(NSFW, Graphic depictions of violence, Rape/non-con)
The heat and noise of the party stayed trapped on the first floor, but the vibrations followed her up the stairs. Every step she took up the wooden staircase felt like a chore. The adrenaline that had kept her moving through the last hour was gone, burned away by the suffocating humidity of too many bodies packed into one house. First Allie had pulled her into the center of the living room floor, then Garrett had crashed into them, and then Dean, Logan—by the time the playlist hit that peak, the rhythm had been too good to resist. But now her feet ached, and her throat felt raw from screaming lyrics over the bass.
“Babe.” She nudged a fist against Garrett’s ribs, marveling at how a man who had just played three brutal periods of hockey could still have this much energy left in his blood.
He leaned down, his arm tightening around her waist. “Yeah? You okay, Han?”
“I’ll be right back. Washroom.”
Garrett’s laugh was warm as he planted a quick, sweaty kiss on her cheek. His grip loosened, releasing her into the wild current of the living room. Navigating the sea of rowdy, jersey-clad bodies took the last of her patience, but she finally broke free at the base of the staircase, climbing toward the dim, quiet corridor of the second floor. She wasn’t completely drunk, still the cheap beer had slowed her coordination enough to make the climb clumsy.
Halfway down the hall, her body simply gave out. Hannah stopped dead, bending over to rest her hands on her knees. She took a breath, waiting for her head to stop spinning before she resumed the walk.
Her first name always sounded distinct on his tongue—slower, heavier than the casual "Wells" he threw around downstairs.
She didn't lift her eyes from the carpet. “I’m fine, Dean. Not drunk. Just tired.”
The cedarwood cologne she’d smelled on him during the dance was stronger now, laced with the sharp tang of spilled beer. As his shoes came into her blurred line of sight, stepping into her space, she straightened up. The dim hallway lighting caught his face, exposing the heavy, unfocused look in his eyes. It was the exact same expression Garrett got when the alcohol took over. These hockey jocks really were a breed of their own.
“I gotta get right back down after this,” she mumbled, rubbing the back of her neck, “or Allie will actually kill me.”
Dean let out a low, amused huff. The mention of her best friend brought a strange thought to her mind. Him and Allie had been tangled up in a casual hookup arrangement for a while, but lately, Allie stayed the hell away from him. She had even quietly warned Hannah to do the same. Allie had never given a concrete reason for the sudden freeze, nor had she shared the details about her sex life like she usually did. It was weird from Allie's usual open-book policy, but Hannah hadn't wanted to push.
“You have crazy friends, Ms. Wells,” Dean said, his voice dropping an octave, easily cutting through the muffled bass thumping through the floorboards from below.
“Of course. I can see that.” She shot him a playful, accusing side-eye, letting her regular roommate defenses take over.
He caught the look instantly, his lips curling into an effortless grin that didn't quite reach his eyes. “I never said I was a sane man.”
“Yeah. Well, I really need to go, Dean, or—”
“You’re standing right in front of my room, Hannah,” he cut in smoothly. He didn't wait for her permission; his hand reached past her shoulder, turning the brass doorknob and pushing the wood inward.
“Come on. You can just use mine.”
Hannah trailed off, her eyes darting into the quiet expanse of his bedroom, then toward the far end of the hallway where Garrett’s door sat. Her bladder was aching, and the thought of walking those extra fifteen steps felt like an impossible marathon.
Dean raised a golden eyebrow, propping his shoulder against the doorframe, waiting with a patient smile.
“Thank you!” she breathed, entirely relieved.
“Don’t mention it, Wells.”
The bedroom door shut behind her, cutting the party's deafening noise down to a low thudding against the walls. Dean’s room was definitely the nicest in the house, reflecting the kind of background he came from, but it was still a college guy's room. It smelled like clean laundry, leather, and his cologne, free of the stale beer stench clogging the hallway.
A high-end record player sat on a console in the corner next to a stack of classic vinyl, and his glossy acoustic Taylor guitar rested on a stand. Unlike Garrett’s room, which was cluttered with hockey gear and textbooks, Dean’s space was neat, almost sparse, save for a few clothes tossed over the back of his desk chair and law volumes.
“Washroom’s right through there, Wells,” Dean said, nodding toward the attached door.
She stepped inside, the bathroom door clicking shut behind her. The relief was instantaneous. After using the toilet, she walked over to the sink, turning on the tap to splash cold water onto her face to shake off the sluggishness of the beer.
