Luca was anxiously awaiting your return. You had been on a business trip for almost a week now and today was the day you finally returned. He was on the couch waiting for you. He missed you so much. He had dinner waiting for you. He had missed your presence, your beautiful smile, your laugh, and just you. He'd also miss you in bed. He chuckles at the picture he sent you. He hears the keys jiggle and runs to the front door.
"Luca!," you scream as you drop your luggage and jump into his arms. He embraces you and spins you around.
"I missed you so much baby," you whisper in his ear.
"I missed you even more," he whispers as he holds you tight with his hands in your hair. You give him a big kiss on the lips. Luca returns the kiss but won't let go. You break the kiss and stare at his beautiful freckled face.
"It feels good to be back," you say still in his arms.
"I love having you back," he says looking you in the eye. He kisses you back and depends on the kiss.
"That sexy picture you sent me turned me on so badly. I've been dreaming of having my way with you ever since you sent it," you say chuckling. Luca looks down shyly a little embarrassed.
"It was the heat of the moment," he shyly whispers. You lift his chin and make him make eye contact.
"That was the hottest thing ever. You are so fucking sexy," you whisper. You feel Luca getting hard under you and palm his hard cock.
You nod your head and guide him to the bedroom. Luca immediately takes off his shirt and shorts, tossing them to the side. Luca is completely naked in front of you.
"How did I get so lucky tall handsome Englishman?," you question him. Luca chuckles and stares at you. You grab his cock and give it a couple of pumps.
"I missed this cock. Let me have a taste," you say as you go down on your knees. You wrap your lips around his cock hallowing your cheeks to take him in. Luca pulls on your hair and throws his head back cursing under his breath. You continue bobbing your head back and forth faster.
"Dirty girl," he grits through his teeth. You keep eye contact with him moaning and rolling your eyes. You remove your mouth and pump his cock with tears streaming down your face.
"I'm going to cum right now if you don't stop. Let me please you," he says as you're pumping his cock. You stop and lick a strip all over his abs and kiss him. Luca stops you and continues kissing you with tongues dancing.
He removes your shirt and bra. He grabs your breasts and squeezes them. He rolls his eyes in pleasure and sucks on your nipples twirling his tongue around them.
"I missed this so much," he says as he puts his face between your breasts squeezing them.
"Luca you're going to suffocate," you say moaning and laughing at the same time.
"I don't give a fuck. I missed my girl," he says in between licks. Luca removes your pants and gives your ass a spank. He removes your panties and throws them to the side. He throws you on the bed and spreads your legs wide open. He looks at your glistening wet pussy.
"Goodness me," he whispers as he looks you up and down. He can't believe he has his gorgeous girl back. Not only is she back but she is naked spread wide open for him.
"I'm going to have my fucking way with you tonight," he tells you inserting one finger inside of you. You let out a big gasp and grasp the bed sheets.
"Open your eyes beautiful," he says as he inserts another finger. You open your eyes making eye contact with him. You bite your lips in pleasure. Luca keeps on pumping his fingers making a lovely wet sound that's driving him crazy.
"Who's pussy is this babygirl?," he asks you inserting another finger. You yelp out a moan. He pumps those three fingers faster.
"Who's pussy is this?," he asks again.
"Yours Luca," you say through moans.
"You're damn right it is," he says with a smirk on his face. He removes those moist fingers and puts them in his mouth. He swirls his tongue around them letting your juices roam around his tongue.
"I need a fucking taste," he says as he dives into your pussy. He keeps your legs wide open licking a strip and circling his tongue on your clit. You're pulling his hair and screaming his name.
"Taste like fucking heaven," he says as he goes back in for more. Luca is sucking on your clit as you feel your orgasm approaching.
"Luca!," you scream shaking your legs. Luca gets up from there and wipes his mouth. He hovers over you as you're catching your breath. He kisses you and rests his head on yours.
"You alright?," he asks. You nod your head and shyly smile.
"Wanna go for more?," he asks.
"We gotta make up for lost time," you say. Luca chuckles and runs a finger down your cheek.
"All fours now," he demands as he gets up from you. You did as you were told. Ass up face down wiggling it in front of his face. Luca gives you a hard spank which startles you but also turns you on so much. Again, Luca couldn't believe his eyes. Such beauty such a perfect body and it was all for him. Luca brushed his fingers on your back and rubbed his hands on your ass.
"Such a sexy ass," he says as he starts teasing you with his tip. You moan in response holding on to the sheets waiting to get fucked.
Luca inserts himself slowly and pulls out and rams himself into you again. Luca quickens the pace fucking you hard. You're holding onto the bed sheets moaning his name.
"I missed you baby girl," he moans in between thrusts. He had his thumbs on your back dimples guiding you as your ass bounces on his cock.
"I love you baby," you say through moans. He feels you tighten up and feels himself close. Without warning he pulls out and flips you on your back and inserts himself again.
"I want to see your pretty face when you come," he moans as he holds your face making you keep eye contact with him. Luca roams his hands around your now sweaty body. Your legs start to shake around Lucas's body. Your toes curl in pleasure as you cum on Luca's cock. Luca is right behind you cumming inside of you as he moans and whines in your ear.
"I think I'm going to start going on more work trips," you jokingly say as you catch your breath. Luca gives you a look and lies down on your breast. You're running your fingers through his gold locks when you start to hear sniffling and feel your breast get wet.
"Luca are you okay?," You ask him. Luca looks up at you with teary eyes.
"Baby? Why are you crying?," you ask concerned.
"I just really missed you that week. I hated coming home to an empty apartment. I hated sleeping on an empty cold bed," he says through cries. You console him as he cries. You can't believe that you have a 6'4 giant tattooed man crying on your chest because he missed you.
"I'm here now baby. Maybe next time you can join me so we won't be apart," you say wiping his tears. Luca nods and lies back down.
"You're something else, Luca. You just fucked me as you hate me and now you're crying on me because you missed me," you laugh rubbing his back.
"Don't mock me," he says quickly. The both of you laugh together enjoying the post sex calmness. However, the vibe gets interrupted by a burnt smell. You sniff and sniff wondering where that smell is coming from.
"Luca did you leave something in the oven?," you ask him. Luca immediately gets up from the bed and runs to the kitchen.
"Bloody Hell!," Luca yells from the kitchen. You get up from the bed and put on a bathrobe and head to the kitchen. You can't help but laugh at the naked tattooed man in the kitchen wearing oven mittens only mittens.
"I wanted to have dinner ready for you," said Luca disappointed.
"It's okay babe things happen. Let's order a pizza shower and watch a movie," you say getting on your tippy toes kissing his lips.
And that's what you did. You guys showered together ordered a lovely pizza and caught up on a TV show. When you and Luca fell asleep he held you tight in his arms never wanting to let go.
summary: you don't do parties. and you don't do hockey players. Dean Di Laurentis is the last person your anxious brain would ever want to talk to. But when he becomes the only thing that can quiet the noise in your head, it becomes harder to stay away.
wc: 1.3k
warnings: 18+ , panic attack, drugs and alcohol
a/n: this is my first time writing off campus and I'm really hoping I did ok! would love to continue this one if enough people are interested so lmk if you like it! I have some ideas for these two.
banner by: @/issysh3ll
You didn’t do noise. You didn’t do crowds. But your roommate, Britt, had gotten an invite to a party at the hockey house. And at Briar, nobody passed up an invite to the hockey house. So, despite your discomfort, you sucked it up so she wouldn’t have to go alone.
It was easy to go through the motions: hair, makeup, outfit. The hard part was walking through the front door. The party was already packed, students spilling out onto the porch, bass vibrating the ground. You gripped Britt’s hand like a lifeline as she dragged you into the chaos.
Off to one side, a game of beer pong was underway, a crowd cheering them on. On the other, a group was doing shots. In the middle was a makeshift dancefloor with girls in the cutest outfits shaking their hips rhythmically to the music. You make note of the only other exit, a door near the pool table that someone was just heading out of.
Everyone around you was everything you wished you were: confident, excited, having fun. Instead, your brain was torturing you. The noise, the low lights, the crowd: everything was danger. You could feel your pulse spiking already, sweat beading across your forehead.
“Thanks for coming with me. Couldn’t have done this without you.” Britt offers you a smile as she tries to speak over the noise. Even though she was much more social than you, she was also introverted. But unlike you, she hated being alone. For you, being alone was solace. Comfort. Peace.
“Of course!” You force a smile back as best you can. “Do you see John?”
“Not yet.” She answers, her brown eyes searching the crowd. “Oh! He’s in the kitchen.” Dropping your hand, she waves at him until he notices. You follow Britt into the other room, trying to take some deep breaths in a way that you hope doesn’t make you look insane. Britt introduces you, and to your relief, John greets you nicely. In a way that makes you feel like he’s trying to remember your name.
Yet, the moment he starts talking to Britt, it’s like you don’t exist to either of them anymore. In a way, it’s nice. You don’t have to keep up with the conversation or pretend to be having fun. But now you need to find something to do other than disassociate and breathe manually. Grabbing a red solo cup, you it up with beer and take a small sip.
That moment is when Garrett Graham descends down the stairs of the hockey house. He’s the star hockey player, so of course people notice. Heads turn. Multiple people call out to him. And somehow it makes the house feel louder, stuffier, and more overwhelming. You shift on your feet, trying to find somewhere that feels a little less crowded, when someone slams into you.
“Shit, sorry!” The man’s voice echoes in your ear as your beer sloshes out of the cup.
“Nice job, Di Laurentis.” John deadpans.
“My bad.” The man laughs awkwardly, running a hand through his blonde hair. It’s Dean. The other hockey star. Somehow, that makes it worse. Heat rushes to your cheeks, your ears starting to ring. He says something to you that your brain won’t process, his voice sounding far away. Your only clue is him pointing at your drink. Shaking your head quickly, you mutter something about not needing another one before walking away.
Tunnel vision is your next clue things are going downhill. And then it feels like you don’t know how to swallow. Throat too tight to breathe. Hands going numb. Legs going numb. You needed to get some air. Let it pass. Not in front of all these people. The back exit is your target.
Deep breath in. Out. In. Out.
You make it outside, relief slowly blooming as the cold air hit your skin and the noise muffled when the door slams closed. No one else was out here. Just you. Crouching down on the world’s smallest deck, you keep your head low and try to breathe through it.
In. Out. In. Out.
All too quickly, the door creaks open. Your head whips around, eyes wide, heart rate picking up again.
Britt?
John?
Nope. Dean.
Shit.
“Damn, ‘s freezing out here.” He announces to no one in particular, lighting up a joint. Once he takes a drag, his blue eyes lazily scan the deck, landing on you. “Shit, it’s you. Sorry again, for spilling your drink.” The way he chuckles is so easygoing it makes you jealous. You wanted to have fun, to be casual. Your brain always had other plans.
“It’s fine.” You grit out, fists clenching so your nails dug into your palms.
“Whoa,” Dean finally takes in your demeanor. “You sick?” His attention makes your skin prickle.
“I said I’m fine.” Your voice gets harsher, hoping he’ll take the hint and leave.
“You don’t look fine.” There’s an edge of concern in his voice. That sends a new wave of panic. Dean was, based on rumors and the fact that you had eyes, the kind of person always the center of attention. The last thing you needed was someone like that focused on you.
“I’m good, I’ve got it handled.” You try to sound better than you feel.
“Sure.” Dean drawls, unconvinced.
“Don’t you want to go back to your friends?” You ask, nodding back at the door.
“I’ve got a joint to smoke. Don’t you want to go back to your friends?” He counters.
“I just need a minute.” You admit. Truthfully, he was providing the tiniest distraction. Which let feeling come back to your hands and legs. But the song playing inside changes, and the new, louder bass thump makes you flinch. Dean notices it, because of course he does.
“Too much?” He guesses. You can only nod, hoping that’s enough of an explanation to get him to drop it. He’s quit for a minute, and you think that that’s it. “Be right back.” He promises, the door slamming shut behind him.
You exhale fully now that you’re finally alone. Trying to convince yourself that you’re safe. It’s just a party. There’s no danger. But the door opens again way too quickly, and Dean’s standing next to you, one hand with a joint and the other extending a dark blue, large pair of headphones.
“Put these on.” He offers, shaking them slightly for emphasis. It felt wrong to refuse someone trying to help, and you didn’t have the strength to argue. You grab the headphones, placing them over your ears.
Immediately, the world quieted slightly. You could still feel the bass of the music. But all the noise from the party fully faded. It was a subtle change, but somehow enough to bring much needed relief. And your expression probably showed that, because Dean was smiling down at you.
“I use those before my games. Help me block out distractions and shit.” He tells you, his voice much quieter through the headphones. As he continues to smoke, looking out across campus, you let your panic pass. Your body, as it always does, starts to calm down. In the moment, it always felt catastrophic. Like you were dying. And when it passed, it felt like you were dramatic for no reason.
Once you feel steady enough, you stand slowly. Dean is tall enough that you have to look up at him. When you take off the headphones, you hand them back with a hint of a smile.
“Those are expensive, okay? Be careful with ‘em.” He chides with a grin.
“Oh, no.” You deadpan, pretending to drop them. His reflexes are quick, his warm, large hands covering yours as he takes the headphones back. You flush again, not from anxiety this time, but from how nice it felt. And how good he looked. And that he bothered to do something nice.
“What’s your name, trouble?” He winks, seeming to like that he helped you relax. You tell him, and he repeats it a few times as if to commit it to his crossfaded memory.
“Thank you.” You say honestly, ready to make your way back inside before Britt really noticed you weren’t there.
“Anytime.” He replies in a way that makes you feel like he means it.
Premise: Amelie came to Denmark on Carmy's recommendation, chasing a reset after burnout and disappointment in Chicago. Staging under Luca was supposed to be purely professional-early mornings, late nights, aching feet, and no emotional entanglements.
But from the moment she stepped into his kitchen, everything became... complicated.
Luca is calm where Amelie is chaotic, precise where she's impulsive, distant in all the ways that make her want to get closer. There are glances that linger too long, arguments that carry the sharpness of something unspoken, touches that happen too often to be accidental-but nothing crosses the line. Not officially.
The kitchen becomes its own language: tension folded like laminated dough, sweetness hidden beneath structure, heat rising steadily between them. And Luca? He notices everything. The way Amelie handles her pastry. The way her breath catches when he leans too close. The way her walls come down, one slow crack at a time.
The real problem? He wants her. But Luca doesn't break rules. Not his own. Not unless he already has.
In the pressure cooker of a Michelin-starred kitchen, something always boils over. The only question is: when it does, will either of them survive the burn?
Word Count: 1058
THE STORY CONTINUES HERE!!
Chapter Title: Spandauer
The kitchen was silent. Everyone had gone home after a long shift. Orders went out, plates came back clean, but it still wasn't enough for Amelie.
The sound of toppers opening, eggs cracking, sugar hitting metal—each movement felt like a lifeline. The scent of marzipan bloomed through the empty space, sweet and grounding. Every step mattered.
The clock had just hit 4:00 AM, and the only thing keeping Amelie sane was the Spandauer in the oven. She stood in front of it, arms crossed, heart in her throat. Once the timer beeped, her chest tightened. She needed it to be perfect.
She slid on the oven mitts, pulled out the tray, and stared down at the pastry she'd spent the last four hours crafting.
She had fought her way into this kitchen—Chef Carmen Berzatto's kitchen. People told her she had what it took to be an Executive Chef, but Amelie's love had always been pastry. From a young age, she understood that the smallest details—the flake of a crust, the balance of sugar and almond, the chill of the butter—mattered more than anything.
She'd always loved the way something fragile and delicate could transform through heat and patience into something golden, layered, complex. It was in these quiet moments—before sunrise, when the city slept and the kitchen breathed—that Amelie felt most like herself. Pastry wasn't about feeding people. It was about telling stories with sugar and butter, saying the things she couldn't put into words.
The Spandauer looked flawless—puffed layers, gleaming custard, a sheen of glaze just beginning to set. A smile tugged at her lips. But she didn't celebrate. Not yet. Marcus and Carmy always had something to say.
As if summoned by thought, she heard footsteps. Soft, deliberate. Carmy.
He appeared silently beside her, eyes narrowing just slightly as he inspected the tray.
"Looks good, Chef," he said after a beat, voice low. "But the edges could be cleaner. The marzipan—too sweet. You want balance. Complexity."
Amelie bit back the frustration rising in her throat. This was what she both dreaded and craved—the scrutiny, the pressure, the unrelenting push for more.
"I'll adjust," she murmured, already running through ratios in her head.
Carmy's gaze softened. Just a fraction. "You're getting there, Chef. But you still have a long way to go."
Her patience snapped.
"What am I supposed to do?" she burst out. "Every time I submit something for the menu, it gets rejected. It's bullshit, Carm."
Her voice cracked under the weight of exhaustion. "I've asked Marcus for help. I've stayed late, every night, working on this—on me—and I still feel like I'm stuck in a fucking boat with no direction."
Carmy was quiet, the guilt barely veiled in his expression. He knew what he was asking of her. But this was the brutal truth of fine dining. Pressure. Fire. Sacrifice.
"That's the job, Amelie," he said finally, not harsh, but firm. "No one hands you a menu slot. You carve it out. With blood, if you have to."
She let out a bitter laugh, placing the tray down with more force than necessary. "I have been carving it out, Carm. Every night. While everyone's out, I'm here. Working, failing, trying again. And nothing changes. I'm starting to think I don't belong here."
"I didn't come here to be a fucking nuisance."
"You're not," he said, softer now. "You're just... early. Ahead of your time, maybe. But if you want people to notice—really feel your work—you have to give them more than technique. Give them something to remember."
Amelie turned to him, eyes bloodshot but burning. "The food does feel like something. It's mine."
"I know." Carmy sighed. "But it's not just about you. It's about who's eating it. And right now? They're not there yet. Doesn't mean you're wrong. Just means you've gotta wait for them to catch up."
Silence. Heavy. Tense.
Then, gently, "You talked to Marcus?"
She nodded. "Yeah. He's been trying. But he's got his own stuff."
"He always does," Carmy muttered. Then paused. Thought. A glint of something sparked in his eyes.
"I've got an idea... but you'll have to throw everything you've got into it."
Amelie blinked. "What is it?"
He leaned against the Aboyeur station. "I have a friend. One of the few people who helped me when I was starting out. He's a pâtissier. Like Marcus."
Amelie frowned. "I'm a pâtissier too."
Carmy chuckled at her indignation. "Believe me, Amelie—you're not near his level."
The comment stung more than she expected. Who the hell was this guy?
"I sent Marcus to him a while back," Carmy continued. "And he came back... changed. Better. He found whatever it was he was missing and owned it. Now, it's your turn."
Carmy's gaze was steady. "You're a prodigy, yeah. That's why I gave you this position in the first place. But talent won't keep you here. Not in this industry. You need depth. Patience. Fire."
Amelie felt a shiver run down her spine. The kind that came before a storm. Or a breakthrough.
"I already talked to him," Carmy said. "Told him about your work. Showed him your pastries. He owes me some favors, so... he's agreed to take you on."
Amelie blinked. "Wait—you planned a whole trip, 4,000 miles away, with a guy I've never met—just to 'sharpen my skills'?"
"Yeah," Carmy said simply. "Denmark. Two months. Unless you're too scared."
She opened her mouth to argue—but nothing came out.
"He's been watching your work," Carmy added. "Quietly. He's got opinions. Ask questions. Challenge him. He won't sugarcoat anything, but he'll respect you. That matters."
She hated how much that last part made her chest twist.
"Fine," she said after a moment. "I'll go."
Carmy gave a faint, crooked smile—barely there, but real. "Good. Now go home before you collapse. I want your head clear tomorrow. There's a difference between desperation and hunger. Don't confuse the two."
Amelie nodded, though the fire in her chest refused to die down. As Carmy disappeared into the hallway, leaving her alone with the low hum of fridges and the fading scent of pastry, she looked down at her Spandauer one last time.
summary: Dean DiLaurentis gives you the "I don't do relationships" speech, and you say okay and come back the next day to fix Tucker's cooking. Turns out the most dangerous thing you can do to a man like that is simply not need him.
word count: 11.5k
warnings: 18+ explicit sexual content, minors do not interact. situationship dynamics, brief angst, dean being cruel in a moment he regrets, dirty talk, slow burn, eventual fluff.
Daily calls with your mother had become more sparse over the course of your college years. They started daily and had slowly tapered to every other Saturday, which, in all honesty, was a bit of a shock given that she wasn't the type to loosen her grip easily. She had always been overprotective, and when you announced you weren't going to Texas University but to a college in Massachusetts, she had genuinely flipped her shit. Two years later she seemed kind of cool about it. Just texting. Sending random updates about your dog, like the Halloween costume from last year that you'd screenshot and saved.
You were sitting in your room in the sorority house, legs extended and resting on the desk, phone propped against your water bottle while you FaceTimed her and tried to paint your nails without smudging anything. The room was quiet except for your mom stirring something on the stove.
"So I ran into Olivia Tucker — you remember her, right? From church? She had a son named John," she said, not looking at the camera.
You had learned years ago that it was easier to say yes, of course than to endure five minutes of your mom describing a person like she was giving a statement to the police.
"Yeah, of course. I remember Mrs. Tucker."
"She mentioned her son John is attending the same college as you." She said it like she was reading off a notecard. Matter of fact. "She said he's playing hockey now."
Oh. That John Tucker.
"Yeah, I know who he is," you said, cleaning up the mess on your middle finger.
"Isn't that a big coincidence?"
"I mean, not really — he's like a year younger than me, right?"
"Yes, but you two used to play together when you were kids. At church, remember?" You did not remember. Your family went to church maybe twice a year. "Anyway, I gave her your number so she could pass it along to him. So you two could talk."
"Mom — what, that's not really —"
"She's probably not even going to use it."
She used it. Mrs. Tucker called three days later, and with the grace of a good Southern woman, she asked you to keep an eye on John — not in so many words, of course. She said he'd moved into a house with some of the other players and she just wanted to know he was taking care of himself. She didn't want you to do much. Just stop by, take a look around, report back. She'd handle the rest by phone.
What she did not tell you was that Tucker already knew about her plan.
He opened the door looking completely unsurprised to see you, leaned against the frame with his arms crossed and a grin that said nice try. He was, it turned out, perfectly capable of taking care of himself and, annoyingly, other people too.
Which is how you ended up here, almost a year later, sitting on one of the stools at the kitchen island in the off campus house, crying into an onion.
"I'm just saying, get a dicer," you said, keeping your eyes on the knife because you had to. "This is inhumane."
"A real chef doesn't use those kinds of things," Tucker said from across the kitchen, doing significantly less chopping than you were.
"Well, good thing you're not a real chef then."
He turned around, visibly offended. "What did you just say?"
You opened your mouth to repeat it — and then Garrett wandered in from the living room, grabbed an apple from the counter, looked at Tucker's side of the kitchen and then at yours, and pointed at you. "She's doing all the work," he said, to no one in particular, and wandered back out.
"He's right," you said.
"He's a traitor," Tucker said.
You opened your mouth to agree and then the sound of footsteps came down the hallway, and Dean came around the corner fresh out of the shower, towel low on his hips and water still tracking down his chest.
You sniffed, eyes watering, nose red.
Dean stopped. Looked at you. And then let out a slow, deeply entertained laugh.
