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@sophiawritesalot
welcome to my library ⋆˚꩜｡
about the author 🦢
sophia - she/her - romance addict - chronic reader + writer
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current read
rewind it back ~ liz tomforde
NOTES:
this is heavily inspired by @kooksandpearls masterlist
header pics r from @kissedfawns
dividers by @bbyg4rlhelps
i changed up my blogs vibe AGAIN
i have so many aesthetics i like but for now this one’s gonna stay
dean dilaurentis - the first fight
summary: you and dean have your first argument
word count: 1.3k
a/n: I tried with this one, forgive me if it's total shit
warnings: angst (not really) with a happy ending, dean being an idiot
off campus masterlist | main page
The first time you and Dean actually fought over something, it wasn't over anything dramatic.
There was no screaming.
No slammed doors.
No accusations thrown across the room.
And somehow, that made it worse.
It started at a party.
You'd been waiting for Dean for almost an hour.
He'd told you he'd meet you at the party at eight, and you'd believed him. You'd even saved him a spot beside you on the couch, ignoring the teasing from everyone else about how you kept checking your phone.
At 8:15, you'd texted him.
You: where are you?
Nothing.
At 8:30:
You: dean?
Still nothing.
By 8:45, you had stopped checking.
You weren't angry yet.
Mostly, you were worried.
Then, at 9:07, Dean walked through the front door.
And naturally, he wasn't alone.
A couple of the hockey guys were with him, laughing about something. Dean looked completely carefree, like he hadn't left you sitting there wondering whether something had happened to him.
His eyes found you almost immediately.
His face lit up.
"There you are."
He walked over, dropping onto the couch beside you and throwing an arm around your shoulders like nothing was wrong.
"Hey, baby."
You stared straight ahead.
Dean paused.
"...That's not the reaction I was hoping for."
"Where were you?"
He blinked.
"Uh—"
"You said you'd be here at nine."
"Yeah, I know. We got held up."
"You couldn't text me?"
Dean gave you a small smile.
"I was going to."
"You were going to?"
"Yes."
"When?"
He opened his mouth, then closed it.
You stood.
"I'm gonna get a drink."
"Wait." He grabbed your wrist gently before you could walk away. "Come on. Don't be mad."
That sentence was the wrong one.
You looked down at his hand around your wrist.
"I'm not mad, Dean."
"Then what's wrong?"
"You didn't even think to tell me."
His expression changed slightly.
"I was going to, I promise. But I forgot."
You laughed, but there wasn't any humor in it.
"Okay."
"Come on."
"No."
"Baby—"
"Don't."
You pulled your wrist from his hand.
For once, Dean didn't have a response ready.
You walked away.
You didn't speak to him for the rest of the night.
Not because you were trying to avoid him.
You just didn't know what to say.
Every time Dean came near you, you created distance.
Every time he tried to make you laugh, you didn't.
And eventually, he stopped trying.
When you finally got home, your phone buzzed.
Dean: can we talk?
You stared at the message.
You: tomorrow
His response came almost immediately.
Dean: okay
A minute later:
Dean: goodnight
You didn't respond.
The next afternoon, there was a knock on your door.
You already knew who it was.
You opened it to find Dean standing there, hands shoved into the pockets of his hoodie.
He looked different.
Not physically.
Dean always looked like Dean—effortlessly confident, messy hair, stupidly attractive smile.
But the smile wasn't there.
"Can I come in?"
You hesitated.
Then stepped aside.
He walked into your room and stood awkwardly in the middle of it.
You sat on your bed.
Dean remained standing.
"So," he started.
You waited.
He rubbed the back of his neck.
"I've been trying to figure out what to say."
"That's new."
His eyes flickered toward you.
You immediately regretted your choice of words.
Dean nodded slowly.
"Yeah."
The silence stretched.
Usually, this was the part where he'd make some ridiculous joke.
Usually, he'd grin and say something like you know you can't stay mad at me forever.
But he didn't.
Instead, he sat down on the desk chair across from you.
"I screwed up."
You looked at him.
He swallowed.
"I should've texted you."
"Yes."
"I should've told you we were running late."
You nod.
"And I shouldn't have acted like you were overreacting when you were upset."
Your expression softened slightly.
Dean looked down at his hands.
"I do that a lot."
"What?"
"Make a joke when something gets uncomfortable."
You didn't answer.
He continued.
"I act like everything is fine because usually that's enough to make things go away."
He looked up at you.
"But it wasn't enough this time."
"No."
"I know."
Another silence.
Then Dean stood and walked over, stopping a few feet away from you.
"I wasn't ignoring you because I don't care."
"I know."
"I was with the guys. We lost track of time."
"I know."
"And that's not an excuse."
You looked at him.
He took a breath.
"I should've remembered that there was someone waiting for me."
Your heart squeezed.
"You make it sound like I'm some responsibility you forgot about."
Dean's face immediately fell.
"That's not what I meant."
"It kind of sounded like it."
"No." He shook his head. "No, that's not what I meant at all."
He sat beside you.
"I meant that I should've remembered that you're important to me."
You looked away.
"Dean..."
"No, let me finish."
You glanced back at him.
He looked nervous.
Actually nervous.
You'd never seen Dean look like that before.
"I know I act like I don't take anything seriously. And sometimes I don't. But I take you seriously."
Your eyes stung.
Dean noticed.
His voice softened.
"You're not some girl I'm dating for fun."
You gave him a tiny smile despite yourself.
"That's a terrible way to phrase that."
He let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh.
"I know."
You looked down.
He continued.
"You're the person I look for when I walk into a room."
Your eyes lifted.
"You're the first person I want to tell things to. You're the person I want sitting next to me when something good happens. You're the person I want when something sucks."
He paused.
"And I think...I started assuming you'd always be there."
You swallowed, then spoke.
"I don't need you to text me every five minutes."
"I don't care if you hang out with your friends."
"I just don't want to feel like I'm the only one making an effort."
Dean's jaw tightened.
"You aren't."
"Sometimes it feels like it."
He nodded.
"Then that's on me."
You looked at him.
He reached for your hand, but stopped before touching it.
He waited.
You slowly moved your hand toward his.
His fingers intertwined with yours.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly.
You squeezed his hand.
"It's okay."
"No." He shook his head. "I need you to actually hear me before you forgive me."
You looked at him.
His thumb brushed over your knuckles.
"I'm sorry I made you feel like you weren't important to me. I'm sorry I made you question whether I cared. And I'm sorry I tried to joke my way out of this instead of listening to you."
Your eyes filled with tears.
Not because you were upset.
But because you felt that you didn't have to force him to apologize.
Dean's expression softened.
"I love you."
You froze.
He swallowed.
"I don't say that enough."
"You say it enough."
"I know, just not like this."
He looked directly at you.
"I love you. A lot. More than I'm probably capable of explaining without sounding like a lovesick idiot."
A tear slipped down your cheek.
He immediately reached up and wiped it away.
"I don't want you crying because of me."
"I'm not crying because I'm sad."
"Good."
You laughed quietly.
His mouth curved into a small smile.
"There she is."
You rolled your eyes.
"Don't ruin the moment."
"Right. Sorry."
You leaned your head against his shoulder.
For a few moments, neither of you spoke.
Then you murmured, "I forgive you, but you really are an idiot."
Dean rested his cheek against the top of your head.
"Yeah."
"I'm not saying that to make you feel worse."
"I know."
A pause.
"I love you."
"I love you too, baby."
"Like, a lot."
"I'll take you anywhere you want."
You laugh at the sudden topic change.
"Anywhere?"
"Within reason."
You lifted your head.
"You're already ruining your apology."
He laughed.
"I'm trying."
You smiled.
Then his expression became serious again.
"But really."
He took your hand.
"I'll do better."
You nodded.
"I know."
"And next time I'm late—"
"You better text me."
"I'll text you."
"Immediately."
"Immediately."
Dean smiled.
"Deal."
You leaned forward and kissed his cheek.
He turned his head slightly, catching your lips with his.
It was soft.
Nothing like the teasing kisses you usually shared.
When you pulled away, he kept his forehead against yours.
"I'm glad you're not letting me get away with everything."
You smiled.
"You're not that charming."
He looked offended.
"Wow."
"I'm serious."
"That's actually hurtful."
You laughed.
And Dean smiled because that's what he wanted.
Not to win.
Not to make the fight disappear.
Just to know you were okay.
He wrapped his arms around you, pulling you against his chest.
"I'm sorry," he whispered one more time.
You closed your eyes.
"I know."
And this time, you did know.
Dean kissed the top of your head.
You smiled against his chest.
His arms tightened around you instinctively.
"I don't like fighting."
"Me neither."
He put his pinky out in a silent promise.
"Promise we won't do this again?"
You hooked your pinky with his and laughed.
Sometimes love means sitting in uncomfortable silence until one person speaks.
Sometimes it means admitting you're wrong.
Sometimes it means putting your pride aside to say the words you were afraid to speak.
And most importantly, it means choosing the person you love, even when admitting that you'd messed up.
me with you guys (yes you) simping over hot men
Aeyo’s Off Campus Library:
❤️Beau Maxwell: Part Two❤️
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@kinzis-writing Sneaking Around
@lovelytsunoda Head Over Feet
@lunsilun Secrets Out Part One / Secrets Out Part Two / My Greatest Win / Shy Reader
@mavari44 My Date Never Showed Up
@maverist Aim, Set, Match
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@mwithink Don’t Stop The Music
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@raven-dor Gimme A Chance / Can’t Ignore The Fact Baby
@sunnydilaurentis A Summer Secret
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aw thanks for mentioning me! <3
cassian fic recs
✧.* fluff ⋆ | ˚꩜｡ series | ⚠︎ angst | ✪ g's star reads | 18+ below the cut
@tunetales
✧.* Moments Moments with Cassian. ✧.* Moments II A continuation of moments with Cassian. ✧.* Moments III ✪ A collection of more moments with Cassian. ✧.* The General & His Love Feyre is initially alarmed at the relationship Cassian has with his mate, but maybe it's not what she realises. ✧.* You're Shaking Exhausted, frozen, and trying to convince yourself you're fine, you underestimate just how harsh the Illyrian winter can be. ✧.* It was an accident! Two different scenarios where you and Cassian say, “It was an accident!” To each other.