Leaning against the counter, Hannah lifted her eyes to the mirror, taking in her reflection under the harsh bathroom light. She looked exactly like a tired twenty-year-old college junior halfway through a wild post-game party. Her pale skin was flushed from the heat downstairs, and her light eyes looked wide, carrying that quiet edge of anxiety that always lingered in the back of her mind. Reaching up, she ran her fingers through her hair, smoothing down the stray strands and pulling the collar of her oversized cardigan back over her shoulder. She adjusted her jeans, took a deep breath to steady herself, and unlocked the door.
The moment she stepped back into the bedroom, her boots halted on the rug.
The door leading out to the hallway was closed. Dean was standing near the foot of his bed. He hadn't left. Even with the door shut, the muffled roars of the team celebrating downstairs vibrated through the floorboards—a distant reminder of the world where Garrett was waiting for her.
A tight knot of confusion twisted in her stomach, but she forced a polite smile onto her face and took a step toward the exit.
“Thanks again, Dean. I’m gonna head back down before Garrett thinks I got lost.”
He didn't move. He just stood there, his large frame completely anchoring the space between her and the hallway. “No rush, Wells.”
Hannah stopped, her brows furrowing. “Dean? I really should go. Allie’s probably looking for me too.”
“Allie’s drunk,” he said smoothly.
As the words left his mouth, he began to move toward her. His steps were unhurried, closing the distance between them with deliberate focus. The closer he got, the more Hannah’s brain struggled to process what she was looking at.
He looked entirely different. The casual Briar hockey jersey and the rumpled jeans he’d been wearing on the dance floor were gone. Sometime in the few minutes she had been in the washroom, he had changed into a clean black button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled neatly up his forearms. Even his blond hair looked different—no longer messy from the party, but brushed back, sharp and pristine.
She had never looked at Dean this closely before. Downstairs, he was just Garrett’s laid-back, charming roommate who cracked jokes. But standing in the quiet of his bedroom, the sheer, imposing scale of him felt overwhelming. He was broad, his shoulders blocking out the dim light from the hallway windows behind him, his blue eyes appearing clear, sharp, and sober. The easygoing grin was gone.
“Dean,” she said, her voice dropping into a smaller, tighter whisper as her heart began to thump against her ribs. “Why did you change your clothes?”
His thumb settled gently against her cheekbone. The contact was so unprompted, that Hannah’s breath hitched in her throat. Dean’s long fingers cupped the side of her jaw, his touch light, almost reverent, as if he were looking at something unreal or a ghost. His blue eyes, dark and heavy under the dim bedroom lighting, tracked the contours of her face. She stood frozen, her muscles locked by the absurdity of the gesture, her mind racing to find a logical explanation for why Garrett’s best friend was holding her face like a fragile piece of glass.
His thumb didn't flinch as she tried to pull away. It trailed over the edge of her lip, tracing the shape of her mouth with curiosity. His blue eyes stayed wide, locked on her face as if he were memorizing a sheet of music.
“There you are,” he murmured, his voice low. “My songbird.”
Songbird? Hannah’s brows knitted, a small spike of surreal confusion piercing through her rising panic. He had never called her that before. Nobody had. And the way it slid out of him made it sound like a secret he’d been repeating in the dark for months.
She placed her palms flat against his chest, her fingers bunching up the crisp black cotton of his shirt. Beneath the fabric, his chest was like a brick wall—unyielding, completely still. She pushed back, trying to force some normal, roommate-sized distance between them.
“Dean… seriously, stop. I have to go down. Garrett is waiting for me.”
Before the name could fully leave her mouth, the space between them disappeared. Dean’s arms wrapped around her waist, hauling her flush against his broad torso in a crushing embrace. Hannah froze, her arms pinned awkwardly against his collarbones. This wasn't a friendly, drunk frat-house hug. There was zero casual warmth in it; his grip was tight, anchoring her to him in a way that made it impossible to draw a full breath.
“You have no idea how long I’ve been sitting on that couch downstairs, watching you,” he whispered into her hair, his breath warm against her scalp.
The smooth, laid-back cadence of his voice hadn't changed, which made the words bleeding from his lips sound much more weird.
“Watching how you tilt your head when you’re nervous. How you hum under your breath when you think no one's listening. You change the key when you think you’re alone in the kitchen, did you know that? Just a minor chord. Garrett doesn't hear it, Hannah. He looks at you and sees a pretty girl, a trophy captain’s girlfriend. He doesn't know the rhythm of your thoughts or the tiny fractures that make you perfect.”
A cold, paralyzing wave of horror flooded her veins. The muffled thumping of the party downstairs felt a million miles away, a useless background noise to the nightmare unfolding in the quiet room.
“Dean, let go of me,” she choked out, her voice rising in panic as she twisted her torso, trying to wedge her elbows against his ribs.
“This isn't funny. Let me go!”
