Or maybe Maria. Both, maybe. I don’t know. I remember Maria saying my name a lot.” She looks down between them, though there is nothing to see but the dark fold of his shirt and the edge of his hoodie on her body. “He didn’t mean it.”
Garrett is quiet for long enough that she starts to wonder if he has stopped breathing.
Then he says, “You keep saying that.”
“He didn’t.”
“I know.” His voice is rough, scraped thin at the edges. “I know he didn’t, baby. I just…” He takes a breath. It moves carefully through his chest. “You got hurt anyway.”
The words land with the same awful simplicity as Maria’s had in the car. That doesn’t mean you didn’t get hurt. She closes her eyes, because everyone has decided to be kind in the exact way she cannot defend against.
“I know,” she whispers.
Garrett’s hand finally moves again, fingers sliding over her scalp, then down to the nape of her neck where he can touch without brushing bruised skin. “Is this how you feel?”
She opens her eyes. “What?”
“When I come home after a game all bruised and shit.” He shifts just enough that she can feel him looking down at her, though she doesn’t lift her head to meet it yet. “Is this what it feels like?”
A tiny breath leaves her. Not quite a laugh. More tired than that. “You mean do I also go weird and silent and look like I might throw up?”
“Yeah.”
“Then yeah.” Her fingers smooth over the fabric of his shirt because she needs something small to do. “Kind of, I guess.”
Garrett doesn’t answer.
She turns her face slightly, enough to look at the line of his jaw in the low light. He’s staring at the wall beyond her head, mouth set, brows drawn, hair falling messily over his forehead. He looks angry and young and helpless, which is such a strange combination on him that it makes her chest ache.
“It’s different,” she says softly. “You’re playing a game you love. You know the risks. I know that. And you guys are all… insane about pain, which I’ve accepted against my will.”
His mouth twitches without humour.
“But I don’t enjoy seeing you hurt.” Her voice goes quieter around the admission. “Even when it’s normal hockey hurt. Even when you’re smug about it and standing in the kitchen telling me it’s fine while your ribs look like someone used you as a doorstop. It still makes my stomach feel weird.”
Garrett’s eyes come down to her then. She tries to hold the look for a second and manages maybe half. His attention is too raw tonight. Too stripped of the things he usually wears over it.
“I know you’re tough,” she says, looking at his collar instead. “I know you can take it. I know half the time you think me worrying is funny or hot or both, because you have a very damaged sense of romance.”
“That’s fair.”
“But I still…” She frowns slightly, the thought losing shape, then finding it again. “I still hate it. Not because I think you’re weak. Because you’re not. Obviously. It’s just your body, you know? And I like your body.”
Garrett’s eyebrows lift faintly.
She narrows her eyes at him. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to become insufferable.”
“Maybe a little.”
“I have a concussion. Be kind.”
His face softens again, the almost-tease folding back into something warmer. “I’m being so kind.”
“You’re doing okay.”
“Glowing review.”
She breathes out through her mouth, and for a moment the room feels almost normal. Almost. Garrett’s hand in her hair. His chest under her cheek. The two of them managing to find the familiar shape of each other even through the bruising and the blood and the fear still sitting somewhere near the foot of the bed.
Then Garrett’s thumb brushes the side of her head again, light and careful, and his voice drops. “I hated seeing you like that.”
She looks at him this time.
He doesn’t look away. His eyes are dark in the low light, all the usual teasing stripped out of them. “At the door,” he says. “I hated it.”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.” His mouth tightens, then releases. “You were standing there with blood on your face and Maria next to you and you looked at me like you were sorry. Like I was gonna be upset that you came here.”
Her throat works. “I didn’t want to be too much.”
Garrett makes a sound under his breath, small and rough. “You got hurt.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re allowed to be too much.”
The sentence is so simple it feels dangerous. Her eyes sting again, and she presses her face carefully into his chest before the tears can do anything stupid to her already stupid face.
Garrett’s arm comes around her, careful of her shoulder, his hand settling between her shoulder blades where he can hold without hurting. “Especially here,” he murmurs into her hair. “Especially with me.”
She doesn’t answer. She can’t, really. Not without crying, and crying hurts, and she’s tired of things hurting. So she only curls her fingers more tightly in his shirt and lets him keep his hand in her hair.
After a while, she says, very quietly, “I’m really tired.”
“I know.” Garrett kisses the top of her head. “You can sleep.”
“Logan set alarms.”
“Of course Logan set alarms.”
She manages the faintest smile. “He looked very serious.”
“He loves a protocol.”
“He does have the head injury experience.”
Garrett huffs a soft laugh against her hair, the sound loosening something in the dark. “Unfortunately.”
She lets her eyes close again. The headache is still there. The bruising is still swelling around her nose, hot and heavy. Her shoulder still aches beneath his hoodie. None of it has gone away.
But Garrett’s fingers keep moving through her hair, and his body is warm where hers has gone cold and wrung out, and downstairs the boys are quiet in a way that makes the whole house feel like it is holding its breath around her.
“Garrett?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“If I say something weird, it’s the concussion.”
His hand pauses for half a second. “Okay.”
“And if I say something nice.”
His mouth brushes her hair. “Also concussion?”
“Probably.”
“Got it.”
She’s quiet long enough that he likely thinks she’s drifted off. Maybe she has, a little. The edge of sleep is soft and close, pulling at the corners of the room, blurring the pain into something thick and manageable. Then she murmurs, “You’re good at this.”
Garrett’s chest rises slowly beneath her cheek. “At what?”
“Looking after me.”
His fingers resume their movement through her hair, slower than before. “Yeah?”
“Mm.”
His voice, when it comes, is barely more than warmth in the dark. “Only because you taught me how.”
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Dean Di Laurentis x Maxwell!Reader | word count: 5k
Summary: After Beau's death, Y/N Maxwell refused to leave the apartment they shared. It's the last place that still feels like him. But when she's forced out because the lease was in Beau's name, she finds herself packing up years of memories alongside the one person who misses Beau almost as much as she does: Dean.
Tropes: Established Relationship (platonic friends to lovers), Shared Grief, Emotional Slow-Burn, Angst with a Happy Ending.
Warnings: Heavy themes of grief, death of a sibling, emotional breakdowns.
NOTE: soooo sorry that this is long but i've been obsessed with Voicemails for Isabelle since it came out and thought of this idea. i couldnt stop once i started lol. pls if you haven't watched it DO IT RN 😭😩
Off Campus Masterlist
“Hey, Bug.”
It starts before I’m ready for it. I press play anyway. I can’t help myself.
Beau’s voice floods the room, loud and careless, coming through the speaker with that warmth he only used when he was completely comfortable.
“Mom says you’re ignoring her again, which is honestly impressive considering she’s been texting you like you’ve gone missing or something.”
A rustle. The heavy, familiar thud of his gym bag hitting the floor in the background.
“I told her you’re probably just being dramatic.” He laughs under his breath, knowing I’d roll my eyes at him for that.
And I do. Even now. Even when it doesn’t matter anymore.
"I swear you're worse than I am. And that's saying something." A pause follows. Not a clean one. It’s heavy, filled with the faint hum of his fan turning. He’s hesitating, weighing whether to actually say something real or just ruin the moment with a joke. "Call me back, yeah? Love you, Bug. Talk to you later."
Click. The voicemail ends.
I don’t move for a while. I just sit there with my phone pressed to my palm, waiting for it to miraculously bring him back. It never does.
But Beau is still everywhere anyway. He’s in the stupid couch cushion that’s permanently warped on the left because he never learned how to sit like a normal person. He’s in the crusty, half empty glass on the counter. I’ve left it there forever because washing it feels too much like scrubbing him out of existence. Sometimes, when the floorboards creak down the hall, I actually half turn, expecting him to stumble through the door late for dinner.
I finally force myself to stand up and wander into his room. I don’t go in here much anymore, mostly because everything reminds me that he’s not coming back. His football jersey is still draped over the desk chair and homework spread across his desk, untouched.