@elledc
✧.* Allergic Cassian x gn!reader who is, apparently, allergic to peaches ✧.* Touch Cassian x shy!reader who is getting used to Cassian's touch ✧.* Smitten Cassian x shy!reader who blows his mind ✧.* Unraveled Cassian x fem!reader who braids his hair
@ddejavvu
✧.* surprise ! Cassian finding out you’re pregnant w his child. ✧.* rest Cassian x reader who had a bad past, and CANNOT sleep ✧.* flashed Cassian and Az are training. You, Mor, and Amren are betting on who's gonna win they all bet against az, so you help him win by flashing your husband mid fight
@solbaby7
⚠︎ Fool For You Cassian mistakes the turbulent connection he shares with Nesta for fate
@moonlitstoriess
⚠︎ Until the End, and Even Then She stood beside him through centuries of war, loyalty carved into every scar. But when new faces arrived, his heart turned elsewhere, leaving hers to quietly break. In the end, she made the choice no one else could—and no one saw it coming. ✧.* My Home is You A battle-worn warrior finds his truest peace not on the battlefield but in the quiet, messy love-filled home he builds with you. ⚠︎ Blood and Wings While Cassian is gone, danger finds its way back home—leaving him racing back to what he almost lost ⚠︎ Make it Right On Y/N’s birthday, Cassian forgets the special day, caught up in the chaos of the world around them. Hurt and disappointed, Y/N tries to hide her feelings, but Cassian soon realizes his mistake. What follows is a heartfelt apology, and a love that reminds them both that sometimes, making things right takes more than just words.
@sweetpeaaquarius
˚꩜｡ Meeting His Match She’s the teacher Nyx can’t stop talking about, and when Rhysand and Feyre leave for a three-week trip, Cassian is put in charge of drop-offs and pick-ups, but she quickly becomes more than just Nyx’s favourite.
@surielstea
✧.* Spelling it Out Reader is a bit oblivious to Cassian’s flirtations, so Cassian has to go the extra mile to prove he truly wants her.
@arrantsnowdrop
⚠︎ Mountain Blues When Mor is attacked and left for dead on the Autumn Court's border, you and Azriel take her to the Illyrian war-camp where he's stationed with Rhys and Cassian for her to recover. After she reveals she slept with Cassian, whom you've liked for some time, you pull back from the Illyrian warrior to focus on your sister. What you fail to realize is that Cassian has feelings for you, not Mor.
@pellucid-constellations
✧.* Ouch It was only an accident ✧.* Quiet Feyre can't understand how Cassian always seems to know exactly what his mate is thinking when she barely says a word.
@prythianpages
🔞 Lay All Your Love On Me ✪ Cassian is your best friend and best friend’s don’t thirst after one another. Best friends don’t get jealous. Best friends also don’t fall in love with one another. But you did.
@velarisdusk
🔞 Meant to Stand Rhysand has one request: restore a half-collapsed cabin into something fit for veteran Illyrians. The catch? You'll be doing it with Cassian—and the two of you haven't truly spoken since that mission four years ago.
@inkedinshadows
🔞 The Evening After You and Cassian are officially mated. You both know what happens now: the mating frenzy.
@azrielbrainrot
🔞 Teasing Touches Cassian let's you play with his wings.
@stargirlrchive
🔞 just the tip SMUT — cassian x fem!reader, ‘just the tip’ sex
@hockeylover25
🔞 Books of Truth ✪ when Nesta catches you reading a smutty book, you explain your feelings with sleeping with your mate and she convinces you to spice things up in the bedroom. 🔞 Claimed in Silence Rhysand’s sister realizes Cassian is her mate after years of hidden longing, and everything between them finally snaps into place at court.
@elledc
🔞 wing play Cassian x afab!reader who accidentally touches Cass' wing during sex
@arrantsnowdrop
🔞 Bed Rest Cassian turns up sick with the fae cold while you're filling in for Madja in her absence. You decide to let your decades-long crush spend the weekend at your place to monitor his condition, only to discover he's harbored feelings for you for just as long.
@qu1cks1lversb1tch
🔞 Reunion One hundred years after walking away, returning to Velaris was never part of the plan—until Rhysand's invitation changes everything.
@ddejavvu
🔞 suffocate Facesitting with cassian but you’re scared you’re gonna suffocate him and he just holds you down on his face and doesn’t care about that
@luna-e-clips
🔞 before battle you and cassian have been sleeping together for a while now, and feelings have begun to stir between the two of you. you're known by the ic to have quickies in public, and preparing for battle was no exception.
@sweetpeaaquarius
🔞 Mirror Sex He knows exactly how good you look, and he wants you to see it too.
@steveslevis
🔞 somnophilia Cassian has had a long fucking day.
@lipstickmarks
🔞 I Could Take You (not in a fight) You tease Cassian. The result are as you'd expect.
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Jack + Dark(ness)
john tucker - a little help
summary: you help your boyfriend cook dinner, safe to say you’re not the best at cooking
a/n: little short one shot for today because it’s all i could come up with
word count: around 750
warnings: none
off campus masterlist | main page
“You’re holding the knife wrong.”
You look down at your hand.
Then back at John.
“I am not.”
“You absolutely are.”
“I’m literally cutting a tomato.”
“And you’re making it look dangerous.”
You glare at him from across the kitchen. “You’re being dramatic.”
John chuckles, wiping his hands on a dish towel before walking over.
“I’m being realistic.”
He gently takes the knife from your hand and sets it on the cutting board.
“Here.”
You watch as he steps behind you, reaching around to guide your hand.
“Keep your fingers curled in,” he says. “Like this.”
His hand covers yours, carefully adjusting your fingers.
You glance over your shoulder.
“You're enjoying this.”
“Maybe.”
“You just like bossing me around.”
“I like keeping you alive.”
“I would've been fine.”
“You almost cut your finger off five minutes ago.”
“I barely nicked it.”
John raises an eyebrow.
“You screamed.”
“It surprised me!”
He laughs, shaking his head.
“Okay. Try again.”
You pick up the knife.
John stays behind you.
“Slowly.”
You carefully slice through the tomato.
“There.”
You hold it up proudly.
John nods.
“See? Look at you.”
“Don't sound so surprised.”
“I’m impressed.”
You smile.
“Thank you.”
“Still took you four minutes to cut one tomato.”
You immediately smack his arm.
“Shut up.”
He laughs, catching your wrist before you can hit him again.
“You're cute when you're mad.”
“I’m not mad.”
“Sure.”
He lets go of your wrist and walks back to the stove.
You watch him for a moment.
John is completely in his element.
He moves around the kitchen like he's done this a thousand times—checking the pan, stirring the sauce, tasting it, adding a little more seasoning without even measuring.
Meanwhile, you’re standing at the counter struggling to figure out what the recipe saying “finely diced” means.
You look down at your onion.
It looks… questionable.
“John?”
“Yeah?”
“What does finely diced mean?”
He looks over.
Then looks at the onion.
Then back at you.
“Do you want the honest answer?”
“No.”
He smiles.
“It means smaller than that.”
You sigh.
“I hate cooking.”
“I know.”
“You're supposed to encourage me.”
“I am encouraging you.”
“You're laughing.”
“Because you're cute.”
“That doesn't count.”
John walks over and takes the onion from you.
“Here.”
He starts chopping it quickly and effortlessly.
You stare in shock.
“How do you do that so fast?”
“Practice.”
“You're showing off.”
“Absolutely.”
You cross your arms.
“I could do that.”
“You nearly lost a battle with a tomato.”
“I was distracted.”
“By what?”
“You.”
He pauses.
Then he looks at you with a grin.
“Oh?”
You immediately realize what you said.
“I meant—”
“Don't worry.” He steps closer. “I liked that answer.”
You roll your eyes, trying to hide your smile.
“Just cook.”
“Yes, chef.”
“I'm not the chef.”
“No, you're definitely not.”
You gasp.
“John!”
He laughs as you shove his shoulder.
“I'm kidding.”
“You're mean.”
He wraps an arm around your waist, pulling you against his side.
“You know I love you.”
You look up at him.
“You better.”
“I do.”
He presses a kiss to the top of your head before turning back toward the stove.
A few minutes later, he hands you a spoon.
“Taste it.”
You take a bite.
Your eyes widen.
“Oh my God.”
“Good?”
“That's actually so good.”
“I know.”
“You made this?”
John gives you an offended look.
“I've been making it this entire time.”
“I didn't realize you were this good.”
He smirks.
“You've never cooked with me before.”
“Maybe because every time we eat together, you cook.”
“Exactly.”
You take another bite.
“Okay, you’re officially in charge of cooking forever.”
He laughs.
“No chance.”
“What?”
“If we're cooking together, you're helping.”
You groan.
“But I'm bad.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
He looks at you, his expression softening.
“Because I like doing things with you.”
You smile.
“Even when I’m terrible at them?”
“Especially then.”
You lean against him.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“I’ll keep trying.”
“Good.”
He hands you the spoon again.
“Now stir.”
You take it.
“Like this?”
“Yeah.”
You stir the sauce carefully.
John watches you for a second before smiling.
“You're getting better.”
“Really?”
“No.”
You smack his arm again.
He laughs, catching your hand and pulling you into him.
“I'm kidding!”
“You're impossible.”
“And you're terrible at cooking.”
You narrow your eyes.
“John Tucker.”
He grins.
“But you're my favorite person to cook with.”
You can't help but smile.
“Better answer.”
“I know.”
Omgg we need more logan fluff!
yes! more is def on the way soon, lovie! 🤍
john logan - date night, apparently
summary: you and logan go grocery shopping, and he annoys you the whole time
a/n: feel free to leave requests!
word count: 1.2k
warnings: none, logan being a pain
off campus masterlist | main page
The grocery list was short.
Ideally, you’d be in the grocery store for no more than 20 minutes.
That was the plan, anyways.
You stood in the middle of the grocery store with your phone in one hand and the shopping cart in the other, staring at Logan like he had personally offended you.
“You're doing this on purpose.”
Logan looked genuinely confused.