"Well," he said, "I've heard a lot of reactions from girls seeing me like this. But crying might be a first." He tilted his head. "You alright there, sweet pea?"
"It's the onion," you said flatly. "Tucker's making me cut it."
"Sure." He was already turning toward the stairs, completely unbothered. "Whatever floats your boat."
He winked at you over his shoulder as he disappeared around the corner.
You looked back down at the onion.
Tucker was very pointedly not looking at you.
"Not a word," you said.
"I didn't say anything," he said, in the tone of someone who was saying everything.
The party invitation from Tucker arrived as a single text on a Thursday night.
party saturday, be here, i made a playlist
You were in the middle of your readings and you looked at the message for a moment before typing back: do I need to bring anything?
yourself and good energy
You put your phone face down and went back to your reading. Then picked it up again.
what time
nine but come at eight so we can hang before it gets loud
That was Tucker's way of saying he wanted to cook with you beforehand, which you appreciated more than you would ever tell him out loud because he would absolutely use it against you. You sent back a thumbs up and returned to your notes, and you did not think about the fact that Dean would be there, because that was not a relevant consideration.
You thought about it the entire rest of the week.
Not in a dramatic way. Just in the quiet, persistent way of something you kept putting down and finding in your hand again. You were honest with yourself about Dean, had been from the beginning. You knew what he was. Charming in a way that looked effortless because it mostly was, easy with people, the kind of person who filled a room without trying. You'd watched him for almost a year. You knew the way he talked to people, the way he leaned in when something was funny, the way he'd come into the kitchen sometimes when you were there and open the fridge and just stand there for a full thirty seconds like the answer to whatever he was looking for might eventually appear.
You knew that he'd noticed you too. That wasn't ego, just observation. The way his eyes would find you first when he walked into a room where you already were. The way he'd aim a comment at you specifically when he had a whole group to choose from. The way he'd said I've heard a lot of reactions like your reaction was the one that mattered.
You'd been sensible about it for a year. You'd made the choice, every single time, to not do anything about it. And you were fine. You were genuinely fine with that. You knew what Dean was, knew what it would be, and you'd decided the math didn't work out in your favor so you'd left it alone.
It was just that sometimes, quietly, in the back of your head, a voice said but what if you didn't.
You got dressed Saturday night and told that voice to shut up, and went to the party anyway.
Tucker met you at the door at eight on the dot, already in a good mood, which meant either the playlist was really good or he'd already had a drink.
"You look great," he said, holding the door open.
"You say that every time."
"Because it's true every time." He handed you a beer from the counter as you came into the kitchen, already comfortable, already home in the easy way the house had started to feel over the past year. "I was thinking we do something with the leftover rice from yesterday, I got peppers —"
"Tucker."
"What."
"We're not cooking. There are already people here."
He looked genuinely confused. "So?"
You took the beer from him and looked around the kitchen. Logan was leaning against the far counter talking to someone from the team, and Garrett was already in the living room, and the house had that particular pre-party hum to it, not yet loud, still settling into itself.
Dean wasn't in the kitchen.
You noted this the way you noted a lot of things quietly, without making anything of it.
Logan glanced over when Tucker handed you the beer. "You're here early."
"She's basically a resident," Tucker said, like this was a fact.
"I'm a guest," you said.
"Guests don't know where we keep the good knives," Logan said and winked, and went back to his conversation.
You spent the next hour in that easy pre-party mode, moving between the kitchen and the living room, talking to people you knew by name now, accepting a second drink from someone who was mixing them near the back. Tucker orbited you loosely the way he always did at these things, appearing at your elbow every twenty minutes or so to say something that made you laugh and then disappearing again. This was one of your favorite things about him, he was never clingy, never needed to keep you close, just checked in like punctuation.
Dean appeared sometime around ten.
He came down the stairs and into the living room and you saw him before he saw you, which felt important. He was wearing a dark green shirt, sleeves pushed to the elbows, and he had that easy unhurried way of moving through a room like it had already arranged itself around him. He said something to Garrett near the bottom of the stairs and laughed, and you looked away before he could look up.
So. He was here. That was fine. That was completely normal and fine.
You went to find Tucker.
The next hour you spent being very deliberate about not being obvious. You talked to people on the back porch when Dean was in the living room. You came inside when he drifted toward the kitchen. You were not proud of it exactly, but you were not going to stand around waiting for him to decide whether tonight was a night he felt like paying attention to you. You'd done a lot of things in your life. That was not going to be one of them.
Your friend Anna, a sorority sister, texted at eleven: how's the party
You typed back: fine. dean's here.
Three seconds.
oh. OH. okay. call me tomorrow.
maybe
that means yes. don't do anything I wouldn't do
You locked your phone and put it in your pocket and thought about the specific, limited list of things Anna wouldn't do and found it unhelpfully short.
The thing was, and you'd been over this, you'd been reasonable about this, you knew what it would be. A night, maybe a few nights, comfortable and uncomplicated and then done. Dean DiLaurentis didn't do anything that looked like what came after. You'd watched him long enough to know that too. And you'd decided that wasn't what you wanted, so you'd kept your distance, and that had been the right call, and it remained the right call.
You were in college at a party on a Friday night and you had been sensible about this for almost an entire calendar year.
The voice in the back of your head said but you knew that going in and it doesn't have to mean anything you don't want it to mean.
You told it to shut up.
It had a point though.
You refilled your drink. Stood near the back door where the air was a little cooler and the noise slightly less consuming. Watched the party happen around you. Thought, very clearly and deliberately: you know what it is. you've always known. that doesn't have to be the reason not to.
You were still working through the logic of that when you felt someone come to stand beside you.
"(Y/N). You've been avoiding me."
Dean. Not accusing, just observing, the same way he did most things, like he was simply noting a fact about the universe. He had a drink in one hand and he wasn't looking at you yet, eyes scanning the room like he'd just happened to end up here beside you, which you both understood wasn't true.
"I've been talking to people," you said.
"You've been talking to people on the opposite side of every room I was in."
"Maybe I just like that side of the room."
He looked at you then. Really looked, in that direct way of his that felt like being assessed and appreciated at the same time. The music was loud enough that the conversation existed in its own small space, just between you.
"You've been doing that for a year," he said.
"Has it been a year?" You kept your voice light.
"Almost." He took a drink. "I've been patient."
The word landed simply, without performance. Patient. Like he'd been waiting. Like the last year had been something he'd noticed too, kept track of, decided to let run its course.
You looked at him for a long moment. The party moved around you, loud and warm, and you stood in it and made the decision clearly, with both eyes open, which felt like the important part.
"Bathroom's upstairs," you said.
Something shifted in his expression, not surprise, just confirmation. Like he'd known, and now he knew for certain.
"Yeah," he said.
He followed you up the stairs without touching you, which felt somehow more loaded than if he had. You could feel him behind you the whole way, that particular awareness of someone close, and by the time you reached the top of the stairs your heart was doing something inconvenient.
The upstairs bathroom was at the end of the hall. You went in, he came in behind you, and you turned to click the lock and found him already there, close enough that turning around put you nearly chest to chest with him, close enough that you could feel the warmth coming off him before he'd laid a hand on you.
He didn't kiss you right away.
That was the first thing. You'd expected him to, he'd been patient for a year, you'd just told him where the bathroom was, you'd expected him to close the distance immediately. Instead he just looked at you, and the looking was its own thing, slow and deliberate, like he was taking his time now that he finally had you here and he wanted you to know it.
"You made me wait a long time," he said.
"You could have said something sooner," you said.
"I said something tonight."
"Barely."
Something shifted in his expression, not quite a smile, more like he'd just decided something. He reached up slowly and tucked a strand of hair behind your ear, fingers grazing your jaw, and the touch was so light it was almost nothing, which somehow made it worse.
"You're going to be like that," he said. Quiet. Certain.
"I don't know what you mean," you said, which was a lie and you both knew it.
He tilted your chin up with two fingers, not roughly, just — directing. Making you look at him. "Yeah you do," he said, and then he kissed you.
It wasn't tentative. It was a kiss from someone who had thought about this specifically, who knew what he wanted and had decided tonight was when he was going to have it, and you kissed him back and felt a year's worth of deliberate distance dissolve somewhere at the back of your mind.
He walked you backward until your hips met the bathroom counter and left you there, stepped back just enough to look at you again with that same unhurried attention, and you understood then that he wasn't in a hurry. That he'd waited this long and now he was going to enjoy it, and you were going to have to let him.
"Take your jacket off," he said.
You did.
He watched you do it. That was all — just watched, arms loosely crossed, completely at ease, like this was exactly where he'd planned to be tonight. You set the jacket on the counter and looked at him and he looked back.
"Good," he said, like that meant something.
Your heart was doing the inconvenient thing again.
He came back to you slowly, hands finding your waist, and kissed you again, deeper this time, one hand sliding into your hair and gripping, not painfully, just holding you exactly where he wanted you. You made a small sound against his mouth and felt him smile.
"There it is," he murmured.
"Shut up," you said.
"Make me," he said against your jaw, and then his mouth was on your throat and the option to respond coherently became briefly unavailable.
He took his time with your throat, your collarbone, the soft place below your ear that made your fingers curl into his shirt without your permission, and every time you moved to pull him closer he'd ease back just enough to remind you that he was running this. Not mean about it. Just clear.
"Dean —"
"I've got you," he said, against your skin. "I'm not going anywhere."
His hands moved to the hem of your top, pulling it up slowly, and he stepped back to pull it over your head and dropped it somewhere on the floor and looked at you again with that particular focus, and you had to actively resist the urge to cover yourself, because that was not what you did, but the way he was looking at you made you feel like you were already coming apart.
"You have no idea," he said quietly, more to himself than you, and then his mouth was on your collarbone and his hands were at your waist and you gave up on dignity entirely.
His hands moved to the button of your jeans, unhurried, and he looked up at you first — not asking exactly, just checking — and you nodded and he undid it and crouched down to pull the fabric down your legs with a thoroughness that felt like a point being made. He looked up at you from there, and whatever was on your face made him look deeply, quietly satisfied.
"You've been thinking about this," he said. Not a question.
"Don't," you said.
"Don't what?"
"Don't be smug about it."
"I'm not being smug." He pressed a kiss to the inside of your knee, which short-circuited something. "I'm just paying attention."
He stood back up slowly, hands trailing up the outside of your thighs, and lifted you onto the counter like it was nothing, stepping between your knees. You pulled him back in by the collar of his shirt and kissed him harder than you'd meant to and he made a low sound and kissed you back the same way, one hand flat against the small of your back pulling you closer.
"Tell me what you want," he said, against your mouth.
"You know what I want."
"I want to hear you say it."
You pulled back and looked at him. He looked back, completely unbothered, and you understood that he meant it, that he was going to stand here all night if he had to, patient as anything, until you said it out loud.
"Dean."
"I'm right here," he said pleasantly.
"You're so —"
"Tell me."
You told him.
"Please"
The expression that crossed his face was worth it. He kissed you once, hard, like a reward, and said good against your mouth, and then his hand moved and all the words you'd been planning to say next went somewhere inaccessible.
He knew what he was doing in a way that felt almost unfair, thorough, attentive, like he'd already decided exactly how this was going to go and was now simply executing. When you tried to rush it he slowed down. When you made a sound he filed it away and came back to it. The tile was cold at your back and his hands were warm on your thighs and his mouth was at your cunt and the things he said there were quiet and precise and designed specifically to ruin you.
"You've been driving me crazy," he said. Low, unhurried. "All year. You know that."
"Dean —"
"Every time you walked into a room." His hand didn't stop. "Every time you looked at Tucker instead of me. Every single time."
"That's your fault," you managed.
"I know," he said. "I know it is." Something almost rueful in it. "Doesn't change the fact."
When you finally came it was with your head hitting the mirror behind you and holding his shoulder and his name somewhere in the middle of it, and he stayed with you through the whole thing, unhurried, like he had nothing else in the world to do.
He gave you a moment. Then he pulled back and looked at you with an expression that you could only describe as thoroughly pleased with himself, which should have been annoying and wasn't.
"Don't," you said.
"I didn't say anything."
"You were about to."
"I was going to ask if you were okay," he said, which was such an obvious lie that you laughed, and the laugh broke something open in the room, and he grinned, a real one, unguarded in a way you hadn't seen before, and kissed you again before it could turn into a whole thing.
You worked his belt with hands that weren't entirely steady and he helped without comment, and then his hands were at your hips and he pressed his forehead to yours for just a second.
You watched him look for a condom on his backpocket.
"Yeah?" he said quietly. All the performance gone.
"Yeah," you said.
He pushed into you slow and you exhaled against his jaw, fingers gripping his shoulders, adjusting to the feeling of him. He gave you a moment, forehead still to yours, patient, present, and then he moved and everything else became temporarily beside the point.
It was charged the way it only gets when two people have been waiting too long. Not frantic but urgent, with a focused intensity that felt like something being resolved. His grip was firm and deliberate and you pulled him closer when he slowed down and he got the message and didn't slow down again. The mirror was fogging and somewhere below you the party was still happening and it was completely irrelevant.
"Look at me," he said.
You did. He held your gaze and something passed between you that neither of you named, and you felt it in your chest more than anywhere else.
"Months," he said again. Quieter now.
"I know," you said. "I know."
When he came he buried his face in your neck and went quiet and still, one hand flat against the small of your back holding you against him, and you held onto him too because it seemed like the thing to do, and because you wanted to, and those were the same thing tonight.
You stayed like that for a moment longer than necessary.
Then you both exhaled at roughly the same time, which broke the tension, and Dean huffed a quiet laugh into your shoulder.
You untangled carefully, straightened yourselves out. You hopped off the counter and turned to the mirror, fixing your hair, smoothing your top back into place. He leaned against the wall watching you do it, arms crossed loosely, shirt back on. His hair was a mess and he didn't appear concerned about it.
You met his eyes in the mirror.
"This doesn't have to be a thing," you said. Even, matter of fact. Not cold, just clear. You were giving him an out because you'd rather give it than have him feel like he needed to take it badly.
Something moved across his face. He pushed off the wall slightly. "What if I want it to be a thing?"
You turned around. "What kind of thing?"
He held your gaze. Didn't answer right away, which was an answer, and you'd known it would be, you'd known before you came upstairs, and still it took a small quiet moment to settle.
"Right," you said simply.
Not angry. Not hurt, or at least not visibly. You'd gone in with both eyes open and you'd meant it, and the math was what you'd always known it was. That was fine. You were fine.
You unlocked the door.
"Hey," Dean said.
You looked back.
He opened his mouth, closed it. Something in his expression that you couldn't entirely read. "Nothing," he said finally. "Never mind."
You nodded once and stepped out into the hallway.
Downstairs, the party had peaked without you. The music was louder and the living room was full and Tucker was in the kitchen, which is where Tucker always ended up at some point. He took one look at your face when you appeared in the doorway and turned to open the fridge and produced a beer, which he held out without a word.
You took it.
"Having fun?" he asked, very casually, eyes on the fridge.
"Yeah," you said. "Party's good."
"Cool." He closed the fridge. "I made queso."
"Tucker."
"It's in the pot on the back burner."
You looked at him for a second. He looked back, perfectly neutral, perfectly unbothered, and completely full of information he was choosing not to say.
"Thank you," you said.
"Don't mention it," he said. "Seriously, don't. I have a reputation."
You laughed despite yourself, and some of the tightness in your chest loosened, just a little.
Tucker handed you a chip.
You both stood at the stove and ate queso and said nothing about any of it, and that was, genuinely, one of the nicest things anyone had done for you in a while.
Dean came downstairs eleven minutes later, you weren't counting, you just noticed, and grabbed a beer from the fridge and leaned against the counter across from you, and the three of you stood in that kitchen like nothing had happened at all.
Dean looked at the pot on the stove. "Is that queso?"
"Made it myself," Tucker said.
"You absolutely did not."
Tucker looked at you. You said nothing, scooping queso onto another chip. Dean's eyes moved between you both and landed on you with something unreadable in them.
"Can I have some?" he asked.
"It's your house," you said.
He got a chip. Ate it. Looked at the pot. "That's really good."
"I know," you said.
Tucker stared directly at the wall and smiled at absolutely nothing.
It didn't have a name. That was the thing , it never got one, and neither of you tried to give it one, and somehow that made it easier to just let it exist.
It started simply enough. A week after the party, Dean texted you at eleven on a Tuesday night. Just: you up?
The second text was a trailer link. No context, no explanation, just: this.
You watched it once. Typed back: that looks pretentious.
i know. yes or no.
fine.
The house was quiet when you got there , Garrett's door closed, Tucker apparently out, and Dean was on the couch with a beer and the energy of someone who had been waiting without admitting to waiting.
You sat in the middle of the couch.
He pulled up the movie without comment.
It was pretentious and it was also actually good, and you told him so twenty minutes in when he glanced over to see what you thought. He said told you without looking back at the screen. You said you said it looked pretentious, which is not the same as saying it wasn't good. He said that's a very specific distinction. You said I'm a specific person. He didn't say anything for a moment, and then said: yeah.
Somewhere around the third act the distance between you closed. You weren't sure who moved, maybe both of you, gradually. His arm along the back of the couch and your shoulder under it and neither of you addressed it.
The movie ended and neither of you moved.
He found something else. A documentary, shorter, that turned out to be genuinely interesting. You watched most of it. Somewhere in the second half you were closer still his arm properly around you now, your feet tucked up beside you — and the lamp in the corner was the only light, and in here it was warm, and you were paying attention to about thirty percent of the documentary.
You woke up at two in the morning with a blanket over you that hadn't been there before. Dean was asleep at the other end of the couch, head back, completely unconscious. The TV was still on. You looked at him in the blue light of the screensaver, the line of his jaw, the stillness of someone actually asleep and felt the quiet weight of something you were not going to examine.
Then you got up, folded the blanket, left it on the cushion, and walked home.
You didn't text him about it. He didn't text you about it. Two days later he sent: you around tonight? and you said depends and he said on what and you said what's the plan and he said no plan and you said okay.
That was how it started.
By November it had a shape, even if it didn't have a name.
You came over two or three times a week. Sometimes it was a movie, sometimes it was just you in the kitchen making something with whatever was in the fridge while Dean sat at the counter with his phone and ate everything you put in front of him without comment except occasionally this is really good in a tone that suggested he was a little annoyed about it. Sometimes the whole house was there, Tucker loud and cheerful, Garrett and Logan drifting in and out, the TV on in the background and sometimes it was just the two of you and the house was quiet and those evenings had a quality to them that you tried not to examine too closely.
He texted you things that weren't questions. A link to an article about something you'd both argued about in passing. A photo of a sunset he'd apparently seen from the library roof, no caption. A voice memo once, at midnight, that was just him reading something in the flat unimpressed tone he used when something was genuinely getting on his nerves — listen to this, the message said, and you did, and you laughed, and he sent back a single: right?
You sent him things back. A recipe you thought he'd actually like. A clip of something that reminded you of a conversation you'd had. He always answered. Not immediately, not performatively, just he answered.
Garrett had noticed, in his way. He'd stopped doing double-takes when you were in the kitchen on a Tuesday night, had started just saying hey and opening the fridge like your presence was a given. Logan was less subtle, he'd caught your eye once across the living room when Dean laughed at something you'd said, and raised an eyebrow, and you'd looked away and he'd had the decency not to push it.
You talked to Anna about it on a Sunday afternoon in November, feet up on her bed, staring at the ceiling while she did her readings across from you.
"So it's a situationship," she said, not looking up.
"I didn't say that."
"You described a situationship."
"I described two people who spend time together."
"With benefits."
"Occasionally."
She finally looked up. "How often is occasionally?"
You said nothing.
"That's what I thought." She went back to her reading. "Are you okay with it?"
You thought about it honestly, the way you tried to think about most things. "Yeah," you said. "I went in knowing what it was."
"That's not what I asked."
You looked at the ceiling. "I'm fine," you said. "It's fine. I know what it is."
Anna made a small noncommittal sound that you chose not to interpret.
The physical part of it was easy in a way you hadn't entirely expected. Comfortable in a way that felt like it should have taken longer to get to. He knew what you liked with an attentiveness that might have been alarming if you'd let yourself think about it, and you knew what worked for him, and there was none of the awkwardness of newness anymore.
The only thing you were consistent about was the condom. Every time, without exception. Until one night in late November when Dean caught your wrist gently before you could reach for the nightstand.
"Why do you always —" He stopped. Nodded toward it. "Every time."
"Because I'm not stupid," you said. "You were getting around a lot before this and I don't know what this is and I'm not asking but I'm also not —"
"I haven't," he said. "Since the party. I haven't slept with anyone else."
The room went quiet.
"Oh," you said. A beat. "Me neither."
Something moved across his face that he didn't entirely manage to control. His thumb traced a slow absent line against the inside of your wrist.
"Okay," he said quietly.
"Okay," you said.
The air in the room changed into something neither of you was going to name. Then he kissed you, and it was different, slower, more careful, like something had been confirmed that he hadn't known he was waiting to confirm, and you let yourself feel it without examining it too closely, because that felt fair.
The first sign was the texts.
Not that they stopped completely, that would have been obvious, and Dean was too smart for obvious. They just slowed. A reply that came four hours later instead of forty minutes. A shorter answer where there used to be a real one. The voice memos stopped. The links stopped. You'd send something and get back a single word where there used to be a sentence, and you'd look at it and feel the shape of what was happening without being able to name it yet.
You told yourself it was school. Exams were coming, everyone was disappearing into the library, that was normal. You told yourself he was busy, stressed, in his head about the end of semester and the hockey team. You were busy too. You had your own readings, your own papers, your own life that existed completely separately from the off campus house and always had.
You kept coming over. Tucker needed someone to watch the game with and you'd promised him a recipe you'd been meaning to show him and you were not going to rearrange your life over a shift in text frequency.
But you noticed.
You noticed the way Dean would come into the kitchen when you were there and open the fridge and not look at you the way he used to. Not hostile, just absent. Like you were furniture. Like the awareness he'd always had of you in a room had been switched off at a source you couldn't locate. He ate the food you made without commenting on it. He answered direct questions. He didn't start anything.
You didn't push. That wasn't who you were.
But by the second week of December you were lying in your room at night doing the math and the math was not coming out well, and you were tired of pretending it wasn't.
You went over on a Thursday.
Tucker was at a class. You'd known that, you'd checked, because you wanted the house quiet, because you wanted five minutes of honesty without an audience. Garrett's truck wasn't in the driveway either. You knocked on Dean's door and he opened it in sweats and a Briar hoodie, textbook open on his desk, and the look on his face when he saw you was almost nothing, which was its own answer.
"Hey," you said.
"Hey." He stepped back to let you in, which you took as an invitation, and you came in and stood in the middle of his room and he closed the door and leaned against his desk with his arms crossed. Not aggressive. Just closed.
You looked at him for a moment.
"What's going on with you?" you asked. Quiet, direct. No accusation in it, just the question.
He shrugged one shoulder. "Nothing. Finals."
"Okay," you said. "That's not what I mean and you know it."
A beat. Something moved behind his eyes and then went still.
"I don't know what you want me to say," he said.
"I want you to say what's actually happening."
He looked at you. Then he looked away, jaw tightening slightly, and you recognized the particular quality of someone deciding something, not discovering it, deciding it, and some quiet part of you braced.
