A/N: a very much requested part 2 for y'all, as always if you see typos no you did not
summary: in which a surprise visitor leaves Dean desperate to fix things between the two of you.
pairing: Dean Di Laurentis x ex!fem!reader
wc: ~2.8k
warnings: swearing, confrontation, mending relationships, a lil suggestive towards the end, angst/hurt/comfort
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“Where the fuck is he?”
A loaded sentence that contained a million possibilities, the voice was however all too familiar and carried a one-in-four odds, so a 25% chance Dean was about to get his ass handed to him.
“Layla, slow down,” Beau could be heard chasing after his girlfriend—and as Dean remembers all too well, your roommate—as she tore through the hockey house on a mission.
Make that a 100% chance Dean was about to get his ass handed to him.
He could only sigh as he mentally prepared for the onslaught that was undoubtedly about to be his.
Sure enough, Layla made her way into the kitchen, her eyes burning with anger and her forehead creasing as she set her sights on the blonde man who was too hungover for whatever this was about to be about.
“You,” she practically seethed.
“Good morning to you too, sunshine. Can’t say I was expecting this fair greeting,” Dean rubbed his hand over his face as he nursed a lukewarm coffee.
“Hey D,” Beau listlessly waved from behind Layla.
“G’morning handsome,” Dean gave a tight-lipped smile as he nodded at his best friend.
“What the fuck is your problem?” Layla spat the words at Dean, anger mounting at him as he was still clueless to what initiated this confrontation.
“I could ask you the same question, can we start from the beginning? As in whatever pissed you off before you started yelling?”
“Sure, Dean. Let’s start from the part where my roommate and best friend came home absolutely wrecked last night and cried herself to sleep because she saw you wrapped around another girl,” Layla’s sarcastic undertone was riddled with pointed accusation and malice.
Dean’s ears perked up when he heard your name, his heartbeat picking up at the mention of you in tears.
“What are you talking about? When did Y/N see me with another girl?” Dean was riddled with confusion.
“The girl from your big hockey party last night, idiot. Are you so hungover that you can’t remember what you did or did you get brain damage from getting hit by the other team?” Layla taunted back, her irritation showing in emphasis she placed on her insults.
“Layla,” Beau tried to intervene, but one side-eyed look from Layla and he decided silence was the safer option.
Irregardless, Dean’s heart was fully pounding out of his chest. His mind began to spin as the hangover lifted and thoughts of you swirled around his brain.
“Wait, Y/N was at the party last night? She went home crying?”
“No, dumbass she wasn’t at the party. You’re plastered all over the Fifth Line with this other girl and Y/N saw it,” Layla was getting antsy as she continued to have to spell it out for Dean.
“You’re in the background of a picture Jules posted of Logan and Tucker,” Beau clarified.
“Show me,” Dean’s thoughts were racing, you at the center of them all as his concern continued to build.
Layla pulled up the picture on her phone, sliding it across the counter to Dean for him to see. Sure enough, he could see the image of him and one of the resident puck bunnies in a rather compromising situation.
“I can see why she was upset,” Dean slid Layla’s phone back to her.
“You need to fix this, Dean,” Layla was absolutely resolved in her desire to make you happy again.
“Layla, we broke up months ago and I haven’t heard a word from her. I thought she moved on,” Dean sat up, his spine straightening as he tried to process what Layla was saying.
“Moved on? That girl refused to admit she missed you because she saw this,” Layla held up her phone with the picture of Dean again.
“And assumed she’d lost the right, kept saying bullshit like she didn’t have time to be sad and her feelings didn’t matter because you had already moved on so it was all done and over,” Layla threw her hands up in the air exasperatedly.
“That’s crazy, I’ve been holding out hope that Y/N would call and tell me she needed me. I've missed her so much,” Dean stood from his seat at the counter, beginning to pace along the kitchen tile as he considered what to do next.
“You missed her so much that you got ultra cozy with someone else?” Layla challenged back.
“I’ll admit I talked to this girl for a bit last night, but it went no where. I couldn’t get past the fact that she wasn’t Y/N, so I left the party and sat outside with Logan at the fire pit. He can confirm that I spent the night alone,” Dean said.
“Trust that I will be interrogating Logan as well,” Layla confirmed.
“Please, he’ll tell you that I never shut up about wanting Y/N back,” Dean continued his pacing, his thoughts never once leaving you.
“She thinks I hate her? That couldn’t be further from the truth, I still love her. I just thought she needed space to sort out her life,” Dean ran his fingers through his hair, in utter disbelief that you could ever even consider such a thing.
“Yeah well she didn’t do that, she’s one group project away from losing it completely. She hasn’t taken a break since you broke up. I don’t know how she does it all and she keeps taking on more.”
“It’s the same problem from before though, Layla. I couldn’t make her slow down when we were together. What could I possibly do now?”
“Maybe it’s just a matter of being there, not backing down when she pushes back,” Beau broke his silence.
“What do you mean?”
“Show up for her, take one thing off her plate at a time. Or maybe she just needs someone to listen when she needs it,” Beau suggested with a shrug.
“And for the love of god get her to take a goddamn break,” Layla added.
Dean nodded, a plan formulating in his mind. He wasn’t sure that you would listen to him, but he would be damned if he didn’t try. He couldn’t bear the distance any longer, he needed you back no matter what.
———
A knock sounded at the door, disrupting the quiet you’d been studying in. Pulling yourself out of your bed, you caught sight of your reflection in the mirror. Your eyes were red and puffy from crying in the night, the shadows under your eyes seemed to grow deeper every day. Every feature seemed duller and like you had the life sucked out of you. You hid underneath an oversized Briar Hawks hoodie, the hood pulled up over your head as it seemed to swallow you whole.
The knock rapt again, more urgent this time.
“Layla, I told you I’m fine. I just need to finish these three chapters and my paper’s conclusion and then I’ll sleep,” you swung the door open, your heart dropping out of your chest.
Layla wasn’t the one at the door, silence settling as you stared up and into the eyes that haunted your dreams every night.
“Dean,” your voice was barely above a whisper, disbelief coating every word.
“Hi,” Dean was also uncharacteristically quiet, awkward silence settling as everything unsaid hung over the two of you.
“Why are you here?” You rasped out.
“I wanted to see you. I needed to see you.”
“We haven’t talked in months.”
“I know, it’s been killing me,” Dean affirmed.
“It has?”
“It has.”
“So why now?”
“I know what you think you saw, but I needed to set the record straight.”
“How did you—”
“Layla talked to me,” Dean interrupted.
“Shit. Listen Dean, I don’t know what Layla told you but—” Your eyes widened as you began to fear whatever Layla may have told Dean.
“No, Y/N, I am going to talk and you’re going to listen. Please, baby,” Dean sounded almost frantic, as if afraid you were about to turn him away.
You didn’t miss the way he called you baby, the simple action making you soften instantly.
You nodded, leaning against the door frame and giving him the floor.
“My biggest regret is letting you walk away from me that night. I know I said maybe we were always meant to be nothing but I don’t want us to be nothing. I was hurt because of the distance and I wanted you to see me and I still do. But I also need you to know that I see you. You give so much of yourself to others and it’s commendable, really. But you are burning yourself out. You cannot continue like this,” Dean pleaded with you.
“I can’t let people down, Dean. They need me, I have shifts to cover and someone needed help on this assignment and—”
“No, no Y/N. I’m not asking what others need. I’m asking what you need,” Dean came closer, his frame hovering above yours, your spine pressing into the wood of the door frame now.
“What I need?” You were baffled. The idea of adjusting around your own needs seemed foreign, almost. It was like you were unaware that was even an option.
“Or even just what you want, Y/N.”
You took a deep breath and sighed, this you at least knew the answer to. You wanted Dean, you had wanted him back since the night you walked out of that party and into the night. Even when you were upset, you craved his presence and ability to make you laugh despite it all. You wanted your Dean back, like you used to have him. You sniffled, the emotions from the height of your hurt last night rushing back.
“But that girl in the picture.”
“Nothing happened, Logan can confirm he had to listen to me talk about you all night. She wasn’t you, Y/N. I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” Dean swore to you.
“We’re not together, Dean. You’re allowed to see who you want and meet new people, it’s not my place to get upset anymore,” you played with the strings of your hoodie, unable to meet Dean’s gaze.
“Get upset then, Y/N,” Dean countered.
“What?” You looked up, confused.
“I don’t know, maybe it doesn’t make sense but maybe I want you to get upset. Just tell me that you care and that you feel like this is still worth fighting for. Tell me that you still want me as much as I want you,” Dean was borderline begging, his eyes frantically searching your face for any sign that you still cared for him like before.
“But Dean, I fucked us up last time.”
“No, we both made mistakes and we forgot what the name of the game was, Y/N. I don’t want to start over with someone new, I want the two people who fell in love because some asshole wasn’t paying attention and ran straight into the cute girl at Malone’s and spilled a vodka cran straight down her shirt,” Dean grabbed your hands, pulling them up to his chest.
You let out a quiet giggle, the memory of your first meeting never failing to bring a smile to your face as you remembered.
“I’m still really busy, that’s not stopping anytime soon.”
“And I know that, I know your studies and work are important for you, all I’m asking is that you take care of yourself and let me take care of you too.”
“What if I can’t be what you need?” You asked.
“You are what I need, Y/N,” Dean was adamant.
“Even when it’s hard?”
“Even when it’s hard, baby.”
“Even when I’m really busy?”
“Especially when you’re too busy for your own good.”
You nodded, Dean’s words ringing in your ears as they landed.
"Can we...can we try again then?" you sounded uncertain, as if afraid he might change his mind.
"Please, please I would very much like that," Dean said, relieved that you two seemed to be back on the same page for the first time in a long while. You smiled, burying your face in the center of his chest.
“I mean this with so much love, baby. But you look like shit, Y/N,” Dean looked you over head to toe, concern etched into his beautiful features.
“I feel like shit,” your throat was scratchy as you tried to laugh, wincing as it came out strained.
“Is your work due tonight?” Dean asked while glancing at your forgotten homework behind you.
“No,” you sighed before continuing, “I was just wanting to get ahead because then I could pick up extra hours.”
“When was the last time you got a full night’s rest?”
Dean’s question was met with silence as you stared down at your shoes.
“Yeah, I’m going to need you to take a break, baby,” his thumb was rubbing small circles into your hand.
You hesitated. You didn’t technically need the extra hours, you’d already worked a few doubles the past couple weeks and the opportunity for rest beckoned to you. Maybe it was time for a change, maybe it was time to stop running yourself ragged for others. Maybe Dean was right and it was time to start prioritizing what you wanted and needed over others. And if that was what it took to fix this relationship, you were willing to at least try.
“Okay, I’ll take a break.”
Dean grinned as he hesitantly reached his hand up, gently cupping your face as if unsure if it was allowed. His touch was so soft and warm you almost melted into a sobbing puddle on the spot.
Dean immediately noticed the damp corners of your eyes. In a split second Dean made the decision to be bold, and leaned down to press feather light kisses to where the tears had started slowly falling down your face.
“If it’s okay with you, I’d like to stay with you tonight,” he murmured.
“Please?”
Your glassy eyes met his and watched as his pupils dilated, his hands finding your waist and pulling you in. Dean leaned in, watching your every reaction before hesitating and waiting for your permission. You gave him an almost imperceptible nod, a full-blown grin covering his face as his lips hovered above your own.
“I love you, I’m sorry for everything,” you started, Dean’s eyes never left your own. He could only give a small chuckle.
“No more apologies my love, let me show you how much I missed you.”
Goosebumps swarmed under your hoodie, Dean’s grip tightening as he tugged you impossibly closer. You inhaled the familiar smell of his body wash and cologne, your breath hitching as his lips finally met yours. His hands slid under your hoodie warming the skin across your back as his fingers created patterns. You let out a breathy sigh, Dean taking the opportunity to deepen the kiss as he gently guided you away from the door and towards your bed.
He broke away momentarily, gently moving your abandoned textbooks onto your desk before he was on you again, touching you with so light of a touch you could’ve sworn he thought he was handling the most delicate thing in his world.
———
“So, Layla talked to you?”
“Well, I think the more appropriate phrasing is she tore me a new one and about smacked the shit out of me. She was so mad, not even Beau could stop her,” Dean pressed a soft kiss to your hairline, the warmth of his lips bringing a familiar comfort you’d been longing for.
“She means well. And she’s only a little bit scary,” you rested your chin on Dean’s chest, gazing up into his eyes.
“Baby, I get thrown around the ice by a bunch of guys twice her size and I’m still more scared of her,” Dean grinned but you knew he was dead serious.
“Good to know,” you giggled slyly.
“Don’t you dare tell her I said that, her ego will skyrocket,” Dean laughed bringing you closer, nuzzling you into his broad chest.
“Hmm and god forbid you both enter a biggest ego competition, might take up all the space in the room,” you joked back.
“You love my big ego.”
You rolled your eyes at Dean, a lazy smirk covering his face as his hands grasped your waist, flipping you underneath him. He placed his forearms on either side of your head, rendering you utterly stuck underneath his immovable and sturdy frame.
“Among other big things,” Dean smirked, leaning down and capturing your lips with his.
You both laughed into the kiss, his chest reverberating against yours as you felt content for the first time in a long time. You knew things weren’t perfect with Dean and you would have to work to not repeat the mistakes from last time.
But right then and there in his arms, you couldn’t bring yourself to worry about that just yet.
You had him back, you had Dean.
Your Dean.
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A/N: guys I have so many drafts saved for diff fics it's getting scary. but I hope you enjoyed this part! as always it comes w a forehead kiss hehehe
A/N: surprise, I write for characters other than Logan lol.
summary: in which you and Dean broke up months ago because you overcommitted and put your relationship on the back burner. you're left to deal with the fall out, alone. angst.
disclaimer: I don't own off campus or any of the characters, all credits to the author/show writers.
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No New Notifications.
You sat in your car, one hand to your forehead as your other held your phone, the empty screen practically mocking you as the minutes ticked by.
Once upon a time you would’ve had a barrage of messages and updates waiting for you when you got off work. They’d include jokes and little daily anecdotes as well as little reminders to take care of yourself. Now there was nothing.
You could feel your breath hitching in your throat, a new round of tears threatening to boil over as you tried to steady yourself.
11:21 pm
The clock now read, you’d been sitting in your car for over 45 minutes.
It felt like your world was ending, absolutely nothing was going right for you lately.
Your department was struggling to make up a budget deficit, so you were at risk of losing some of your funding. You had only wanted to pick up some extra shifts at the café, but one of the new girls unexpectedly quit so you were working what felt like twice as much as before. You had a textbooks and assignments and a paper waiting for you when you got home. You had student org events to coordinate and a charity gala to help plan for your department’s annual fundraiser. Everywhere you turned, it was someone or something else requiring your attention and taking another piece of you and your time.
Not to mention your mom had called and left a voicemail asking when you were going to come home and visit but you couldn’t stomach the idea of looking her in the eyes and telling her everything you were dealing with and that you did not actually have it all under control like you always led people to believe. You were exhausted and overworked. Every single burden was chipping away at your resolve until tonight when a silly social media post made your heart drop right out of your chest.
Even now, swiping your phone lock screen away and hovering over the Fifth Line page, you could feel the bile rising in your throat and a shaky panic washing over your nerves.
The Briar U Hawks hockey team had won their game, which meant that a rager was being thrown across campus at the hockey house. Jules, never to miss any opportunity for drama or intrigue, faithfully recounted every bit of the night and documented it through photographic evidence that damned your feelings to hell.
The post had been at the very top of your feed when you opened the app, you scrolled through the carousel almost unwittingly. You knew you should stop looking at the page, you knew that it was really none of your business anymore. But you couldn’t help it, your heart was still in tatters and you were unable to put those pieces back together by yourself, not just yet. So, against your better judgment you checked the page. And tonight had been proof of why curiosity killed the cat.
It was a candid of Tucker and Logan, laughing and smacking each other in the chest. Unassuming to someone just scrolling through, but your eyes immediately flickered to the scene happening behind the two boys. In the background there was the outline of a tall, broad blonde pressing the willowy silhouette of a woman into a wall.
Dean. Your Dean.
Except he wasn’t yours, not anymore. Not since you two broke up months ago.
You had unconsciously been drifting away from him, something that haunted you even now. You had been tired and exhausted back then, pushing yourself too hard and it had taken a toll on your relationship. You had been ignoring messages, canceling dates and pushing Dean out to make room for everything else going on in your life. He could never reach you and every time he had tried to turn up and check on you, you turned him away. It all came to a head during a party you had been practically dragged to by your friends.
———
You had walked in and immediately noticed your boyfriend standing at the kitchen bar, watching as some girl was pouring alcohol into Tucker’s mouth while her friends cheered them on. One of the girls put her hand on Dean’s bicep, trying to get his attention. You stood there and stared, something akin to jealousy and annoyance flooding your features. As if feeling your presence in the doorway, Dean looked up and made eye contact right away.
Your feet felt like concrete bricks holding you in place as he made his way over, your friends having walked away momentarily to give the two of you some much-needed space. The tension was palpable between you two, like there was so much unsaid just waiting to spill over.
“I didn’t think you weren’t coming,” Dean said coolly.
“Why, didn’t want me to see your entourage of puck bunnies?” You scoffed, eyebrows shooting up to your hairline.
“More like I wasn’t even sure I still had a girlfriend, considering my messages have gone unanswered,” Dean was staring at you with an unnamed intensity burning in his eyes.
“You’re sure acting like you don’t have a girlfriend right now, wouldn’t you say?” You were getting progressively heated.
Dean rubbed his hand over his face, you noticed the shadows lingering under his eyes.
“Fucking hell, Y/N. I don’t want any of those girls, I want you. But you’re too busy to notice that,” Dean countered, his tone almost bitter.
“I can’t just stop what I’m doing, Dean! I have commitments and people relying on me."
“Last time I checked I was one of those commitments, Y/N.” Dean finished.
Silence stretched between the two of you, the meaning of his words hanging over you as your eyes began to fill with frustrated tears. He was right, you had been putting your relationship on the back burner. But that didn’t stop the hurt from flaring up inside you.
“And again, nothing. Maybe that’s all we were ever meant to be,” Dean sounded deflated.
“You—you don’t mean that,” your voice quivered, the reality of what was happening sinking in.
“Call me when you figure it out, Y/N. For now I think it’s best we walk away,” Dean couldn’t meet your eyes anymore, his gaze downward.
You could feel the anxiety crawling up, your lip trembling and vision blurring as tears gathered at your lash line.
You couldn’t bear to be in that house any longer. You spun around on your heel, and ran out of that kitchen and into the night air, your friends chasing after you as you passed by.
Dean could only stare sullenly at your retreating figure, a mix of regret and deep anguish filling him at once.
———
As you finally made your way out of your car and up the stairs of your building, the sound of light music playing could be heard in your apartment’s hallway. It would’ve brought a smile to your face any other time. But the sadness was beginning to morph into exhaustion, your emotions having wreaked their havoc on your body.
All you wanted was your bed, but you had a seemingly never-ending list of things to do before you could even consider sleep. You fumbled around as you slid your key into the lock, turning the knob and preparing yourself to face your roommate’s inquiry.
“Hey, you’re back! I made—oh whoa, you’ve been crying. Y/N what happened?” Your roommate, Layla, turned down the music before walking closer and gingerly resting her hand on your shoulder.
“Nothing, it’s nothing,” you weren’t sure if you were convincing her or yourself.
“It’s not nothing if you’re crying, you hardly ever cry,” she looked like she didn’t believe you.
Well, at least not in front of other people, you thought.
You stayed silent, it was easier that way if you just didn’t explain that you were still missing your ex months later. Your glossy eyes were fixated on the floor, unable to meet your Layla’s expectant gaze. She wasn’t going to drop this.
You sighed, pulling your phone out of your pocket and opening your social media. You pulled up the photo on the Fifth Line page that had set off the cascade of emotional turmoil and distress, almost reluctantly flipping the screen so Layla could see.
“Oh, Y/N. I’m so sorry,” sympathy coated every word. For some reason, it felt like a twist of the knife.
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” you murmured, your throat was turning scratchy from all the crying.
“It’s not fine, I’d be upset too if I saw a very public picture of my ex with a girl wrapped around him.”
You shrugged silently, as if resigned to feel this way.
“You miss him, don’t you?” Layla said softly.
“I don’t get to miss him, he has someone else now. Clearly, he doesn’t miss me,” you practically spat, the last part burning like acid as it rolled off your tongue.
“I don’t think you’re being fair to yourself. I know you blame yourself for what happened, but Beau said Dean was a mess without you, you know,”
“I know what Beau said, but this says otherwise,” you held up your phone in the air.
“Layla, I appreciate you and Beau being there for me. But I’m not what he wants anymore, I need to just get over it and move on,”
“But—”
“There’s no buts. I messed up, he ended it, he doesn’t want me. He moved on. It’s time I do the same. Besides, I have so many things to worry about, I don't have time to be sad right now. I can't change what happened and I can't just make it okay again so now I just want to drop it please," you practically begged at the end.
You could feel the tears as they started to track down your face, your emotions betraying you as it felt like the world was closing in on you.
“Y/N wait,” Layla called after you, but you had already turned away.
You didn’t want to continue the conversation, rushing into your room and letting the door slam as you threw yourself into your bed. You didn’t even wait to make sure your roommate’s music turned back on before breaking down for the second time that night. Your chest was heaving as you uncontrollably sobbed, your eyes aching and throat raw.
He moved on.
You’d have to accept that.
It was a cycle you kept repeating, telling yourself to move on and trying to distract yourself with everything else in your life. You kept praying it would stick, however it never helped nor did it ever stop the hurt that seemed to follow you everywhere. You still loved him, but you'd lost him.
Description: Dean’s away game was supposed to be the worst part of your night. A creepy guy and several drinks later, you’re calling the one person who would drop everything to come get you, and suddenly, whatever you two are doing doesn’t feel so casual anymore.
Note: This can be part 4 for 'Special Girl' or a standalone. The divas yearn for Dean, so hopefully this is a bountiful harvest for those who requested! I got carried away... sorry in advance. Feedback is appreciated! Enjoy!
Tags/Warnings: Mentions of parties, alcohol, swearing. HURT/COMFORT ANGST SOUND THE ALARM!!!
The game lasted way too long.
Every whistle felt unnecessary. Every timeout dragged. By the third period, Dean had checked the clock above the scoreboard so many times that Coach finally barked his name from the bench.
"Eyes on the ice, Di Laurentis!"
Dean muttered an apology and forced his attention back to the game.
It wasn't like he had somewhere to be. Not technically. The team was still hours away from campus, and even if the game ended right that second, he wouldn't make it home before midnight.
Still, he couldn't stop thinking about the disappointed little crease that had appeared between your brows earlier that afternoon when he reminded you about the away game.
You'd tried to hide it quickly.
"Oh... Right. I forgot that was tonight."
But he'd seen it.
And because he was whipped, the knowledge that you'd wanted to see him had left him feeling embarrassingly pleased with himself for the rest of the day.
That feeling had disappeared as soon as you mentioned your plans.
Hannah and Allie were taking you to a party at some off-campus house. A friend of a friend's place, apparently. Dean hadn't recognized the name, but he didn't get any relief when you mentioned some football players were attending. He immediately disliked everyone who might be there.
He knew how ridiculous that was.
You'd only been hanging out for a couple weeks since the fall festival. One night at Malone's. A few increasingly long conversations after class. Several text exchanges that had somehow gone from teasing to telling each other things neither of you usually shared with people you barely knew.
And of course, he couldn't forget the handful of hot make-out sessions in between.
He had no right to care who spoke to you at a party.
You weren't his girlfriend.
Unfortunately, that didn't stop him from caring.
The final buzzer sounded with Briar up by two, and Dean was off the ice before the crowd had even finished reacting. He showered in record time, dragged on some sweats, and practically herded his teammates toward the bus.
"Move," he ordered when one of the freshmen stopped in the aisle to rummage through his bag.
The kid glanced up nervously. "I can't find my headphones."
"Tragic. Keep walking."
Garrett snorted behind him. "You got a hot date waiting at home?"
Dean dropped to his seat and stretched his legs onto the aisle. "No."
"Then why are you acting like the bus is about to leave without us?"
"Because some of us don't enjoy standing around a freezing parking lot while Stevens conducts a full inventory of his backpack."
"I found them!" sounded from a few rows ahead, Stevens holding up his AirPod case like the frozen four trophy itself.
A chorus of tired laughter moved through the bus.
Dean shoved his own AirPods in, although he didn't turn anything on. The moment Garrett looked away, he pulled out his phone and opened your text thread.
The last message you'd sent had come six hours ago.
Good luck at the game!
He'd hearted it before immediately second-guessing himself. The reaction had felt too eager, so naturally he'd followed it with something even more eager.
Text me when you get home?
You hadn't answered.
That wasn't weird. You were at a party. You were probably dancing with Hannah and Allie, drinking something bright blue and laughing at whatever dumb story one of them was telling.
You were fine.
Dean locked his phone and rested his head against the window.