He just paused his life and forgot to unpause it.
That was always Beau. Everything half finished except the way he loved people. Especially me.
My eyes catch on the old, scuffed football sitting on his nightstand, the one we used to throw around in the backyard until the streetlights came on. Just looking at the worn leather pulls me right back into the past, making the memory rush in before I can stop it.
I’m eight again. Barefoot, the grass wet against my skin. My skinned knee stings in a way that feels like the end of the world, even though I know, even then, it isn’t. I’m crying before I fully understand why.
Beau was beside me before I could catch my breath.
“Hey,” he says immediately, dropping into the dirt beside me. He must have been running toward me before I even hit the ground. “Hey, look at me.”
“I fell,” I manage between hiccups.
“I see that,” he says, way too serious for twelve. Like this is a problem he can solve if he just focuses hard enough. “Okay. New rule.”
I sniff. “What rule?”
“If you’re gonna fall,” he says, reaching out to pull me closer, “you have to fall in my direction.”
“That’s not a rule,” I tell him through my tears.
“It is now.”
“And if I don’t?”
He doesn’t even hesitate. He just lifts me onto his back, his shoulders already broad and steady. “Then I carry you anyway.”
A sharp, aggressive vibration against my thigh violently yanks me out of it. The apartment suddenly feels twice as empty, the quiet settling in.
I glance down at the screen. I already know who it is without looking.
Dean.
He always checks in like this, quiet, careful, as if he’s afraid too much pressure will break whatever’s left of me.
Dean: just checking in. you don’t have to reply.
Dean: I’m here if you need anything.
I stare at the blue bubbles until the screen goes dark. Admitting I need something means admitting I’m drowning, and I can't say that out loud yet. I shove the phone into my pocket and turn to leave Beau’s room, but a flash of white under the front door catches my eye.
My name is printed across the front in rigid, typed letters. With a bright red ‘Notice’ tagged at the front. I don't even have to tear the envelope to know what it is, but my hands shake anyway as I pull out the paper.
I already know what it is before I even slide the paper out.
Lease termination. I’m forced to vacate within thirty days.
Property holder: Beau Maxwell.
I read his name three times. It doesn’t stop feeling wrong. It doesn’t stop feeling final.
The paper slips through my fingers, hitting the linoleum with a soft smack. I can't even bring myself to bend down and pick it up. Because it’s not just that my brother is gone. It’s that the world is actively clawing back every single thing that still holds his shape.
My knees give out slightly, and I find myself sliding down against the front door, staring at the white envelope. The panic locks tight around my throat. Thirty days to pack up his room. Thirty days to erase the last place he existed.
I can't call my mom, she’s already one bad day away from an absolute breakdown. I can't face the landlord alone.
With shaking fingers, I pull my phone back out and open the thread I've been avoiding. I don't type out a long explanation. I don't tell him I'm breaking down. I just send a text back to the only guy at Briar who doesn't look at me like a ghost.
Y/N: Can you come over?
The reply comes back almost instantly, before I can even regret sending it.
Dean: On my way.
I didn't sleep that night. Dean had shown up twenty minutes after my text, sitting with me on the entryway floor until the panic finally passed, but the rest of the night was a blur of tossing and turning. Every time I closed my eyes, I heard Beau’s voicemail looping somewhere just out of reach. His voice didn't fade the way it should. It just lingered, as if he were waiting for me to answer him properly this time.
By morning, I’ve stopped pretending I can sleep.
The cardboard boxes arrive before I’ve even made coffee. Dean had slipped out at dawn to get them from a local hardware store, and he lets himself back into the apartment without knocking. He does that now, as if the locks were a mere suggestion.
“Thought you might need these,” he says, setting the heavy stack down carefully near the kitchen counter.
I don’t thank him. Not because I’m ungrateful, but because I know if I start talking, the tears will start again and I won't be able to stop.
Dean looks around the room. It isn't nosy or invasive. He is just aware, checking to see which parts of Beau are still intact today. His gaze catches on Beau’s bedroom door. The door is still closed, still untouched.
“You don’t have to do all of this today,” he says softly.
“I know,” I say, even though I don’t believe it myself.
Dean doesn’t argue. He just nods once, a slow, grounding movement. “Okay. I’ll stay then.”
He says it like that’s just what he does now. He stays.
The first box takes me too long. It’s just clothes, so it shouldn't feel heavy. Beau’s shirts still smell faintly like laundry detergent, outside air, and a life that used to feel normal. I start to fold a faded gray t-shirt and completely forget what I’m doing halfway through. With the next one, I don’t even try to fold it. I just hold it against my chest.
Dean doesn’t interrupt. He just sits on the floor across from me, sorting through a stack of old sports magazines quietly, understanding that there’s no right way to do this. There is only a way to keep moving.
Eventually, a photograph slips out of a textbook on his desk. It’s Beau at fifteen in his junior varsity football gear, smiling like he already knows exactly where he’s going in life. He always did.
I don’t realize I’m crying until Dean shifts slightly on the hardwood.
“Hey,” he says softly.
I shake my head before he can say more, wiping my cheeks with the sleeve of Beau's shirt. “I’m fine.” The lie comes out automatically, pure muscle memory at this point.
Dean doesn’t push. He just says, “Okay,” letting me know he’s decided to let me have the lie.
The apartment gets more suffocating as the hours pass. Everything I touch turns into a memory. A chipped coffee mug that Beau drank out of every single morning like it was the only cup in the kitchen. A stack of old mail that he tossed onto the counter without opening. A pair of muddy cleats shoved under the living room couch because he planned to deal with them later.
Later. That was always his favorite word. As if there was always going to be one.
By the time we’ve packed most of the kitchen, the apartment doesn’t feel like Beau anymore.
Dean is at the sink, rinsing dishes I know he doesn’t need to wash. He just needs something to do with his hands.
“So,” he says after a while, keeping his eyes on the running water. “Your brother was really bad at cleaning up after himself.”
A small laugh slips out of me before I can stop it. The sound surprises both of us. Dean glances over his shoulder, his expression softening as if he’s holding onto the sound of my laughter carefully.
“There it is,” he murmurs.
I look away immediately, because laughing feels entirely wrong here, even when it’s real.
I wander back into the living room to tackle the final drawer of the entertainment center, a spot I haven't opened in months. Inside, it’s mostly junk, old receipts and ticket stubs from his games. But as I clear out the papers, I notice a notification on my old tablet sitting at the bottom of the drawer.
My breath catches. It's a saved voicemail notification on the cloud account. The date is stamped three days before the accident. An unopened message from Beau that I somehow missed during the chaos of the funeral.
My thumb hovers over the screen, but I can't press play. I can't do it yet. It sits there like a question I don’t know how to answer, making my stomach twist.
Behind me, I hear Dean walk into the room. I quickly slide the tablet under my arm, but he notices the tension in my shoulders immediately.
“You okay?” he asks.
I don't answer, because I'm not.
Instead, I look down at his hands. He is holding his backup phone, the cracked one he usually keeps in his gym bag. He has headphones plugged into it, a single earbud dangling down, the audio paused on his screen. He catches me looking and pulls the other earbud out quickly, looking like he’s just been caught doing something he shouldn't.
I don’t ask what he was listening to. I already know. It has to be Beau, some old video or a recording from the locker room.
“You have more?” I ask quietly, my voice cracking. “More recordings of him?”
Dean hesitates, his jaw tightening as he looks at the phone in his hand. Then, he nods. “Yeah.”
Something in my chest shifts. I thought I was the only one doing this, holding onto pieces of a ghost in the middle of the night. Turns out I wasn't even close.
We don’t talk about it after that. We just keep packing, side by side, the quiet between us no longer feeling empty. It just feels shared. And for the first time in a long time, I feel like I'm not the only one carrying him.