“Every single day,” he continued, ignoring her squirming, his tone remaining conversational as his grip tightened, compressing her lungs.
“Every time you walk into the kitchen in one of those oversized cardigans, I have to sit there and rot from the inside out. I’ve been burning alive in this house, Wells. Just waiting. Garrett doesn't deserve the music you make. He doesn't even understand it.”
The horror of what he was saying finally broke through her paralysis. No. Not again. Please, God, not again.
With a sudden burst of adrenaline, Hannah thrashed. She drove her knee upward, aiming for his groin, but his thigh blocked the movement effortlessly. She clawed at his chest, her fingernails tearing at the black fabric of his shirt, digging into the skin of his neck as she let out a desperate gasp. She violently wrenched her shoulders sideways, throwing her entire weight against his hold until his arms gave way.
Her boots stumbled backward on the rug, her eyes locking onto the wooden door just a few feet away. She took one lunging step toward the exit, her throat opening to scream for Garrett, to scream through the wall of music outside—
The air rushed out of her lungs. He slammed her backward into the drywall. The back of her skull cracked against the white paint, sending a blinding flash of silver sparks across her vision. Before she could even slide down, Dean was entirely over her. His massive frame pinned her torso against the wall, his weight crushing her chest while his large palm slapped over her mouth, sealing her scream behind her teeth.
Hannah’s heart violently walloped against her ribs as the room tilted. The dim lighting, the heavy male scent, the absolute restriction of her airways—the timeline in her head shattered. Suddenly, she wasn't twenty in a college house anymore. She was fifteen. She was helpless. The suffocating dark of her past rushed back to swallow her whole, blurring her reality until she couldn't tell which monster was holding her down.
Yet, she didn't stop. She fought with everything left in her blood. She bit down hard on the meat of his palm, tasting the faint tang of his skin, her fingers clawing at his face, trying to find his eyes, her legs kicking blindly against the baseboard.
Above her, Dean's voice cut through her panic, but it wasn't smooth anymore. It was slightly hard, tight, seething with rage that she had never heard from him.
"And then you dance with me downstairs," he hissed against her ear, his breath hot and ragged. His hand pressed harder against her mouth, grinding her lips against her teeth.
"You look at me like that. You move with me like that. And the second that idiot walks up, you just slip back into his arms? You leave me standing there like I’m nothing? Like I don't exist?"
It was insane. It was completely ridiculous, a twisted, broken logic that made no sense. Hannah stared at him through wide, tear-blurred eyes, utterly uncomprehending. This was Dean. This was the guy she spent hours with in the living room, the guy she laughed with over coffee, exchanged stupid banter in the hallway, and watched hockey clips on the couch. He was supposed to be safe. He was Garrett's best friend.
The image of Garrett’s gentle, honest eyes flashed in her mind—her anchor, her safety. Garrett, please. Look up. Come upstairs.
Using the last reserve of her strength, Hannah stopped clawing at his face and threw her entire body weight downward, slipping her wet, bloody mouth out from beneath his palm just enough to clear her airway.
She drew a ragged breath and screamed with every single ounce of air in her lungs.
The sound was raw, a scraping, desperate shriek that tore at her throat. Downstairs, the bass dropped, a massive roar of hooting and cheering from thirty drunk athletes completely drowning her voice. Nobody heard. Nobody was looking.
"I told you," he said, his jaw tight as he wrenched his hand back. "He isn't listening.”
Hannah opened her mouth to scream a second time, her chest heaving, the word 'Garrett' already forming on her tongue—
The room violently tilted. His fist collided with the side of her face. The impact carried the dense weight of an athlete’s knuckle smashing straight into her left cheek and jaw. A splintering crack echoed inside her skull. The shock of the blow vibrated through her teeth, spike of agony blinding her left eye instantly. Her knees dissolved into water, her body slamming sideways against the drywall before sliding down into a twisted heap on the carpet.
She didn't black out. The darkness hovered at the edges of her vision, but the consciousness stayed trapped inside her broken body. Everything tasted like copper. Thick, hot blood was spilling over her lower lip, dripping onto the collar of her cardigan. Through the narrow, swollen slit of her left eye, the world moved in slow motion.
Dean stood over her. He wasn't panicking nor was he staring at his knuckles in horror. He simply stood there, his chest rising and falling in deep, heavy breaths. Turning on his heel, he walked over to the dresser, poured an amber liquid from a crystal decanter into a short glass, and downed the drink in one smooth swallow.
A fracture of hope sparked in the back of her fading mind. Maybe he would realize. Maybe the alcohol just made him snap, and now he would apologize. He would look at the blood. He had to.