Less than a minute later, he checked it again.
Garrett reached across the aisle and landed a hand on his shoulder.
His knee had begun bouncing without him even realizing.
"You're shaking the entire bus."
Dean glanced down. "Huh."
"What's wrong with you?"
"Nothing."
"You've checked your phone twelve times since we pulled out of the parking lot."
"I'm popular."
"You're anxious."
Dean scoffed, pulling one AirPod out. "I'm not anxious."
Garret studied him for a moment before his mouth curved into a slow grin.
"This about y/n?"
Dean stared at him.
"You've already disappeared with her every day this week."
"I haven't been disappearing."
"You skipped lunch with us yesterday."
"I was busy."
"At Malone's?"
Dean's expression tightened. "Do you have surveillance on me?"
"No. I'm dating Hannah. Y/n tells her everything."
"Of course she does."
Garrett leaned back in his seat, entirely too pleased with himself. "So she's at a party and you're freaking out."
"I'm not freaking out. She asked me to tell her how the game went."
"She did?"
"No."
Garrett laughed.
Dean shoved the AirPod back into his ear. "Go to sleep."
"You're so screwed."
Dean ignored him, although the words stuck with him as the bus carried them onto the dark highway.
He wasn't screwed.
He was curious.
Interested, maybe.
Concerned in a normal, causal way.
Nothing more.
The party had been fun at first.
That was the frustrating part.
You'd spent most of the afternoon pretending you weren't disappointed about Dean's away game, only for Hannah and Allie to see through you immediately.
"You're pouting," Hannah had announced from the foot of your bed.
"I'm getting dressed."
"You can do both."
Allie had glanced at you through the mirror as she applied mascara. "She's definitely pouting."
"I am not."
"You made that exact face when he told you he was leaving," Hannah said. "Like someone told you documentaries were getting taken off of Netflix."
You threw a shirt at her. "I've hung out with him like twice."
"And?"
"And I don't miss him."
Allie's lip twitched. "Nobody said you did."
You'd hated how warm your face became.
By the time the three of you arrived at the party, they had mostly stopped teasing you.
Mostly.
The house belonged to a guy Hannah knew from one of her classes. It sat just far enough from campus that the neighborhood had bigger yards and fewer people walking around, but close enough that every room was packed with students.
Music rattled the windows. People crowded around a beer pong table in the dining room, and the kitchen counters were covered with liquor bottles, half empty cups, and open boxes of pizza.
A red cup appeared in your hand before you had made it ten feet through the door.
"Drink," Allie said.
"I just walked in."
"Exactly. You're behind."
You rolled your eyes but took a generous sip.
The first hour passed quickly. You played flip cup with Hannah, danced badly with Allie, and laughed until your stomach hurt when a guy attempted to jump over the back of the couch and his toes caught onto the top of the cushions instead.
Someone refilled your cup.
Then someone else did.
At some point, you stopped noticing when it happened.
By midnight, the warmth from the alcohol had spread through your entire body, softening the sharp edges of the crowded room. Your face hurt from smiling, and every song seemed like the best one you had ever heard.
You pulled out your phone when it vibrated in your pocket, expecting a message from Dean.
It was an email from the campus bookstore.
Disappointment sank through you before you could stop it.
"You are so bad at being casual," Hannah observed.
You looked up to find her watching you over the rim of her cup.
"I was checking the time."
"You were smiling before you looked at the screen."
"I smile all the time."
"Not like that."
Allie leaned against your shoulder. "Text him."
"He's playing."
"The game ended twenty minutes ago," Hannah said.
You narrowed your eyes. "Why do you know that?"
"Because unlike you, I'm capable of checking a score without staring longingly at someone's contact."
"I wasn't staring longingly."
Allie reached for your phone. "Give it to me. I'll do it."
You jerked it out of reach, laughing. "Absolutely not."
For several minutes, the three of you argued over what would constitute a normal message. Eventually, you gave up and locked your phone without sending anything.
You didn't want to seem clingy.
Whatever existed between you and Dean was still too new to poke at. You liked him more than you'd expected to, which made every text feel strangely important. You didn't want to be the person waiting around for him after only a couple of weeks.
"All right," Hannah said, pointing towards the kitchen. "I need water."
"You need water?" Allie repeated skeptically.
"I'm thirsty! You took a shot off of someone's stomach fifteen minutes ago and I still feel gross about it.”
"It was hygienic."
You followed them toward the kitchen, but a group of people surged between you near the doorway. Someone grabbed your hand and pulled you into a conversation about a professor you didn't even know. By the time you politely escaped, Hannah and Allie were gone.
You weren't worried. They did this all the time, vanishing into different corners of a party before eventually reappearing with stories you could barely follow.
You checked the kitchen, found neither of them, and poured yourself some water.
"Switching to the hard stuff?"
You glanced over.
A guy stood beside you, smiling as though you were already halfway through a conversation. You vaguely remembered him from earlier. He had introduced himself during flip cup, but his name immediately disappeared beneath the alcohol.
"Trying to be responsible," you muttered.
"That's boring."
"I've had enough fun."
"I doubt that."
His gaze lingered on you long enough to make you aware of the short hem of your skirt. You tugged at it without thinking.
He noticed.
The smile remained on his face, but something had shifted.
"You here with somebody?"
"My friends."
"I meant a guy."
You lifted the cup of water to your lips. "No."
"Good."
The answer was too immediate.
You laughed lightly, more out of habit than amusement. "Why?"
"Because I've been trying to talk to you all night."
"We're talking now."
"Exactly."
He leaned closer to be heard over the music. His breath smelled sharply of beer.
You stepped to the side and looked toward the doorway. "I should find my friends."
"They're probably fine."
"I'm sure they are."
"Then stay."
His hand brushed your elbow.
The touch was light enough that you could have pretended it was accidental. You moved away anyway.
"I really do need to find them."
He raised both hands with a laugh. "Relax. I'm not stopping you."
The word relax bothered you more than it should have.
You smiled politely and slipped into the hallway.
The air felt thicker away from the kitchen, and the alcohol that had seemed pleasantly warm twenty minutes earlier was beginning to weigh down your limbs. You pulled out your phone and opened the group chat.
Where did you two go?
The message delivered instantly.
You waited.
Nothing.
You called Hannah. The music on your end was so loud that you couldn't tell whether the call had even connected before it went to voicemail.
Allie didn't answer either.
You reminded yourself that they were somewhere in the same house. They hadn't abandoned you. One of them was probably in the bathroom while the other was trapped in a conversation.
There was no reason to panic.
You returned to the living room and stood on your toes, searching over the crowd. No familiar brunette hair. No flash of Allie's red top.
Someone bumped into you hard enough to spill part of your water down your wrist.
"Sorry!"
"It's okay."
You wiped your hand on your skirt and continued toward the stairs.
"There you are."
Your steps faltered.
The guy from the kitchen appeared beside you, carrying a fresh drink.
"I thought you ditched me."
"I told you I was finding my friends."
"And did you?"
"Not yet."
He held out the cup. "I made you something."
"No, thanks."
"You don't even know what it is."
"I'm drinking water."
"Come on. One drink."
"I've had enough."
His smile tightened briefly before returning. "You sure?"
"Very."
He lowered the cup, although he didn't move out of your way. "You seem nervous."
"I'm not."
"You keep looking around."
"I'm looking for my friends."
"You've said that."
Because you were drunk, it took you a second to recognize the irritation in his voice.
Something cold slid beneath the warmth in your stomach.
You moved toward the stairs. "I'm going to check upstairs."
"I'll come with you."
"No, that's okay."
"It's crowded. I'll help."
"I don't need help."
He laughed as though you were flirting with him.
Normally, you would have been firmer. Sober, you would have told him to leave him alone without worrying whether you sounded rude.
But your thoughts were sluggish, and every response seemed to arrive a second too late. By the time you figured out what to say, he had already stepped closer.
"You know," he said, "you've been giving me mixed signals all night."
You stared at him. "I've barely talked to you."
"You kept smiling."
"I was being polite."
His expression changed again. Not anger exactly, but something petulant and ugly enough to make your pulse jump.
"Right."
You stared past him.
His fingers closed around your forearm.
Not hard.
That almost made it worse.
It was casual, as though he had every right to stop you.
You looked down at his hand before meeting his eyes.
"Let go."
For a moment, he didn't.
Then he released you with another laugh and raised his hands. "Jesus. I was just trying to keep you from falling."
"I wasn't falling."
"You're obviously wasted."
"I'm fine."
"You don't look fine."
The room seemed to tilt around you, not because you were about to fall but because suddenly every instinct you had was screaming that something was wrong.
People moved around the two of you without noticing. Someone shouted from the beer pong table. A group near the couch erupted into laughter.
Nobody was watching him.
Nobody knew that you wanted to leave.
You backed away. "I need some air."
"I'll come."
"I want to be alone."
His smile disappeared completely.
"You don't have to act like I'm some creep."
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to."
You didn't answer. You pushed through the crowd and headed for the front door, resisting the urge to look behind you.
The cool night air hit your face as you stepped onto the porch. You gripped the railing and drew in a slow breath, trying to calm the sudden pounding in your chest.
Maybe you were overreacting.
He hadn't hurt you. He had held your arm for all of three seconds. He was probably drunk too and terrible at reading social cues.
But that explanation didn't make you feel better.
You unlocked your phone again.
Still no response.
You typed another message.
Where are you guys? I'm ready to leave.
Your thumb hovered over Dean's name afterward.
You pictured him on the bus, tired and sore after the game. Calling him would be dramatic. He was hours away and couldn't do anything except worry.
You locked your phone.
The screen door creaked open behind you.
"Getting some air?"
Your entire body stiffened.
He stepped onto the porch and let the door swing shut, sealing off most of the noise from inside.
"I figured I'd keep you company."
"I'm waiting for my friends."
"They'll find you."
He settled against the railing beside you, close enough that his shoulder brushed yours.
You moved several steps away.
His eyes followed you.
"I think I'm going back inside," you said.
"I'll walk with you."
"You don't need to."
"I know."
The answer came with a smile, but there was no warmth in it now.
He moved when you moved, matching your pace toward the door.
You stopped.
So did he.
"You don't have to follow me."
"I'm not following you."
"You've been everywhere I've gone for the last half hour."
"I'm trying to talk to you."
"And I've told you I'm looking for my friends."
He tilted his head. "Why are you being like this?"
The question caught you off guard.
"Like what?"
"Acting scared."
"I'm not scared."
"You look scared."
He took another step.
Your fingers tightened around your phone.
"I'm going inside."
His hand landed at the small of your back as though he meant to guide you.
You jerked away so quickly that your heel caught on the edge of the porch. The railing stopped you from falling, but the movement sent a painful jolt through your ankle.
"Don't touch me."
He stared at you.
Then he laughed.
The sound made your stomach turn.
"Okay. You're being dramatic."
You pushed through the screen door before he could move again.
The party swallowed you immediately.
You didn't run, but your steps were fast and clumsy as you searched for somewhere to go. The bathroom at the end of the hall was occupied. You knocked once, received no answer, and tried the handle anyway.
Locked.
You crossed the kitchen, nearly colliding with someone carrying a tray of shots. The stairs were crowded. Every doorway seemed blocked.
Behind you, you heard his voice.
"Hey, wait."
Panic sharpened your thoughts for the first time all night.
You slipped down a narrower hallway and found another bathroom tucked near the laundry room. The door opened.
You hurried inside, locked it, and leaned your back against the wood.
The sudden quiet was almost painful.
You breathing came too quickly. Your eyes burned, and when you looked down, your hands were shaking so badly that you nearly dropped your phone.
A knock sounded behind you.
Soft.
Patient.
"You okay in there?"
You covered your mouth to keep from making a sound.
"Come on," he continued. "I said I was sorry."
He hadn't.
Another knock.
"I'll wait."
The words made something inside you crack.
You opened your phone and pressed Dean's name before you could talk yourself out of it.
He answered before the first ring had finished.
"Hey."
You could hear his smirk over the phone.
The relief of hearing his voice was so intense that your eyes filled instantly.
"Dean?"
Silence stretched for less than a second.
When he spoke again, every trace of warmth and teasing had vanished.
"What happened?"
You tried to answer, but your throat closed around the words. All you managed to mutter was a jumbled mess of 'Is' and 'hes’.
"Hey." His voice softened without losing its urgency. "Take a breath for me. Are you hurt?"
"No." The word came out wet and uneven. "I don't think so."
"What do you mean, you don't think so?"
"I'm drunk."
"I know, baby. That's okay. Where are you?"
The endearment nearly undid you.
You pressed a hand to your eyes. "I'm in a bathroom."
"What house?"
"I don't know."
Dean swore under his breath. You heard movement on his end, then Garrett asking him something.
"Open your messages," Dean instructed. "Send me your location."
"I don't want to hang up."
"You don't have to. Put me on speaker."
You did as he said, fumbling through the screen until the location sent.
"Got it," he said immediately. "Stay where you are."
A knock sounded again.
"You still in there?"
Dean went silent.
Your stomach dropped.
"Is that him?" he asked.
You nodded before remembering he couldn't see you. "Yes."
"Who is he?"
"I don't know."
"What did he do?"
"He won't leave me alone. He grabbed me, and he followed me outside, and I told him to stop, but he keeps saying I'm being dramatic."
Dean's breathing changed.
The quiet anger in it frightened you almost as much as the guy outside.
"Did he hurt you?"
"No."
"Did he put anything in your drink?"
"I don't know."
"Okay. Listen to me." His voice remained steady, each word clipped and controlled. "You are not opening that door. I don't care what he says. Hannah and Allie are there, right?"
"I can't find them."
"I'm calling them now."
"Dean, please don't hang up."
"I'm not hanging up. Garrett's calling."
There was muffled conversation on the bus. Seats shifted. Someone cursed. Dean was clearly moving toward the front.
"You're still hours away," you whispered.
"No, I'm not."
"You said-"
"We've been driving for over an hour. We're close enough."
"How close?"
"Doesn't matter."
The bus driver shouted something in the background.
Dean responded sharply, then returned to you. "I'm coming."
Guilt pierced through the fear. "You don't have to."
"Stop."
His voice wasn't harsh, but it left no room for argument.
"You called me because you're scared. I'm coming."
Another knock rattled the door.
"Are you seriously hiding from me?"
You flinched.
Dean heard it.
"Back away from the door."
You moved toward the bathtub.
"Good. Sit down if you're dizzy."
"i'm not dizzy."
"You sound drunk enough to be friends with the floor, so sit."
Despite everything, a broken laugh escaped you.
Dean exhaled. "There you are."
"I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"For calling you."
His answer came so quickly that it almost overlapped yours.
"Don't ever apologize for calling me."
Your face crumpled.
You lowered yourself onto the edge of the bathtub and hugged one arm around your stomach, your breath coming out in shaky pants.
Dean barely remembered getting off the bus.
He knew Coach had yelled after him. Garrett had followed long enough to toss him his keys, while Logan remained on the phone with Hannah.
The bus had reached the outskirts of campus, but the party was still twenty minutes away.
It took Dean twelve.
He stayed connected to you the entire drive, forcing himself to keep his voice calm whenever you went quiet. The angrier he became, the gentler he spoke to you.
Hannah and Allie had finally answered Logan. They had been upstairs helping a friend who had gotten sick, both of their phones buried underneath a pile of purses. The moment they understood what had happened, they started searching for the bathroom.
Hannah reached you first.
Dean heard her pounding on the door and shouting your name.
"It's her," he told you. "You can open it."
"Are you sure?"
The question made his grip tighten around the steering wheel.
"I'm sure."
There was the sound of a lock clicking, followed by Hannah's horrified voice.
"Oh my God."
You burst into tears.
Dean listened to Hannah reassure you until the headlights swept over the crowded driveway. He parked crookedly along the curb and was out of the car before the engine had fully stopped.
The front door opened as he approached.
Allie stood there, pale and furious. "She's in the bathroom."
"Where is he?"
"I don't know. Hannah told him to get lost, and he disappeared."
Dean's jaw locked.
Every instinct urged him to search the house, find the guy, and make sure he never followed anyone into a hallway again.
Then he heard you crying.
The anger disappeared.
He followed Allie through the house, pushing past clusters of confused partygoers until he reached the narrow hallway.
Hannah sat on the floor beside the bathroom door. You were curled against her, your face hidden in your hands.
Dean stopped.
He had spent the entire drive imagining you injured, unconscious, or trapped behind that door. Seeing you upright should have relieved him.
Instead, the sight of your shaking shoulders hollowed out his chest.
Hannah looked up. "He's here."
You raised your head.
Your mascara had smudged beneath your eyes, and fear still clung to your expression. The moment you saw him, something in your face softened.
"Dean."
He crossed the remaining distance and crouched in front of you.
"Hey."
Your bottom lip trembled. "You came."
The words nearly broke him.
"Of course I came."
He wanted to touch you, but he didn't know what would make you feel safe. His hands hovered uselessly until you reached him first.
Your fingers closed around the front of his sweatshirt.
Dean moved immediately.
He slid one arm around your back and the other beneath your knees, lifting you from the floor as though you weighed nothing.
You curled against his chest, pressing your face into his neck.
"I can walk," you mumbled.
"I know."
"You're carrying me."
"I noticed."
"I'm heavy."
"Now you're insulting me."
A weak laugh warmed his skin.
Dean closed his eyes briefly, breathing through the rush of relief.
Hannah gathered your purse and followed outside with Allie.
"We're coming with you," Hannah said.
Dean glanced down at you. Your eyes were already drifting shut against his shoulder.
"I'm taking her home."
"Our apartment," Allie urged. "We'll meet you there."
Before Dean could respond, your weak voice sounded below him.
"I want to stay with Dean. If that's okay."
Dean tried to fight his smile as he waited for Hannah and Allie's approval, his mouth coming down to your ear to whisper a quick "Of course it's okay, baby." before shooting a pleased look Hannah's way.
"Fine. But make sure she's okay, Dean. I mean it."
Dean nodded his head vigorously as the girls came to crowd around you. Apologies and forgiveness flew back and forth between you and them, the others finally deciding you were good to leave when you promised to call them first thing tomorrow.
He lowered you carefully into the passenger seat of the car, then crouched beside the open door to inspect you.
"Where did he grab you?"
You looked down at your forearm.
Dean found a faint red mark near your wrist.
His jaw clenched so hard it hurt.
"Does anything else hurt?"
"My ankle a little."
"What happened?"
"I tripped when he touched me."
Dean stared at you.
Your eyes widened. "It's not bad."
He closed his eyes and pressed his thumb against his brow.
"Dean?"
"I'm fine."
"You don't look fine."
"I'm trying really hard not to commit a felony."
That earned him another tiny laugh.
He took off his jacket and draped it over your lap before fastening the seatbelt across you.
Your fingers caught his wrist before he could stand.
"I'm sorry you had to leave the bus."
Dean looked down at your hand around him.
"You really have to stop apologizing."
"I ruined your night."
"You did no such thing."
"You won."
"How do you know?"
"Hannah told me."
Despite himself, he smiled. "We did."
"I knew you would."
The trust in your voice was so uncomplicated that it hurt.
Dean turned his hand beneath yours and squeezed your fingers.
"Let's get you home."
The drive to the hockey house was quiet except for the low hum of the heater.
You kept one hand wrapped around Dean's sleeve, as though you were afraid he might disappear if you let go. He didn't comment on it.
Every few minutes, he glanced over to make sure you were awake.
"I'm okay," you mumbled the third time you felt his gaze on you.
"Didn't ask."
"You keep looking at me."
"You're very pretty."
Your face warmed.
He immediately cleared his throat. "And drunk. Mostly drunk."
"You think I'm pretty?"
"You're hearing things."
"You said it."
"I've taken a few pucks to the head. Nothing I say is legally binding."
You smiled and leaned your cheek against the seat.
For several turns, neither of you spoke.
Then you whispered, "I missed you."
Dean's hands tightened around the steering wheel.
The thrum in his chest drowned out the turn signal as he took another left.
He let his hand fall to your lap as he brought his gaze to yours.
"I missed you, too."
Your eyes filled again.
He softened immediately. "Hey. No more crying."
"I can't help it. You're sweet to me."
Dean stared at you. "That's what's making you cry?"
"It's been a long night."
The light you had been stopped at turned green.
He rotated his wrist to hold his hand palm-up.
After a moment, you placed yours in it.
He drove the rest of the way one-handed.
The house was dark when he pulled into the driveway.
You stirred when the engine shut off, lifting your head.
"Where are we?"
"My place."
"Oh."
"You remember agreeing to that, right?"
Your brows furrowed.
"I think so."
"Very reassuring."
Dean climbed out and walked around to your side. You had already opened the door by the time he reached you, but the moment your foot touched the pavement, your face pinched.
Dean noticed immediately.
"That hurt."
"No."
"That was absolutely a pain face."
"I don't have a pain face."
"You do now."
Before you could protest, Dean slid an arm around your waist to steady you. You stiffened for half a second, and he felt it immediately.
His grip immediately loosened.
"Is this okay?
You looked up at him, and something in your expression softened.
"Yeah."
"Okay."
He kept his arm around you as you crossed the driveway, letting you decide how much weight to put against him. Halfway to the door, your head tipped against his shoulder.
"You still with me?"
"Mhm."
"Compelling argument."
"I'm tired."
"I know."
The house was empty, which Dean was privately grateful for. The last thing he needed was Garrett or Tucker wandering downstairs and making some comment that would send you into another spiral.
He guided you into the living room and eased you onto the couch.
"Sit."
"You're bossy."
"You're drunk."
"You keep saying that."
"You keep proving it."
Dean disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a bottle of water and a sleeve of crackers.
You frowned at the crackers. "Those are depressing."
"They're preventative."
"Preventative of what?"
"You throwing up on the rug."
You looked down. "Is it expensive?"
"Not even a little."
That made you laugh again.
"Drink."
Dean twisted the cap off the bottle and handed it to you. You took two tiny sips.
He stared.
"More."
"You're annoying."
"I've been told."
You drank again, then handed the bottle back with a dramatic sigh.
"Happy?"
"Thrilled."
He sat on the coffee table across from you, and for the first time since leaving the party, the room went completely still.
Without the music or the crowd or the urgency of getting away, the night seemed to settle over you all at once. Your fingers tightened around the edge of Dean's jacket.
He noticed.
"You okay?"
You opened your mouth to give the automatic answer, then stopped.
"I don't know."
Dean's expression softened. "That's allowed."
You stared down at your hands. "I should've just been mean."
"What?"
"To him." Your voice grew quieter. "I kept trying to be polite because I didn't want to look crazy."
"You weren't crazy."
"I know that now."
"You should have known it then."
You looked up at him.
Dean leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. "You never have to be nice to someone who makes you uncomfortable."
"I know."
"No." His voice lowered. "I mean it. You don't owe anybody politeness if they're scaring you."
Your throat tightened.
Your eyes filled again.
Dean saw it immediately and panicked.
"Oh, no."
You gave a watery laugh. "What?"
"Don't cry."
"I can't help it."
"I'm terrible with crying."
"You're doing okay."
"I'm panicking internally."
That pulled another small smile from you.
Dean reached toward you, then stopped himself before touching you.
"Can I?"
You looked at his hand for a second before nodding, and the hesitation on his face loosened as he let it settle lightly against your knee. The touch was careful, almost tentative, which felt strange coming from someone who normally carried himself with so much confidence. But tonight, he seemed determined to let you control every inch of space between you.
You tugged at his hand gently, his body instantly responding and sliding onto the couch next to you. You tucked yourself into his side, one had wrapping around your shoulders as the other remained on your knee. For a few minutes, neither of you said anything. The house was quiet around you, so different from the pounding music and crowded rooms you'd spent the last several hours trying to escape.
You stared down at his hand.
"I called you."
Dean's eyebrows pulled together slightly. "Yeah."
"I mean..." You swallowed, suddenly feeling stupid for bringing it up. "I don't know why I called you."
His hand shifted against your knee, and you caught the brief flicker of something on his face before he covered it with a crooked smile.
"Wow. This night just keeps getting better for me."
"No." A laugh slipped before you shook your head. "That's not what I meant."
"I know."
"I just mean I didn't really think about it." You picked at the edge of your skirt, trying to figure out how to explain something you barely understood yourself. "I was sitting in the bathroom, and I was scared, and I kept trying Hannah and Allie, but then I saw your name and just... called."
Dean didn't immediately respond.
When you looked up at him, the teasing expression had disappeared. He was watching you with an intensity that made your already warm face feel hotter.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"That's not nothing."
He gave you a quiet laugh and glanced away, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. "You're drunk."
"I'm aware."
"Which means I'm definitely not having this conversation with you right now."
You frowned. "What conversation?"
"Exactly."
"Dean."
He looked back at you, and you could tell he was trying very hard to keep things light.
"You called me. I came. That's all."
You smiled faintly, but your chest tightened again.
"I knew you would."
That wiped the amusement from his face.
Dean stared at you for long enough that you started wondering if you'd said something wrong.
"Knew I would what?"
"Come get me."
Your voice was quieter now.