Which would have been more convincing if he wasn't holding a family-sized box of dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets.
“Doing what?”
You pointed at the cart.
There were already three boxes of cereal, none of which had been on the list. A giant bag of gummy worms. Chocolate-covered pretzels. Two packages of cookies. A jar of pickles.
And, somehow, a can of whipped cream.
Logan glanced down at the cart.
“Getting groceries?”
“You've put seven things in here that aren't on the list.”
“Eight.”
You narrowed your eyes.
He smiled.
“You forgot the Pop-Tarts.”
You groaned and reached for the box to put it away.
“No.”
Logan immediately pulled it out of your reach.
“Yes.”
“Logan.”
“Babe.”
“We're not buying Pop-Tarts.”
“Why?”
“Because we don't need them.”
His eyebrows lifted. “That's not what I asked.”
You sighed. “Because they're unhealthy.”
“Okay.”
He nodded thoughtfully.
For one brief, glorious second, you thought you'd won.
Then he put the Pop-Tarts back into the cart.
“You're impossible.”
“And yet,” he said, leaning against the cart with a smug smile, “you continue to date me.”
“Some days I wonder why.”
“Liar.”
You rolled your eyes and started pushing the cart down the aisle.
Logan followed beside you, looking entirely too pleased with himself.
The grocery trip had started normally.
You'd needed actual food. Milk, eggs, bread, chicken, vegetables, pasta. Normal things.
Logan had insisted on coming with you because, according to him, “Couples who grocery shop together stay together.”
You'd laughed at him.
Now you were beginning to suspect he'd only come because he wanted to torment you.
You stopped in front of the produce section.
“Okay,” you said. “We're getting strawberries.”
Logan picked up a container.
“Organic?”
“Yes.”
He put it in the cart.
You smiled.
“Thank you.”
He picked up another container.
“Logan.”
“What?”
“Put that back.”
“Why?”
“We don't need two.”
“We have a house full of 4 guys.”
“We still don’t need two strawberry containers.”
“You don't know that.”
You stared at him.
He stared back.
Slowly, he placed the second container in the cart.
You took it out.
He put it back.
You removed it again.
He grabbed it.
“Logan.”
“I'm helping.”
“You are making this harder.”
“I'm contributing.”
“You're five.”
“Five and a half.”
You couldn't stop the laugh that escaped.
His grin widened immediately.
“There she is.”
“What?”
“That laugh.”
You shook your head, trying not to smile.
“You're so annoying.”
“Yeah, but you like me.”
“Unfortunately.”
He leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to your temple.
“Love you too.”
You pushed him away with your shoulder.
“Come on. We need vegetables.”
“Vegetables are depressing.”
“You're depressing.”
“I'm charming.”
“You're still holding that box of dinosaur chicken nuggets.”
He looked down at the box.
“Exactly. Charming.”
---
Twenty minutes later, the cart was almost entirely full of things you hadn't intended to buy.
You stopped in the cereal aisle and looked at Logan.
“Okay.”
He glanced over.
“Okay?”
“New rule.”
He immediately looked suspicious.
“What rule?”
“For every unnecessary thing you put in the cart, I get to choose something unnecessary.”
Logan's smile slowly appeared.
You grin.
“You’re also paying.”
“Oh, this is a dangerous game.”
“Exactly.”
He grabbed a box of chocolate cereal.
You immediately reached for a ridiculous seasonal cereal with marshmallows shaped like stars.
Logan looked at it.
“Absolutely not.”
“You chose chocolate cereal.”
“Chocolate cereal is a staple.”
“This is Lucky Charms.”
“It's not a staple.”
“Neither are dinosaur nuggets.”
He looked offended.
“Don't insult the dinosaurs.”
You laughed and put the cereal in the cart.
Logan shook his head.
“Fine.”
He grabbed a massive bag of cheese puffs.
“Logan.”
“You chose unicorn cereal.”
You grabbed a tub of ice cream.
He stared at you.
“You don't even like that flavor.”
“I do now.”
“You hate cookie dough.”
“I've changed.”
“Since when?”
“Since thirty seconds ago.”
He laughed.
“Okay. Fair.”
You continued down the aisle.
It became a game.
Logan put something ridiculous in the cart.
You retaliated.
He added a box of frozen waffles.
You added fancy sparkling water.
He grabbed a giant jar of Nutella.
You grabbed chocolate strawberries.
He picked up a frozen pie shaped like a heart.
You looked at him.
“That's actually kind of cute.”
His expression softened for half a second.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He tossed it into the cart.
“Then we're getting it.”
You smiled.
---
At some point, Logan disappeared.
You didn't notice at first.
You were comparing two different brands of pasta sauce when you realized you hadn't heard him making some sarcastic comment for approximately thirty seconds.
That was never a good sign.
You looked around.
“Logan?”
Nothing.
You sighed.
“John?”
Still nothing.
You pushed the cart around the corner.
And stopped.
Logan was standing in the middle of the aisle wearing a pair of ridiculous heart-shaped sunglasses.
You stared at him.
He stared back.
“What?”
“Take those off.”
“No.”
“Logan.”
“I think they suit me.”
“You look like a six-year-old at a birthday party.”
He smiled.
“Would you still love me if I looked like this?”
You tried to hold your serious expression, and failed.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
He walked toward you, still wearing the sunglasses.
“Then they're staying.”
You reached up and took them off his face.
He gasped dramatically.
“Abuse.”
“You'll survive.”
“I'm telling HR.”
“We don't have an HR.”
“Then I'm telling Garrett.”
“You're ridiculous.”
“And you love me.”
You smiled despite yourself.
“Yeah.”
His teasing expression softened.
“Yeah?”
You nodded.
“Yeah.”
For once, Logan didn't make another joke.
He simply leaned down and kissed you.
It was quick and sweet, his hand settling against your waist.
When he pulled away, he smiled.
“Come on.”
“Where?”
“Frozen foods.”
“Why?”
He grabbed the cart.
“I have an idea.”
You immediately became suspicious.
“That's never good.”
---
You found out exactly what his idea was thirty seconds later.
He had somehow found ice cream sandwiches shaped like stars.
You stared at the box.
“No.”
“Come on.”
“No.”
“Look at them.”
“I see them.”
“They're star-shaped ice cream sandwiches.”
“I understand the concept.”
“Then you understand why we need them.”
“We absolutely do not need them.”
Logan picked up the box and put it in the cart.
You took it out.
He put it back.
You took it out.
He put it back.
“Logan.”
“Babe.”
“We have ice cream.”
“These are different.”
“You're impossible.”
“It's a gift.”
You sighed.
“Fine.”
He grinned triumphantly.
“Thank you.”
“But you're eating them.”
“Gladly.”
---
By the time you reached the checkout, the cart was a disaster.
There were actual groceries buried underneath enough junk food to feed the entire hockey team.
The cashier looked at the cart.
Then at you.
Then at Logan.
“Big party?”
You opened your mouth.
Logan answered first.
“Date night.”
You glanced at him.
“Date night?”
“Yeah.”
“We're grocery shopping.”
He shrugged.
“That's basically a date.”
You couldn't help smiling.
The cashier started scanning everything.
You looked at the total climbing up.
Then at Logan’s horrified expression.
feel free to leave any one-shot requests!
i don't write smut because im terrible at writing it 😭
my daily affirmation as an author
garrett graham ❄︎ six shifts.
pairing – garrett graham x nursing student!reader summary – six shifts are more than enough to love someone, and one devastating loss leaves garrett holding his girlfriend through the worst night of her placement. warnings – infant death, premature birth, neonatal intensive care, detailed medical procedures, neonatal deterioration and resuscitation, parental grief, emotional distress, guilt, panic, nightmares, crying notes from me – um well u guys asked for angst but i am never breaking my babies up so 🧍🏼♀️ here we are. but based on these requests combined! word count – 6.9k
navigation – masterlist | nursing student!reader masterlist
The NICU makes medicine feel like magic performed by people with lanyards.
It’s breast milk measured into syringes instead of bottles, skin protected with dressings cut into pieces barely wider than her thumbnail, medication doses containing enough decimal points that she checks them three times before showing the nurse and then watches the nurse check them twice more.
The blood-pressure cuffs look like toys. The nappies seem physically impossible. The first time she changes one, she holds it between both hands and laughs because surely no human being is small enough to require something that could comfortably fit around her wrist.
Then she looks through the incubator wall at the baby waiting inside it, one pink foot no longer than the top joint of her thumb, and stops laughing.
The entire unit exists in a strange, permanent half-light. Curtains pulled around expressing mothers. Small lamps glowing beside incubators. Sunlight softened through blinds because some of the babies have not developed enough to tolerate the ordinary brightness of a hospital corridor.
There are alarms constantly, but never the same brutal chaos as emergency. Here, every sound seems to mean something specific. A heart rate creeping too high. Oxygen saturation dipping. A feeding pump finished. A sensor losing contact because somebody has kicked one astonishingly tiny leg with enough determination to dislodge it.
She loves it almost immediately. She loves the little name cards clipped to the incubators and the knitted blankets donated in colours no commercial nursery would ever select.
She loves watching parents learn how to change nappies through the side ports without disturbing six different wires. She loves the careful choreography of nurses turning babies whose bodies are still too fragile to decide their own position for very long.
She loves that a person can be born months before they are meant to be, skin translucent and lungs unfinished, and instead of everyone quietly accepting that the world has made a mistake, an entire team gathers around and says, alright. We’ll help.
There’s something almost obscene about the faith of it. Caffeine to remind an immature brain to keep breathing. Surfactant to help lungs stay open. Nutrition sliding through lines narrower than sewing thread. Warm air, filtered light and hands scrubbed clean moving through plastic doors to give a body weighing less than a bag of flour enough time to become ready for the world.
She has been on placement for six shifts when she decides the NICU might be the closest thing medicine has to a miracle.
For most of those shifts, she has been assigned to June. Not independently, she’s a student, not delusional.
Every movement she makes around June happens beneath the eye of Claire, the primary nurse who has worked neonatal intensive care long enough to change a line dressing while simultaneously calming an anxious father and reminding a junior doctor that the blood gas result he is searching for has been open on the screen in front of him for several minutes.