"I think this has run its course," he said. Flat. Careful.
You kept your face even. "Okay. What does that mean."
"It means —" He stopped. Started again. "I don't want this anymore. Whatever this is. I don't want it."
"Okay," you said.
He looked at you, and something in your steadiness seemed to irritate him, which you hadn't expected, and that was maybe the thing that cracked something open in him that should have stayed closed.
"I don't know what you thought this was," he said, and his voice had an edge now, "but it wasn't — I wasn't —" He made a short, almost contemptuous gesture. "You've been coming over here for months like you live here. Cooking, watching movies, acting like this is some kind of —"
"I never called it anything," you said.
"No, but you acted like it was something. You act like everything is fine and nothing bothers you and you're so —" He stopped, and the word he landed on was quiet and precise and clearly chosen to land: "You're so comfortable here. Like you belong here. And you don't."
The room was very quiet.
You looked at him. He looked back, and you could see the moment he heard what he'd just said, saw something flicker across his face that might have been regret but came too late to matter.
"You're right," you said. Your voice was completely level. "I don't."
He opened his mouth.
"I'm not going to make this into something," you said. "You don't want it, that's fine. I went in knowing what it was." You picked up your jacket from where you'd set it on the edge of his bed. "I hope finals go okay."
"Hey —"
"Good night, Dean."
You left. You closed the door behind you, not hard, just closed, and you walked down the stairs and through the front door and out into the December cold and you kept your shoulders straight the whole way home.
You didn't cry until you were in your own room with the door locked, and even then it wasn't for very long, because you'd known, you'd always known, and knowing didn't make it nothing but it made it survivable.
You texted Anna: you were right.
She called immediately. You let it ring twice, then picked up.
"I'm okay," you said, before she could ask.
"I know you are," she said. "Tell me anyway."
The hard part came later, at midnight.
You were lying in bed and you saw a link, a restaurant that had just opened, a tasting menu you'd been meaning to mention and you had his name pulled up in your contacts before you caught yourself. Thumb over send. The restaurant unremarkable and the gesture everything.
You put your phone face down on the mattress and looked at the ceiling for a while.
You'd known. You'd always known. That didn't make it nothing. It made it survivable, which was what you'd agreed to, and you were keeping that agreement.
The next afternoon you went to the off campus house.
Not because of Dean. Tucker had texted you at noon — i made something and i think i made it wrong, come look at it — and you'd said what did you make and he'd sent a photo that made you genuinely concerned for his wellbeing, and you'd said I'm coming over because that was what you did.
You showed up at three in the afternoon in your good boots and your coat, hair done, bag over your shoulder, because you had a study session after and you were not rearranging your life. You walked into the kitchen and Tucker was standing over something on the stove that smelled questionable and turned around with the expression of a man who needed saving.
"What is that," you said.
"I was trying to do the thing you showed me with the —"
"Tucker."
"I know."
You put your bag down and took your coat off and hung it over the stool and rolled up your sleeves and looked at whatever was happening in the pot, and Tucker stood next to you like a man watching a surgeon assess a patient.
"It's salvageable," you said.
He exhaled. "I knew it."
"Get me the garlic."
You cooked. Tucker hovered and passed things when you asked and made commentary that you ignored selectively and the kitchen filled up with something that smelled the way the kitchen was supposed to smell, and it was normal. It was completely normal. You were fine.
Logan came through at some point, stopped in the doorway, looked at the pot. "That smells good." Then he looked at Tucker. "Did you make that?"
"We're collaborating," Tucker said.
Logan looked at you. You said nothing. He grabbed a water from the fridge and left, which was exactly the right thing to do.
Dean came downstairs at some point, and you heard him stop at the bottom of the stairs, and you stirred the pot and didn't turn around.
"Hey," Tucker said, in the careful voice of someone being very casual.
"Hey." Dean's voice from the doorway. A pause. "What are you making?"
"She's fixing what I made," Tucker said.
You felt Dean's eyes on your back. You reached past the stove for the spice rack.
"Smells good," Dean said.
You said nothing. Not pointedly — just nothing. Tucker handed you the paprika.
Dean didn't leave. You could feel him still standing there, which told you something you set aside for later. You plated what you'd made, put Tucker's portion in front of him, put the extra in a container that you labeled with a piece of tape and a marker the way you always did, and started washing the pan.
"There's extra," Tucker said, to the room.
"I can see that," Dean said.
Tucker ate a bite. Made a sound of profound relief. "You're genuinely talented, you know that?"
"I know," you said, drying the pan.
You stayed another forty minutes, finishing your tea, going over the recipe with Tucker so he could try again, answering a text from Anna. Normal. Easy. The house the same as it had always been, Tucker the same as he'd always been, you the same as you'd always been.
When you left you said, "Bye Tuck, don't touch the leftovers until tomorrow, they're better the next day."
"Noted," Tucker said.
You pulled on your coat. Picked up your bag. "Later," you said, generally, to the room, and you walked out.
Dean stood in the kitchen after the front door closed.
Tucker was eating. Not looking at him. The kitchen smelled incredible and there was a labeled container in the fridge and the pan you'd used was clean and back on the rack like you'd never been there.
"She labeled it," Dean said.
"She always labels it," Tucker said.
Dean looked at the fridge. "For who."
"I don't know, Dean." Tucker turned a page in whatever he was reading. "Whoever wants it, I guess."
He couldn't focus in class the next morning.
The professor was talking and Dean had his laptop open and his notes half-started and none of it was going in because he kept coming back to the same thing, the same image, which was you standing at his stove with your back to him like nothing had happened.
Not performing like nothing had happened. Actually fine. The difference between those two things was something he understood logically and couldn't reconcile emotionally and it was making him insane.
He'd expected — he didn't know what he'd expected. Something. Some sign that what he'd said had mattered, that he had mattered, that the months of you being in his space and in his kitchen and in his bed and knowing how he took his coffee and showing up when Tucker texted you and falling asleep on his couch and leaving your chapstick on his nightstand —
You'd taken the chapstick. He'd noticed.
You'd taken it and labeled the leftovers and said later to the room and walked out and that was it, apparently. That was the whole thing. He'd said you don't belong here and you'd said you're right and you'd meant it, and that was the part he couldn't get past. You'd meant it not because you believed it but because you weren't going to fight him on it. Because you didn't need to.
You act like you belong here. And you don't.
He'd said that. He'd actually said that.
He stared at his laptop screen.
You'd been coming to that house since before he'd ever spoken a full sentence to you. Tucker's mom had called you, you'd shown up, you'd been folded into the house slowly and completely the way only people who actually fit somewhere ever are, Tucker texting you unprompted, Garrett knowing your coffee order, Logan moving over on the couch without being asked, and Dean had stood in his own room and told you that you didn't belong there and you'd looked at him like you were giving him the chance to hear what he was saying and he hadn't taken it and you'd left.
And then you'd come back the next day and cooked Tucker's disaster and labeled the leftovers and said later.
Later. Like you'd see them around. Like the house was still just a place you came to, unconnected to Dean, existing independently of whatever he'd decided.
Because it was. Because Tucker was your friend. Because you'd built something there that had nothing to do with Dean DiLaurentis and apparently had no intention of dismantling it on his account.
He wrote something down without reading it.
The thing was and this was the part that was sitting in his chest like something he couldn't shift, he'd ended it because it was getting too real. That was the honest answer, the one he hadn't said out loud to anyone including himself until approximately right now, which was not ideal timing. He'd felt it getting heavier and closer and more like something that had a name and he'd panicked, and when Dean DiLaurentis panicked he went cold, and when he went cold long enough he said things he couldn't take back.
You don't belong here.
He closed his laptop. Opened it again.
You hadn't fought for it. He'd said something genuinely cruel and you'd said you're right and you'd left, and the version of events he'd been running in his head where you'd be upset, where you'd pull back from the house, where he'd see the evidence of having mattered somewhere in your behavior, none of that had happened. You'd come back with your boots and your coat and your labeled container and your later and you were fine.
He was not fine.
That felt deeply, profoundly unfair, and he was self-aware enough to recognize that he had no one to blame for it but himself, which made it worse.
Wait, said something in the back of his head, quiet and inconvenient.
He picked up his pen. Put it down.
Wait.
He didn't finish the thought. He stared at his notes until they stopped meaning anything, and outside the window the Briar campus went on being cold and grey and completely indifferent to the fact that Dean DiLaurentis was sitting in class slowly understanding something he wasn't ready to understand yet.
The problem with ending things, Dean was discovering, was that it only worked if the other person let it end.
You hadn't made a scene. Hadn't texted him anything he had to respond to, hadn't shown up at his door, hadn't done a single thing that gave him something to push against. You'd just continued. Existing in the house, in the kitchen, in Tucker's orbit, completely unchanged, like Dean's opinion of the situation was one data point you'd received and filed appropriately and moved on from.
He ate everything you made. That was the humiliating part. Every single time you left something in the fridge he ate it, sometimes within the hour, standing at the counter in the kitchen alone like some kind of punishment he was administering to himself. Tucker never commented on this. Tucker never commented on anything, which was its own form of commentary.
You'd left soup once. Labeled, like always — back burner, twenty minutes, don't let Tucker have more than one bowl he'll eat the whole thing. Dean had read the label four times. Eaten two bowls. Stood at the sink washing the pot afterward feeling like a man losing an argument he wasn't allowed to be having.
Garrett had found him standing there once, staring at nothing, and said "you good?" and Dean had said "yeah" and Garrett had looked at the labeled container still on the counter and said nothing further, which somehow made it worse.
He started noticing everything.
The way you'd laugh at something on your phone and not share it with the room, just smile to yourself and put it face down. The way you always took your shoes off at the door and lined them up neatly to the left, always the left, and he'd started checking for them when he came downstairs, the presence or absence of your boots telling him things about the afternoon before he'd even gotten to the kitchen. The way you said Tucker's name — comfortable, fond, like a shorthand — and the way you had, at some point, stopped saying Dean's name at all. Not pointedly. Just it didn't come up. He wasn't who you were talking to.
He'd done that. He understood that he'd done that.
He just hadn't understood what it would feel like to have done it.
He tried, for a while, to be reasonable about it.
He made a list, mentally, of all the reasons this was fine. He didn't do relationships. He'd never done relationships. He had a plan for his life that had been in place since he was sixteen, and that plan had no room in it for whatever you were. Whatever you'd been. The comfortable weight of your presence, the evenings when you were in the house versus evenings when you weren't, the way he'd started coming across things during the week and thinking you'd have something to say about this —
That was the problem right there. That was the thing he kept running into.
He'd been having conversations with you in his head for weeks. Full conversations, with your actual responses, because he knew how you thought well enough to fill both sides, and that was, that was not the behavior of someone who was fine.
He talked to Garrett on a Tuesday night, which he never did, and talked around the subject for twenty minutes before Garrett said, flatly: "Just tell me what she did."
"She didn't do anything," Dean said.
A pause. "Then tell me what you did."
Dean stared at his ceiling. "I ended it."
"And?"
"And she's fine."
"That's it? She's fine and you are like this?"
"She's too fine," Dean said, and hated how that sounded.
Garrett was quiet for a moment. Then: "Dean."
"What."
"You absolute idiot."
January settled over Briar cold and grey and Dean settled into a particular kind of misery that he was too proud to name properly. He went to class. He did his readings. He played well enough at practice that Coach didn't get on him, which required more effort than it should have because his head was not where it was supposed to be.
You came over on Saturdays, usually. Sometimes Thursdays. Tucker had apparently taken to texting you about things that had nothing to do with cooking, Dean had seen the thread once, accidentally, and it was just the two of you sending each other increasingly unhinged videos with no context, a friendship that existed completely on its own terms, owed nothing to Dean, and was apparently thriving.
Logan had said, once, carefully, over breakfast: "She was here yesterday."
"I know," Dean said.
Logan looked at him. "Just saying."
"I know," Dean said again.
Logan went back to his cereal and didn't push it, which was the right call, and Dean appreciated it and resented it in equal measure.
He watched you from across rooms and told himself he wasn't doing that.
You never looked uncomfortable. That was the thing that was going to actually kill him. You'd come in, take your boots off, left side of the door, say hey to whoever was around, drift toward the kitchen with the ease of someone in a place they belonged, and it would be normal. Warm. Real. And Dean would be somewhere in the same house eating himself alive and you would be completely, genuinely fine.
He thought about the things he'd said. You act like you belong here. And you don't.
He thought about those words with a frequency that was becoming a problem.
It was a random Wednesday in late January.
Dean came home from a late class tired and cold and in the specific bad mood that came from hours with a professor who seemed to find his suffering amusing. The house was lit up when he got there, which meant people were home, and he could hear voices from the kitchen before he'd gotten his coat off.
Tucker's laugh. And then yours.
He stood in the hallway for a second with his coat half off.
"—absolutely not, that's not how that works—" Tucker, indignant.
"I'm telling you, Tucker, I watched you do it, that's exactly how you did it—"
"I was recovering, there's a difference—"
"There is no difference, the result was the same—"
Tucker said something Dean didn't catch and you laughed, full and real, the kind of laugh that meant you'd actually been caught off guard by it, and the sound of it hit Dean somewhere undefended and just stayed there.
He finished taking his coat off. Hung it up. Walked to the kitchen doorway.
You were at the island, Tucker leaning on his elbows across from you, some kind of card game between you that Dean didn't recognize. You had a mug of something and your hair was down and you were still smiling from whatever Tucker had just said, and Tucker was looking at you with the expression of someone who had won a point. Garrett was on the couch in the next room, feet up, barely paying attention, the way Garrett existed in the house like ambient weather.
"Dean," Tucker said. "Tell her that recovering from a bad move is a valid strategy."
"Depends on the move," Dean said, automatically.
"See," Tucker said to you.
"That's not what he said," you said, and glanced at Dean briefly,not long, not loaded, just a glance, the kind you'd give anyone and looked back at Tucker. "Your move."
Dean got a glass of water. Stood at the counter. The card game continued. Tucker accused you of cheating, you denied it with the specific serenity of someone who was absolutely cheating, Dean watched and said nothing and felt the sensation of standing outside something warm.
An hour later you started putting your coat on.
"Okay," you said, gathering your things. "Tucker. Rematch Thursday."
"Thursday," Tucker confirmed. "I'll win."
"You won't." You pulled your bag onto your shoulder. Looked at Tucker with something genuine and warm. "Bye, Tuck."
"Bye." Tucker was already looking back at his phone.
"Later, Garrett," you called toward the living room.
"Later," Garrett called back, not looking up.
You walked toward the door. Past Dean, close enough that he could have said something, close enough that the window was right there, and he stood at the counter with his glass of water and said nothing, and you pulled the door open and walked out, and the door closed, and that was it.
Tucker looked up from his phone.
The two of them sat in the quiet kitchen, the card game still spread out on the island, your mug still on the counter.
"She forgot her mug," Dean said.
"She'll get it Thursday," Tucker said.
Dean put his glass down. Picked it back up.
"She said bye to you first," he said.
Tucker looked at him for a long moment. Set his phone down. "Yeah," he said. "She did."
The kitchen was very quiet.
"Tucker —"
"I'm not doing this, Dean."
"I'm not asking you to do anything."
"Good." Tucker picked his phone back up. "Because I really, genuinely, am not getting involved."
From the living room, Garrett said nothing, which meant he was listening to every word.
Dean looked at the door.
"She left her mug," he said again, quieter, to no one in particular.
Tucker said nothing. Which was, as always, its own kind of answer.
He lasted four days.
Four days of your mug on the counter — Tucker had washed it and left it there — four days of picking up his phone and putting it down, four days of being a reasonable adult who had made a decision and was living with it, and then on Sunday night at eleven p.m. he put on his shoes and his coat and walked across campus to the Kappa house like a man who had exhausted every other option.
He stood outside in the cold and looked up at the second floor windows and felt genuinely insane.
He found a handful of small rocks from the landscaping border. Looked at them. Looked up at the windows.
He threw one.
It hit the wrong window. A light came on and someone looked out — not you, someone he didn't recognize — and he stepped back into the shadow of the tree until the light went off again.
He tried the next window. Nothing. The one after that.
The window opened.
You leaned out, hair messy, clearly pulled from sleep or close to it, and looked down at him in the dark with an expression that moved through several phases: confusion, recognition, disbelief. Before settling on something that was almost exasperated and almost amused and fully of course.
"Dean," you said, not loud. "What are you doing."
"I need to talk to you."
"It's eleven o'clock."
"I know. You weren't answering my texts."
You stared at him. "You texted me twenty minutes ago."
"You didn't answer."
"I was asleep."
"Can I come up?"
The expression on your face did something complicated. "You want to climb the sorority house."
"There's a trellis."
You looked to the left, apparently confirming the existence of the trellis, then looked back down at him. "Dean."
"Five minutes," he said. "I just — five minutes. Then I'll go."
You looked at him for a long moment, and he stood in the cold and let you look, because he'd run out of ways to manage how this went. You could close the window. That was a real option and he'd accept it.
You didn't close the window.
"The trellis is on the left," you said. "Don't break anything."
He made it up without incident, which he felt was frankly more than he deserved. You'd stepped back from the window to let him climb through, and he came in trying not to knock anything over and stood in the middle of your room feeling the full absurdity of the situation settle over him.
Your room was small and warm. Books on every surface, a desk lamp on low, a quilt on the bed that looked like it had been in your family for a while. It smelled like you, something warm, something that had been living in the back of his brain for months without his permission.
You sat on the edge of your bed and looked at him with your arms loosely crossed, not hostile, just waiting. Giving him the floor.
"I need to say something," he said.
"Okay."
"And I need you to let me say it without — I need to actually get through it."
"I'm not stopping you," you said.
He looked at you. You looked back, and there was something in your expression: patient, steady, not giving him anything, and he understood suddenly that you were going to make him do this himself. All the way. No half measures.
He took a breath.
"I said things to you that I can't take back," he started. "That night in my room. And I knew when I said them that they weren't — I knew they weren't true. I said them because I was scared and I was trying to make you leave and I wanted it to work so I made it as —" He stopped. Tried again. "I wanted you gone and I made sure you'd go and then you went and I've been —" He stopped again.
You waited.
"I've been losing my mind," he said. "For weeks. You keep coming over and cooking Tucker's food and laughing at his jokes and you left your mug on the counter and you said bye, Tuck and walked out like I wasn't standing right there and I —" He stopped. The words that needed to come next were the ones he'd been circling for weeks and he was done circling. "I'm in love with you."
The room was quiet.
"I'm in love with you," he said again, because it had come out steadier the second time and it was true and he was done with it living only in his head. "I have been for a while. I didn't know what to do with it so I — I did what I did. And I know that's not an excuse. I know what I said. But I needed you to know that it wasn't because you didn't matter. It was because you mattered too much and I didn't know how to —"
"Dean," you said.
He stopped.
You looked at him for a long moment. Something in your expression that was careful and real and not entirely closed.
"I know," you said quietly.
He blinked. "You —"
"I knew." You said it simply, without cruelty. "I've known for a while. I needed you to know it too." A pause. "And I needed you to say it. Out loud. To me. Without me making it easy for you."
He held your gaze. "Because you're not going to make it easy for me."
"No," you said. Not meanly. Just honestly. "I'm not."
He nodded slowly. That was fair. That was completely fair.
"I'm sorry," he said. "For what I said. You don't belong here — I knew that wasn't true when I said it. That's the worst part. I knew and I said it anyway."
You looked at him. And he watched something in your expression shift, not all the way, but enough, a small careful opening.
"I know," you said again. Softer this time.
"Can we —" He stopped. Tried to find the right shape for the question. "Is there a way back from this. Is that something that exists."
You were quiet for a moment that felt very long.
"Come here," you said.
He crossed the room and you stood from the bed to meet him and he kissed you carefully, like he was asking, and you kissed him back like you were answering, and it was nothing like the first time and nothing like any of the times in between, because those had all been about desire and this was about something that didn't have the same kind of ceiling.
His hands came to your face, gentle, and you let him, and he kissed you like he was trying to say the things that words hadn't been sufficient for the weeks of watching you from across rooms, the soup, the mug, the way your boots on the left side of the door had started to feel like something he needed, all of it, moving through the kiss like it had somewhere to go now.
You pulled back after a moment and looked at him.
"Say it again," you said quietly. Not a test. Just you wanted to hear it again.
"I'm in love with you," he said, without hesitating.
You looked at him for one more second. Then you kissed him again and this time you meant it differently, your hands in his collar pulling him in, and the tenor of the whole thing shifted from careful to something warmer and more certain.
He walked you back to the bed gently, and you sat and pulled him down with you, and he went willingly, propping himself above you, and looked at you for a moment. Your hair on the pillow, your expression open in a way he hadn't been allowed to see in weeks.
"Hi," he said, quietly.
The corner of your mouth moved. "Hi."
He kissed you again, slower this time, and his hands moved over you with a deliberateness that was different from anything before not performing, not proving anything, just present. Your shirt came off and his followed, and he pressed his mouth to your collarbone, your shoulder, the soft curve of your throat, taking his time in the way of someone who wasn't going anywhere.
"Dean," you said softly, fingers in his hair.
"I know," he said, against your skin. "I've got you."
You exhaled like something releasing.
It was slow and close and almost unbearably tender, the kind of thing that didn't have anything to hide anymore. He was attentive in a way that felt different now not just knowing what worked but wanting you to feel it, wanting you to know he was there, all the way there, not halfway out the door. You made soft sounds against his jaw and pulled him closer and he went, and you moved together in the small warm room with the desk lamp still on low and neither of you suggested turning it off.
When you came it was quiet and deep and you said his name and he held you through it with his face pressed to your temple, and afterward he stayed close, closer than strictly necessary, and you didn't move away.
When he followed he was holding your hand, fingers laced, which hadn't been planned and was completely true, and you held on.
Afterward you lay in the small bed in the quiet and the lamp was still on.
Your head was on his chest. He had his arm around you. Neither of you had suggested otherwise.
"You really threw rocks at my window," you said, to the ceiling.
"Small rocks."
"You hit Anna's window first."
"She didn't see me."
"She definitely saw you." A pause. "She texted me twenty minutes ago asking if I had a 'nighttime visitor.'"
Dean closed his eyes briefly. "Great."
You laughed, quiet, against his chest, and he felt it more than heard it and thought: there it is. there's the thing I've been missing.
He pressed his mouth to your hair.
"For the record," he said, "you do belong there. In the house. That was — I need you to know that was the opposite of true."
You were quiet for a moment. "I know," you said. "I always knew."
"You're annoyingly self-possessed, you know that?"
"You've mentioned it."
"Not a complaint."
You tilted your head to look up at him. Something in your expression that was warm and a little careful still, not closed, just real. This was going to take time, he knew that. He'd put something between you that didn't disappear overnight and you weren't going to pretend it had, because you didn't do that.
"Tucker's going to be insufferable about this," you said.
Dean thought about Tucker, who had said absolutely nothing for weeks and washed your mug and left it on the counter. "He already knows," Dean said.
"He's known for months."
"I know."
"He texted me two weeks ago," you said, "and said 'just for the record I think he's an idiot.' I asked who and he said 'you know who.'"
Dean stared at the ceiling. "I'm going to kill him."
"You're not."
"No," he agreed. "I'm not."