I didn’t realize how late it was until the light outside turned the wrong color, spilling long, amber shadows across the bare floorboards. Everything in the apartment looked different under it, softer and warmer. It looked almost like it used to when Beau would come home after a long practice and leave the front door wide open because he never liked how quiet the place felt when it was shut.
Now it was just quiet no matter what I did.
Dean was here. He never asked if he should come over anymore, he just did. I watched him move around the kitchen, stacking empty boxes like he was trying to force order out of a situation that completely refused to be organized. There was something incredibly steady about the way he did it, as if grief hadn't made him chaotic the way it had made me. Or maybe he just hid it better.
“You don’t have to keep doing that,” I said quietly when he started trying to fold a cardboard box that was already completely full.
He glanced up, blinking as if pulling himself out of a trance. “Doing what?”
“Helping.”
There was a long pause, the hum of the refrigerator filling the gap between us. Then, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, he said, “But I want to.”
I didn’t respond to that because I didn’t know how to.
We ended up sitting on the living room floor, our backs against the couch. The apartment was mostly emptied now, stripped down to its bare bones. For a while, neither of us talked.
Then Dean cleared his throat, his arms resting loosely on his knees. “He used to talk about you a lot, you know.”
My chest tightened. “I know.”
“No,” Dean said gently, finally turning his head to look at me. “I mean a lot. In the locker room, after his games, I’d sneak in and congratulate him. Him and his teammates would talk about families and he’d get that look, like he was pretending it wasn’t a big deal, but he was really bad at pretending.”
That made something ache deeply behind my ribs. “That sounds like him.”
“Yeah,” Dean said quietly, his eyes drifting back to the empty hallway. “He noticed everything about you.”
I didn’t know what to do with that, so I just sat with the heavy comfort of it.
Eventually, a restless energy pulled me up, and I found myself standing in Beau’s doorway. The room was almost empty now, just a bare bed frame and a few remaining things we hadn’t touched yet. It was the kind of space that felt much louder than it should.
Dean noticed immediately, but he didn't follow me. He just waited in the living room, understanding that this part of the night wasn’t something you interrupt.
I stepped inside, my movements slow and careful, as if Beau might be here if I didn’t move too fast. My hand brushed the edge of his desk, and a layer of dust caught on my fingers.
“I used to think he’d just,” my voice broke before I could finish the sentence.
Dean didn’t make me finish it. From the hallway, he just murmured, “Yeah.”
Because he knew exactly what I meant. I used to think he’d just come back, as if his absence were temporary if I just waited long enough. It wasn't.
I knelt down to open his bottom desk drawer, and the moment the wood creaked, a memory hit me. Pulling me right back to the tailgate party outside the stadium last fall.
The air had been thick with barbecue smoke and loud music, the campus alive with the buzz of a game day. Beau had been standing too close to the grill, laughing with his teammates. I had been sitting on the steps of the team trailer, scrolling through my phone, when I noticed Dean across the quad. He was wearing his Briar hockey jersey, helping someone move heavy coolers, just talking and laughing. He looked different like that, not loud, not trying to be the center of attention. Just there.
Beau had dropped onto the step beside me, shoving a plate of food into my lap. “Stop staring,” he’d said immediately.
“I wasn’t staring.”
“You were absolutely staring.”
“I wasn’t, Beau.”
He leaned back, grinning. “Sure. You keep telling yourself that, Bug.” He let me steal a fry from his plate, always letting me get away with things. Then, his expression shifted, his eyes darting across the quad toward Dean before looking back at me. I didn’t fully understand the weight of his expression until much later, but I remembered his exact words. “Just saying, you’re both really bad at pretending.”
I hadn't asked what he meant then. I wasn’t ready to know yet.
Blinking back to the present, I realized I was still staring at the empty bottom drawer of his desk. Dean was standing in the doorway now, watching me closely but not stepping across the threshold.
I looked at him, and for the very first time, I noticed something I hadn’t before. He was holding himself together in the exact same fragile way I was, just doing it much quieter.
“I didn’t know you stayed in Hastings after the accident,” I said softly.
Dean huffed a quiet laugh.
“Yeah, well. Every time I left, it felt like I was leaving a part of him behind.”
That landed differently than I expected. It wasn’t about a sense of obligation to my family. It was about Beau.
Later that night, we found ourselves back in the living room. It had become a habit without either of us agreeing to it.
Dean broke the silence first. “Do you ever think about calling him?”
I froze, my hand tightening in my lap.
He shook his head quickly, looking down at his boots. “Not like actually calling. Just,” he exhaled a long breath, “I still do it sometimes.”
My throat tightened so much it hurt. “Yeah,” I admitted.
Dean nodded, as if that confession were enough, as if he already knew. There was a long, heavy pause before he spoke again, his voice dropping to a whisper. “You know, I thought of him as a brother before I even realized it. And now it just feels like I don’t know how to stop missing him in everything we used to do.”
That was the closest either of us had ever come to saying it out loud. What Beau was to both of us, and what he still was.
The apartment felt entirely different in the dead of night, the bare walls echoing the small sounds of our breathing. I had stepped away into the hallway under the pretense of going to the bathroom, needing a second to breathe away from the crushing weight of that unopened voicemail on my screen.
The front door was clicked shut, locking us into the quiet space, but as I walked back toward the kitchen, the sound of a voice stopped me dead in my tracks.
“Hey,” Dean said quietly.
There was a heavy pause, and then his voice dropped softer, completely stripped of the defensive, easygoing armor he wore on campus. “Beau.”
My hand stopped mid motion against the drywall. I didn't move. I couldn't even breathe right.
Through the shadow of the doorway, I can see him leaning heavily against the counter, his phone pressed so hard to his ear his knuckles are white. He’s dialing the old number. The one that doesn't go anywhere anymore.
“Hey, man. I don't... I don't really know why I keep doing this. Just habit, I guess. Keep thinking you're gonna pick up and call me an idiot." He swallows hard, his jaw tight. "I know you're not going to. Obviously."
It doesn't sound like acceptance. It sounds raw and bitter.
I pressed my palm flat against the wall, only just realizing that my entire body was shaking.
"I'm with her right now," Dean goes on, his eyes fixed blindly on the floorboards. "Helping her pack up the apartment. I didn't really ask if it was okay, I just kind of showed up, which you'd probably lose your mind over. You were always weird about boundaries." He tries to laugh, but it catches in his throat, turning into something ragged. "She's losing it, Beau. She's really not okay."
The words landed heavy. He didn't say it like a casual observation. He said it like a confession, like admitting it cost him a piece of himself.
"And I don't know what to do," he whispers, his voice cracking slightly. "I know, I know you'd tell me it's not my job to fix it. But I keep remembering you saying she was tougher than she looked. So I'm just... I'm trying to believe you. I'm trying to hold it together."
He pauses, rubbing a hand across his face, looking utterly exhausted under the dim kitchen bulb.
"And I miss you. God, man, I miss you so much it's stupid." Another long, suffocating silence stretches out. When he speaks again, it's barely a breath. "And, look... you were right. Even though you never told me this straight up… but I knew you had your thoughts and all that. And…. I think I'm falling in love with her."
The air leaves my lungs entirely. I take a blind step forward, stumbling right into the light of the kitchen doorway.
Dean was still facing away from me, the phone gripped tightly in his hand as if he hadn't decided if he was done speaking to the ghost between us. He hadn't seen me yet.
“I don’t think that’s something I planned,” he continued, his voice rough and uneven. “But I also don’t think you’re surprised. You always knew things before I did.” He let out a short, humorless laugh. “I’m just trying not to feel like I’m replacing you. And I can’t tell if I’m failing, or if I’m just still grieving you too much to tell the difference. I just wish you were here.”
The voicemail ended, cutting off with a sharp click. He didn't move after. For a long time, it was just Dean standing under the dim kitchen light, waiting for a response he knew would never come.
I didn't think before the sound left my mouth. “I–.”