But June is hers in the strange, temporary way patients sometimes become yours during placement. She checks the monitors when she arrives. Helps with her cares. Watches Claire draw up medications and follows every calculation on paper until the numbers stop looking like a threat.
She records wet nappies with the seriousness of somebody documenting matters of national importance and learns which corner of June’s mouth lifts before she begins objecting to being handled.
June was born at twenty-four weeks and five days, weighing six hundred and eighty grams. She has lungs that require constant negotiation, a duct in her heart that has refused to close properly, and a list of complications long enough that her parents keep the consultant’s explanations written inside a small notebook because exhaustion has made memory unreliable.
Maya and Daniel arrive every morning carrying takeaway coffees and looking like they haven’t slept properly since June was born.
By her third day, she knows Maya drinks oat milk and Daniel forgets to eat until someone puts food directly beside him. By the fourth, Daniel starts bringing her a coffee too, despite her insisting students cannot accept gifts from patient families and Daniel pointing out that the coffee costs three dollars and tastes like burnt cardboard, which barely qualifies as a gift.
Maya sits beside the incubator for hours with one hand resting through the port, her smallest finger curled beneath June’s palm.
“She squeezes,” Maya tells her on Tuesday, eyes bright with tiredness and pride. “It’s not a reflex. Everyone keeps saying it’s probably a reflex, but she knows it’s me.”
She looks at the impossibly tiny fingers wrapped around Maya’s. “She probably does.”
“You’re meant to be neutral,” Maya smiles.
“I’m a student. We’re still allowed a little whimsy.”
Maya laughs quietly so she doesn’t disturb June. Daniel looks up from the notebook and says, “Write that down. Medical confirmation.”
She looks forward to seeing them. That’s perhaps the first mistake, although calling it a mistake feels ugly after everything.
She looks forward to Maya showing her the photograph of the nursery they finished while June was still meant to be inside her. She looks forward to Daniel announcing every weight increase in grams like a stock market closing figure.
She looks forward to June’s whole face scrunching when Claire changes the tape near her cheek, fury gathering in a body too small to produce any meaningful noise around the breathing support.
On Thursday, June tolerates an entire skin-to-skin cuddle against Maya’s chest. Forty-three minutes without her oxygen saturation dropping enough to end it early.
Maya cries. Daniel takes twelve photographs. She stands behind Claire with one hand wrapped around the side rail and feels something warm expand beneath her ribs as June settles against her mother’s skin, no larger beneath the blanket than a loaf of bread.
“That’s good, right?” Daniel asks for the fourth time.
Claire smiles. “That’s very good.”
She nods too, though nobody asked her. “She looks comfortable.”
“She likes her mom,” Daniel says.
Maya looks down at the little hat resting over June’s head and begins crying harder.
The following morning, her first observation of June is normal for June. Not normal in the broader sense. Almost nothing about a neonatal intensive care unit fits comfortably within the broader sense.
But her heart rate sits where it usually does. Her oxygen requirement is slightly higher than the night before but not dramatically. Her temperature is fine. Her abdomen appears mildly distended, though Claire checks it and says they will keep watching.
Maya arrives at eight-fifteen. Daniel follows ten minutes later after moving the car because the parking app had stopped accepting his payment and threatened to make an already impossible week much worse.
June is unsettled during her cares. Her oxygen saturation dips twice while they change her nappy, then recovers with repositioning.
Claire’s mouth tightens slightly while looking at the monitor, but when Maya asks whether that happens often, she answers honestly.
“It can,” she says. “She’s taking a little longer to come back up today, so we’re keeping a close eye on her.”
Maya nods. The hand holding her coffee tightens around the cardboard cup.
They send bloods. The registrar reviews June. Antibiotics are adjusted while the team waits for results, every decision made quickly but without panic, the people around the incubator speaking in that quiet, clipped rhythm healthcare workers use when concern hasn’t yet become an emergency but is beginning to move in that direction.
She stays close to Claire. She checks equipment. She helps reposition the saturation probe when it stops reading properly and watches June’s oxygen numbers climb again.
Eighty-one. Eighty-six. Ninety.
Everyone exhales without acknowledging they had been waiting.
Maya sits beside the incubator, one hand inside against June’s leg. “She’s being difficult today.”
“She’s allowed,” she says softly. “She’s got a lot going on.”
Maya’s mouth lifts, but the smile barely forms before the monitor begins alarming again. The saturation drops first. Ninety-one to eighty-two so quickly the numbers appear to skip between them. June’s heart rate follows, falling out of the one-fifties.
Claire straightens. “Come on, sweetheart.”
She opens the incubator port and places a careful hand against June’s back while Claire adjusts her breathing support. The numbers continue falling.
Seventy-four. The alarm changes tone.
The sound is sharper now, cutting through every other noise on the unit. Claire’s hand moves to the emergency button.
The registrar is already turning from the workstation before she calls him. “Heart rate’s ninety.”
Maya stands so abruptly the chair catches against the floor behind her. Daniel is beside her immediately, one hand hovering near her waist without touching.
“What’s happening?” Maya asks.
Nobody answers quickly enough. The consultant comes through the curtain, followed by another nurse and the respiratory therapist. The space around the incubator contracts, bodies filling every available gap while the monitor keeps sounding above them.
“Heart rate sixty.”
Claire looks at her. Focused enough that her voice loses every unnecessary word. “Can you take Mom and Dad to the family room, please?”
She looks at Maya.
Maya has already understood enough to shake her head. “No. No, I’m staying.”
“Maya,” Daniel says, though his own voice has begun breaking.
She moves toward them because Claire has asked her to and because standing still feels like choosing something worse. “I just need you to step outside with me for a minute.”
“What’s happening?” Maya catches her forearm. Her fingers are cold even through the scrub sleeve. “What’s happening to her?”
Behind them, someone says, “Heart rate forty,” and the room changes completely.
The sides of the incubator open. A resuscitation board appears beneath June’s body. Hands begin compressions with two fingers against a chest so small the motion looks impossible.
Maya hears it. She makes a sound that does not belong in any hospital corridor. “Is she dying?” she asks.
She cannot answer that. She cannot lie either. Her whole throat seems to close around every word she knows.
“The doctors need room to help her,” she manages, covering Maya’s hand with her own. “I need you to come with me right now, okay? They’re doing everything they can.”
“I can’t leave her.”
“I know.” Her own voice is shaking now. She forces it lower. “I know. You’re not leaving. We’re going right outside.”
Daniel wraps one arm around Maya and helps turn her away. She walks with them through the curtain, one hand still gripping Maya’s, while the alarms continue behind them.
Maya keeps looking over her shoulder. “June,” she cries. “June, Mommy’s here.”
The family room is less than twenty feet away. It feels like a different building. Two grey chairs. A box of tissues. A painting of the ocean selected by someone who believed blue water might soften whatever was said beneath it.
Daniel lowers Maya into one of the chairs. She doesn’t sit properly. Her body folds toward the door, every muscle trying to return to the room they have just left.
“What are they doing?” Daniel asks.
“Resuscitating her.”
The word leaves her mouth before she can find something gentler. Daniel shuts his eyes.
Maya’s fingers close around hers so hard the little bones grind together. “She was okay yesterday.”
“I know.”
“She was on my chest.”
“I know.”
“I felt her breathing.”
She cannot say anything to that. She crouches beside Maya’s chair because standing over them feels cruel and keeps holding her hand while another nurse arrives to stay with them.
“Go,” the nurse says quietly. “They’ll need you inside.”
She returns through the curtain. For the next several minutes, time becomes a series of instructions.
Bring the medication tray. Open another packet. Move the light. Record the time. Pass the syringe to Claire. Step back. Come closer. Hold this. Move that line. Watch the clock.
She does everything she’s told. Her hands work even while the rest of her body feels several seconds behind them. The doctor intubates. The respiratory therapist checks placement. Compressions continue.
Medication moves through the line in amounts so small they still require a syringe, even now, even while everyone in the space is willing June’s heart to remember its job.
The monitor remains wrong. A number appears, falls, disappears beneath the movement of leads and hands. The room smells like plastic, sanitiser and the faint sweet trace of milk from the feed that had been stopped earlier.
Someone calls another time. The consultant listens. The compressions stop.
The silence afterward isn’t complete. There are still machines in the room. Pumps running. Ventilation equipment hissing. Another baby alarming from the next bay because the world hasn’t agreed to pause.
But June’s monitor no longer demands anything. The consultant looks at the clock and says the time aloud. Every person around the incubator becomes still.
She stares at June. Without all the hands moving over her, she looks smaller than before. Smaller than a body should be allowed to look. Her knitted hat has shifted upward slightly. One leg rests bent beneath the edge of the nappy she had changed that morning.
Claire turns off the alarm. The quiet sound of the button clicking seems to enter directly beneath her ribs.
Maya’s cry reaches them from the family room before anyone opens the door.
The parents are brought back in. The equipment that can be removed is removed. A blanket appears, soft and pale yellow. Claire wraps June with the care she used when June was alive, supporting her head, smoothing the hat back into place, tucking the blanket beneath her feet even though she can no longer become cold.
Daniel stands near the wall with one hand over his mouth. Maya takes her baby.
She doesn’t collapse dramatically. That might have been easier to witness. Her body only folds inward around June, shoulders curving, cheek lowering slowly against the little knitted hat while a sound keeps leaving her in pieces.
“My girl,” she says. “My beautiful girl.”
She stands near the door because she cannot make herself go farther away and cannot imagine she belongs any closer.
Maya lifts her head eventually. Her face is wet, almost unrecognisable beneath the grief moving through it. Her gaze finds her across the room.
“Thank you,” Maya says.
The words make no sense. She blinks. “I–”
“You looked after her.” Maya tightens the blanket around June. “She knew you.”
Her throat closes. She shakes her head once because she doesn’t know what she’s refusing. Daniel crosses the small space between them and pulls her into a hug.
It’s brief. One arm around her shoulders, his other hand still pressed against his own face, his body shaking hard enough that she feels it through both layers of scrubs.
“Thank you,” he repeats.
She stands there after he releases her, arms hanging by her sides, and understands that she will never forget the weight of being thanked by two people whose baby has just died.
