Warnings: past family trauma, depictions of anger/loss of control, trauma response, mentions abuse, this fic is pretty intense ngl
Summary: Garrett Graham notices everything about you - including the things you never meant for him to see. When the pressure of the semester finally breaks him open, one moment is enough to change everything, and neither of you knows how to come back from it.
Author's Note: Writing fics where they mention John Logan is lowkey weird because I just keep referring to him as Logan and not John and that is just how it's gonna go. Anyways, new angsty hockey boy in the houseeeee. This one is highkey intense. Hope you angst craving weenies (like myself) enjoy!
The thing about Garrett Graham is that he pays attention.
People assume he doesn't, assume that the cocky grin and the easy confidence mean there's nothing running underneath, that he moves through rooms the way he moves through a crowd: loud, certain, taking up space. His teammates assume it. His professors definitely assume it. Even Hannah assumed it, once, before she knew him better.
But you figure it out early.
You figure it out the first time he shows up at your apartment door in October with coffee. Yours, specifically, the order you'd said out loud exactly once during a group hangout where there were six other people talking over you, and just sets it on the counter while he unpacks his calc notes like it's nothing.
"How did you even—"
"You said it last week," he says, not looking up. "At the Sig house thing."
Hannah is watching from the kitchen doorway with an expression you can only describe as I told you so, and you think: okay. Okay. So that's how it is.
It's how it is.
You've been dating since early September. Three weeks after Hannah dragged you to her tutoring session because her car was in the shop and she didn't want to go alone, and Garrett showed up ten minutes late with his hair still damp from practice and made fun of her notes and somehow that turned into all three of you getting food after, and then somehow that turned into him texting you at midnight about a meme he saw that reminded him of something you said, and then somehow that turned into this.
Two months in. Still new enough that sometimes you catch him looking at you like he's surprised you're real. New enough that you still get a little breathless when he reaches for your hand in public, casual, like it's nothing, like you haven't spent most of your life around people who treat softness like a liability.
But new enough that there are still questions neither of you has asked yet.
The first time he notices, really notices, is at a home game in mid-October.
You're in the student section with Hannah and Allie, squeezed in close because the rink is packed and everyone is loud and happy and drunk on the particular electricity of a team. You've got Garrett's number on your back - a fact that made him smile so wide it looked like it hurt when he saw you in the tunnel before warm-ups - and you're holding your plastic cup of terrible beer and watching the ice.
Logan scores in the second period and the section erupts.
You flinch.
It's barely anything. It's the kind of flinch most people wouldn't even register. A quick tightening of the shoulders, a slight lean away from the noise.
Garrett is on the bench when it happens, but he looks up into the crowd the way he always does, scanning for you without meaning to, and he sees it. He sees the way your body moves before you catch yourself.
He doesn't say anything.
He files it away.
It happens again at the post-game party.
Dean cranks the music up without warning and someone behind you lets out a whoop right next to your ear and your whole body jerks. Just for a second, just a small intake of breath and a slight step sideways, away from the sound. You recover instantly. You smile at whatever Hannah is saying and nobody else even blinks.
But Garrett is watching you from across the room with a red cup halfway to his mouth and something tight forming behind his eyes.
He doesn't bring it up.
He thinks about it all night.
He thinks about it lying next to you afterward when the party has thinned out and you've ended up back at his place, half-asleep in his bed, your breathing slow and even against his shoulder.
He decides not to push. He decides to wait until you're ready.
He also decides that from now on, he's going to notice. Really notice. Keep cataloguing the small things the way he catalogues play patterns on the ice: quietly, carefully, building a picture.
The way you scrunch your nose after a shot.
The way you twist a strand of hair around your finger when you're anxious.
The way you go a little still when someone raises their voice, even in laughter.
He notices everything. He keeps all of it.
---
It's a Wednesday night in late October when you finally say it.
You're both in his bed, the lamp on the nightstand casting everything amber. You're on your stomach, his shirt barely covering you, scrolling through your phone with the kind of boneless satisfaction that follows a very good hour. Garrett is on his back, one arm behind his head, the other resting warm across the small of your back.
"Okay but Dean," you say, without looking up.
Garrett laughs - the real one, low and easy. "I know."
"He threw the cup."
"He didn't throw it, it slipped—"
"He launched it, Garrett. There was arc. There was follow-through."
"He was drunk and it was plastic and it went like four feet—"
"The point is the energy," you say. "The point is that he was losing at a drinking game and decided the appropriate response was to throw something."
Garrett is still laughing. "He was fine. He wasn't even actually mad."
"He was a little mad."
"He was a little drunk."
"Both," you say. "Both can be true."
He concedes that with a hum. His thumb moves, absently, back and forth across the small of your back.
You look at your phone. Scroll without reading anything.
"My dad used to throw shit when he got mad," you say.
You say it casually. The way you might say I had a weird dream or I think we're out of coffee. Like it's a small fact, a footnote, something that doesn't require a particular response.
Garrett goes very still.
"Throw shit," he says, slowly.
"Like. Plates sometimes. His keys. Whatever was near him." You don't look up from your phone. Your voice is even. "He had this temper. Not - it wasn't like he was scary all the time. Just when he got really wound up."
Silence.
"At you?" Garrett asks.
There is a pause.
It lasts about three seconds longer than it should.
You don't answer.
Garrett feels something cold settle in his chest. He looks at the side of your face - the way you're looking at your phone but not really looking at it, the slight tension in your jaw, the careful way you're holding yourself.
"Y/N."
"I'm fine," you say. "It was a long time ago."
He doesn't push. He is very, very good at knowing when not to push.
But he moves his hand on your back. Slowly, deliberately, just pressing warm and steady there, and you exhale.
"I know," he says quietly.
He doesn't say: that's fucked up. He doesn't say: I'm sorry. He doesn't perform anything. He just keeps his hand on your back and stays.
Later, after you've fallen asleep, he lies awake for a long time.
He thinks about the flinching.
He thinks about the way your body knows things before your brain admits them.
He thinks about you, small and too young, in a room with someone who threw things.
He doesn't sleep well.
---
November comes in cold and relentless.
The thing about the back half of the semester is that it doesn't ask nicely, it just arrives. The midterms and the papers and the looming weight of finals building on the horizon, plus practice ramping up because playoffs aren't that far off and Coach is running them into the ground trying to get the power play where it needs to be. Plus Garrett's dad has been calling more, which always means something, and that something is never good.
Garrett doesn't talk about his dad. Not really. Not to most people.
He talks to John Logan sometimes. Late nights, half a beer in, when the walls come down a little. But to you, he hasn't gone there yet. There's a part of him that doesn't want to. That wants to be the version of himself he is with you: the guy who brings you coffee because he remembered your order, the guy who makes you laugh, the guy who holds you steady.
He's not sure he can be that and also this. This thing that gets wound tight and snaps at Logan and stares at his phone for ten minutes after his dad's number lights up without answering.
He compartmentalizes. He's always been good at it.
But you notice.
You've been noticing for three weeks.
The way he's quieter after practice. The way the easy grin doesn't come as fast. The way he laughed at your joke last Tuesday but the laugh didn't reach his eyes.
You don't say anything at first. You give him room. You show up and make yourself comfortable in his space the way you always do, and you don't ask, because you know what it feels like to not want to be asked.
But it gets worse.
By the second week of November, it's bad enough that Logan is making faces at you behind Garrett's back, the universal sign for I don't know what's going on either but something is.
And then there's the Thursday night.
You're at the hockey house when he comes back from practice. You've been there for an hour doing readings at his kitchen table and patiently waiting for him to come home.
He comes in at nine-thirty, and you know from the sound of the door that it's bad.
"Hey," you say, not looking up immediately. Testing the temperature.
"Hey." Flat.
You look up then. He's dropping his bag, his jaw set, not looking at you. There's a bruise forming along his cheekbone from whatever happened on the ice. He moves to the fridge, grabs a water, drinks half of it standing over the sink.
"Rough practice?"
"I'm fine."
You go back to your reading.
Thirty seconds pass.
"You don't have to stay," he says. Still not looking at you.
You put your pen down.
"I know I don't have to."
"I just- I'm not good company right now."
"That's okay. I'm not here for company. I'm here because I want to be here."
He doesn't respond to that. He refills his water and moves to the couch and picks up his phone, and you can see from across the room that he's not actually looking at anything on it. He's just holding it. Staring at the screen.
You give it ten minutes. You try to read. You get through one paragraph three times without absorbing any of it.
"Garrett."
"I'm fine."
"You keep saying that."
"Because I am."
"You're not. You've been somewhere else for three weeks and I've been trying to give you space but-"
"Y/N." His voice has an edge to it. "I said I'm fine."
Something sharpens in you. Not anger, exactly, more like a refusal. A refusal to be managed.
"You're shutting me out," you say, and your voice comes out steadier than you feel. "I'm your girlfriend. I'm sitting right here. You can talk to me."
"There's nothing to talk about."
"That's not-" You close your textbook. "That's not true and we both know it. Your dad's been calling. Playoffs are coming. You're running on no sleep and you're carrying all of it alone and I'm right here and you just keep-"
"I don't need you to fix it."
"I'm not trying to fix it! I'm trying to be here-"
"You being here doesn't actually help." He says it fast, like he didn't mean to say it, but it's out now.
The room goes quiet.
You stare at him.
He's sitting on the couch with his phone in his hand and his jaw tight and there's something in his expression that's half anger and half guilt, and for a moment neither of you moves.
"Okay," you say, quietly. "That was a shitty thing to say."
"Y/N-"
"No, I know you didn't mean it like that, but it came out like that and it landed like that and I'm telling you, that was-"
"I know." His voice is rough. "I know. I'm sorry."
"I don't want an apology, I want you to talk to me-"
"I can't." It comes out frustrated, strangled. "I can't right now, I don't - I can't do the whole talking thing right now, I just need-"
"What? What do you need? Because I keep trying to figure that out and you won't let me close enough to-"
"I need you to stop pushing!" His voice rises sharply. "Jesus Christ, Y/N, I said I'm fine, I said I need a minute, why can't you just-"
"Because you're not fine and someone has to say it—"
"WOULD YOU JUST-"
The sound is very loud in the small room.
There is the crack of something hard against something hard, his phone, face-down onto the coffee table. Not thrown, just slammed. One sharp motion.
The room goes silent so fast it feels like a held breath.
Garrett breathes.
The room breathes.
He turns back to you.
And sees it.
The flinch.
Not dramatic. Not a cowering, not a cry. Just your body doing what your body learned to do, sometime between the first time a door slammed and the first time something broke near your feet on a kitchen floor. Your shoulders up. Your chin down. Your weight shifted back, one small step, heel finding the floor behind you.
Your face.
He will never, for the rest of his life, forget your face in that moment.
It is not scared of him, exactly. It is something worse. It is a face that has already run the calculation. Already moved through the sequence. Already folded itself into something smaller, something unthreatening, something that does not make the moment worse.
It is the face of someone who has done this before.
It is automatic. It is not about him. And somehow that makes it worse.
Because it doesn't matter that it's not about him. It doesn't matter that you already know, intellectually, in the three seconds it takes you to recover, already straightening, already blinking, already pulling yourself back up to full height, that he is not your father. That he is not that.
It doesn't matter.
Because he still did it.
And your body still knew what to do.
The silence that follows is the loudest thing Garrett has ever heard.
He doesn't move.
He is standing with his hands at his sides now, not touching anything, not doing anything, and he is staring at you with an expression that is very pale and very still and completely hollow.
You are looking back at him. You have straightened. Your arms are at your sides. You are breathing.
Neither of you speaks.
Garrett's eyes drop to the phone on the table. Then back to you.
"I—" he starts.
His voice breaks.
He steps back. Away from you, putting space between you and him like that's the thing that matters right now.
His throat moves.
"I'm sorry," he says. It is very quiet.
You open your mouth.
"Y/N, I am so-" He stops. Swallows. "I am so sorry. I shouldn't have - I didn't - I'm not going to-" He runs a hand over his face, pressing hard. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"Garrett-"
"You should go." He says it without looking at you. "Please."
"I don't think that-"
"Please." His voice cracks on the word. "Please."
You look at him for a long moment.
He is looking at the floor. His hands are at his sides. He looks like something is eating him from the inside, quietly, with his permission.
You pick up your bag, your jacket, and let yourself out.
The door closes behind you.
The house is very still.
Garrett stands in the middle of it for a long time.
---
Logan finds him at eleven-thirty.
He comes back from a late night repair job to the house being dark except for the kitchen light, and Garrett is sitting on the couch with an open beer bottle, not drinking, just holding it. Staring at the middle distance.
He stops in the doorway.
"Hey," he says carefully.
Garrett doesn't respond.
Logan takes off his jacket. Gets a glass of water. Sits on the other end of the couch, leaving space.
Five minutes pass.
"She looked scared of me," Garrett says.
His voice is flat. Empty. Like he's reported something from very far away.
Logan is quiet for a second. "What happened?"
"I lost it." Garrett sets the bottle down on the coffee table, right next to the phone he'd slammed there earlier. "I was frustrated and she kept pushing and I just- I slammed my phone down. And I yelled. And she-" He breathes. "She flinched."
Logan says nothing.
"You yelled," he says, after a moment. "You were pissed. You slammed something down. That's - look, that's not great, but it's not-"
"That's not the fucking point." Garrett's jaw tightens. "That's not - Logan, her dad-" He stops himself. That's not his to say. He shakes his head. "She has a thing. About loud-"
"You didn't know you were going to do it."
"That doesn't matter."
"Garrett-"
"It doesn't matter." He finally looks at his friend, and his eyes are red-rimmed. "I don't get to say I didn't mean to and have that fix it. I did it. It happened. She was standing in my house and she flinched because of me and there's no-" He exhales roughly. "There's no walking that back."
Logan sits with that.
"You're not him," he says, eventually.
Garrett looks away.
"I did the same thing."
"You didn't hurt her."
"I scared her." He says it quietly. "That's enough..."
He was so tired. Tired of himself right now.
"I love her," Garrett says.
"I know," Logan says.
"I don't know what to do with that right now."
Logan doesn't answer, because sometimes there isn't an answer, and Logan is smart enough to know which moments those are.
---
You, meanwhile, are not wallowing.
You are sitting on the edge of Hannah's bed at midnight, and you are furious.
Not at Garrett. Or, not only at Garrett.
That's the complicated part. That's the part that would take a therapist and probably a lot of time to fully untangle, and right now you don't have either, so instead you have your knees pulled up to your chest and Hannah sitting across from you cross-legged and patient besides Allie, because they both know you well enough to wait.
"He scared me," you say.
"I know."
"For like two seconds. I knew it wasn't - I knew it was different, I knew he wasn't going to-" You make a frustrated gesture. "But my body didn't get the memo. And then I looked at his face and I felt guilty-"
"You don't get to feel guilty for-"
"I know that, Allie, I know that, I'm not saying it's rational." You press your fingers against your eyes. "I'm saying that's what happened. I looked at his face and he already looked gutted and I thought oh god, now I've done that to him and that is so fucked up."
"It's not fucked up."
"It is a little bit."
"It's complicated."
You all sit with that for a moment.
"He's going to spiral," you say.
"You don't know that."
"Hannah. You know him. He's going to spiral."
She doesn't argue.
"And then what?" you continue. "He gets to have the breakdown and I get to feel like the reason for it and none of this is-" You stop. Breathe. "I wasn't made of glass before tonight. I'm not made of glass now. I hate the idea that this is the thing that defines the whole-"
You stop again.
You think about the coffee order. The way he remembered.
You think about the nights he made you feel like the most noticed person in the world.
You think about the flinch, and the look on his face afterward.
You're angry. You're scared. You're exhausted. You're grieving something that isn't quite gone yet but that you can feel shifting.
You don't know.
And not knowing is the part that is actually, genuinely unbearable.
---
Two days pass.
They are the worst kind of days. You go to class. You do your readings. You text Hannah and Allie too much and your phone is quiet otherwise and you don't let yourself check it more than twice an hour, which still feels like too much.
Garrett texts once, on day two.
I'm sorry. I know that doesn't fix it. I'm sorry.
You read it six times and don't respond, not because you don't want to, but because you don't know what to say.
On day three, Allie appears in your doorway and says, "We're going to Malone's," with a tone that doesn't accept alternatives.
You go because the walls of your room have started to feel like they're listening.
Malone's on a Friday is comfortable and loud in the way of a place that has hosted a thousand Friday nights, worn into its own shape by it. You slide into a corner booth with Hannah and Allie and order a beer you're not sure you want and try to be present, which mostly works. Hannah doesn't mention Garrett. Allie mentions him once and gets a look from Hannah and drops it. You talk about Allie's audition nightmare and Hannah's research paper and the fact that the dining hall has been inexplicably serving breakfast food at dinner three times this week, and it's almost normal.
Almost.
You see him when he comes in.
Garrett, with Dean and Tucker, half-past nine. He doesn't see you immediately. He's saying something to Dean, nodding toward the bar, and you have about six seconds to decide what to do with your face.
You decide: nothing. Neutral. You're not going to perform anything.
Hannah has seen him too. Her hand finds your knee under the table. Brief. You okay?
You nod.
He spots you on the way to the bar.
The moment is small and enormous. He goes still for just a second, a slight check-step, and then he keeps moving, but his eyes stay on you for a beat longer than is casual. You hold his gaze. You don't look away.
He looks like he hasn't slept.
He looks like he's been carrying something very heavy for three days, which tracks, because you know him well enough now to know that he carries things heavily.
Dean notices the exchange. He steers Garrett toward the bar and away from your line of sight.
You turn back to Allie's story.
An hour passes.
It's Garrett who ends up outside first. You see him slip toward the door, shoulders tight, probably needing air or a moment or both. You give it three minutes and then you look at Hannah.
"I'm going to go talk to him."
Hannah holds your eyes. "You don't have to."
"I know."
"You're allowed to be angry."
"I know that too."
You slide out of the booth.
He's standing at the side of the building, away from the small cluster of smokers near the door. His hands are in his jacket pockets and he's looking at the street, and you watch him for a second before he hears your footsteps and turns.
His face does the thing - the opening, the complicated hope - and then goes careful. Reining something in.
"Hey," he says.
"Hey."
You stop a few feet away. Not the distance of strangers, not the distance of people who have slept tangled together for two months. Somewhere in the middle.
"How are you?" he asks.
"I've been better." You look at him. "You?"
He lets out a breath that might, in another version of this conversation, have been a laugh. "Yeah."
Silence. The street hums. Someone comes out of Malone's and moves past you and the door swings shut again.
"I'm angry," you say, because you decided on the way out here that you weren't going to start anywhere else.
"Okay." He says it carefully.
"Not- it's not a simple anger. It's not just at you." You watch his face. "I'm angry because you scared me. I'm angry because my body did that stupid thing and I hate it. I'm angry because-" You stop. Breathe. "Because you get to spiral about this and I'm the one managing my trauma response and worrying about you at the same time and that's a lot to be in charge of."
His jaw moves. "I know. You shouldn't have to-"
"I know I shouldn't. I'm telling you how it felt, not asking you to fix it."
He nods. He's looking at you very carefully, like he's translating, making sure he hears the right thing.
"I've been thinking," he says, after a moment.
"Tell me."
He looks away. Down the street, at nothing. His jaw works.
"I've been thinking that - I saw your face." His voice is rough. "That night. After I... You stepped back and I saw your face and I can't-" He stops. Swallows. "I know why. I know what that look means and what you learned to do with that look and the fact that I made you do it, that I was the reason-"
"Garrett-"
"Let me say it." He looks at you. "Please."
You go quiet.
"If I can do it once," he says, "I can do it again."
The words land like stones in water.
You watch him.
"That's not-" you start.