A beat.
"Garrett's going to say I told you so," you said.
Dean closed his eyes. "Did he tell you so?"
"He texted me a single thumbs up the morning after the speech. No context."
"I'm going to kill Garrett too."
"You're really not."
"No," he said. "I'm really not."
You settled back against him and the room was quiet and warm and your hand was resting on his chest and outside the world was doing whatever the world was doing and in here it was just this, finally, with a name on it.
Summary: You were walking into the hockey house with your friends, Hannah and Allie. Your brother, Garrett Graham, lived here with his teammates and friends. John Tucker, John Logan and Dean Di Laurentis. You all attend Briar University (Briar U). The guys had won a game tonight, which meant that it was party time at the house, the house was packed with people. More specifically, Puck Bunnies.
Fake it until you make it (or try to) {Dean x sick!reader} no warnings
P1, P2
Summary: You get the flu and try and hide it, but Dean finds out. Dean then gets sick, tries to hide it, but you find out.
Change for good {Dean x reader} no warnings
High Maintenance {Dean x reader} no warnings, just fluff :)
My Girl {Dean x reader} no warnings, just fluffy :)
“She’s my ‘Cherry pie,’” Garrett mumbles along with the song, kissing below your stomach above your panty line as he gently pulls the underwear down your warm thighs. Licking his lips, he dives right in still mumbling the song with his eyes directly on you. Though it was very pleasurable, on certain lyrics it felt like a sensitive tickle causing you to giggle. “Baby, I know my singing isn’t that good.” He smiles pleased to make you laugh and feel good at the same time.
Shaking your head, fingers threading through his hair. "Tickles a little," you pant out as he switches up his movements, causing the sheets to crinkle.
Garrett chuckles against your pussy, the low vibration sending a fresh shiver up your spine. “Then I’ll just have to be more careful with my tongue, won’t I?” His green eyes sparkle with mischief as he pulls back just enough to speak, lips shiny. “Can’t have my girl laughing when I’m trying to make her come.”
Before you can fire back a witty reply, he flattens his tongue and curling it up to meet your clit with a soft flick. After a few minutes, he changes his method, as he seals his mouth around your clit and sucks gently, two thick fingers sliding into you without warning, curling just right against that spot that makes your back arch off the bed.
“G—,” you moan, your laugh melting into a needy whimper. Your fingers tighten in his hair, pulling just hard enough to make him grunt.
“Uh huh, that’s better,” he murmurs, the words half-muffled as he keeps working you. “Love when you say my name like that. All sweet..” He pumps his fingers steadily, matching the rhythm of his tongue flicking over your swollen clit. Every time you squirm or let out a breathy giggle from an accidental tickle, he doubles down, turning it into deeper pleasure.
As you pant, Garrett looks up at you the whole time, eyes locked on your face not missing a single reaction. His free hand slides up your body, palming one of your breasts, thumb teasing your nipple; enjoying the sensation of the bud hardening for him. And he knows that only he can give you that pleasure.
“God, you’re so fucking pretty,” he rasps, with a scratchy throat from yelling at the game before. “Spread out for me, dripping down my fingers. Hmm..my own personal cherry pie.”
You manage a breathless laugh despite the building pressure. Looking down at him, back against his pillow. “You’re such a big sap even when you’re between my legs.”
He grins, “sap who’s about to make you come all over my face.” He adds a third finger, stretching you deliciously, and curls them harder while his tongue works your clit over again.
You feel a tight coil, instantly causing your hips buck against his mouth, chasing the pleasure as you muffle the sounds with your hands. “Garrett—shit—I’m close—”
“Come for me, baby,” he growls, the command vibrating against your sensitive flesh. You come with a loud cry, thighs clamping around his head as multiple waves of pleasure crash through you. Garrett doesn’t stop, licking you through every ebb n' flow, drawing it out until you’re whimpering about being oversensitive.
When you finally sag back against the pillows, chest heaving, he crawls up your body, kissing a trail along your stomach, between your breasts, and finally claiming your mouth. You taste yourself on his tongue, and it only makes you pull him closer.
“Think I earned a little reward for that performance?” he teases, grinding his hard cock against your thigh. He’s still wearing his boxers, but the thick outline is unmistakable. You reach down and palm him through the fabric, squeezing just enough to make him hiss from the contact. “Hm, well only if you sing the next chorus while you’re inside me.”
pairing – garrett graham x reader
summary – four times garrett’s chain causes problems, and one very smug hockey captain pretends he isn’t loving every second of it.
warnings – suggestive content, making out/grinding, mild sexual references, implied oral sex, drinking, party setting, garrett being smug and whipped.
notes from me – as part of my 1k celebrations, here's the top requested fic!! enjoy 🫶🏼
word count – 5k
navigation – masterlist | taglist
The first time Garrett realises his chain is a problem, they're in his room with the door locked, the bass from downstairs moving through the floorboards in lazy, uneven pulses and the old house doing what the old house always does around a party, which is pretend it’s not seen worse.
There are voices below them, Logan’s laugh cutting through once in a bright, drunken bark, Dean yelling something that sounds like an accusation and Tucker answering with the sort of dry, patient tone that means someone is absolutely about to be called an idiot.
But up here, everything has gone smaller. Warmer. The room narrowed down to Garrett’s weight between her thighs, the soft give of his mattress under her back, the skirt shoved high enough on her hips that there's no point pretending it’s even a skirt anymore, and his mouth dragging over hers like he has all night and no better use for it.
He kisses like an athlete too, which is deeply annoying information to have about him because it makes too much sense. Confident, paced, unfairly good at changing pressure right when she starts thinking she’s adjusted to him.
One hand is braced beside her head, the other curled around her thigh, thumb pressing absent little circles into skin like he doesn't know it’s making her thoughts get weird and slippery around the edges. He’s still wearing his t-shirt, which feels rude considering she’s in a bra and skirt and whatever dignity survived the trip up the stairs is now lying somewhere dead near his laundry basket.
His chain has slipped out from under his collar while he kisses her, warm gold catching against the side of her throat every time he grinds down into her and makes her breath come out embarrassingly thin.
“Garrett,” she gets out, though it doesn't have much purpose beyond giving her mouth something to do when his is suddenly leaving it.
He hums like he’s heard her and decided to take it under advisement at a later date. His mouth drifts to her jaw, then lower, slow and pleased and entirely too smug about the way her body moves before she can stop it.
He kisses down her throat, over the spot where her pulse is doing something humiliating, then lower still, along the top edge of her bra, and she should probably let him. She should probably enjoy the fact that Garrett Graham, Briar hockey captain, walking campus hazard, has decided her chest deserves sustained attention.
But the second his mouth leaves hers properly, some spoiled little part of her lights up in objection.
“No,” she whines, which is not her proudest moment, and is made worse by the fact that Garrett pauses against her skin like he’s trying not to laugh. She reaches down and gets her fingers in his hair, gentle but insistent, tugging him back up until his face appears over hers again, curls mussed, mouth shiny, eyes bright with the kind of amusement that makes her want to either kiss him harder or shove him off the bed. “Come back.”
His grin spreads slowly. “Bossy.”
“You stopped kissing me.”
“I was kissing you somewhere else.”
She pouts. “Wrong somewhere.”
He gives one of those little laughs that starts in his chest before it reaches his mouth, warm and low and stupidly pleased, and then he comes back happily, because that’s the worst part of Garrett.
He has all this cocky-boy resistance in theory, all this mouth and attitude and captain-of-every-room energy, and then she asks for him directly and his body gives him away before his ego can file an appeal. He kisses her again, deep enough that the complaint evaporates under her tongue, and for a few seconds she forgets about the chain entirely.
Then he pulls back to sit up on his knees, one thigh planted on either side of her hips, and reaches behind his neck for his shirt.
“Oh,” she says before she can stop herself.
Garrett pauses with the hem already half up his stomach, eyebrows lifting. “Oh?”
“Shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
His teeth catch at his bottom lip. “I was about to ask if you needed a minute to process.”
She narrows her eyes at him, which would probably have more force if she were not lying under him with her skirt bunched around her waist and her hands already drifting up his exposed stomach. “You’re so annoying.”
“Yeah, but you’re still looking.”
And she is. Tragically. Openly. With no legal defence. The shirt comes off the rest of the way and lands somewhere near the chair, and Garrett is there above her in the soft lamplight, shoulders broad from hockey, stomach tight under her palms, chain resting against his chest like it’s been placed there for the express purpose of ruining her life.
It's not even that fancy. That’s the insulting part. Just a gold chain. Simple. Warm from his skin. Sitting right at the base of his throat.
Her hands slide up his stomach, over the hard shift of muscle when he breathes, and she catches her bottom lip between her teeth without meaning to.
Garrett’s grin softens into something more dangerous because he knows. Because Garrett is many things, but oblivious is not one of them, especially not when a girl is looking at his chest like she’s discovered a new academic field.
“Baby,” he says, amused.
She doesn't answer. She hooks two fingers under the chain and pulls. Garrett comes down with it, one hand shooting to the mattress beside her head, the other catching her waist as he laughs into the space above her mouth. “Jesus. Okay.”
She smiles, breath already uneven again. “Come here.”
“I was here.”
“Closer.”
His mouth hovers over hers, his chain trapped between her fingers, the metal a little warm, a little slick where it’s been resting against his skin. “You always this demanding?”
She tugs again, smaller this time, mostly because she likes the way his eyes drop to her mouth when she does it. “Only when you’re slow.”
Garrett stares at her for one beat, and then the smile goes all bright and helpless at the edges, like she’s pleased him against his will.
“Yeah,” he murmurs, bending until the chain brushes her collarbone and his mouth is almost on hers again. “That’s gonna be a problem.”
The second time is quieter, though quiet in the hockey house is a relative concept and mostly means no one is actively breaking furniture within their line of sight. They're downstairs on the couch after dinner, the living room dim except for the television throwing blue-white light over everyone’s faces and the standing lamp Tucker keeps insisting gives the room ambience, which Dean keeps calling divorced dad lighting.
A movie’s on, something Logan picked with the confidence of a man who would be asleep within twenty minutes, and sure enough he’s already slumped in the armchair with his head tipped back and one socked foot on the coffee table, snoring faintly through the loudest action sequence anyone has ever failed to respect.
Garrett’s stretched out behind her on the couch, one arm tucked under her head like a pillow, the other lying heavy over her waist. She’s settled half on top of him, half against him, legs tangled beneath the old throw blanket that smells faintly like fabric softener and Garrett’s laundry detergent and whatever popcorn crime Dean committed earlier.
The whole room has that late-night, lived-in warmth to it. Empty bowls on the coffee table, Tucker leaning on the other end of the couch with his phone in one hand and his attention somehow still half on the movie, Dean sprawled on the floor with his back against Allie’s legs while she runs her fingers lazily through his hair like she’s rewarding a large, badly behaved dog.
Garrett’s chain has worked its way out again. She doesn't mean to start fiddling with it. Her hand is just there, resting against his chest, and the chain is right under her fingertips, cool at first and then quickly warming up.
Her thumb catches the tiny curve of one link. Then another. Then she’s sliding it back and forth lightly against his skin, not really thinking, only listening to the movie and the steady sound of his breathing under her cheek and the occasional thud of Dean kicking the coffee table because he refuses to understand where his legs end.
Garrett lets it happen for a while. Long enough that she forgets she’s doing it. Long enough for the metal to move in a tiny, repetitive drag under her fingers, a private little rhythm tucked beneath explosions and the muffled rain starting against the windows.
His chest rises under her palm. His hand at her waist flexes once, absent, and she shifts closer without lifting her head. Then his fingers close around her wrist. Warm and sure, stopping the motion.
She glances up. “What?”
Garrett looks down at her with the deeply patient expression of a man being tortured in a way he’s not allowed to enjoy too obviously. “You’ve been doing that for ten minutes.”
“Doing what?”
His eyes flick to the chain. Then back to her. “That.”
“Oh.” She looks down at her hand, caught in his like evidence. “Was I annoying you?”
“No.”
“You stopped me.”
“Because,” he says, lowering his voice as Dean makes a disgusted noise at the movie and Allie tells him to stop talking before she smothers him with a cushion, “you keep touching my neck, and I’m trying to be a decent citizen in a communal living space.”
Her mouth twitches. “Your neck?”
“My chain is on my neck.”
She bites back a smile. “That’s very scientific of you.”
“I go to college.”
“For hockey.”
He sucks at his teeth, a grin spreading across his face. “For hockey and the pursuit of knowledge.”
She laughs into his chest, and he immediately looks pleased with himself in that quiet Garrett way, like making her laugh while half the room is asleep counts as a personal win.
His hand slides from her wrist to her fingers, lifting them to his mouth. He kisses her knuckles once, soft and warm, then again, slower, like he can get away with it because nobody’s looking directly at them. The contact sends a stupid little wave through her, low and gentle, a sudden looseness in her ribs and the sense that her body has settled another inch into his.
“Stop playing with it,” he murmurs against her hand.
“I didn’t know it was an activity with rules.”
“It is now.”
“Sounds controlling.”
“Sounds like you’re too hot for your own good and I’m a responsible man.”
She lifts her head just enough to look at him properly. “You’re so full of shit.”
Garrett smiles like that’s his favourite thing she’s said all day. “A little, yeah.”
Then he threads his fingers through hers and brings their joined hands down to rest against his stomach, trapping her there with him. Garrett’s hand stays wrapped around hers. Firm. Warm. His thumb moves once over the side of her finger, slow enough that it feels accidental and deliberate at the same time.
The third time, she should know something’s wrong with the whole arrangement because Garrett offers it too easily. It's the morning of her exam, a big one, the kind that has lived in the back of her head for three weeks like an unpaid bill and ruined several perfectly good evenings by existing near them.
She’s already eaten half a banana, stared at her notes until the words lost meaning, changed shirts twice, and accused Garrett of breathing too loudly while he sat on her bed watching her spiral with the sort of affectionate calm that made her want to throw a highlighter at him.
“You studied,” he says, for maybe the fourth time, lying on his side with one elbow propped under him and his curls still damp from the shower. “Like, a disgusting amount. I know because you made me quiz you last night and I learned things against my will.”
She stands in front of the mirror, smoothing her top down and then immediately undoing the smoothing because now it looks too deliberate. “That doesn’t mean I know it.”
“That’s actually exactly what studying means.”
“No, studying means I knew it at midnight in your bed while you were half asleep and kept pronouncing things wrong on purpose.”
“I was keeping morale up.”
She turns to glare at him, and he grins at her from the bed, annoyingly gorgeous and unhelpfully relaxed, his chain sitting against his bare collarbone because he hasn’t put a shirt on yet. Which is also rude. Honestly, the whole morning has been a campaign of emotional terrorism.
“I’m serious,” she says, and the words come out thinner than she wants.
His face changes then. The grin doesn't disappear entirely, because Garrett without some amount of grin would be genuinely concerning, but it settles. He sits up properly, feet hitting the floor, and reaches for her when she comes close enough. His hands land at her hips, warm through the fabric, thumbs pressing once like he’s reminding her she has a body and it's standing here, not drowning somewhere in the imagined future of a badly answered essay question.
“I know you are,” he says. “I also know you’re gonna kill it.”
“Don’t say that.”
“What, kill it?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. You’re gonna… respectfully and academically dominate.”
“Garrett.”
He laughs under his breath and tugs her closer until she’s standing between his knees. Then, with the sudden seriousness of someone remembering an ancient ritual and not a bit he came up with seven seconds ago, he reaches behind his neck and unclasps the chain.
She looks down at it. “What are you doing?”
“Good luck.”
Her eyes lift to his. “What?”
He holds it up between them, gold catching the morning light from her window. “It’s lucky.”
She stares at him. “Your chain is lucky?”
“Extremely.”
“You’ve never said that.”
He looks almost offended. “I don’t tell everyone my deeply personal athletic superstitions.”
“You told Dean you had to wear the same socks for playoffs.”
“That was different. He touched them.”
“That feels like a public health issue more than a superstition.”
Garrett ignores this, and gestures for her to turn around. She does, suspicious but too nervous to fight him properly. He stands behind her, and for a second the mirror catches both of them: her in exam clothes and stress, him shirtless and too calm, chain hanging from his fingers.
He lifts it around her neck, his knuckles grazing the sides of her throat as he brings the clasp together. The metal lands cool against her skin, heavier than she expects, and something in her chest gives one stupid little pull.
“There,” he says, hands settling briefly on her shoulders. “Guaranteed.”
She touches the chain with two fingers. “Guaranteed?”
“Yeah.”
“If I fail, I’m blaming your jewellery.”
“If you fail, I’ll fake my death and start over somewhere chainless.”
She laughs then, finally, and it comes out shaky but real. Garrett’s eyes meet hers in the mirror, his mouth tipped in a way that’s half smug and half proud of having pulled the sound out of her.
He bends and kisses the side of her head, quick, easy, like he doesn't know the chain suddenly feels like some ridiculous little anchor against her collarbone.
“Go,” he says. “Ace it. Then come back and be unbearable about it.”
She does ace it.
She walks out of the exam hall two hours later with the weird, floating, slightly manic clarity of someone who knows the questions landed exactly where she needed them to, who wrote until her hand cramped, who remembered the thing from the bottom of page seven that she had absolutely expected to die with no audience.
She calls Garrett from the sidewalk and says, “I think I nailed it,” and he shouts so loudly through the phone that a girl walking past looks over in alarm.
“Tell the chain I said thank you,” she says later that night, when she’s in his room again, sitting cross-legged on his bed with takeout containers open between them and his hoodie swallowed over her exam clothes because the adrenaline crash has finally arrived and brought a mild existential fog with it.
Garrett looks up from stealing one of her fries. “What?”
“The chain.” She taps it where it still sits at her throat. “Your ancient family luck charm.”
There's a pause. It's tiny. Almost nothing. But Garrett Graham has many gifts, and hiding guilt from his girlfriend while his mouth is full of stolen fries is not one of them.
Her eyes narrow. “Garrett.”
He chews slowly.
“Garrett Graham.”
He swallows. “Okay, before you get mad–”
“Oh my God.” She sits up straighter. “It’s not lucky?”
“It’s, uh, lucky adjacent.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’ve worn it to some good games.”
“You told me it was extremely lucky.”
“I was trying to get you out of your head.”
“You lied!”
“I motivated.” He points at her with a fry. “And you crushed your exam, so actually, where’s my thank you?”
She stares at him for one second. Then another. The chain’s warm now from her skin, and the fact that he made it up should be annoying. It is annoying.
It's also so Garrett that something in her gives up and goes soft around the edges despite herself, because he saw her standing in front of the mirror two seconds from vibrating through the floorboards and decided the solution was to hand her something of his and make it sound official enough for her nervous system to believe him.
“You’re unbelievable,” she says.
His grin comes back immediately, bright with relief and bad ideas. “But effective.”
“You’re never getting this back.”
“Baby, I look really good in that chain.”
“I look better.”
He studies her for a second, eyes dropping to where the gold sits against the oversized neckline of his hoodie, and his mouth does something slower.
“Yeah,” he says, voice rougher. “You do.”
Her fingers move to the chain. His eyes track the motion. The takeout goes forgotten between them, steam thinning in the cartons, the lamp laying warm light over his bed and the stupid little lucky-not-lucky object at her throat.
She crawls toward him, slow enough to make his brows lift.
“What?” he asks, though his hands are already moving to her waist when she pushes the cartons aside with the care of someone who doesn't want to get sauce on his sheets but absolutely does want to ruin his evening in other ways.
“You want a thank you?”
Garrett’s mouth opens, then closes. He tilts his head, trying for casual and missing by a heroic distance. “I mean, I’m not gonna say no to gratitude.”
“Good,” she says, and leans in to kiss him once, soft enough that he follows when she pulls away.
His hands tighten on her hips. “Good?”
“Mhm.”
Then she slides off the bed onto her knees between his legs, and Garrett goes very, very still. For once in his life, he doesn't have a comeback ready.
She looks up at him, the chain hanging forward from her neck, gold swinging slightly in the space between them, and his eyes drop to it like he’s experiencing several personal revelations at once.
“Still think it’s lucky?” she asks.
Garrett exhales through his nose, a smile breaking helplessly at one corner of his mouth as his hand comes up to brush her hair back, careful and warm and already a little wrecked.
“Baby,” he says, voice low with absolute reverence and zero shame, “I’m about to start fucking worshipping it.”
The fourth time is after a home game, which means the hockey house is operating at a volume level that could probably be reported to local authorities if local authorities hadn't long ago made peace with the fact that Briar hockey players were simply going to make too much noise.
The living room is packed in that loose, post-win sprawl of bodies and beer and boys shouting over one another from distances that don’t require shouting at all. Someone has put the game highlights on the television and every single person in the room is pretending they're not watching themselves while absolutely watching themselves.
Logan is arguing with a guy from the second line about whether his assist should have been cleaner, Tucker is sitting on the arm of the couch with a beer in hand and the calm expression of a man who played very well and doesn't need to scream about it, and Dean is stretched in the middle of the room like a Renaissance painting sponsored by bad decisions, loudly explaining to Allie that his defensive effort has layers.
Garrett’s on the couch below her, sitting with his legs spread, one arm hooked along the back cushions, hair still damp from the post-game shower and curling messily. He looks good in the obnoxious, lived-in way he always does after a win. Tired under the eyes, mouth lazy with satisfaction, hoodie pushed up at the forearms, chain glinting at his throat every time he turns his head to answer someone.
There's a faint bruise starting near one cheekbone and stiffness in the way he holds his shoulders that he’s pretending doesn't exist because men who willingly block shots with their bodies have a complicated relationship with the concept of pain.
She’s standing behind the couch with her arms looped around his shoulders, her cheek resting against the side of his head, close enough that when he laughs she feels it before she hears it. The room smells like beer and aftershave and pizza grease and wet pavement dragged in from outside.
Her chin is tucked near his temple, and his hand comes up every so often to touch her wrist where it crosses his chest, as if checking she’s still there even though she’s been draped over him for fifteen minutes like an affectionate scarf.
“You’re tense,” she murmurs near his ear.
Garrett tilts his head slightly toward her. “I got checked into the boards by a guy built like a refrigerator.”
“I saw.”
“You also yelled ‘get up’ at me.”
“You did get up.”
He huffs. “Supportive.”
“I’m very motivational.”
He smiles, eyes still on Logan across the room. “Yeah, Coach, you’re a real asset.”
She presses her thumb into the muscle at the top of his shoulder before he can get too smug, and his mouth shuts in the middle of whatever he was about to say. There’s a small drop in his posture, a breath leaving through his nose, his head tipping forward half an inch because the pressure hits somewhere useful.
“Oh,” she says softly, pleased. “There he is.”
“Don’t sound so happy about my suffering.”
“I’m happy about being right.”
He hums quietly. “You usually are.”
She starts working at his shoulders properly, thumbs pressing slow circles into the hard knots there, fingers sliding under the edge of his hoodie collar. Garrett tries to keep participating in the conversation around him, because Garrett Graham could be dying and still find time to chirp a teammate, but she feels him lose focus by degrees.
His answers get shorter. His hand drops from his beer to rest loosely on his thigh. When she presses into the muscle beside his neck, he makes a low sound under his breath that is almost nothing and somehow still deeply satisfying.
Dean notices, of course. Dean would notice a private moment through drywall.