Claire sends her on break.
She makes it to the staff bathroom, locks the door and grips the edge of the sink with both hands. For several seconds, nothing happens. Her reflection stares back at her beneath the fluorescent strip above the mirror. Scrub cap still sitting crooked over her hair. Mask pulled beneath her chin. A faint pressure mark across the bridge of her nose.
Then her mouth twists. She bends forward so quickly her forehead almost hits the mirror. One hand flies over her mouth before the first sob can come out properly, the sound trapped hot against her palm while her shoulders begin shaking.
There’s nowhere for it to go. The room is too small. Her body is too tight around it. She presses both palms against her eyes until colours burst behind them, trying to stop the image of June beneath two fingers, June wrapped in yellow, Maya saying my girl like the words could still keep her tethered.
She cries until her breathing becomes painful. Until her throat is raw and her nose runs and her knees feel unreliable beneath her. Then she turns on the tap, splashes cold water over her face and waits for herself to look approximately employable again.
She doesn’t feel better. She looks less visibly ruined. Hospitals often accept that as an adequate substitute. The rest of the shift passes through her without leaving much behind.
Claire offers to send her home. She says no because there’s only an hour and twenty minutes left and because the idea of leaving the unit while June’s parents are still inside feels like walking away from a sentence before it’s ended.
So she restocks feeding syringes. Folds blankets. Checks expiry dates on supplies she knows are nowhere near expiring. She documents what she’s asked to document and reads every line three times because the words keep refusing to stay in their correct order.
Near the end of the shift, she helps Claire press June’s foot into ink for the memory card. The footprint is scarcely larger than the pad of her thumb.
At five-thirty, Claire takes the pen out of her hand. “Go home,” she says.
She nods. She changes in the locker room, though she has no memory of removing her scrubs. Her hands put on jeans, a jumper, shoes. Her badge disappears into the front pocket of her bag. Someone says goodbye near the door.
Garrett’s car is parked beneath the far light in the staff car park. He had handed her the keys that morning with the same explanation he always uses now, that she’s not wasting her own petrol driving to unpaid placement when he has a perfectly good car.
She reaches the driver’s door and stops. The keys are already in her hand. She could unlock it. Sit inside. Reverse out. Follow the familiar roads back toward campus.
Her body will not move.
She looks through the window at the steering wheel, and the thought of putting both hands onto it makes something cold slide beneath her skin. Traffic lights. Pedestrians. Lane changes. Braking distances. Decisions arriving one after another while June’s monitor drops from ninety to sixty to forty inside her head.
She sits on the curb instead. The concrete is cold through her jeans. Garrett’s car rises beside her, dark and clean beneath the parking-lot lights, his Briar pass still hanging crooked from the mirror.
The hospital glows behind her. People come and go through the staff entrance, talking about dinner and rosters and whether the rain will hold off tomorrow.
She takes out her phone.
Garrett answers on the second ring. “Hey, baby.”
The sound of his voice almost undoes the work of the bathroom. She presses her thumb into the seam of her jeans and stares across the car park at nothing.
“Can you come get me?”
“Yeah,” he says immediately. Then, more carefully, “What’s wrong?”
She opens her mouth and discovers she cannot put the day inside it. “I can’t drive.”
The words come out flat. Numb enough that they barely sound like hers.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.” She swallows. Her throat aches. “Physically, yeah. I’m fine.”
Another small pause. She can hear movement now. A cupboard closing. Garrett saying something away from the phone, too muffled to make out.
“Okay,” he says, voice returning close to her ear. “I’ll be twenty minutes, baby.”
She nods before remembering he cannot see her. “Okay.”
“You still at the staff car park?”
“Mhm.”
“Stay there.”
“I am.”
“I’m coming.”
The call ends. She lowers the phone into her lap and waits. She doesn’t check the time. It could be twelve minutes or eighteen or half an hour.
The light above Garrett’s car hums faintly, attracting small insects that circle it without ever finding what they want.
Dean’s car turns into the lot hard enough that its headlights sweep across three empty spaces before settling on her.
It pulls up beside Garrett’s car at an angle that would probably irritate Dean under any other circumstances. The engine cuts off. Garrett is out before the headlights fully dim, one hand still holding Dean’s keys and his expression already changing as he takes her in.
She gets to her feet. For one second, she only stands there. Bag hanging from one shoulder. Phone loose in her hand. Garrett in grey sweats and a Briar hoodie, curls disordered like he dragged his fingers through them the entire drive.
Then he says, “Baby?”
Her body moves. She reaches him fast enough that her bag slides from her shoulder. Garrett catches her as it hits the ground, one arm wrapping around her back and the other coming up behind her head as she throws herself into his chest.
The first sob tears out of her without warning.
Garrett’s whole body tightens around it. “Hey. Hey, I’ve got you.”
She grips the back of his hoodie in both fists. Her face presses beneath his jaw, breath catching against his throat while the crying comes harder now than it did in the bathroom because nobody is waiting outside the door, because she doesn’t have to return to the unit, because Garrett’s arms are around her and her body has finally decided it’s safe enough to stop pretending.
“What happened?” he asks, his palm moving over the back of her head. “Baby, what happened?”
She tries to answer. The first attempt disappears into a gasping breath. Garrett holds her tighter, one hand smoothing down her hair again and again even though it has already come loose around her face.
“Take your time,” he murmurs. “I’m here.”
“The baby.” Her voice breaks completely. She presses her face harder into him like she can force the words back inside. “June.”
Garrett goes still. He knows June through every story she brought home. June gained twenty grams. June hated cares. June held her mum’s finger. June did skin-to-skin for forty-three minutes and didn’t desaturate once.
“June?” he asks quietly.
She nods against him. “She died.”
Garrett’s breath leaves him. The whole sentence is outside her now, but it doesn’t make the weight of it smaller. Her knees weaken. Garrett adjusts without comment, one arm dropping lower around her waist to take more of her weight while the other keeps her face against his shoulder.
“Oh, baby.” His mouth presses into her hair. “I’m so sorry.”
“They did everything.” The words begin coming in broken pieces, each one dragged through another sob. “They were there, and her numbers just– they just kept going down, and Maya wouldn’t leave. She kept saying June’s name, and I had to take them out, and then we–”
Her breath catches too sharply to continue. Garrett rubs one hand between her shoulder blades, slow and firm.
“I’m sorry,” he says again. There’s nothing else sensible to say, and Garrett does not try to improve it. “I’m so fucking sorry, baby.”
“She was so little.”
“I know.”
“She was fine yesterday.” Her hands tighten in his hoodie. “She was on her mom’s chest. She was breathing.”
Garrett shuts his eyes. His cheek rests against the top of her head while she cries into him beneath the hospital lights.
“I couldn’t drive,” she gasps after a while. “I’m sorry. I tried to– I looked at the car, and I couldn’t–”
“No.” Garrett pulls back only far enough to hold her face between both hands. His thumbs move beneath her wet eyes, catching tears that are replaced almost immediately. “Don’t apologise.”
“It’s your car.”
“I don’t give a fuck about the car.”
“I made you come all the way here,” she mumbles.
“Baby.” His forehead presses to hers. “You called me because you needed me. That’s it.”
Her mouth trembles.
Garrett’s hands slide from her face, one returning to the back of her neck while the other holds her at the waist. “I’ve got you,” he says quietly. “I always have you.”
She closes her eyes. June is still dead. Maya is still inside the hospital holding a body that had been warm beneath her hand that morning.
But Garrett is here. His hoodie is damp beneath her cheek. His fingers are moving through her hair. His heart beats steadily against the side of her fist.
“I know,” she whispers.
The words break in the middle, but Garrett hears them. His arms tighten around her again, and she clings harder, letting him hold everything her body cannot keep upright alone.
They stay that way until her breathing begins to slow. Lengthening enough that each inhale stops scraping on the way in.
Garrett kisses the top of her head. “Let’s get you home, yeah?”
She nods against him.
“We’ll leave my car.” His hand moves down her back. “I’ll get it tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.” He eases away carefully, keeping one hand around her arm like he doesn’t trust the ground beneath her yet. He picks up her bag, hangs it over his own shoulder and walks her toward Dean’s passenger side.
She stops when he opens the door.
Garrett looks at her. “What?”
“Nothing.” Her eyes burn again. She wipes beneath one with the heel of her hand. “Dean let you take his car?”
“Didn’t exactly present a balanced argument.” Garrett guides her down into the seat. “I said hospital and he threw me the keys.”
A small sound catches in her throat. Not quite a laugh, but close enough that Garrett’s face softens.
“There she is,” he murmurs, then seems to regret asking anything more of her expression. His hand cups the side of her head instead, thumb smoothing once over her temple. “You want the seat back?”
She shakes her head.
“Heat?”
“Mhm.”
Garrett reaches across and pulls the seatbelt over her because her hands have gone useless in her lap. The belt clicks into place.
He tucks a piece of hair behind her ear and looks over her face once more, not searching for an explanation now, only making sure she is still with him.
“I’ll get you home,” he says.
She curls one hand around the sleeve of his hoodie before he can move away. Garrett stops immediately. “Don’t go yet.”
His expression changes so quietly it hurts. “I’m just going around the car, baby.”
She nods, but her fingers don’t release him. Garrett leans in and presses his mouth to her forehead, staying there for several seconds while one hand rests warm against the side of her neck.
“I’m right here,” he murmurs.
Only then does she let go. Garrett closes the passenger door gently and walks around the front of Dean’s car, his shape briefly passing through the headlights still shining over the empty parking spaces.
He climbs into the driver’s seat, turns the heat high and reaches for her hand before starting the engine. She gives it to him.
His fingers close around hers, warm and sure over the centre console, and when the hospital begins disappearing behind them, she doesn’t look back.
The hockey house has never been good at being quiet. Even asleep, it produces noise with the restless commitment of something built over old pipes and occupied by four men.
The radiator beside Garrett’s desk clicks every few minutes. Someone turns over in the room across the hall and makes an entire bedframe complain.
Downstairs, the refrigerator begins one of its long mechanical groans, followed by the soft clunk of the ice maker dropping three cubes nobody asked for.
Tonight, though, the house is trying.