His shoulders tensed instantly, locking up as the phone nearly slipped from his fingers. Slowly, he turned around to face me. There was absolutely nothing careful or guarded in his expression. There was just exhaustion, deep grief, and a vulnerability that looked a lot like fear.
“I didn’t mean for you to hear that,” he rasped, his eyes searching mine desperately.
“I know,” I said, stepping fully into the light. My voice came out much quieter than I expected, but it was steady enough to surprise both of us. “I know, Dean.”
A long silence stretched between us. I looked down at his phone, at the screen where the call log was still fading into black.
I pulled my own phone out of my pocket, looking at the unopened message from three days before the crash. “I still haven’t listened to it,” I admitted softly, holding it out between us.
Dean didn't say anything right away. He didn't try to make an excuse or smooth it over with a joke. He just walked across the small distance between us and nodded once, a grounding, solid presence in the middle of the empty apartment.
“We can listen to it whenever you're ready,” he whispered, his hand gently finding mine in the quiet. “Together.”
We didn’t move for a long time.
Not everything was fixed.
But neither of us let go of each other’s hand.
We didn’t talk much after that. Not because there was nothing left to say, but because there was simply too much.
The apartment felt entirely bare now. The walls were empty in places that used to hold pictures, and echoes completely replaced the sound of laughs. Even the moonlight spilling through the window felt temporary.
Dean and I were sitting on the hardwood floor again. My phone sat directly between us on the floor, the screen still glowing, still waiting. The unopened voicemail from three days before Beau died stared back at us.
I didn't realize I was holding my breath until Dean spoke up. “You don’t have to listen to it,” he said quietly, his shoulder brushing mine.
I let out a short laugh, though it didn't sound like real humor. “I know.” I paused, staring at the digital time stamp. “But I think I do.”
Dean didn’t argue. He just nodded once, a slow, grounding movement that let me know he’d been waiting for me to reach this point for a very long time.
I tapped the screen before I could change my mind. The audio file opened. For a second, there was nothing but a faint rustle of static. Then, Beau’s voice filled the empty room.
“Hey, Bug.”
My chest tightened instantly. It wasn't because his voice sounded different. It was because it sounded completely the same. It was warm, loud, and entirely untouched by time, as if the universe had trapped a piece of him right here before everything went dark.
“Okay, I know you’re probably gonna ignore this for a few days and then pretend you didn’t, so I’m just gonna say it now.” There was a brief pause on the line. I glanced at Dean out of the corner of my eye, but he wasn't looking at me. He was completely still, his eyes fixed on the floorboards, just listening.
“Dean’s been around the apartment a lot lately,” Beau continued, and I could hear the familiar, teasing smile in his voice. “Like a lot. I think Mom is starting to think he actually lives here. She literally asked me last night if I adopted him.”
That got a sound out of me before I could stop it, a broken, watery noise that was almost like a laugh. Beau kept going on the recording, completely oblivious of the grief that's taken over me.
“And before you get weird about it, don’t. You don’t see it yet, Bug, but I do. He’s good for you. Annoyingly so since he is my best friend. You’re gonna absolutely hate that I’m right about this one.”
Dean shifted slightly beside me, not interrupting, just letting me feel his presence.
Beau exhaled a long breath into the microphone, the sound of wind rustling. “Look, after I graduate and things get crazy with senior year wrapping up, I know I'm gonna be traveling a ton for scout days and training camp. When I'm wrapped up in all that football chaos, just promise me you won’t shut everything out, okay? Stop acting like you have to carry the whole world alone. You were never good at that anyway.”
My eyes blurred completely, the tears finally spilling over my lashes.
“And don’t give Dean too hard of a time while I'm busy,” Beau added, his voice softening in a rare moment of genuine, unfiltered honesty. “He’s trying. I’m serious, Bug. You deserve to be happy, even if things feel overwhelming or weird for a while.”
A long silence stretched through the line, full and heavy. Then, quietly, he delivered the final blow. “I love you. And I’m proud of you. Always.”
The voicemail ended with a sharp click. It was him, still completely himself, and still entirely gone.
The silence that rushed back into the room was unbearable for exactly one second. Then Dean let out a shaky breath, as if he had been holding it in since the voicemail started.
I didn't realize I was crying until the tears were dripping down my neck. It was a quiet release of the pressure that had been building in my chest for six months.
Dean shifted closer, slowly, asking for permission without using words. I didn't hesitate. I leaned right into him, burying my face against his shoulder before I could talk myself out of it. For the very first time since the accident, it didn't feel like I was falling apart when I leaned on someone. It felt like I was finally being held together.
We sat there on the floor for a long time, the shadows stretching across the room. The apartment around us didn't feel broken anymore. The grief was still there. It probably always would be. But it felt lighter somehow, like we weren’t carrying the weight all alone.
Dean broke the quiet eventually, his chin resting against the top of my head. “Of course he knew,” he muttered softly.
A small, broken laugh escaped my lips. “Yeah,” I whispered, squeezing his hand. “He always did.”
Outside the frosted window, life on campus kept moving forward like it always did. But inside, in the quiet space we had built together over the last several months, I finally let myself stop waiting for time to rewind.
(NOTE: i do overall fandom master taglists, not seperate ones for individual series/fics! Feel free to send me a message if you'd want to be added or removed)
☄︎ Warnings: semi-public (restaurant). jealously-ish. porn WITH plot (lots of yappin to scene set). reader x allie being scissor sisters. squirting. smut. i read this back too many times that i couldn’t proofread, so expect mistakes.
☄︎ Pairing: Allie Hayes x F!Reader x Dean Di Laurentis
☄︎ Rating/Genre: Mature (🔞). Smut.
☄︎ Words: 3279
☄︎ Summary: You've been in your throuple with Allie and Dean for three weeks when a handsome stranger hits on you in the bar.
💭: my babies + reader was so popular that we're back again for round 2. if you enjoyed, please consider leaving a comment, ask, reblog etc, it means a lot xx
Read the original requests here. 〣 Find my Off Campus Masterlist here. Read PT1 here.
You were three weeks into this. Three weeks since whatever walls you had built to protect your heart from the hurt had come tumbling down.
In some ways, it was the easiest transition of your life. When you were ‘just’ their ‘friend’, you spent so much time with them, with so much of your daily lives already so intertwined, that your usual routine barely changed.
But, in other ways, it was the most disorientating transition of your life. The deeply embedded envy that used to make your chest feel hollow when you were around them was replaced by something so thick, something so intensely imitate, it left you so breathless you could hardly see straight.
Between your collective college classes, Dean’s demanding hockey schedule, Allie’s theatre rehearsals, and the exhaustion of navigating this newfound passion, the three of you had barely found a moment to breathe... let alone go out on a proper date.
Dean had been adamant about changing that. He demanded a real celebration.
Which was how you found yourself tucked into a plush leather booth in one of the finest restaurants in the city. Every where you turned was wealth and sophistication. The walls were a deep, rich, chocolate brown. On them, was fine art that looked like it cost more than your tuition. The melodic sound of a piano being played floated through the air, just loud enough to mask the low murmur of wealthy conversations around you.
You almost felt out of place being in a restaurant so luxurious, but, tucked into the booth with Dean and Allie by your side, you had never fit anywhere so perfectly in your life.
Allie was a vision next to you, wearing a long, classy but revealing dress with a slit on the side. You could feel the head of her bare leg pressed flush against yours beneath the table, hidden by the tablecloth.
Directly across from her sat Dean. He looked unnecessarily handsome, the top few buttons of his dress shirt left undone. He didn’t even look at the menu to order, instead keeping his eyes on you and Allie.
“I’ll grab the next round,” you volunteered after the waiter cleared the dinner plates, offering them both a bright smile.
Allie shifted her legs slightly to let you slide out of the booth. “Hurry back, babe,” she murmured. “We miss you when you’re not here.”