"It is." His voice is very flat. Not performative. Just... certain. Like he's made up his mind about something and he's telling you the result. "That's just- that's what it means, Y/N. I have his temper. I've always known I have his temper. I thought I had it controlled but I didn't, and if I couldn't keep it then, when things got bad-" He breathes. "What happens when things get worse? What happens in two years, five years, when there are more things to be bad? What happens the first time something really falls apart and you're standing in front of me and I-"
"Stop."
"-I can't make that promise. I can't look you in the eye and say that won't happen again-"
"Stop." Your voice is harder now. "Stop narrating my future for me."
He goes quiet.
"I'm not a child," you say. "I get to decide what I can and can't handle."
"That's not-"
"You doing this, deciding for me what's too much, deciding I'm too breakable, deciding that you get to make the call about what I walk away from, that's not protection. That's just a different way of taking away my choice."
He looks stricken.
"I know what my dad was," you say, very quietly. "I know what it looks like when it's bad. I've been in a room where bad was the whole atmosphere. That's not-" You gesture, frustrated. "What happened was not that."
"It could be-"
"Stop." You step closer, close enough that you can see the exhaustion in his face, the way he's held himself apart for three days and it's cost him. "You scared me for two seconds. I've been scared before. I survived." You hold his gaze. "And then I looked at your face and saw what it did to you and that was..." Your voice wavers slightly, just once. "That was different than what I grew up with. You understand? That look on your face was different."
Garrett's eyes are wet.
"That's not enough," he says.
"That's not your call."
"Y/N..."
"It's not." You are shaking slightly, not from cold. "You don't get to love me and then decide you're protecting me by leaving. That's not-" You laugh, short and humorless. "That's not how any of this works."
He is quiet for a long time.
The street keeps going. Car lights sweep past the mouth of the alley. Music from inside Malone's bumps through the wall, muffled and warm.
"So what now?" you ask.
Garrett doesn't answer.
He opens his mouth. Closes it. He looks at you with the kind of look that holds an entire argument inside it, every angle, every possibility, all the ways this could go. He looks at you like you're everything and like you're the most dangerous thing in the room.
If he forgives himself, there's a part of him that believes he's telling himself it's okay. That it's acceptable, that the first time is a free pass, that he can do it again with a story ready.
If he doesn't, if he holds this and holds himself responsible and carries it permanently...
He loses you.
He already knows he loses you.
And standing here, in the cold, looking at you in the light spilling out from Malone's, with your arms crossed and your eyes tired and something in your face that is sad and angry and still so impossibly here - he thinks he might deserve to lose you.
He thinks: I am my father's son.
And that thought is so old and so ugly that it's almost a relief to finally be looking at it directly.
"I don't know," he says.
His voice is barely above a whisper.
"You don't know," you repeat.
"I don't know," he says again. "I don't know if I can..." He stops. "I don't know how to do this right. I don't know if there is a right."
You look at him for a long time.
Then you say: "You're not your father."
"You don't know that," he says.
"I know you remember my coffee order," you say. "I know you moved slow every time you saw me flinch at loud sounds. I know you've had three days to be angry at me for pushing you and instead you've been punishing yourself." You hold his gaze. "Your father didn't do any of those things."
Garrett closes his eyes.
"That's not..."
"It's not nothing," you say. "I'm not saying it fixes anything. I'm not saying you're perfect. I'm saying those are two different things and you're flattening them into one because it's easier to decide you're a monster than to actually do the work."
He opens his eyes.
He looks wrecked. Genuinely, quietly, terribly wrecked.
"I scared you," he says.
"Yes." You don't flinch from it. "You did."
"I'm sorry."
"I know you are."
"I can't promise..."
"Then promise something smaller," you say. "Promise therapy. Promise that when you're wound that tight you tell me instead of letting me walk into the middle of it. Promise that you stop making decisions about my life without consulting me." Your voice is very steady, and you are very tired, and you are also, despite all of it, still here. Still standing in front of him. "Promise the next thing. Not the whole future. Just the next thing."
He is looking at you like you've said something in a language he's still learning.
"Why?" he asks.
"Because you remembered my coffee order," you say quietly. "Because you went slow. Because the second it happened you looked sick with yourself before I even had time to react." You swallow. "Because I'm angry and I don't want to leave."
The street is quiet.
Garrett breathes.
He reaches out, very slowly, and the question is obvious - is this okay? - and you step forward instead of back.
He pulls you in.
He holds on like you might disappear if he isn't careful, like you're the most breakable thing in the world and also the most solid, and he presses his mouth against the top of your head and says your name.
Not I love you. Not I'm sorry again. Just your name.
Y/N.
Like it means you are real.
You are here.
I will try to deserve it.
You stand there until the cold gets to be too much.
Until Hannah appears in the doorway looking for you and takes in the scene and disappears back inside without a word.
Until Garrett's breathing evens out against your hair and you feel the tension start to leave his shoulders, slowly, by degrees.
The work isn't done. You both know that. But his arms are around you and you haven't pulled away, and for tonight, that's the only answer either of you has.
author's note — this is my first time writing for Off Campus, let me know if you'd like to see more <3
"Baby," Garrett practically croons when he sees you, leaning his elbows on the railing of the staircase. "Where've you been?"
You try and fail the urge to let your eyes travel downwards, the trail of hair from his chest to the waistband of his sweatpants, the ridges of muscles very much evident, especially because he isn't wearing a shirt.
"Studying," you reply, in a duh tone of voice, taking the steps one at a time to reach him. He winds his arms around your waist, fingers splaying on the exposed skin of your abdomen, brushing your hip bone.
You melt at the soft touch, and he leans down to press a kiss to the tip of your earlobe. "Do you have no shirts?" You tease quietly, letting out a soft gasp when his kiss grows fervent. "... I should buy you some."
Your boyfriend lets out a little scoff, tugging you closer to his front. "I have enough shirts, honey," he breathes, lips moving up to the underside of your jaw. "C'mon," he coaxes, pulling away much to your chagrin; to you letting out a soft, irritated whine. "Upstairs. Don't you wanna get comfy?"
How can you possibly resist, especially when his hands are on you, and he's using that tone, which begs to be listened to? You let out a little hum of affirmation.
Garrett grins, the corners of his lips tugging up in what looks to be a mix of amusement and pleasure at your easy obedience. "Good girl," he murmurs, fingers slipping off your waist, only to intertwine with your loose ones by your side. "Up," he says in the softest voice possible.
You blink up at him through your lashes. He tilts his head at you, resembling a bit of a golden retriever with those brown eyes fixed on you, solely on you. You're warm under his attention.
"Didn't anyone tell you it's rude to stare, baby?" Garrett says softly, a teasing chide to his words.
It's your turn to let out a scoff now, mirroring his, and his eyebrows soften in appreciation of the soft sound from your lips. "You're my boyfriend, I think I'm allowed to admire you."
His grin widens. "Oh, is that what you're doing? Admiring me?"
"Mhm."
"Huh," Garrett murmurs, lifting his free hand to cup your cheek, watching the way you melt in real time with adoring eyes. "When did you get so smooth?"
You smile prettily up at him, your best smile, and his breath catches in his throat. "Learned from the best."
"Did you?" he brushes your cheek with a calloused thumb, so gentle it makes something in your heart splinter and crack in two.
"Come on, sweetheart," he gentles his voice even further, giving your cheek a gentle pat. "Let's take a nap. You look exhausted."
You frown up at him, lips jutting out in a pout. "That's so mean, do I not look pretty?"
Garrett curls his arms around you, picking you up with an ease that still surprises you. Your legs naturally wind around his waist, head lolling forward to find rest on his shoulder. "You always look pretty, baby," he hums, kissing the side of your head. "My gorgeous girl, hm?"
Letting out a pleased sound of acknowledgement, you let Garrett climb the rest of the stairs and make his way down the hallway. You pass Dean's room on the way, and the door is wide open.
You don't bother lifting your head from Garrett's shoulder, you're already sure what's going on in there. Your boyfriend wrinkles his nose above you. "Dean, how many fucking times! Close the door, yeah?"
Dean lets out a sound to the affirmative, but makes no move to get up from where he's got a pretty girl perched on top of him.
Garrett pinches the bridge of his nose and lets out an annoyed sigh, shifting you on his hip to close the door with one hand. "Idiot," he mutters under his breath. He hitches you higher against his chest, and you go willingly, boneless and warm under his affections.
The floorboards creak under Garrett's weight as he moves to cover the distance from Dean's room to his. "Tired, sweetheart?" He asks, voice soft again, a low rumble to the timbre of his words.
"No," you mumble against his neck, pressing your nose against the space between his jaw and shoulder.
He lets out a laugh, opening his door with his foot, shifting you in his arms a little so he can flop onto his bed, back against the headrest, with you in his lap. "You're lying."
"Am not."
"Are too," he grins, watching you peer up at him with half-lidded, obviously sleepy eyes. "You're barely awake, pretty."
You let out an annoyed whine, hands finding home on his chest. "I'm awake, thank you very much. And I want a kiss."
Garrett's smile widens. "Do you now?"
"Don't be a jerk," you reply, narrowing your eyes at him. "I'm allowed to ask for a kiss."
"You are," he hums, tugging you closer, one big hand lifting from your waist for your neck, brushing idly at the tender skin of your jaw. "You do have to say please, though, honey. Manners."
Groaning frustratedly, you add, "please can I have kiss?"
Your boyfriend smiles, thumbing at your cheekbone. "You can, baby," he murmurs, leaning down to meet you halfway. Your hand slides up to the nape of his neck, thumbing at the baby hairs there, and he sighs against your mouth, deepening the kiss.
It's lazy, the kind of kiss that isn't going anywhere, and doesn't need to, either. His tongue brushes your lower lip, seeking entry, and you open for him. He tastes like mint, the gum he's always chewing.
"Garrett," you breathe when he pulls away for a second to get air.
"Shh." His lips trail to the corner of your mouth, your jaw, the soft spot below your ear. "Just relax, sweetheart."
Warnings: alcohol use, drinking to cope, anxiety, angst
Summary: You've been falling apart quietly for three weeks and you're very good at making sure nobody notices, especially your boyfriend Garrett. You're less good at it after four drinks and one overheard conversation you were never supposed to hear.
Part 2
Author's Note: Thx for all the love on my first Garrett fic! I'm doing an OC rewatch rn and just felt like I needed to get this one off my chest. I <3 bestie Dean fr.
Eight months in and you still hadn't figured out what to do with being someone's favorite thing.
Garrett wasn't subtle about it. That was the thing, he had absolutely no interest in being subtle about it. He'd find you across a dining hall full of people and his whole face would do something embarrassing. He'd mention you to his teammates with the casual frequency of someone who didn't realize he was doing it, which, according to Dean, he wasn't. He'd show up at your dorm with soup when you were sick, uninvited, unashamed, completely certain he was welcome. He was always welcome. That was the other thing.
Eight months. Long enough that his hoodie had more or less permanently become part of your wardrobe. Long enough that you knew exactly which toothpaste brand he preferred, and that he took his coffee wrong, and that he looked up at the stands exactly once per game - same moment every time, right after warm-ups - just to find you.
You were, by every reasonable metric, fine. Good, even. Happy.
You were also, quietly and without telling anyone, coming apart at the seams.
It hadn't started with anything dramatic. That was the part that made it hard to explain. There was no single thing to point to, no moment where it all went wrong. Just a bad exam grade, then another. Readings piling up in two classes, then three. A cold that moved into your chest three weeks ago and apparently liked it there, the kind of tired that sleep didn't touch.
You'd cancelled plans with Garrett twice. Both times he'd said it's okay, babe, seriously, without missing a beat, and both times something in you had gone slightly sideways, because of course he had. Of course he was fine about it. He was always fine about it, which somehow made it worse, because it meant he was noticing, and adjusting around you, and that meant you were someone who needed adjusting around.
He'd started checking in more. Texts a little more often. Soup you hadn't asked for, dropped off with a knock and a smile like it was nothing.
It was nothing. That was the problem. To him it was nothing, and to you it was accumulating into something you didn't have a word for yet.
Too much, something in the back of your head had started saying. Quietly at first. Then less quietly. You're too much right now.
You were good at ignoring things. You'd been ignoring this for three weeks. You were, it turned out, not as good at it as you'd thought.
The party was Garrett's idea. Well, it was everyone's idea. Briar had won the game 4-1, and the hockey house was the kind of loud that rattled inside your skull pleasantly, all bass and laughter and the clatter of the boys being celebratory and stupid. The living room smelled like beer and Axe and the particular chaos of hockey players who were very pleased with themselves.
You'd smiled through most of it. You were good at that, too.
Garrett had kept you close the whole first hour, arm slung around your shoulders, pressing a kiss to your temple every time someone stopped to talk to him, like punctuation. Hannah had found you at some point and the two of you had ended up in the kitchen with drinks you weren't really finishing, talking about nothing, which was nice.
But Garrett had gotten pulled away - something about Dean needing him, something about the highlight reel someone had pulled up on the TV - and you'd drifted. Which was fine. You were fine.
You'd ended up on the back porch without fully meaning to.
The night air was cold as you leaned against the railing, tipped your head back, and breathed.
You're okay. You're fine. You're at a party celebrating your boyfriend's win and everything is fine.
You heard them before you saw them. Two girls tucked into the corner of the porch, half-hidden by the shadows. You hadn't noticed them when you came out.
You recognized one of them.
Kendall. You'd heard the name in the careful, neutral way girls mentioned names when they meant something. She and Garrett had hooked up before. Before you. It wasn't a big deal. You knew it wasn't a big deal.
You turned slightly away, meaning to go back inside, meaning to just not be here for whatever this was.
But her voice carried.
"-no, I just mean, look at her. She's been off all night."
A murmur from the other girl. You went very still.
"I'm not being mean, I'm just - Garrett has a lot going on. He's got scouts looking at him, he's got finals coming up, and now he's got-" a pause, something that wasn't quite a laugh, "-one more thing to manage."
One more thing to manage.
The words landed somewhere below your sternum and just sat there.
"She seems kind of high maintenance," Kendall continued, quieter now. "I heard she's been sick, like, for weeks, and he's been running over there constantly. He doesn't have time for that. He doesn't have time for someone like- I mean, it's Garrett Graham. He could have-"
You stopped hearing the rest.
Not because they stopped talking, you just stopped being able to take anything in. The world narrowed down to the railing under your hands and the cold air in your lungs and the feeling of something fracturing very quietly behind your eyes.
One more thing to manage.
High maintenance.
He doesn't have time for someone like-
You turned around and went inside.
You went for the kitchen.
There was a handle of something on the counter - vodka, cheap, the kind that came in a plastic bottle - and you poured it into whatever cup was closest without really looking at what was already in it. You drank it faster than you should have. Poured another.
This was not something you did. You were not, by nature, a drink-until-it-goes-away person. You'd watched enough people use that particular coping mechanism to know better. You knew better.
You poured a third.
The thing was, and you understood this even as you were doing it, which somehow made it worse, that the words were just sitting there. One more thing to manage. Right in the center of your chest, perfectly placed, like Kendall had known exactly where to aim. And you needed them to move. You needed them to blur, or soften, or stop feeling so much like the thing you'd already been thinking at three in the morning for the past three weeks.
So you drank.
Hannah found you twenty minutes later, laughing too loudly at something a guy from the lacrosse team had said. She gave you a look, the kind that meant how many is that, and you smiled wide enough that she let it go. Or seemed to. You slipped away before she could ask a follow-up question.
The party had taken on that particular underwater quality that meant the alcohol was working. The edges of everything softened. The bass felt further away. You moved through the living room with the careful precision of someone who knew they were drunk and was trying very hard not to show it, which probably meant you were showing it completely.
Garrett was somewhere in this room. You could feel it the way you always could, that low awareness, like a compass needle swinging north. Normally you'd find him without thinking.
Tonight you turned the other direction.
You grabbed someone's abandoned drink off the end table. You didn't know whose, you didn't care, which was so unlike you that some distant sober part of your brain flinched, and made your way to the other side of the room. Someone pulled you into a conversation about something. You nodded. You laughed when they laughed. You were very good at performing fine, even now, even like this.
But Garrett kept appearing at the edges of things. You'd see his shoulder, the back of his head, catch a flash of his smile across the room, and something in your chest would do that terrible thing it always did.
So you kept moving.
You ended up in the hallway. Then near the stairs. Then, without fully deciding to, on the stairs themselves, sitting halfway up with your cup.
You sat for a while.
The alcohol had moved past the useful stage and into something messier, the kind of drunk where everything felt slightly too large and slightly too true at the same time. Your eyes were doing something embarrassing. You pressed the back of your wrist to them, hard.
You're fine. You're not going to do this here.
You stood up. Gripped the railing. Made it to the top of the stairs on the second try.
The upstairs hallway was dark enough that it felt like breathing room. You leaned against the wall and closed your eyes for a second, just long enough to get your legs back under you. Your dorm key was in your jacket pocket. Your jacket was downstairs. You needed to find it and leave before Garrett realized you'd been avoiding him for an hour, because if he looked at you right now with that face - the one he made when he was worried - you were going to fall apart in the middle of his own party, and you would not do that to him, you refused to do that to him tonight...
You pushed off the wall.
Misjudged the distance to the opposite side of the hallway by about four inches.
The door swung open before you could knock properly, or maybe you knocked wrong, and suddenly there was light and Dean Di Laurentis was right there, some girl half visible behind him, and all three of you stared at each other.
"Bathroom," you said, except it came out slightly sideways.
Dean blinked. Looked at you. Looked at the cup in your hand, mostly empty. Looked back at your face.
Something shifted in his expression, fast and uncharacteristically serious.
"Babe." Not to you. He was already half-turning to the girl, his voice dropped low. "I need a minute."
"You're kidding-"
"I'm really not." A beat. Something in his tone that left no room for argument. "Please."
The girl left in the precise way people left when they were furious and had decided to be graceful about it anyway. You watched her go down the hallway and felt vaguely guilty about it.
Dean stepped back from the doorway. "Get in here."
"I don't need-"
"You just walked into my door."
"I knocked."
"With your face, a little bit." He looked at you levelly. "Get in here."
You got in there.
He closed the door. The noise from downstairs dropped to a murmur.
"How much have you had to drink?"
"That's a weird opener."
"It's a normal question for someone who just almost fell through my door." He crossed his arms, leaning against the wall, "How much."
You thought about lying. Decided it wasn't worth the effort. "Enough."
"Enough," he repeated, in the tone of someone doing math. His eyes moved over you, assessing. Quick and thorough the way athletes were sometimes, used to reading situations fast. "You don't drink like this."
"People drink at parties."
"Not you. Not like-" he gestured vaguely at the cup still in your hand, "-whatever this is." A pause. "What happened?"
"Nothing happened. I'm fine."
"Okay."
You stared at him. He stared back. He did not appear to be in any rush whatsoever.
You hated that. You hated the waiting.
"I overheard something," you said, and the words came out a little slurred at the edges. "On the porch. Kendall - you know who that is?"
Something crossed his face. "Yeah. I know who that is."
"She was talking about me." The cup in your hand felt very heavy suddenly. You set it down on the nearest surface. "She said I was one more thing Garrett had to manage." The words tasted exactly as bad coming out as they had going in. Worse, maybe, because you were saying them out loud now, making them real. "That I was high maintenance. That he didn't have time for someone like me."
Dean was quiet for exactly two seconds.
"She said that."
"She's not wrong, that's the thing." You laughed, and it came out wrong, too bright and too brittle. "I've been sick for like three weeks, and stressed, and he keeps showing up for it, and I keep letting him, and he has scouts and he has finals and I just-" You stopped. The room was doing something slightly unsteady. You pressed your fingertips to the dresser behind you. "I just didn't want to feel it. I didn't want to stand there in the middle of his party and feel like that, so I-" You gestured at nothing. At the cup. At yourself.