Dean had turned the television off without being told when Garrett brought her through the front door. Logan had taken one look at her face and moved the shoes blocking the stairs instead of asking what happened. Tucker had reheated soup, set it in front of her and accepted without argument when she managed only four spoonfuls before staring into the bowl like she had forgotten what it was for.
Nobody made a joke when Garrett carried the bowl away. Nobody complained when he closed his bedroom door before nine.
She had showered because hospital smell had become something she needed off her skin immediately, though Garrett had stood outside the bathroom the whole time after she went silent beneath the water for long enough that he nearly knocked.
She emerged in one of his shirts with her eyes swollen and her hair damp against her shoulders, climbed into bed without speaking and let him arrange himself around her.
Garrett had stayed awake longer than she did. He watched the back of her head against his pillow and kept one arm locked around her waist, palm spread beneath the shirt over her stomach.
Her breathing had taken a while to settle. Every few minutes, it would snag and her body would tense faintly against him, like some part of her had remembered where she had been and needed to check whether it was still happening.
Eventually, exhaustion took her properly. It takes Garrett too, one second he’s watching the shadows from the blinds sit across his wall; the next, the room has gone black and shapeless around him, his face pressed into the back of her hair and one leg trapped between both of hers.
The noise wakes him sometime later. It’s small. Barely enough to reach through sleep. A soft, breathy sound from somewhere directly in front of him, followed by another that catches strangely at the end.
Garrett’s eyes stay closed. For one slow, profoundly unhelpful second, his half-conscious brain decides she’s moaning.
His hand shifts instinctively at her waist before the rest of him has agreed to become involved. His mouth presses sleepily near the back of her neck, and he’s somewhere in the process of thinking that this is inconveniently hot for what feels like the middle of the night when she makes the sound again.
It breaks this time. Not pleasure. Not even close. Garrett’s eyes open.
The room is dim enough that he can only see the pale outline of her cheek against the pillow at first. Her body has gone stiff within the curve of his, shoulders pulled tight and both hands gathered near her chest beneath the blanket.
Another little sound leaves her, thin and frightened, while her head moves once against the pillow as if she’s trying to turn away from something that keeps following.
“Baby?”
She doesn’t wake. Garrett lifts himself onto one elbow. Sleep falls away from him all at once.
There are tears running across her face. They have collected at the bridge of her nose where her cheek is pressed sideways, slipping steadily over the skin and darkening the pillow beneath her.
Her brows are drawn together. Her mouth opens around another broken breath, and the sight of it makes something cold move through his stomach.
“Fuck.” Garrett reaches for her face, then stops himself before grabbing her too quickly. “Hey. Baby.”
He slides one arm beneath her shoulder and rolls her gently onto her back. She comes without resistance, still asleep, head tipping toward him while another tear slips into her hair.
Garrett moves over her, one knee pressing into the mattress beside her hip. “Baby, wake up.”
His thumb catches the wetness beneath one eye. More replaces it immediately. He wipes that away too, then cups the side of her face, keeping his touch steady even while his pulse begins kicking much too hard beneath his ribs.
“Come on, sweetheart.” He says her name, quietly at first, then again with more force when her breathing stutters. “Wake up for me. You’re dreaming. That’s all. Wake up, baby.”
Her face twists.
Garrett’s stomach drops. “Hey. Hey, you’re okay. Come on.”
He strokes his thumb over her cheek and says her name again. Once. Twice. A third time, close enough that his breath moves over her mouth.
Her eyes fly open. She jerks upright with a sharp gasp, nearly catching Garrett beneath the chin. Her hands come up between them without direction, fingers grabbing at the blanket, his arm, the front of his shirt, anything they can find while she drags in another breath that seems to stop before reaching the bottom of her lungs.
“Hey.” Garrett catches both sides of her face. “It’s me.”
Her eyes move around the room too quickly. The lamp he had left on low beside the bed. The dark window. The jersey hanging over his desk chair. Garrett above her, hair flattened from the pillow and heart trying to punch its way through his chest.
For a second, she only stares, then recognition reaches her and her whole body comes forward.
Garrett barely has time to sit back before she throws both arms around his neck and buries her face beneath his jaw. The force of it knocks him against the headboard, one shoulder striking the wood with a muted thud while her hands knot in the back of his shirt.
He folds around her immediately. “Okay.” One hand cups the back of her head. The other closes around her waist, pulling her tight enough that there’s no room left between them for whatever she woke from. “You’re okay. It was just a dream.”
She nods against his neck, though her breathing says she hasn’t entirely returned to the room yet. Each inhale comes fast and shallow against his skin. Her fingers grip harder, pressing into the muscles along his back until it starts to hurt.
Garrett doesn’t loosen them. “Just a dream,” he repeats, quieter. His palm moves slowly over her hair, smoothing it down the back of her head despite the pieces already sticking damply to her cheeks. “You’re here. You’re with me.”
Another shudder passes through her. It starts near her shoulders and moves through the rest of her body, small enough that somebody not holding her this tightly might have missed it.
Garrett presses his mouth to her temple. “What happened?”
She doesn’t answer at first. Her face turns farther into his neck, nose cold against his skin, lips moving once before any sound emerges.
“June,” she whispers.
Garrett shuts his eyes. The name sits differently now than it had when she used to say it over dinner. No amused little story attached. No update about grams gained or oxygen tolerated or the knitted hat somebody had donated in a colour she claimed made June look like a tiny retired golfer.
Only June.
“Just–” Her breath catches. “Nightmare.”
“Oh, baby.”
Garrett’s hand spreads more firmly over the back of her head. There’s nothing useful he can do with the picture his mind supplies. A monitor falling. A baby small enough to fit along his forearm. Her standing in the middle of it while two parents begged her for an answer she couldn’t give.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “I’m so sorry.”
She shifts suddenly, trying to get closer despite already being wrapped completely around him. One knee moves across his thigh. Then the other. Garrett adjusts before she can lose her balance, sliding both hands beneath her hips as she climbs into his lap and settles astride him with no trace of anything sexual in the movement.
She only needs more of him. Her arms lock behind his neck. Her face returns to the same place beneath his jaw, and her whole body folds against his chest as if sitting over his hips has finally removed the last unsafe inch between them.
Garrett leans back against the headboard. The wood is cold through his shirt. He draws the blanket around her shoulders with one hand and keeps the other broad over her back.
“Got you,” he says into her hair. “You can stay right there.”
She gives a tiny nod. He begins scratching lightly along her spine, up beneath the loose fabric of his shirt and down again, his nails barely catching against warm skin. It’s something she usually likes after sex, or when she’s pretending not to be tired on the couch and needs help losing the argument.
Tonight her back remains tense beneath his palm for several passes before the muscles start to soften.
Garrett keeps talking because silence feels too much like leaving her alone with whatever is waiting behind her eyes.
“You did everything right, baby.” Her fingers tighten faintly at his nape. “You stayed. You helped them. You did what Claire asked you to do.” His hand travels down the centre of her back, then up again with the same slow pressure. “You got her parents somewhere safe while everybody worked. You went back in. You helped.”
A breath leaves her into his neck, warm and uneven.
“There wasn’t something you missed,” Garrett continues. He doesn’t know if that’s the exact shape of the thing hurting her, but he knows her. Knows the brutal little inventory she will already be taking through the whole shift, checking every number and movement for evidence that a better nurse might have changed what happened. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
He feels her swallow.
“She was too sick,” he says softly. “That’s not the same as you not doing enough.”
The words sound almost too neat once they leave him. Garrett hates neat explanations for things that have torn somebody open. He presses his mouth to her hair and tries again.
“Her mom thanked you.”
Her body goes still.
“You told me that in the car,” he says. “She thanked you because you looked after her baby. Because she knew you cared about her.”
A wet breath catches against his throat.
“They loved you,” Garrett murmurs. “Her parents did. June probably did too.”
He can practically hear her objecting to the scientific integrity of that claim on any other night. Telling him premature babies aren’t capable of filling out student evaluations. Asking whether he has conducted a peer-reviewed study on neonatal affection. Nothing comes.
Garrett strokes his hand over her back again. “You’re such a good nurse.”
Still nothing.
His brows draw together. He tips his face down toward the top of her head, trying to see whatever portion of her expression is not hidden against his neck. “Baby?”
She remains heavy against him. For one brief, stupid second, alarm tightens beneath his ribs again. Then a soft little breath warms his throat.
The next one carries a faint snore. Garrett goes still. He waits. Another tiny, congested snuffle escapes her nose, followed by the slow release of her whole body as sleep takes the final tension from her spine.
Her fingers are still tangled loosely behind his neck, but the grip has gone slack. Her cheek rests warm against his skin, mouth parted slightly near his collarbone.
Garrett looks toward the ceiling. A quiet laugh leaves him through his nose, too soft to disturb her. “Okay.”
He shifts carefully, testing whether he can lower them both without waking her. The second he moves, her arms tighten on instinct and one dissatisfied noise catches in the back of her throat.
Garrett stops immediately.
“Right,” he whispers. “Here it is.”
The headboard isn’t especially comfortable. One of its narrow wooden edges is already pressing into the centre of his shoulder blade, and her full weight has begun settling over one of his thighs in a way that promises circulation will become a future concern.
He doesn’t care. Garrett reaches behind himself one-handed, drags the pillow upright against the headboard and wedges it between the wood and his spine.
The movement earns another sleepy sound from her, but she doesn’t wake. She only nuzzles closer, nose brushing once against his neck before her breathing evens out again.
He pulls the blanket higher around her. The clock on his nightstand says 2:43.
Across the hall, somebody gets out of bed. A door opens with unusual care, followed by the quiet pad of feet toward the bathroom. Garrett listens until the pipes begin groaning in the wall, then looks down at the girl asleep in his lap.
Her face is mostly hidden. He can see the damp curve of one cheek, the swollen edge beneath her eye and the lashes still clumped slightly from tears. One hand lies loose at the back of his neck, palm warm against his skin.
Garrett slides his own hand into her hair and holds her there. He doesn’t know how to make tomorrow better. June will still be dead when the sun comes up. Her parents will still wake somewhere without the monitors they have been listening to for weeks.