You felt a giddy thrill run through you, making your skin tingle as you slid completely out of the booth. New relationship bliss was probably your favourite feeling in the world.
Reaching down, you pulled at the hem of the dress that Allie had spent hours helping you pick out for this occasion. It was short, silk against your skin, and hugging your curves in all the right places.
The bar area was a bit more crowded than the main dining area, but you could still see the booth where the three of you were sat from here. Looking back, you watched as Dean gently tucked a piece of hair behind Allie’s ear, their heads tilted close as they whispered across the table.
You were so busy watching them that you hadn’t noticed when a guy moved to stand next to you. He leant back against the bar, swirling his glass of what you assumed to be bourbon. He was undeniably attractive, and his lazily confident posture screamed ‘man with money’.
“A lady as stunning as you should not be waiting for her own drink,” he smooth-talked, tilting his head with an appreciative glint in his eyes. His voice sounded as expensive as he looked, and, had you not been in a committed relationship, you may have even bit.
But you were. So instead, you just laughed. The sound was light, the deliriousness from the excitement of the night and the few drinks you’d had coming through. Honestly, after weeks of hiding your feelings and feeling invisible, it just felt good to be noticed so openly.
“I appreciate the chivalry,” you replied, turning your body slightly towards him. “But I promise I’m tougher than I look. I can handle a busy bar.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that for a second,” he chuckled, sliding a step closer. He raised a hand, immediately catching the attention of the bartender, he was obviously a regular. “But it’d be a crime if I didn’t try. I’m Nathan, what’s your name?”
Before you could answer, the bartender slid over. “What can I get for you?”
“Can I please have two margaritas and a lemonade, thanks!” You ordered cheerfully, before turning back to Nathan. “I’m actually here celebrating tonight.”
“Celebrating what?” Nathan asked. His eyes lingered on your lips, completely missing (or deliberately ignoring) the fact that you had ordered multiple drinks. His gaze slowly trailed the length of your dress before looking back up at. “An anniversary? A promotion? Or just the fact that you look absolutely incredible in that dress.”
You threw your head back, laughing softly at his boldness. “Just a good night out with... the people closest to me,” you said, pointing over to Dean and Allie.
Both you and Nathan looked over at them, your heart racing as you saw that they were no longer whispering to each other. Their eyes were locked on to you and Nathan from across the room. Dean’s jaw was tight, and Allie’s arms were crossed over her chest.
“People... but not a boyfriend?” Nathan asked, ignoring the reactions from the booth, just as the bartender set the drinks down.
You didn’t give him an answer, focusing all your attention on balancing the drinks together in your hands. As you carefully walked away, you added, “It was nice meeting you, Nathan!”
“The pleasure was all mine,” he replied.
You carefully set the three glasses down on the table, pretending like you didn’t notice how squared Dean’s shoulders were or how Allie watched you through narrowed eyes.
“What the hell was that?” Dean asked once you’d settled back into the booth.
“Oh, come on! That was nothing,” you shrugged, trying to dismiss it as you pushed his class of lemonade over to him. “He was just being polite while I waited for the bartender.”
Allie didn’t even touch her margarita. She placed her hand on your thigh as she turned her body towards you. “He looked like he wanted to eat you alive, babe.” Her tone was deceptively sweet, but it was laced with a possessive edge. “And you were laughing.”
“I was just being polite, Al,” you whispered, looking between the two of them.
“I don’t like it when you’re polite,” Dean muttered.
“Yeah, I second that,” Allie added, her thumb pressing harder into your skin.
Before you could even attempt to defend yourself, the waiter reappeared. He was carrying a glass with a bright yellow liquid inside, placing it down in front of you with a soft clink.
“Compliments of the gentleman at the bar,” the waiter said, offering a professional smile as he discreetly pointed back towards the counter where Nathan was still standing. He then slid a white linen napkin across the table and left.
Written across it was a message: for you, love. i recommend the piña colada. it’s just as sweet as you look tonight. A phone number was scribbled at the bottom.
Your eyes went wide, breath catching sharply in your throat. “Oh my god.”
Dean’s hand shot across the table and snatched the napkin. He immediately started ripping at it. He looked disgusted as he balled up the shredded pieces and dropped them into his glass of water.
“Why the hell is he sending you drinks?” Allie seethed, her hand on your thigh tightening. “I thought he was just ‘being polite’?”
“Did you not tell him you were with us?” Dean leant forward over the table, his chest pressing against the edge, burning you with his gaze.
“Well... I said I was celebrating with... people-.”
“So,” Dean interrupted, “you didn’t tell him you were with-with us?”
“Well, no... Dean, it’s not the most natural thing to say to a stranger at a bar, is it?” You hissed back in a harsh whisper. “Hey, I’m here with my boyfriend AND my girlfriend and we’re celebrating our throuple.’’’
“Sounds completely natural to me,” Allie said, before turning her head to look across the table. “Right, babe?”
“Completely,” Dean agreed instantly.
“I guess we’ll just have to show him that you’re taken,” Allie added.
The two of them were a pair of opposites. While Dean’s expression had grown darker, more intense, Allie maintained her perfectly composed sweet smile, when she was thinking anything but sweetness. You didn’t know who to focus on; the two of them together were unpredictable.
Reaching out, Dean’s hand wrapped around the drink that Nathan had brought for you. He leant back against the cushion, his gaze locked on to Nathan from across the room. He took a deliberate sip, Adam’s apple dramatically bobbing as he swallowed hard. He raised the glass slightly, tipping it an inch towards Nathan in a mocking toast.
“Dean–.”
The name slipped out of your mouth as barely a breath. Underneath the heavy tablecloth, Allie’s hand was slowly sliding up your thigh, making it hard to concentrate on anything else. She angled her body toward you, using her shoulder to, mostly, blck the view of her arm from the rest of the restaurant.
“Allie,” you whimpered quietly, your breath catching as her fingers began to trail the length of your folds right through the thin material of your underwear.
“Be natural, babe. Keep your eyes on Dean,” Allie murmured, her voice the definition of sweetness even as the pressure of her fingers increased.
Your heart hammered violently against your ribs as you looked at Dean, desperately trying to not look as undone as you felt. Slouching down slightly in the booth, your legs parted naturally, giving Allie more access. you bit your lower lip hard, almost drawing blood, as her finger slipped past the lace of your panties, finding you slicker than you should be in a crowed, public, restaurant.
She played with your arousal, coating her fingers with it, before finding your clit and pressing down on it. “Don’t worry, babe. Nobody but Dean is watching.”
Across the table, Dean watched the subtle movement of Allie’s arm before his eyes flicked up to you, looking just in time to see your face break. He watched your eyelids frow heavy and hooded and your lips parted in a silent plea, his chest rising and falling in heavy breaths. He was getting hard just watching Allie pleasure you under the table, watching the way you tried so desperately to be discreet as you squirmed under her touch.
Dean leant forward, resting his elbows on the table. “Shhhh,” he murmured, “Somebody’s going to hear you.”
Just then, Allie pushed the lace aside. She slid a wet finger deep inside you, curving it upward to press hard against your soft walls. Your head rolled weakly against the backrest of the booth as her finger moved back over your clit, driving you closer to an edge you couldn’t possibly go over in public.
“Dean,” you choked out, your hips helplessly twitching against Allie’s hand. “Please, I can’t.”
“Fuck,” Dean responded, voice dangerously low. “Okay, we need to go. Right now.”
Allie immediately pulled her finger from your underwear and turned to glance toward the bar. Nathan was still looking over; his eyes fixated on your side of the booth. She gave him a triumphant look as she popped her wet fingers into her mouth, sucking on them clean and shooting him a wink.
Dean quickly got out of the booth, walking with a slight limp as he made his way to the front of the restaurant to pay the bill.
In the booth, Allie waited a moment for you to gather yourself and pull back down the hem of your dress before getting out and reaching back to take your hand into hers.