“Oh, that’s cute,” he says from the floor, voice carrying with surgical precision. “Captain’s getting a little spa treatment.”
Garrett doesn't open his eyes. “You jealous, Di Laurentis?”
“Of a shoulder rub? No. Of your girlfriend looking at you like you just returned from war? Little bit.”
Allie leans around him. “He did get slammed pretty hard.”
Dean points at her. “See? This is why I date women. Compassion.”
Tucker takes a sip of beer. “You date Allie because she tolerates you.”
“That too.”
She ignores them, and keeps working her thumbs into Garrett’s shoulders. The only problem is the chain. It keeps getting in the way, slipping under her fingers every time she moves toward the base of his neck, catching lightly against her knuckle, dragging sideways over his skin. She shifts it once. Twice. The third time, Garrett reaches up without looking, catches her wrist, and then lifts his other hand to the clasp.
“Here,” he says.
She pauses. “What?”
He takes the chain off in one smooth motion, turning his head enough to glance up at her with that soft, amused look that always feels worse when other people are around because it's not performative. It's just his face, open for one second before he remembers to make a joke. “Here, baby. Wear it before you strangle me with it.”
The room hears baby. Naturally. The room reacts with the dignity of wolves spotting an injured deer. Logan’s head snaps over. “Oh, wow.”
Dean sits up so fast Allie has to move her knees. “Did he just give her the chain?”
Tucker’s mouth twitches. “Big night.”
Garrett points vaguely at all of them without turning around. “Everybody shut up.”
No one shuts up. That would go against the entire founding philosophy of the house.
She bends down anyway, smiling despite herself, hair falling forward over one shoulder. Garrett lifts the chain around her neck from where he sits, reaching back and up, his fingers careful as they brush the sides of her throat. It's an awkward angle, and he fumbles once with the clasp.
Dean gasps. “He’s putting jewellery on her. In public. Garrett Graham has fallen.”
“I will throw this beer at you,” Garrett says.
“No, you won’t. Your girl’s wearing your chain and touching your shoulders. You’re domesticated now.”
Logan lifts his cup. “RIP to a slut.”
Garrett finally opens his eyes and looks over. “I’m still alive, asshole.”
She laughs into Garrett’s hair before she can stop herself, and his hands settle briefly at her collarbone once the clasp is done, thumbs brushing over the chain where it sits against her skin.
The touch is quick. Almost hidden. But his eyes stay there for a second too long, and the whole loud room blurs slightly at the edges in that private way it sometimes does around him, even when Dean is three feet away preparing to be the worst person alive.
The chain is warm from Garrett’s skin when it lands against her throat. Something about that should not matter as much as it does.
Garrett’s head tips back until he can look up at her. “Good?”
She nods, fingers touching the chain. “Good.”
“Can I have my massage now, or are we hosting a ceremony?”
“Ceremony,” Dean says immediately. “I have a speech.”
“No one wants that,” Tucker says.
“I do,” Logan contributes, raising a hand.
Garrett groans and drops his head forward again, but she can see the grin at the corner of his mouth, tucked away where the boys cannot fully get to it.
She goes back to his shoulders, the chain now resting against her instead of him, rising and falling gently with her breathing as she works the tension out from under his hoodie.
The boys keep going, because of course they do.
“Whipped,” Dean says.
“Tragically,” Logan adds.
“Clinically,” Tucker says, which makes Allie laugh so hard she almost spills her drink.
Garrett lifts one hand just enough to flip them off without opening his eyes. “Keep talking. I’m cutting all of you from the power play.”
“You can’t cut me from the power play,” Dean says. “I am the power play.”
She leans closer, thumbs pressing into Garrett’s neck, and murmurs, “They’re not wrong, you know.”
His eyes open slightly. “Careful.”
“What?” she says, voice innocent near his ear. “You gave me your chain in front of everyone.”
“You were choking me with it.”
“I was massaging your shoulders.”
“Poorly.”
She pinches him lightly.
He laughs, catching her wrist and bringing her hand down just long enough to kiss the inside of it, quick and warm and entirely too natural for a room full of men actively trying to ruin his reputation. Then he lets her go and sinks back against the couch, shoulders finally loosening under her hands.
Across the room, Logan makes a wounded noise. “Oh my God. He kissed her hand. We lost him.”
Dean presses his beer to his heart. “He was so young.”
Tucker, dry as dust, says, “He died doing what he loved. Pretending he wasn’t in love.”
Garrett’s jaw ticks once, but the smile wins. She feels it more than sees it, the small shift under her cheek when she bends down again and rests against him for a second, her arms around his shoulders, his chain warm at her throat, the whole loud, stupid house moving around them.
“Love is a strong word,” Garrett says, which is exactly the sort of thing Garrett says when everyone is looking and the truth has wandered too close to the middle of the room.
She smiles against his cheek. “Mm.”
His hand comes up and covers her forearm, fingers curling there, thumb sweeping once over her skin in a slow little pass that says more than his mouth is willing to risk with Dean waiting to pounce.
Around them, the boys keep chirping, the television keeps replaying Garrett’s goal from the second period, someone in the kitchen shouts about beer pong, and the chain rests against her collarbone like a tiny, ridiculous victory.
Garrett turns his head just enough that his mouth brushes near her temple, hidden from most of the room by the angle of her body.
“You look good in it,” he says quietly.
Her hands pause on his shoulders for half a second.
Then Dean yells, “I can see you whispering sweet nothings, Graham,” and Garrett closes his eyes like he’s begging a very unhelpful God for patience, and she laughs so hard into his hair that the chain jumps lightly at her throat.
Summary: Dean Di Laurentis is loud, arrogant, and has a smirk with dimple that makes you want to throw something at his face. You called him a playboy to his face. Now he won't leave you alone. You tell yourself he's just annoying you for fun and you have nothing to do with him. Until one day, you realize you're looking for him in every crowd. And that's when you know you're in trouble.
Pairing: Dean Di Laurentis x fem!reader
Tags/warnings: Introvert girl. Enemies to lovers. Slow burn. Hurt/comfort. Hockey romance. Fluff. Mutual pining. Mild language. Suggestive theme. No explicit content. Using the word (Name).
Word count: 3.4k
Author's note: English is not my first language, let me know if there's any mistake. I haven't read the book, so I follow the tv series but not really haha. Btw, today is my birthday! Enjoy my birthday gift! 💗
This was supposed to be a one-shot, but my fingers couldn't stop typing so... here we are 🫰
"Come on, (Name)! I know you're not busy!"
You let out a soft sigh, staring at your roommate, Jules. Reference books for your class were scattered all over the bed around you, your laptop open right in front of you.
"Sorry, Jules, but I have a quiz tomorrow. I need to study," you replied.
"Aren't you bored? Studying all day long. Hey, live a little. Enjoy your college years."
"I am enjoying them." You lazily pointed toward your books with your chin.
Jules groaned in boredom. Then, out of nowhere, they flashed you a suspicious, knowing smile. You recognized that look instantly.
It was the exact expression Jules wore whenever their inner 'the fifth line social media admin' persona took over. They would do absolutely anything to get the latest hot campus gossip. Anything.
"Jules. No."
Jules chuckled. "(Name), yes."
Thirty minutes later, you were standing outside the Maxwell family summer home.
"This is a terrible idea, Jules. I should go back."
You started to turn away from the yard, but Jules grabbed your arm, holding you back.
"Hey, it's about time you got out of your room. You need to enjoy life, (Name). Don't waste your college years locked up in your room with books and mind-numbing course materials. You need a stress reliever." Jules went on a long rant, which you met with an equally long sigh.
"This isn't my scene, Jules. I don't like this kind of stuff, and you know it."
"Well, I promise you it'll be fun and nothing like you think."
"Oh, really?" You shot Jules a lazy, skeptical look.
"Just trust me, okay? It's time for you to make some new friends."
"I have friend—" you cut in, feeling defensive.
"I know, I know. But name just five friends from a different major. Someone who isn't a classmate, or your roommate—which is me." Jules challenged.
You closed your eyes and sighed in defeat. "Fine. But I'm only staying for a bit. If the party sucks, I'm leaving immediately."
"Deal. Let's go!" Jules linked their arm through yours, pulling you excitedly into the house.
You looked around the moment you stepped into the Maxwell summer house. It was crowded. Packed. Loud. A 'fun' kind of chaos was unfolding everywhere.
If Jules hadn't been with you, you probably would have turned right around and headed back to your quiet, cozy room. But Jules had zero intention of letting you go. They dragged you toward the living room, which connected straight to the kitchen. People were chatting, joking, playing games, and some were heavily making out. You instantly averted your eyes. That was a bit much for someone like you, who had never dated or even been close to a guy.
"Hey, you actually made it?"
A voice ahead made you look up.
"What does it look like?" Jules shot back sarcastically.
"Why so harsh on your own brother, Jules?"
The guy was John Logan. He's one of the star hockey players on campus, and also Jules's brother.
Of course you knew who he was from Jules's endless stories. Jules constantly gave you campus updates, even when you didn't ask for them.
"Wait, is this (Name)?"
You blinked in surprise when Logan mentioned your name. You had never spoken to him before, so how—oh, forget it. You were positive this was Jules's doing. But why on earth were they talking about you to Logan?
"Yep. Finally, after all this time, I managed to drag her out of her cave to enjoy life."
"Hey!" You glared at Jules, offended.
Logan laughed. "That's great. Hey, (Name), I'm Logan. Jules talks about you all the time. It's an honor to finally meet the legend who scolds this little brat whenever they skip class for their gossip account."
Jules rolled their eyes in annoyance.
You offered a small smile. "Hi, Logan. Nice to meet you. Jules talks about you a lot, too."
Logan shot his sibling a playful, curious look. "Oh, really? I hope it's good stuff." He leaned forward, dropping his voice to a mock whisper. "You know, they tend to exaggerate sometimes."
"I can hear you, dumbass," Jules snapped, looking irritated.
That made both you and Logan burst out laughing.
Gradually, the atmosphere began to feel more comfortable. Logan was warm, friendly, and easy to talk to. You no longer felt awkward or out of place.
Suddenly, the kitchen counter grew loud as two figures dressed in matching Top Gun uniforms appeared. From where you stood, you watched them effortlessly command the room's attention. Dean Di Laurentis and Beau Maxwell. Two best friends who shared the same birthday and the exact same level of fame. The star defenseman for the hockey team, and the starting quarterback for the football team.
From what you gathered, Dean seemed to be the more famous of the two, purely because he was a Briar hockey star with an endless supply of charm. Even though you didn't care about campus celebrities like Dean or Beau, you knew all about them because your classmates constantly gossiped about Dean's supposed perfection. Sitting behind them in lecture meant you could never actually focus on the professor.
Dean the handsome, Dean the sweet, the ultimate ladykiller, the perfect gentleman, and so on. Some called him a playboy and a certified heartbreaker, but his charm was undeniable.
Sometimes you wondered how these girls fell for him so easily, worshiping him like some sort of god. They completely ignored his flaws just because of his pretty face and his shamelessly flirty attitude around any woman in sight.
You, however, saw things differently. Sure, you weren't a hypocrite; you could admit Dean was gorgeous and practically flawless on the outside. But his playboy lifestyle, his lack of commitment, the casual hookups, and the endless partying? Total red flags.
People probably thought you were old-fashioned or had impossibly high standards, especially given your single status and lack of dating experience.
But you made a conscious effort to stay far away from guys like Dean or another famous players.
So, when the music pumped louder and the crowd swarmed the living room to dance, you immediately slipped away to find a quieter spot. Logan and Jules had already wandered off when some friends approached them. Though Jules originally wanted you to come along, you turned them down, promising to wait right there.
Thud!
And now, you deeply regretted it. You had found a safe haven to remain invisible—sitting on the bottom steps of the staircase—only for someone with zero situational awareness to trip right over your feet.
Actually, make that two someone.
Dean and a girl were so busy making out that they didn't even look where they were going. They're crashed right in front of you because he hadn't noticed you while trying to guide her up the stairs.
"Are you okay, sweetheart? Let me help you." Dean looked down at the girl with a soft, apologetic gaze, kissing her gently after pulling her to her feet.
You were just about to apologize, feeling a bit guilty that your extended legs had caused them to trip.
"What, were you so jealous that you had to trip her? Hm... I haven't seen you around before."
That accusation swallowed your apology whole, replaced instantly by a wave of pure anger.
"First of all, use your eyes to look where you're going. I've been sitting here the entire time. Second of all, I'm not jealous. And third, lose the massive ego because you're nothing but a playboy who uses women, lacks commitment, and only cares about a good time and sex. So don't flat-out assume every single girl is just going to fall easily into your lap! You arrogant jerk!"
You stood up, deliberately brushing your shoulder against his as you stormed out. You were absolutely furious and deeply insulted.The guy didn't even know you, yet he had the nerve to accuse you of being jealous enough to hurt the girl he was with. Unbelievable. It made your blood boil.
"According to the course plan I presented at the beginning of the semester, we will be dividing into groups for the midterm project. The class representative will organize the groups. Once finalized, please submit the roster by this afternoon."
"Yes, sir."
Krieeet!
Every head turned toward the classroom door.
"Oh, look, our favorite athlete has finally decided to join us."
"Sorry, Professor. Practice ran late." Dean Di Laurentis walked in, wearing a completely unapologetic smirk.
"Remind me again, why did you transfer into my class?" your History professor asked dryly.
"Because... I was told to find a class schedule that didn't conflict with hockey practice?" Dean replied, his tone teasingly inquisitive.
"And why are you late today, Mr. Di Laurentis? Just because you are one of the campus's star athletes, do not expect special treatment for your lack of discipline in my classroom."
"Um... my bad, Prof. Won't happen again." Dean smiled, giving a playful mock salute.
Having been checked out the second you heard his voice, you chose to focus entirely on the group assignments the class rep was dropping into the group chat.
Wait.
Your eyes snapped over to the class representative sitting behind you, your jaw dropping in disbelief. The groups had been generated randomly, and by some cruel twist of cosmic fate, you were paired with the exact guy who had sent your temper flaring just two days ago.
"Hey, I need to switch groups," you whispered urgently to your classmate.
"Sorry, (Name), but I ran a randomizer to keep it fair. And... honestly, you shouldn't switch. Every other girl in here is practically dying of jealousy right now."
You lowered your voice to a harsh whisper. "Exactly. That's why I want out. Anyone can take my spot."
"Can't do it, (Name). I already emailed the roster to the professor."
"You are evil." You stared at your friend-slash-class-rep with pure betrayal.
She just let out a quiet giggle. "What's the big deal anyway? Come on... shouldn't you be thrilled? It's not every day you get a free pass to talk to Briar's star hockey player."
"Don't mock me. You know I can't stand drama, especially the kind that follows Di Laurentis around."
"Did you miss me? Is that why you keep saying my name?"
You and your friend looked up to find Dean standing right over your desk, leaning down with a cocky grin.
"In your dreams. I wouldn't even waste a nightmare on you," you shot back coldly.
"Ouch. You're breaking my heart, you know. But it's fine, I know you're actually crazy about me and just trying to play hard to get." Dean smirked, radiating pure, unadulterated confidence.
The sheer audacity left you completely speechless. The guy in front of you was clearly delusional, his ego skyrocketing past the atmosphere.
Then, without waiting for an invitation, Dean slid into the empty seat right next to you. "So, it's (Name), right? Destined to be partners. Wait, did you request to be in my group? Wow, you move fast quietly, don't you?"
You could only stare at him like he was an alien, actively suppressing the urge to curse him out or strangle him right then and there.
Dean unlocked his phone and slid it across your desk. You looked from his face to the screen and back again.
Dean chuckled, his deep dimples showing on full display. "We need to discuss this group project, don't we? So, give me your number."
You stared at it for a few seconds before finally picking up his phone and typing something out.
"An email address?" Dean looked at you, utterly bewildered.
"Are you so busy playing hockey and partying that you don't know what an email is?" you asked sarcastically.
"Of course I know. But—"
"If you need to reach me, use that. Or don't. I don't care." You packed your things at lightning speed just as the professor dismissed the class, and swept out the door without looking back.
- - - -
"Thanks, Logan. How much do I owe you?"
"Don't worry about it."
"No, no way. You went out of your way to fix the plumbing in Jules' and my room. A simple thank you definitely isn't enough." You watched Logan as he packed away his tools.
"Seriously, (Name), it's fine. I'm just helping out Jules and their roommate."
You sighed. "Fine. But in that case, you have to let me buy you lunch."
Logan looked up at you and laughed. "Okay, deal. But I get to pick the place."
"Good. Let's go!"
True to his word, Logan brought you straight to Malone's.
"Hey, Allie!"
"Hey, (Name)! Wow, look at you, actually out with a friend for once." Allie, who was working her shift as a waitress, grinned at you and then at Logan, who was walking right behind you.
You laughed. "This is Logan, my roommate's older brother. Oh, by the way, we're ready to order."
Allie handed you a couple of menus. "Just call me whenever you guys are ready."
"Okay, thanks Allie."
"Wait... are you Hannah's friend?" Logan asked Allie suddenly, making you freeze just as you were about to look for a table.
"Yeah. Why?" Allie asked.
"I just wanted to make sure if Hannah already talked to the owner about using this place for the charity fundraiser."
"Oh, yeah, Hannah already brought it up. Our boss gave the green light. We just need to confirm the exact date and time."
Logan smiled in relief. "Awesome. I'll let Hannah know later. Thanks a lot."
"What's the fundraiser for?" you asked once the two of you had taken a seat at a table, waiting for your food.
"It's a charity fundraiser for youth ice hockey scholarships. It helps buy gear, rent ice time, stuff like that," Logan explained.
You nodded. "Wow, that's really great. I hope it turns out to be a huge success."
"You should come, (Name). It's going to be a blast. We're planning to hire a band, so there'll be live requests." Logan looked at you enthusiastically.
You smiled softly. "If you need any help, just let me know. But I'm not sure if I can actually make it to the event. My assignment load this week is brutal, and I really need to review some course materials I'm struggling with."
Logan nodded understandingly. "No pressure at all. The hockey guys are handling everything anyway. If you find some free time, you can just stop by. Jules definitely going to be there too."
"Haha, okay."
Truthfully, you really wanted to show up and support Logan. But between your hectic workload and your absolute desperation to avoid running into Dean, you ultimately decided against it.
The afternoon atmosphere at Malone's was pretty relaxed. There were only a few students chatting casually and enjoying their lunch. A couple of people were moving back and forth, setting up decorations on the mini stage for the hockey charity event tonight.
Meanwhile, you were buried in your laptop and a stack of printed drafts for your History group project. Every now and then, you anxiously glanced toward the entrance, which you had intentionally sat with your back to. You were waiting for your classmate, who had suggested meeting up here to discuss the project. Because you felt bad turning him down— especially since Malone's was the closest spot to his part-time job, so you ended up agreeing. Even though, ever since Logan’s invitation a few days ago, you had actively tried to avoid this place. You didn't want to risk running into Dean.
But here you were. In the exact place you were supposed to stay away from, surrounded by hockey players busy prepping for their charity event.
Because of that, your anxiety had been on high alert. You kept praying your partner would show up quickly so you could wrap up the project discussion and leave before Dean could ever cross your path.
"Hey, sorry to keep you waiting. So, what about Dean?" Leon arrived, sliding into the seat across from you.
You breathed a massive sigh of relief that your group partner had finally made it, even if his opening question was one you'd rather completely ignore.
"I have no idea."
"He didn't contact you?" he asked.
You shook your head. Even though you hadn't expected Dean to actually shoot you an email, you had still found yourself checking your inbox every single day. And yep, just as predicted, absolutely nothing.
"Forget about him. He's probably too busy with his hockey schedule. We shouldn't hold our breath waiting for him to contribute. It's better if we just focus on our own parts so we can get this done quickly." You opened up your printouts and began mapping out the project with Leon.
Before you knew it, over twenty minutes had flown by. Leon was incredibly easy to work with, thanks to his friendly personality. He even cracked a few jokes, making your lingering headache vanish for a moment.
"Well, well, look who we have here. No wonder my email never got a response. Turns out you're on a 'study date', huh?"
The baseless accusation instantly wiped the smile right off your face. Dean was standing right by your table, looking down at you with a mocking, arrogant smirk.
"Uh, no, I'm Leon. We're in the same History group. We're just going over the project draft," Leon spoke up.
Dean sat down right next to Leon, forcing him to awkwardly scoot over to make room. "Oh, the History group? That's great. Guess that means I don't have to do a single thing, right? Since you two are clearly smart enough to handle it." Dean looked back and forth between you and Leon.
You fixed Dean with an ice-cold glare. "If you're not going to help, then stop bothering us. Go help your hockey buddies instead. They actually need it."
"Well, they can survive without me for a bit. Right now, I want to hang out with my History group. This is still my group, isn't it? Even if I was completely left in the dark?" Dean asked, flashing a wide, infuriating grin.
Leon looked between you and Dean, clearing his throat uncomfortably. "We were waiting for you to contact (Name). But you never did."
Dean let out a sharp, amused laugh, looking straight at you. "You were waiting for me? Aww... why didn't you just say so? I thought you were just playing hard to get, which is why you only gave me an email address."
You stared at him sharply. "I am not an object to be pursued. So stop talking shit like that."
"Or what?" Dean challenged, a smirk spreading across his face that made you want to punch him right then.
You clenched your fists tightly under the table, forcing down the fiery rage that was threatening to boil over. You refused to cause a massive scene inside Malone's, especially in front of Leon and others people.
Taking a slow, deliberate breath, you closed your laptop and gathered your printed drafts, stacking them against the table with a sharp thud. You shoved them into your bag and stood up.
"Or nothing," you answered, your voice dropping into a cold, utterly disgusted tone. "I don't have time to entertain a validation-starved toddler. Honestly, even a toddler has better manners than you."
The arrogant smirk on Dean's face visibly faltered the second he registered the venom in your voice.
You turned your attention to Leon, who had been wincing awkwardly throughout the entire exchange. "Leon, sorry. The atmosphere here isn't conducive anymore. Let's finish discussing this over text tonight. I'm heading out."
"Uh... yeah, sure, (Name). Get home safe," Leon stammered quickly, feeling deeply apologetic that you were driven out like this.
Without wasting another second or even throwing a single glance back at Dean, you slung your bag over your shoulder and stormed out of Malone's, leaving the booth behind.
Meanwhile, Dean sat frozen in his seat, the annoying smirk completely wiped from his face. He was entirely used to girls flirting back or getting playfully mad at him, but the look you just gave him... it was pure, unadulterated disgust.
"Wow, you seriously crossed the line there," Leon muttered quietly, shaking his head. Dean snapped his head toward him, his brow furrowed. "She stayed up all night pulling our project draft together. She was actually in a great mood today, and you just came in and completely ruined it."
Pairing : Dean Di Laurentis x Fem!reader Warning : jealousy , possesive Dean, popular hockey boy x shy girl, accidental confession Word Count : 1,6k Summary : When Dean gets unexpectedly jealous at a Briar party and pulls you onto his lap in front of everyone, the line between friendship and something more suddenly disappears.
You hated Briar parties. Too loud. Too crowded. Too many drunk athletes screaming over terrible music.
Honestly, you would’ve stayed home if Dean hadn’t practically dragged you there himself.