His girlfriend will probably open her eyes and begin taking herself apart over a baby she had known for six shifts, because six shifts had apparently been more than enough to love somebody that small.
He cannot fix any of it.
The thought presses against an old, ugly place in him. The part that still believes love should make him capable of getting through every locked door before something happens on the other side. The part that hears pain and immediately starts searching for something he can hit, carry, stop or solve.
There’s nothing here for his hands to fight. Only her. Her breathing against his neck. Her knees tucked around his hips. The soft weight of her asleep on his chest because, even after the worst day she has had in a hospital, some exhausted part of her still knows exactly where to go when she cannot hold herself up anymore.
Garrett lowers his cheek onto the top of her head. His leg starts going numb ten minutes later. He stays exactly where he is.
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antonio cipriano as john Logan off campus | 1.05 : ̗̀➛ the cold turkey
garrett graham - the tea party
summary: one very important tea party for your toddler has garrett wearing a tiara, and he’s exactly where he wants to be
a/n: i love dad!garrett
word count: 1.4k
warnings: none
off campus masterlist | main page
Garrett had exactly three plans for his first Saturday of the offseason.
Sleep in.
Watch hockey.
Do absolutely nothing.
After eight straight months of practices, games, flights, and interviews, being home sounded like paradise.
He had managed the first two.
Sleeping in lasted until nine, which felt like a miracle considering how life with a toddler is. Then he'd wandered downstairs in gray sweatpants and an old Briar Hockey T-shirt, coffee in one hand and his phone in the other, already scrolling through highlights from the team he’d be playing next week.
The house was suspiciously quiet.
"Girls?" he called.
No answer.
He took another sip of coffee.
"Anybody home?"
Tiny footsteps thundered down the hallway.
"DADDY!"
Before he could react, a little body launched itself into his legs.
Garrett laughed, nearly spilling his coffee as he scooped his daughter into his arms.
"Well, good morning to you, Peanut."
She cupped his face with both hands, looking deeply offended.
"Daddy."
"Yes?"
"You're late."
He frowned.
"For what?"
Her tiny gasp echoed through the kitchen.
"You forgot?"
Garrett immediately looked toward you, silently asking for help.
You were leaning against the kitchen island, smiling in a way that made him instantly suspicious.
"I didn't forget," he said carefully.
"You did," your daughter insisted.
"I don't think I did."
"You did."
Garrett looked back at you.
"What did I forget?"
You shrugged far too innocently.
"I don't know, Garrett. What did you forget?"
Before he could respond, his daughter squirmed out of his arms, grabbed his hand, and started pulling.
"C'mon!"
"Whoa, whoa." Garrett paused. "Can I at least finish my coffee?"
"No."
"…Brush my teeth?"
"No."
"Get dressed?"
She looked down at his T-shirt and sweatpants.
"You look okay for now."
You covered your mouth to hide your laugh.
Garrett pointed at you.
"You knew about this."
"I've known since yesterday."
"And you didn't warn me?"
"Nope."
His daughter tugged harder.
"We're gonna be so late."
"For...?”
She looked at him like he'd asked the dumbest question imaginable.
"My tea party."
"Oh."
"Princesses don't wait."
"No, I suppose they don't."
She nodded seriously.
"And today you're the king."
Garrett smiled.
"That sounds like an important job."
"It’s the most important."
"Well," He set his untouched coffee on the counter. "Lead the way."
---
Your daughters bedroom looked like an art teachers classroom had exploded.
Stuffed animals sat in a neat circle around a tiny plastic table.
A pink tea set was arranged perfectly.
Plastic cupcakes rested on matching plates.
Every doll and teddy she owned seemed to have been invited.
Your daughter planted her hands on her hips.
"You have to get ready."
"I thought I already was."
She sighed.
"Oh, Daddy. I said you looked okay, not pretty."
You leaned against the doorframe, already holding your phone.
Garrett noticed immediately.
"Don’t you dare.”
"I haven't done anything."
"You've got your camera out."
"I’m documenting a family memory.”
"It’s blackmail.”
Your daughter disappeared into her toy chest before emerging with a sparkly pink tiara.
"Head down."
Garrett obediently bent over.
She carefully placed it on his head before stepping back to admire her work.
"Pretty."
"I've never felt prettier."
"Not done."
Next came a bright purple feather boa.
Then a necklace made of oversized plastic jewels.
Then—
Your daughter held up a tiny pink tutu.
Garrett stared at it.
She stared back.
"You wear it."
"...Over my sweatpants?"
"Yes."
He sighed dramatically.
"The things I do for this family."
Five minutes later, the captain of an NHL team was sitting cross-legged on a pink rug wearing a tiara, feather boa, and pink tutu while pouring imaginary tea for a stuffed elephant.
He had never taken any role in his life more seriously.
"Sir Teddy," he said gravely, filling an empty cup. "Would you care for more tea?"
His daughter nodded for the bear.
"He says yes."
"Excellent choice."
She giggled.
You quietly snapped another picture.
Garrett didn't even bother protesting anymore.
"Daddy?"
"Yes, Princess?"
She whispered dramatically.
"I think Mister Unicorn is shy."
Garrett looked toward the stuffed unicorn.
"Well, we can't have anyone feeling left out."
He picked up the unicorn.
"Mister Unicorn, we're very happy you could join us today."
Your daughter clapped.
"He smiled!"
"I knew he would."
For the next hour, Garrett attended one of the most important meetings of his life.
He complimented plastic cupcakes.
He apologized to a rabbit for accidentally forgetting his birthday.
He politely informed a doll that dirty hands did not belong on the table.
At one point he spent nearly five minutes pretending to search the room for a missing plastic spoon.
You watched from the hallway, your chest warm.
---
The doorbell rang a little while later.
"I'll get it," you called.
When you opened the front door, Dean and Logan stood there carrying takeout.
Dean grinned.
"We come bearing food."
Logan walked inside.
"Garrett around?"
You bit your lip.
"Oh... he's busy."
Dean narrowed his eyes.
"Busy doing what?"
Before you could answer—
"King Daddy!"
Your daughter shouted from upstairs.
"We need more cookies!"
Logan frowned.
"...King Daddy?"
Dean looked intrigued.
"Oh, this I gotta see."
"Maybe don't—"
Too late.
The two of them wandered toward the stairs.
Seconds later—
Silence.
Then—
The loudest laughter you'd ever heard.
Dean practically doubled over in the hallway.
"I'M SORRY—"
He couldn't even finish.
Logan leaned against the wall trying to breathe.
"No way."
Absolutely no way."
Garrett looked over from the tiny table.
Still wearing the tiara.
Still wearing the tutu.
He sighed.
"Do you guys mind?"
Dean pointed at him.
"You have GLITTER on your face."
"It's lip gloss."
"Oh, that's so much better."
Your daughter looked between them.
"You're interrupting."
Logan immediately straightened.
"Oh."
Dean nodded solemnly.
"Our mistake."
She walked over with surprising confidence.
"You can come."
"We can?"
"But you have to be nice."
Dean placed a hand over his heart.
"I am always nice."
Garrett snorted.
"Liar."
She handed Logan a tiny plastic cup.
"You drink tea."
"Yes, ma'am."
Five minutes later, Dean wore a plastic crown.
Logan had somehow acquired fairy wings.
Garrett looked entirely too pleased with himself.
You took approximately eighty-six pictures.
---
Lunch happened after your daughter promptly declared tea time was over.
Everyone crowded around the kitchen island.
Dean kept glancing at Garrett.
"I've never respected you more than I do right now."
Garrett laughed.
"It wasn't difficult."
"No?"
He looked toward the living room where your daughter sat coloring at the coffee table.
"Not really."
Dean blinked.
"Huh?"
Garrett smiled softly, then shrugged.
"I know there'll be a day she won't ask me to play anymore."
The kitchen fell quiet
Garrett watched as she carefully drew a lopsided castle in purple crayon.
A small smile tugged at the corners of his lips.
"So, if she wants me to wear a tutu, I'm wearing the tutu."
You walked over, slipping your hand into his.
"You looked good in it."
"I looked majestic."
Dean nearly choked on his sandwich.
"Majestic?"
"The most majestic."
From the living room came a tiny voice.
"Daddy!"
"Yeah, Peanut?"
"Tomorrow can we have another tea party?"
Garrett didn't hesitate.
"Absolutely."
She smiled so brightly it could've lit the whole house.
"Can Uncle Dean and Auntie Allie come?"
Dean smiled softly at your daughter.
"We would love to."
"And Uncle Logan and Auntie Grace?"
Logan laughed.
"We’ll bring the cookies."
Your daughter nodded, satisfied.
Then she looked at Garrett.
"Love you, Daddy.”
He smiled.
"I love you more, Peanut."
Across the room, you caught his eye.
There were championship rings tucked away upstairs. Jerseys framed on the walls. Medals, trophies, photographs from a career that most people dreamed of.
And if anyone ever asked Garrett Graham what his greatest title was, you were certain the answer wouldn't be captain.
It wouldn't be champion.
It wouldn't even be husband.
It would be the one shouted with pure excitement every time little feet raced through the house.
Dad.
nightmare | slowly, then all at once au 𝜗ৎ
✮⋆˙ slowly, then all at once au masterlist
✮⋆˙ slowly, then all at once au fics!
summary: in which lily has a nightmare that nothing, not even garrett, can soothe, until she tearfully asks for y/n, forcing him to confront just how deeply attached she has become.
notes: hi! thank you both for your requests <3 this story was so sweet to write! 🥹 i hope you all enjoy! 💌 💌
ꪆৎ
garrett hadn't planned on having everyone over, friday nights simply had a habit of turning into this.
dean had shown up first, claiming he was 'starving'.
tucker wasn't far behind.
logan wandered in a few minutes later, a bag of takeaway balanced against his hip. he dropped it onto the counter without a word before helping himself to a drink.
somewhere along the way, the four of them had ended up spread across garrett's living room, half-watching a movie while arguing over whose turn it was to buy dinner next friday, despite none of them keeping track anyway.
upstairs, lily had been asleep for almost an hour, exhausted after a full day of running around.
you'd finished work not long after.
garrett had walked you to the front door like he always did.