The amber glass clinked softly against the wood as he set it down. Dean turned back around, his face completely blank, devoid of a single shred of remorse. He walked over and dropped to his knees right beside her hip, lowering himself to her level.
His fingers reached out, gently touching the ruined side of her face. Her entire body shuddered from the contact, a pathetic, muffled whimper escaping her bloody lips. The pain was explosive, radiating from her jaw straight into her temple.
Dean didn't flinch at her reaction. His thumb traced the edge of her swollen eyebrow, his blue eyes wide, glassy, and mesmerized.
“You have the most incredible eyes, Hannah,” he murmured, his voice returning to that velvety, conversational drawl, as if they were still standing by the kitchen archway downstairs. As if he hadn’t just broken her face.
“The way they crinkle when you smile. The way you laugh when Garrett does something stupid. I’ve spent months trying to figure out how to make you look at me like that.”
Dizziness washed over her in waves. The throbbing in her jaw grew so intense it made her nauseous, the muffled, pulsing bass from the living room below vibrating right through the floorboards and into her fractured bones. They were still celebrating. Garrett was still down there, laughing, waiting for her to come back from the washroom.
“Dean… please,” she choked out, the word barely a wet, gurgling whisper.
Maybe he would listen to a plea. Maybe if she reminded him of who she was—that she was Hannah, his best friend's girlfriend, his friend—he would stop. He would look at the black button-down shirt he was unbuttoning right now and realize how insane this was. But the fabric parted, his broad, muscular chest exposing itself in the dim silver light cutting through the window, completely indifferent to her voice.
She couldn't move. Her limbs felt like lead, pinned under a shock-induced paralysis. Dean leaned over her. His shadow blocked out the ceiling as he came down, his lips pressing firmly against her bruised, swollen cheekbone. The pressure sent a jolt of physical agony through her face, but the emotional violence of the touch was worse. It felt like a desecration.
Images of Garrett flooded her brain—the memories of how they had first gotten intimate. It had been so slow, so gentle. Garrett had checked on her every second, his voice soft, his hands trembling with the fear of hurting her, waiting for her consent before every single touch. Garrett had healed her.
Dean’s mouth moved lower, his metallic-tasting lips brushing against her split skin, and the contrast was a living nightmare. Every kiss felt like an anchor dragging her under.
“I know what happened to you, songbird,” Dean whispered against her neck, his breath hot and heavy. “I know what that piece of shit did to you when you were fifteen.”
Hannah froze completely. Her breath hitched, her heart hammering against her ribs as the ultimate sanctuary of her mind was ripped open. How did he know? She had only told Garrett. Nobody else knew.
“Garrett tried to handle it, didn't he? He went back to your hometown, tracked him down, roughed him up a little,” Dean continued, his voice dropping lower. He pulled back just enough to look down into her blurred, tear-filled eyes.
“But Garrett is too soft. He left the guy breathing. He thought a few broken ribs were enough.”
The room seemed to lose all its oxygen. Hannah’s mind raced backward, stumbling over a memory from months ago. A random news article. A brief snippet of local gossip from her hometown about an "accident." The man who had assaulted her had been found dead at the bottom of a ravine. The police report said he had fallen. Everyone said it was a tragic accident.
Dean didn't say the words. He didn't explicitly confess the murder. Yet the dark euphoria glittering in his blue eyes, the lack of surprise on his face, told her everything. The truth settled into her gut like lead. He had hunted him down.
Stop. Stop this. She didn't want to cry. She didn't want to give him the satisfaction of her breaking, but quiet, hot tears spilled from her eyes anyway, mixing with the copper blood tracking down her neck.
Dean noticed the wetness sliding down her skin. His lips left her ruined jaw, his head tilting as he watched the grey fog finally begin to conquer her vision. Lifting his hand, he used the pad of his thumb to brush a tear away from her uninjured cheek. The movement was soft, almost tender.
“Shh,” he murmured, his voice dropping into that familiar drawl. It was gentle. Classic Dean. It was the same effortless tone he always used when he was comforting someone in the living room downstairs.
“Go to sleep, Hannah. I’m not a monster. I won’t do anything while you’re unconscious.”
The words were the last things to slip into her ears, barely registering through the suffocating static in her brain. As her eyes flickered for the final time, her fading consciousness began to warp and fracture. Through the encroaching blackness, the faces inside her head began to blur together.
First came Garrett—his honest eyes, the fierce safety she had stupidly believed would protect her forever. Then the memory shifted, bleeding into the terrifying face of the monster from her past who had started it all. And finally, the two images melted away, leaving only Dean. Dean's handsome, golden face. The easy smile she had admired for months. The brilliant, charming personality she had trusted.
The darkness rushed in, heavy and absolute, swallowing her whole.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