"So you drank a stranger's leftovers."
"I don't know whose cup it was."
"Yeah, that's the part I'm stuck on." Dean pushed off the wall and grabbed the desk chair, set it down in front of you, and sat in it backwards, arms folded over the top, looking up at you with an expression that was not quite his usual one. "Sit down before you fall down."
"I'm not going to fall-"
"You're leaning."
You looked down. You were, in fact, leaning slightly. You sat on the edge of his bed.
Dean watched you with the particular patience of someone who had decided they weren't going anywhere.
"She's not-" You exhaled, stared at your hands. "She's not some villain. She just said the thing I've already been thinking. And I couldn't-" Your throat tightened. "I couldn't stand there and keep smiling, so I thought if I just-"
"Drank enough that it blurred out?"
"I wasn't going to phrase it like that."
"But yeah?"
A beat.
"Yeah," you said, very quietly.
Dean rubbed the back of his neck. Looked at the ceiling. Then back at you, and something in his face shifted into something more serious, more deliberate, the version of him he mostly kept underneath all the noise he usually made.
"Can I tell you something without you getting weird about it?"
You made a helpless gesture.
"Garrett talked about you at practice last week," he said. "Full cringe, by the way, I'm doing you a public service by telling you this. Tucker asked how you were doing - just like, making conversation - and Garrett stopped mid-drill to answer. Like, stopped skating. Coach blew the whistle. Garrett didn't even flinch, just full-on answeredTucker like they were at brunch." He paused. "It was genuinely awful. The guys made fun of him for four days."
You stared at him.
"He said - and I am going to say this exactly once and then never again - that being with you was the first time in his life that coming home from a game felt better than the game itself." Dean's expression was the one people made when they'd eaten something sour. "Verbatim. He said that. To the whole team. In the locker room. While wearing his pads."
Your eyes were burning again, for a completely different reason.
"He talks about you like-" Dean exhaled through his nose. "Look, I've lived with that guy for three years. I have never, not once, seen him like this. And I mean the whole team. We all, okay, this is going to sound really weird-"
"Just say it."
"We all kind of think of you as ours too. Like, you're around all the time, and you're funny, and you ate nachos with us during the game and didn't complain about the TV volume once-" A pause. "That matters more than you think."
A noise came out of you that was almost a laugh. Wasn't quite.
"Kendall doesn't know what she's talking about," Dean said, and his voice had gone flat again. "She's not a bad person, she's just... she wanted something she didn't get, and that makes people say stupid things. It doesn't make the stupid things true."
Your eyes burned. You pressed the heel of your hand against one of them, hard, like you could physically hold it back, and for a second you almost managed it. Then your breath hitched and you didn't.
You hated it. You hated this, you hated that you were sitting in Dean Di Laurentis' room at your boyfriend's party with someone else's alcohol in your bloodstream, falling apart. This was not you. This was so profoundly, embarrassingly not you - and yet here you were, doing it anyway.
"I hate this," you said, rough.
"The crying or the drinking?"
"Both." You dragged your wrist across your face. "I don't do this. Either of this. I keep it together, and I've been keeping it together for weeks, and then one person says one thing and I'm-" You gestured at yourself. At the whole situation. The cup on his dresser. Your face. "This."
"You can't hold it together forever and then wonder why it comes out somewhere inconvenient." Dean's voice was even. "That's not strength. That's just pressure building."
You looked at him.
"Real talk," he said. "You've been running on empty, you've been pretending you're fine, and tonight cracked it open. And instead of letting yourself feel it, you drank half a mystery cup and were about to walk home alone in the cold." He raised an eyebrow. "Which we are going to circle back to."
"I wasn't going to walk home."
"You were absolutely going to walk home."
You didn't answer.
"Also," he said, and the sarcasm slid back in like he genuinely couldn't help it, "if you tell anyone I said any of this, I will deny it completely. I have a reputation and I'd like to keep it."
A sound came out of you that was almost a laugh. Wasn't quite. But almost.
"Drink some water," he said, standing, already moving to the mini fridge in the corner. He tossed you a bottle without looking. "And hey-"
You looked up.
"He's been looking for you for twenty minutes. Downstairs, increasingly frantic. You should talk to him."
You found Garrett's room because it was the only one with the light on.
The door was cracked. You pushed it open and stood in the doorway for a second, holding onto the frame slightly. The water Dean had given you was helping. A little. The edges of things were still slightly wrong.
You made it to the bed. Sat down. Put your face in your hands.
You heard him on the stairs before the door opened - that particular weight and rhythm, two at a time the way he always took them. And then Garrett was there, filling the doorway, and he stopped.
Just for a second.
Long enough for you to see it, the relief flooding in so fast it almost looked like something else. And underneath it, the residue of the twenty minutes before. He'd been worried. Not panicked, not Garrett, but worried. You could see it in the set of his jaw, the way he exhaled.
Then his eyes moved over you and his expression shifted into something different.
"Hey," he said carefully. "How much did you drink?"
You laughed, and it came out wrong. "Dean already asked me that."
"Dean texted me that you'd had a lot and that you were upset and to be..." he paused, "gentle. His word."
"Dean used the word gentle?"
"I was also surprised." He crossed the room and dropped to his knees in front of you, and it was such a Garrett thing to do - not sitting beside you, not keeping distance, just immediately down to your level, hands finding yours - that your throat tightened all over again. "Look at me."
You did.
He looked back, and he didn't rush it. Just looked at you the way he sometimes did when he thought you weren't paying attention. His thumb rubbed circles on your knuckles.
"I'm okay," you said. Force of habit.
"I know you're not." Not a judgment, just a fact. "Talk to me."
Your jaw worked. "I don't want to..." The words snagged. "I don't want to be something you have to manage, Garrett."
He went very still.
"I heard something tonight." Your voice came out thinner than you wanted, and you couldn't tell anymore how much of it was the alcohol and how much was just you: exhausted, hollowed out, finally out of room to hold it. "Someone saying I was... that I'm a lot right now. That you're running yourself into the ground for me, and you don't have time for someone like..." You stopped. "I've been thinking it for weeks. She just said it out loud."
"Who."
"It doesn't matter."
"It matters to me."
"Garrett." You shook your head, and the room moved slightly with it. "That's not the point. The point is that I believed it. That I heard it and something in me just - yes, obviously, correct. And I hated that. So instead of finding you and telling you I was upset like a normal person, I-" You gestured vaguely at yourself. At the state of you. "This."
He looked at you for a long moment.
"You've been carrying this for weeks," he said. Not a question.
"I didn't want to make it your problem."
Something crossed his face. "You are not a problem."
"You have scouts. You have finals. You've been coming to my dorm every other day with food I didn't ask for-"
"Because I wanted to."
"-and I keep letting you, and I feel like I'm taking something, like I'm-"
"Stop." His hands tightened around yours. "Listen to me. I come over because I want to be there. I text you because I want to know how you are. That's not- it's not labor, it's not obligation, it's not me managing anything. It's me." He exhaled slowly. "You're it for me. You know that."
"You can't just say that."
"I say it constantly. The guys are sick of hearing it."
"Dean told me about the locker room thing."
"Of course he did." No heat in it. Just resignation, and something softer underneath. "It was embarrassing. I meant every word."
You looked at him, and your eyes were burning again, and this time you let them. You were too tired and too drunk and too emptied out to hold that back too.
Garrett rose off his knees and sat beside you on the bed and pulled you into him without any hesitation.
You leaned.
That was the hardest part, always. The leaning. Letting someone else take some of the weight.
You were so tired of holding yourself upright.
"You're not too much," he said, into your hair. "You have never been too much."
You didn't answer.
"I mean it."
"I know you do," you said, very quietly.
He held you tighter. The party carried on below, muffled and oblivious, bass thumping through the floor, and up here it was just this. His arms. The familiar smell of him. The particular exhaustion of something finally, finally spilling over after being held too long.
You didn't feel better.
Not exactly. Not the way you'd maybe hoped. The shame of the drinking wasn't gone - that would probably be worse in the morning, honestly.
But Garrett didn't let go.
He kept one hand moving, slow and steady, through your hair, the way he did when you were half-asleep and he thought you weren't noticing. Like this was something he wanted to do. Like you were something worth being careful with.
You didn't know how to explain what that did to you.
You weren't sure you had to. At least not tonight. Not to Garrett.
Tonight, you closed your eyes and let him hold you, and tried to remember how to just be here. Without managing, without performing.
based on this request
wc: 1.2k
pairing: jack abbot x wife!reader
summary: jack has always liked privacy, but one of his biggest secrets is revealed one random afternoon.
c.warning: established relationship (married); mentions of minor injury and minor car accident; reader is a mother; no other warnings i think but if i missed something let me know!
a/n: gooooood it's been so long since i last wrote for jack. i missed him so much! i hope you liked this!
masterlist | requests
for years, jack’s personal life has been locked inside a vault. of course he’d mention you, his wife, from time to time. but always in passing and never waiting too long for his coworkers to asks any personal questions. and it’s not because he doesn’t love you, god knows he’s obsessed with you. but a small, overprotective part of him thinks that by distancing himself from you and your kids when he’s at work he manages to keep you away from the hospital.
he has spent a decade building a wall between his grueling work and the life he cherishes waiting for him back home.
but tonight, the universe has different plans for him.
you sit on the edge of the crinkling paper of the examination table in exam room 4, a dull, throbbing ache radiating down the left side of your neck. every time you try to tilt your head, a sharp reminder of the sudden impact flashes through your muscles. a minor fender-bender on the way home from your daughter's hockey practice left you with a stiff, aching neck, but thankfully, nothing more. next to you, your twelve-year-old daughter is swinging her legs off a plastic chair, her hockey gear bag resting by her feet. she’s still wearing her team jersey and, next to her, your five-year-old son is entirely unbothered by the clinical surroundings, happily coloring on a piece of scrap paper. the minor accident had sent your heart into your throat, but as you look at your children, the overwhelming wave of maternal relief keeps you grounded.
"it seems to be nothing more than a little muscle strain," dr shen says softly, his gloved hands expertly palpating the base of your skull, his expression a soothing balm to the lingering adrenaline in your veins. shen steps back, charting something on his tablet with a soft, reassuring smile. "the kids are completely clear, not a single mark or tender spot on either of them. i’m going to order a mild anti-inflammatory for you and then you are free to go home and rest."
"thank goodness," you sigh, reaching down to ruffle your son's hair. "i just wanted to be absolutely sure they were okay."
outside the glass doors of the exam room, jack is walking fast, clipboard in hand, listening to an intern rattle off a patient's vitals.
“send for dr. fitz, he’ll know what to do. and call me when you get the results. what’s the state of the girl in bay one?”
jack turns then towards the intern as she starts listing the latest lab results on the young patient that just arrived a few minutes ago. he is in full doctor mode. focused, distant, and professional.
that is, until he passes the curtain of your bay, a sudden movement catching his eye. it’s a high, dark auburn ponytail swinging back and forth. a very specific, familiar ponytail.
the same one he usually fights with on his days off as he helps his daughter get ready for practice, earnestly trying to avoid any bumps or stay hairs hanging from the ponytail. jack stops dead in his tracks, causing the intern to almost crash into his back.
jack looks through the pale curtain, eyes widening. the clipboard in his hand feels suddenly too heavy. and it only gets worse once he notices a second head poking though the curtain, this time his baby boy. his entire world is sitting right now in exam room 4.
he abandons the intern mid-sentence, pulling the curtain aside, his usual collected demeanor completely evaporating.
"jack?" shen looks up, surprised by his sudden entrance.
but jack isn't looking at him. he rushes straight to the side of the table, his eyes scanning you from head to toe, wide with a rare, raw panic. "what happened? are you okay? are the kids okay?"
"hey, breathe," you say instantly, reaching out to catch his hand. your fingers lace into his, and the grounding touch immediately lowers his shoulders, though his chest is still heaving. "we're okay. i promise. just a stupid little bumper-to-bumper on the way home from the rink. someone short-braked ahead of us."
your daughter rolls her eyes playfully. "mom took the hit like a champ, dad. you should be proud."
"daddy!" your five-year-old chirps, abandoning his coloring page to scramble off the chair and throw his arms around jack’s leg.
jack immediately drops to one knee, wrapping his strong arms around your son, burying his face in the boy's hair for a brief, fiercely protective second. he looks up at your daughter, reaching out to squeeze her knee. "you're sure you're both okay? nothing hurts?"
"we're totally fine, dad," she reassures him, giving him a warm smile.
only then does jack stand back up, turning his attention fully to you, eyes glowing with adoration and relief. his hand cups your cheek, his thumb gently brushing across your cheekbone. "and you? your neck?"
"just a little stiff," you murmur, leaning into his touch, completely accustomed to how deeply he cares for his family, even if he keeps it hidden from the rest of the world. "dr. shen was just checking me out. he says we’re good to go."
speaking of which… the room is entirely silent as four sets of eyes turn to the doctor.
you look past jack’s shoulder and notice that dr shen is standing there, his jaw slightly slack. on the other side of the curtain, the intern who had been following jack is staring open-mouthed, and a bunch of other nurses, including lena, have paused in the hallway, completely transfixed by the scene.
the great private dr. abbot is currently looking at you with a softness none of them knew he possessed, his hand resting tenderly on your waist while a local little league hockey player calls him dad.
jack blinks, finally realizing the audience he has gathered. he straightens up, but he doesn't let go of your hand, the other one resting on top of your son’s head. he clears his throat, the faint trace of a rare, boyish smirk tugging at the corner of his lips as he looks at his stunned colleague.
"john," jack says, his voice regaining its usual steady cadence, though it's much warmer now. "i believe you've met my wife. and these are our kids."
shen blinks, a massive grin suddenly breaking across her face. "your kids? jack, you have a whole family!”
“i do,” he says, smiling softly.
“and you didn’t think of sharing that information with the group.”
"i like my privacy," jack defends himself. he looks down at his kids, then back to you, the sheer relief of knowing you are all safe overtaking any awkwardness about his secret being out. he leans down, pressing a lingering, sweet kiss to your lips right in front of the entire observation window. " i'm glad you're all safe."
"we are," you whisper, smiling against his lips. "now, can you sign our discharge papers, dr. abbot? we want to go home."
"consider it done," jack says softly. he turns to the staring interns outside with a mock-stern raise of his eyebrows, and they instantly scramble back to work, whispering excitedly among themselves.
as jack helps you down from the table and gathers your son into his arms, you know his quiet, mysterious reputation at the hospital is officially over, but seeing the proud, contented smile on his face as he walks his family out, it’s clear he doesn't mind one bit.
synopsis : you and jason todd are friends with benefits. roy harper doesn't seem to think so. he thinks you guys are madly in love!! and god save you from that man's sideeyes.
tw: nsfw. there's no full smut scenes but lots of it is mentioned. ya'll have basically done it in most positions-
ooc characters, maybe?!?
convenience store
11:45 p. m.
“unfuckingbelievable.” jason huffed and reached the aisle you were at. when you barely reacted to his words, his brows furrowed and he rested a hand lightly on your hip, “what’re you looking for, pretty?”
“hm!?” you jolted at the touch, glancing back, and relaxed immediately to see that it was just your jason, “oh, you! you startled me.” you shook your head, seeing the amused smile quirk up on his face at your distress, “i can't find the orange gums that i like. were you saying something?”
“i said it's fucking unbelievable.” he said bitterly, when you turned around fully and leaned against the shelf behind you. he moved closer to trap you between his arms, “my card declined. was getting a pack of cigarettes and apparently the policy here is i gotta pay first. this guy doesn't accept crumbled bills. and my card fucking declined.”
your hands snaked up to rest against his chest, or rather the leather of his jacket, “you and bruce having a row again?” not that it'd matter. jason didn't even use the trustfund set up by bruce for himself. if anything, he only ever utilized that money to help out casualties. usually children caught in the crossfire of crime .
“that's what i thought. his communication skills are otherworldly afterall. but no,” jason sighed, “i texted dick, turns out he had tim doing this april fools prank. not funny.”
you frowned, agreeing with him obviously, as you nodded your head. you, too, would crashout and get really angry if someone thought it was okay to fuck with your personal stuff, “he's knocking it off though, right?”
“not before 12 o’clock.” he answered, “tim set a timer or whatever. i don't care. i wouldn't care if it was you who did it. “ he added, “i just don't like that-” he trailed off, dropping his forehead against your shoulder.
your hands immediately found home in his hair, soothingly running through the curls at the back of his head. “i know. i understand. you don't–” you murmured, "they're so childish when it comes to boundaries sometimes.”
he tilted his head and pressed his lips to the side of your neck before pulling away and standing to his full height again, towering over you by a couple inches.
your eyes widened as you looked past jason, checking for the third of the trio. roy harper. this friends with benefits thing was not a secret, you just didn't like the smug look roy got on his face whenever seeing you two get all sweet with physicality.
you liked kissing jason casually, just because. and he often did the same with you. you'd be deep in a gory tv show, wrapped up in your fluffiest self-crocheted blanket on the couch, and he'd walk by you, leaving a kiss on the top of your head. jason would get to your kitchen and heat himself up something to eat. he'd return to the living room, dropping beside you on the couch, watching you watch tv. and you'd open your mouth occasionally so that he could share his food with you. you had a habit of playfully biting on his fingers. he was very bite-able.
most days, you went out for runs right before dawn. you liked the cinematicness of it. how you could pretend to run from the cops or villains alike, even though there was no one outside. mostly it helped you regulate your anxiety. the adrenaline was addictive. and those runs always ended with you knocking on jason's apartment door. the door would open almost immediately. like he knew you were on your way.
him only in his boxers. taking you into his arms and into his bed. your legs wrapping around his hips, as he'd hastily close the door behind you. making sure it's locked safely. before taking you both into his bedroom.
most of these encounters ended with grinds of his hips into yours, dragging out sounds of excruciating pleasure from the both of you. sometimes with you on your back, as he'd stare down at your face with feverish want. you'd take his jaw into your hands and kiss him senseless. his cock greedily buried in your cunt, desperate to please you.
sometimes it was you on top of him, slow grinds of your hips down onto his cock eventually turning into the most erratic thing ever. jason always looked a little too wrecked then, he was pretty sure god was a woman and that woman was you. he'd take mouthfuls of your breasts, gasping at the flutter of your inner walls around his cock, and completely fucking gone for the moans and praises that left your mouth. he saw fucking stars whenever you grasped his throat.
sometimes, he'd pound into you relentlessly with your face smushed into the mattress, ass up, hands scrambling to hold for something, anything, as every thrust made your spine arch.
and then there was jason’s favorite. making out with your pussy. he'd drag orgasms after orgasms out of you until you were overstimulated and practically incoherent with your face buried in his pillow, telling him you can't again, and he'd tease you sweetly and dedicate his all into making you come again. he knew you loved it whenever he spat on you or spanked your cunt, so the smug bastard always withheld them til the end.
the days your brain was far too awake regardless of too little sleep, you loved having jason's cock in your mouth. sucking him off and letting him take control until you were all dumb and sleepy. the tip of his cock brushing your lips before he'd slip in, your pussy throbbing against the vibrator you'd be sitting on. your chin and chest coated with drool and precum, as jason would thrust into you lazily.
and then sometimes, jason would bring you to his bed, and you'd murmur in his ear that you didn't want sex this time. you just missed him, so you came here. he'd kiss your forehead and set you down against the pillows. he'd help you out of your running clothes down to your underwear, and let one of his shirts swallow you instead. settling in the bed with you, he'd hold you in his arms, into the clingiest of hugs ever. he'd once playfully said his friendship came with the benefits of spooning.
so, yes, roy harper knew about the situation. of course he did. he was jason’s roommate. he had to hear you practically every early morning for hours. well, more jason than you actually. but roy was convinced you two were oblivious idiots in love, reducing your world-class romance into just sex.
because roy saw you arrive at a group hang out once in jason's wonder woman tshirt. he'd seen how giddy jason had appeared over it. his hand immediately slipping into the back pocket of your jeans. he'd leaned down and murmured something in your ear. you'd rolled your eyes, one of the most formidable women suddenly so shy, as you'd buried your face against his arm. you were both smiling like hah! people in love!!
jason always held your hand whenever you guys were out together. no matter where. specially in crowds. whenever you or jason would catch roy's side eye, ya'll would defend the behavior saying holding hands couldn't be more intimate than sex, so it wasn't a big deal. if one would ask for roy harper's opinion on that, roy had only one thing to say : lies, nasty nasty lies!
jason had your coffee order memorized. he brought you flowers occasionally because it was disrespectful to not bring the woman he was with flowers; you deserved to feel appreciated and cherished. most nights he had dinner at your place before patrol because he liked your company.
he shared almost everything about himself with you because not being transparent with you about a mission once had made him sick to his stomach, he'd begged roy to shoot his guts out. roy had simply called you over. the moment you guys were together, jason started rambling and having a panic attack, and you cradled his head against your neck, shushing him and reassuring him with such gentleness that roy again knew, ha! these morons were in love!!
every time jason was forced to attend a wayne gala, you attended them with him as his date. you had a photo album in your totebag, filled with polaroids of jason. roy had asked about it once, you'd shrugged and said jason was your favorite person in the world and you liked capturing him. whenever jason read a book on his living room couch, you'd end up half on top of him. your arm across his stomach and head on his chest. jason never got annoyed by it, he seemed to crave it actually. you were his emotional support pillow practically, given the catastrophic topics he liked reading about. he'd hold the book with one hand, and hold you carefully with his other arm. you always looked really content just being in his arms. roy was genuinely sick of all these fuckery getting called 'just friends', because respectfully where was his hugs, and cuddles and wonder woman tshirt and flowers and gossip and polaroids. christ! you'd even crocheted a hello kitty stuffed toy that resembled red hood!!
roy had even once walked in on you telling jason about your insecurities, and him so so gently lifting you onto his lap. he spoke so softly, so lovingly, his eyes filled with so much empathy for you, as though you feeling down hurt him physically, it was fucking diabolical.