“C’mon, sweetheart,” he complained dramatically while walking backwards in front of you. “You can’t spend your entire Friday night hiding in your dorm.”
“Yes I can.”
Dean grinned immediately.
“Not anymore.”
Your stomach flipped stupidly. That happened a lot around Dean Di Laurentis. Which was unfortunate because Dean flirted with literally everyone.
Waitresses.
Classmates.
Random girls at parties.
Meanwhile you could barely survive eye contact with him.
“Relax,” he teased softly once you reached the crowded house. “I’ll protect you from the evil social interaction.”
You rolled your eyes, but still followed closely behind him inside. Dean noticed. He always noticed. That was the problem. People thought Dean was shallow because he joked constantly and flirted with everyone around him. But you knew better.
You noticed the little things:
how he always walked on the outside of sidewalks,
how he remembered your coffee order,
how he touched your lower back in crowded rooms without thinking,
how his eyes automatically searched for you first whenever he entered somewhere.
It was confusing.
Especially because Dean acted like you belonged to him half the time. Even though you definitely weren’t dating. Probably. Maybe. Honestly, you didn’t know anymore.
“Stay here,” Dean said while handing you a drink. “I’m grabbing Logan before he destroys someone at beer pong.”
You laughed quietly.
“Okay.”
“Don’t let anyone kidnap you while I’m gone.”
Heat rushed to your face immediately. Dean winked before disappearing into the crowd. You hated how easily he affected you. A few minutes later, you were standing awkwardly near the kitchen trying not to look completely uncomfortable. Bad idea. Because apparently standing alone at a party attracted attention.
“You look terrified.”
You looked up nervously to find a football player smiling down at you. Cute. Very tall.Definitely drunk.
“Oh,” you laughed weakly. “I’m okay.”
“You sure?” He leaned casually against the counter beside you. “You’ve been hiding over here all night.”
You smiled politely, unsure what to say. Social interaction was already hard enough. Flirting was worse.
“I’m Mason, by the way.”
You told him your name softly. Then immediately regretted it because his smile widened.
“Well,” Mason said, “you’re definitely the prettiest girl here.”
Your face burned.
“Oh, thank you.”
“You here with someone?”
Before you could answer, Mason’s hand landed lightly on your waist.
And suddenly,
“She’s sitting with me.”
The voice cut through the noise instantly. Your breath caught. Dean stood a few feet away staring directly at the football player.
And for once? Dean Di Laurentis wasn’t smiling. Your heartbeat immediately sped up.
Mason lifted his hands awkwardly. “Dude, I was just talking to her.”
“Cool.” Dean walked forward slowly. “Now you’re done.”
The tension shifted instantly.
You stared at Dean in complete shock while Mason looked between both of you confused.
“Wait,” Mason frowned slightly. “Are you guys together?”
Dean’s arm wrapped around your waist without hesitation.
“She’s with me.”
The words hit your chest so hard it almost hurt. Mason looked uncomfortable immediately.
“My bad.”
Dean didn’t answer.
He just guided you away from the kitchen with his hand still firmly against your waist.
Your entire body felt warm where he touched you.
“What was that?” you whispered once you reached the living room.
Dean looked down at you innocently.
“What was what?”
“You basically threatened him.”
Dean scoffed.
“He was flirting with you.”
“And?”
“And I didn’t like it.”
The answer came too fast. Too honestly. Your heart nearly stopped. Dean seemed to realize what he’d admitted because his expression shifted slightly. But instead of taking it back… His hand tightened against your waist.
“You’re sitting with me,” he decided suddenly.
Before you could process the sentence, Dean dropped onto the couch and pulled you directly into his lap. Your entire brain short-circuited.
“Dean!”
He looked completely relaxed despite the fact that your heart was trying to kill you.
“What?”
“I can’t sit on your lap!”
“Too late.”
Around you, several hockey players immediately started staring. Logan nearly spit out his drink. Garrett looked deeply unimpressed.
And Allie whispered:
“Oh my God finally.”
Your face burned hotter. Dean only looked smug. One of his hands rested casually against your thigh while the other held his drink. Completely comfortable. Like this was normal. Meanwhile you could barely breathe.
“Dean,” you hissed quietly. “Everyone’s looking.”
“Let them.”
Your stomach flipped violently.
“How are you acting normal right now?”
He leaned closer slightly.
“I’m always normal.”
“You’re literally holding me hostage.”
Dean grinned lazily.
“Sweetheart, if I was holding you hostage, you’d know.”
Your brain stopped functioning. Absolutely stopped. And the worst part? You didn’t even want to move. Because sitting in Dean’s lap felt stupidly safe. Warm. His fingers absentmindedly traced circles against your leg while he talked to Garrett about hockey, completely unaware he was actively ruining your life.
Or maybe he was aware. That was somehow worse.
“You’re quiet,” Dean murmured eventually, looking down at you.
“I wonder why.”
He laughed softly.
Cute.
Dean Di Laurentis was annoyingly cute.
Which felt deeply unfair considering he looked like that and had the personality of a menace.
“You okay?” he asked more gently.
The softness in his voice caught you off guard. You nodded slowly.
“Yeah.”
Dean studied your face for a second too long. Then his thumb brushed absentmindedly against your thigh. Your pulse jumped instantly. And suddenly something shifted. The teasing atmosphere faded slightly.
Now it was just:
Dean looking at you,
your body pressed against his,
and way too much tension between both of you.
“You know,” Dean said quietly, “I really hated watching him flirt with you.”
Your breath caught.
“Dean…”
“I’m serious.”
His expression softened completely now. No jokes. No flirting. Just honesty. And somehow that terrified you more.
“I didn’t like the way he looked at you,” Dean admitted softly. “Or touched you.”
Your heart pounded painfully.
“Why?”
The question slipped out before you could stop it.
Dean stared at you silently for a second.
Then laughed quietly to himself.
“Jesus Christ.”
“What?”
“You seriously don’t know?”
Your stomach twisted.
“Know what?”
Dean looked almost frustrated now.
“Sweetheart,” he whispered, “I’ve been obsessed with you for months.”
Silence. Complete silence. The party noise faded into background static. You stared at him, convinced you misheard.
“What?”
Dean’s hand moved carefully to your waist again.
“You think I drag you to parties because I enjoy watching you avoid eye contact with everyone?”
Heat rushed violently to your face.
“You flirt with everybody,” you whispered.
Dean immediately shook his head.
“Not like this.”
Your chest tightened painfully.
“Then what is this?”
Dean smiled softly.
“This,” he murmured while pulling you slightly closer, “is me losing my mind over one shy girl.”
Your heart completely melted. And suddenly everything made sense. The constant attention. The touching. The jealousy. The way Dean always looked at you like you were something precious.
“Oh,” you whispered.
Dean laughed quietly.
“Yeah. Oh.”
You stared at him nervously.
“So…” Your voice came out tiny. “You like me?”
Dean looked genuinely offended.
“Baby, I’m one bad day away from writing poetry about you.”
A startled laugh escaped you instantly. Dean smiled immediately like hearing you laugh was his favorite thing in the world. God. You were so done for.
“You know what the worst part is?” you admitted quietly.
“What?”
“I think I liked when you got jealous.”
Dean froze for half a second. Then a dangerously smug grin appeared on his face.
“Oh, you’re into possessive behavior?” he teased.
Your eyes widened immediately.
“No!”
Dean laughed loudly while your face burned alive.
“You’re cute when you’re embarrassed.”
“You’re horrible.”
“And yet,” he murmured while leaning closer, “you’re still sitting in my lap.”
Your breath caught instantly. Because he was right. You hadn’t moved once. Not even a little. Dean’s eyes flickered briefly toward your lips. Then back up again.
“You wanna know something?” he asked softly.
“What?”
“I’ve wanted to kiss you since the second week I knew you.”
Your heartbeat became unbearable.
“Dean…”
“Tell me to stop.”
But the problem was… You really, really didn’t want him to stop. So instead, you whispered:
“Maybe I don’t want you to.”
Dean stared at you for half a second before kissing you immediately.
Warm. Confident. Perfect.
One hand settled against your waist while the other tilted your chin upward carefully, like he wanted to make absolutely sure you felt everything behind the kiss. And honestly? You thought Dean flirting was dangerous. Kissing him was worse. When he finally pulled away, both of you were breathing hard. Dean rested his forehead lightly against yours.
“Well,” he murmured lazily, “that’s gonna make parties way more interesting.”
You laughed softly despite yourself. Across the room, Garrett looked exhausted already. Logan looked deeply entertained. And Dean? Dean looked ridiculously pleased with himself.
“Still hate parties?” he whispered.
You glanced at him before smiling shyly.
“Maybe not this one.”
Dean grinned immediately before kissing your forehead. Then, because he was incapable of behaving normally for even five seconds, he looked around the room proudly and announced:
“Everybody relax. She likes me back.”
You immediately hid your face in his shoulder while the hockey team erupted into chaos.
A/N : Here's my third fanfiction on Dean Di Laurentis!!! Hope u like it ! Don't forget to LIKE,SHARE, COMMENT & SUBSCRIBE !! Next one gonna be GARRET GRAHAM !
Warning(s); 18+ but no explicit smut, mention of sex, oral, spit kink, cursing (?), barely edited so apologies for any grammar errors
Summary; NSFW alphabet featuring Dean. I tried to encapsulate him best based on my personal opinion of what I think he'd be like + how he is shown in the books as well as the show.
Word Count; 5.6k
Author’s Note; This took a little longer than I thought it was going to, but I still do like it. Hope I captured Dean well, I tried my best. Also, yes, I did give Dean a spit kink. To be honest, I have a hard time not giving every hockey player I write about, a spit kink. I just find it soooo sexy. You might get a Dean fic about that in the future if there is interest. Please let me know your thoughts if you have any, and feel free to send any requests through my inbox (: Hope all is well in your corner of the world. Go Canucks! - Honey
Dean Masterlist
A - Aftercare (what is he like after sex?)
Dean's surprisingly attentive afterward, though he plays it casual. He's not the type to make it overly sentimental or awkward, but he'll check in with you in that easy way of his, asking if you need water or whatever while already reaching for a bottle from his nightstand. There's usually some light conversation, a joke to keep things from getting too heavy, because that's just how he operates. He's perceptive enough to read what you need without you having to spell it out. If you want space, he gives it. If you want to stay close, his arm finds its way around you like it's the most natural thing in the world. He's had enough experience to know the basics of taking care of someone after, and despite his reputation, he doesn't just bail immediately. With you specifically, he's gotten better at the small things: making sure you're comfortable, handling cleanup without being weird about it, staying present instead of immediately moving on to the next thing. It's not performative; it's just Dean being Dean, that underlying decency that exists beneath the cocky exterior. He might not be writing poetry about the experience, but he makes sure you're good before he lets himself fully relax. His previous hookups might answer otherwise, it wasn’t unusual for them to see the door after fucking, but for you it’s different. He’s different.
B - Body Part (his favorite body part of yours)
Dean's absolutely a boob guy, which he's never been shy about. He loves your breasts, is borderline obsessed with them in a way that would probably be embarrassing if he cared enough to be embarrassed. His hands gravitate there constantly: when you're kissing, when you're lying in bed together, absent-mindedly when he comes up behind you when you’re washing dishes. He loves burying his face between them, the softness and warmth of it, the way you react when he does. Watching them bounce when you ride him might be one of his favorite pictures in existence, something he's definitely mentioned more than once in that appreciative way he has. He's got a thing about taking your nipples in his mouth too, the way you arch into him when he does, the sounds you make. His hands span your ribcage and slide up with clear intent, thumbs brushing over sensitive skin in ways that make you shiver. There's a possessive element to it, the way he touches you there, like he's claiming that part of you specifically. And he's shameless about it, will tell you straight up how much he loves them, how perfect they are, how the sight of them does things to him. It's probably a cliche answer if anyone asked, but Dean genuinely doesn't care. He knows what he likes.
C - Cum (anything to do with cum)
Dean's got specific preferences about where he finishes, and he's never been shy about communicating them. He loves cumming on your chest, watching his off-white seed spurt across your tits in a way that satisfies something deep inside him. There's a visual component to it that gets to him significantly, the evidence of what you do to each other, the way you look marked by him like that. He also loves finishing in your mouth when you let him. The way you look up at him when you do it, the way you gag slightly before he’s pulled off, drool pooling around your mouth. That might be his favorite, honestly. The sight of you like that, the knowledge that you're willing to do that for him, destroys any composure he has left. He's vocal about what he wants, has no problem telling you exactly what he's thinking, and he gets off on your reactions as much as the physical sensation. The mess doesn't faze him at all; if anything he finds the whole thing incredibly hot rather than something to be awkward about. He has no problem with cleaning up.
D - Dirty Secret (a dirty secret of his)
Dean actually gets off on exhibitionism more than he'd readily admit to most people. It's not just that he doesn't mind the possibility of getting caught; he actively likes it. The thrill of it, the risk, the idea of someone walking in and seeing exactly what he's doing to you... that does something for him that goes beyond just the physical aspect. He's had sex in the living room of his house multiple times, in positions and locations where any of his housemates could walk in, and have, and that edge of danger makes everything more intense. He's told you before, that once he gets caught, he likes being watched. It's the combination of control and display, the confidence of knowing he's good at fucking and not caring who knows it. There's also the fact that he thinks about you way more than is probably reasonable for what's supposed to be casual. He'll see you in his space, wearing his shirt, and his brain immediately goes somewhere it shouldn't when he's supposed to be focusing on homework or game film. And despite his reputation as someone who hooks up freely, he's been effectively exclusive with you for weeks now without either of you naming it, which is its own kind of secret he's keeping from himself.
E - Experience (how experienced is he?)
Dean's extremely experienced, which is fairly common knowledge around campus. He's got a reputation for a reason: he's slept with a lot of people, doesn't make a secret of it, and has the skills to back up the confidence. He knows what he's doing, has figured out through sheer volume of practice what works and what doesn't, how to read women and adjust accordingly. But he's also smart about it in that analytical way he applies to everything else. Dean's a poly sci major who got into Harvard Law, he's not just coasting on natural talent. He pays attention, remembers details, treats it almost like a skill to be mastered. With you, though, there's been a learning curve that's made things better. He's had to figure out your specific preferences, what works for you individually, and he's put in the effort because apparently you're worth it. If anything, all that practice has made him better at this with you specifically, because he knows what questions to ask, what signs to look for, how to make it good rather than just adequate.
F - Favorite Position (what is his favorite position?)
Dean likes you on top, which makes sense given his thing about watching. Seeing you take control, the view it gives him, the way your body moves when you're chasing what you want... that visual does more for him than almost anything else. Plus his hands are free to roam, to grip your hips and guide the pace when he needs to, cup your breasts in his palms, touch you everywhere he wants. He's also partial to you bent over various surfaces in his house: the arm of the couch, his desk, the kitchen counter that one time when Logan walked in on you guys. There's something about the angle and the semi-public nature of those locations that just appeals to him. He likes taking you from behind in general, the view and the depth and the control it gives him. But he's not opposed to more traditional positions either, especially when he wants to see your face, watch every reaction flicker across your features. You on your back with your legs around his waist works perfectly fine when the mood calls for it. He wants to see what he's doing to you, wants to watch you fall apart, and he's shameless about arranging things to make that happen. Variety keeps things interesting, and Dean's creative enough to make use of whatever space you're in.
G - Goofy (is he serious or humorous during sex?)
Dean strikes a balance that somehow works perfectly. He's not overly serious or performative about it, but he's not cracking jokes the entire time either. Sex with Dean feels natural, comfortable in a way that allows for both intensity and lightness. If something awkward happens, a weird noise, a clumsy moment, someone bumping their head, he'll laugh it off with a quick comment that diffuses any tension. Taking it too seriously isn't really his style. He's the type to grin against your mouth when you say something bratty, tease you when you're being impatient, make some smartass remark that makes you laugh even when you're supposed to be annoyed with him. But when things get heated, when the tension builds and you're both too far gone to think straight, he gets more focused, more intense. The humor doesn't disappear completely, though. He's still Dean, still can't resist a well-timed quip, but it takes a backseat to everything else. He's good at reading the room, at knowing when to keep things fun and when to let the intensity take over. The combination works because it never feels forced either way; he's just genuinely comfortable enough with you to be himself.
H - Hair (how well groomed is he?)
Dean's pretty low maintenance in general, but he's not a slob about it. He keeps things neat and trimmed because he's an athlete and it's just practical. Nobody wants to deal with excess hair when you're sweating through practice or games. He's not obsessive about it, doesn't spend forever on grooming or manscaping, but he's aware enough to keep things under control. His routine is efficient: regular trimming, stays on top of it without making it a whole thing. The rest of him is similar. He keeps his facial hair in check when he bothers to have any, though usually he's clean-shaven because of personal preference. His hair gets styled with minimal effort, just enough product to look intentional without looking like he tried too hard. He showers after every workout without fail, uses decent products because his mom raised him right, and generally smells good in that casual way that suggests he's put in exactly enough effort and no more. He's not vain about his appearance, but he's definitely aware of it, takes care of himself in the same way he approaches most things. Good hygiene is just a given. He's sleeping with you regularly, so of course he's going to maintain basic standards. It's not even something he thinks about much; it's just part of the routine.
I - Intimacy (how is he during the moment? the romantic aspect)
Dean's not naturally romantic in the traditional sense. He's not going to recite poetry or light candles or do any of that Hallmark movie nonsense. But there's an intimacy that exists in how he touches you, in the attention he pays to what you need, in the way he makes sure you're good before he worries about himself. His guard comes down during sex in ways it doesn't otherwise, and you can see it in those moments when things slow down, when the urgency fades and it's just the two of you. The way he'll brush hair out of your face, maintain eye contact in a way that feels almost dangerous, trace patterns on your skin like he's memorizing the feel of you... those gestures communicate more than his words typically do. He's not great at verbalizing feelings, that's never been his strong suit. But he shows up, pays attention, makes you feel like you matter even within the undefined parameters of whatever this is between you. Lately there's been more softness creeping in, more lingering, more of those quiet moments where his forehead rests against yours and neither of you needs to say anything. The intimacy is there, just expressed in his own language rather than some prescribed romantic script.
J - Jack Off (does he masturbate?)
Obviously. Dean's a college athlete in his early twenties with a high sex drive and a healthy relationship with his own sexuality. It's a regular part of his routine, something he doesn't think twice about. Post-workout, late at night, morning showers when he has time. It's just a normal physical need he takes care of efficiently. He's never been weird about it. Though since you've been in the picture, his mental material has definitely shifted in your direction. He thinks about you more than he'd probably admit out loud: specific moments you've shared, things you've done, scenarios he'd like to try. That time you wore his jersey with nothing underneath? Yeah, that's made multiple appearances in his highlight reel. The way you look on top of him, breasts bouncing as you fall apart on top of him, the sounds you make, specific things you've said. All of it gets filed away for later use. He's also not above texting you when he's thinking about you, those late-night messages that start innocuous and escalate depending on your response. And if you've sent him photos, even relatively tame ones, those definitely get revisited with some frequency. His drive is high enough that even with regular sex, he still takes care of himself when you're not around. It's efficient, uncomplicated, just part of managing his physical needs.
K - Kink (one or more of his kinks)
Dean's got a serious praise kink that goes both ways, and it's one of the things that genuinely gets to him beyond just the physical. He loves telling you how good you are, how perfect you feel, how well you take him. Watching your reaction to his words, the way you respond when he tells you exactly what you're doing to him, that does something for him that's hard to articulate. It's not just dirty talk; it's specific, genuine praise that makes you fall apart in his hands. And when you return the favor, when you tell him how good he makes you feel, how much you want him, how perfect he is at this... that absolutely destroys his control. He'll get visibly affected, his breathing will change, and whatever composure he was maintaining completely shatters. There's something about verbal affirmation during sex that intensifies everything for him. Then there's the spit kink, which was a revelation for both of you when it first happened. He'd been caught up in the moment, let saliva drip from his mouth into yours almost without thinking, and your reaction, the way you opened for him willingly, the way it clearly turned you on, unlocked something in him he hadn't fully known was there. The first time he did it, he felt this rush of power and control simultaneously, something raw and primal that went beyond normal dirty talk or physical acts. The way you wanted it, eyes practically begging for it as you opened your mouth for him, tongue resting on your plump bottom lip. The moan you let out as a line of spit fell from his mouth, hitting your tongue as you swallowed eagerly, he just about came right then and there.
L - Location (where's his favorite place to do it?)
Dean's not particularly picky about location, which is part of his whole thing. His bed is convenient and comfortable, offers privacy and familiarity, but he's equally likely to pull you onto the couch in the living room, bend you over his desk, or find some other semi-public spot in the house. He's had sex in most rooms of the place at this point, doesn't really see the point in limiting himself to one location when variety is available. The living room is a frequent choice because of the exhibitionist element, the thrill of his housemates potentially walking in. His desk chair has become a regular spot, you in his lap while he's supposed to be studying. The shower works when logistics align, though it's more cramped than ideal. He's also not above finding semi-private spots at parties: bathrooms, empty bedrooms, his car parked somewhere dark. The common thread is that he likes a little edge of risk, the possibility of being caught or seen. That said, his bed late at night or during lazy afternoons is still good for when you actually have time to draw things out without worrying about interruptions.
M - Motivation (what turns him on, gets him going?)
Dean's got pretty consistent triggers. You in his clothes will derail his entire train of thought: his t-shirts, his Briar U jacket, anything that marks you as his in that possessive way he doesn't fully acknowledge. Confidence gets to him, when you know what you want and aren't shy about taking it or asking for it directly. He loves when you're bratty with him, challenging him or talking back, because it becomes about proving a point and asserting control. Competence is surprisingly hot to him; watching you be good at something, seeing you in your element, attracts him beyond just the physical. The visual component matters a lot: the way you look fresh out of the shower, how your body moves, specific clothing choices that highlight what he already knows is underneath. Intelligence turns him on too, which makes sense given he's smart enough to get into Harvard Law. He likes verbal sparring, the back-and-forth banter that has an edge to it. And yeah, the casual touches throughout the day build in ways that culminate later: your hand on his arm, fingers in his hair, the way you lean into him without thinking. The juxtaposition of normal life and the knowledge of what you're like behind closed doors creates tension he can't ignore.
N - No (something they wouldn't do, turn offs)
Dean's got clear boundaries despite his generally adventurous attitude. Anything that feels faked is an immediate turn-off. He can tell when someone's doing something because they think they should rather than because they want to, and that kills his interest completely. He needs genuine enthusiasm, real desire, or he's not into it. He's also not into actual pain beyond the occasional bite or mark; anything that crosses into genuinely hurting someone doesn't appeal to him at all. Humiliation is off the table too. He'll talk dirty, sure, but it's never cruel or degrading in a way that's meant to actually make someone feel bad. There's a difference between sexy confidence and being an asshole, and he knows where that line is. Another turn off being threesomes. Dean has been a part of plenty of threesomes within his college experience, but the idea of having one with you and another girl? Maybe. Another guy? Absolutely not, no way in hell.
O - Oral (preference in giving/receiving, skill, etc.)