Something changed in his expression then. It was subtle, but you saw it. His jaw shifted slightly, and his thumb moved once against your knee before going still.
"You can't say things like that when you're drunk," he finally said.
Your brows knitted together. "Why?"
"Because I'm trying very hard to be a decent person here."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
Dean let out a disbelieving laugh and leaned back slightly. "You really are drunk."
"You keep saying that like I've forgotten."
"You asked me ten minutes ago if my rug was expensive."
"That was a valid question."
"You were worried about throwing up on it."
"I was being considerate."
He grinned despite himself. "You're adorable."
The word slipped out so naturally that neither of you seemed to process it immediately.
Then Dean did.
His grin faltered.
Your eyes widened slightly.
He cleared his throat. "Drunk. I meant you're an adorable drunk."
"That wasn't better."
"I panicked."
That pulled another laugh from you.
Dean smiled, clearly pleased with himself, before standing and holding out his hand.
"Come on."
You stared at it. "Where are we going?"
"Bed."
Your eyes snapped up.
Dean immediately sighed.
"My bed. You sleep in it. I sleep somewhere else." He shook his head. "Jesus. Get your mind out of the gutter."
"My mind isn't in the gutter."
"You looked terrified."
"I was surprised."
"Sure."
You took his hand and let him pull you carefully to your feet. Dean caught you around the waist before you could stumble.
"I'm fine."
"You know, I think we should ban that phrase from your vocabulary."
"It barely hurts."
"Great. You can tell me all about it while you're not walking on it."
Before you could ask what he meant, Dean bent and lifted you into his arms.
A startled noise escaped you as you grabbed onto his shoulders.
"Dean!"
"What?"
"I can walk."
"I know. We've discussed this. I just want to help you up the stairs."
"Jerk."
His laugh rumbled beneath your ear.
You should have felt embarrassed being carried through the house by a guy you'd only been seeing for a couple of weeks, especially after everything that had already happened.
Instead, you felt safe.
Dean pushed open his bedroom door with his shoulder and lowered you carefully onto the edge of his bed.
"Stay."
You raised an eyebrow. "Am I a dog?"
"No, because dogs listen."
You rolled your eyes while Dean disappeared into his closet. He returned a moment later and with a folded T-shirt.
"Arms up, baby."
You raised your arms, heat dusting your cheeks as the slid it over your clothes.
It smelled like him.
That seemed like an observation you should keep entirely to yourself.
When you returned from the bathroom after cleaning yourself up and removing your party clothes, Dean was pulling an extra pillow from the bed.
"Where are you going?"
"Couch."
The answer came so easily that something in your chest sank before you could stop it.
"Oh."
Dean paused.
You immediately hated how much disappointment had slipped into that one stupid syllable.
"What?"
"Nothing."
He stared at you.
You climbed beneath the covers and busied yourself adjusting the pillow.
"I'm fine."
"Banned phrase, remember?"
You sighed.
Dean waited.
Finally, you looked at him.
"Can you stay?"
The teasing disappeared from his expression.
You rushed to explain before he could misunderstand.
"I don't mean... I just don't really want to be alone yet."
Dean's face softened so quickly that you almost wished you hadn't looked at him.
"Yeah."
He put the pillow back without another word.
"Of course."
He lay down beside you, careful to leave a respectable amount of space between your bodies. For someone who had spent the last couple of weeks flirting with you at every available opportunity, he was suddenly acting like crossing the invisible line down the middle of the mattress might kill him.
You turned onto your side.
Dean stared up at the ceiling.
"You're really far away."
His head turned toward you.
"I told you I was trying to be a decent person."
"You look like you're afraid of me."
"I'm afraid of myself."
You frowned.
Dean immediately shook his head. "That sounded significantly worse than I intended."
You laughed softly.
"Dean."
"Yeah?"
"Come closer."
He hesitated.
Then he shifted across the mattress until only a few inches remained between you.
"Better?"
You nodded.
For a while, neither of you spoke. The exhaustion you'd been fighting all night finally began pulling you under, but every time your eyes closed, you remembered the bathroom door.
The knocking.
The voice on the other side.
Your eyes opened again.
Dean noticed.
"You okay?"
You nodded, then stopped yourself.
"No."
He waited.
You stared at the space between you.
"Can I..."
You trailed off, embarrassed by what you were about to ask.
Dean seemed to understand anyway.
He slowly opened one arm.
"Come here."
You moved before you could second-guess yourself, curling into him and resting your cheek against his chest.
Dean went completely still for half a second.
Then his arm settled around you.
Carefully.
His hand rested between your shoulder blades, warm and steady, and the tension that had been sitting inside you all night finally began to loosen.
"This okay?" he murmured.
"Mhm."
"You sure?"
You smiled against his shirt.
"You ask that a lot."
"Tonight seems like a good night for it."
You couldn't argue with that.
Your fingers curled tightly into the fabric of his shirt.
"Dean?"
"Yeah?"
"You won't leave?"
His chest rose beneath your cheek as he took a slow breath.
"No."
"Even if I fall asleep?"
"Especially then."
You were quiet for a moment.
"Promise?"
Dean's arm tightened around you just slightly.
"I promise."
You believed him.
Dean stayed awake long after you stopped moving.
He stared into the darkness with one arm wrapped around you and your hand curled loosely into his shirt, trying not to think too hard about how natural it felt to have you there.
Two weeks.
That was it.
Two weeks of burgers and texts and stupid jokes. Two weeks of pretending the rush he got whenever your name appeared on his phone was just because you were new and interesting.
Tonight had ruined that lie.
Because when he'd heard your voice crack through the phone, there hadn't been a single part of him that had considered doing anything other than getting to you.
And now you were asleep against his chest because you trusted him enough to close your eyes.
Dean looked down at you, his hand slowly moving over your back before he could stop himself.
He should have been terrified by how much that meant to him.
Maybe tomorrow, he would be.
Tonight, he only pulled you a little closer and closed his eyes.
For the first time since his phone had rung on that bus, Dean finally felt like he could breathe.
⌯⌲ SYNOPSIS: When you find yourself in Dean Di Laurentis’ bed, you’re over the moon about it. You’d liked him for so long, it felt like a dream when he’d asked if you wanted to spend a night with him… But that dream is quickly crushed, along with your heart, when you overhear a conversation Dean and Allie Hayes have.
⌯⌲ CONTENT: 18+ — mentions of sexual situations, not in detail. angst. dean uses reader. strong language.
“So you slept with the Dean Di Laurentis? Don’t just leave me hanging girl, how was it?!” your best friend squeals, making you laugh while also shushing her.
“Calm down, I’ll give you the details,” you pause, looking up to see Dean entering the library, a small smile tilting your lips as memories from the night before flash through your mind. “Tomorrow though, I gotta go, love you!”
Gathering your books, papers and pens, you shove everything into your bag, quickly standing from your chair. Your best friend looks in the direction your attention is glued to, a mischievous smile tilting her lips now.
“Oh, I see you, girl. Dirty details later, don’t think you’re getting out of this one Y/L/N!”
You narrow your eyes, playfully giving her the middle finger before you turn and head straight towards Dean.
He’s standing at the very back of the library now, tucked away behind large, wooden bookshelves filled to the brim with books ranging from old as dirt to brand new. You inch closer to Dean, ready to talk to him about last night, but the conversation he’s already having with none other than Allie Hayes, stops you dead in your tracks.
“I completed the assignment, Allie-Cat, and I have to be completely honest, I didn’t really feel good doing it.”
Allie scoffs, her brown eyes shining with amusement as she looks back at Dean. “Oh, come on, Dean. You were this campuses biggest playboy when I first met you, I don’t believe for a second you didn’t enjoy whoever you slept with last night.”
Her words are like a knife to your heart. They’re discussing you. They’re discussing what you and Dean did last night, and Dean called it an “assignment”, what the fuck does that even mean?
Dean steps closer to Allie, his hand reaching out and tucking a strand of her wild, curly hair behind her ear. The way she looks at him… eyes full of adoration. How could you have been so blind? So stupid?
You’ve liked Dean for as long as you can remember, so when he came up to you at Malone’s last night, bought you a drink and charmed the pants off of you — literally — you thought it meant he liked you.
Not that you were some fucking assignment, which you’re still unsure what the hell that even means.
“I like you, Al, I told you this. I completed the stupid assignment because you did. You said if I completed it, we’d be even, and then we could move forward, so why are you-”
You can’t listen to anymore, you make your presence known, stepping into view of both Allie and Dean.
Clearing your throat, you lock eyes with a very stunned Dean.
“What the hell is the assignment you completed, and why am I somehow part of this?”
Dean stutters, his blue eyes wide as they volley back and forth between you and Allie.
You raise a single brow, placing one hand on your hip, waiting on him to explain.
“Any fucking day now would be great, Dean. Why the hell are you telling Allie you ‘completed the assignment’ and she’s saying you enjoyed whoever you slept with. You slept with me last night, so please, explain any fucking time.”
“Okay, listen..” Dean begins, but Allie quickly cuts him off.
“I’m sorry, you didn’t tell her that it wasn’t going to be more than sex, Dean?”
Dean’s pretty eyes find Allie, looking shameful as he says, “It didn’t really come up, no, but I also didn’t even want to complete your stupid assignment and didn’t think about saying anything because I knew what it was for me.”
Allie blinks, her eyes wide with bewilderment at what Dean just said.
“Dean, girls have bigger feelings than… boys.” she points at him, her hand waving up and down while she does. “You needed to be transparent with her, now you’ve probably hurt this poor girls feelings.”
Your narrowed eyes slide to Allie, not necessarily angry at her, but not liking being considered a “poor girl”, that just makes it seem like you’re someone who needs to be pitied, and you don’t want that.
“Okay, listen, yeah it sucks, but I don’t want or need your pity, I’m just waiting on Dean here to explain himself.”
Dean sighs, running a hand through his messy blond hair. His blue eyes lock on yours, finally giving you the explanation you’ve been waiting on.
“I didn’t mean to use you, my intentions weren’t to hurt you either, I just…” he runs his hand through his hair again. “Allie and I started a no-strings attached type of relationship a few months back, we both started catching feelings, but she wasn’t ready for that, so we made a pact, kind of, we called it the assignment.” Dean pauses to take a breath, his eyes squeezing shut as he gathers his thoughts.
“The assignment was basically for each of us to sleep with someone else to prove the feelings weren’t that strong, that we could remain no-strings. You were the girl I was drawn to last night, so, while yes you were my way of completing the assignment, I really was into you… I know that probably doesn’t make anything better, but, you weren’t just a girl I used, I mean.. not really at least.”
You scoff. His explanation makes sense in a way, but it doesn’t change the fact that he did use you. He may not have intended to use you, or hurt your feelings, but the bottom line is, he wasn’t upfront and honest with you. He didn’t tell you what last night was, and that is just plain unacceptable.
“So I was just, what? A game basically? You sleep with me, prove to Allie you don’t have strong feelings for her and the two of you can continue your friends with benefits relationship? I mean seriously, Dean, did you just not think I’d ever find out? That I wouldn’t want to talk to you today?”
Dean lets out another sigh, a look of defeat on his face. “I’m sorry, I truly wasn’t thinking. I never meant for this to happen.”
Rolling your eyes, you grip the strap of your bag tighter. “Fuck you, Dean. I truly didn’t ever want to believe the shit that’s said about you around this campus, but of course, that was just plain stupid of me. You are the fuckboy everyone says you are.”
Dean cringes, a flash of hurt crossing his face before he quickly schools it. “I understand.”
You let out an incredulous laugh. “Yeah, I’m sure you do.”
Turning on your heel, you rush out of the row of bookshelves the three of you were in. Rushing past the table you and your best friend were occupying, you see she’s now gone. You keep your head down, hiding the tears that are already threatening to fall. Fuck Dean. Fuck him and his little “assignment” that he and Allie had going on. He used you. The fact that he used you hurts so much more than the feeling of being invisible to him.
You rush out of the library doors and into the crisp fall air, letting the first tear fall. You rush all the way back to your dorm room, letting the tears flow as you try and clear your mind of Dean and his stupid assignment.
All your life, all you’ve ever wanted is for your best friend to be happy. For all of his wildest dreams to come true. Now that they have, you should be happy too…right?
3.8k┃18+, MDNI
cw: we’ve got an angsty one, cap’n. childhood friends to ??? modern-ish au, no upside down, alcohol, drinking to excess, semi self-destructive behavior, feelings denial.
cliffhanger? I hardly know her!
The Save the Dates had definitely gone out.
Hardly anyone who received one could talk about anything else—making plans to take off of work, securing sitters for pets and babies months in advance, joking about selling organs on the black market to be able to afford the trip.
It was huge news, after all. Like, the biggest news to hit Hawkins since…ever.
Eddie Munson was getting married.
Hometown zero turned mega-rockstar, Dungeon Master turned guitar god, formerly ridiculed and believed-to-be-devil-worshipping town pariah Edward Phillip Munson was getting married.
TMZ had broken news of the engagement long before Eddie had gotten the chance to make any of the long-distance calls required to tell anybody himself. Which wasn’t terribly surprising, truth be told. It had been months, close to a year in some cases, since anyone from your small hometown had been in regular contact with Eddie.
The cost of fame, you all supposed.
But no one seemed to mind it so much once they had that envelope in their hands.
Robin had called immediately upon opening the one that was delivered to her and Nancy’s place, talking rapid fire as usual, asking if you wanted to fly out early with them to sightsee, if you wanted to go in on the AirBnb with them, if you thought rock stars still registered at Bed, Bath & Beyond or was there some other super-exclusive place they got their linens and dishware?
You forced out a laugh, trying to sound as good-natured as you could when you said you’d have to let her know. Normally, you probably would have accepted without a second thought.
Normally, you might have been joking with her about how celebrities slept on sheets with thread counts higher than your income. Normally, you’d be over the moon to see a Save the Date for the wedding of your oldest and closest friend.
Except you had yet to receive yours.
It was surprising, to say the least, to come home on the day everyone had been showing theirs off, waving them in the faces of anyone who had eyes to see, to find your mailbox barren—not so much as a catalog or a predatory credit card offer.
Still, you told yourself to keep calm. And actually managed to do so, for the most part.
There were a million and a half possibilities for why it hadn’t arrived. Maybe they had been sent out in batches. Maybe the ink smudged and it had to be returned when the post office couldn’t decipher your address. Maybe Eddie had forgot to put your new address and sent it to the trailer park where you no longer lived instead of your apartment on the other side of town.
You told yourself all these things and more, over and over again like a bedtime story. Trying to reassure yourself that nothing was amiss.
Because why would it be?
And yet your mailbox remained empty. Cluttered with the typical assortment of drab bills and junk mail, with no sign of the weighted, cream-colored cardstock bearing Eddie’s full government name written in a script so elegant you’d think he was a Duke or an Earl of some sprawling English estate rather than a gangly metalhead who hailed from the humble beginnings of Forest Hills.
Anyone you mentioned it to tried to soothe you in the same ways you tried to soothe yourself.
It has to be a mistake, they all said. Lost in the mail, delivered to the wrong address, insufficient postage—they gave endless explanations for the inexplicable. Of course you’re invited. You have to be. He wouldn’t dream of getting married without having his best friend there!
Eventually you resolved to just call him, knowing it would likely go straight to voicemail; knowing it would take a few days for him to get back to you as it always did. But just as you sat down in your living room to dial, your phone buzzed in your hand as a call from him came through.
“Hey!” you said brightly, all the hurt you had been plagued by the past few weeks having evaporated the second his name flashed on your caller ID. “That’s so weird, I was about to call you.”
“Oh, yeah?”
His voice was rougher than expected, raspy and haggard. It sounded the way it did when he’d just gotten off stage, after he’d finished screaming his own lyrics to thousands. Except there was no joy behind his exhaustion, no exhilaration or elation cracking through the way it always had whether he was singing for a sold-out crowd at MSG or the same five drunks at the Hideout.
“You okay?” you asked. “You sound funny.”
“Yeah, yeah, just ahhhh…we were in the studio all day. I’m really beat.”
It wasn’t a lie—he was a shit liar, you could always tell when he was—but there was most definitely something he wasn’t telling you.
Your spine instantly went rigid, panic spiking with a sharp pinch to your nose, and you tried to sound as normal as possible while you picked at a piece of loose skin hanging around your thumbnail.
“So…what’s up? To what do I owe the pleasure?” The teasing edge to your voice came out hollow and phony, lacking all the natural ease that normally came along with talking to him.
It had been years now since he moved out to Los Angeles but you never really felt the distance until his music career took off. When he first got there, he still called you nearly every night. And as you laid in your bed with the phone pressed to your ear, it was easy to imagine he was just a few trailers down stretched on his own lumpy mattress instead of 2000 miles away.
Secretly, you sort of longed for those days—for the nights he poured himself into bed after a shift bartending or caterwaiting or whatever other odd job he had fallen into that week. And still the one call he always made, even if he was bordering on passing out from pure exhaustion, was to you.
“I wanted to talk to you,” he explained solemnly. “About the wedding.”
“Um…me too, actually.”
“Yeah?”
There it was again—that crack, that fissure, that slight waver in his voice so unfamiliar it made him sound like a stranger. Too serious. Too stoic. Too unlike the boisterous boy you’d always known.
“Yeah, uh…this is kind of awkward,” you chuckled again, the sound of it riddled with nerves, and you wondered if he could tell how much you hated to ask, how long you’d waited, trying to put it all off. “But I was wondering about your Save the Dates? Because everyone else got theirs and I—”
“I didn’t send yours.”
The words are maudlin. Almost pained, like he’d just told you someone died. And your reaction is more or less the same as if he had.
“…Oh.”
“I’m—I’m looking at it right now.”
You tried to imagine him in California, sitting in his fancy penthouse the record label had helped him secure just as the paparazzi began to swarm his humble fourth floor walk-up. You’d only seen it in pictures, and not even ones he had sent you—Architectural Digest had done a piece on it that came out around the same time the news broke that he had started dating Carli West.
Was he stretched out on his massive leather sofa looking out those floor-to-ceiling windows at the twinkling metropolis laid out at his feet?
Holding the phone to his ear with one hand while the other clutched an envelope with your name and address stamped on the front?
Or maybe he wasn’t even there.
Maybe he had finally moved into his girlfriend’s—fiancée’s—mansion in Westlake Village.
“She, um…” his voice cracked again. “She asked me not to invite you.”
The ancient springs in your plaid recliner squeaked in protest as you sank into it, wobbly legs threatening to give out underneath you. Your mind was a blank, eyes staring unfocused at the walls, totally dumbfounded. A low buzz began to drone in your ears, steadily getting louder until it was all you could hear, like a deafening static drowning out every sound in existence.
“I’m so sorry. I swear, I tried. We’ve been having it out for weeks and she won’t budge.”
“B-but…why? I’ve never even met her! What could I have possibly done to—”
“It’s not you,” he insisted firmly. “Seriously, it has nothing to do with you. She just thinks—”
Whatever explanation he was about to sputter, you didn’t hear. The simple press of a button with a red icon is not nearly satisfying enough, though. You desperately miss the harsh clang of a landline being slammed back into its cradle, its metallic reverb echoing in the emptiness and silence.
As it is, all you can do is toss your phone away and blink back tears as it bounces off the couch cushion and thumps to the floor. You opt to leave it there, reaching instead for your keys where they sit in the middle of the coffee table.
You’re not even sure where you’re headed as you follow the same roads you’ve driven most of your life, tires swerving on asphalt that’s still wet with melted snow from the barrage of winter storms you’ve had over the past couple weeks. The night is pitch black in front of you, the air stinging and harsh, threatening yet another cold snap.
It’s not until you’re halfway downtown that you realize you left your wallet at home and have to head for The Hideout. You certainly would prefer not to spend an evening surrounded by countless memories of listening to Eddie’s band play, sitting at the end of the bar watching him bob and weave in and around stumbling patrons to clear empties and wipe down tables—all while razzing Peg with his ineffable, nigh insufferable, Munson charm.
But its the only place you know will serve you with nothing more than lint in your pocket.
You posted up at the near-deserted bar, downing two beers in half as many hours, staring into the middle distance contemplating the impossible.
A movie star hated you. A movie star you’d never met, who had sucked face with half of Hollywood—professionally or otherwise—and who lived in a mansion with nine bedrooms, and who pulled in millions of dollars at the box office…hated you.
That was the only conclusion you could draw from this information, right? It couldn't possibly be an issue of space. They were inviting the entire goddamn universe as far as you could tell.
So it had to be you. Unless…
Distantly, you register the song on the jukebox changing and the opening chords of melancholy piano playing over Bonnie Tyler’s gritty voice, making you reach for your beer and chug.
“Hey there, Bright Eyes.”
The voice of Steve Harrington might have been the last one you wanted to hear right now, and yet it’s exactly what filled in your ears. You rolled your eyes purely out of instinct as he walked over, and it caused a single traitorous tear to roll down your cheek. You swiped at it, praying he didn’t see.
“Whoa, whoa. What’s with the water works?”
He slotted into the stool next to you and a wave of his scent washed over you, the aroma made up of something gourmand and surely expensive. A few stray pieces of chestnut hair fall forward into his shining eyes as he leans his elbows on the bar and tilts his head to get a look at you.
“Just allergic to your cheap cologne,” you sniffed, the bitterness of your insult undercut by the creak of your voice. Steve’s lips quirked in a small smile.
You knew well as he did, he never wore anything cheap.
With an overdramatic sigh, he clutched his hand to his heart and wobbled in his seat as he leaned far back like he’d been struck there. It made your chest pang, thinking how that was one of Eddie’s bits—except he probably would have fallen right to the sticky floor just to make you smile.
“She wounds me, Peg,” Steve lamented when he caught the bartender’s eye. “Can we get another round over here, please? And a couple shots?”
Steve might have been the only person on the planet who could charm a smile out of ever-surly Peg. It was a small one, barely eking out, but it was there. She retrieved another beer for each of you and then placed down two shot glasses, which she filled with brown liquor that sloshed over their rims as she slid them over. Pretending not to be pleased when Steve winked at her.
“Alright. Come on, now. Out with it,” he said, pushing one of the shots in front of you.
Reluctantly, you picked up the glass and stared down it for a second like it was the barrel of a gun before knocking it back. The liquor burned down the center of your chest, like a knife slicing you down the middle. It made your throat spasm with the need to cough, but you forced it back.
“It’s not a mistake,” you said gravely after a long pause. Steve’s lips automatically pursed.
“What’s not?” he asked.
“My Save the Date isn’t lost,” you sighed heavily and pushed your empty glass away. “They didn’t send one, because I’m not invited. Because he doesn’t want me there.”
For once in his life, Steve was silent. Speechless. He stared at the side of your face until he made a sucking sound with his tongue behind his teeth.
“Nope. There’s no way that’s true.” He shook his head. “He actually said that?”
“Not in so many words,” you muttered.
Steve’s strong brow pinched, his handsome features furrowed, tongue poking against the inside of his cheek and then slipping out past his lips as he tussled with that bit of information.
“I don’t buy it,” he said, shaking his head again. You rolled your eyes.
“He said she doesn’t want me there. Except I’ve never even met her, so clearly it must be him.”
Your words started to wobble the longer you spoke, and you had to swallow the rest before they came spewing out of you like that shot nearly did. Steve picked up his beer and stared at it, his lips still pursed as he thought. It was the most pensive you’d ever seen him.
“Well…maybe she’s intimidated,” he offered after a long pause, punctuated by a swig of beer.
“She’s got a fucking Oscar, Steve,” you snapped. “In what universe would I intimidate her?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because you and he were like conjoined twins your entire lives? If he’s told her anything about his life before California, you can be damn sure your name came up.”
You scoffed, rapidly blinking your eyes as more tears stung behind them, threatening to spill over. Most of the town, much like Steve, thought if they ever saw a Save the Date with Eddie’s name on it, yours would be the one written alongside it.
But you and Eddie were just friends.
Nothing more.
“He’s not—”
“Right, right,” Steve sighed, waving his beer back and forth, his eyes rolling back, “he’s not, you’re not, there’s nothing going on, yadda yadda.”
“Well, there’s not,” you snarled sourly. Never had been, never would be. “We’re just friends.”
Steve’s brow arched. “You and I are friends, and you wouldn’t be sitting here cutting your whiskey with tears if you weren’t invited to my wedding.”
“Like anyone would ever marry you,” you sniped.
The skin around Steve’s hazel eyes crinkled with a smile, seemingly pleased he managed to draw out that little attitude you always saved just for him.
“Well, then it sounds to me like there’s only one thing left to do,” Steve said.
You turned your head with a questioning glance and watched as he pushed his own shot in front of you. With a resigned sigh, you wrapped your hand around it and knocked it back.
Another slice right down the middle.
“C’mon, champ. Time to get you home,” Steve said, lifting one of your limp arms and draping it over his stupid broad shoulder to help you to your feet, bracing you against him as you swayed.
Last call had long since come and gone. And between Steve’s credit card and Peg’s soft spot for you, you had most definitely been over served. The formerly near-empty bar was now completely deserted—tabs all closed, stools all placed on top of tables, drunks all carted away for the night.