“where'd roy go?” you asked, eyes meeting jason’s.
“uh, yeah,” he scratched the back of his neck, “the girl he's been seeing? she called. her ex boyfriend broke into her apartment---fucking prick, i know---and she beat him up with her hockey stick-”
“hot.” you perked up and jason leaned down to brush his mouth against yours for a moment.
“yeah, so, she's pretty freaked out now cuz the creep passed out and isn't moving. roy’s gone to make sure he isn't dead, or if he is-” jason ominously shrugged, and you laughed, wrapping your arms around his middle and tipping your head back to look at his infuriatingly attractive face. you knew roy would make the body disappear if the man was dead. he was rather down bad for this woman. she seemed to know how to make a man walk like a dog, you loved that for the both of them, “they make an interesting pair, don't they?” jason shook his head, baffled.
you poked your tongue out goofily, nodding your head, and then leaned up to steal a quick kiss, “tell you what, find me my gums and i’ll get your cigarettes. nothing quite romantic like rotting teeth and fucked up lungs. we make an even more interesting pair, yes, we do-”
you were cut off when jason’s mouth met yours messily. you had to grip the back of his jacket, because gravity stopped entirely and your knees buckled. kissing jason todd was your favorite thing ever, as you met him with equal fervor. his thigh slid between your legs and you made a soft sound of approval. he pulled away, and took a quick look at your flushed face, committing it to memory. his cheeks were flushed too and he was grinning.
you rolled your eyes and dragged his face back to yours with the back of his head as you practically devoured him. you two could be obscene. it seemed less like just kissing and more like him trying to fuck your mouth with his.
eventually you two had to pull away, gasping for breath. and yet, not kissing him felt more claustrophobic than anything, “what—was—that—for?” you said between breaths.
jason shrugged, stepping back as you steadied on your feet, “just wanted to kiss my girl.”
you beamed up pathetically at him, butterflies doing cartwheels in your stomach, “oh, i’m your girl now, am i?” you playfully asked.
“yes, ma’am, you are.” he said, with theatrical seriousness.
you reached up a hand to mess up his ruined hair even more. “hm,” you paused for the dramatics sake, "then you must build a shrine for me." you bossily declared.
"do i get to fuck you in front of it?" he asked, eyes sparkling with mischief.
"if you're good." you eyed him, "yes."
he nodded immediately, "oh, doll, i'll be so good."
NEXT/SEQUEL
it's so badly written. that's cuz i just rawdogged this under 3 hours?!? 4 at best?!? and it's 8 in the morning rn. my head hurts and im pretty sure i'm starting a fever. lmao. have fun. i hope it wasn't too ooc and repetitive. i tried proofreading twice but ive memory problems because of health issues, so :) and and forgive my attempt at smut, i'm an inexperienced fuck who's never written it before.
they do genuinely think that they're just friends btw, well, friends with benefits. even though subconsciously you're jason’s wife right there!!! or that's what roy would say :)
summary - the off campus house is having a party but you're not feeling it. luckily your boyfriend lives there and so you retreat to his bedroom (your safe space)
pairing - garrett graham x reader
word count - 3.7k
You let out a snicker as Garrett kissed your neck.
Both of you were cuddled up on the sofa of the off campus house - Garrett’s all-but suffocating yours.
“You know, it deflates a man’s ego if you laugh when he’s trying to be romantic.” His face was buried against your neck, making you giggle even more as his breath tickled your skin.
You knew he was only messing with you, but for the sake of his ‘man’s ego’ you tried your best to compose yourself.
“Sorry.” You smiled.
You reached your hands to cup his jaw, bringing his face up to meet yours. His gaze darkened as he looked at your lips.
“No you’re not.”
Garrett’s body sunk into yours as he kissed your already fucked-looking lips.
His body was hard against yours, your clothed chest pressing against his in a way that made you wish you weren’t wearing anything. Yet, it was best to be clothed in a house full of guys because you never know when they might walk—
“Hello lovers!” Dean announced as he entered the front door, Allie in tow.
Garrett groaned with annoyance as he stopped kissing you and resorted to burrowing his way back into the crook of your neck.
“Hi Dean.” You answered for both you and Garrett.
“Looking very cosy.” Dean said, hopping over the couch and landing his ass on top of Garrett’s - causing you both to wince at the added pressure.
“Dean!” Allie tutted.
“Fucking prick.” Garrett mumbled, holding you tighter to protect you from his wild best friend.
The comfort of Garrett’s arms around you was second to none. You loved feeling coddled and safe, like the world was not as scary when you were wrapped up in him.
“Dean you’re too heavy. Get off.” You whined.
“I literally weight less than Garrett.”
“And yet I have you both on top of me.”
“Well tell Garrett to get off instead.”
“No fucking way.” Garrett’s head revealed itself from your neck, showing Dean the annoyance he was feeling. “Get off.” He swatted Dean.
“Boys will be boys.” Allie laughed, sitting on the other side of the couch.
Dean shortly left you two alone and over to his girlfriend.
You and Garrett remained laid down, even though you were aware you took up an entire length of the L-shaped sofa. Your boyfriend was too happy cuddled up against you and you didn’t really have any reason to move.
Garrett’s head remained on your chest this time, giving up on trying to kiss you or bury himself deep into your neck - his safe space.
One of your hands run through his curls - something you knew he loved the feeling of. He couldn’t help the fact he was a man whose love language was physical touch.
“Did you use my shampoo this morning?” You asked quietly, as Dean was preoccupied bickering with Allie.
“Mm.”
“I can smell it.”
“At least it smells good.” He gave a slight chuckle.
“It does.”
“Reminds me of you.”
You kissed the top of his head, inhaling the smell of almond butter and something fruity.
The front door opened again and Hannah, Logan, Grace and Tucker came in. Everyone greeted each other, and fortunately no one was rude enough to jump on top of you this time.
“So what time is everyone getting ready?” Tucker asked, sitting down on the edge of the couch next to Allie with a bowl of crisps.
“Ready for what?” Grace asked, curled up besides Logan.
“Party tonight. Here.” Dean answered for her.
“Another one?” Allie threw her head back with a sigh.
“It’s fun, Allie Cat.”
“Bite me.”
You could feel the sexual tension dripping off them both from a mile away, let alone sat just across the room from them.
Instead of giving Dean the opportunity to make some gross joke, Logan chimed in. “I’m only going to take a quick shower. So… In, like, an hour Tuck?”
“Quick shower that turns into an hour long makeout session with your girlfriend.” Dean rolled his eyes and laughed when Logan threw a pillow at him.
“He does have a point.” Garrett’s voice vibrated against your chest as he spoke.
“Says you, G.” Logan scoffed.
You chuckled through a blush, noting Garrett’s own smug smirk.
“Well us girls are getting ready together. You guys are on your own.” Allie announced, making Logan pout and Dean dramatically cry out.
Garrett protests by tightening his hold on you, keeping you in his strong hold beneath him.
“Coming, Y/N?” Hannah asked.
She held her hand out to you, ready to help you escape your boyfriend.
You gripped her hand and she tugged with as much force as she could, but it barely made you move an inch. No thanks to your - as established by Dean - boyfriends heavy weight.
“Save me!” You joked.
“Noooo.” Garrett grumbled.
“I’ll get him, you get Y/N.” Dean walked along the sofa and hovered over Garrett’s body, ready to physically remove him from you.
The rest of the room were either laughing-on or filming. Allie came to stand beside Hannah, holding out her other hand for you to take.
“Ready?” Hannah laughed, “3, 2, 1…”
“Heave!” Dean shouted.
Your body moved from underneath Garrett’s more easily as Dean lifted him up. Garrett was trying to bite back a smile, but ultimately he was pissed that you were being dragged away from him - literally.
Your body slid over the side of the sofa. Your top half was on the floor, whilst your top half was still on the sofa.
“Piss off.” Garrett said, trying to struggle against Dean.
“Boys?”
Dean called the other guys over and the helped raise Garrett off you completely.
After you were cleared of Garrett - feeling surprisingly cold without him near - you hugged your girls hello. It had been a long week and you were happy to get to hang with them now. Even if your boyfriend hated the distance.
Garrett (8:08PM): I miss you.
Garrett (8:08PM): Like a lot.
“God, you two are so disgusting.” Hannah laughed as she read the notifications on your phone. She was helping you with your makeup as the messages from Garrett came through.
“Hey… rude.”
“I mean, you’re also stupidly cute together.” She shrugged her shoulders, applying more highlighter to your cheekbones.
“How are things going with Justin?” You asked her, leaving Garrett on delivered (so needy).
“Okay, yeah. We’re taking it slow.” She smiled.
“Slow’s okay.”
“Yeah. I’m not sure he agrees though.”
“Well that’s shitty of him. You deserve happiness on your own timeline.”
Hannah smiled at you with her kind eyes. She gave you a hug at that comment and you squeezed her tight.
“Love you.” She said.
“Love you too.”
Allie and Grace walked into Garrett’s room then, which you had all taken over to get ready together. Garrett had been allowed to grab some clothes and cologne, but after that he had been banished.
They walked in with two drinks each.
“What are we cuddling for?” Allie asked, placing one drink on Garrett’s desk for you - Grace doing the same for Hannah.
“Love.” Hannah smiled.
“Oh I can get in on that.” Grace laughed, pulling herself around you and Hannah. Allie joined next.
“Ugh okay. Let’s get drunk!” Hannah escaped the hug, forcing you all to disperse.
“Hell yeah!”
“Aye!”
The next half an hour was spent doing finishing touches on makeup, hair and outfits.
Allie had borrowed clothes from Hannah’s closet. Grace had borrowed Allie’s makeup. You stole some of Hannah’s jewellery.
This was what girlhood was about.
You were wearing your own high waisted, black, pin-stripe trousers along with a ridiculously flattering burgundy corset top from Hannah’s wardrobe. Your shoes were your platform Doc Martens.
After you’d taken a fair amount of pictures with each other, as well as some solo-shots, you decided that you were finally ready to join the party.
Technically the party had started at 7PM and it was now almost 9PM, but no one ever turned up this early.
The girls left Garrett’s room and you told them you’d be there in one moment, because you almost forgot to put back on the necklace that your boyfriend had bought for you. You’d had to take it off whilst getting ready, at risk of it getting damaged.
You were stood by your overnight bag, watching out of Garrett’s window as party-comers arrived, and fiddled with the clasp of your necklace to secure it.
When Garrett’s arms melted around your waist you didn’t panic, because you knew it was him.
His lips kissed your neck, causing you to automatically lean away for him to have better access.
“Stop.” You laughed.
“Stop?”
“Yes, I’m trying to put my necklace back on.”
“But,” He kissed your neck again, “You’re,” Kiss, “So,” Kiss, “Beautiful.” Kiss.
“You’re intolerable.”
“Maybe.” He kissed you one last time, before taking his arms from around your waist and bringing them up to help you clasp your necklace together. “Or maybe I just love you.”
With your necklace secured, you turned around to face him.
His eyes were darkened as he looked down at you - genuinely, probably, undressing you with his eyes.
From this distance you could smell his cologne and it was so delectable. You subtly breathed him in and tried to keep calm over how feral it made you.
He was wearing a forest green sweater, with a white t-shirt peeking from underneath and his classic gold chain on show.
“What?” You smiled, blushing.
Garrett didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to.
His hands came to cup your cheeks and tilt your face to an angle where he could kiss you better.
You melted like butter as he kissed you.
It was only a safe peck, but one that you could get lost in for a moment. You could tell he knew that you’d be mad if he messed up your makeup at this point in the night.
He pulled back an inch, with a smirk, only to lean back in and kiss you again because he really couldn’t get enough of you.
“You taste like cherry liqueur.” He said.
“Allie made us do shots.”
“Sounds about right.”
Garrett’s hands dropped from your cheeks down to the waistband of your trousers, looping his finger into the belt holds.
Your own hands slid up his chest, scrunching the material there.
Both of you stared at each other for a few moments. A silent conversation passing between you both with nothing but sparkling eyes and breathing tempos to go off.
“Ready to go downstairs?” You asked.
“I mean… We could just stay in here..”
“That’s not an option.”
“So there is an alternative to going downstairs?” He raised an eyebrow.
You shook your head, “I promise I’ll be in your bed at the end of the night, Graham. Just not yet.”
You leaned up to kiss him one more time, but before he could get too into it and completely make you ignore what you’d just promised you broke away from him and walked over to his open bedroom door.
“C’mon.” You held out your hand for him.
He made a sound somewhere between a scoff and a laugh, before pretending to be reluctant in joining his hand with yours and head downstairs.
There are surprisingly more people downstairs than you thought there would be.
Dean and Allie are already on the makeshift dance floor. Tucker and Logan are doing shots. Hannah and Grace are chatting to some new people.
Garrett holds your hand as he leads you down the stairs, looking back every so often to get a glimpse of you. He's always had a hard time keeping his eyes off you for more than five minutes at a time.
"Want a drink?" He asked.
You both walked into the kitchen area. "Not yet." The drinks you'd had upstairs with the girls kind of felt like your limit already.
"Okay." He kissed your forehead and let you go so he could grab himself a beer from the fridge.
You looked around the room as Garrett took a long drink.
There were some people here that you knew, through friends, hockey or another reason, but there were also so many people that you didn't know. Like the crowd of girls that were sat on the sofa and shamelessly ogling your boyfriend.
“Garrett Graham, holy shit.” You could hear them from over here.
You looked down at yourself then, tugging at the bottom of your top to cover the slither of skin that had started to appear on your waistline.
Garrett's hand slunk around your waist moments later, pulling you close to his side.
Your gaze lifted to his, smiling when you realised he was already smiling down at you.
"G! What's up?" A guy shouted as he entered the kitchen area.
Garrett smiled, his hand leaving the comfort of your body to give the guy a bro-hug. "Hey, man. You know Y/N, right?”
"Yeah of course." The guy nodded at you, before moving onto the next guy to greet.
Garrett's hand came back home to land on the small of your back, watching carefully to make sure no one bumped into you whilst they were greeting one another.
You watched on as Garrett keep greeting new people, but always keeping you close.
He would kindly introduce you to everyone you didn't know, even if most of them never stuck around long enough to actually learn anything about you. There were only a few things guys at parties ever really wanted to talk about; hockey, sex, and girls. Since Garrett no longer participated in conversations about two of those things, people tended to drift away pretty quickly - especially when they realised his girlfriend was standing right beside him.
As Dean came over and started talking about some inside joke, you noticed that Garrett was hanging on to every word his best friend was saying.
This was a good moment for you to let him have his fun with the guys.
“I’m gonna go find the girls for a bit.” You said.
"Okay baby.” He smiled and kissed your forehead.
You walked out of the kitchen area feeling weird.
Like the second you stepped downstairs, the party had stopped feeling like Garrett’s home and started feeling like everyone else’s territory instead.
You smiled politely at someone who walked past you, rubbing your arm subconsciously as you weaved through the growing crowds of people to your girls.
As you spotted the girls jumping up and down, whilst simultaneously grinding on each other, you overheard a couple of girls voices on the sofa in front of you - the same ones that had been ogling Garrett before.
"Wait, that's his girlfriend?"
One girl had her phone open on Garrett's Instagram, looking at a photo from a charity hockey ball of the two of you. She clicked on the photo, bringing up your tag and clicked on it to bring her to your page.
"Y/N." The other girl said, "Doesn't she work at Malone's?"
"Yeah."
"Got Garrett Graham as a boyfriend and yet still has to work a side-job? Yikes."
Your gaze focused back on your friends having a great time with each other, but you couldn't find it in your heart to go and join them now.
You were becoming so aware of yourself in that moment. Your clothes suddenly feeling wrong and you don't know where to stand.
Before you could overthink it, your feet were already carrying you back toward the stairs.
Back to Garrett’s room.
Back to somewhere that felt familiar.
"Ready for another round of shots?" Dean asked, causing a chorus of cheers from the surrounding guys in the kitchen area.
Garrett laughed to himself, sipping on his first and last beer.
He looked towards the makeshift dance floor, looking for you but his eyes could only pick out Allie, Hannah and Grace from the crowd.
Garrett's eyebrows furrowed as he pushed off the counter he was leaning on to get a better view. His hand reached for the phone in his trouser pocket, checking to see if you had messaged but there was nothing.
Perhaps you had gone to the toilet.
“I’ll be back,” he muttered to Dean before moving through the crowd toward the girls.
A hand on his sweater tugged him away from the direction he was going and he turned around instantly, thinking it would be you, but his gaze only darkened when he realised it was a random girl he had hooked up with years ago.
"Hey Garrett."
“Hey,” he answered politely, already trying to step around her.
"Do you want to, maybe..."
"No." Garrett interrupted before she could even finish asking. Garrett sighed, not unkindly, just distracted.
"But..."
"I have a girlfriend."
"What she doesn't know won't hurt her."
Garrett stared at her for a second like she’d said something genuinely confusing. “Yeah, not really how this works.” He walked away from her before she could even reply.
The girls cheered when they spotted him approaching, but Garrett barely reacted.
He felt as though he wasn't completely right without you standing next to him.
His hand felt lost without having a place to hold against you. He shoved his beer-less hand into his trouser pocket for something to replace the feeling of yours.
“Where’s Y/N?” he asked immediately.
"I... don't know." Allie's expression visibly softened when she realised that Garrett was concerned.
"I haven't seen her since she came downstairs." Hannah said. "Why?"
"Doesn't matter. I'll catch you in a bit." He nodded at them in thanks.