"thank you again, y/n."
you had rolled your eyes, smiling. "you're welcome."
"drive safe."
"i will."
he had held your gaze for another second before giving a small nod, "goodnight."
you laughed softly, "goodnight, garrett."
then you'd gone home. everything had been completely normal.
until-
a scream split through the house.
"daddy!"
garrett was on his feet before he'd even realised he'd stood.
the television became background noise, dean stopped talking mid-sentence, logan looked towards the stairs, tucker had already put his drink down.
another cry echoed through the hallway. "daddy!"
garrett took the stairs two at a time. "bug?"
he pushed open her bedroom door. lily was sitting bolt upright in bed, her cheeks soaked with tears. her little chest rose and fell in panicked gasps, tiny hands gripping desperately at the blankets gathered around her waist.
she looked completely terrified.
garrett crossed the room immediately, "hey."
his voice was gentle, soft enough that only lily could hear. he was beside her before she'd even looked up. "i'm here, bug."
lily threw herself into his arms. garrett caught her easily, settling her against his chest as he sat down on the edge of her bed.
"i've got you."
she buried her face into his shoulder, her entire body shaking.
"bad dream?"
she nodded frantically in response. garrett rested his cheek against the top of her head, "okay."
his hand rubbed slow circles across her tiny back. "it's alright."
lily let out another sob.
"you're safe."
despite garrett's words of comfort, she only cried harder. by then the others had reached the doorway. dean stayed back, keeping his voice low. "everything okay?"
garrett gave a small shake of his head, "nightmare."
logan quietly disappeared before returning a moment later with bunny tucked beneath his arm. "thought she might want him."
garrett smiled gratefully before nodding his head, "thanks."
he held lily's bunny out. "lil! look what uncle logie found." normally, bunny fixed everything, yet today, lily barely looked, only clinging tighter to garrett's shirt.
"okay," he whispered. "that's okay."
he wasn't worried yet. she'd had nightmares before, they'd always been hard, yet he knew what to do.
garrett held her closer in his arms, rocking gently back and forth as he hummed absentmindedly beneath his breath. only once her sobs had softened did he set her carefully back down on the bed.
brushing the hair back from her face, his voice comes out soft, "we'll check together."
he crouches to look beneath the bed first, "nothing."
then he opens the wardrobe, "nothing in here either."
finally, he crosses to the window, pulling back the curtains. "all clear, bug."
he crouches down beside her, resting a hand gently against her knee. "there's nothing hiding."
lily looked towards the window where garrett had pulled back the curtains. for one hopeful second, he thinks he's done it, until her bottom lip begins to wobble.
another sob breaks free, even louder than the last.
"daddy..."
garrett immediately gathers her back into his arms. "i know lil, i know."
ten minutes pass, then twenty.
lily wasn't getting worse, yet she wasn't calming down either.
she was simply stuck.
dean tried distracting her with stories about dinosaurs, nothing.
tucker balanced bunny on his head until he toppled onto the floor. normally she'd giggle, however tonight she didn't even notice.
logan filled a sippy cup with water. lily took one sip before bursting into tears again.
garrett had lost count of how many times he'd kissed the top of her head. he had tried everything, whispering the same reassurances over and over.
"i'm here."
"you're okay."
"daddy's got you."
each one eased her breathing for a few seconds, until she would cry again.
the room had grown unusually quiet. the guys had stopped trying to help, simply watching. garrett had been doing this for almost forty-five minutes, never once looking frustrated, never sighing, never asking lily to stop crying.
he just held her, exactly as he'd held her every time she'd ever needed him.
dean looked away first, his chest tightening. there was something quietly heartbreaking about watching garrett like this, doing everything right, and still being unable to stop her tears.
garrett brushed damp hair away from lily's forehead. "talk to me, bug."
she shook her head against his shoulder.
"what do you need?"
another sob. garrett waited, patiently.
"want."
his hand paused. "what do you want, lil?"
lily pulled back just enough for him to see her face. her eyes were swollen, her little nose pink.
"...want y/n."
the room fell silent, garrett blinked. "what did you say, bug?"
fresh tears spilled immediately from her eyes, "want y/n."
she buried her face against him, repeating the same words as before, "i want y/n."
garrett swallowed. his first instinct was to soothe lily. "we'll see her tomorrow."
lily cried harder.
"no!"
"she's at home, sweetheart."
"i want y/n!"
he kisses her hair again. "i know."
"i want y/n!"
every answer became the same. every question, every reassurance, every attempt, they all circled back to one thing.
"i want y/n!"
garrett looked helplessly towards the doorway. dean rubbed the back of his neck.
"...g."
garrett didn't answer. logan sighed, before finally speaking up, his tone calm.
"maybe."
he hesitated.
"...maybe call her."
garrett looked down at the little girl trembling against him. she'd cried herself hoarse, her breathing hitching every few seconds.
he hated this.
god, he hated this.
you'd finished work hours ago, you deserved your evening, you deserved to switch off.
the last thing he wanted was to make you feel responsible.
garrett closed his eyes briefly, "i'll be back."
he stood carefully before stepping into the hallway. his phone felt unusually heavy in his hand as his fingers shifted across the screen, pressing on your contact.
you answered almost immediately. "garrett?"
your voice was soft, sleepy, instantly concerned. "is everything okay?"
he leaned against the wall outside lily's room, "i'm really sorry."
there was no hesitation from your end. "what happened?"
"lily had a nightmare."
"is she okay?"
garrett shifts his gaze back through the open bedroom door. lily was still crying, still searching the doorway every few seconds between sobs.
he lets out a quiet breath, "no."
another pause.
"we've tried everything." he glances back into the room. “i've been holding her for almost an hour."
"dean's here."
"logan."
"tucker."
"we've checked the room."
"read stories."
"given her water."
"bunny."
his voice softened. "she just won't settle."
silence.
"what does she keep asking for?"
garrett briefly closes his eyes, clearly debating on whether he should give you all of the details.
“you."
he almost expected you to hesitate, yet you don't.
"i'm leaving now."
"y/n, you don't have to-"
"i'm already grabbing my keys."
"i feel awful calling-"
"garrett."
your voice was gentle. "it's okay."
another pause.
"i'll be there soon."
half an hour later, headlights sweep across the front windows.
garrett hadn't told lily.
he hadn't wanted to promise something he couldn't guarantee. if traffic got bad or something came up, there was every chance you wouldn't make it.
he was still sitting in the rocking chair, gently rubbing circles across her back, when the front door clicked open downstairs. soft footsteps followed, then the familiar creak of the hallway floorboard.
"garrett?"
lily froze. for the first time in nearly an hour, her sobs stopped. her little head lifted from garrett's shoulder, listening to the footsteps outside her bedroom.
"y/n?"
hope. pure, unmistakable hope.
you appeared in the doorway a second later, still wearing leggings and an oversized hoodie, your hair pulled into the messy ponytail you'd clearly thrown together before leaving your place.
the second lily saw you-
"y/n!"
she reached. both little arms stretching desperately towards you. garrett barely had time to stand before you were crossing the room.
"oh, sweetheart."
you gathered her into your arms without a second thought. the moment her cheek rested against your shoulder she exhaled.
one long, shaky breath, followed by nothing.
no sobbing, no panicked gasps, no frantic searching, she simply melted against you, like every muscle in her tiny body had finally decided it was safe to relax.
garrett stared.
he'd spent the better part of an hour trying to slow her breathing, and here, you'd done it in seconds.
your hand rubbed gently up and down her back. "i know."
you kissed the top of her head, "i'm here."
another shaky sniffle.
"bad dream?"
a tiny nod. "it was scary."
"yeah. i thought it might've been."
lily only clings tighter to your hoodie.
"do you want to know what i did before i came upstairs?"
lily blinks, you lower your voice. "i checked outside."
"why?"
"to make sure your bad dream didn't follow me."
she looks at you very seriously.
"...did it?"
you smiled. "no. your daddy already scared it away."
her shoulders finally relax completely. "really?"
"really."
you look over at garrett, sending him a warm smile of encouragement. "didn't you?"
he smiles softly in return. "every monster in the neighbourhood knows not to come near this house, bug."
a tiny laugh slips from lily. it's barely audible, but enough.
you tuck her back beneath the blankets, settling bunny beneath one arm before carefully tucking the blanket beneath her chin.
"story?" she asks quietly.
"of course."
you grab lily's favourite picture book from beside her bed. garrett leans against the doorframe, arms folded loosely across his chest.
he'd watched you read this book dozens of times. you always did the same voices, paused in the same places, let lily finish the last few sentences herself.
halfway through, her eyelids begin drooping and by the final page she's asleep, peacefully this time. you gently comb your fingers through her hair, humming softly as the boys stand around outside together.
for a long moment nobody speaks, all four of them simply watching you, crouched down beside lily.
dean breaks the silence first, "well."
logan doesn't take his eyes off garrett, "you're in trouble, g."
garrett looks over, meeting his gaze. "what?"
logan nods towards lily. "she's attached."
garrett glanced back through the bedroom doorway, his gaze settling on you as your fingers continued to comb gently through lily's hair. he'd known she was attached to you, he just hadn't realised how deep those roots had grown.
logan shoves his hands into his pockets. "you wanted someone she'd feel safe with."
another beat.
"...mission accomplished."
the words settle somewhere deep in garrett's chest.
logan was right. he'd wanted consistency, someone gentle, someone lily trusted, someone who made this house feel lighter whenever they walked through the front door.
he'd gotten all of that.
beside him, dean bumped his shoulder, his next words coming out quiet enough that only garrett could hear. "good luck, captain."
garrett didn't answer.
his eyes stayed fixed on lily's bedroom, on the soft bedside lamp still glowing, on you sitting inside, humming quietly to his little girl while she slept.
for the first time since hiring you, one thought settled heavily in his chest.
what happens if one day you aren't here?
⋆. 𐙚 ˚ taglist! @maryyyswift | @purplerainx1 | @of-converse-books-and-chocolate | @staticgladiatordesolation | @nands88 | @nikfigueiredo | @ethanthequeefqueen | @laceyvt3 | @brekkershadowsinger | @mattssweetheart | @avengersheart
even better than i imagined 💞