Dean's genuinely enthusiastic about going down on you, which tracks with his overall approach to sex. He's good at it too, has enough experience to know what he's doing and pays close enough attention to figure out what works specifically for you. He likes the control aspect of it, having you completely at his mercy, making you come apart with just his mouth. There's definitely an ego component: he takes pride in his skill, in reducing you to incoherence. He's the type to hold your hips down when you start squirming, to make eye contact at the worst possible moments because he knows it destroys you, to talk you through it in that low voice that makes everything more intense. As for receiving, he's absolutely not going to turn it down. The visual component gets to him as much as the physical sensation, watching your mouth wrap around his cock is its own kind of torture in the best way. He's vocal about what he likes, will guide you with his hands in your hair, but he's good about letting you set the pace too.
P - Pace (is he fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)
Dean's pace depends entirely on context and mood, and he's gotten good at reading what any given situation calls for. When there's urgency, when you've been building tension all day, when you finally get a moment alone after wanting each other for hours, he's fast and intense. Those times are rougher, more desperate, neither of you particularly careful about it. He likes it like that sometimes, likes the raw energy of just taking what you both need. But he's equally capable of slow and passionate when the situation calls for it, especially during those long afternoons when there's no rush. He'll draw it out then, make you wait, because he likes watching you unravel slowly and he's patient enough to make it happen. The variety keeps things interesting, means you never quite know what you're getting. Sometimes it starts slow and builds to something frantic. Sometimes it's urgent from the start and stays that way. He's good at switching gears mid-way through if needed, responsive to what's working in the moment.
Q - Quickie (his opinion on quickies, how often, etc.)
Dean's absolutely a fan of quickies. They happen regularly: between classes, before practice, stolen moments when the house is briefly empty or when he just doesn't care if it's not. There's something appealing about the haste, the "we need this right now" energy that doesn't allow for extended foreplay or overthinking. He likes the efficiency of it, the way you both know exactly what you're doing and can make it work in whatever time you have. Against the wall, bent over his desk, you in his lap in that chair, in the living room when he's pretty sure the guys will be gone long enough. Quickies serve a purpose that's different from taking time. They satisfy immediate need, that pressing want that can't wait. He's good at them too, knows how to make it satisfying despite time constraints, knows exactly where to touch to get you there fast when necessary. That said, he definitely prefers having time to really take you apart when possible. Quickies are great for what they are, but they don't replace the longer sessions where he can be more thorough. They probably happen a few times a week depending on schedules and opportunity, usually initiated by whoever's more desperate, and they're a pretty regular part of the dynamic at this point.
R - Risk (is he game to experiment? does he take risks? etc.)
Dean's generally open to experimentation within reason. He's got his preferences, but he's not rigid about them. If there's something you want to try, he's usually game to at least discuss it, even if that leads to him tied up at the wrists. He approaches new things with characteristic confidence, willing to figure it out as you go. Some of his favorite things came from spontaneous experimentation rather than planning. The spit thing, for example, wasn't discussed beforehand; it just happened and you both discovered you were into it. He's also gotten more comfortable with relinquishing control as things have progressed between you, which was its own kind of risk for someone who usually likes being in charge. That's been surprisingly rewarding. He's never going to suggest anything too extreme on his own, but if you bring something up, he'll consider it seriously. His intelligence means he thinks things through, weighs potential outcomes, but he's not so cautious that he misses out on things that could be good.
S - Stamina (how many rounds can he go for? how long does he last?)
Dean's stamina is legitimately impressive, which makes sense for a college athlete in peak condition. He can go multiple rounds given enough recovery time between them. Two or three isn't unusual during those long days when neither of you has anywhere to be. The refractory period isn't instant, but it's relatively quick, especially if you're actively working to get him there again. As for duration, he's got solid control under normal circumstances. He's experienced enough to know his own limits, can hold off when he needs to, generally makes sure you finish first because that matters to his ego. But there are specific things that wreck that control: you on top, when you talk dirty unexpectedly, if you've been teasing him for extended periods before actually getting started. Those scenarios shorten his fuse considerably. He's learned his triggers well enough to adjust, to change position or slow down when he needs to make it last. And he's got no problem using other methods if he finishes before you're satisfied: his hands, his mouth, whatever it takes. The athletic conditioning definitely helps with endurance; he doesn't get winded easily, can maintain pace and intensity without tapping out. Those marathon sessions where you go multiple rounds with breaks in between appeal to the competitive side of him.
T - Toys (does he own toys? does he use them on himself or you?)
Dean's got some experience with toys, specifically using them on partners. He's used a vibrator during sex before, knows how to incorporate it effectively, sees it as another tool to make things better rather than something to be intimidated by. If you have toys, he's definitely interested in them, wants to know how you use them when you're alone, finds that information extremely useful for his own purposes. He's the type who'd be into using one on you, controlling when and how you get stimulation, because that plays directly into the authority thing he likes. Watching you fall apart because of something he's controlling appeals to him significantly. He doesn't own much himself and hasn't really experimented with using them on himself, that's not territory he's explored. But he's practical about their use in general: if it works and makes things better, why not? It's not something that gets incorporated every single time, most encounters are just the two of you without additional equipment, but when toys do come into play, it adds a dimension he's learned to appreciate. He approaches it with the same confidence he brings to everything else, no weird hang-ups about it.
U - Unfair (how much he likes to tease)
Dean is absolutely merciless when it comes to teasing, and he's completely shameless about how much he enjoys it. He's figured out exactly what gets to you and deploys it like it’s second nature, because it kind of is to him. He'll start early sometimes, casual touches throughout the day that seem innocent but are clearly intentional: a hand on your lower back that drifts too low, fingers tracing patterns on your thigh, standing close enough that you're hyperaware of him. He likes watching you try to maintain composure when he's actively working to destroy it. During sex, he's even worse. He'll bring you right to the edge and then pull back, slow down exactly when you need more, make you beg for what you want before he'll give it to you. The power dynamic of it appeals to him, seeing how desperate he can make you, how much you want him. And he's smug about it too, that infuriating smirk when you finally break and tell him to stop messing around. It goes both ways though; when you tease him back, when you give him a taste of his own medicine, he gets visibly affected even while pretending otherwise. The building tension, the back-and-forth of it, makes everything more intense when you both finally get what you want. He's learned that anticipation improves the payoff exponentially, so he's willing to draw things out as long as you can both stand it.
V - Volume (how loud is he? what sounds does he make? etc.)
Dean's not overly loud as a baseline, but he's definitely not silent. He modulates based on circumstance: when the house is full and walls are thin, he controls it best he can, though you can still hear his breathing change and catch the low sounds he makes. When you're actually alone or when he just doesn't care, he's more vocal. He talks during sex, likes telling you what he's going to do, what he wants, how good you feel. His voice drops lower, gets rougher, and that alone is enough to affect you. He groans when something feels particularly good, curses under his breath when you catch him off guard. When he's getting close, his breathing gets ragged and he becomes less articulate, words fragmenting into your name and profanity. He's vocal in other ways too: sharp intakes of breath, the sound he makes when you kiss his neck a certain way, that low rumble of approval when you do exactly what he wants. He's louder when you're on top and he's given up control, like relinquishing that authority loosens something in him. And when he finally cums, he's definitely not quiet about it, though he'll muffle it against your shoulder or mouth if the situation requires it. The sounds he makes are half the appeal for you, hearing the evidence of how much you're affecting him.
W - Wildcard (a random headcanon)
Dean has a thing about mornings after that he doesn't really talk about. When you stay over and wake up in his bed, there's this window of time, usually while you're still half-asleep, where he's content in a way he rarely is otherwise. He'll watch you sleep sometimes, not in a creepy way, but just taking in the fact that you're there, in his space, comfortable enough to be completely unguarded. It grounds him somehow, makes the casual thing you have feel less casual even though he's not ready to examine that too closely. He's also weirdly domestic in ways that surprise both of you. He'll make sure you eat, will order food without asking because he knows you're hungry, keeps your favorite drinks stocked in the fridge even though he doesn't drink them himself. Small things that suggest he's paying more attention than he lets on. And he's got a whole mental catalog of details about you that he's accumulated without trying: how you take your coffee, which of his shirts you prefer to take, the specific way you like to be touched when you're tired versus when you're wound up. He files all of it away like it matters, because apparently it does, even if he hasn't said that out loud yet. The casual arrangement has stopped being truly casual for him a while ago, but he's letting you both exist in the comfortable denial of not defining it for as long as possible.
X - X-Ray (let's see what's going on under those clothes)
Dean's built like a hockey player: lean muscle, broad shoulders, strong core and legs from years of skating. His body is functional, trained for performance on ice, but the aesthetic result is objectively good. Defined abs, solid chest, muscular thighs that come from explosive movements and endurance training. He's got good hands too, large and capable, equally comfortable gripping a stick or gripping your ass. As for specifics, he's proportional to his frame and definitely nothing to worry about. Above average in both length and girth, substantial enough that the first time required adjustment. He's experienced enough to know how to use what he's got effectively, and that confidence isn't unfounded. A few scars from hockey injuries scattered across his body, faded marks that add character. He moves with the unselfconscious confidence of someone who's never had reason to doubt his physicality, comfortable in his body in a way that translates to how he approaches sex. Overall, the package matches the personality: confident, capable, built for endurance, and fully aware of his own assets while being only slightly obnoxious about it.
Y - Yearning (how high is his sex drive?)
Dean's sex drive is consistently high, which tracks for someone in his early twenties with his activity level and general approach to physicality. It's not that he's constantly thinking about sex, but there's a baseline interest that's pretty much always there, ready to activate given the right circumstance. Having regular access to you has meant his natural drive has a consistent outlet, and if anything it's intensified because he's genuinely attracted to you beyond just physical availability. He's usually the one initiating, though you've learned to read when he's particularly wound up. Post-workout he's especially energized, endorphins making him more forward. Late at night when he should be tired and gets a second wind if you're around. The mental component is strong: he'll get going just from thinking about you, from replaying previous encounters, from anticipating next time. Being in close proximity doesn't help; having you in his space tends to put ideas in his head even when he should be focused elsewhere. Recovery time between rounds is relatively short because his drive doesn't quit just because he's already finished once. It's healthy and normal for his age and activity level, but definitely on the higher end of the spectrum, which works fine given he's got the outlet for it.
Z - ZZZ (how quickly does he fall asleep afterwards?)
Dean doesn't immediately pass out after sex, which seems relatively uncommon based on general reputation. He'll stay awake for a while, sometimes just lying there, sometimes talking about random things, sometimes on his phone while you're against him. The physical exertion doesn't knock him out the way it might others; his hockey conditioning means efficient recovery. That said, there's a specific tiredness that sets in maybe twenty or thirty minutes later, especially if it's late or if you've gone multiple rounds. He gets quieter, responses slower, and you can feel him starting to drift. He usually makes sure you're settled first though, that you've got what you need, before he lets himself fully relax into sleep. Once he does fall asleep, he's out solidly. Doesn't move around much, and sleeps hard. Morning practices and early workouts have trained him to sleep efficiently when he gets the chance. But immediately after sex? He's still present, still engaged, not checking out before you do. It's one of those small things that makes the arrangement feel less transactional than his usual hookups, the fact that he sticks around rather than disappearing into unconsciousness the second it's over.
If you made it this far, thanks so much for reading! I really hope you enjoyed, I had fun writing it ☺️ - Honey
a/n: dean di laurentis really said "i'll be the perfect boyfriend except for the part where i'm still in love with someone else" and i had to write about it
I never meant to cause you any sorrow
I never meant to cause you any pain
I only wanted to see you laughing
I only wanted to see you laughing in the purple rain
— Prince, “Purple Rain”
(Because nothing says “true love” like handing your whole heart to a guy who’s still mentally fucking his ex while you play dress-up as his emotional rebound.)
The dress weighed on me like a damn sentence. Dark red velvet that fell in heavy cascades all the way to the floor, with gold and blue embroidery that sparkled under the dim lights of the hall. The corset squeezed my ribs, reminding me with every breath that I was here, dressed up like a princess at a party that didn’t feel like mine. The bell sleeves swayed with every step, and the pearl necklace Dean had put on me that afternoon kept brushing against my collarbone like a constant reminder of his warm fingers.
“You look gorgeous. Like you were born to wear that,” he’d told me in front of the mirror, with that crooked smile that always melted me. His blue eyes had lingered on me a second longer than usual, and I, like an idiot, had taken it as a promise.
Dean was dressed as a knight. The deep red wine doublet hugged his broad chest and strong shoulders, with those gold details tracing the lines of his body like they were made for him. The white shirt underneath puffed out at the sleeves, and the leather belt cinched his waist. He looked… imposing. Dangerously hot. The kind of guy that would make anyone lose their mind. And I was. Crazy about him.
He was a good boyfriend. Fuck, he really was. He brought me coffee exactly how I liked it—two sugars and a splash of vanilla. He’d fuck me against the wall of his room when I came back stressed from class, his big hands gripping my hips while he whispered in my ear how tight and hot I was. He’d hug me from behind while we cooked and Tucker bitched about us ruining his kitchen, kissing my neck until I laughed. He listened to me complain about my professors, sent me stupid memes in the middle of the night just to make me smile. Charming. Attentive. Real.
But Allie Hayes was the ghost that never left.
Every time her name came up in conversation, even casually, Dean would shut down. His eyes would go glassy, his jaw would tighten, and he’d get this dark look, like part of him had gone somewhere else. Somewhere I didn’t exist.
And I knew it. I’d seen it a thousand times.
The Drama Department party was in full swing. Warm lights, music with lutes and drums, people in costumes dancing in the middle of the floor. The air smelled like cheap wine, sweat, and sweet perfume. I was standing on the edge with a cup in my hand that I’d barely touched, scanning the room for Dean. He’d walked off about ten minutes ago to “get more drinks.” Ten minutes that felt like forever.
And then the stares started.
I felt the eyes on me. Pity. Straight-up sympathy. A girl dressed as a maiden whispered something to her friend and they both gave me that “poor thing” look. My stomach twisted. The pressure in my chest grew, like an invisible hand squeezing tighter.
I turned my head toward the dance floor.
There they were.
Dean and Allie.
Him in his red knight’s doublet, the dark cape falling down his back. Her… fuck, she was stunning. A fairy dress in burgundy and gold tones that clung to her body like a second skin, translucent shimmering wings that caught the light, her hair loose over her shoulders. Beautiful. Magical. Unreal.
They were dancing.
Dean’s hand was on her waist, firm, possessive. Allie’s rested on his chest, right over his heart. They were looking into each other’s eyes and laughing. That intimate laugh, the kind shared by people with a thousand memories I’d never have. Dean’s eyes were shining in a way that tore me apart inside. Like Allie was the most precious thing in the world, the one he’d lost and finally had back in his arms. He’d never looked at me like that. Not once. He looked at me with affection, with desire, with tenderness… but never with that absolute devotion.
I felt ridiculous. Pathetic. A fake-ass princess standing there in my red dress and pearls while the real queen of his story danced with him.
Allie stepped closer. Their bodies pressed together. They looked at each other for one more second, loaded with everything they used to be. Then she rose onto her tiptoes, grabbed the back of his neck with that familiarity only people who’ve kissed a thousand times have, and kissed him.
Their lips met.
Dean froze… and then kissed her back. Just for a second, but I saw it. His mouth moving against hers, his hand tightening on her waist. The world dropped out from under me. The noise disappeared. All that existed was that kiss, that moment when my heart shattered.
Suddenly Dean pulled away like he’d been electrocuted. He blinked fast, looked around with wild panic in his eyes, searching the crowd… until he found me.
Our eyes met across the dance floor.
I saw the guilt. The horror. The instant regret. But it was already done. He’d already destroyed me.
I took a step back. Tears burned my eyes. People were staring. Someone whispered my name. I didn’t care. I turned around and started shoving through bodies, the dress tangling between my legs, making me stumble, the corset suffocating me. I made it out into the cold hallway, then outside.
The night air hit me like a slap.
With shaking hands, I started ripping off the pearl necklace. The clasp resisted and I yanked hard; the pearls scattered across the ground like white tears. I pulled the pins out of my hair, letting the curls fall wild and messy. I felt suffocated. I wanted to rip off my skin, the dress, everything that reminded me of this night.
“Wait! Please, baby!”
His voice. Desperate. I heard his boots running after me.
He grabbed my arm. Hard. His fingers dug into my skin.
“Let go of me,” I hissed, yanking with everything I had.
I broke free. I kept walking toward the parking lot, tears already falling freely down my cheeks. Dean followed. He didn’t say anything else. Just his heavy, ragged breathing.
We got to the car. He opened the passenger door. I got in. He walked around and sat in the driver’s seat. The silence was a dead weight between us.
He started the engine.
The streetlights blurred past the window. I stared outside, silent tears rolling down one after another. I wasn’t making any noise. I was just crying. Inside, I was dying. My chest hurt so bad I thought it was going to split in half.
I thought about that night a few weeks ago.
We were in his bed, curled up after fucking. His warm body against mine, my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. The room smelled like sex and his cologne. I felt safe. Loved. And the words slipped out in a whisper against his skin:
“I love you, Dean.”
I felt his body go rigid instantly. His muscles tensed under my cheek. His breathing cut off for a second. He didn’t say anything. Absolutely nothing. He just stayed there, breathing into my hair, his hand still on my back. I pretended to fall asleep. Pretended his silence hadn’t stabbed me in the soul. But that night I knew the truth: he was never going to say it back. Because his heart still belonged to someone else.
And now, in this car, with the silence screaming between us, it all came rushing back.
We got to my dorm. He parked. Turned off the engine.
“I’ll walk you up,” he murmured, his voice broken.
He tried to get out. I raised my hand.
“No.”
I got out. He did too, desperate. He caught up in two strides and grabbed my shoulders, turning me around. His eyes were red, shiny. He looked destroyed. Good. Let him suffer a little.
“Please… let me explain. It was a mistake, I didn’t… she—”
I looked him straight in the eyes. Those eyes I’d loved so much.
“You never loved me, did you?”
The question came out like a croak. My voice was wrecked.
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Swallowed.
“I don’t even know why I’m crying,” I continued, the words spilling out in a broken rush. “Because I knew, Dean. I always knew. The way you’d shut down every time someone mentioned her name. The way you looked at her tonight… like she was the fucking air you breathe. Like I never even existed. You never looked at me like that. Not when you were fucking me, not when you held me, not when I told you I loved you and you froze like a damn statue.”
The tears fell faster. I wiped my face angrily, but they wouldn’t stop.
“I’m so fucking pathetic… I dressed up like a princess for you. I thought this time, maybe, you’d choose me. That I could compete. But there was never a competition. She always won. Even when she wasn’t there, she won. She was in your head all the time. In your heart. I was just… the replacement. The one who helped you forget, but never enough.”
Dean had his eyes closed. A tear escaped down his cheek. I’d never seen him cry. Seeing it now only made everything worse.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. His voice was shaking. “I’m so fucking sorry, baby…”
That was it.
Two empty words.
I looked at him one last time. I saw the guy who made me laugh until my stomach hurt. The one who held me when I had nightmares. The one who kissed my forehead in the mornings. And I also saw the one who was never really mine. The one who always looked at Allie like she was his home.
“Take care, Di Laurentis.”
I turned around. I walked toward the dorm entrance. I heard him shout my name once, twice, his voice cracked and desperate. I didn’t stop. I opened the door and disappeared into the darkness of the hallway.
The sound of his car door slamming behind me felt like the end of a story that should’ve never started.
I climbed the stairs like a ghost. Every step was agony. The red dress dragging, the pearls lost, my hair a total mess. I got to my room, closed the door, and slid down to the floor, hugging my knees.
And there I cried. I cried like my soul was being ripped out. Gut-wrenching sobs that left me gasping for air, my chest heaving, my face swollen and wet. I rocked back and forth, feeling the huge emptiness where love used to be. An emptiness that hurt more than anything.
Dean Di Laurentis had never loved me.
And I’d been stupid enough to believe he someday would.
summary 𓂃 when you admit you’ve never been on top before, dean decides there’s no better place to learn than his bed.
warnings 𓂃 18+ mdni, explicit smut, established relationship, insecurity, first time riding, protected sex, praise, dirty talk, boob play, clit stimulation, missionary, soft aftercare.
word count 𓂃 3,468.
── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──
You'd been pretending to watch the movie for at least fifteen minutes.
Dean had been doing a terrible job of pretending he wasn't staring at you for just as long.
It was a terrible performance on both sides, especially considering the laptop was still playing some action movie at the end of his bed, and neither of you could've named one thing that'd happened in the last ten minutes. You were tucked under his sheets in one of his old Briar shirts, the hem brushing soft against your thighs because your underwear was the only thing you'd bothered putting on after your shower, and Dean was lying beside you with one hand behind his head and the other low on your hip like he was trying very hard to act like a gentleman.
He was trying to behave, which was sweet, really, but not exactly successful.
"You're staring again," you murmured, not even bothering to look away from the screen.
Dean's thumb moved in a slow circle over your hip. "You're in my bed wearing my shirt. You can't really blame me."
"You gave it to me," you pointed out, like that was supposed to make him less smug about it.
"I know." Dean's mouth curved like he'd been waiting for you to say exactly that. "Great decision, honestly."
You rolled your eyes, but the smile breaking through kind of ruined the effect. "You're impossible."
"Yeah." Dean leaned in, his lips brushing your shoulder through the fabric of his shirt. "But you like me anyway."
"Sometimes," you said, though your smile made it sound a lot less convincing.
"Right now?" he asked, his voice dropping just enough to make your stomach flip.
You turned your head to answer, which was apparently all the invitation Dean needed, because then he was kissing you, slow and warm, one hand sliding up your side beneath the fabric like he'd planned the whole thing. It was easy to melt into Dean like that, a lot easier than you'd ever admit out loud. Dean kissed you like he knew exactly how much time he had, which apparently meant he had no problem spending it dragging every little sound out of you to see how much trouble it got him into.
His fingers slipped beneath the hem of the shirt, warm against your waist in a way that shouldn't have made you gasp as quickly as it did.
Dean smiled against your mouth, entirely too pleased with himself. "There she is."
"Don't start."
"I didn't even say anything."
"You were about to, and we both know it."
He laughed, low and entirely too pleased with himself, before rolling onto his back and tugging you over him like he already knew you'd follow. And you did, because apparently thinking was no longer part of the plan, one knee sliding across his hips until you were straddling his lap.
Then you froze beneath his hands, and Dean felt the change in you immediately.
His hands settled on your waist, thumbs brushing over your sides in a way that was soft enough to make your chest ache a little. "Hey."
You swallowed, suddenly very aware of the fact that you were in his lap with your thighs spread around his hips, his hard length pressing up beneath his sweatpants, and somehow his shirt still covering you didn't make you feel any less exposed.
"This feels like a lot of responsibility," you said, aiming for a joke and landing somewhere embarrassingly close to panic.
Dean's brow lifted like he wasn't sure whether to laugh or be concerned. "Responsibility?"
"I just..." You looked down, your fingers curling into the front of his shirt like that'd somehow make the words easier to get out. "I've never really done this before."
His expression softened, though that amused little spark in his eyes didn't go anywhere. "Been on top?"
Your cheeks warmed, which was annoying because Dean absolutely noticed. "Not really."
"Not really?" Dean repeated, thumbs still brushing over your waist like he was trying very hard not to look too pleased about that.
"Dean," you said, dragging his name out like a warning, even though the warmth in your cheeks made it pretty hard to sound threatening.