As Garrett migrated his way through the house, he tried checking every corner of the room. People were constantly greeting him, but he was only focused on finding you.
After he had done a couple laps of downstairs and outside and still hadn't found you, his eyes drifted towards the stairs.
Garrett handed his half-finished beer to some random person before ascending the stairs.
You were laying on Garrett's bed when he came in.
"There you are."
You watched Garrett's eyes soften when he saw you. He closed his door behind him, locking it too, but not once taking his gaze off you - at risk of you disappearing again.
"Hey." You smiled.
"Hey."
He climbed on his bed, laying down next to you but slightly angling his body towards yours. One of his hands picked up one of yours to hold, his other softly brushing some hair off your forehead.
“Been looking for you.”
To anyone else, having Garrett Graham hovering just above you and focusing on nothing but you might be really intimidating, but to you there was no place you felt safer... or seen.
"Sorry. Just needed a minute."
You can tell your struggling to convince Garrett that you're okay, no thanks to the avoidance of eye contact and the fact you'd started rubbing your thumb against Garrett's hand anxiously. He didn't make any move to stop you though.
There was no way that you could hide how you were feeling for too long.
Garrett knew you too well.
There was no doubt that he could see the tension in your body and the way your smile hadn't fully reached your eyes.
"Talk to me, baby."
Garrett waited patiently beside you, thumb still brushing slowly over your knuckles. You focused on the movement, otherwise you were going to fall apart sooner than you wanted to.
“I don’t know.” You admitted quietly.
“You don’t know?”
“I just…” You huffed softly through your nose, staring somewhere near his shoulder instead of at him. “I suddenly felt weird downstairs. Like everybody else just… fit there better than I did.”
Garrett moved a little, rolling his neck slight, "“Did somebody say something to you?”
“Not really.”
"Baby... Help me understand." You focused on him then, and you could see his heart break when he noticed the pools of tears in your eyes. "Hey..."
"I'm sorry." Your lower lip wobbled. “It’s so stupid.”
"No, no. Don't do that. If you're upset, it's not stupid." He furrowed his eyebrows, desperately trying to understand you.
"I'm sorry I'm ruining your night."
"You're not, baby. At some point Dean is going to do a shot out of Beau's belly button and that will ruin the night."
You laughed at that, your chest raising up and down that let Garrett know it was a real life. He smiled at the sight, relieved to see the sparkle in your eyes come back to light.
“There she is.”
Once you stopped giggling over his Dean comment you felt ready and comfortable to let him in.
"I just didn't feel like I fit in down there. And it’s nothing you did. Or the girls. Or the guys. I don’t know. I sound insane trying to explain it."
Garrett shook his head softly.
"Sounds pretty human to me." He said.
"Garrett..." You scoffed.
"Y/N..." He returned the sentiment.
"I just zoomed out and felt uncomfortable being there. Just wanted to be somewhere else. Somewhere safe."
"And you chose my room?" Garrett made the moment sound so sweet.
"Of course." You nodded and Garrett’s expression softened so completely it almost made your chest ache.
“Baby…” he murmured. He stopped holding your hand, so he could cup your cheek gently, thumb brushing beneath your eye. Your throat tightened immediately. “I don’t want you feeling alone in a room I’m standing in."
"And I don’t… I didn’t feel alone. I think I just got in my head. It's probably that time of the month." You brushed it all off, feeling silly now.
"Not for another 13 days."
You gave Garrett the side eye with a knowing smirk, "13 days huh?"
"Precisely." He smiled, "So whatever you felt tonight was still okay to feel."
Garrett leaned down to press a kiss to your forehead before pulling you against his chest. You melted into him easily this time, the tight feeling in your chest finally beginning to loosen.
Downstairs, the bass still rattled through the floorboards and Dean’s voice echoed loudly through the house - no doubt doing that belly shot.
But up here, wrapped safely in Garrett’s arms, the noise didn’t seem so overwhelming anymore.
Would u be down to do a fluffy john Logan request where he takes care of reader when she’s super upset? Maybe it’s just been a week of one thing on top of another, and finally she just hits her breaking point??
Break Point
Pairing: John Logan x Reader
Word Count: 1147
Request open!
Off campus masterlist
John could tell you were hanging on by a thread.
He just hadn’t expected the thread to snap the second you walked through the front door.
The week had already been bad. He knew that much. You’d been tired, quiet, and just a little too determined to keep saying “I’m fine” whenever he asked how things were going. John had learned by now that your version of fine often meant you were one inconvenience away from losing it.
When you came into the kitchen that night, he was at the stove making something halfway between dinner and a rescue mission. He looked over expecting the usual tired smile.
Instead, you stood in the doorway with your bag slipping off your shoulder and your face already crumpling.
John shut off the burner immediately. “Hey.”
You took one look at him and started shaking your head like you were trying to outrun your own feelings. “No. No, I’m sorry, I just,”
And then your voice broke.
That was all it took.
John was across the kitchen in two steps, pulling you straight into his arms as the tears finally came. You made a small, frustrated sound against his shoulder, like you were mad at yourself for not being able to hold it together one second longer.
“Hey,” he said softly. “It’s okay.”
You shook your head against him. “It’s not.”
“Yes,” he said, holding you tighter, “it is.”
You laughed once, but it sounded wrecked. “I hate this.”
“I know.”
“I had a terrible day.”
“I know.”
“And then I got home and my email was somehow worse, and my phone kept ringing, and I couldn’t answer it, and I forgot to eat until three hours ago, and I just,” You broke off with a shaky breath. “I’m so tired.”
John’s expression tightened with concern, but his voice stayed calm. “You don’t have to keep going.”
You pulled back just enough to look at him, your eyes red and exhausted and furious at the world. “I feel ridiculous.”
“You’re not ridiculous.”
“I’m crying in your kitchen.”
“Yes,” he said, like that was the least important part of the conversation. “Because you’ve had a week from hell.”
The tears kept coming, but your shoulders loosened a little.
John brushed his thumb under one of your eyes, then the other, wiping away the tears with a care that made your throat ache.
“Talk to me,” he said. “What happened?”
You shook your head weakly. “Too much.”
“Start small.”
You looked at him for a second, then exhaled shakily. “My professor moved a deadline up without saying anything. Then two people at work called out. Then one of my friends got upset because I didn’t text back fast enough, and I felt bad, and then I felt worse because I felt bad about feeling bad.”
John let out a breath through his nose. “That is a lot.”
You laughed weakly. “I know.”
He guided you toward the couch, sitting down with you tucked close beside him. One arm stayed around your shoulders while the other rested over your hand, grounding you in a way that made your breathing start to settle.
“You could have told me sooner,” he said gently.
“I didn’t want to dump it on you.”
John turned his head to look at you. “You are never dumping on me.”
You sniffled and looked down. “You always say that.”
“Because it’s true.”
He said it so simply that it made your chest ache.
After a moment, he reached for the blanket on the back of the couch and pulled it over both of you, tucking it around your shoulders with careful hands. Then he stood up long enough to grab the mug he’d been making and pressed it into your hands.
Tea. Still warm.
You looked up at him. “You made me tea?”
“No, I just enjoy standing around with a mug for no reason.”
A laugh escaped you through the tears, and John immediately looked relieved to have gotten even that much out of you.
“There you are,” he murmured.
You leaned into him again, exhausted by the effort of being upset. “I’m sorry.”
He frowned. “For what?”
“For ruining the night.”
John gave you a look that was both soft and very serious. “You didn’t ruin anything.”
“I was supposed to be normal.”
“You were supposed to come home,” he said, “and let me take care of you when you needed it.”
That made your throat tighten all over again.
John shifted so he could see your face more clearly. “You don’t have to hold everything together all the time.”
“I feel like I should.”
“Why?”
You looked at him for a long second and then shrugged, miserable. “Because if I don’t, who will?”
John’s expression softened in a way that made you want to cry all over again, which was deeply inconvenient.
“Me,” he said.
The answer was so immediate that it stopped you.
He looked at you calmly, one hand still at your waist. “I will.”
You stared at him.
His voice went quieter. “That’s what I’m here for.”
The certainty in it made something inside you finally let go.
You lowered your face into his shoulder again, and John held you through the next round of tears without saying a word, just rubbing slow circles into your back until the shaking eased.
When you finally pulled back, your eyes felt tired and your face felt hot, and John was still looking at you like you were something important he had no intention of treating lightly.
“Better?” he asked.
“A little.”
“Good.”
You took a shaky breath. “You’re very good at this.”
John’s mouth curved slightly. “At what?”
“Taking care of me.”
He looked almost shy for a second, which only made him gentler when he answered.
“I like taking care of you,” he said.
That made you go still.
Then, because he knew exactly what he’d done to you, he brushed a thumb along your cheek and added, “Especially when you’re pretending you don’t need it.”
You laughed weakly, finally. “I do not always pretend.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You texted me ‘I’m fine’ three times today.”
You made a face. “That is unrelated.”
“It is absolutely related.”
You smiled despite the exhaustion, and he seemed to relax a little when he saw it.
He kissed your forehead once, then twice, lingering each time until your shoulders stopped feeling so tight. “There,” he murmured. “That’s better.”
You leaned into him with a tiny sigh. “You make everything feel less awful.”
John’s arm tightened around you. “Good.”
You looked up at him, eyes still wet but much steadier now. “You know you’re going to have to keep doing this forever, right?”
He smiled, quiet and sure. “I was kind of planning on it.”
And for the first time all week, you laughed like you meant it.
Hiiii can you do one with a femreader and with Logan? Something like they go snowboarding on a mountain trip and the reader gets a really bad concussion and Logan cares for her and patches her up. or maybe the reader can be the briar hockey team's media manager and he has a crush on her and is always flirting with her.
worth the fall | john logan
john logan x reader!female
summary: in which you take quite a bad fall while snowboarding on a mountain trip, luckily a handsome hockey player is there to take care of you. the only problem? you’re the media manger for his team.
part 2
warning: mention of concussion
word count: 2,1k
disclaimer: i planned to make this just 1 part but the whole ending decided not to save 💔 i also decided to add more background and plot instead of just jumping straight in
authors note: this happens to be my second fic i’ve written so far as a new writer, i was so excited when i saw this request as i love the off campus boys with all my heart, hope you enjoy anonymous!
————————————————————————
it started with a fall and ended with a confession and a concussion
when you became a student a briar university you had heard all sorts of stories about the football players and hockey players along with all the other sports, each story was quite similar and always ended with a girl heart broken over a one night stand that she thought would become more.
after hearing all the stories you made two rules for yourself; rule one: don’t get involved with any players and rule two: absolutely do not develop a crush on a player.
after you got a job as the briar hockeys media manager, you knew your rules would be easier to follow and you would have to follow them either way to remain professional. you thought working with hockey players would be simple, as long as everyone kept things professional. then there was john logan, who seemed determined to make that impossible.
john logan was charming, handsome and popular, which made him impossible for most girls to ignore. logan seemed to drew attention from girls everywhere he went. qualities like his came with a reputation, and logan’s was well known around campus. guys wanted to be him and girls talked about him. he wasn’t the type to settle down, preferring casual hookups and fleeting connections over serious relationships. and if there was one thing people knew about john logan, it was that he never stayed with one girl for long.
you’d learned long ago not to trust everything you heard around campus. people had once painted garrett graham as the last guy who’d ever settle down, yet he was now happily taken. unfortunately boys like john logan seemed to prove those rumours right.
you remember your first day of work like it was yesterday, mainly because john logan made quite the impression by trying his hardest to rile you up by flirting with you. logan was quite an attractive guy you would be lying if you said he wasn’t, but you’d never boost his ego that high by letting him know and professionalism too of course.
“you know,” logan said, flashing the smile that had probably worked on half the girls at Briar, “most people are a little friendlier when I introduce myself.”
you barely looked up from your laptop.
“most people probably want something from you.”
his grin widened. “and what if I just wanted to talk?”
“then I’d tell you to find someone else to talk to.”
for the first time, logan looked genuinely surprised.
“wow. you always this harsh?”
“only when hockey players interrupt my work.”
Instead of taking the hint, he leaned against the desk.
“good thing I’m persistent.”
you sighed. “and that’s supposed to be attractive?”
“usually.”
“well, today’s not your lucky day, logan.”
after that day logan had made it his mission to try and get an reaction out of you. it started with the playful flirting and remarks, to lingering smiles and longing stares, then always finding ways and excuses to be around you.
eventually his friends started picking up on his new behaviour. whenever they would see logan following you around they would make playful remarks, like calling him your shadow. eventually the playful remarks sparked a conversation, since then you and the boys had gotten close, you guys were friendly but also professional. you had lasted longer than any other media manager before causing you to become even closer than before, to the point you had formed a friendship with garrets girlfriend hannah aswell as deans girlfriend allie.
as your relationship grew even closer with the boys they began to be more protective over you, the team treated you like an ‘annoying little sister’ as dean would say.
you were standing near the boards during warmups, checking photos on your camera, when a guy approached.
“hey,” he said, offering you a smile. “you’re the team’s media manager, right?”
“that’s me.” you replied with a smile
“I’ve seen you around a lot. I was wondering if maybe I could get your number?”
you opened your mouth to answer, but a familiar voice beat you to it.
“her number?”
the guy turned.
john logan was suddenly standing beside you, hockey stick slung over one shoulder.
you’re surprised logan didn’t come earlier, not that it bothered you of course
“yeah,” the guy said cautiously.
logan stared at him for a second.
“why?”
you immediately pinched the bridge of your nose.
“logan.”
“what? I’m asking a question.”
the guy laughed nervously. “because I think she’s pretty.”
you diverted your attention from logan to the unnamed guy “thank you” you replied with a soft smile
logan’s jaw tightened.
was logan jealous?
“that’s your reason?”
“dude,” garrett said, appearing from seemingly nowhere. “you sound insane.”
“I’m just curious.”
“no, you’re being weird,” garrett corrected.
dean arrived next, taking one look at the situation and groaning.
“oh no.”
“he’s interrogating people again, isn’t he?”
“apparently.”
the poor guy looked ready to disappear.
then came tucker.
“what’s happening?”
“a civilian approached Y/N,” dean informed him.
tucker gasped dramatically.
“without permission?”
“tucker,” you warned.
“sorry. continue.”
by now, allie, hannah, and the rest of the girls were openly watching from nearby, trying not to laugh.
“guys, seriously,” you said.
“we’re serious,” logan replied.
“why?”
“because he’s flirting with you.”
the guy looked at logan.
“Is that a problem?”
“for you? potentially.”
garrett smacked logan upside the head.
“ow!”
“stop threatening innocent people.”
“I didn’t threaten him.”
“you literally said ‘potentially.’”
“that could mean anything.”
dean snorted.
“no it couldn’t.”
the guy looked increasingly concerned.
“you know what?” he said. “I think I’m gonna head out.”
“smart choice,” logan muttered.
“LOGAN.”
logan shrugged unapologetically while the guy quickly disappeared into the crowd.
at this rate you would be single forever.
the second he was gone, you turned to the team.
“you all need help.”
“maybe,” garrett admitted.
“definitely,” dean added.
“worth it,” tucker said.
logan didn’t even try to deny it.
“he was annoying.”
you stared at him.
“he said one sentence.”
“exactly. annoying.”
moments like this caused to you wonder if maybe logan had changed, maybe this all wasn’t a game to him anymore. not that it would better you had to stay professional either way. the more you thought about it the more you realised that it’s been a while since logan had actually had a one night stand let alone talk to a girl, you stopped hearing stories about him aswell.
your train of thoughts came to a stop after you had caught him with a girl. you were trying to find logan after you had been told to find him for a interview before practice, you had checked all his usual spots, you figured that maybe today he decided to wander off. you found him in one of the empty classrooms, and he was most certainly not alone. as soon as you walked through the door you see logan’s figure clearly and on his lap sat a blond girl. the sound off the door must’ve have frightened them as they quickly pulled away and froze as they saw you.
for a moment, nobody spoke.
“sorry,” you said quickly. “didn’t mean to interrupt.”
before logan could get a word out, you already left through the doors of the classroom .
later that afternoon, logan found you in the media room.
“you disappeared quite fast earlier.”
you kept your eyes on your laptop, not bothering to waste your time by looking up at his face.
“found what I needed.” you replied with a semi flat voice.
logan frowned at that, knowing normally you would’ve used this situation to make a joke.
instead, you’d barely looked at him all day, not a glance, not even in his direction .
“are you mad at me?”
the question finally pulling your eyes away from the laptops screen making you glance up.
“what?”
“you’ve been weird since earlier.”
you stared at him.
“logan i don’t have time for this”
you shook your head as you looked back down to your laptop screen.
“Y/N—”
“I’ve got work to do.”
logan stared at you for a long moment, waiting for you to look up, waiting for you to acknowledge him.
you didn’t.
eventually, he let out a frustrated sigh.
“Fine.”
the word sounded sharper than he intended.
not even a second later you heard the door open and close behind him.
only then did you stop pretending to read the same sentence for the tenth time.
because the second he’d walked away, your chest felt a little heavier than before and you weren’t sure why
after that dreadful day you decided to keep that whole incident to yourself, if logan decided to share what happened to the boys, that’s all him.
a week had now passed, you successfully managed to avoid logan. you had decided to invite the girls to help you pack, completely forgetting about the mountain trip after the incident in the classroom, not sure why it bothered you as much as it did.
the trip was planned for team bonding and off-ice conditioning or whatever that meant, after all you were just the media manager.
as you make your way towards the bus you make sure the sit closer to the front, purposefully away from all the players, for professional reasons along with others. logan passes you as he makes his way to the back, looking directly at you, you ignore his gaze, keeping you eyes glued to your phone pretending to read something important. for the rest and the drive you did some work and slept waiting for the hours to pay quicker.
you wake up just before the bus arrives at the place you and the team will be staying at, you quickly hurry out the bus before any of the boys notice. you follow the coaches to the front desk, collect your room key, and quickly make your way to your room. after relaxing for not even an hour you hear a knock on your door, you slowly get up to look through the peep hole you see dean, with a groan you open the door.
“don’t look too excited to see me.” dean says sarcastically.
“yes dean, how can i help you?” you reply back just as sarcastically.
before dean can reply, a familiar voice cuts him off.
tucker comes out basically from nowhere.
“get warm clothes on we’re going snowboarding.”
looking at dean and tucker with an annoyed look
you say no without even thinking, moving to close the door dean puts his foot out to stop the door from closing.
“come on y/n/n, you never wanna do stuff with us” dean pleads sounding like a whiny child
“yeah y/n/n pleaseeee, i promise it’ll be fun.”
with saying anything you stare at them wondering if you should just go else they’ll never stop pestering you, you sigh as they give me puppy dog eyes.
“fine but only for an hour.”
as soon as you agree they start cheering as if they had just won a grammy.
you get dressed and immediately go to the snowboarding station where you had said you would meet tucker and dean. as you’re about to reach them you see the whole team with them. you mentally groan wishing this was already over.
after you get kitted and given gear you spend a few minutes watching the boys effortlessly glide down the mountain before clipping your own board on and giving it a try.
watching the boys snowboard made it look easy. unfortunately, the moment you decided to try it yourself, you realized it wasn’t.
authors note: i’m so upset the rest didnt save, if your interested in a part 2 don’t stress it is already in the making. 🤗
Hiiii can you do one with a femreader and with Logan? Something like they go snowboarding on a mountain trip and the reader gets a really bad concussion and Logan cares for her and patches her up. or maybe the reader can be the briar hockey team's media manager and he has a crush on her and is always flirting with her.
worth the fall | john logan
john logan x reader!female
summary: in which you take quite a bad fall while snowboarding on a mountain trip, luckily a handsome hockey player is there to take care of you. the only problem? you’re the media manger for his team.
part 2
warning: mention of concussion
word count: 2,1k
disclaimer: i planned to make this just 1 part but the whole ending decided not to save 💔 i also decided to add more background and plot instead of just jumping straight in
authors note: this happens to be my second fic i’ve written so far as a new writer, i was so excited when i saw this request as i love the off campus boys with all my heart, hope you enjoy anonymous!