With one notable exception.
“No,” you whined weakly against Steve’s chest as he hoisted you up. “Don’wannagohome.”
“Well, you can’t stay here,” he said, shooting Peg a grateful smile en route to the door.
You grumbled some more as you tried to get your feet to cooperate in spite of your brain’s decision to abandon them. “Steve, really—please, not home. Anywhere else. Anywhere.”
Even in your current state, you knew you couldn’t be trusted within dialing distance of your phone. You would almost certainly say something you regretted, and maybe even moreso, you were terrified to see whether or not Eddie called.
Honestly, it was tough to say which would be worse—returning home to a slew of missed calls and texts you didn’t trust yourself to answer; or the just as unbearable absence of them.
Steve helped you walk across the gravel parking lot to his car and opened up the rear door. With what little control you had left of your limbs, you climbed into the backseat and tried not to think too much about how many girls he’d had back here in much more compromising positions.
The world went horizontal as you slumped over on your side and you pinched your eyes shut in a vain attempt to stop it from spinning like a merry-go-round. The car jostled as Steve climbed into the driver’s seat up front and cranked the engine, revving it to get heat flowing through the vents.
“Steve?”
Your voice is tiny. Quiet as a pin dropping in the dark as snow began to fall outside the windows. Steve’s head swiveled to look back at you and his jaw clenched at the sight. Your head hung off the edge of his backseat, your neck barely able to hold it up. Your face was lit only by the lone streetlight overhead that reflected off the wet trails of tears streaming down your cheeks.
“Yeah?” he asked.
You inhaled a stilted breath, bottom lip quivering. It’s the smallest you’ve ever felt.
Smaller even than when you were a little kid and fell off of the shoddily constructed “treehouse” you and Eddie made together, thinking it was the worst pain you’d ever feel in your whole life.
More tears leaked out of your eyes, dripping off your chin. With a shaky exhale, you finally asked the question that had been running rampant around the inside of your head all night.
Longer, actually. If you were really being honest with yourself.
“Is he really gonna marry her?”
Steve made as little noise as possible as he shuffled down the hallway, passing the guest room after stopping at the door to listen for the sound of your gentle snoring on the other side.
You’d agreed to sleep at his house without nearly as much cajoling Steve anticipated, even going so far as to whisper a quiet thank you to him as you pulled the comforter up to your neck.
To say you were in a rare state last night would be putting it lightly.
He had never seen you so upset in all the time he’d known you and he could count the number of times he’d seen you cry on one hand, with four fingers left over. If there was a list of people you would have chosen to confide in about all this, Steve wouldn’t have made the alternates.
And yet it was his shoulder you cried on as he helped you inside his parent’s house. His was the name you gurgled out as you tried desperately not to vomit up everything you had drunk on an empty stomach. His was the hand that rubbed your back when you finally curled up in bed.
How things would go this morning, though, Steve didn’t have the faintest idea.
He’d just put the coffee on to brew when his parent’s landline started to ring and he sprinted into the living room to snatch up the receiver. No one ever called that number anymore except for a few former clients and colleagues of his father’s who hadn’t got the memo the Harringtons had long since relocated to the city, leaving both Hawkins and their son in the rearview.
“Harrington residence,” Steve chirped.
“Hey, man. It’s Eddie.”
“Oh. Hey. How, um…how are you?”
“I’m, uh…I’m okay. Listen,” he sighed, “I have kind of a weird favor.”
Eddie promptly launched into his rendition of what happened, giving Steve an abridged version of the events he had heard your side of last night. Eddie hit most of the same points as you, but he didn’t give much more than a vague explanation of what exactly had upset you to begin with.
And he ended it all with a heavy, labored sigh.
“I’ve been calling all night trying to reach her, but she isn’t picking up. I just need to know she’s ok. Can you…I mean, would you mind going over there and checking on her?”
Steve’s tongue pushed against his teeth. “Ahhh…so, here’s the thing. She’s actually here.”
“Here?” Eddie echoed. “Here where?”
“At my place. With me.”
The line crackled as Eddie fell silent on the other end. Like he couldn’t quite believe what he had just heard. Like Steve had suddenly started speaking a foreign language.
“She’s with you?” he said finally. “She’s there?”
Before Steve could answer, he caught some movement out of the corner of his eye. He zeroed in on your form as you shuffled down the hallway into the kitchen to pour yourself a cup of coffee.
You actually looked a lot more cognizant than he expected. There was still some mascara smudged beneath your eyes, but the black trails left on your cheeks had been washed away. A curious look on your face, you held up the coffee pot and raised a brow, wordlessly asking if he wanted a cup.
Steve’s thumb came up to his lip and he took the nail between his teeth, gnawing on it.
He was positive you had no idea who was currently on the phone. You would have run over and yanked the receiver out of the wall if you did. As it is, you just stared back at Steve blankly.
The plan forms rapidly in his head—not really a plan, per se, more like a nebulous outline of one. And before he knows it, or before he can think better of it, he’s inhaling sharply into the phone.
“Yeah,” he said firmly, eyes still locked on yours. “We’ve been seeing each other.”
letting this one out of the vault because a) I like it and I can do what I want, and b) idk, I guess it’s sort of my goodbye. I don’t feel particularly inspired to write anything new, and I haven’t in quite some time. I originally saw this as a series, but I’m going to say there won’t be any more of this coming.
i'm not leaving leaving, i'll still be scrolling and reading when I can, but I feel like it would be disingenuous to act like any day now I'm gonna be cranking out a new series or updates.
I truly love everything i’ve got to make on here, and I'll never forget the feeling of creating them, the words flying out of my fingers, scenes taking shape in my head faster than I could get it down on the page. I'll never not miss it, I think. And I'm so grateful for all the people I've gotten to know through our writing and all the stupid, silly fun we've had <3
Again, I'm not going anywhere, I just felt like it was something I needed to say. Love-love-love-love you, mean it.
summary: Dean decides he wants you to fall in love with him
pairing: Dean Di Laurentis x reader
content: romance, falling in love, a little angsty (I think), happy ending
inspiration: Unpredictable by 5 seconds of summer (preview of the song at the end of the story)
A/N: sooo I’ve been listening to 5sos on repeat and I’m so excited that I’m seeing them live next week so I decided to write something short about a song I really like, hope you like it <3
Dean Di Laurentis did not do feelings. He did hockey, he did tailored suits, and he did a revolving door of beautiful women who understood the rules: one night, no strings, and absolutely no breakfast.
Until you.
You were a friend of a friend’s cousin, staying at Briar University for a three-week summer intensive. You didn't know he was a campus legend. You didn’t care that he was filthy rich, and you most definitely weren't impressed by his "perfectly sculpted jawline," which you had affectionately referred to as "structurally adequate."
It was infuriating. It was intoxicating.
"You’re staring, Di Laurentis," you said, not looking up from your laptop. You two were sitting on the plush leather couch in his living room. You had commandeered his coffee table for your research papers.
"I’m observing," Dean corrected, flashing his trademark, panty-melting smirk. He leaned back, stretching his arms along the sofa. "I’m an academic at heart. And right now, my thesis is on why you’re ignoring me."
You finally looked up, your dark eyes sparkling with amusement. "Because your ego is a localized gravity well, Dean. If I get too close, I’ll be sucked into orbit. I have a paper due."
"Let's make a bet," Dean said, a dangerous spark in his eyes. "One week. I bet I can make you fall for me. Real feelings. If I win, you take me to that fancy gala your family is hosting next month as your official date. If I lose... I’ll do your laundry for the rest of the summer. And I won't hit on you again."
You arched an eyebrow, looking at him like he was a particularly amusing puzzle. "You? Do laundry? You don't even know where the machine is."
"I'll learn. Deal?"
You smiled, a slow, devastating curve of your lips. "Deal."
(...)
Dean threw himself into it with the intensity of a Stanley Cup playoff. He didn't just bring your coffee; he found out your exact, hyper-specific order from a bakery three miles off campus. He didn't just offer to study with you; he actually read your boring-ass syllabus so he could quiz you.
But the funny thing about playing a game is that sometimes, the rules change without you noticing.
By day four, Dean wasn't acting. When you laughed at his terrible jokes—the ones he usually used just to fill the silence—his chest felt tight. When you casually reached over and stole a fry from his plate, his heart did a weird, unathletic flip.
Then came the storm.
A massive summer thunderstorm knocked out the power to the entire grid, plunging his house into pitch blackness. Dean found you in the kitchen, illuminated only by lightning flashes, clutching your phone with white knuckles.
"Hey," he said softly, his playful demeanor dropping instantly. "You okay?"
You flinched as a crack of thunder rattled the windows. "I’m fine. Just... I hate storms. A tree hit my house when I was a kid. Silly, right?"
"Not silly at all," Dean said. He walked over, his large frame instantly blocking out the intimidating shadows of the room. He didn't crack a joke. He didn't try a pickup line. He just reached out, taking your trembling hands in his. "Come here."
He led you to his room, pulling his massive, ridiculously comfortable duvet off the bed and creating a fortress on the floor. He lit a few three-wick candles—scents he usually bought just to make his room smell expensive—and sat down next to you.
"Talk to me," he murmured.
For the next two hours, the walls came down. You didn't talk to Dean the Playboy; you talked to Dean the boy who felt the crushing weight of his father’s expectations, the boy who used charm as a shield so nobody would look close enough to see his flaws. And you opened up, too—sharing your fears of failing, your hidden insecurities, the ghost of an ex who had made you feel small.
Dean looked at you, truly looked at you, and realized with a wave of terrifying clarity: I'm losing the bet. Because I’m the one falling.
The air in the room shifted. The vulnerability in your eyes turned into something heavy, dark, and sweet. The thunder outside was a distant memory compared to the roaring pulse in Dean’s ears.
"Dean," you whispered, your gaze dropping to his lips.
"Yeah?" his voice was rough, devoid of its usual smooth cadence.
"Shut up."
He didn't need to be told twice. Dean leaned in, his hand cupping the back of your neck, his thumb tracing your jawline. When his lips met yours, it wasn't the practiced, smooth kiss of a guy who knew exactly what he was doing. It was hungry. Desperate. Fully alive.
You gasped into his mouth, your hands gripping his shirt, pulling him closer until there was no space left between you. Dean groaned, shifting his weight to press you gently into the mattress of blankets.
Every touch was electric. He kissed his way down your jaw, tracing the sensitive line of your throat while his hands slid under your oversized t-shirt, his warm palms searing against your bare skin.
"You're undoing me," he muttered against your skin, his fingers fumbling with the button of your shorts—a hilarious contrast to his usual smooth execution. He was actually trembling.
"Good," you breathed, arching into his touch. "Less talking, Di Laurentis."
The rest of the night was a blur of tangled limbs, whispered praises, and a fierce, uninhibited passion that left Dean completely wrecked. For the first time in his life, he didn't want the night to end. He didn't want the sun to come up.
(...)
Dean woke up to the smell of rain-washed air and the empty side of the bed.
He bolted upright, panic spiking in his chest. He threw on a pair of sweatpants and ran downstairs, finding you in the kitchen, fully dressed, packing your laptop into your bag. The atmosphere was ice-cold.
"Hey," Dean said, taking a step toward you. "Where are you going?"
You didn't look at him. "I'm heading back to my dorm. The power's back on."
"What's wrong?" Dean's heart hammered against his ribs. The vulnerability from last night felt like a trap now. "Is this about last night? Because that wasn't—"
"Part of the bet?" you interrupted, your voice cracking slightly as you finally looked at him. There were tears shining in your eyes, and it cut Dean deeper than any hockey slash ever could. "You won, Dean. Congratulations. You proved you can get anyone you want. You can stop acting like you care now."
Dean froze. "Acting? You think that was an act?"
"You made a bet to make me fall for you!" you cried out, a tear escaping down your cheek. "And like an idiot, I forgot who you are. You're Dean Di Laurentis. You don't do real. You do conquests. I’m not going to be another trophy on your shelf."
Before he could speak, you grabbed your bag and walked out, slamming the front door behind you.
(...)
For two days, Dean was a ghost. His roommates avoided him because the usually cheerful, arrogant Dean was currently radiating pure, unadulterated misery. He didn't practice. He didn't sleep.
He realized he didn't care about winning a bet. He cared about you.
On the third day, he marched across campus to your dorm building. He didn't care who saw him. He carried a massive plastic laundry basket under one arm and a giant jug of detergent under the other.
He knocked on your door. When you opened it, your eyes widened. You looked tired, your nose slightly pink.
"What are you doing here?" you whispered.
Dean didn't say a word. He dropped the laundry basket, stepped into your room, and kicked the door shut behind him.
"I lost," Dean said, his voice raw.
"What?"
"I lost the bet," he repeated, stepping closer until you had to tilt your head up to look at him. "The rules said I had to make you fall for me. But I failed miserably, because I’m the one who fell. Completely. Terrifyingly. I don't give a damn about a gala, and I don't give a damn about my ego. I care about you."
You stared at him, your lips parting in shock. "Dean..."
"I'm an idiot," he pressed on, the words tumbling out of him in a desperate rush. "I used to think being a playboy was easy because nothing hurt. But this? Seeing you cry? Knowing I caused it? This hurts like hell. I don't want anyone else. I just want you. So... I'm here to do your laundry. For the rest of the summer. And the rest of my life, if you'll let me."
A tense silence filled the room. Then, a tiny smirk tugged at the corner of your lips.
"You don't even know how to separate whites from colors, Di Laurentis."
"I bought Shout ColorCatchers," Dean said solemnly, holding up the box like a peace offering. "I Googled it."
A wet laugh escaped you, and the tension broke. You stepped into his space, wrapping your arms around his waist and burying your face in his chest. Dean let out a massive breath he felt like he’d been holding for days, squeezing you tightly against him.
"You're a ridiculous man," you mumbled into his shirt.
"But I'm your ridiculous man," Dean grinned, kissing the top of your head. "Now, seriously... how do I use fabric softener?"
pairing: superman x teacher!reader
summary: superman is smitten enough to grant a stranger a favor (although he doesn't know exactly what he's agreed to).
words: 3k
content: fluff! reader is a high school english teacher.
note: random idea i had (self indulgent as fuck). i'd love to explore this pairing more though so if u like it lmk and send me ideas! :O
The television played in the background of your kitchen every morning. Always the local newstation. Coffee dripped from the machine. The muffled honks from the cars down on the street still heard from the fourth floor. The morning traffic of Metropolis. You were late.
The kitchen table moves an inch. “Fuck!” You scream, hopping off the pain as you gather up your bag from the living room. The coffee cup is grabbed off the counter in a hurry, drips of the liquid staining the countertops. Feet are shoved into shoes. You paid no attention. If you were paying attention, it probably should have been to the TV. A superhuman fight near 15th Street and Metropolis Ave. Right in the middle of your walk to the high school.
You hurried, but probably not as much as you should have. It was too close to summer for you to really care that you were going to be fifteen minutes late. The kids didn’t show up for another forty five minutes. Lesson plans were prepped. You were wearing two different colored socks. Whatever, it didn’t matter. You sip the too-hot liquid, hissing at the heat, and not looking where you’re walking.
“Ma’am, you really shouldn’t be here right now.” It’s said through his teeth, holding back part of a… Was that a fucking concrete wall? “This part of the street, it’s blocked off.” A crash from up ahead nearly steals your attention, but Superman is right in front of you. You’re sort of dumbfounded. You had never met him despite moving to the city a couple years ago. It really shouldn’t shock you as much as it does. I mean, he was sort of the protector of Metropolis. But you really didn’t expect him to look so cute up close– “Ma’am.” His voice is desperate. An entire street pole is diverted by his hand. Okay, maybe it’s less of his good looks and the fact that you might have walked into a warzone. You catch glimpses of Hawkgirl in the sky. “Ma’am, you need to move.” There’s that authority.
“Oh. Oh my god. Yeah, I’m so sorry. I’m being so–” Another crash. A ‘Superman’ yelled in his direction. “It’s just– I’m late, ya know, to work.” And you want to continue to explain that you take the same route every day and unfortunately you aren’t a fan of breaking a routine. And oh my god, you should’ve checked the news. It was a common occurrence for something to disrupt Metropolis and things usually carried on as soon as the fight was over, but they weren’t usually right in the way of you getting to work.
Clark doesn’t quite have the time for this, but his eyebrows knit together at your rambling. Typically, he wouldn’t let himself get so distracted over something so trivial. Clark can’t seem to help himself. “Just– just wait here. Stay out of the way.” He throws a look behind his shoulder then spares another glance at you before he’s shooting off into the air.
So you move back toward the last intersection and watch the rest of the fight play out. It really doesn’t take very long when he has extra help. You glance at your watch. Ten minutes have passed. A whoosh behind you. “Ma’am.” His deep voice startles you out of your thoughts. You turn around to meet his gaze.
Clark probably could have been offering his help to clean up the destruction, but Guy had said something irritating earlier and Clark could hold a grudge. There were no civilian casualties and you were the only one who had stuck around instead of taking a different route. He was curious. Plus, it probably didn’t help that he thought you were pretty. He couldn’t tell exactly where you might’ve been going for work, but your outfit had caught his attention. Plaid slacks, a white blouse with long billowy sleeves. Brown loafers. You almost looked ready for the Daily Planet, but he’s sure he would’ve noticed you by now. You clutched the strap of your bag to your body. You were nervous.
Superman looks just as put together as he did 10 minutes ago albeit a little more dust on the blue of his suit. His hands are clasped behind his back. “What were you saying earlier?”
Your face grows warm. Oh gosh. Did he really think your ramblings were important earlier? You did stay where he told you, did that maybe signal you wanted to talk again? “Oh, it’s really nothing.” Your hands come up in front of you, waving through the air. When you felt awkward, you talked with your hands. Could this get any more embarrassing?
“Well, it seemed like I really disrupted your day.” Superman is frowning at you. Eyebrows drawn together, taking a step closer to you. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.” Clark is playing it up, but he can’t help it. He likes the way you stumble over your words. If he wasn’t in the suit, he’d probably be doing the same thing back. He just has a disguise to hide under. “I can fly you to work if you want? You said you were late?” What was he doing? He didn’t typically offer free rides to civilians. Sort of a lawsuit waiting to happen.
You could melt into a puddle under his gaze. Blue eyes, dark hair, cape sort of billowing in the wind. God, you should’ve pulled out your phone and got an exclusive. Probably a pretty penny to be made on Superman photos and with your salary– “Oh gosh. No. I–” You glance up to the sky then at the roofs of the nearest buildings. “I don’t think I could stomach that.” Your eyes meet his again. “I mean, I haven’t even had breakfast either. And it sucks dry heaving and nothing comes up.” Could you talk any more? You shut your mouth. Stare at him.
“I can walk with you?” Clark tries again. There were probably more pressing matters to deal with. He did not care. In his mind, he would write it off on being a man of the people. I mean, that’s what he was. Today it just looked a little different. “Unless of course, you’d rather–”
You can’t seem to stop yourself, “No, please. I’d love that.” A smile pulls across your lips. Were you about to get personal escort to work from Superman? “Then you can tell them why I’m half an hour late to work.” A perfect excuse, how would your principal fight with Superman over your time management? Well, you could see her doing that. Not even Superman could reason with her.
“I’d love to.” A grin, all teeth and dimples. Clark holds out his hand to you. You stop, raise your eyebrow. Was he offering his hand to– “Your bag?” Oh gosh, he was really playing this up. Did he have no tact? Was he so blatantly flirting with a civilian he had just prevented from getting caught up in the middle of a metahuman fight? He would beat himself up over it later. For using his alias for talking with pretty women. No backing out now. You hand over your bag. “What is it that you do?” His eyes roam over your figure again as you begin walking. He could use his x-ray vision to examine the contents of your bag, but he had already overstepped so many personal boundaries today.
“Oh!” You glance up at him. You had tried to keep your eyes forward. Everytime you looked at him, you risked tripping over your feet. Oh, but would he catch you? You have to shake the thoughts from your head. “I swore I mentioned that.” You frown. “I’m a teacher!” A sort of pride always emerged when you told people your profession. Now that you’re next to Superman though, you feel a little overshadowed. Who cares that you’re a teacher? He was saving the entire human race next Thursday. “Usually people tell me I’m like a superhero and now that I’m standing next to one; I feel pretty lame.” You laugh. It didn’t actually bother you. Just put it into perspective now that you have met one. The most popular one at that. At least to you.
“Well, you sort of are.” He clears his throat, tossing a smile your way. Clark had always wondered if he would have the bravery to do anything if he wasn’t Superman. Sitting at a desk and writing articles really wasn’t that brave. Parts of it had him stepping out of his comfort zone, but he could never imagine being a teacher. Wrangling twenty or more kids for eight hours straight, five days a week. Clark had super human strength. He could fly faster than a bullet. All that would be really great if he was doing what you did. But you did that without any of the extra help. And that was just the physical side of things. He had teachers who had helped him overcome insecurities, that helped pave the path that he was on today. It was not something to brush off. “I could never do what you do.”
A scoff as you’re walking beside him. “Oh, come on! You are such a good role model!”
Clark can’t help the way the tips of his ears turn pink. He shrugs, brushing off your compliment. “I mean it. What you do is important.”
You chew on the inside of your cheek, considering asking him if he would come in and talk to your class, but you’re already at the entrance of the school. The steps you usually loved walking up looked a lot less exciting today. Especially as you’re staring up at Superman and he’s looking back at you with a sort of admiration, lips twisted up in a smile. That right dimple tugging at his cheek as he smiles. “Well, this is me.”
Is he blushing? You wonder as he begins to speak again, “Are you sure there’s nothing else I can do for you? I could pick you up something to eat, I know you said you didn’t eat and–” And now Superman of all people is rambling. Maybe you were rubbing off on him or he wasn’t as suave as you originally thought. His mouth clamps shut. A swallow as he watches for your reaction.
A glance to the school. “Actually…” You trail off, rocking on the balls of your feet. “Tomorrow. Would you come talk to my class? I think they’d really love it. Meeting a superhero and all.” You’re looking up at him through your lashes and hoping you’re playing this right. Hope he finds you just as cute as you find him. The coffee you had this morning must make you nervous and out of your mind and now here you were asking Superman for favors.
“Of course.”
“Really?” You’re cheesing, hard. You want to jump up and wrap your arms around his shoulders. You never thought you’d ever secure the best guest speaker ever. All the other teachers were gonna be so jealous and you could finally tell Mrs. Dollway to suck it– “Wait, here, let me write down the time and date and this address.” You’re stepping into Superman’s space to grab your bag. The strap hangs off his shoulder as you dig around for a pen and a post-it note. You scribble down the information as he watches with a smile. Clark hadn’t felt this excited in ages. Not so much for the classroom talk, but the fact that he had figured out how to see you again.
You trade the sticky note for your bag. Clark’s face is twisted in confusion before that dimple is taking up residence on his face again, teasing. Oh god, you could kiss that thing– “Huh?” You ask, his voice drawing you out of it.
“Your name?” He offers the note again. You scribble it on, face warming again. From embarrassment and the thoughts that were plaguing you. Stupid Superman and his stupid good looks and good heart and– “Thank you, Miss.”
“Thank you, Superman.” An irregular heartbeat in your chest and a quick touch to his upper arm before you’re bounding up the first few steps of the school. “Thank you, really. I can’t wait!” The giddiness in your voice is unmatched.
The smile doesn’t leave Clark’s face. The sticky note is clutched into his palm as he shoots up into the sky. The pretty teacher is the only thing on his mind.
—
The receptionist at the front desk did nothing to hide the shock on her face when Superman walked in. Clark was quick to explain that he was here as a guest speaker for your class. A call to your classroom, a gesture to sit in one of the chairs, and she was quick to begin gossiping in the next room. Clark tuned it out and instead tuned in to the click of your shoes against the hallway floor. He caught the flutter of your heart as you pushed the door open.
“Hi, Superman!” You grin. He stands to meet you. You settle for a handshake as Clark’s eyes catch on your badge. Metropolis Middle Senior High School. Were you a high school teacher? Clark’s eyes widen when he realizes what exactly he’s gotten himself into, but you’re already leading him down the hallway.
Clark can’t help the weird anxiousness that builds in his belly. “I really thought you had meant, you know, kids.” Superman is walking with you down the hallway, boots sort of dragging along the linelmoun floor. They catch on the floor, squeaking. You cringe.
“Um, sorry, should I have elaborated on that?”
Superman puts on a smile. “Oh, uh, of course not. It’s just you know, it’s usually the little kids that like me so much.”
You grin. “Don’t be nervous. I think the older kids will love you.” You stop in front of the classroom: room 120. “Thank you for doing this. Seriously. Now, I didn’t exactly give them a heads up that you’d be coming.” A nervous laugh. “I wanted it to be a surprise.” Your bottom lip is tugged between your teeth, chewing as you think. “I hope I don’t regret that. Anyway, just be yourself!”
Clark can’t remember the last time he was this nervous, but he decides to take your advice and relax. How bad could it be? They were just kids after all.
Except as soon as you’re opening up the classroom door to relieve the teacher across the hall from your 1st period English class; the entire class is silent. For once. And not exactly in awe.