The night was cool as it hit your face as you exited the restaurant, but it did nothing against the heat spreading through your body.
Nobody spoke as you hurried towards the car. Dean reached it first, yanking open the back door for you and Allie to climb in. The moment you were both in, he slammed the door shut and jogged around to the driver’s side. He threw the car into drive, the tires making a faint screech as he zoomed out of the parking lot.
The moment the car cleared the street, Allie lunged across the backseat at you. Her body collied with yours, and you both let out breathless giggles as Dean made an aggressive turn that had you falling over each other.
Then, Allie’s mouth found yours in a frantic kiss. She kissed you like she had something to prove. Your hands instantly flew to tangle in her hair, fingers gripping the soft strands to pull her close. she kissed you until your chest heaved, her mouth sliding down to bury into the crook of your neck.
In the front seat, Dean’s knuckles were white as he tightly gripped the steering wheel. He tried to keep his eyes solely on the road but couldn’t stop his eyes from darting to the rearview mirror, watching you and Allie’s hands all over each other. The sight of you two, lost in the heat of the moment, made him push down on the accelerator, pushing to the speed limit.
The car had barely come to a stop before the doors flew open, the three of you desperate to get out. Allie reached for your hand again, her grip tight as she practically dragged you out of the back seat. Dean was already a step ahead, the keys jingling in his hand as he sprinted up the porch steps to shove the door open.
Tucker and Logan were splayed out on the living room sofa; a video game controller in Logan’s hand.
They both blinked, looking up in surprise as the three of you moved through the foyer looking slightly dishevelled, and kicking off your shoes.
“Oh, hey,” Logan called out, pausing the game. “You guys are back early. How was the restaurant?”
Allie didn’t even bother to answer as she pulled you up the stairs.
“Mhm, great,” Dean grunted, following closely behind you both.
“Try to keep it down up there!” Tucker shouted up the banister on a laugh.
An instant later, the muffled sound of the video game that they were playing spiked in volume. The sound blaring through the floorboards as Tucker and Logan turned up the game to protect their ears.
Dean didn’t bother to close the door as he moved to help Allie pull off your dress. For how tight it was, it dropped from your body easily.
Just as easily, Allie unclipped your bra and pulled it off. Dean was immediately on you then, hands caressing your tits as Allie undressed.
Once undressed, she crawled onto the bed and spread her legs. You and Dean watched as she touched herself, hands running down her body and dipping between her legs. She got herself real worked up. From where you both were watching, you could see her pussy glistening with her arousal.
“Please~,” she whined, hips rocking as she circled her clit faster. “I need– someone–.”
“You go,” Dean whispered, gently pushing you towards the bed.
You should have felt embarrassed by how fast you clambered towards the bed, crawling over her leg until you were at her waist. with one leg swung over her hip, you lined your pussy up with hers before pressing down into her.
You didn’t immediately find her clit, but your hole clenched as your slick folds slid over hers. She reached down to part herself with two fingers, exposing her clit.
Shifting your hips, you moved until you found the perfect angle that had your clits brushing against each other.
“Shit,” Allie breathed, her head lolling back.
Hooking one of her legs over your shoulder, you held on to that as you pressed your soaking pussy onto hers with more pressure. Your moans mixed at every grind of your hips, your clits sliding against one another’s creating a delicious friction.
“Thaaaaat’s it, baby,” you moaned as she bucked her hips up into you.
Beside the bed, Dean was sitting on the chair, cock thick and twitching in his hand as he jerked off to the sight of you rolling your hips down into Allie. The pleasure built with each movement of your hips, your soaked, aching, clits pressed tightly against each other.
The room is filled with the wet sound of your pussies rubbing together, of your hips snapping against hers. Dean’s grunts were dwarfed by the sound of you & Allie’s gasps.
“You’re so beautiful, babe.” Allie was looking up at you, eyes lustful but so sincere. It made more heat pool in your belly.
“I love you, Al,” you stuttered into her ankle. You rolled your hips tighter now, circling her clit with yours.
“I’m going to cum,” she told you, “I’m going to make a mess all over your pussy.”
“Cum for me, pretty girl,” you rasped.
The pressure on Allie’s clit started to overwhelm her but her hips kept pushing up to meet yours. With one strong grind of your hips, the feeling pushed her over the edge. She screamed your name as she squirted into your pussy, warm, clear, liquid pooling between your bodies.
You felt her twitch and clench beneath you, the feeling sending you into overdrive. As she came down from her high, your hips sped up, desperately chasing your own release. But Allie grabbed at your hips, holding you still against her.
“Babe, lie back,” Allie said, voice still breathless, “I want to watch Dean fuck you.”
You nodded and looked over at Dean, who was already getting up and making his way to the bed. Allie shifted back slightly, propping herself up against the pillows. You settled between her spread legs; the back of your shoulders pressed against her stomach.
She hooked her legs over your thighs, spreading you wider for Dean who lined himself up.
“I won’t last long,” he warned as you felt him nudging at your entrance.
He sunk into you as slow as he could manage, your pussy so slick it made a squelching sound.
Allie couldn’t take her eyes off of the way your pussy swallowed him up, even she squeezed and rolled your nipples between her fingers.
“Please, I need to cum,” you begged. The fact that you hadn’t cum yet definitely felt like punishment from what happened at the restaurant.
“Okay, baby girl.” Allie reached down, her fingers immediately applying pressure to your clit.
At the same time, Dean thrust into you at a quicker pace. He wasn’t gentle either, each thrust pushed him deeper into you.
“Fuck, I’m already going to cum,” he grunted, brow furrowed.
He thrusted into you three more times before he filled you up with his release. His warm cum mixing with the remnants of Allie’s release.
Allie’s hands moved back to your nipples as Dean’s finger flicked over your clit. It wasn’t long before your back was aching up, body convulsing as waves of pleasure washed over you.
Dean collapsed onto you, pinning you between his and Allie’s warmth. You could feel the mixture of releases dripping down you, settling onto the duvet. The three of you settled into a comfortable silence as you laid there in your own messes.
“Dude,” Tucker shouted, interrupting the peace, “close your fucking door!”
☄︎ Warnings: NSFW, smut, threesome, everybody fuckin!
☄︎ Pairing: F!Reader x Allie Hayes x Dean Di Laurentis
☄︎ Rating: Mature, 18+
☄︎ Words: 2343
☄︎ AN: written for this request and this comment request. who wouldn't want to be sandwitched between them! it is 4 am right now lol so there could be many a mistake that my tired eyes cannot see.
Main Masterlist
You were not jealous.
That, you could say with certainty. Jealousy implied that you had something to lose to someone else. You didn’t.
Perhaps the better word for you would be envious. You were envious that your two best friends had found each other before you could. That didn’t mean that you weren’t happy for them, you were.
In fact, you loved them both. But that was the problem. They were your closest friends; they kept you grounded when the chaos in your world got too much to bear. But, watching the effortless way that they fit together always left a quiet, hollow ache right in the centre of your chest.
You didn’t want Dean to look at Allie in any way less than he did, and you didn’t want Allie to stop smiling back up at Dean. You just wished that there was a space for you in the middle of that warmth.
Sitting on the floor of your dorm, your back rested against the base of the sofa as you studied. Up on the cushions behind you, Allie and Dean were curled together. His arm was draped around her shoulders, fingers tracing absentminded patterns on her skin while her head rested on his chest.
They didn’t even need to be here, but it was part of your routine. For weeks, you’d spend hours together on lazy Sunday mornings. By the time you realised the depth of your love for them, it was already too late. They were committed to your routine and you couldn’t exist without it.
“Hey,” Allie’s voice broke through your thoughts.
You tilted your head back against the sofa, leaning against the cushions. Looking up at them, you saw they were both peering down at you.
“Are you okay, babe? You’ve been staring at that same page for the last like thirty minutes.”