————————————————————————
it started with a fall and ended with a confession and a concussion
when you became a student a briar university you had heard all sorts of stories about the football players and hockey players along with all the other sports, each story was quite similar and always ended with a girl heart broken over a one night stand that she thought would become more.
after hearing all the stories you made two rules for yourself; rule one: don’t get involved with any players and rule two: absolutely do not develop a crush on a player.
after you got a job as the briar hockeys media manager, you knew your rules would be easier to follow and you would have to follow them either way to remain professional. you thought working with hockey players would be simple, as long as everyone kept things professional. then there was john logan, who seemed determined to make that impossible.
john logan was charming, handsome and popular, which made him impossible for most girls to ignore. logan seemed to drew attention from girls everywhere he went. qualities like his came with a reputation, and logan’s was well known around campus. guys wanted to be him and girls talked about him. he wasn’t the type to settle down, preferring casual hookups and fleeting connections over serious relationships. and if there was one thing people knew about john logan, it was that he never stayed with one girl for long.
you’d learned long ago not to trust everything you heard around campus. people had once painted garrett graham as the last guy who’d ever settle down, yet he was now happily taken. unfortunately boys like john logan seemed to prove those rumours right.
you remember your first day of work like it was yesterday, mainly because john logan made quite the impression by trying his hardest to rile you up by flirting with you. logan was quite an attractive guy you would be lying if you said he wasn’t, but you’d never boost his ego that high by letting him know and professionalism too of course.
“you know,” logan said, flashing the smile that had probably worked on half the girls at Briar, “most people are a little friendlier when I introduce myself.”
you barely looked up from your laptop.
“most people probably want something from you.”
his grin widened. “and what if I just wanted to talk?”
“then I’d tell you to find someone else to talk to.”
for the first time, logan looked genuinely surprised.
“wow. you always this harsh?”
“only when hockey players interrupt my work.”
Instead of taking the hint, he leaned against the desk.
“good thing I’m persistent.”
you sighed. “and that’s supposed to be attractive?”
“usually.”
“well, today’s not your lucky day, logan.”
after that day logan had made it his mission to try and get an reaction out of you. it started with the playful flirting and remarks, to lingering smiles and longing stares, then always finding ways and excuses to be around you.
eventually his friends started picking up on his new behaviour. whenever they would see logan following you around they would make playful remarks, like calling him your shadow. eventually the playful remarks sparked a conversation, since then you and the boys had gotten close, you guys were friendly but also professional. you had lasted longer than any other media manager before causing you to become even closer than before, to the point you had formed a friendship with garrets girlfriend hannah aswell as deans girlfriend allie.
as your relationship grew even closer with the boys they began to be more protective over you, the team treated you like an ‘annoying little sister’ as dean would say.
you were standing near the boards during warmups, checking photos on your camera, when a guy approached.
“hey,” he said, offering you a smile. “you’re the team’s media manager, right?”
“that’s me.” you replied with a smile
“I’ve seen you around a lot. I was wondering if maybe I could get your number?”
you opened your mouth to answer, but a familiar voice beat you to it.
“her number?”
the guy turned.
john logan was suddenly standing beside you, hockey stick slung over one shoulder.
you’re surprised logan didn’t come earlier, not that it bothered you of course
“yeah,” the guy said cautiously.
logan stared at him for a second.
“why?”
you immediately pinched the bridge of your nose.
“logan.”
“what? I’m asking a question.”
the guy laughed nervously. “because I think she’s pretty.”
you diverted your attention from logan to the unnamed guy “thank you” you replied with a soft smile
logan’s jaw tightened.
was logan jealous?
“that’s your reason?”
“dude,” garrett said, appearing from seemingly nowhere. “you sound insane.”
“I’m just curious.”
“no, you’re being weird,” garrett corrected.
dean arrived next, taking one look at the situation and groaning.
“oh no.”
“he’s interrogating people again, isn’t he?”
“apparently.”
the poor guy looked ready to disappear.
then came tucker.
“what’s happening?”
“a civilian approached Y/N,” dean informed him.
tucker gasped dramatically.
“without permission?”
“tucker,” you warned.
“sorry. continue.”
by now, allie, hannah, and the rest of the girls were openly watching from nearby, trying not to laugh.
“guys, seriously,” you said.
“we’re serious,” logan replied.
“why?”
“because he’s flirting with you.”
the guy looked at logan.
“Is that a problem?”
“for you? potentially.”
garrett smacked logan upside the head.
“ow!”
“stop threatening innocent people.”
“I didn’t threaten him.”
“you literally said ‘potentially.’”
“that could mean anything.”
dean snorted.
“no it couldn’t.”
the guy looked increasingly concerned.
“you know what?” he said. “I think I’m gonna head out.”
“smart choice,” logan muttered.
“LOGAN.”
logan shrugged unapologetically while the guy quickly disappeared into the crowd.
at this rate you would be single forever.
the second he was gone, you turned to the team.
“you all need help.”
“maybe,” garrett admitted.
“definitely,” dean added.
“worth it,” tucker said.
logan didn’t even try to deny it.
“he was annoying.”
you stared at him.
“he said one sentence.”
“exactly. annoying.”
moments like this caused to you wonder if maybe logan had changed, maybe this all wasn’t a game to him anymore. not that it would better you had to stay professional either way. the more you thought about it the more you realised that it’s been a while since logan had actually had a one night stand let alone talk to a girl, you stopped hearing stories about him aswell.
your train of thoughts came to a stop after you had caught him with a girl. you were trying to find logan after you had been told to find him for a interview before practice, you had checked all his usual spots, you figured that maybe today he decided to wander off. you found him in one of the empty classrooms, and he was most certainly not alone. as soon as you walked through the door you see logan’s figure clearly and on his lap sat a blond girl. the sound off the door must’ve have frightened them as they quickly pulled away and froze as they saw you.
for a moment, nobody spoke.
“sorry,” you said quickly. “didn’t mean to interrupt.”
before logan could get a word out, you already left through the doors of the classroom .
later that afternoon, logan found you in the media room.
“you disappeared quite fast earlier.”
you kept your eyes on your laptop, not bothering to waste your time by looking up at his face.
“found what I needed.” you replied with a semi flat voice.
logan frowned at that, knowing normally you would’ve used this situation to make a joke.
instead, you’d barely looked at him all day, not a glance, not even in his direction .
“are you mad at me?”
the question finally pulling your eyes away from the laptops screen making you glance up.
“what?”
“you’ve been weird since earlier.”
you stared at him.
“logan i don’t have time for this”
you shook your head as you looked back down to your laptop screen.
“Y/N—”
“I’ve got work to do.”
logan stared at you for a long moment, waiting for you to look up, waiting for you to acknowledge him.
you didn’t.
eventually, he let out a frustrated sigh.
“Fine.”
the word sounded sharper than he intended.
not even a second later you heard the door open and close behind him.
only then did you stop pretending to read the same sentence for the tenth time.
because the second he’d walked away, your chest felt a little heavier than before and you weren’t sure why
after that dreadful day you decided to keep that whole incident to yourself, if logan decided to share what happened to the boys, that’s all him.
a week had now passed, you successfully managed to avoid logan. you had decided to invite the girls to help you pack, completely forgetting about the mountain trip after the incident in the classroom, not sure why it bothered you as much as it did.
the trip was planned for team bonding and off-ice conditioning or whatever that meant, after all you were just the media manager.
as you make your way towards the bus you make sure the sit closer to the front, purposefully away from all the players, for professional reasons along with others. logan passes you as he makes his way to the back, looking directly at you, you ignore his gaze, keeping you eyes glued to your phone pretending to read something important. for the rest and the drive you did some work and slept waiting for the hours to pay quicker.
you wake up just before the bus arrives at the place you and the team will be staying at, you quickly hurry out the bus before any of the boys notice. you follow the coaches to the front desk, collect your room key, and quickly make your way to your room. after relaxing for not even an hour you hear a knock on your door, you slowly get up to look through the peep hole you see dean, with a groan you open the door.
“don’t look too excited to see me.” dean says sarcastically.
“yes dean, how can i help you?” you reply back just as sarcastically.
before dean can reply, a familiar voice cuts him off.
tucker comes out basically from nowhere.
“get warm clothes on we’re going snowboarding.”
looking at dean and tucker with an annoyed look
you say no without even thinking, moving to close the door dean puts his foot out to stop the door from closing.
“come on y/n/n, you never wanna do stuff with us” dean pleads sounding like a whiny child
“yeah y/n/n pleaseeee, i promise it’ll be fun.”
with saying anything you stare at them wondering if you should just go else they’ll never stop pestering you, you sigh as they give me puppy dog eyes.
“fine but only for an hour.”
as soon as you agree they start cheering as if they had just won a grammy.
you get dressed and immediately go to the snowboarding station where you had said you would meet tucker and dean. as you’re about to reach them you see the whole team with them. you mentally groan wishing this was already over.
after you get kitted and given gear you spend a few minutes watching the boys effortlessly glide down the mountain before clipping your own board on and giving it a try.
watching the boys snowboard made it look easy. unfortunately, the moment you decided to try it yourself, you realized it wasn’t.
authors note: i’m so upset the rest didnt save, if your interested in a part 2 don’t stress it is already in the making. 🤗
heyy could you do a john lohan x gf reader where like she goes to his games and wears his number and all and she gets a temp tattoo of 22 on her back and shows him after the game when they’re celebrating
22 for you | john logan
john logan x reader!gf
summary: you have always been a supportive girlfriend. wearing your boyfriends jersey, attending every game, and defending him in every hockey debate. after a big win, logan discovers a surprise that’s meant just for him.
word count: 1,7k
warning: fluff, kissing
authors note: guys i’m not gonna lie im really enjoying writing for logan he is just such a cutie
————————————————————————
it all started after you and your best friends, hannah wells and allie hayes had watched one tree hill the morning before your boyfriends would play.
“wait, wait, wait,” allie sat up straighter on the couch. “I just had the funniest idea.”
you immediately groan, remembering the last time allie had a ‘funny idea’
“that’s never a good sign.” hannah said
“oh come on” turning to hannah while saying “hannah back me up on this”
“ y/n should get a fake tattoo of logan’s number.’”
“why?” hannah said with confusion written on her face, not quite sure where this was leading to.
“to see lover boys reaction, duh.” allie said
the entire room went silent for a second.
before you could tell allie it was a stupid, hannah started backing up allies plan
“wait, that’s actually hilarious.’”
“seriously hannah.” you say staring at her with a fake offended look
“y/n, please do it.” allie said while looking at you with a pleading look
you looked at your friends like they’d both collectively lost their minds.
“you want me to pretend I got a tattoo?”
“yes.”
“of logan’s number?”
“exactly”
“you people need hobbies.”
“no, seriously,” allie laughed. “don’t tell him it’s fake. just walk up and be like, ‘surprise!’”
“he’d have a heart attack.” hannah said
“exactly”
you tried not to smile, because unfortunately they weren’t wrong. you could practically picture logan looking at the tattoo trying to figure out why just happened.
trying to hide your smile from the girls and failing miserably. allie starts shaking hannah while saying “she’s going to do it”
“guys, he’d freak out.”
“in a good way or a bad way?” hannah questions
“both.”
the two girls burst into laughter.
“he’d be so proud of himself.”
“that’s what I’m saying!” allie pointed dramatically. “his ego would grow three sizes.”
“he’d tell every single teammate.” hannah said agreeing with allie
“immediately.”
“dean would never let me live it down.”
“which makes this even better.”
you buried your face in a pillow.
this was such a terrible idea.
a terrible, hilarious idea.
“okay,” you mumbled giving in.
the room exploded.
“WAIT, REALLY?” the girls said collectively.
“only if one of you buys the tattoo.”
the cheering got even louder.
“logan is about to have the best and worst day of his life.” allie said while she and hannah pulled out their phones looking for somewhere they could find the temporary tattoo.
“okay movement of truth” hannah says while slowly removing the film of the tattoo, while allie nervously stands looking over her shoulder.
as she removes the film, allie gasps.
“oh my go-”
“stop allie what”
“it looks so good”
hannah takes her phone out to take a picture of the tattoo to show you, as she’s doing so you she starts agreeing with allie
“it does, and it looks so real too”
she shows you the picture and a cheesy smile starts forming on your face.
“guys why do i kind of love it?”
the girls start cheering, ending the cheer with a high-five.
“maybe you should get a real one” allie says excitedly
you smirk at her while saying “depends on his reaction”
you guys get ready to go, late as always but this time you guys actually have an excuse.
not that you could tell them
watching logan on the ice never got old. everything seemed effortless when he played. the speed, the confidence, the way he weaved through defenders as though they weren’t even there. sometimes you found yourself forgetting to breathe whenever he had the puck.
the boys were on fire tonight, finishing the game with a win and a huge score difference. a win for the briar boys always meant a huge party afterwards at the hockey house.
you, hannah and allie wait for the boys after the game to congratulate them. starting obviously with your boyfriends and moving on to your friends.
you see logan walk out the changing rooms. he always looked so good after games and practices, cheeks flushed, wet hair, you just loved it.
he makes his way towards you with a grin.
“hey”
before you could say hey back he cuts you off with a soft kiss to your lips. between kisses you congratulate him, praising him for how good he played.
he pulls away halfway to kiss your forehead then pulls away completely.
“thank you baby.”
logan’s hand found your waist, pulling her a little closer. what started as a quick kiss quickly turned into something more, neither of them eager to pull away. resting his hand on your lower back not realising what was hiding underneath. every time you broke apart for a breath, you found yourselves leaning right back in, unable to stop smiling.
eventually getting cut off as dean knocks his hockey stick against logans leg.
“come on guys, party tonight” he says excitedly.
the party was in full swing but you had spent the last twenty minutes avoiding logan.
which, unfortunately, only seemed to make him more determined.
“there you are.”
you groaned as logan appeared beside you.
“i’ve been looking for you.”
“really, i’ve just been with the girls.” you say trying to convince him he was just imagining it
his eyes narrowed.
“why are you being weird?”
“I’m not.”
“you are.”
across the room, hannah and allie exchanged looks.
you pointedly ignored them.
logan crossed his arms.
“what are they smiling about?”
“nothing.”
“what are you hiding?”
“nothing.”
his eyebrows shot up.
“you’re definitely hiding something.”before you could stop yourself, you glanced toward hannah and allie.
mistake.
a huge mistake.
because now logan looked even more suspicious.
“y/n.”
she sighed.
“fine.”
you grabbed the bottom of his shirt pulling him behind you and dragging him close to his room.
out of the corner of your eye you can see hannah and allie trailing behind you giggling as they do so.
“then what’s going on?”
for a moment, you considered dragging this out longer.
then you remembered hannah and allie were probably lurking trying to eavesdrop.
“gfine.”
logan waited.
you set down your drink.
then you began to lift your shirt just enough to reveal his number on your body.
for a second, logan just stared.
then he blinked.
looked at the tattoo.
looked at you.
looked back at the tattoo.
“is that…”
his mouth fell open.
“no way.”
you immediately started laughing.
“omg, your face.”
“Y/N!”
from behind a wall came the sound of hannah and allie losing their minds.
“we knew he’d react like that!”
logan pointed toward them.
“they knew about this?”
“maybe.”
“i knew it”
his gaze returned to the tattoo.
“you put my number on you?”
“It’s fake.”
“I don’t care!”
his grin was impossible to miss.
somehow, that only made you laugh harder.
because you friends had been right.
his reaction was absolutely worth it.
he pulls you to him, your waists touching.
“i actually liked it” he said while staring at your lips slowly leaning in with a smirk just before he could close the gap hes cut off by hannah and allie.
“right, that’s our cue to leave”
“yeah we’re just gonna go”
as they leave you and logan break out in giggles, he gently grabs your face pulling you in for a soft kiss. the kiss going from soft and sweet to more passionate.
it felt as if he was your oxygen
after a few minutes, your lips bruised, each breath coming out shaky your chest rising too fast to calm down, your cheeks flushed, logans hair slightly messy from your hands in it, his eyes half-lidded, dazed if this was his reaction to a temporary tattoo, how would he react to a real one
you guys made your way back to your friends, immediately when you get to them dean is practically floating after hearing about this tattoo
“alright let’s see it.” deans says enthusiastically like you were about to show him your first born
“wait.”
dean held up his hand after seeing the tattoo
“hou’re telling me,” he said slowly, his eyes moving between you and logan, “that she got your number tattooed on her?”
“It’s fake,” you immediately said.
dean ignores you and carries on.
“that’s not the point.”
“It’s literally the entire point.”
dean turns to logan and immediately starts to interrogate him.
“did you cry?”
logan immediately dismissing that while looking offended
“I didn’t cry.”
“you look like you cried.”
“I didn’t cry.”
dean pointed dramatically.
“see? that is literally exactly what someone who cried would say.”
“shut up.”
“no, because I need to know.”
dean stepped closer.
“when you saw it, did wedding bells start playing in your head?”
logan groaned.
“dean.”
“logan i am being so serious right now.”
“well dean i amnot having this conversation.”
dean gasped.
“omg.”
“what?”
“you totally imagined your future together, are you guys having kids together, no wait what’s the colour scheme for the wedding.”
“I hate you.”
“you did!”
logan buried his face in his hands.
across the room, garrett looked seconds away from falling off the couch laughing.
meanwhile, was just getting started.
“you know what this means, right?”
“no.”
“she’s officially your biggest fan.”
“she’s my girlfriend.”
“not anymore.”
logan looked up.
dean pointed towards you.
“that girl has got your jersey number tattooed on her body, come on logan”
you snorted.
“It was temporary.”
dean waved her off.
“details, immediately.”
then he looked back at logan.
“you’re never recovering from this.”
the grin spreading across logan’s face completely ruined any chance of arguing that.
dean immediately pointed.
“just look at him.”
“what about me”
“he’s smiling again.”
“am not.”
“he’s smiling.”
“am not.”
“he’s smiling at the tattoo.”
logan groaned.
dean leaned back triumphantly.
“best prank ever.”
“best prank ever,” hannah agreed.
“best prank ever,” allie echoed.
logan looked towards you.
unfortunately, the stupid smile returned instantly.
dean saw it.
and immediately started screaming.
authors note: guys if i’m being honest im not sure how i feel about this, love the idea but i think i could’ve done better. after he finds out about the tattoo, i wasn’t sure how to go on from there so i decided to throw dean in just to make it longer.
Summary: You broke up with Logan...but you want him back
You couldn’t stop the jealousy that simmered beneath your skin at the sight of the leggy blonde chatting up Logan. From behind the bar, you had a front-row seat to the entire thing. She was batting her lash extensions, laughing a little too hard at everything he said, and leaning across the table every chance she got. Every few minutes, she'd reach out to touch his arm or brush her hand against his shoulder like she couldn't help herself.
The worst part?
Logan was letting her.
‘’You look like you're about three seconds away from hopping over that bar and committing a felony,’’ Allie said, sliding beside you with a tray tucked beneath her arm.
You tore your eyes away from them.
‘’I might,’’ you admitted. ‘’I hate puck bunnies. She makes me want to throw a gum in her hair.’’
Allie snorted, reaching for a tall glass and filling it with beer from the tap. ‘’The cat’s claws are coming out!’’
‘’Shut up.’’
Allie glanced toward the booth. The blonde was laughing again.
‘’Go talk to him.’’
‘’We broke up,’’ you recalled, the words tasting sour on your tongue.