“Um, teacher, what the hell is this?”
You do a lame excuse for jazz hands with only one hand free as you tug Clark the rest of the way into the classroom. “It’s Superman!” Your hand rests on his upper arm. As soon as you realize that you’re touching him, you tug your hand away like it’s on fire. No reason to give them any ammunition. Except they don’t need any. A classroom of fifteen and sixteen year olds can come up with their own.
“It’s Supershit!”
“Is it really true about your parents?”
“No way our teacher is dating Superman.”
“What’s the beef with Lex Luthor?”
“Wait, do you know Batman?”
The excited voices build on one another until the volume of the class is out of control. Superman’s face is the same shade as a strawberry and his eyes find sudden interest in the ceiling. You hadn’t expected it to go like this. This is what you get for not prepping them for a guest speaker. Arms crossed, you raise your voice to meet theirs. “Is this how we treat a guest?!” The voices die down, a few whispers being passed. “I’m disappointed. He’s got plenty else to do if you guys don’t want to take this seriously.” Groans throughout the classroom. “Thank you. Now have some respect, please.” You glance at Superman. He’s engrossed in the way you’ve seemed to corral the room like unruly livestock. “They’ll be nice, now.” You whisper to him as you take a seat on your desk, watching the rest of the interactions play out.
Once the class actually settled in, they had come up with several thought-provoking questions for Superman. Clark had taken it as serious as any other press release or a meeting with the president. And the questions were just as hard-hitting. He hadn’t known that kids this age would be keeping up with news even if it was in the form of videos and memes. It was refreshing. He had looked to you for advice on some of the questions too, wanting permission before he talked about certain topics, but all you did was nod to give him the go-ahead.
“It certainly wasn’t what I expected.” He’s telling you once the last of the kids had filtered out after the bell. “And I definitely have a deeper appreciation for teachers. Especially the ones dealing with this age group.” You laugh. “Actually, I was thinking, I have a friend at the Daily Planet… If your students would be interested in talking to a journalist. They definitely have the hard-hitting questions down.” Superman offers. He might have needed an excuse to see you again. But then he's worrying, what if you don't like Clark as much as you like Superman? He already needed a backup plan.
“Oh, wow! I couldn’t ask you to do that. You’ve already done so much.”
“Well… You could repay me. If you’d let me take you out.” Superman was back to his self-assured attitude. He would leave the nervousness for Clark next week.
“Oh!” You nervously slide your hands over your blouse. “I didn't know Superman dated. How does that work?"
“A time and a place. I’m sure to meet you there.” He clears his throat. Clark had never thought about it. Had never met someone he liked so much as Superman. It was different. It seemed like it might complicate things more than he was used to, but he’d find a way. Clark had a feeling it was gonna be worth it. “You didn’t seem fond of flying last time or else I’d offer to pick you up.”
“That definitely seems like a third date activity.” You’d be an idiot to pass up a date with Superman. “Okay. I’ll go out with you.” You shuffle around your desk and pass him a stack of post-its with a pen. “A time and a place.”
Thankfully, Superman was a quick thinker on his feet.
summary: after a fight, clark kent comes home terrified--not for himself, but for the person always waiting up for him.
author's note: hi again! i wrote this a very long time ago, so please excuse the poor writing. i hope u guys enjoy!
warning: lowercased, established relationship w/ clark, angst/hurt + comfort, fear of losing a loved one
word count: 761 words
you’re halfway through the article perry, your boss, wants submitted by tonight. dressed in one of clark’s oversized t-shirts, the duvet is pooled over your lap and warmed by your laptop’s gentle fan. your fingers clack restlessly against your keyboard, racing the 11:59 p.m deadline you’ve grown to dread. it’s nearing 10 o’clock now, and the only light in the room comes from the warm yellow glow of the bedside lamp.
you feel him before you see him, his presence bringing a welcome halt to your frantic typing.
“finally you’re home,” you begin, paying no mind to the shaking he wrestles to conceal. you ramble about the impossibility of submitting the article by tonight--the one where you interviewed clark super-man about his views on branded cereal. you couldn’t care less about it, but it’s what perry assures you the public wants to hear about.
your voice dies down in your throat once you look up. clark is standing in the doorway, hands curled by his side. you notice the taut lining of his shoulders and the way he doesn’t meet your eyes. you try to lighten the mood, something you usually do to remind him that he’s home and safe--that the bad guys didn’t win today.
“did someone punch you into next week again?” you tease.
his eyes flick to yours, but he doesn’t say anything.
and that’s when you take into account how while his suit is intact, his expression is a wreck.
he walks past your spot on the bed. gently, you close your laptop and move it aside, mindful of every motion. you stay in place though, allowing him to decide the distance. maybe he didn’t win tonight and wants to be left alone.
“hey, you okay?” you ask carefully, but his expression relays something entirely different. he’s near the edge of the bed. frozen, allowing the warmth of your tone to wash over him. you look down and notice the tremor of his hands, and the hardness in his eyes. your tone shifts in accordance to his demeanor, “baby, you’re shaking.”
he stays silent and unmoving.
“clark, you’re scaring me.”
he flinches like you’ve hit him. his eyes close as if bracing impact. he turns around, and when his eyes open they immediately meet yours, a kind of rawness you’ve never seen before flickering in them. clark never wants to scare you.
“they said your name.” he whispers.
and you blink, taken aback, “what?”
“the guy i was fighting,” he says, his voice running thin, his tongue unsteady, “he--he said your name. your full name, like he knew who you were.”
your stomach drops.
clark shakes his head, like admitting it out loud would make it more real, “he said he knew who i came home to.”
your mouth went dry, struggling to find the words. you were scared, of course, but he was distraught. while your tongue felt heavy and clumsy against the words you wanted to say, you forced your voice to steady, masking your panic because clark needed your calm more than your fear.
“i’m with you now, though. i’m alive, we’re together. we’re okay--”
he interrupts you, saying your name softly, like a prayer, “that’s not the point--”
“--we’re safe. i’m safe, they were just trying to scare you, that’s all.” you try to finish.
he takes a step closer towards you, and you tilt your head up simultaneously. he’s still hesitant, hands fighting to reach stillness. he brushes the edge of the duvet, and you battle the impulse to reach his hands. his voice cracks as he finally confesses, “i brought this to our door. you were never supposed to become part of this.”
“clark…” you try again.
“you don’t understand,” his words come quietly, “i could’ve lost you. i could still lose you. just by being me. by fighting--by existing,” he says guiltily.
you lean forward slightly, keeping your voice soft but firm, “but you didn’t lose me, clark. i’m right here. and it’ll stay that way,” you allow yourself to reach out and hold his hand. his initial instinct is to pull back, but he finally gives himself the grace of letting physical touch anchor you both.
barely audible, he says your name in a way that trembles with everything he’s trying not to feel, “i--i can’t lose you.”
“i’m not going anywhere,” you murmur, “just breathe with me, okay?”
clark squeezes your hand as if he’s reassuring himself of the fact that you’re still alive, that you’re still his to come home to, and you let him.
c/w ᝰ.ᐟ jealousy + insecurity, ex mentions, crying (both), drunkenness/intox, miscommunication, possessive!dean, pet names (princess, baby, angel, baby doll + no y/n), angst with comfort, party setting + language
“There you are, princess.”
You smile before you can stop yourself as Dean presses a rough kiss against your cheek, his body sliding in behind you, big and warm against your back while the crowd moves around both of you.
“Havin’ fun?” He asks, mouth brushing your neck while his hands settle on your hips.
“Mhmm,” you giggle.
“You drunk, baby doll?”
“Mhmm…”
His laugh rumbles against your skin. “Yeah? Are you askin’ me or tellin’ me?”
You laugh harder at that, turning your head slightly when he nudges his nose against your cheek. Dean catches your mouth, kissing you deep and slow before pulling back with a grin still spread against your lips.
“You wanna dance?”
“Okay,” you say, and the second that word leaves your lips he’s pulling you away.
The dance floor is packed by the time the two of you push your way into the middle of it. Bodies crowd tight around you beneath flashing lights, Dean’s hand tightening on your waist, pulling you against him.
The two of you start dancing, your body moving easily with his while the crowd shifts around you.
“You look so fuckin’ good,” he mumbles, low and deep against your ear, making you press into him a little more.
His hands hold your hips again, turning you and pulling you close, your arms wrapping loosely around his neck while a smirk tugs at his lips and his hands move lower.
The chain around his neck glints beneath the lights as he dips in, pulling you closer by the small of your back, his lips on yours, sending a wave of warmth rushing through you.
A smile breaks across his lips as the music changes—something slower—putting you right where he wants you. Your back hits his chest, breath catching in your throat.
His hands wrap around your body, his face tucked so close you can feel every warm breath, the two of you grinding slower now.
Your eyes flutter open and a wave of unease rushes over you as you lock eyes with a few people you recognize from the rink. The second you catch them staring, they look away, one of them muttering something into his red SOLO cup while the other nods in agreement.
Dean starts singing along to the music, his deep voice vibrating against your neck. You focus on that, the corners of your lips trembling as they pull into a smile you wish wasn’t so weak.
You try to let yourself fall back into him, focusing on the heat of his body and the smell of his cologne. His hands drag you closer, but it doesn’t stop the unease this time. When you open your eyes again, the insecurity hits harder.
Wellsy… She gives you a small smile, tight around the edges just like yours.
You close your eyes again before the doubt can settle too deep, Dean’s head tucking back into your neck. His lips move slow against your skin beneath the pounding music, his grip firming on your waist instinctively.
He turns you around again, one hand sliding over your waist while the other curls loosely around your throat, pulling you back against him before kissing you so deep your thoughts scatter for a second.
His mouth moves against yours, slow and messy, warm from beer. Dean kisses like he gets distracted by it—like he forgets there are people around once he gets ahold of you.
Your fingers tighten in the front of his shirt, as a lump forms in your throat, your breathing tightening in your chest as the thoughts come rushing in.
Maybe if she called, it would be over.
What if he wishes he were kissing her instead?
What if he wishes you were someone else?
“Dean,” you whisper softly, your voice breaking against his lips.
“Angel,” he murmurs, kissing you again.
You swallow hard, collecting yourself for a moment. “Do you wanna go upstairs?”
Dean grins so boyishly it makes the hurt worse.
He grabs your hand, pulling you through the crowd so fast you barely have time to keep up with him. He drags you through the packed house, still glancing back at you with that stupid excited smile.
And when you reach the steps he hooks an arm underneath your thighs and lifts you clean off the floor, starting up the stairs with you. A startled laugh slips out of you, but he swallows it, not catching the way it waivers on his lips.
Your fingers slide into his messy blond hair as he carries you farther upstairs. You close your eyes tighter, stomach sinking as you become all too aware of the sting building behind your eyes—tears balancing dangerously along your lashes.
You’ve felt weird all day. Ever since this morning when you opened Instagram and saw Dean’s name underneath one of Allie’s posts.
One stupid comment. Congratulations!
That was it. Nothing flirty. Nothing inappropriate.
Nothing that should latch on and refuse to let go, but it does.
Allie was standing on some giant stage in New York smiling beneath bright lights while thousands of people flooded the comments underneath her post and somewhere in between all of them was Dean.
And now, those weird looks and whispered conversations downstairs suddenly feel loaded. Every glance feels like the people around you know something’s going to happen, and you don’t, and they don’t want to miss the chance to see when he finally finds his person again.
Like you’re temporary.
Just the girl standing in the middle of whatever unfinished thing still exists between Dean and the girl everybody thought he’d end up with.
Dean shoves the bedroom door open, and kicks it shut, the bass downstairs making the pictures in his room rattle against the wall, the hum of the party seeping through the bottom of the door.
You reach for the ties of your top, trying to pull yourself together as he tears the t-shirt over his head, the both of you stripping between messy kisses before he’s dragging you down onto the mattress with him.
You crawl toward him slowly, knees sinking into the comforter while Dean watches. “Fuck, baby…” He lies down on the bed, guiding you on top of him as he brushes his hair off his face, biceps flexing with it. “Been waiting for this all day.”
Those six words heal something in you for a moment. Inching you back to that place you had been before you woke up this morning.
He reaches his arm up, hooking his hand around the back of your neck, lowering you toward his lips. “I love you—”
“Allie?”
You blink down at Dean once, thinking you heard him wrong, but it sounded like he said her name. Dean’s head snaps toward the door—all the color draining out of his face.
A person from behind the door tries again. “Allie, Dean? You in there?”
Dean goes completely stiff beneath you. “No—” The word flies out of him. “No, dude, what?”
Your stomach drops so hard it makes you sick.
Dean’s already trying to recover before you can even think straight.
“You need something?” He calls quickly, voice tighter now.
“Just wanted to say ‘hi’, man. Sorry.”
You shove off him, knee catching in the comforter as you stumble toward your discarded clothes on the floor, heart shattering so hard it aches.
“Hey—hey.” Dean catches your wrist, fingers wrapping around you fast enough to stop you mid-step. “Baby.”
“Let me go,” you whimper, and he does, his hands drawing back but he follows after you anyway as you struggle back into your clothes.
“What—what’s goin’ on?” He asks breathlessly. “I’m sorry about the Allie thing, alright? I’m sorry, baby.”
The room around you swims with the tears waiting to fall from your eyes, trying not to blink because you know once they fall there’s no stopping them. But you break anyway.
“That’s just Cooper,” Dean says quickly, words starting to trip over each other now. “I haven’t seen him in forever, he just—he’s fuckin’ dumb, alright?” He laughs nervously, but there's nothing funny about it and he can feel that.
Your fingers shake so badly fumbling with the zipper of your jeans it takes three tries to get it up.
“Baby, c’mon.” Dean’s voice whispers over your shoulder, his big hand coming down to rest on your hip. “Just talk to me.”
You lift the sleeve of your top, brushing away your emotion. You can feel him staring at you now, looking over your shoulder, but he can't see enough—not yet.
“Oh, fuck,” he breathes, turning you toward him, hands gripping your arms. “Baby—hey, hey.” His blue eyes search your face desperately. “No, no, no. Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.”
You try to look away from him, but Dean pulls you into his chest before you can, his arms wrapping around you tight. One hand cradles the back of your head, the other pressed against your back, trembling with adrenaline.
“Baby,” he says again, softer now. You can feel his heartbeat pounding underneath your cheek, suddenly sober, that loose buzz he’d been feeling downstairs long gone.
He pulls back just enough to look at you, big hands cupping your face while his thumbs swipe beneath your eyes trying to catch the tears.
“Baby… I—That. That can’t just be because of that, right?” He asks, voice stumbling over itself now. “I mean—yeah, okay, wait. That—that was insensitive as fuck…” His brows pull together harder the longer he looks at you. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Your lip trembles, and Dean’s entire expression shifts, his thumb brushing along it too like he's trying to stop that from happening. The panic on his face gets worse, blue eyes moving frantically over your face, trying to figure out how this got so bad.
“Talk to me,” he whispers but you bite your lips instead to keep from crying, complete whiplash from the girl laughing and wrapped around him downstairs twenty minutes ago—but you were putting on an act for the both of you.
Allie’s name breathing into the room at the same time that Dean was telling he loves you was just it… the breaking point. The moment you couldn't keep up with the lie that you were okay, because you're not.
His hands tremble as he holds your cheeks, leaning in to kiss you, gentler than he ever has, like he thinks he can soothe this out of you if he’s soft enough.
He draws back a little, the air between you tight and heavy, as you whisper.
“You’re not over her, are you?”
“What?” He asks, not angry or defensive, just hurt. “Allie? I am. I promise you, I am.”
“I don’t think you are,” you whisper. “Or…” Your voice cracks a little and you look away from him, embarrassed the second more tears start slipping loose. “Maybe you are, I don’t know.” You laugh, but it sounds miserable. “I just—”
“Talk to me,” he says quickly, following your face when you turn away, trying to catch your eyes again. One of his hands slides down your arm, rubbing nervously while he watches you unravel. “Please.”
You stare down at the floor for a second before finally whispering, “I saw the comment… On her post,” you continue quietly. “It sounds so stupid out loud. Oh my god,” you sigh heavily, burying your face in your hand.
“It doesn’t—”
“And, people…” You swallow hard, trying to get the words out confidently but they sound so small. “I know they were talking about us downstairs.” Your throat tightens harder.
His brows pinch in confusion, stepping a little closer. “What people?”
You shrug defeatedly, shaking your head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s so stupid,” you whisper.
“It’s not,” he stops you from brushing it off as his hand slides down your arm, fingers threading through yours. “Seriously, who?”
“People expect you to be with her.” Your eyes finally lift back to his. “They do, Dean.” You wipe a few tears away, watching your hand tremble out of the corner of your eye. “I mean, she’s Allie. She’s beautiful and everybody loves her—”
Dean’s face softens. “Hey,” he says quietly.
“I just feel like—” Your throat tightens before you swallow. “I don’t know. Like maybe I’m just the girl in the middle of all that.”
He looks down at you, his lips pulled tight, the pink flush in his cheeks deepening, blue eyes shimmering now with tears of his own.
“Allie is a good person,” he says honestly. “She is.” He squeezes your hand in his. “She’s funny and she’s kind… I cared about her for a long time.”
Your stomach sinks hearing those words leave his lips. His forehead presses against yours, breathing deeply with you.
“But she’s not you.” His voice comes out low and certain this time. “She’s not the girl I’ve been thinking about nonstop for months. She’s not the first thing I think about when I wake up or the last person I talk to when I go to bed at night.”
He steps a little closer, wrapping his arms around your waist, pulling you into him. Dean blinks and a tear rolls down his cheek. You reach up, cupping your hand against his face, brushing it away and he leans into it, looking down at you.
He grabs your hand, kissing your palm, then your wrist, guiding you to wrap your arms around his neck.
“She’s not the girl I dragged upstairs tonight because I couldn’t stop looking at her downstairs,” he continues, his voice gentle and broken. “And she’s definitely not the girl making me panic because she thinks I want somebody else.”
“Okay,” you whisper, nodding your head.
“It ended. We both knew it was ending before it actually did. I moved on,” he says softly. “And then I met you. Not the other way around. I swear.”
You nod up at him, feeling guilty for even bringing it up in the first place, maybe because he’s making you feel the opposite of what any guilty person would make you feel. There’s no defensiveness. No twisting it back on you. Just honesty.
“I just…” Your voice breaks, fingers twisting weakly in the front of his shirt again. “I don’t want to be the placeholder. The girl that’s here until you get your girl back.”
“Holy shit,” the words trip out fast. “How can you think that?” You can hear the hurt in his voice now as he buries himself in your neck. His breath comes out shaky as a few warm tears fall on your shoulder, seeping through your shirt. “You’re perfect,” he mumbles against your skin. “You’re mine.”
Your fingers slide in his hair, holding him closer and he exhales.
“I hate seeing you cry,” he whispers.
“I hate seeing you cry too. I’m sorry,” you answer, your voice just above a whisper.
“Please believe me, alright?” Dean asks as he pulls back and matches your gaze.
“I believe you. I do.”
“I’m sorry, baby. I should’ve caught this sooner.”
“You’re okay,” you whisper.
He inhales sharply through his nose, an anxious laugh slipping through his lips with your own. You rub the little rivers of wet off the apples of his cheeks, embarrassment crawling warm up your neck now after seeing his reaction.
“If it helps,” he says softly, “everybody downstairs already knows I’m crazy about you. I’m serious.”
“I’m crazy about you too.”
“I am obsessed with you.”
“Stop,” you laugh weakly, rolling your eyes while he bends suddenly, lifting you again.
“I mean it,” he mumbles as he nuzzles into your neck before dragging back. “You gotta promise me something, though.”
You look back at him and nod.
“You gotta promise me you’re not gonna sit in your head thinking shit like that by yourself. Because I swear to god, baby, I’m gonna prove to you that I got you. You have nothing to worry about.”
“I promise—”
“I can’t lose you,” he pushes out before you can even finish.
“You won’t,” you whisper softly.
“Me and you,” he says quietly.
“Me and you.”
dividers @uzmacchiato
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c/w ᝰ.ᐟ unrequited love, love confession rehearsal, crying, yearning, self-inflicted emotional damage, one-sided love, hurt no comfort, painfully oblivious!dean, pet names (you’re my girl + babygirl; platonic, no y/n), all the right words to the wrong person, reader heartbreak + language
You’re sitting on the couch fully dressed with your shoes already on after changing outfits three times because apparently going to a bar with your best friend now requires a full identity crisis. You drop your phone beside you and let your head fall back against the couch cushion.
You and Dean have been friends for years. Long enough that he has a spare set of apartment keys for himself, free rein to your leftovers without repercussions, and his own little corner in the closet.
Dean never stayed serious about anybody long enough to worry about. There was always another girl, another date, another reason to remind yourself that whatever stupid crush you’d been carrying around wasn’t worth ruining the best friendship you’d ever had.
Until Allie.
For the first time since you’ve known him, Dean actually thinks before he talks about someone. Like she matters enough to make him choose his words carefully.
You spent years convincing yourself you’d get over him eventually. Turns out watching Dean fall in love with somebody else is a pretty effective way to figure out exactly how bad you’ve got it.
Your phone lights up on the coffee table, and you hate how fast you reach for it, rolling your eyes at yourself.
You stare at the messages for a second before typing back.
˗ˏˋ ☏ ˎˊ˗ 𝚈𝚘𝚞: 𝙽𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛 💕
A smile tugs at your mouth despite yourself.
That was the other problem. No matter how much this hurt, Dean was still Dean.
Your phone starts ringing before you can answer. Your heart immediately jumps, which is embarrassing considering it’s been doing that for years.
You answer before the second ring.
“Babydoll.”
“Mhmm…” You hum out a breath. “What do you want, Dean?”
For a second all you hear is his breathing before he chuckles weakly, and even though you can’t see him you can feel it. Something’s wrong.
“Can you come over?” His voice wavers a little.
“Yeah,” you answer, gently. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah. M’fine,” he assures quickly, like the concern is completely unnecessary. You hear him shift around on the other end of the line. “I just need somebody to talk to.”
“Yeah,” you say. “Of course.”
“You’re the best,” he hums.
“Be there in ten.” Click.
You grab your purse and step into the warm summer night. Dean’s place is only a few blocks away, unfortunately giving you more than enough time to think.
You don’t dislike Allie. She’s beautiful, funny, smart, and completely capable of keeping Dean on his toes. The problem is that every time he talks about her, he sounds like somebody who’s already fallen.
You don’t want it to be somebody else.
You want it to be you.
By the time you step into the driveway, most of the lights in the guys’ house are on, the front door wide open and music and conversation pouring out onto the street.
You let yourself inside, greeting the boys on autopilot, too worried about how Dean sounded on the phone to think of much more.
You make your way upstairs, following the sound of Dean moving around in his room. His door is half open. You push it the rest of the way and find him standing in front of his dresser, pulling a shirt over his head.
The second he sees you, his face brightens. “Finally,” he huffs out a breath like you had kept him waiting and you roll your eyes.
Dean crosses the room and wraps his arms around you before you can say something smart—a smothering hug. But this time he keeps you there, turning his face into your shoulder and letting out a long breath.
He stays like that for a moment, holding you like he needs it—like he needs you.
“Dean?” You whisper.
“Babydoll,” he mumbles.
“Seriously, are you okay?” You laugh nervously.
He thinks about that for a minute, mumbling something frustrated and small under his breath. You pull back and cup his cheeks between your hands, forcing him to look at you.
“C’mon,” you breathe, and his bottom lip pokes out in a pout. “It’s me… Tell me. What the hell’s going on with you. You told me to come over. I’m here…”
“I know… Thank you,” he mutters.
“So?”
“So…” He sighs as you drop your hands, hanging heavy by your sides. “Mental gymnastics.”
“Over what?” You ask, cocking an eyebrow at him.
Allie.
“Allie,” he whispers the name you saw coming a mile away. “I can’t do it.”
“Like?” You ask, feeling your stomach sink like a rollercoaster drop. “Like the two of you?”
“No—No. Hell no,” he answers fast and breathless. “That assignment. I couldn’t do it. Every girl I talked to, I just kept thinking about how fuckin’ stupid it was. I even thought about asking somebody to lie.”
“Desperate times,” you murmur.
“You got no clue,” he mumbles, tiredly. “I even thought about asking you. Y’know, to lie.” The words hit harder than they should. “Probably the only person I know who’d give a shit enough to help me with that.”
You force a smile, your lips trembling at the corner. “Of course.”
“She’d never believe it.”
Your eyelashes flutter as your heart starts to crack. “Oh?”
Dean laughs, scratching at the stubble on his jaw as he thinks it over. “You’re my girl. She’d know I was lyin’.”
You nod, giving him the only reply you can muster to that. He lifts his hands, running his fingers through his hair, still turning it over in his head.
“I’m just gonna tell her.”
You stare up at him for a moment, and those nerves you heard on the phone start to become crystal clear. “Tell her what?” You ask nonetheless.
He blows out a breath just like before, laughing nervously. “I don’t know how to say it.”