If there was one thing about Allie, it was that she loved fiercely. She could always tell if something was wrong and she wasn’t one to let it go.
Dean’s hand slid down the sofa until it met your shoulder. The muscles there were extremely tight. He frowned and sat up with Allie still in his arms. Strong hands came to your shoulders and he began kneading at the tension there.
“What’s going on in that head of yours?” Dean asked as he continued working out the knots in your shoulder.
You couldn’t tell him that it was pointless to be working at your shoulders. Every brush of their hands, every shared glance, and every quiet laugh between them just reminded you of the invisible wall separating you from them. Recently, these study sessions were full of that, it’s like they knew you were hurting and purposely ramped up their touchiness.
The knots in your shoulders came from the weight of pretending like everything was okay. They weren’t going to go away while you were still in the room with them, no matter how good his hands felt on you.
“Just tired,” you lied offering a faint smile back up at them. You forced yourself to look at the textbook again. “The words are starting to blend together is all.”
Allie shifted behind you, detaching herself from Dean’s side. She dropped to the floor next to you and gently pulled the textbook from your hands, closing it with a soft thud and setting it aside.
“I think you’ve been avoiding us,” Allie said softly. It wasn’t an accusation; her voice held a fragility that you completely understood. It was the tone of someone who cared deeply and was terrified of a widening rift. “You’ve been doing it all week. Whenever the both of us are around, you find a reason to leave.”
“I haven’t–.”
“You have,” Dean interrupted. He also dropped to the floor, settling on the other side of you. Even the way they smelt complimented each other, Dean’s expensive cologne mixed with the sweet trace of Allie’s perfume. “You’ve been pulling away from us.”
You were right where you had dreamt of being, sandwiched between them, but everything was wrong. You were trapped.
“You guys are a couple. I’m the friend.” You hoped they couldn’t hear how your voice shook. “I’m supposed to give you space.”
Allie moved from seated beside you to sit on her knees in front of you. “What if… we didn’t want you to give us space?”
The question hung in the air as you looked between them. This felt like a trap but, from what you could see, they were being serious.
“What if I told you that, hypothetically, last week I told Allie that I felt like I had failed her as a boyfriend because I was thinking about another girl, you, the same way I thought of her.” He was in that rarely seen Dean mode where he’s really serious, all hints of playful flirting gone.
“And,” Allie added, “what if I told you, hypothetically, that when Dean said that, all I felt was relief because I had been sitting in class every day, staring at the empty seat next to me, wishing it was you.”
“And, hypothetically, what if we discussed it and agreed that we wanted there to be an us?” Dean gestures to the three of you.
You stayed silent, unsure of how to respond. This felt like a dream that you’d surely wake up from and cry because it wasn’t real.
“What would you think about those hypotheticals?” Allie asked vulnerably.
You swallowed, loudly and visibly. “Can I ask what triggered these… hypotheticals?”
“For me, it was when you both fell asleep on me when we watched that movie,” Dean confessed. “I looked at Allie, then down at you, and the thought of moving you away felt wrong. I wanted you both to stay right there with me.”
“For me,” Allie confessed as she held your hand tightly, “it’s been building from the moment we instantly clicked. But last week, the sunlight hit your face and I just… I froze.”
The walls you had built over the past few weeks came tumbling down under the weight of their confessions. It really didn’t take much but hearing what you had always dreamed you would. The silence stretched between the three of you, but, this time, you felt a rush of hope.
You looked down at your hands, and let out a breathy laugh.
“For me,” you whispered, your voice cracking. “For me, it was that night when we were all cooking dinner. Allie and I were dancing around the kitchen and you were leaning on the counter watching us with this smile on your face. I can’t explain it but everything felt so right. Just like, this is how life was supposed to be.”
Dean wrapped an arm around your waist, pulling you an inch closer to him.
Allie crawled over to you and straddled your lap. “God, you have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to do this.”
Allie’s hands came to cup your face as she leant in to kiss you. She was gentle with it, her lips brushing against you a few times before she pressed her mouth to yours. Allie coaxed your tongue out of your mouth, and your tongues danced.
You melted into her touch, hands automatically resting on her hips as she shifted against you. He thumbs traced gentle, soothing paths across your cheekbones. Her mouth tasted sweet, and you couldn’t help but wonder what she tasted like between her legs.
Next to you, Dean let out a groan of approval. His arm stayed locked around your waist. He didn’t try to interrupt your kiss. Instead, he leant over to bury his face in the crook of your neck. his lips brushed your sensitive skin, leaving a trail of kisses from your shoulder to just below your ear. You gasped into Allie’s mouth.
When Allie pulled back, her lips were swollen, lipstick smeared across her lips. “Now you two,” she commanded.
Dean didn’t hesitate; his hand came to cup the back of your neck as he pulled you into the kiss. Your brain short-circuited as you melted into his kisses too. He wasn’t slow and gentle with it like Allie; it was a possessively desperate kiss. Frantic and filled with the aching relief of someone who had been holding back for too long.
Allie’s hands slid up under the hem of your shirt, finding your nipples and giving them a pinch. Through the awkward angle, your hand slipped past the waistband of Dean’s joggers and you palmed him over his boxers. You could already feel him hardening under your touch.
Dean gasped into your mouth as he bucked into your hand which had squeezed him through his boxers. He pulled back from your mouth. “Bedroom?”
The three of you got up on shaky legs, pulling off your clothes as you ran to your bedroom.
As soon as the three of you were naked in your room, Dean commanded you both to the bed, “I want to taste my girls.”
You and Allie lie side by side at the edge of the mattress, legs spread as Dean knelt on the floor at the foot of the bed. He expertly moved between you both, mouth on one, hand on the other.
Your hips bucked as he dragged his tongue up your folds. His tongue paused as it got to your clit, sucking lightly on it before moving back down to your clenching hole.
Simultaneously, he worked a finger, and then two, into Allie. Her hips gyrated on the bed as he curved and scissored his fingers inside of her.
You knew Dean had a reputation, but now you were seeing just how well earnt it was.
“Yeah~,” you breathed. “Just like that.”
He then alternated, his mouth moving over Allie’s leaking pussy as he slipped two fingers into you. You head lolled over to Allie whose mouth was slightly parted and eyes rolled back. You didn’t think you could find her any more beautiful than you already did but here she was, wantonly moaning as Dean’s tongue moved around her.
“Wait, her first,” Allie moaned.
Dean knew exactly what Allie meant. He turned his attention to you, his mouth swirling over your clit and his fingers worked into you. One of Allie’s hands came to knead your breast while she leant down and covered the other with her mouth. Her tongue flicked over your sensitive nipple in the same way that Dean’s tongue flicked over your clit.
The feeling overwhelmed you in the best way, you were finally with the two people you knew you were meant to be with, and they were pouring all of their attention into you. You wriggled into their touches. The pleasure built over you, rising and rising until it hit its peak and crashed over you.
“That’s it, that’s my girl,” Allie praised, hand stoking your clenching stomach as you rode out your orgasm.
“Fucking delicious,” Dean called from between your legs, still lapping up your arousal.
The compliments from them had your face flushing.
You came down from your high but you weren’t done. You didn’t care how greedy you sounded, you needed more.
“Allie, wanna taste you,” you whined.
Allie lay back onto her back, spreading her legs for you. You immediately took your place, parting her slick folds with two fingers. She had the most beautiful pussy you’d ever seen, flushed red with arousal.
You licked your lips before delving right in. Your tongue exploring every inch of her that you could get at. Her moans were muffled around Dean’s cock. She deepthroated him with ease as she played with his balls.
She didn’t last long after that, the feeling of you both on her left her overstimulated in the best way.
“Ngh~ so good~.” Allie releases Dean with a pop as cums, screaming your name. Both you and Dean watched as her body convulsed with the force of her orgasm.
Dean looked up at you, he was fully hard now, his cock standing tall as it twitched against his stomach. His tip was an angry red, leaking precum. He probably had the best cock you’ve ever seen. They made such a pretty pair.