Choosing to end things with Logan hadn't been easy. In fact, it was the hardest decision you'd ever made. But with the skating competitions looming ahead, school and working at Malone’s on the weekend, there was no longer any room in your life for a relationship. Your coach had doubled your training schedule, packing your weeks with early mornings, late nights, and endless hours at the rink. Every practice, every competition, every sacrifice was building toward one goal.
The National Championship.
If you wanted a real shot at this competition, you couldn't afford distractions — even one as supporting and understanding as John Logan.
‘’But you still love him.’’
‘’Allie…’’
‘’What? I’ve been there too, you know? The ‘post break up crisis’ where you're wide awake in your bed at night, wondering if you did the right thing or just lost the love of your life. Actually, I’ve been there many many times with Sean. Turned out we weren’t compatible anymore…but that’s beside the point. What I’m saying is, there’s nothing wrong with getting back together if you love him.’’
‘’I don’t have time for a relationship—’’
‘’Go talk to him,’’ Allie insisted, handing the beer to you. ‘’He ordered another beer. This is your chance.’’
You took the beer, your fingers tightening around the cold glass. You hadn’t talked to Logan since you left his room three weeks ago, fighting off the tears after calling it quits. You saw him around on campus a few times and at Malone’s, but you always gave his table to someone else.
Out of sight, but of mind they say. Unfortunately, it wasn’t always true.
Logan was always in the back of your mind.
The walk to his booth felt longer than a triple axel jump.
Your feet moved on their own, heart pounding like it was the night before a competition. The blonde was still there — of course she was — drinking her vodka cranberry bedford laughing at something Logan had said, her hand now resting casually on his forearm.
He hadn’t touched her back. Not really. But he hadn't pulled away either.
And that stung worse than that time you took a bad fall and broke your arm.
You stopped just short of the table, thinking about putting down the beer and sprinting back to the bar, but you knew if you did that, Allie would send you back.
Logan looked up the second you appeared, as if he had sensed your presence.
Logan's smile disappeared the second his eyes landed on you.
Not faded.
Disappeared.
Like someone had flipped a switch.
For a moment, neither of you said anything.
The blonde looked between the two of you, clearly sensing something had changed.
You forced your server smile into place and set the beer in front of him. ‘’Here you go.’’
‘’Thanks.’’
God, hearing his voice after three weeks nearly knocked the air from your lungs.
It sounded exactly the same.
Warm. Familiar.
His gaze lingered on your face a second longer than necessary. ‘’How’s skating going?’’
The simple question caught you off guard.
‘’Good.’’
He nodded, forcing the conversation. ‘’I heard Hannah is making a song for the performance you’re working on.’’
‘’She is,’’ you replied, a small smile curling on your lips.
It was so generous of Hannah to offer to make a song for you. And you hadn’t even asked. She just saw you on the ice after a hockey practice and showered you with compliments the next time you saw her. You hadn’t heard the full song yet, but the snippets she sent you were great.
‘’It’s sweet. Your next competition is in Boston, right? I…I might come see you. Unless you don’t want me there. I’d understand if—’’
‘’Everyone is welcomed.’’
· · ────── ꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ ────── · ·
‘’See you tomorrow, Della!’’ you called over your shoulder as you headed for the door, impatient to be home and go to bed.
It was well past midnight, and after a few hours on the ice and an entire shift at Malone's, your feet were killing you. All you wanted was to get home, peel off your uniform, and sleep for the next seven hours. Twelve hours would feel even better, but it was a luxury you couldn’t afford.
Allie had left twenty minutes ago, but offered to help Della with the tables to thank her for accommodating your shifts to your new skating schedule. That woman was the kindest boss you ever had.
Just as you stepped into the biting night air, you walked right into Logan, who was standing outside the diner.
‘’Oh my god, you fucking scared me!’’ You shoved at his chest, your heart hammering against your ribs. ‘’What are you doing here? Standing there like a creep waiting to jump a woman at night.’’
Logan immediately held up his hands in apology. ‘’Sorry. Sorry. I didn’t think…’’
Obviously.
‘’The diner is closed.’’
He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket, his brown eyes set on you. ‘’I was waiting for you.’’
You glanced around. The street was empty except for a few cars, the neon Malone's sign buzzing quietly behind you. It was rarely this quiet around here, laughter and music usually spilling from the diner bar.
You crossed your arms against the cold and stared at him. ‘’Where’s blondie?’’ you asked bitterly. ‘’She left your bed already?’’
Before you got together, he was no better than Dean or Garrett in the hooking up department. He must have gone back to his old habits.
‘’I didn’t leave with her, if that’s what you’re insinuating.’’
You let out a humorless laugh. ‘’Oh right! You had her suck you off in the bathroom, then? It spares you the chore of kicking them out of your room. I know people do it, but I clean those bathrooms, Logan—’’
His jaw tightened immediately. ‘’We didn’t fuck!’’ he cut in, his voice echoing on the empty street.
Logan ran a hand through his hair, frustration evident in the movement. The wind immediately tousled it again.
‘’We had a few drinks and kissed for a bit, but I didn’t take her home. She tried to, but I rejected her. I went home by myself, you can ask G if you don’t believe me. He and Hannah were there.’’
You searched his face for a crack in the story. ‘’Why are you here if you went home?’’
The question lingered between you.
Logan looked away briefly as he tried to find the words without sounding like an obsessive ex. ‘’Because I couldn’t sleep. Because I couldn’t stop thinking about you.’’
The confession settled heavily in the silence.
True to his words, he wasn’t dressed the same. His jeans had been replaced by sweatpants and his shirt was a different color. He looked exactly like someone who had gone home, laid awake staring at the ceiling, and finally decided he couldn't stay there anymore.
‘’Logan…’’
‘’I know, I know. You said you don’t have time for a relationship right now. Honestly, I don’t have much time to spare either with hockey and the garage but I just miss you. I miss driving around and hearing you complain about my music, I miss watching you and Tucker argue about the acceptable cheese ratio in vodka sauce and snuggling on the couch after a long day. I miss having you in my life. I miss us too, but I miss you more.’’ Logan’s voice cracked slightly as he admitted it, raw and unfiltered like the words had been clawing their way out for weeks.
He didn’t try to kiss you. Didn’t reach for your hand or pull you into his chest like he used to. He just stood there, tall, broad-shouldered John Logan, looking small in a way only love can make someone look.
You didn’t know what to say or what to do.
You missed him too. You’ve missed him every day since you broke up.
In your dream scenario, you would jump in his arms and kiss him.
But real life was not as easy.
‘’I can’t give you what you want, Logan.’’
‘’What if we met halfway?’’ he offered. ‘’What if, until the end of the semester, we don’t commit to anything? I do hockey and work at the garage, and you focus on the Nationals, and if we have free time we see each other. We don’t pressure or guilt ourselves. We don’t schedule dates ahead or worry about seeing each other. We do our thing on our own until summer.’’
‘’And then?’’ you asked, taking a step toward Logan.
‘’And then we spend summer together.’’ He reached out for your hand, intertwining them together.
You glanced down at your hands and smiled. You missed this. Missed the way his fingers fit between yours like they belonged there. Missed how warm and protective his hand always felt. Missed how easy everything seemed when it was just the two of you.
Logan squeezed your hand gently.
‘’Say something.’’
You laughed softly through the knot in your throat. ‘’You always make everything sound so simple.’’
‘’It is simple.’’
‘’Logan…’’
His thumb brushed across your knuckles. ‘’I love you. You love me. The timing sucks but we work round it.’’
Your gaze dropped briefly to his lips. Then back to his eyes. The same warm brown eyes that had looked at you like you were the center of the universe since the day you met.
You stepped forward, grabbed the front of his jacket…and stopped.
He kissed that girl…
‘’Don’t worry. I brushed my teeth and used extra mouthwash.’’
A laugh burst out of you despite yourself. That idiot. You shook your head before closing the space between you. You loved that idiot.
The second your lips met, Logan’s hand slid to the small of your back, pulling you against him like he'd been resisting the urge for weeks. The other hand found your jaw, thumb brushing your cheek as he gently tilted your face toward him, making up for all the time he couldn’t kiss you.
For every good morning text you didn’t receive.
For every night you spent staring at pictures together on your phone, wondering if he missed you as much as you missed him.
For every time you saw the Hawks get on the ice after you and pretended your heart didn't skip because he was there.
When you finally broke apart, neither of you moved very far.
His forehead rested against yours, not ready to let go of you yet.
‘’Skating doesn’t stop during summer. Actually, that’s when new programs start,’’ you said, breaking the silence.
Logan groaned. ‘’For fuck’s sake…’’
At least there was no school or shifts at Malone’s.
Bed on Fire | John Logan x Fem!Reader [chapter five]
Summary: No one knew about John Logan’s crush on Hannah Wells except for Y/N L/N, because every time she was looking at him, he was looking at her.
Read the previous part here.
Pairings: John Logan x Fem!Reader
With mentions of Garrett Graham x Hannah Wells and Dean Di Laurentis x Allie Hayes
A/N: I took a bit longer to write this part. For one, because it's the conclusion of Act 1. Welcome to the roller coaster, baby. I included a couple of parts that were important to set up for later, as well as to perfectly display everyone's feelings and emotions. Also, finally figured out how to properly stylize an em dash lmao. Still struggling with showing, not telling, but practice makes perfect. Hopefully.
Again, thank you so much for all the support. I hope this chapter was worth the wait.
A week passed. Your dorm was a mess. Allie’s scripts for tonight's show lay scattered across the floor, along with extra Drunk Shakespeare posters, casting sheets, and Finn’s special drink menus. He’d called you at 2 a.m. two nights earlier, asking for help one last time. You couldn’t refuse. The next day, after class, you spent a few hours designing menus in the play’s theme.
In the meantime, you hadn’t seen anyone much. Everyone stuck to their routines. The hawks had practice. A couple of matches were planned. Finn, Allie, and Dexter were busy preparing for tonight’s Drunk Shakespeare. Hannah continued tutoring Garrett for their oral exam, which he surprisingly passed. You admired her patience. She could be an excellent teacher if she ever decided to change careers. You had considered Garrett hopeless.
The door of Allie’s room opened. She emerged in costume. You looked up, your jaw almost on the floor. She looked incredible.
“What the hell,” you muttered, standing, then sitting, then standing again, too excited to stay still. “Girl!” you shrieked, rushing to her and grabbing her arms.
Her hair was styled as always, except for a detailed pink flower crown of varying sizes. Her hair spilled over her wings. Glitter highlighted her bone structure. Her marine-blue dress hugged her curves. If you didn’t know better, she looked ready for a second dynamic duo party, this time as Flora from Winx Club. She had the look (and body).
“How—who—what—” you stammered, squeezing Allie’s arms as she laughed. “Everyone’s jaw will drop once you’re on stage,” you finally said, glancing her up and down again. She grinned, gently removing your arms, but didn’t let go of them. Narrowing her eyes, an idea popping in her head, she said, “I’ve got another dress. It’s pink, but other than that, it’s pretty similar. Want to wear it?”
It sounded like a love confession. Allie was down on one knee, except she was right in front of you, staring at you with anticipation, wondering if you’d say yes. In her hand, the perfect pink dress instead of a ring.
You nodded slowly, then faster, bouncing on your heels. “Of course I want a pink dress!” you squealed. Allie joined in. She took your hands and pulled you into her bedroom. “To the salon,” she said, voice high.
A few hours later, it was almost time for the show to start. A bright smile played on your face. To say you were excited was an understatement.
The evening air was thick. Dangerous. Disastrous. A sudden cold breeze tangled your hair and made you stumble, almost dropping Finn’s last-minute prop box, which was absolutely necessary to make his vision of ‘A Midsummer Night's Dream’ come to life.
You entered the building behind Allie. The door’s entrance almost hit you. “Thanks!” you yelled, but she didn’t hear you.
You scanned the crowd, heart pounding with a tangled mix of anticipation and dread. The person you secretly wanted to see wasn’t there, so disappointment looped in your stomach. Still, you couldn’t help yourself, and your eyes continued to search for him anyway, your breath catching every time a face popped into view.
You hated how much you cared. How desperate you looked if you could see yourself in a mirror right now, and you resented the flutter that twisted your insides at the thought of him noticing you tonight. Just as you were about to calm down, Logan’s soothing voice pulled your attention with magnetic force.
“Here, let me help you.”
Your hands were suddenly free. As you looked up, your eyes met Logan’s brown ones. You clutched your dress tighter. Suddenly aware of how much pink Allie had managed to put you. Glitter covered your shoulders, collarbone, and chest.
“Thank you,” you finally managed to say. Logan caught your gaze for half a second. Then he was swept up by an arm around his shoulder.
“Logan! Y/n! How art thee?” he asked, his voice high as he dragged Logan backstage.
Finn had impeccable timing.
You stood rooted in place, heat rising up your neck and almost matching the blush on your cheeks. Allie nudged your arm, giving you a small, knowing smile.
“Don’t combust yet,” she whispered. “You still have two hours of Shakespearean tragedy to survive.”
You snorted, but the sound was shaky. “Please forget all your lines. I want to get drunk.”
Logan laughed loudly at something Finn said. You glanced at him and your brother. Then, you looked back and placed a hand on your friend’s shoulder.
“Scrap that, I need to get drunk,” you said, begging her.
Allie grabbed your hand. Together, you made your way backstage, navigating the chaos of half-dressed students, dresses, and other costumes littered on the floor. You couldn’t help but glance back one more time, hoping that just maybe, Logan was watching you too.
Minutes had passed. The flickering lights signaled showtime. You turned to Allie and Finn and blew them an air kiss, and mouthed, “Good luck! Break a leg.”
You shuffled quickly towards your friends, who had already taken a seat. The seat next to Tucker was free, so you filled it. As you sat down, you glanced at the watermelon he was holding. “Bernado didn’t make the cut?” you asked, laughing. Besides Tucker, the two frat boys started laughing.
“Dean ate him,” he deadpanned, switching the watermelon from his left side to the side you were sitting on. You smiled back at him. “So what’s this guy’s name?” You patted the watermelon softly, like you would pat your dog back at home.
“Life’s too short to name them,” Tucker said, voice sad. You raised your brows, leaned forward to scold the blond and brunette next to him. “Shame on you,” you said. They just laughed harder.
“This seat taken?”
You glanced up and saw Logan. Smiling. At you.
It was the second time he’d startled you tonight. Hopefully, it was the last.
You shook your head slowly. “No, go ahead.”
Logan took the seat next to yours. He couldn’t help but glance at Tucker’s watermelon, about to comment, but you stopped him by touching his arm. His wonderful, muscular arm.
“Don’t,” you whispered, letting your hand linger. “It’s a sensitive topic.”
“Ah,” Logan replied, matching the tone of your voice. He leaned in and smiled his famously wide smile. “Noted.”
You caught yourself holding your breath.
Lights flickered. Dexter appeared on stage. You sighed. He explained Drunk Shakespeare: every time an actor says “line,” everyone drinks a shot.
Last year, Finn got so drunk he finished the show in darkness. Lissandra, then a senior, fell off the stage and broke her arm. Since then, Finn hadn’t been in charge of preparations or allowed near cables.
Your thoughts broke when Dean yelled Logan’s name.
You looked up. Hannah, Garrett, and Logan were on stage. Suddenly, everyone looked at you, the actors and the audience. Dean started clapping, then Beau, Tucker, and the rest soon followed. Tucker pushed you forward. An unfamiliar actor led you to the stage, holding your hand as you leaped up, clutching the veil of your dress.
“Welcome, Helena,” Dexter greeted you as you looked at him with widened eyes. He led you next to Logan, who drummed his fingers against his thigh. You leaned into him, catching the faintest trace of his woody-amber cologne. Your breath hitched just as you were about to ask, “What is happening?”
He laughed and leaned in so close his breath grazed your skin, almost brushing his lips against your ear. Almost. “We’re playing lovers.”
You gulped. His words hit you like an electric shock.
Perfect.
You glanced over at Allie, who noticed and winked at you. She hadn’t forgotten your conversation the morning after karaoke in Malone’s.
You’re going to strangle her.
The show began. It was chaos if you’d ever witnessed it. Bad accents, laughter, and a lot of shots. Allie’s monologue started fine, then shifted. She aired her relationship complaints about Sean, Shakespeare-style, to the whole audience. You clapped a hand over your mouth. “Oh my god,” you chuckled. Hannah stood beside you, mimicking you. “She’s going to call him, isn’t she?” she said.
The show flew by. The shots did too. Midway through the show, you were starting to stumble and slur your words more. Once in a while, you recognized Dean’s voice over the rest of the crowd. Always the first one to drink whenever anyone, on or offstage, called for shots. Who would have thought a Briar U Hawk would love the theatre this much?
If you asked the audience, they would have said the show belonged to you and your friends: you as Helena, Logan as Demetrius, Garrett as Lysander, and Hannah as Hermia. Each of you played one of the lovers tangled up in the Midsummer chaos, which meant you spent most of the play onstage together.
Especially Garrett and Logan. Whenever they shared the spotlight, it felt like watching two toddlers fighting over the same toy. Pure chaos. They also made it their personal mission to get everyone drunk, calling 'line' every few minutes. They got away with it, too, since the cast was too tipsy to care.
During one of your scenes, you tripped over a prop. Logan caught you, steadying you with a hand at your waist. The audience laughed, but you barely registered the sound. Their laughter was subtle, lost amid the hurricane building inside you. Logan removed his hand the moment he was sure you were steady. You sighed and ached for his hand to linger.
So distracted by your own thoughts, you didn’t notice the way his eyes traced your smile. Then he shook his head. Still smiling. Still looking. But this time, his eyes were narrowed as if he was trying to figure something out.
There was a moment. A small moment. Logan and you both broke character. He went quiet during one of his lines. Dexter was holding a cardboard with the exact words he needed to say, shaking the board vigorously, trying to get Logan’s attention.
You leaned in, consumed by the liquid you had been drinking throughout the show. “It’s literally spelled out for you,” you said quietly, laughing.
Logan turned towards you. Your faces were inches apart. Then your laughter died. The world faded. Time definitely stood still. Consumed by the moment, it felt as if the lighting crew directed all the lights onto the curly-haired boy standing next to you. Every freckle, line, and dimple suddenly visible. Like a world-class chef just served his best dish on a silver platter.
“Line!” Finn yelled, and the spell immediately broke. The two of you created more distance between you, and Logan disappeared backstage, leaving you to continue your role as Helena.
He found Allie lounging in an armchair. Her legs against the back, feet in the air as she rested her back against the armrest. “Having fun?” she called once she saw Logan heading towards the drink station. She let her head fall, following his movements with her eyes.
He breathed a laugh. “Honestly, I didn’t expect the night to go like this.” He ran a hand through his curls.
Allie pulled herself up when she felt the heat increasing in her skull. She turned towards Logan, “But are you enjoying yourself?” she asked, studying him. Logan looked up at her. Her wings had fallen a little, and their bands were now resting in the inside of her elbows.
Logan shrugged, but his eyes softened. “Yeah,” he said, “I think so.”
The last part of the show was even more unhinged. Everyone had way too many shots. And everyone was drunk, or almost over the tipsy-to-drunk point. You let yourself be led by the chaos. Enjoying every second of it. Hannah and Garrett’s flirtatious banter. Finn and Allie’s fight for the spotlight.
Logan’s hand accidentally found yours during a scene switch. Your fingers brushed, lingering. You quickened your steps to hide behind a corner offstage. He continued the scene, reading out his line from the cardboard. You closed your eyes, leaning against the wall, listening to his voice. You stayed there for the duration of the rest of the show. Not needed anymore for the play's conclusion.
When the final bow came, Hannah, Garrett, Logan, and you were brought back onto the stage. All the other students in the play joined, including Finn, Dexter, and Allie. You all held hands, bowed towards the audience, clapped, and yelled. Coming back up, you stumbled, quickly catching yourself. Logan, standing next to you, hovered his hand over your lowered back and leaned down.