“You’ve never had trouble talking before,” you say, already turning away, glancing at him out of the corner of your eye as he scowls, rolling your eyes away.
“No too much on your boy, alright. I’m going through emotional duress.”
He walks around his bed and crashes down, turning to his side like he’s already waiting for you to settle on the other.
“This feels different.”
Your stomach sinks as you sink into the mattress next to him.
“I keep trying to convince myself we’re casual, but we’re not,” he tells you honestly. “I haven’t stopped thinking about New York.”
“Yeah,” you whisper.
“We didn’t even do anything special. We stayed in, ordered food, watched movies, and it was probably one of the best nights I’ve had in years.”
The best night he’s had in years. All those memories you’d secretly hoped might fill that place already did—for you.
“I keep waiting for this feeling to go away,” he sighs. “I keep thinkin’ eventually I’ll wake up and it’ll be normal again, but it doesn’t.”
You look up at him for a moment, wishing he would stop talking and feeling awful for it at the same time. You hate how much it sounds like everything you’ve spent years wanting to hear.
You hate it even more because none of it is meant for you.
“Well, what are you gonna say?” You whisper, and he scoots a little closer, snuggling into his pillow.
“To Allie?”
You widen your eyes to keep the tears inside—because why the fuck would you want to know? But some part of you knows you need to hear it.
“Tonight?” He asks and you nod. “Like practice on you.”
No.
You look back at him, wishing you could take back those six little words because now he’s not just going to talk through his feelings.
He wants you to feel them. He wants to sit here and practice telling another girl he loves her while looking you directly in the eye, and the worst part is that he trusts you enough to do it—trusts you enough to hand you something this important and never once wonder what it might cost you.
And that might be too much for you to take.
“Mhmm,” the utterance pushes past your lips, and your head falls a little heavier into the pillow, wafting an unfamiliar perfume, just a whisper. Allie’s.
You push off the pillow and sit, and he does the same, meeting you eye to eye.
“Allie,” he breathes. “I, uh….” Dean laughs nervously, so you do the same. The two of you look away for a moment, anxious for different reasons entirely before looking back at each other.
“Dean,” you whisper, extending your hand casually for him to continue.
“I get it now,” he mumbles, taking your hand in his. Your gaze falls as his fingers tighten around yours.
“Get what?” You whisper, eyes lifting back to him.
“You love love.” Your eyebrows soften on his, recalling something he had told you she had mentioned when they first met. “That’s what you said you wanted, yeah?”
“Yeah,” you whisper, and he smiles.
“So, I came here to tell you that I…” He mumbles as his thumb brushes along your knuckles. “I didn’t complete the assignment.”
Silence settles over the room as you already hear something you know to be true.
“Why?” You ask, watching him for a moment, holding your breath, waiting for his four little words he’s so desperate to say to leave his lips and shatter your heart completely.
“Because I like you,” he answers and you force yourself to smile.
Suddenly, Dean is harder to see through the blur gathering in your eyes. You nod, feeling your body starting to tremble with adrenaline.
“I like us.” He laughs softly. “We just kept having all these little moments.”
Dean doesn’t notice the way your stomach twists, looking away as your first tear breaks free. You lift up your shirt, brushing it away before he can see. He drags a hand across his mouth, smiling at the memory, too busy to see you.
And suddenly every fear you’ve spent months trying not to think about becomes impossible to ignore. Because if he talks about her like this now, what happens when she says yes?
The answer comes immediately. You lose him.
Not all at once. Slowly, the way people drift when they start building a life full of beautiful memories with someone else.
“I couldn’t do it either,” you whisper.
“You think she’s gonna say that?” He asks, breaking character. Talking to a friend.
“I hope so.”
He looks relieved, like finally saying it out loud has taken a weight off his shoulders. “Was it too much, honestly?”
You shake your head quickly—too eager. Not at all your normal reply and you both know it. “No, Dean. I think you should tell her,” your words barely slip past your quivering lips.
“Hey,” he breathes, his eyes widening as he leans in, that relief he was feeling falling away almost as fast as it came. “Are you okay?”
You look up to the ceiling, your hands coming up under your eyes to catch your tears, letting out a breathless laugh. “Oh my God,” you huff.
“You’re crying,” he interjects, pawing your hands away, grabbing your face just like you held him just minutes before.
He searches your face like he missed something. And he did. He has no clue. No fucking clue.
Dean immediately leans forward, pressing his forehead against yours, and you sniffle, hiccuping on your tears. Embarrassment coursing through your veins.
“Did I say something wrong?”
The panic in his voice makes you feel guilty, your tears rolling warm over his hands as you think of an escape plan. Some way to salvage this moment for him—for you.
“Why are you crying?” He whispers, laughing because it’s awkward and he’s nervous. Because this went from a hopeful moment to him being totally perplexed.
“That was just…” You swallow hard. “Really beautiful.”
Dean blinks a few times. “What?”
“Your,” you swallow hard, rolling your eyes as tears flick off your lashes. “That—that speech, Dean.” Your voice cracks, and you laugh as well. For him. Again.
“You think?”
You nod as a smile pulls at your mouth. “I loved it.”
His thumbs come up, brushing beneath your eyes. Dean's smile gets a little brighter, the dimples in his cheeks popping like that was the vote of confidence he needed. “It was that good?”
“Perfect,” you whisper.
“Damn, might be too much for a bar, huh?” He sighs, smiling back at you before he leans in, pressing a kiss against your forehead. “Thank you.” You can hear the relief in his words, like that conversation was exactly what he needed.
And, the last thing you wanted to hear.
“The Uber is here,” Garrett calls from downstairs.
“Oh, shit,” Dean practically jumps off the bed, running his fingers through his hair before he pats his pockets, double-checking for his wallet. “You comin’?” He asks when you stay right where you are.
You shake your head.
You point to your tear-soaked cheeks, attempting a self-deprecating smile. “I don’t think I’m feeling very good—I…” You look around for a moment. “I think I’m just gonna go home.”
Dean frowns immediately. “You’re joking? No, you’re fine. You just—It was the speech, right?” He asks, his attention immediately pulled away when he hears the boys outside yelling for the two of you. “I don’t wanna do this without you. What if this blows up in my face—”
“YOU TWO COMING?” Both of you are called through the open window. Dean groans and drops his head back for a second.
“I need you. You’re killin’ me.”
“Go,” you say, offering him a smile that lets him know he’s gonna be okay.
For a moment he just stands there before finally nodding. “Okay—Alright,” he answers, checking his reflection in the mirror, spraying some cologne across his chest before he grabs his jacket off the chair. He heads toward the door, stopping with one hand on the frame.
“You sure, sure?”
You nod. “I’m sure.”
Dean studies your face for another second before nodding back. “Okay.” A small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. Then he hesitates. “Wish me luck?”
“Good luck.”
The sound of his footsteps disappears down the stairs. A few seconds later you hear laughter, voices, a door opening and closing. You push yourself to your feet and wander toward the window, watching the black SUV drive off into the night.
And silence.
And in that moment, it’s like the energy had been sucked out of the room completely, the reality of the night catching up to you.
Your throat tightens immediately and your vision starts to blur—you don’t even realize you’re crying until you wipe at your cheek and your hand comes away wet.
You turn away from the window and look around his room. Your sweatshirt is draped over the back of the chair. His backpack with notes from your study session on Tuesday is half-open beside his desk. The cologne you bought him for his birthday—the scent drilled so deep in your brain it still lingers faintly in the air.
Everywhere you look there are pieces of you here.
Maybe that’s what has been hurting so much. Not the idea of Dean loving somebody else. The idea that he might be happy enough to stop needing you the way he always has. That one day you’ll wake up and realize you aren’t the first person he calls anymore, and that neither of you will have even noticed when it happened.
You press a hand over your mouth and try to breathe through it, but all you can hear is Dean’s voice.
I haven’t stopped thinking about New York.
I keep waiting for this feeling to go away.
Eventually you kick off your shoes and pull yourself onto his bed. The pillow is still warm from where he’d been lying. You bury your face in it trying to stop thinking—stop feeling.
Tomorrow he’ll probably walk through the front door smiling. He’ll tell you everything. What she said. How nervous he was. What had happened after that. And you’ll sit there and listen because that’s what you’ve always done.
Then a horrible thought hits you. You can’t stay here.
Because there’s a really good chance Dean is about to get exactly what he wants tonight. There’s a really good chance she says ‘yes’. And if she does, why wouldn’t they come back here?
For years you’ve walked into this room without thinking about it. You’ve fallen asleep here during movie nights. You’ve spent hours sitting on this bed listening to Dean complain about classes, hockey, teammates, girls you didn’t give a shit about. You treated this like it was your home and you belonged here.
But maybe that’s the problem.
Maybe none of it was ever yours in the first place.
Maybe this is just the first time you’ve had to realize it.
Your grip loosens on the pillow before you finally stand, picking up whatever pieces of yourself you can.
That isn’t even the part that hurts the most. Maybe you should’ve known how this would end.
He needed help telling another girl he loved her, and he came to you.
c/w ❀.ೃ࿔ angst, silent treatment, he logs into reader’s IG, hurt/comfort, miscommunication, #male tears, groveling, one-sided voicemails, make-up sex, oral (fem receiving), unprotected p in v, praise, jersey stays on, creampie, spanking, pet names (baby, babydoll, sweetheart, honey, pretty + no y/n) + dean climbs onto reader’s roof ❀⊰ *
By the seventh day, Dean had officially decided something was wrong with your phone.
Not because you never got mad at him—you absolutely did—but because this wasn’t how you fought. You’d tell him exactly what he did wrong. You expected him to listen. You expected the two of you to work through it together. But seven straight days without a single word? That wasn’t you.
He’d texted enough times that your conversation sat permanently pinned to the top of his messages. Half of them had gone unanswered. The other half were just him talking to himself because apparently he couldn’t stop.
Links to TikTok edits that reminded him of the two of you. A screenshot of some guy getting absolutely leveled during practice because he knew you’d laugh. A question about how much sugar he needs for those cookies he loves.
Then the inevitable spiral. You okay? Baby? You still mad? Can you at least tell me if you’re still alive? Nothing.
His foot bounced impatiently against the hardwood while he stared at his phone for what had to be the fiftieth time that afternoon. One more text couldn’t make it any worse than it already was.
. ݁₊ ⊹ 📱.ᐟ.ᐟ 𝙳𝚎𝚊𝚗: 𝙱𝚊𝚋𝚢?
He watched the little “Delivered” appear underneath it. Still nothing.
Dean dragged a hand over his face before opening Instagram instead. He was running out of places to check.
Maybe you’d posted something. Maybe you’d liked somebody’s story. Hell, maybe you’d accidentally give him some tiny sign you weren’t planning on pretending he didn’t exist forever.
Your profile loaded. Then it disappeared. He frowned, searching for your username again. Not found.
He closed the app and opened it again.
Nothing.
His eyebrows pulled together as he leaned back against the kitchen counter, thumb tapping impatiently against the side of his phone. He muttered to himself, shaking his head.
You, meanwhile, had just finished throwing a load of towels into the dryer when your own phone buzzed across the kitchen island.
Hadn’t you blocked him? You distinctly remembered pressing the button. You’d even smiled a little afterward because you knew it’d drive him insane. You opened his profile. Sure enough. Following.
You scowled, blocked him again, tossed your phone back onto the counter, and went back to the towels.
This time you stopped folding altogether. “…Absolutely not.”
You opened your settings again. Your blocked list was empty.
You stared at the screen for a long second before another thought crossed your mind.
Slowly, you reached for your laptop instead.
Two minutes later you were staring at your account activity, and there it was. One active login. MacBook.
Your eyes narrowed. “Fucking asshole.”
You didn’t even hesitate this time, changing your password completely, logging out of all devices, adding two-factor authentication as a giant fuck you.
Your phone started ringing before you could even set it back down. ˗ˏˋ ☏ ˎˊ˗ 𝙳𝚎𝚊𝚗 𝙳𝚒 𝙻𝚊𝚞𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚜
You watched it buzz until it stopped. Then it started again. And again. By the fifth call your curiosity finally got the better of you. You answered without saying a word, lifting the phone to your ear while you folded another towel.
“Baby? Holy shit. Hi—Hey,” his voice cracked nervously, fumbling over his words. You stayed silent, folding your laundry, listening to his heavy breathing on the other end of the phone. “Sweetheart?”
You let the washer lid fall with a clap, giving him the only sign of life he deserved for the moment.
“Uh… did you…” He cleared his throat. “Did you change your Instagram password or somethin’?” he asked casually, like that’s a normal thing.
You smoothed the towel across the counter, stacked it neatly with the others, and reached for another. Dean let out a long breath through his nose, his frustration building on the other end.
“Babydoll?”
Silence.
“Honey?”
Still nothing.
“Are you for real?” he asked, his voice tightening with frustration. “I know I pissed you off. I deserve some of this, alright? But all of it? Why are you shuttin’ me out?” He lets out another breath. “Please, baby.”
You stopped for half a second before reaching for another towel.
“Yell at me… Tell me to fuck off. At least tell me to stop calling. Just talk to me—” You heard a commotion on the other end of the phone—Garrett and Tucker walking through the kitchen, talking about something he couldn’t even make out, Logan yelling about his blue tie and where the fuck it was.
Dean clears his throat, forcing some of the softness out of his voice before Garrett or Tucker can hear it. Even though this weeklong silent treatment had lasted six days and twenty-three hours too long, he still knew you’d be at his game.
You always come.
So he keeps grabbing onto that instead.
You’ll yell at him after if you want. Hell, maybe you’ll wait until they’re back at the house and tear him apart in private. He can live with that.
Silence leaves too much room to think, and every time he lets himself, he ends up somewhere worse than before.
“I love you, baby. I’ll see you tonight, alright? Left you some tickets at will-call like always. Just—wish me luck. Something?” Click.
You hang up before you can give him what he wants, already picturing the look on his face.
The ride to the arena feels longer than usual because pretending he isn’t worried in front of the boys is harder than he thought it’d be.
The locker room is loud, music echoing off the concrete walls while sticks clatter against the lockers, equipment bags unzipping and dropping to the floor, the conversations he should be paying attention to like static.
He sits at his stall, staring at his phone one last time before dropping it into his bag. Nothing. No texts. No missed calls. No miracle message telling him to quit overthinking it. You’ll be there after the game.
His fingers fumble his helmet strap twice before it finally clicks into place. He mutters under his breath, frustrated by a task that should’ve been simple. Garrett finally nudges him. Dean ignores it, so the second one comes a little harder.
“You good?” Garrett asks through a weak laugh, searching for Dean’s eyes.
“Yeah,” he hums.
“Everything alright?”
“Great.”
Garrett snorts out a laugh, leaning into a locker, arms crossing over his chest. “…Everything good with your girl?” he asks. “Feels like I haven’t seen her around.”
The words hit harder than Dean expects, and for half a second, he nearly tells him—says he hasn’t heard your voice in almost a week. No texts. Nothing but one-sided voicemails and desperate pleas for anything. That you blocked him. That he got himself kicked out of your Instagram twice before you changed your password.
That he’s one missed hockey game away from driving to your place and refusing to leave until you look at him.
“‘Course it is. She’s just…” Dean shrugs without looking up. “She’s got a bunch of shit goin’ on with school. Just busy.”
“Yeah?” Garrett tears a fresh piece of hockey tape between his teeth, glancing over. “Doesn’t seem like her.”
No, it doesn’t.
Dean can’t even come up with something in reply.
“We’ll catch up with you guys after the game. We just got into it a little bit. Stupid shit. Nothin’ serious.”
Garrett nods, the answer believable enough to let it go for the moment.
The team skates onto the ice to the roar of the crowd, lights flashing around the arena while the student section pounds against the glass.
Dean skates his usual lap, eyes drifting toward the section where you always sit. The girls you usually come with are already there.
Your seat is empty.
His stomach sinks and by the time they line up for the national anthem, Dean catches himself looking over a third time before forcing his eyes back toward center ice.
The puck drops, and from the first shift he knows he’s in trouble.
Every decision feels a stride behind. His reads come just a little too late. By the second period he’s taken an interference penalty trying to recover from another mistake, left sitting in the box staring at the far end of the rink while the game carried on without him.
The scoreboard keeps getting uglier. Four goals against, then five. Every time he hops over the boards he tells himself to wake the fuck up, and every shift somehow ends worse than the one before it.
The final horn sounds sixty miserable minutes later, leaving Briar with a six-to-one loss. He barely remembers lining up to tap gloves with his teammates before they drift toward the tunnel. Barely remembers skating off the ice.
Dean drags both hands over his face, standing in front of his stall as the room empties around him like he’d forgotten what he was supposed to do next. He’s exhausted, pissed off, embarrassed as fuck, and somehow still thinking about you instead of the scoreboard.
He wants to be mad at you. He really does. It would be so much easier. Instead, all he can think about is the fact that if he’d acted right in the first place, none of this would’ve happened. Whatever the hell he did, it was bad enough to make you do things you normally wouldn’t. Hell, Graham said it best. “This isn’t like you.”
His phone is already in his hand before he’s even halfway down the hallway, thumb hitting your contact out of muscle memory more than anything else. The call doesn’t even get a chance to ring.
Straight to voicemail.
His jaw flexes, nostrils flaring as his grip tightens around the strap of his hockey bag. Water wicks off his hair, not even bothering to fully towel off before running out the door.
Another call. Another voicemail.
The doors slide open and cold night air hits his soaked skin as he steps into the parking lot. The other team filters toward their bus, still laughing about the game as Dean fishes his keys from his bag without slowing down.
“Rough one tonight, Di Laurentis,” an enforcer from the other team hollers lazily, tossing his bag into the side of the bus.
Dean ignores it—ignores the snickering that follows from the opposing team. Garrett yells something back in Dean’s defense, but he barely hears it over the pounding in his head.
“Guess somebody forgot how to play defense.”
“Fuck you,” Dean barks and Garrett grabs him by the shirt, holding him where he is with a heavy hand.
“Let it go, alright?” he says calmly. “You got shit you wanna do, yeah?”
The chuckles die down, but his blood is still simmering. Garrett nods Tucker and Logan toward his Jeep. Something ugly climbs up the back of his throat before he can swallow it down.
He presses your contact again as he sinks into his car. This time, he can’t hold it in. When the beep comes, the frustration that’s been building for a week finally boils over.
“So that’s it, huh? You’re seriously gonna keep doin’ this? Blocking me, changing your password, ignoring my texts—what, now you can’t even pick up the fucking phone?” His voice comes out sharper than he intends, the words practically tripping over each other.
He turns over the engine, letting out a humorless laugh. “Grow up. If you’re pissed, use your fucking words. Tell me you never wanna see me again. But quit pullin’ this silent treatment bullshit because it’s driving me fuckin’ insane.”
His foot slams on the gas, his car screaming toward the exit as he peels out of the lot, breathing so heavily he can hear it in the receiver of his phone.
“You don’t get to disappear when you’re angry. That’s not how this works.” Beep.
The silence afterward is deafening, weighing heavy on his shoulders. It barely has time to settle before his stomach turns and the guilt washes over him like a wave.
The second the adrenaline starts bleeding off, he knows none of that was what he wanted to say. Not a single fucking word.
You hadn’t screamed at him. You hadn’t called him names. You hadn’t done anything except refuse to answer him.
And he’d just repaid that by leaving the kind of voicemail he’d hate hearing from anyone he loved.
His eyes sting with unfallen tears, his chest aching as his speed creeps higher than it should while the phone rings and rings.
“…Hey,” he breathes, emotion clinging to his words. “So… That last voicemail…” He rubs the heel of his hand across his forehead, dragging away the sweat as he turns into the gas station a block away from your place.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, stepping out of the car. “I shouldn’t have talked to you like that.”
He drags the sleeve of his sweatshirt across his eyes, turning his hat to the front—lower than before, head down as he grabs a bouquet of flowers.
“And I know I said you disappear when you’re angry. That’s not fuckin’ true. You don’t do that. I know that—you know that. This—this isn’t like you, and I still talked to you like it was.”
He walks up to the register, pinning the phone between his shoulder and cheek as he fumbles for his wallet, hand trembling as he flips past the picture he has of you tucked inside, grabbing his card, jogging out as soon as “approved” flashes across the screen.
“That game, baby. That was the worst game I’ve played since I’ve been at Briar. Got yelled at by Coach for a half hour. Got chirped by those pricks from the other team on the way out,” he mutters as he pulls out onto your street. “I took it out on you. I’m pissed off. I’m embarrassed. None of that’s your fault and I made it your problem.”
The phone stays pressed against his ear, capturing the silence. The wordlessness was never the problem. The two of you had always been good at that. But now every time he glances toward the passenger seat, it’s dark and empty. That little smile that’s always waiting for him when he looks over is gone.
And he still doesn’t have an answer.
He’s gone looking for it more than once this week.
He knows where you study and where you stop for coffee between classes. He knows which parking lot you leave your car in during the afternoons.
And somehow all of that only makes it worse. It’s painfully obvious you’re avoiding him.
He’s driven past your house enough times this week to notice you finally fixed the little porch light that used to flicker above the front door.
Every time he gets close, he talks himself out of it. The texts and phone calls already feel like they’re pushing the line. Showing up uninvited means admitting this isn’t just another argument.
It means admitting he might actually be losing you.
If you wanted him there, you’d open the door.
His throat tightens and his hands curl around the steering wheel. “Don’t…” The words scrape past his lips into the phone, so soft and broken you probably won’t even catch them when you play the voicemail back—if you play it back. “Don’t fucking cry.”
His head falls back against the headrest, his arms going rigid as he stares through the windshield. His mind circles the last few weeks again, picking through every conversation, every plan, every promise he’s made.
And still, nothing.
What the fuck did I do, baby?
His thumbs tap nervously against the steering wheel as he pulls up to your house.
For the first time all week, your bedroom window is glowing in the dark.
“I’m here. I’m gonna figure out what’s wrong. I’m gonna apologize. And, I’m gonna make it right, alright? I’m a fucking mess without you.” Beep.
He kills the engine, grabs the flowers, and climbs out into the cool night air. Gravel crunches beneath his shoes as he makes his way up the sidewalk, every step giving him another opportunity to rehearse what he’s going to say.
By the time he reaches the porch, his heart is pounding hard enough to feel it in his throat. He shifts the bouquet into one hand and knocks twice against the front door, the sound echoing through the quiet neighborhood before everything falls still again.
Dean waits, listening hard—nothing. No footsteps. No doors. No muffled voice telling him to give you a second. Just silence.
His stomach twists as the realization settles in. You heard the knock. You heard the bell. And, even though you know exactly who’s standing on your front porch, and you’re choosing not to answer.
Maybe it was the voicemail sitting in your phone. Or, maybe that was just a new addition to the laundry list of bullshit that got him to this point.
He lets out a long breath through his nose before stepping off the porch, backing into the yard so he can see your window a little better.
“Baby!” His voice carries through the stillness of the neighborhood before fading away.
Nothing.
He bends down, picking up a rock, rolling it once between his fingers, before he tosses it. Pop. The little stone kisses the glass with a soft tap before bouncing harmlessly away, clicking against the siding and falling back to the pavement below.
His eyes stay fixed on the window.
The flowers hang forgotten at his side while he waits. “C’mon, baby. Please,” he mumbles under his breath.
What the hell happens after this? Sleep in his car? Sit on your porch until sunrise? One more try.
His fingers close around the smooth stone, drawing back, but something catches his eye. The window—cracked open just enough that he barely notices it.
You can ignore his calls. You can ignore the doorbell. You can ignore the knocks and rocks, but he isn’t going home knowing you’re twenty feet away with your bedroom window open. Absolutely not.
The thought of leaving after the week he’d had, the voicemail he wishes he could take back, and the worst game of his career makes his chest tighten all over again.
He looks up, your bedroom turning glassy behind the tears gathering in his eyes.
He pinches his tear ducts between his big fingers, blowing out a breath. His eyes drift toward the side of the house, to the old wooden lattice that climbs to the roof—thick vines and bright flowers—something he’s seen a hundred times over but never seriously considered climbing it.
Because he’d always assumed he’d be welcome through the front door—climbing to your bedroom was never supposed to be the easier option.
He walks toward the lattice, staring down at the flowers for a second, before he lifts the cellophane-wrapped stems to his lips, biting down before he starts to climb.
The wood protests, letting out a long creak that sounds like a warning. A sharp snap echoing through the breezeway when he doesn’t listen, then a sharp crack that has him looking down at just how far he made it.
By the time he finally hauls himself to the roof, he’s sweating and panting, letting the flowers tumble from his mouth into his limp hand. He lifts his hand, tugging his hat from the front to the back, mentally preparing for whatever happens next.
Dean steadies himself against the old shingles before carefully making his way across the shallow slope of the roof—shoes scraping against the weathered surface while his hand trails along the siding for balance.
His hand finds the window frame before his eyes do.
You’re curled up in bed, laptop glowing softly, lighting up the space around you. You’re facing away from the window entirely, watching some old movie on the network he knows airs right after his game.