He smiled a little, his hands giving your hips a gentle squeeze like he'd decided to behave for once. "Okay. Not really."
"It's not a big deal," you said quickly, which was unfortunate because saying it that fast made it sound like it was definitely a big deal. "I just feel like I'd look stupid, or I wouldn't know what I was doing, and then you'd have to pretend it was hot, which is a very nice boyfriend thing to do, but also something I'd never emotionally recover from."
Dean stared at you for a beat, then laughed in this soft, disbelieving way that only made your face feel warmer. "Baby, I'm hard because you're sitting on my lap in my shirt. You could sneeze right now, and I'd find a way to be into it."
You blinked because, annoyingly enough, it had worked. "That was weirdly comforting."
"I'm great at comfort."
"You're absolutely not."
"I am when you're half-naked on top of me."
You tried to bite back a laugh, but it came out as this breathy little sound instead when Dean's hands guided your hips down, showing you exactly how slowly he wanted you to move over him. The pressure caught against your clit through your underwear, warm and steady enough to make your thighs tense before you could stop them.
Dean's eyes darkened like he'd felt the way your body reacted. "Does that feel good?"
You nodded, your thighs still tense beneath his hands.
His mouth curved. "Words, sweetheart."
"Yes," you breathed, because apparently that was the only word your brain had left to offer.
"There you go," Dean murmured, his voice soft enough to make your stomach flip.
The next kiss was messier, mostly because Dean kept guiding your hips over him like he had all the patience in the world, dragging it out until your underwear was damp, clinging to you, and making it pretty impossible to pretend you weren't affected. At first, the sounds you made were small and half-swallowed against his mouth, but Dean noticed every single one like he'd been waiting for them.
"Don't do that," he murmured.
You blinked at him. "Do what?"
"Hold back." His fingers tightened on your hips like he was making sure you couldn't pretend you didn't know what he meant. "I like hearing you."
Your stomach flipped, which was annoying because Dean absolutely felt it, and then he kissed you again until the friction dragged a moan out of you that you finally let him hear.
Dean groaned, as if he'd heard you'd done something terrible to his self-control.
That helped more than anything else could have.
By the time Dean had pushed his sweatpants down and rolled on a condom, your underwear was shoved to the side, your hands were planted on his chest, and the shirt was still hanging over you like a very pathetic attempt at feeling covered. Dean didn't try to take it off, which somehow made your chest feel tighter. He just held your hips, eyes fixed on your face as he guided himself through your wetness.
"Slow," he murmured. "Take your time."
You lowered yourself carefully, trying to take your time like he'd told you to, but your mouth still fell open the second the head of his cock pressed inside you. The stretch was familiar and different all at once, deeper like this, more intense because you were the one in control, which sounded nice in theory and felt a lot more terrifying with Dean watching your face like that. You sank inch by inch, trying very hard to look like you had any control over yourself, but the second he filled you, your fingers curled against his chest, and a shaky whimper slipped out before you could stop it.
Dean's jaw tightened. "Fuck."
You froze immediately. "Bad?"
His eyes snapped to yours as you'd just said something insane. "Are you joking?"
"You made a face."
"Yeah, baby, because you feel so good, I'm trying not to embarrass myself."
Your cheeks warmed, which was embarrassing enough on its own, but the praise still settled low in your stomach like your body had decided to enjoy it before you could overthink it.
"You're not just saying that?"
Dean's hands slid up your thighs, grounding you in a way that made it annoyingly hard to spiral. "Move once, sweetheart, and see if I sound like I'm lying."
So you did, moving slowly at first.
Your hips lifted, then sank back down, and Dean's head tipped against the pillow with this rough, helpless groan that made it pretty hard to believe he'd been lying about any of it.
"Oh," you breathed, and the second you moved again, it turned into something closer to a moan.
Dean's eyes opened, heavy and dark, like he'd been waiting for exactly that. "Yeah?"
"Feels good," you said, already sounding a little wrecked.
His hands squeezed your thighs. "Then keep going, sweetheart."
Your movements were awkward at first, mostly because your brain wouldn't shut up long enough to let your body figure it out, too busy worrying about the rhythm, whether you were doing enough, and whether you looked ridiculous hovering over him in his shirt with your thighs trembling.
Then Dean's hands tightened on your hips like he could feel you spiraling. "Stop thinking."
"I'm trying."
"No." His voice dropped, rough around the edges but still gentle. "You're trying to look good, which is insane, because you already do. Just move how you want."
The words hit harder than you'd expected, mostly because Dean sounded like he meant them, so you tried to believe him.
You rolled your hips instead of lifting so high, chasing the angle that made your clit catch against him every time you sank back down, and the moan that left you was loud enough to make Dean's cock twitch inside you like he was having a very hard time staying calm about it.
Your eyes flicked to his face, and Dean looked so wrecked that it made it pretty hard to keep worrying about whether you were doing it right.
His lips parted, jaw tense, and his hands kept flexing on your hips like Dean was having the world's hardest time remembering he'd told you to move how you wanted.
"You like this?" you asked, and even though your voice shook, it still came out bolder than before.
Dean laughed once, rough and breathless, as the question had actually offended him. "Like it?" His hips jerked up into you, dragging a gasp out of your mouth. "Baby, I'm trying not to lose my fucking mind."
That did something to you, mostly because Dean sounded like he meant it, and apparently, your body liked knowing you could mess him up that badly.
Your next movement was smoother, more confident, and the moan that came out of you wasn't even close to quiet, which Dean clearly noticed because his hands tightened on your hips immediately.
"Dean—fuck," you moaned, and the way his eyes darkened made it pretty clear he'd liked hearing his name like that.
"That's it," he murmured. "Let me hear you."
You rode him slowly at first, then a little faster once you realized your body had apparently figured out what your brain kept trying to overthink, your hands sliding up his chest as his shirt rode higher over your thighs. Your cunt was soaked around him, every movement making it easier, wetter, and a lot harder to feel shy about, especially when Dean looked down to watch where you were taking him and groaned as he'd just lost whatever was left of his self-control.
"God," he muttered, hands tightening on your hips. "You were worried about this?"
You tried to laugh, but it came out closer to a whimper when he helped you grind down harder. "Maybe."
Dean looked like that answer personally offended him. "You're killing me."
His fingers tugged at the hem of the shirt, and you slowed immediately, like your body had decided to panic before your brain could tell it not to.
Dean noticed immediately, because, of course, he did, his eyes lifting back to yours, as if taking the shirt off suddenly mattered a whole lot less than making sure you were okay. "Can I see you?"
Your stomach fluttered.
His hands rubbed up your thighs, warm and steady. "You can keep it on if you want."
You hesitated for only a second before lifting your arms, which felt a lot braver than it probably looked.
Dean pulled the shirt over your head and tossed it aside, leaving you in your bra and still moving over him like your body hadn't quite figured out whether to be nervous or proud. His eyes dragged over you slowly, and for once, Dean Di Laurentis had absolutely nothing to say.
That made your chest tighten, mostly because Dean looking at you like that was a lot harder to handle than any stupid comment he could've made. "What?"
His hands slid up your waist, warm and certain. "You're so fucking pretty."
Your breath caught the second his palms covered your breasts through your bra, thumbs brushing over your nipples beneath the thin fabric, and your rhythm faltered immediately, because apparently, Dean touching you there made moving and thinking at the same time impossible.
"Oh—Dean."
His mouth curved, entirely too pleased with himself. "No, don't stop."
"You're distracting me."
"Good." His thumbs circled again, making you clench around him like your body had decided to prove his point. "Keep riding me anyway."
You moaned louder this time, hips rolling as his hands played with your tits through your bra, and every touch made you stutter in a way Dean very clearly noticed. Every bit of praise made you wetter, every look on his face made you a little bolder, until the embarrassment started slipping away as your body had finally decided to stop fighting him.
"Tell me," he said, voice rough. "Tell me what feels good."
You swallowed, still moving over him because apparently stopping would've been the worst idea. "Your hands."
"Yeah?"
"And your cock." Your voice was breathless enough to be embarrassing, but you said it anyway, and Dean's eyes went so dark that it made the embarrassment feel worth it. "Feels good when I move like this."
You rolled your hips harder to show him, and Dean's head dropped back as you'd just ruined him on purpose.
"Fuck," he groaned. "Don't stop doing that."
Hearing Dean sound like that ruined something dangerous to your confidence, mostly because it was a lot harder to feel embarrassed when he sounded like he was the one barely holding it together.
Your hands moved behind your back, unclasping your bra before your brain could show up and ruin the moment. It slipped down your arms and fell somewhere between you, and Dean stared as you'd just done something genuinely unfair to his ability to breathe.
"Look at you," he breathed, and the way he said it made your whole body feel warm.
The words made your chest warm in a way you weren't sure what to do with.
Then his mouth was on you, lips closing around one nipple while his hand covered your other breast, and you cried out so quickly it would've been embarrassing if Dean hadn't groaned like it'd done something to him. Your fingers slid into his hair, hips moving faster now as pleasure started building low in your stomach.
"Dean, I'm—" Your voice fell apart into a whimper when his thumb found your clit, because apparently your body had no interest in letting you finish a sentence. "Oh my god, right there."
"There?" he asked, smug in a way that would've been annoying if he didn't sound so wrecked.
"Yes. Fuck, yes."
He rubbed slow circles over your clit while you rode him, his other hand on your hip and his mouth moving from your breast to your throat like he wasn't already making it impossible to focus. You were close, so close your thighs had started shaking, but the rhythm was getting harder to keep, your moans turning messier and needier as frustration tangled with the pleasure your body kept trying to chase.
Dean caught it instantly, like every little shift in your body was something he'd been waiting for.
"Come here," he murmured.
Before you could even think about arguing, Dean rolled you beneath him and pulled the sheets over both of you, settling between your thighs without slipping out like he'd decided you'd done enough thinking for one night. The new angle made you gasp, your legs wrapping around his waist as he pressed deeper.
Then Dean caught both your hands and laced your fingers together, pinning them above your head so gently it made your chest ache a little.
Dean kissed you, slow and messy, like he had every intention of making good on that promise. "Let me finish what you started."
"Please," you whispered, and it came out a lot needier than planned, which Dean absolutely noticed.
Dean's expression flickered. Then his hips started moving. Slow, deep, steady thrusts that had you moaning into the space between you, thighs locked around his waist, your hands crossed with his over your head. The sheets tangled around your legs, heat building under the blanket, his body heavy and warm over yours.
"You did so well," he murmured, his mouth brushing your jaw like he knew exactly how badly the praise was getting to you. "Looked so fucking good on top of me."
"Dean," you whimpered.
"I know." His hips rolled deeper, pulling your back into an arch. "I've got you."
His hand slipped between your bodies again, thumb finding your clit like he already knew exactly what you needed, and your whole body tightened around him.
"Oh—fuck, don't stop," you gasped, which was probably unnecessary considering Dean looked like stopping would've killed him.
He groaned anyway. "Wasn't planning on it."
The pleasure snapped through you suddenly, hot and sharp, and your moan broke against Dean's mouth as you came around him. Your thighs locked around his waist, fingers tightening in his above your head like you needed something to hold onto while your body shook beneath him.
Dean followed right after, his thrusts going uneven as he'd finally lost the last of his control, face buried in your neck as a rough groan broke out of him while he held you close and came.
For a while, neither of you moved, both of you too warm and tangled beneath the sheets to do anything other than breathe.
"You okay?" he asked softly.
You nodded, still trying to catch your breath. "Yeah."
His grin appeared slowly, which was never a good sign. "So."
"No."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were about to."
"I was just gonna say you're definitely not bad at being on top."
Your face warmed, and you turned it into the pillow like that might somehow save you. "You're so annoying."
"And you were so loud."
"Dean."
"I liked it," he said, kissing your cheek like he hadn't just made you want to disappear into the mattress. "A lot."
You tried to glare, but it came out pretty weak, especially when he slipped out carefully and disappeared to clean up like he hadn't just ruined your ability to function. When he came back, he helped clean you with a warm towel, gentle when your thighs twitched, before pulling his shirt back over your head as it belonged there.
"Putting me back in this?" you asked, glancing down at the shirt.
"Obviously." Dean climbed into bed beside you and pulled you into his chest, looking far too pleased with himself. "It's my new favorite thing now."
You laughed softly, settling against him while his arm wrapped around you like he had no plans of letting you go anytime soon.
For a minute, Dean only rubbed slow circles over your back like he was trying to make sure you'd fully melted into him. Then his voice came again, softer this time, though obviously still teasing because it was Dean.
"So..." His mouth brushed your hair, and you could hear the grin in his voice before he even finished. "You wanna do that again sometime?"
You pinched his side, which only made him laugh because apparently even that wasn't enough to make him less pleased with himself.
Dean laughed and pulled you closer, sounding far too pleased with himself for someone who'd just been pinched. "I'll take that as a yes."
summary your brother's best friend gets a boner when you sit on his lap
contains boner alert... mature content, dry humping, coming in pants, sexual tension, forced proximity, public sex (kinda...), reader is a tease, wc 2k
a/n this is not supposed to be realistic... at all... just fun and horny yay!!
Fitting eight people into one car isn't very ideal.
You tried to get past it, understand the situation you're in, but you can't wrap your head around it. How the hell did Garrett manage to convince seven people to squeeze into his car without holding a gun to their head?
The scene you're greeted with when you make your way downstairs is baffling, suffocating almost.
Garrett and Hannah sit comfortably in the front, giggling over a stupid joke he made as Hannah presses some random buttons to get the music working. Your eyes drift to the back, and that's when you see the disaster.
Jesus Christ.
You can't even tell people apart from how cramped it is inside. Logan's sitting by the window, with Jules on the edge of his lap. Tucker sits next to him, tense and looking very uncomfortable.
Beau is glued to Tucker's side, with Allie comfortably positioned on his lap. They're giggling together as she shows him something on her phone. It's a very warm sight, they've grown really close after their trip to New York together.
As if things couldn't get any worse, Dean is here. His side of the car is definitely... emptier. He's positioned in the seat behind Garret with his legs stretched over the rolled down window. The door to his side wide open, letting in much needed air.
He's busy scrolling on his phone, only noticing your presence when your voice erupts through the chaos.
"Wow, you should've invited a few more people," your tone fills with sarcasm, statement directed towards your brother. "Too much space."
An amused chuckle escapes Dean's throat at your snarky comment, legs back on the ground as his attention shifts to Garrett.
"Haha, very funny, Graham." Garret rolls his eyes, causing Hannah to shove his side. "Get in, you kept us stalling forever."
"Where am I supposed to sit?" You argue, pointing towards the rammed car.
Your eyes flicker back to Dean, who adjusts his position at your question. His legs spread apart, fingers lightly patting his lap, the silent gesture an invitation, something he voluntarily did to catch your attention.
The idea of straddling Dean's lap for the entire car ride makes your heart flutter, cause air to get stuck in your throat. You can barely act normal when he's around, turning into a stuttering mess as soon as he joins any conversation, and now you have to sit on his lap for the next thirty minutes.
"You're the only one complaining," Garrett interrupts through your thoughts, gesturing for you to get in the car. "Quit being a baby and find yourself a place to sit."
A sigh dreads past your lips, dragging a deep exhale out as you step towards the vehicle. Dean clears his throat, fumbling around to put his phone away and straighten his back. You almost scoff if not for how nervous you are.
"Hi," you start, avoiding Dean's gaze.
"Hi," he repeats, but his tone is teasing, amused by how flustered you seem. You pause for a second, mustering up the courage to ask him to scoot, but Dean beats you to talking. "What are you waiting for?"
"Huh?" You hum, caught off guard.
"Sit," his voice lowers into a whisper, gesturing you to sit on his lap. Your stomach twists into knots, the demand carrying so much tension, it makes your knees grow weak. "Sit on my lap."
You fight the choked breath threatening to leave your chest, flashing him a tight-lipped smile, but still doing as you're told. You shuffle around to get in the car, carefully propping yourself across Dean's lap.
Your whole body's tense, and you're sitting uncomfortably at the edge of his lap, barely providing yourself any space. The length of his legs is of no help, unnecessary long, you're practically holding onto the headrest to keep yourself from falling.
"I'm gonna fucking kill you, Garrett Graham." You mutter through gritted teeth, causing your brother to freeze in his spot.
"Alright, now that everyone's here," Hannah bursts into laughter at Garrett's change of topic, completely ignoring the threat you threw in his direction.
Annoyance fades into surprise when Dean slings his arms around your waist, using your astonishment as an opportunity to tug you close. Your back hits his firm chest with a thud, the proximity of the touch overwhelming you in an instant.
Your body radiates with heat, as Dean's breath fans over your ear, the feather-like sensation causing goosebumps to break out across your back. He's so close, you can smell his stupid cologne, the aroma intoxicating, it almost melts you in your spot.
You try to shuffle back into your old position, in case you're too heavy or causing Dean any discomfort, but the hand he presses to your hips interrupts those thoughts from rummaging through your head.
"You should get comfortable," he whispers in your ear, drawing circular motions to the sliver of skin just above your skirt. "It's a long ride."
Fuck.
Heat travels to in between your legs, gaze lowering to the arms caging you in place. His grip is firm, unwavering even when you move around to adjust yourself into a comfortable position.
Dean doesn't budge, he pretends you're not even in his lap. He laughs, makes jokes, sings along as Hannah plays music, and it's like you're not even there. Unlike him, you're having a hard time playing this off as casual, nothing about this is normal, you skipped from ground zero to a thousand in the span of minutes.
You try not to pay him too much attention, or his fingers as they're tracing small patterns to your hips, or his breath gradually blowing over your neck. All of it is so overwhelming, you want nothing more than to break free and breathe.
This feels intimate, maybe too intimate, even more so because you're aware his touches are for you only, everyone else is doing their thing, and you two are in your own little world.
After a while of resisting, you eventually settle back and relax against Dean's chest, satisfied by the way he tenses beneath you. His breath grows ragged, but he doesn't let you have it, tightening his arms in response, his hold engulfing most of your frame.
This is okay, it's totally fine that you're tangled in this position with your brother's best friend, whom you've had a crush on since forever.
You can get used to it.
But you can't. Not when he's pulling every string to get your attention and get a reaction out of you.
A few minutes pass by, and your body feels stiff from maintaining the same stance for too long. You shuffle around to find a comfortable position, hips stuttering when you feel something twitch underneath you.
You're mistaken, have to be. It's all in your head, there's no way what you felt just now is real.
"Fuck," Dean grunts, confirming your suspicions.
Oh.
Oh.
He sighs, very shaky, but delibaret, the sound ringing in your ear, and making you pulse in reaction. You can feel hie semi-hard erection growing beneath you, failing to keep it under control.
Fuck, Dean Di Laurentis is hard.
You hate how much it's turning you on, your heat heaving with arousal when you feel another pulse through the thin fabric of his sweats.
You angle your face towards the window, casually, without causing any suspicion, and Dean fights the embarrassment he feels to spare you a glance, regretting it soon as your hips move forward, instantly earning a choked breath out of him.
It's not on purpose, you only realize what happens after he reacts.
"Do you want me to–" he gives your hip another squeeze, locking you in place as the words die on your tongue.
"Don't fuckin' move," he warns, practicing restraint. "Please."
How can you not when his crotch is practically poking at your entrance, drenching your pussy from how tingly it's making you feel.
"Dean," you whisper through a breath, causing his cock to twitch with need. The reaction you receive is immediate, anticipated, the only sign you need to grind down against his hardened length.
His lips part in a hefty moan, barely dismissed by the loud music occupying everyone else.
"You did that on purpose, didn't you?" He whispers, toying with the hem of your skirt, as his other hand caresses the exposed flesh around your stomach.
"Maybe." You coyly offer him a response.
This is your brother's best friend, someone way out of your orbit. You shouldn't cross the line, and let your lust drive you over the edge when you fought to keep yourself under control.
Your brain short circuits, and panic rises in your chest before you can even stop it, but the pleasure surging through your body takes over when Dean's hips meet yours halfway, completely dismissing the guilt you're feeling.
You've avoided Dean just fine till now, so why is it that you're involuntarily rolling your hips down for a mere fraction of his cock?
Your pedicured nails dig into his arms, the force of the touch forming red marks all over his flesh. Dean smoothes out the fabric of your skirt to hide the circular motion of your hips. You ground him into place, repeatedly rubbing your wet cunt over his crotch.
Pleasure builds through your insides, and you start to lose control over your grinds, messy and needy. Dean encourages you with a hand to your side, guiding you down to chase his own high, slowly building.
His cock aches, leaking with precum that stains a a patch in his underwear, wet and sticky, but he doesn't feel disgusted from it, but more so turned on because you're the cause of it. You're the reason he's in this mess, risking one of the most precious things to him just to touch you, feel you, even for a little.
"I'm–" You fight the whimper threatening to leave your lips, leaning your head against the head rest to avoid locking eyes with anyone.
Your pussy drenches in your arousal, thrusts growing sloppy as you feel your orgasm reaching its peak. Dean can almost tell that you're close, grip tightening around your stomach as he thrusts into you, rolling his hips once more before you came undone.
Your legs shake from the overstimulation, Dean uses his hands to stabilize you in his lap. You ride him through your orgasm, sensitive, but desperate to please him and make him feel good.
"You don't have to," he whispers, like he knows exactly what you're thinking. "I can take care of myself, darling."
"I want to," you reply, out of breath, with sweat forming at your forehead. Your face flushes with heat, and your energy goes down the drain in an instant, but you're persistent on making Dean come.
His breath gets caught in his throat, and he uses your back as a shield to hide his expression as he reaches his own high. It only takes you a few more grinds for him to come undone.
He releases into his pants, sticky stripes of semen coating a mess in his underwear. He stills your hips as he comes down from his high, a sigh of relief escaping his throat in the process.
"That was– fuck." He chokes out, "So good for me, baby."
You almost mewl at the praise but hold it back for the sake of not being caught.
That was... insane. Probably the best orgasm you've had.
The rest of the car ride seeps into silence on both your ends, too tired to engage with the rest of the group as they broke into a whole karaoke session. It's not uncomfortable, nor is it unbearable, just... silence, you almost find it comforting.
Garrett announces your arrival soon after, wrapping up the karaoke session as everyone engaged in another conversation.
You use their banter as an opportunity to pull at the strings of your thong, wiggling around on Dean's lap in an attempt to get them off. They slide down your thighs, bunching around your knees before eventually falling down your legs.
Dean doesn't do anything, simply sits back and observes you with a hint of confusion, eyebrows pinching as you bent down to grab it into your hold.
And as everyone's busy getting out, you turn around and hand him the lacy material.
"Huh?" He questions, taken aback by the sudden offer.
You get off his lap, and land on the ground, smoothing down your skirt. Your gaze flickers back to him, a teasing grin smeared all over your lips.
"A gift." You reply, attention shifting down to the mess on his lap. "Good luck cleaning that up."
And with that, you take off with the rest of the group, barely sparing him a second glance.
Fuck, now he has to deal with another boner.
a/n lowk rushed towards the end but hey i wrote most of this at a gathering so it's something 😓 oh and i havent written in a while so i'm trying to get used to it again this is hard man my bad if this sucked i can't write smut to save my life 💔 also this was lowk lowkkkk inspired by that one scene from off limits it made me miss writing it sigh