“Can I fuck you?” Dean asked you, his voice raspy.
“Yes, how do you want me?” Your own voice was pretty ragged too.
“On your back, I want to watch your face as I sink into you.”
You probably could have come right then from his words. You laid down on your back, and Dean lined himself up.
He didn’t spend any time teasing you, your previous orgasm and fresh arousal provided enough lubrication that he could slide right in.
His hips snapped into the back of your thighs as he fucked into you, the force of it had your tits bouncing and the headboard snapping against the wall. His eyes didn’t leave your face the entire time.
Allie crawled over to bury her face between your legs, alternating between licking at your clit and licking at the area where Dean’s erection disappeared within you. Your fingers gripped the sheets as they both worked you.
Dean was a vocal fucker, you found. He muttered praises and compliments between his grunts as he thrust into you.
His moans got progressively louder as his thrusts got more erratic. Your moans joined his as Allie flicked over your clit in a way that had another orgasm ripping through you. You clamped down on Dean and his body shuddered as he spilled himself inside of you.
Allie came up to lazily kiss you, and you could taste yourself on her.
Dean didn’t pull out of you until his cock stopped twitching inside of you. At that point, you and Allie were already cuddled together.
He got a washcloth to clean you both up before he cuddled in next to you.
Laying tangled together in the quiet of the bedroom, the heavy weight that had pulled at you for weeks was finally gone.
notes from me – hi loves! a little chronological guide to my garrett graham x petal!reader fics because people have been asking!!
navigation – garrett graham masterlist | choose your reader masterlist
this is the recommended reading order if you want to read the fics chronologically!
.❀ ݁˖ first time around
01. learning
⤿ their meet cute. what starts as academic suffering becomes a back-row flirtation when garrett graham gets to class late late.
02. tan lines
⤿ pink bikinis, bad tan lines, snack-related neglect, and the soft girlfriend version of them before everything starts getting complicated.
03. meet and greet
⤿ garrett in a corner with two girls, one ugly public argument, and the fight that finally says the quiet part out loud.
04. so be it
⤿ a party, puck bunnies, one final sidewalk argument outside her dorm, and the moment she realises loving garrett doesn’t mean she can keep letting him make her feel invisible.
.❀ ݁˖ exes, unfortunately
05. line?! ⤿ pink corsets, hannah, kendall, dean volunteering garrett as tribute, and every unresolved feeling they’ve ever had getting dragged under stage lights with tequila and fairy wings.
06. line?! part 2
⤿ a coffee shop almost-run-in turns into old apologies, missed-you confessions, garrett finally telling people not to interrupt, and a dinner invite that feels a lot like hope.
.❀ ݁˖ second chances
07. second chance second date
⤿ dinner, emotional support bread, garrett’s jacket, hand-holding at the crosswalk, and one careful almost-kiss outside her dorm.
08. coffee?
⤿ post-practice coffee plans, logan exposing garrett’s killer mood, a cheek kiss, and one slipped “baby” that says more than either of them is ready to admit.
09. five-forty-seven
⤿ a dark walk home from rehearsal, garrett staying on the phone until morning, and the hannah situation finally being revealed as fake-dating idiocy.
10. take it off
⤿ dean’s jersey, garrett short-circuiting in public, a near-kiss in his bedroom, and the boys interrupting right when things get dangerous.
.❀ ݁˖ showing up properly
11. third row ⤿ romeo and juliet, pink peonies, staged kisses garrett barely survives, and the night he finally understands that loving her means showing up for the rooms where she becomes herself.
last updated: 26 june
more fics will be added as i write/post them
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⠀˖⠀⠀છ⠀⠀EVEN DURING A STUDY DATE, HE CAN’T STOP TEASING YOU; 𝑑ean 𝑑i 𝑙aurentis 𝓍 𝑠hy!reader ﹙✹﹚
ᰋ ˓ ♡ 𝑓awn’s notes ㆍ a small dean drabble because i can <3 love love me a shy!reader though!
The Briar University library was supposed to be quiet. That was, after all, the entire point of a library.
But as Dean sprawled across the worn leather couch in the corner of the second floor, he’d discovered an unfortunate truth: silence only made it harder to concentrate. Every rustle of paper, every distant cough, every whisper from the circulation desk felt like a personal attack on his ability to finish this stupid history paper.
And then there was you.
You sat across from him at the low table, completely oblivious to the chaos you were causing in his brain. Your head was bent over a stack of textbooks, one earbud dangling from your ear, lips moving silently as you mouthed the words you were reading.
Dean had been staring for approximately four minutes now. He knew this because he’d been counting.
“This is pathetic,” he muttered under his breath.
“Did you say something?” You looked up, eyes bright with curiosity.
“Nothing. Just talking to myself.” He flashed what he hoped was a charming grin. “I’m not used to being this quiet for this long. I think my brain cells won’t last much longer. To tell the truth, I feel like a damsel in distress. Or knight in distress.”
You laughed—that soft, genuine laugh that made his chest go all warm and fluttery. “Maybe you should take a break. You’ve been staring at that same paragraph for twenty minutes.”
Busted.
“How do you know what I’ve been staring at?” he challenged. “Weren’t you supposed to be studying?”
Your cheeks flushed so hot you could feel the heat radiating off them, a look on you that Dean had become entirely too fond of. “I was just glancing occasionally.” You ducked your head, suddenly fascinated by the grain of the table. “It’s called being aware of your surroundings.”
“Uh-huh.” Dean sat up, abandoning all pretense of studying. He tucked his hands behind his head and stretched, a move he knew showed off his arms to their best advantage. “So you were looking at me?”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Too late.”
You rolled your eyes, but you were smiling. That was good. Dean lived for your smiles.
He’d met you at the start of the semester, when you’d accidentally walked into his kitchen while looking for a study group that met in the other off-campus house on the street. You’d been so flustered, so adorably apologetic, that Dean had immediately decided he needed to see you again.
It had taken two weeks of strategically showing up at coffee shops you frequented and accidentally bumping into you on campus before you’d agreed to have coffee with him—just coffee as friends.
Three months later, just coffee had become casual study sessions which had become “maybe we could study together more often?” which had become, well, whatever this was, because Dean didn’t do relationships. Everyone knew that. He hooked up. He moved on and kept things casual and uncomplicated.
So why did the thought of you moving on make him feel like someone had sucker-punched him in the gut?
“I’m getting hungry,” you announced, closing your textbook. “What do you think about grabbing dinner?”
“I think that’s the best idea you’ve had all day.” Dean was on his feet before you’d even finished gathering your things. “My treat.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Wanted to.” He shrugged, trying to play it cool. “Consider it payment for letting you crash my study session.”
“You invited me, remember?”
“Details, details.”
You packed up your bag, and Dean found himself watching your hands as they moved. You had nice hands. He noticed things like that now. Before you, the only thing he noticed about a someone was how quickly he could get their clothes off.
It was the lingering touches that gave him away. When you brushed past him to grab your bag, his hand found the small of your back—there and gone before you could fully register it. When you reached for your water bottle on the table, his fingers grazed yours, the touch lingering in the air. He didn’t even seem to notice he was doing it. It was instinct, akin to muscle memory.
You noticed, even though you tried not to. It was impossible not to feel the way his thumb traced a lazy circle on your wrist when you showed him something on your phone. The way his knee stayed pressed against yours under the table long after the initial accidental brush. The way he’d find any excuse to touch you—adjusting your collar, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear, taking your hand to pull you around a puddle on the sidewalk.
You were different. You were everything different, and that terrified you almost as much as it terrified him. Dean still wasn’t sure what to do with that, and neither were you.
✏ 𝒹𝗁𝖺𝗓𝖾𝆑𝖺𝗐𝗇───all rights reserved; even when credited, these works are not allowed to be reposted, translated, modified or fed into ai ࣭ ౄు