You snuggle a little more into your blanket, Dean’s away jersey draped over your frame, just a pair of little black panties peeking out the bottom. He exhales through his nose, taking in the rest of your room, following the little trail that got you there—your discarded jeans, sneakers, your jacket, and at the very end of the line your keys.
You were supposed to be at the game.
You made it right to the point of cracking before talking yourself out of it because you were still too angry to watch him play.
His stomach twists. He’d spent the last seven days missing you, but somehow knowing you almost came hurts even worse than if you’d never considered it at all.
Dean doesn’t think. He reaches forward and wraps both hands around the edge of the window, the old frame sliding upward with a rough scrape.
“…Don’t you fucking dare, Dean.” Your voice cuts through the silence, making him flinch, his feet stumbling a little on the roof.
He lets out a short, disbelieving laugh, shaking his head once as though maybe he’d misheard you.
“Just leave.”
“Well…” He gestures helplessly toward the open window, still trying to smile through the knot twisting tighter in his stomach. “You’re talking to me now… so?” His shoulders lift in a helpless shrug. “Why would I leave?”
Your eyes don’t leave his as you slam your laptop shut and step off the bed. “Yeah?” you ask quietly, the softness in your voice somehow making him more uneasy than if you’d screamed. “And why the hell would you listen to me?”
Dean’s eyebrows pinch together, his heart ramping up at your words. Without another word, Dean lets go of the window frame completely.
Even though he doesn’t fully understand what he did, he knows whatever it was, he’s still doing it.
He lowers himself until he’s sitting on the roof beneath your window, his back settling against the old siding with a dull thud.
He stretches his long legs out in front of him, setting the bouquet beside him, dragging his clammy hands down his thighs.
Dean finally clears his throat, his voice coming out rough enough that it barely carries through the open window. “Please.” He swallows hard, fingers knotting together between his knees. “Please just talk to me, baby.”
The silence stretches in the space he’d hoped you’d fill.
“I miss you,” he whispers. “I need you. I...” He rubs a hand over the back of his neck before tipping his head against the siding, finally finding the nerve to look back through the window. “I don’t know what else to do to make it better, but I will.”
He watches your face for any sign at all that you’re softening, finding none. The uncertainty in his chest only grows heavier before he speaks.
“You’re killin’ me.”
Dean blinks at you through the window as you look back at him like you’re trying to decide whether this conversation is even worth having.
“Baby—”
“Don’t ‘baby’ me,” you mumble, grabbing the frame to shut it, but he rests his fist down, not letting it fall.
“Can’t,” the word breaks past his lips. “I know I fucked up. I know I don’t get to tell you when to forgive me. But I can’t do another night of this. I’m not gonna climb through your window. It’s clear you don’t want me in there. I’m not forcing anything. I’m just sitting here begging you to talk to me.”
“Fucking finally, Dean.”
“What am I missing, baby? Holy shit,” his voice breaks.
“Stop calling me baby right now. I’m not—I’m your baby when it’s convenient for you.”
“What?” he asks, the crease between his brows deepening. “What does that even mean?”
“Why do you suddenly care?”
“I've always cared about you—”
“Always?” you ask with a breathless laugh.
“Yes, always. When haven’t I?”
“Making reservations because my boyfriend couldn’t be bothered to call the restaurant when you told me you’d handle it—”
“I—”
“You forgot. So I made them.”
“Okay,” he answers, shifting on his forearms, desperate to get closer, but the glass stays between you. “I just… I didn’t. I don’t know. I'm sorry—”
“I'm not done.”
His eyes widen on yours, taken aback, his big frame seeming to shrink a little. “Of course,” he assures you quickly.
“I waited all week for you to do it yourself. When I finally called, they told me you never did. So I did. I did my hair. I put on that dress you said you liked. I sat there waiting for your text after the game.”
Dean’s stomach twists because he already knows where this is going. Before he’d texted you, he’d already assured the boys you wouldn’t mind—speaking for you. Without you.
“You texted me let’s do Malone’s.”
“Okay,” he whispers, careful not to cut you short this time.
“And then you said we'd swing through there on our way out.”
“I remember,” he breathes.
“Do you think an Italian restaurant is open after bar close?”
He looks down at your hands braced on the window, his heart breaking even more seeing how much you don’t want him inside.
“No. I think they’d be closed, honey. I’m sorry.”
“Of course they would be. You know what I ate for dinner that night?” you ask, and he purses his lips because honestly he doesn’t know.
“What did you eat?” he asks softly.
“Dry cereal after you passed out when you were done fucking me. Alone in your fucking kitchen after I was done playing captain’s girlfriend all damn night.”
His stomach sinks and the blood drains from his face. “Woah—hey, sweetheart. C'mon," he panics. “That’s not what this is—”
“I kept telling myself it wasn’t a big deal. Hockey season. Captain stuff. Team bonding.”
“You know I wasn’t trying to—”
“I’ve done every single thing you’ve wanted to do because I wanted to spend time with you. I asked for one dinner. One.”
He swallows hard, lashes fluttering as he nods, because for the moment that’s all he can manage without breaking completely before he speaks.
“I want to spend time with you too. That’s why I ask you to come with me. I didn’t know that’s how you were feeling.”
“I keep telling you what I want, and you keep telling me how it’s going to work. You don’t listen to what I want.”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
“So I stopped…” you whisper, voice tight as you see his eyes shimmer with tears. “I stopped asking. I stopped texting. I stopped calling.”
Dean lifts the sleeve of his sweatshirt, wiping the wet away after it tumbles down his cheeks.
“It took me disappearing for you to finally care.”
He can’t even defend himself anymore because every single thing you’ve said is true—cancelled plans, “let’s do this instead,” “after practice,” “just one beer.”
Every promise turned into another night surrounded by hockey while you quietly lowered your expectations.
“And look,” you sigh, your voice fraying at the edges. “Look how much time you have when you think you’re gonna lose something you love.”
“I didn’t know what to do. I just wanted to get your attention. I didn’t know how to handle this, okay? I didn’t know what I did. I was just—”
“How’s it feel?” you ask, cutting off his rambling, nodding at the bouquet.
“What?” he asks.
“Desperately fighting for someone’s attention?” you whisper, your eyes lingering on the little white tag still hanging from the plastic wrap before you look back at him. “I wouldn’t even say you’re there yet. Tag’s still on them, Dean. $2.99? Really?”
He opens his mouth to apologize again, but you don’t let him.
“This probably wasn’t even a part of your gameplan. You didn’t plan anything because you didn’t think you had to.”
Your voice stays level, but every word lands with more weight than the last.
“You thought I’d be in my seat like I always am. You thought I’d meet you after the game like I always do. You thought you’d say you’re sorry, I’d forgive you because I always have, and we’d move on.” You give a small shake of your head. “You didn’t plan for me not to show up.”
He looks away, unable to face you for the moment, gathering the courage to look back at you, drawing in a shaky breath.
“That’s why you’re here, Dean,” you say softly. “Not because you had some grand gesture planned. Because the bare minimum stopped working.”
“Sweetheart…” he starts carefully, his voice softer than it’s been all night. “We’re halfway through the season. It’s been a lot. I know that.” He nods to himself like he’s finally found the answer. “But it’s not forever. Think about this summer.”
A tired smile tries to find its way onto his face. “We practically lived together. We stayed up ’til three in the morning watching shitty movies. We took road trips because we could. Dates all the time. We were good.” His eyes lock onto yours. “We get through this season and everything goes right back to normal.”
A laugh escapes you before you can stop it, and Dean knows it’s the wrong answer.
You shake your head slowly, looking down at your hands before meeting his eyes again. “I’m not waiting for an entire hockey season to get my boyfriend back. I’m not gonna do this—”
“No. No, hey. I thought you were just giving me the silent treatment,” he blurts, voice shattering around the admission. “Please don’t…” He shakes his head, whatever composure he’d been clinging to finally slipping away. “Don’t break up with me. Please.”
“We’re still together.”
He swallows hard, nodding as his head hangs between his shoulders, tears slipping off his cheeks onto the shingles. “Thank you.”
“You asked me to put our relationship on hold until hockey’s over, and you don’t even realize that’s what you said.”
“I know,” he whispers.
“I don’t want the version of you that’s available when the season ends. I want the one who’s supposed to be my boyfriend while it’s happening—and before you even get it into your head that I’m asking for too much… I’m not. And, it wasn’t just this. It was a bunch of little moments exactly like this.”
He nods in agreement, waiting for more.
“I’m asking for a date once in a while, Dean.”
“Of course, honey.”
“I’m asking for a night where I don’t have to split my boyfriend with twenty hockey players. And, I’m asking that you stick to that plan. Three things. That’s it. If you can’t manage that…” you say quietly, “…then that’s okay.”
“What?” he asks, moving closer like he heard you wrong because nothing about this situation is okay.
“Really. It is. Just means you can’t handle being in a relationship right now. Maybe that’s where you’re at, and I’d respect you a hell of a lot more if you just admitted it.” The words land squarely between the two of you. “Because I’m not spending the few months letting you decide everything we do before summer starts.”
“Of course.”
“And if you can’t give me that, then you can’t handle me.”
Dean bites his cheek, nodding as he takes in every word.
“This summer was amazing… you’re right. Why do you think I’m still here?”
“‘Cause you love me?” he asks pathetically.
“Obviously.”
“I know. I love you too,” he mumbles.
“I know who you are, Dean. That’s why this hurts so much.” You gesture between the two of you. “Because I know you’re capable of loving me better than this.”
His eyes fall to the shitty bouquet by his side, the ones he bought in a panic, his brain on autopilot. The sale sticker covering the barcode only adding insult to injury—the fact that it’s your least favorite color landing like the final nail in his coffin. He pulls the little price tag off the plastic wrap, crumples it into his fist.
“I hate that these still got the fuckin’ tag on ’em,” he says weakly. “Not… Not because you called me out for it. I need that… Just proves exactly what you’ve been trying to tell me all night.”
He nods, rolling everything over just like he has all week, finally seeing what he’d been missing.
His eyes shut softly, thinking about the last weekend, the sound of your voice when you called him between classes, letting him know you made the reservation and the—subtle sound of your disappointment when he yelled over the locker room noise that you should go to Malone’s instead.
His mind lingers on the look on your face at the bar as you smiled for the boys, picking through the bar peanuts as they broke down the game to exhaustion. The way you fucked him just like he liked and then kissed him goodnight. How you were gone when he woke up to piss and he didn’t think twice about it. Just thought maybe you had gone downstairs to get water.
And now, he knows you were all alone.
And this was just a moment, in a collection of moments just like this for you.
His lips tremble, wishing he could rewrite what’s happened but he can’t. And even though you’d said you’re not breaking up, he feels like you have every right to end it—and he can’t risk not telling you everything he wants to say.
“I stopped on the way here because I panicked. I didn’t stop because I planned something. I didn’t stop because I thought about what would actually make you happy.” He pinches his eyes shut—letting the tears fall freely—his pride long gone by now. “I stopped because I realized I was about to lose you.”
He lifts a finger, tapping it against the glass like he’s trying to close a little of the distance between you.
“You’re right about everything… I was counting on you coming.”
He shakes his head, hating what’s going to leave his lips next. “You asked me earlier how it feels. It feels fucking awful.” He laughs but there’s nothing funny about it, he’s just hysterical at this point, leaving it coming out hollow. “I’ve been losing my goddamn mind.”
Your lips draw to the side as you fold your arms across your chest. He doesn’t take this time. His fist slips away from the glass, leaving the space between you completely open—and the next move entirely up to you.
“I got too fucking comfortable.” The words come out, without hesitation. “Not because I loved you less. You just—you’re the one thing I never worried about losing. I treated you like you’d always be there.” His eyes fall for a second, picking at a wilted petal nervously. “That wasn’t me loving you the way I should’ve.” He shakes his head. “That was me taking you for granted.”
You take a step forward, fingers wrapping around the window’s edge, lifting it higher, dropping down to the windowsill yourself.
He takes a breath, blowing it out through his nose. Every instinct tells him to reach for you, but he holds himself back, settling for leaning a little closer instead.
“You asked me if I can handle you.” His eyebrows pull together. “And, baby—Sorry…” He stops himself after the name leaves his lips, shaking his head with a weak laugh. “Just… habit. I’m sorry.”
“Dean—”
“Please,” he stops you cautiously. “Can I… I’m—I’ve got a little more to say. Just…” the word cracks and he lets out a breath, watching as you rest your hand on the roof, so close he can feel his hand tingle.
“Go ahead,” you whisper.
“I don’t want someone easier. I don’t want somebody who expects less from me. I don’t want any girl. I want you. I can handle you.” He nods with absolute certainty. “I should’ve been handling this relationship with the same care I’ve been giving everything else.”
His voice trembles. “I can’t undo this hockey season with one apology.” He reaches a little, palm open, asking for yours. “But I swear…” His eyes shine under the street lights. “If you give me the chance to prove that I heard every single word you said tonight… we’ll never have to have this conversation again. I promise.”
You rest your hand in his and he closes his around you quick like you might change your mind. His eyes cut away for a moment, the contact alone threatening another wave of tears. He takes a deep breath, his shoulders falling.
“You fucking hate this color. I’m sorry,” he mutters, tossing them out toward the driveway, the discount bouquet hitting the hood of his car with a thump. “Shit’s so fucking embarrassing, dear god.”
He hangs his head for a moment, his thumb rubbing absently against your knuckles.
“Tonight is shot,” he says quietly. “Tomorrow, right? Just… Please go out with me tomorrow. Let me make up for a little bit of anything you deserve.” He looks back at you, head resting heavy against the side of your house. “Good flowers, pretty dress, dinner, dessert—I know exactly where you wanna go. Just, please. I’m begging you. And, I know I’m telling you what to do. I’m sorry if you already have plans—”
“I don’t,” you answer with a soft smile. “Seven?”
“I’m tailgating in your front yard. I’m so serious. I’m fucking miserable,” he answers breathlessly, leaning in as you lean in too, your lips meeting with a desperate kiss.
He grabs you, hauling you closer, pulling you into his lap as your fingers slip into the hair at the nape of his neck.
“Tell me you still want me here,” he mumbles between kisses, his voice rough enough that you almost don’t hear it, your thumbs brushing the tears off his cheeks.
“I want you here.”
“Let me in? Please,” he whispers against the corner of your mouth.
“You can ask me sweeter than that, Dean Di Laurentis.”
“Please, baby… Let me come in,” he mumbles, his lips brushing softly against yours. “I’ll be so fuckin’ good for you. I missed you so much.”
“Yes,” you whisper.
Dean’s feet hit the floor a heartbeat later, every bit of tension he’d been carrying for the last seven days finally unraveling. He buries his face against your neck, breathing you in like he’d almost forgotten what it felt like before finally looking back at you.
“Promise me something,” he says as he carries you toward the bed.
You pull his hat free, tossing it somewhere behind you before your fingers disappear into his hair. His eyes close for a second, a tired smile finding its way across his face the moment you scratch lightly at the back of his head.
“Okay,” you breathe.
“Tell me next time. Anything. Right away. Don’t let me keep getting it wrong again.”
“Promise,” you whisper.
“One more promise,” he asks, his voice softer than before.
“Depends,” you whisper teasingly, feeling his trembling lips curl into a little smile.
“Unblock me.”
“Right now?” you whisper through a breathy laugh.
“No—We’re busy. So, so fucking busy,” he hums, holding you a little closer. “Just whenever you get a chance.”
“I promise,” you whisper.
“Thank you, baby.”
“I’m glad you came.”
“Should’ve come earlier,” he says before you can answer. “But I want you to know. I hear you,” he says quietly. “I heard every word you said out there.”
He shakes his head once before speaking again.
“I don’t wanna be the guy that only listens after he fucks up.” His thumb brushes across your cheek. “I don’t want you to play captain’s girlfriend. I want you to feel like you’re mine. You deserve to know how important you are to me. I can tell you—words don’t mean shit. I don’t want you to have to worry about making plans for us ‘cause you’re afraid I won’t.”
“Thank you,” you whisper.
“I’m gonna listen when it’s inconvenient. When hockey’s good. When hockey sucks. When I’m tired. When I’m stressed. When I’m bein’ an idiot…” A weak smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Which apparently is more often than I thought.”
“I love you,” you murmur.
His eyes close as he sits with those words for a second. “Jesus…” he breathes, shaking his head. “Love you so much.”
He sets you on the bed, one hand gripping the jersey on your body as the other cradles the back of your neck.
“Stay?” you ask as he tilts closer, your fingers popping open the button of his pants. “Sleep here.”
He chuckles deeply against your lips before stripping off his hoodie and tugging off his shirt. Your hands rest on his strong chest, feeling his heart bang beneath your palms.
“Yeah?” he asks, his hands finding you again, moving up your arms, over your shoulders, to the sides of your neck, cradling your face like he can’t get close enough. “If that’s what you want.”
“Is that what you want?” you chuckle.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he mumbles as his breath mingles with yours. “Thought I lost you.”
“You didn’t lose me,” you whisper, tracing along the top of his jeans lightly with your nails, feeling him shiver.
You lower his zipper slowly and he tugs down his pants, the buckle landing with a thump to the floor, waiting for you to decide what you want from him.
He sucks in a breath as you cup his thick cock through his boxers, a smile spreading a moment later when you squeeze just enough to make him groan for you.
You pinch the cotton between your fingers, tugging his boxers down, teasing inch by stiff inch until you catch his tip on the waistband. His cock springs out—long and hard, blood pumping through him as you hold his length in your hand.
You stroke slowly, watching precum bead at the tip as your thumb drags through it, teasing both of you.
“Fuck me,” he breathes, his head tipping back to the ceiling, his big hands rubbing over his eyes as he laughs breathlessly.
He lifts you easily, your legs curling around his waist. He smiles against your mouth as he eases you back onto the sheets.
You reach for him, drawing him back down, kissing him harder, fingers twisting into his hair. His chest rises and falls against yours, breath ragged.
“Keep this on for me,” he whispers as he lifts the front of the jersey over your chest, dipping down to kiss higher and higher. “Please,” he mutters, voice rough against your skin when you whimper.
Your breath catches and a moan spills from your lips when his weight presses you into the mattress, voice husky as he mumbles praise into your skin, gripping your thighs, making your pussy throb.
“Been so lonely,” he whispers, mouth moving across your chest, catching your nipple between his lips. “Dreaming about this—I swear to god.”
“Yeah,” you whisper as his big hand slides up your side, squeezing your breast as he sucks your bottom lip slow enough to make you tremble.
“Yes,” he hums. You gasp as his hand slides down between you, cupping your pussy, making you moan for him. He chuckles deeply, fingers dragging up the wet fabric between your thighs.
“I need you,” you whisper, lips grazing his.
“I’m gonna take care of you. I promise.” He circles his fingers over your clit—your hands squeezing around his big biceps, feeling them swell and soften with each movement. “I’d eat it through your panties if that’s all you’d give me… gladly.”
“Don’t tease me,” you whisper.
“I hear you, baby,” he sighs, tugging your panties to the side, rough fingers tracing around your entrance.
Dean’s breath catches as you reach between you, your hand wrapping around the base of his cock, drawing a low groan from deep in his chest.
You stroke your hand up, gliding to his fat tip, watching precum glisten and leak out of his slit onto your body.
You grab his neck, pulling him down to your lips, bringing him in closer as he plunges two fingers into your soaked core, making you throw your head deep into the pillow.
Dean kisses your chest as he starts to fuck his fingers into you, wrapping his lips around your nipple, sucking harshly, making your back arch off the mattress.
His long fingers curl deep inside you, coaxing out breathless moans with nothing but the movement of his hand. He watches you for a moment—your chest rising, lips parted, his name half-caught in your throat—and then he lowers himself between your thighs.
Dean trails slow kisses down your body, your heart racing wildly the lower he goes. When your thighs start to tense, he looks up at you, his cool chain dragging unintentionally up your slit, making your breath hitch.
He presses your thighs down, spreading you open with a firm grip as his eyes fall to your soaked pussy, lowering himself between your legs without taking his eyes off you. His tongue flicks against you with a soft, deliberate taste.
“Yes, baby,” you gasp, with a half-laugh, half-moan—right before he wraps his biceps around your legs, forcing you to his mouth with purpose.
He kisses your clit, then seals his lips around it, sucking gently as you thread your fingers through his hair, yanking him closer. One hand drops from your thigh, sliding between your legs again, and you gasp as his fingers push back into you—working in perfect rhythm with his mouth.
Your body arches off the mattress. Everything blurs except the heat of his tongue, the stretch of his fingers, and the relentless pace of it all.
“I’m gonna cum,” you whisper, already trembling.
He groans into your pussy, the vibration pushing you over the edge instantly. You come hard, clenching around his fingers, stars bursting behind your eyes.
He doesn’t let up—his mouth seals tighter, his fingers working you faster, deeper, until your whole body twitches with overstimulation and your eyes sting with tears.
“That was so fuckin’ pretty,” he murmurs against your dripping center, planting lazy kisses on your clit that make you jolt with every touch.
“Dean…” you breathe out, glancing down at him, reaching for him as your breath shakes. “I need you inside me.”
Dean’s eyes roll back at your words, your taste lingering on his tongue. His hands settle on your hips, turning you to your hands and knees, lifting your ass into the air.
He spanks you, the loud crack of his palm against your supple flesh filling the room. You arch your back, making him release a desperate groan as his eyes drop to your slick, watching your wetness leak down your inner thighs.
Dean wraps a hand around himself, slapping his dick against you, running his velvety head up your thighs, sopping up the mess.
Your breath catches as he presses his tip in, feeling him stretch you out already.
Dean pushes in, inch by inch, making your mouth fall open as your body stretches around him.
“You feel so perfect around me, baby,” he mumbles as he presses his body flush with your ass when you’ve finally taken all of him.
You circle your hips, adjusting to his size, feeling his thick dick hit all the right spots. “Feels so damn good—”
“Yeah? Takin’ me so good, babydoll?” he groans. “This body’s mine.” He pulls his hips back, drawing out nice and slow, letting you feel every ridge and vein as his hands work up your back, pushing the jersey all the way up until Di Laurentis is all that’s left, stitched between your shoulders. “All of it.”
“Yes.”
“Made for me, weren’t you?”
“Yes, fuck!” you whine as he snaps his hips forward, the two of you moaning in unison as your pussy sucks him in.
Dean moves inside you, listening to every sound that falls from your lips. He works you just like you like, until your body melts into the mattress.
“Right there, baby,” you whisper and Dean picks up the pace, hitting your sweet spot again and again.
“Yeah, sweetheart? Right there?” he asks through a smirk. “What else does my girl want, huh?”
“Harder,” you whimper.
“Shit, baby,” he laughs breathlessly as he rolls his hips.
Your fingers claw at the sheets as you feel yourself just seconds away from your climax.
“Play with your pussy for me,” he whispers, the way you squeezed around him feeling like he might fall apart himself if he doesn’t get you there fast.
Your fingers press against your clit and your thighs quake, his cock stretching you and filling you as your fingers work in tight little circles.
“Dean—” you gasp, fluttering around his dick as you fall apart.
“Fucking hell,” he moans, dragging out the words as his cock shines creamy white with your release, each push of his hips making it gather in a ring around the base of his hard skin.
Dean pulls out fast, making you gasp as he tosses you to your back, thrusting himself back in before you can even come down from your high.
“I fucking missed you,” he whispers against your lips and you gasp as his fingers press against your clit, too, rubbing messily as he strokes, your nails digging into his muscular back as he pounds your wet cunt.
“Shit,” you squeal, letting out a choked sound as he grabs your knees, pulling and pressing them up to your chest, making him stroke impossibly deep.
“One more time,” he whispers. “Want you to cum with your lips on mine.”
Your eyes roll back as you climax, Dean moaning your name, his muscles strained when he cums deep inside, swallowing each sound that leaves your lips.
Dean moves inside you slow, covering you with the warmth of his big body, his hot skin pressed flush to yours as he lowers your thighs slowly.
You trace the edge of his jaw, feeling him smile under your touch, his nose brushing against yours, and you know there’s no way he’s going to give you an ounce of room tonight—but after a week without this man, that’s the last thing you want.
For the first time in a long time, it feels like you got your Dean back. Relief settles over you, heat building behind your eyes as you hold back happy tears. He sees it.
“Yeah?” he asks, seeing how much you needed this too.
You bite your cheek and nod. He can’t help but bury his face into your neck, pressing a kiss against your skin before whispering, soft and sure, “I love you, baby.”
author's note: uhm, so i tried to go to sleep but i wrote this instead. hope you like it! i hate reading angst but i LOVE writing it so let me know what you think about this one! also, my deepest apologies to the person who requested for the friends to lovers fic with beau, i promise i will be getting that out soon!!
words: 2.6k+
summary: beau is the love of your life, he's all you could ask for. until tragedy strikes and he becomes the loss of your life
warnings: angst angst angst, hurt/no comfort, did i mention angst?, mentions of accidents/car crashes, crying, death, heavy angst, you have been warned, most likely will not be a part two to this, this was written very quickly so it's most likely not well written, very quick proofread, and inaccurate book errors because author has never read the books and got all of her information off the internet.
Beau was the love of your life. He was the best boyfriend you could have ever asked for. He lent you his clothes, let you put your cold feet underneath his legs, let you play with his hair while he was trying to sleep, the whole nine yards.
But the thing you loved most about Beau, is how much he loved you. And with him, he loved loud. Beau didn’t hide his feelings from other people, or from you. He showed you off in every situation you were in, publicly, or privately. The thing that got you the most was how he showed his love for you. Not how he would say it ten times a day, which he would, but how he showed his love.
He memorized your drink order at the local cafe, bought you something even though you only looked at it for not even two seconds, he looked for you first in every room, but most importantly to you, he cared for you. Beau cared for you so deeply that sometimes, you didn’t know what to do with all of it.
A message every day, asking how your class went that day, or a phone call at night to make sure that you fell asleep at a good enough time so you could wake up at a decent time the next morning. Beau never complained when you asked him to do something, you never heard from friends or other girls that he was talking bad about you. Because Beau never had anything bad to say about you. Everything that left his mouth that even remotely surrounded you, was a positive thing. Not once did anything remotely vicious come out of his mouth the whole entirety of your three year relationship.
Beau was everything you asked for and more.
When his grandmother’s birthday came up, you were invited to go with. Initially, you were excited to go, to meet some of his extended family, and spend some time with him in a domestic state. Both of you were cramped with classes and responsibilities, so it was perfect to get away from campus and be together. Surrounded by the warmth only each other could provide.
But, you had an event come up that you couldn’t miss. Something with your department, and it was a huge opportunity for you. You were a fashion merchandising major, and some of the biggest fashion designers in the area were going to be at this event. When you brought it up to Beau, there was nothing but understanding written on his face. He cupped your face with his hands and pressed a kiss to your forehead. “Do not throw this away. It’s so big for you.” He assured you as he was about to leave. He brought you into his chest, smoothing your hair down your back. You stood next to his dad’s car, arms wrapped around his waist as you hugged him.
“I’m gonna miss you.” His jacket muffles the words, but he hears them anyway. His grip around you tightens.
“I’ll miss you too.” He says as he rubs your back. “But I’ll be back before you know it.” You separate and he looks down at you. “I love you so much, baby.” A smile grows on your face as you look up at him.
“I love you so much, Beau.” He smiles as well, leaning down and capturing your lips in his.
You watched as he and his dad pulled out of the parking lot, waiting until you couldn’t see the car anymore to walk back into your dorm.
You didn’t know at that time, but that was the last time you would see the love of your life.
–
The event went extremely well, you had so many networking opportunities, and you even had the chance to talk to a designer about a job after graduation. She told you that once you graduate, to get in contact with her and where you’re going to start. The business card is still sitting in your purse as you sit on the bed a day later, trying to get into contact with Beau. The last text you got from him was yesterday, asking how the event went.
You replied telling him how it went so well, and you couldn’t wait to tell him all about it in person, but he hasn’t responded since. That wasn’t like him. As the call goes to voicemail for the third time, you get a call from his dad. You let out a breath of relief, answering quickly. “Hi, Mr. Maxwell! I’m so glad you called, I’ve been trying to get-”
“Honey, are you sitting down?” the tone of his voice causes your heart to drop.
“Y-yeah. Yeah. I am. Is everything okay?”
“Sweetheart, I need you to take a deep breath for me before I tell you this.” You do as told, mind racing with all of the horrible possibilities that could have happened. “Beau and I were in an accident late last night. On the way home from his grandma’s birthday.” You feel your heart stop beating, you feel your breath sharpening. Mr. Maxwell’s voice cracks through the phone. “Honey, I’m so sorry, he died on impact.” The sob that leaves your mouth wrecks the older man on the phone with you. He continues to explain the situation to you, but you don’t hear any of it, all you can hear is the blood rushing through your ears, and screaming. But you’re not sure where the screaming is coming from.
It’s not until your roommate, Poppy, comes running into the room you realize it’s coming from you. At this point, you’ve found your way to the floor, leaning against your bed. Your vision is blurry as Poppy takes the phone from you, talking to Mr. Maxwell as you heave and sob and scream on the floor, laying down and pulling your knees to your chest as you let out all the ugly sounds. “Yes, yes, yeah, I’ll take care of her.” You barely hear Poppy talk to him through the ringing in your ears, and you don’t even register knocking on the door.
Poppy tells you to take deep breaths before she leaves the room, walking into the main area and going to the front door. There, stands Dean DiLaurentis, freshly off his own shock and his face immediately crumples when he hears your screams. Poppy tells him to make his way into your room as she’s still on the phone with Beau’s dad.
Dean flies into your room, heart breaking for a second time that night as he catches sight of you crumpled on the floor, unintelligent babbles and cries coming from your mouth. Without hesitation, he sits next to you and forces you to sit up, before pulling you into his chest. This way, your cries and screams are muffled by his sweater, but the pain is still there. They’re quieter, but they’re still screams.
You feel it even deeper when you realize that the only person you wanted to talk to about Beau Maxwell’s death, was Beau Maxwell.
–
The next few days passed in a blur. Condolences sent through text messages and different social medias, emails sent to professors saying you couldn’t make it to classes, emails sent back telling you that you can take as much time as you need and not to worry too much about the assignments.
Eventually, Beau’s family arrived at Briar, going to his own off campus house shared with teammates to retrieve his things. When they asked you to come with, you forced yourself to come along, holding in your tears enough to sit in the back of the car with Joanna as you all rode to the house. The car ride was silent, no radio, no chatter, nothing. It was horrible. It was exactly what Beau wouldn’t have wanted.
When you all got there, his roommates were waiting on the porch outside. One of the guys, Mason, was the first to bring you into a bear hug. It was nice. It was needed. It took you ten minutes to stop crying in his arms. Each roommate took their turns hugging you and assuring you that if you needed anything, they were only one phone call away. You nodded, but didn’t really hear what they were saying as you walked up the steps to his room.
Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell was already putting things in boxes by the time you got there, and practically everything was already done. They looked at you and handed you an empty box. “Take whatever you want.” Mr. Maxwell told you and that leads you here, alone in his room and so far, the box is halfway full. Trinkets that you got him for his birthdays or Christmas, multiple sweatshirts that you decided were yours now, a pair of sweatpants, and one of his hats. You reach for a picture frame on the nightstand, smiling at the picture of the two of you from the previous summer.
One of your best hometown friends got married and you were a bridesmaid. When the bouquet toss happened, you were the one that caught it. Beau immediately ran to you and wrapped his arms around you, pulling you up against his chest. And that’s the pose in the picture, him holding you up in the air, while you’re holding onto his shoulder with one hand and the bouquet you caught in the other. You’re both laughing your heads off, drunk off of each other.
A tear slips from your eye and lands on the glass, causing you to wipe it off and smile before putting the frame in the box. Your eyes lead you to the nightstand, and while you’re a little scared by what you might find in there, when you open it, it’s seemingly fine. Nothing too scary inside awaits you. You almost close it back up until you notice something in the back corner. Curiosity causes you to grab it, and you gasp when you feel your fingers touch velvet. Quickly pulling it out, the bright overhead light highlights the small box in your hands. Your breath hitches, and you hope that it’s not what you think it is.
Slowly, you open the box and when you see what’s inside, you feel your stomach drop and nausea hits you like a wave. Sobs leave your mouth as you lift your hand to cover it, but you’re too late, you hear footsteps rushing to the room. Your ears tune whoever it is out as you stare at the ring, it’s glinting in the light mocking you. It’s perfect. It’s everything you could’ve wanted and more. But it means nothing to you if it’s not Beau the one giving it to you.
Dean stands in the doorway, watching as you gawk at the ring. He was there when Beau bought it. Said man told him that it was the most perfect for the most perfect girl. At the time, Dean thought Beau was being delusional. You two have only been together for a year at that point, but Beau was for certain that you were it for him.
Before you can do anything else, Dean walks up and puts a hand on your shoulder. You turn slightly, looking up at him before closing the box, dropping it on the bed, and hiding yourself into his shoulder. Dean holds you as you cry into him, for what feels like the millionth time this week.
Hearing your sobs doesn’t get any easier, and Dean feels like a part of him had been ripped out when Beau died. But seeing the way you’ve been taking it, has made him feel ten times worse.
–
Before you knew it, a month had passed. You attended the service, stood in the line where people wished their condolences, gave Beau one last kiss on the forehead, stared at his face in the casket for what felt like forever, and then watched as they lowered into the ground later on that day.
You thought you could move on. You thought that everything would be alright. You were wrong.
You reached out to that fashion designer, and secured yourself a job for after graduation. You were to start right away. Speaking of graduation, it lingered in the air. The thought of doing it without Beau after three years of looking forward to it.
You think back to finding the ring in his room a month ago. Images of him proposing flash through your head. Before you know it, you’re thinking about what dress you would’ve worn to the wedding, what team he would’ve been drafted to, what type of house you would’ve lived in, what your kids would have looked like, and finally, images of you and Beau growing old together. It broke your heart, knowing that you would never get that with him. That he never got that at all. It all broke your heart.
You refused to go even near the football stadium. There was a memorial for him there, flowers, candles, balloons, pictures, the whole thing was set up. You heard there were some pictures of the two of you there, but it didn’t budge you to go. You kept to yourself and your inner circle, rarely making new friends like you usually would. Without Beau, it all felt meaningless.
One day, you got a call from Joanna, asking if you wanted to go get coffee. You agreed, and that’s where you find yourself now, a small coffee shop just off campus, sitting in a booth with the sister of your dead boyfriend, and neither of you know what to say.
It takes a full twenty minutes before either of you speak up. Joanna is the one to break the silence. “He loved you so much.” The words are whispered, and you feel yourself breaking even though it’s barely anything. “When he would come home for breaks, it’s all he would talk about. How much he loved you, how you changed him, how he knew you were it. How he knew you were gonna marry him.” Tears leave your eyes, and you're surprised at it, because you thought that you ran out of tears a long time ago. “You were it for him, y/n.” You look at her and she has her own tears in her eyes. “I wish I could say something that could take all of your heartbreak away, but I do want to say one thing;” She takes a deep breath before saying, “Beau wouldn’t want you to live the rest of your life with his shadow hanging over you. He would want you to live your life to the fullest. Whether that means moving across the country, travelling, or even falling in love again.” You scrunch your nose in disgust at the thought. You couldn’t imagine falling in love with anyone ever again. “Or not.” A small laugh falls from Joanna and you let yourself succumb to it as well. “Look, all I’m saying is that,” She pauses. “Beau wouldn’t want you to grieve him for the rest of your life. I know it’s only been a month, but I’m not sure when we’re gonna see each other again, so I wanted to get that out while I still could.” Before you could say anything, Joanna reached out and put her hand on top of yours. “The two of you may have never gotten married, but you have always been, and always will be, the little sister I’ve always wanted.” The words cause more tears to fall and Joanna is suddenly walking around the booth and settling next to you, wrapping her arms around you in a hug and letting you cry into her shoulder.
Beau Maxwell was the love of your life.
But he was also the loss of your life.
A loss that will always leave an imprint on your heart and soul.
thank you @strangergraphics for the borders, i love them!!
Hi! This is the first time that I ask for a request so I’m sorry if I’m doing it wrong!
Can you please write a [Eddie Munson+”You’re drunk, you don’t mean that” (Angst prompt 13)+ Your dating him! And your at a party with him and he gets SUPER drunk, you try and tell him that he has had enough alcohol and that is time to go home. He ignores you but you keep telling him that over and over again. At one point he tells you to stop, he tells you really hurtful things. Like he tells you that he hates you and that your always so clingy. The ending is up to you]
I hope you can write it! Thank you!!
(I just read your prompt list and this is definitely not going to be my last request, HAHAHAHAHA sorry in advance)
You and Eddie get into a fight after you convince him to skip a date and go to your friend Steve's party instead — eddie x fem!reader angst
warnings: angst, verbal fighting, fighting in public, alcohol (but no drunk driving here), underage drinking
words: 1.7k
a/n: I'm sorry this took me so long to get to, and that I changed the fight a little bit but I still hope you like it and want to send more requests in the future because I do like this a lot!
Hawkins’ own King Steve Harrington knew how to throw a party; Christmas, Halloween, New Year’s Eve, or even just a random night when his parents weren’t home like today.
You and Eddie were actually supposed to see a movie and then just spend the night just lounging about in his trailer, but you had convinced him that the two of you should ditch the movie and spend some time visiting Steve and checking out his little get together.
As reluctant as he was, he would never reject an opportunity for free alcohol and time with you, so he agreed that you would both go for a little bit.
Eddie picked you up, the two of you had fast food in his van, and then he drove you down to Steve’s neighbourhood. He insisted on parking about a block down—as if there was any space available on Steve’s street—as his van is a common target for vandalism by a lot of the jocks at school who commonly frequent the parties held at the Harrington household.
As always, he got out of the car before you and told you to stay seated so he could open your door for you with an exaggerated bow like you were a princess arriving at the ball in your carriage.
Once he ushered you out of the carriage, you began walking towards Steve’s house, following the trail of cars parked by teenagers who haven’t yet mastered parallel parking.
“Alright, just a drink or two, we’ll say hi to all your friends, and then we leave, right?” Eddie asked, confirming the plan you had loosely made before.
“Yeah.” You said. “But, I mean, if we feel like we’re having fun, there’s no harm in skipping out on our other plans and staying here instead.”
He looked at you with a raised eyebrow. “No one really has fun at these things. Everyone’s just pretending so they can fit in with the crowd of people who are also pretending. It’s fucked.”
“Whatever you say, babe.” As you approached the Harrington house doors, you gave Eddie a last-minute reminder. “But, just for the night, it might be nice to pretend you’re having a good time too.”
The two of you walked through the door and into the crowd of fellow teenagers, and you knew Eddie would have said something snarky if it weren’t for Steve spotting you immediately and calling your name loudly and happily.
“I didn’t think you were coming! Do you want a drink?”
“Yeah, that sounds nice.” You nodded, then turned to your boyfriend. “Eds, you want one too?”
“Absolutely. There’s no way I’m getting through this thing sober.”
Before you could say anything in response to that, Steve laughed loudly—clearly already buzzed—and announced that he would bring you and Eddie a cup each.
You were about to take your boyfriend’s hand and follow Steve to get the drinks he was currently pouring, but one of your friends squealed your name from across the room, catching your attention.
“Go, you came here to have fun with friends.” Eddie told you. “I’ll get the drinks and find you soon.”
You smiled at him and pressed a kiss on his cheek. “Thanks, Eds. You’re too sweet.” Then, you squeezed his hand quickly before trying to find your friend again in this crowd of drunken high schoolers.
Time flies when you’re having fun. You hadn’t even noticed the time passing while you were chatting and dancing with your friends, or how you hadn’t even had a single drink because you haven’t seen Eddie since you parted ways with him all night.
As soon as you really noticed, you excused yourself away from your friends and started looking around the room for Eddie. You couldn’t find him in the living room where you were, but when you saw his dark curls in the backyard by the window, you wormed your way out of the crowd and started walking towards him.
“Eddie!” You called, but he didn’t turn around even though you were definitely within earshot.
He just kept walking, trudging towards the beer keg where Steve was currently keeping up with his keg stand record. You finally caught up with your boyfriend and you tapped his shoulder to get his attention.
“Hey, stranger, where have you been all night?” You asked him, your cheeriness masking the involuntary scrunch of your face at his potent stench of cheap beer and fruit punch spiked with expensive vodka.
He turned around, but you were shocked at how he was missing the smile he had on last time you saw him, and how it was instead replaced with a tired frown you can’t recall him ever using on you.
“Are you okay, Eds?”
He brushed off your concern. “I’m fine.”
He was clearly lying to you, but you were choosing to think it was just because he was drunk or because you were in a very public space.
“You don’t seem fine.” You told him. “Come on, we can find somewhere private to talk if—”
“I don’t wanna talk. I’m having fun here; isn’t that what you wanted?”
You were taken aback. He had never kept such a biting tone with you, and you weren’t sure where it was coming from.
“Eddie, maybe we should go home now.”
“No.”
“Eddie, you’ve had a bit too much to drink.” Your voice was as firm as you could get it despite wanting to cry in front of all these people. “It’s time to go home.”
“You’re impossible!” He was starting to raise his voice, and suddenly you felt like there were a million sets of eyes on you. “You drag me here, leave with your friends, and then when I actually find a way to have fun, you want to drag me away! I can’t stand you, and I definitely don’t want to go hone with you right now! So either get me another drink or get the hell away from me.”
Your heart sank like the anchor of a cruise ship. It hurt to even look at your boyfriend, so you looked around you for something to fix your gaze onto while you tried to gather your feelings. There were fewer people than you had imagined looking at you—most were one drink away from blackout drunk and couldn’t care less about this altercation—but there were still far too many for your liking.
You just wanted to get out of here more than anything. You wanted to leave when you noticed how drunk Eddie was, and your want increased tenfold since then.
“You’re drunk. You don’t mean that, but I’ll still give you what you want and leave.” Your voice was shaking, and it was somewhat shocking that you weren’t straight-up sobbing as you spoke. “I’ll ask Steve to let you stay here overnight so you don’t drive home like this, and I can find my own ride. Goodnight, Eddie.”
And with that, you left. You went looking with Steve, who had since left his position at the beer keg. Eddie didn’t seem to care at all.
The quest to find Steve didn’t take too long as he was just in the kitchen, but in that short amount of time, the tears that were just welling up a few seconds ago had now made their way down your face. You tried to wipe them away before you talked to your friend, but he noticed you walking towards him before you could swipe your hands across your cheeks.
“Hey, hey, hey, what’s wrong?” Steve asked you, placing his hands on your upper arms. His speech was slurred but he still kept his kindness in this drunken state.
“Eddie and I just got in a fight outside, but it’s fine. I’m just going to go home, but he’s off his face drunk, so can you let him crash here so he doesn’t drive?”
“Yeah, no problem.” He said honestly. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay here too?”
You shook your head. “No, but thank you. The party was really fun, but I just have to leave.”
A friend of yours was nearby and you told her you needed a ride home, and it just so happened she was ready to leave too, so it was about as perfect as it could be given the circumstances. Steve offered to walk you both down the street to your friend’s car, and you wouldn’t refuse that.
The three of you started to walk across the house to the front door, but Eddie had apparently moved as you walked past him in the living room. And he must have had some sort of change of heart as he tried to get your attention by grabbing your hand.
“Baby, don’t go yet.”
You pulled his large hand off of your wrist.
“We can talk later, when you’ve sobered up.” You told him, then turned away and kept walking away.
He followed you, desperate to fix what happened, but Steve stopped him before he could leave the house. He stood in the middle of the doorway and held his hands on either side of the doorframe.
“Come on, big boy, let me talk to her.” Eddie pleaded angrily.
“After you inevitably pass out on the couch and then sober up, yeah.”
Eddie looked over Steve’s shoulder and saw you getting into the passenger seat of your friend’s car. He kept trying to bargain with Steve and push him out of the way until he saw the car you were in start driving and take off down the street.
He cursed himself and Steve finally moved away. Eddie was about to run to his car but stopped when he took about seven steps and his head was already spinning so hard he couldn’t see anything in front of him.
He definitely couldn’t do it tonight, but he would make it up to you as soon as he stopped seeing stars.
I was wondering if you could do a part two to Silence, one where they do talk and Eddie explains he didn't saying anything because he was in shock.
Is that okay? I understand if you don't want to <3 Thank you for your time and ILY <3 <3 <3
Part 2 of Silence; Eddie explains why he didn't say anything last night when you confessed your feelings — eddie x gn!reader angst/fluff
warnings: kinda cringe and rushed lowkey but does that count as a warning?
words: 0.6k
a/n: this is so rushed but it's because I wanted to get part 2 out for you cus you're so sweet omg
The next day at school, you couldn’t think of anything except what happened between you and Eddie the night before. All of your classes, every interaction you had, all the chatter in the hallways; it was all just noise. You could barely understand a word anyone said because you were just too stuck in your own head.
In the cafeteria, you sat alone in a sea of all that noise. You just couldn’t sit with your friends today, so you just ditched them without saying anything.
You were almost done eating your bland lunch when someone placed a hand on your shoulder, snapping you away from the noise.
You turned around to see who it was and immediately wished you didn’t.
“Can we talk?” Eddie asked. “I want to explain what happened yesterday.”
“We don’t need to talk about it.” You insisted, getting up to throw away the unappetizing rest of your lunch.
He walked along, following you across the cafeteria. “Yes, we do. Can we just go somewhere private for a few minutes at least?”
You sighed, leaving your tray in the ‘dirty’ pile and starting to walk. “Okay, I just want to repeat that it’s totally okay if you just forget what I said yesterday and pretend that never happened; I encourage it, honestly.”
Eddie led you into the drama room where you meet for Hellfire club and closed the door behind the both of you.
“But I don’t want to forget it. That’s my point. Would you just let me explain?”
You nodded, not wanting to ruin things more than you already had.
He took a breath before speaking to compose himself, then started to explain what happened in his van last night.
“When you said all that last night. I really did want to respond, but I just froze up.” Eddie started. “I was just so focused on keeping us alive and not crashing the car, plus I was in shock and processing how my best friend felt the exact same way about me as I did them.”
That caught you off guard, just as your confession last night did to him. Eddie felt the same way about you? Why did he let you go on thinking he was disgusted by your confession last night? You let him continue, hoping for an answer.
“I just couldn’t form the words to tell you how I really felt, but once you started thinking that I felt otherwise, I thought it was too late. I imagined you thinking I was just trying to calm you down or something after you got out of the car, so I just kept my mouth shut.”
“But you feel the same way?” You asked hopefully.
“Of course I do.” Eddie assured you. “How could I not? You’re the best person I know, and I’ve like liked you for a long time too. And that’s why I’ve been kicking myself since you got out of my van last night when I should have pulled over and done this instead.”
He didn’t do anything—other than confuse you—so you asked what he meant by what he just said.
“Done what?”
“Oh shit.” He blinked. “See? I froze up again. I should have done this.”
He leaned forward, cupped your face, and kissed you. He kissed you in a way that made you sure he like liked you the same way you like liked him, and you kissed him back.
Can you please write a [Eddie Munson+ “This was a mistake” (Angst prompt 15)+ you finally got the courage to tell Eddie that you like him, but when you tell him he just freezes and doesn’t tell you anything]
Than you!! 💞
(part 1 of this fic) when confessing your feelings for your friend, you think the worst that can happen is that he says he doesn't feel the same; you don't even think about this outcome... — eddie x gn!reader angst
warnings: angst ofc, and swearing like once
words: 0.6k
It’s a scary thing to admit to yourself, much less to the person in question, so you were absolutely terrified to tell your friend Eddie that you had a crush on him.
You chose to wait until the end of Hellfire night, when Eddie dropped off everyone that couldn’t get a ride home. He’s always been so sweet like that. He had just dropped off Dustin at his place, and now it was just the two of you in his van together.
After a minute or two of silently hyping yourself up to confess, you turned down Eddie’s heavy metal just enough so it could be like background music.
“Hey, Eddie?” You asked nicely.
He turned his gaze to you, but just for a second, not wanting to take his eyes off the dark road for too long. “Yeah? What’s up?”
You twiddled your fingers, needing some sort of distraction while you do this. “I have something to tell you.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I just— I wanted to say that I like you. Like, I like like you, and I’ve felt this way for I don’t even know how long. I don’t mean to ruin our friendship by doing this, but I don’t know if I can keep it to myself anymore. Just, you’re like, the best person I know, Eds, and I really like you.”
Once you stopped talking, the van felt silent. Eddie’s music was playing, but you were drowning it out. And neither of you were speaking, so all that was left was the sound of your heart about to beat out of your chest.
“Eddie?” You asked, trying to prompt a response from him.
He still stayed quiet. You tried to scan his features from the side, but he looked blank. His eyes were just glued to the road—which was usually good, just not in this situation.
You were now getting desperate for him to say something back. “Eddie, will you just please respond?”
He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it again.
At this point, you knew whatever he had to say was just going to break your heart more than it already had been, and you didn’t want to wait in this van until he said it. You wished you could just fall through the floor of the car and disappear, and the feeling just got worse when Eddie finally spoke.
“I don’t— I don’t know how to respond to that.”
So, once Eddie paused at the stop sign, you quickly unbuckled your seatbelt, grabbed your bag from by your feet, and got out of the car.
“Shit, wait!” He shouted from his open window.
You were already crying, plus walking as fast as you could away from him. “No, just go, Eddie! It’s fine. Just pretend you dropped me off at home and everything was normal and I didn’t say anything!”
“Just get in the car and we can talk.”
“I don’t want to talk anymore. Look, you know my house is close; I’ll just walk home and everything will be fine.”
He sighed loudly, knowing he wouldn’t be able to convince you to come with him. He wanted to respect your boundaries, so he just gave up.
“Okay, just— I’m sorry.” He kept his eyes on you as he drove away, leaving you alone under the streetlights, the two of you knowing you both made a mistake.
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