“Easy there.” Logan’s voice was gentle as he steadied you. You met his eyes, warmth spreading through you, and managed a soft, "Thanks."
“Yo rockstars, come here!” Dean yelled, calling out for all of you. Immediately, you turned towards the direction his voice came from, spotting Dean, Tucker, and Beau at the same spot you left them before the show started. With a grin, you led the way to your friends. Garrett and Hannah trailed behind, followed by Finn and Allie. Logan hung back, watching all of you.
You spun into Beau’s arms, laughing as he twirled you. “Who knew little Bambi looked so good as a fairy?” he teased, and you ducked your head, cheeks burning. Logan watched you laugh at Beau’s words, a pang in his chest. He shook his head, forcing a smile, joining the others just in time for Allie to drag you into a photo. She forced her phone into Finn’s hands and asked him to take a picture of her, Hannah, and you.
After Finn snapped two pictures, Beau and Dean joined. Dean towered over Allie. Beau loosely let his arms hang over your shoulders. Logan’s smile faltered, noticing how Beau’s arms were inches away from your breasts. His stomach plummeted as if he had just stepped off the ledge of the stage, faceplanting the ground.
And just like that, his eyes widened. Not exactly, but it felt like they did. As if they were about to bulge out of his sockets at any moment. His heart beat faster. His breathing quickened.
He took a glance at Hannah, standing between you and Allie. She was laughing at Dean’s antics, and he couldn’t help but notice the way she took every opportunity to look at Garrett. Her eyes lit up every time he looked back. Her hand brushed his arm. Logan glanced at the ground. He realized his breathing was steady again. He didn’t feel like throwing up whenever Hannah and his best friend smiled at each other. Relief bloomed in his chest, and Logan learned he was happy for them.
The afterparty exploded into a night of nightlife. Music thumped through the speakers. Sweat and bodies packed tightly together on the madeshift dance floor. Logan found himself searching the crowd for you, throat aching, heart pounding as he’d just sprinted laps at the rink. As if he were deprived of air and you were the oxygen he so desperately sought.
You drifted from group to group until you found yourself beside Beau. He leaned close, his shoulder brushing yours as you both shouted the lyrics above the music. For a while, the party faded around you. You spun during a change of beat, took a half-step back, and caught Logan’s eyes from across the crowd. It was there for a second. Then gone again, like a skipped beat or a ghost. It was so small. So quick you almost forgot it happened. Almost.
Logan sighed. The words from earlier echoed in his head: “Lysander, keep thy Hermia. I will none. If e'er I loved her, all that love is gone. My heart to her but as guest-wise sojourned, And now to Helen is it home returned, There to remain.”
And maybe. Just maybe. Logan found himself in a similar pickle as Demetrius did in tonight’s play. And it was only just the beginning.
Neither of you knew exactly where the script of your story would go next, but something had shifted tonight. The stage was set. If only either of you dared to step into the spotlight.
summary: allie finds out why dean is the way he is, and why he wasn’t always this way.
—
Allie first notices it three weeks into whatever this thing with Dean becomes.
Not dating. Dean very specifically avoids that word.
But he sleeps in her bed more often than not, steals her food, complains when she doesn’t text him back fast enough, and looks at her sometimes like she’s something precious.
The weird part is the phone calls.
At first she thinks nothing of it.
Dean’s social. Dean’s always texting somebody.
But then she starts noticing patterns.
Like how he’ll leave the room whenever the calls happen.
How his whole demeanor shifts afterward.
How sometimes he comes back looking calmer.
One night she wakes up at three in the morning and realizes Dean isn’t beside her.
She finds him sitting on her tiny apartment balcony in sweatpants and a hoodie, phone pressed to his ear.
His head is bowed slightly.
“You would’ve loved that,” he murmurs quietly. “Garrett ate shit at practice today.”
A pause. Then a soft laugh.
Not his usual loud Dean laugh.
Something gentler.
“You absolutely would’ve made fun of him too.”
Allie freezes in the doorway.
Something about it feels private enough that guilt creeps up her spine immediately.
Dean goes quiet for a second, listening to silence on the other end like there’s actually someone there.
“I miss you.”
Allie steps back before he notices her.
The next morning she almost convinces herself she imagined it.
Until she sees the call log accidentally while Dean’s in the shower.
Outgoing.
Outgoing.
Outgoing.
The same number over and over again.
No incoming calls. Never incoming.
Something cold settles in her stomach.
By the time she finally asks the boys, she’s half convinced Dean has some secret girlfriend hidden somewhere.
Maybe an ex he can’t let go of.
Maybe someone waiting back home.
The hockey house is unusually quiet when she corners them in the kitchen.
Garrett looks up from his laptop. “What’s up?”
Allie crosses her arms. “What’s Dean’s problem?”
Tucker snorts immediately. “You’re gonna need to narrow that down.”
“No, I mean…” She hesitates. “Who’s the girl?”
Logan and Garrett exchange a look instantly.
That answers enough already.
Allie’s stomach tightens. “So there is a girl?”
Nobody says anything for a second.
Then Garrett closes his laptop slowly.
“She was Dean’s…” he says carefully. “Y/N.”
Allie frowns. “Huh?”
And suddenly the mood in the room changes completely like somebody sucked all the air out.
Logan leans back against the counter, quieter than usual. “When Dean was a freshman, he wasn’t…” He gestures vaguely. “Like this.”
“This?” Allie asks softly.
Tucker huffs. “The partying. The hookups. The whole Dean Di Laurentis experience.”
“He was still cocky,” Garrett says. “Still Dean. But different.”
“Softer, some might say.” Logan mutters.
Garrett nods once. “Our boy was in love.”
Allie blinks.
Not interested. Not attached. In love.
“He talked about her constantly,” Tucker says, shaking his head faintly. “It was disgusting honestly.”
Logan laughs softly. “He used to leave parties early because she had eight a.m. classes and couldn’t sleep unless he stayed on the phone with her.”
Then she notices none of them are smiling anymore.
Garrett rubs at his jaw slowly. “One night sophomore year they got into a huge fight.”
Something twists in Allie’s chest immediately.
“What about?”
Logan sighs. “Hockey game.”
And suddenly she can picture it without even knowing the details.
“She wasn’t coming to one of our games,” Garrett says quietly. “I don’t even remember why now. Family thing maybe.”
“Dean took it personally,” Tucker murmurs.
“Which he regretted immediately,” Logan adds sharply.
Garrett nods.
“They fought before she left her apartment. Real fight. Screaming, crying, ugly shit.”
Allie’s stomach drops lower with every word.
“What did he say?”
Garrett’s eyes unfocus slightly.
And suddenly the memory unfolds.
She stood near the door with her coat half on while Dean paced in front of his desk.
“You’re seriously not coming?”
“I told you I can’t.”
“It’s one dinner.”
“It’s my sister’s birthday, Dean.”
“And this is hockey!”
She stared at him incredulously. “You cannot be serious right now.”
Dean was already worked up before she even arrived.
Bad practice.
Coach riding his ass.
Stress clawing under his skin.
“She’s turning sixteen, not getting married.”
Her face fell instantly.
“Wow.”
The second the word left her mouth Dean regretted it.
But he was too angry now.
“You know what I mean.”
“No, Dean, actually I don’t.”
He threw his hands up. “You miss games all the time lately.”
“That is not true.”
“You missed last weekend too.”
“Because I had the flu!”
“You still could’ve come.”
She looked at him like she didn’t recognize him.
“You hear yourself right now?”
Dean dragged a hand through his hair aggressively. “Hockey matters to me.”
“And I don’t?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s what you’re implying.”
“No, what I’m implying is that it’d be nice if my girlfriend showed up for important shit once in a while.”
The second the words landed, hurt flashed across her face.
Deep hurt.
The kind that should’ve stopped him immediately.
Instead Dean doubled down.
Because nineteen-year-old boys are idiots.
“I show up for you constantly,” she whispered.
Dean laughed sharply. “Really? Because lately it feels like I’m the only one trying here.”
Silence.
She stared at him for a long moment.
Then nodded once slowly like something inside her cracked. “That’s unbelievably unfair.”
Dean crossed his arms defensively even as guilt started crawling up his throat.
“You know what?” she said quietly. “I’m not doing this with you tonight.”
She reached for the door.
“Right,” Dean snapped. “Just leave.”
Her hand froze on the handle.
“Dean.”
“What?”
She turned around slowly, eyes glossy now.
“I need you to stop talking to me like I’m disposable every time you’re upset.”
That should’ve been the moment.
The moment he shut up.
Instead his pride got there first.
“If you can’t show up for the important stuff,” he said coldly, “maybe you don’t understand me as well as you think you do. Why even bother being around?”
The words hung there.
She looked like he slapped her.
Dean felt the regret instantly.
But before he could take it back she nodded once.
“Okay.”
Then she walked out.
The door clicked shut behind her.
Dean stood there breathing hard for about three seconds before reality crashed into him.
“Fuck!”
“He called her six times afterward,” Logan says. “Before the game even started.”
Tucker stares down at the counter. “She never answered.”
The room goes completely silent.
Allie already knows.
She knows before Garrett even says it.
“She died in a car accident on the way to the rink. She was coming to see him.”
The words hit like physical force and Allie feels sick instantly.
Garrett’s expression is distant now, like he’s somewhere else entirely.
“Dean found out between periods.”
And suddenly Allie sees it.
Dean at nineteen. Young enough that heartbreak still looked shocking on him.
Cocky hockey star Dean Di Laurentis getting pulled aside in some crowded arena hallway.
Then devastation so complete it rewired him permanently.
“He didn’t cry at first,” Logan says quietly. “That was almost worse.”
“He just kept saying no,” Tucker adds softly. “Over and over. He played the rest of the game.”
Garrett looks toward the hallway like he expects Dean to walk in any second.
“I’ve never seen somebody break like that.”
Allie presses a hand against her chest.
Every weird thing suddenly makes horrible sense.
The phone calls.
The emotional distance.
The way Dean clings too tightly to people while pretending not to care at all.
“He calls her?” she whispers.
Garrett nods once.
“Sometimes after games. Sometimes when he’s drunk. Sometimes when something good happens.” His throat tightens slightly. “Because she was his person.”
Allie’s eyes burn.
“He can’t talk to anyone,” Logan says quietly. “Not really. Not the way he talked to her. Many have tried.”
There’s movement in the hallway.
All four of them look up.
Dean walks in towelling off wet hair.
He glances between their faces immediately.
“What?”
Nobody speaks.
Dean frowns. “Why do you all look weird?”
Then his eyes land on Allie.
And something in her expression must give it away.
Because Dean goes still.
Completely still.
For one horrible second Allie watches panic flicker across his face.
Raw and young and terrified.
Not because he’s angry.
Because he knows.
He knows she knows now.
And suddenly Allie understands something else too.
Dean doesn’t sleep around because he feels nothing.
Dean sleeps around because feeling everything almost killed him once.
Summary: You were walking into the hockey house with your friends, Hannah and Allie. Your brother, Garrett Graham, lived here with his teammates and friends. John Tucker, John Logan and Dean Di Laurentis.
You all attend Briar University (Briar U). The guys had won a game tonight, which meant that it was party time at the house, the house was packed with people. More specifically, Puck Bunnies.
Warnings: Phil Graham (not in this part), anxiety/panic attacks mentioned, sex
Dean Di Laurentis. The biggest man-whore of Briar U. His carefree and funny persona and his cocky attitude got him all the girls he wanted. Obviously, his looks didn’t hurt to look at either. He was 6’5 with gorgeous blonde hair and striking blue eyes. Being Garrett’s sister, Dean has always tried to get to you. He flirts with you every chance he gets. But Dean is never serious about anyone. He always says he doesn’t do relationships. Not that you care.
You and the girls walk into the kitchen where the guys were. Hannah was Graham’s girlfriend, which meant she went right to him. You look down at your clothes, feeling a bout of self-consciousness. Allie had lent you her red corset top tonight, saying “You haven’t been out since…” She stops, “You should look hot!”
You feel a presence next to you and don’t have to look up to know who it is.
“Hello Dean.” You say with an annoyed tone to your voice.
His signature smirk spreads across his face as he leans against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest-showing off those broad shoulders that made most girls swoon.
“Miss me already, baby doll?” His voice is low, teasing, as his blue eyes drag slowly down to the red top and your exposed cleavage, then back up. “Because I noticed you the second you walked in here.”
You scoff. “Huh really? Because I didn’t notice you at all.” You say sarcastically.
He lets out a low, deep chuckle, clearly enjoying the sarcasm. He shifts closer, his tall frame looming over you, effectively trapping you against the counter with his arms caging you in.
“Liar.” He murmurs the word, his voice dropping an octave as he looks down at you. “You always know exactly where I am, baby doll.”
You avoid his eyes, you always do. You feel your heart beating faster. You push on his chest to get him to move.
“Unfortunately for you it’s because you’re fucking everywhere.” You scoff again.
His hand catches your wrist mid-push, his thumb tracing slow circles over your pulse point-feeling how fast it’s racing. He doesn’t move an inch, just leans in closer, his breath warm against your ear.
“Keep telling yourself that, baby doll.” He murmurs, his voice thick with amusement and something darker. “But that little heartbeat under my thumb says otherwise.”
Before you could justify yourself, you hear;
“Hey! Dean! I told you to stop hitting on my sister!” Garrett appears next to you guys.
Dean’s smirk doesn’t even falter, he just keeps his eyes locked on you, thumb still pressed to your racing pulse. “Can’t help it, man. She comes into my house, wearing that,” he gestures lazily at your top with his free hand, “What am I supposed to do?”
“Jesus Christ.” Garrett groans, rubbing his face. “Just…leave her alone, okay? Off limits, Di Laurentis.” He says half joking, half dead serious.
Dean finally let’s go of your wrist, but not before brushing his thumb one last teasing time over your pulse. He steps back, hands raising in surrender, but his smirk is still firmly in place. “Off limits, got it, captain.” He winks at you over Garrett’s shoulder. “For now.”
Garrett gives you a sympathetic look before being pulled away by Hannah.
You roll your eyes, looking around the room to see if you could spot Allie but low and behold, she’s nowhere to be seen.
Of course she’s gone, why am I surprised?
The second she saw Logan or Tucker; she’d vanish into the crowd. Dean watches you scan the room, then steps back into your personal space when he sees you’re alone again.
“Lost your protectors, baby doll?” He grabs two beers from the fridge, twists one open, and hands it to you without asking. “Don’t look so panicked.”
You eye the beer bottle in his outstretched hand, feeling anxiety bubble up your chest.
“I-I don’t drink at parties’ thanks.” You ignore the beer and push down the memories.
Dean doesn’t press you about the beer, but his eyes stay locked on you like he’s trying to figure out the puzzle. The music pounds through the house and through bodies that were grinding against each other on the makeshift dance floor. He watches you shift uncomfortably, clearly out of your element.
“You look miserable, baby doll.” He finally says, voice low and close. “Want me to take you somewhere quieter?”
You nod subconsciously, not even realising what he said apart from the words “somewhere quieter.”
Dean grabs your head, silently asking for your consent, you squeeze his hand and he immediately weaves you through the crowded house. His grip is firm and warm, surprisingly gentle. He leads you upstairs, past the chaos, to a quiet bedroom at the end of the hall. He closes the door behind you, muting the noise from downstairs.
You sigh in relief, feeling air enter back into your lungs finally.
He leans back against the closed door, watching you exhale like you’ve been holding your breath since you walked through the front door. The room is dim, lit only by a streetlamp outside the window. It’s quiet, finally.
“You looked like you were like five seconds away from a panic attack down there.” He observes softly, losing the cocky smirk for a genuine, concerned expression after you don’t reply. “You okay?”
You nod slowly. Shaking your hands out to rid you of the anxiety you feel.
He watches you shake your hands out, recognising the physical notion of someone trying to regulate their nerves. He stays by the door, giving you space, crossing his ankles casually. No flirting, no teasing. Just calm observation.
“Breathe, Baby doll.” He says quietly, his voice low and steady in the quiet room. “You’re safe up here. Nobody’s gonna bother you.”
“Except you.” You say with a light exhausted laugh, still shaking your hands out in front of you.
He actually laughs back at that remark, the sound surprisingly warm and genuine. “Fair point. But you know I’m not gonna bother you like the other assholes down there.” He pushes off the door, moving slowly like he’s approaching a skittish animal.
You show a genuine smile. You notice that this was his room, just by the smell, his smell you knew all too well.
You suddenly remember where you were and who you were with. “I-I’m sorry I’m okay I promise, I’ll just go back to Bristol House.” You turn rapidly.
He stops you, “Whoa, whoa.” He holds up his hands in surrender. “No need to apologise and you’re not going back out there right now.” He moves closer but doesn’t crowd you. “You were shaking like a leaf down there, baby doll. Just…stay here for a minute.”
You relax at his words, “Okay.” You say quietly.
He nods, satisfied with your agreement. He notices you holding your arms over your chest self-consciously. So, he walks over to his dresser and grabs a hoodie, tossing it to you gently. “Here.” He watches as you catch it awkwardly, still trying to shake off the last remnants of your anxiety.
You tug it over your head and pull it over your body. You close your eyes, inhaling his scent, forgetting that he was right there watching.
You open your eyes and find him smirking at you. You blush a deep red and stop your inhale. “Uh thank you.”
His smirk softens into something almost tender, and for once there’s no teasing in his eyes. “Did you just smell my hoodie?” He asks, voice low with amusement rather than mockery. He steps closer, not threateningly, just… curiously. “That’s fucking adorable, baby doll.”
You feel heat pool in the bottom of your stomach at him calling you ‘baby doll’ again.
“Okay I should go, thank you for this but I have a lecture early tomorrow so uh, tell my brother I said bye?” You don’t wait for him to respond and swiftly exit his room, making your way down the stairs and out the front door before anyone notices, you get on your bike and ride back to Bristol House.
Dean watches you go, a small smile playing on his lips. He doesn’t bother chasing after you, knowing it would just freak you out more. Instead, he leans against the door frame, watching your figure disappear into the darkness as you ride away.
I hope you enjoyed this? I decided to write my own because where are all the off campus Dean fics at??
I'll do part 2 depending on how this part goes down...
when did you get hot -- d.di laurentis
---- as garrett graham's little sister you've known the hockey boys since you were in high school and now that youre in sophomore year of college you've decided to transfer to briar u. what the boys didn't know about you was that you had definitely grown up.
word count: 3.3k
playlist:
-- when did you get hot by sabrina carpenter
-- bad idea right? by olivia rodrigo
-- bed chem by sabrina carpenter
The porch buzzed under your feet like it was ready to give out at any moment. The music was shitty and loud enough for people to hear a block down. That should’ve been your first cue to leave.
You stood outside your brother’s infamous house and contemplated actually going in. Girls in tiny skirts and guys with backwards hats competed to blackout first around you, shoving in and out of the door. That was reason #1 you had avoided this night for three months. Your phone buzzing in your purse shook you out of your thoughts, Garrett’s contact name popped up on your screen as soon as you looked.
dumbass graham: Where r u?
you: outside of ur house contemplating disowning you as my brother
dumbass graham: You are so dramatic
dumbass graham: Get inside or im sending logan
You sighed at your brother's message, shoving your phone back into your sparkly purse before smoothing your dress down for the millionth time. The dress was fine. A little more than fine, maybe. Tight in all the right places and deep red and just short enough that made you take a double take. You had tried on four before your roommates found this one and practically forced it upon you. They had told you it was going to give hot transfer and not slutty puck bunny but you still weren’t sure about it.
The door swung open in front of you before you could change your mind and run away and John Logan popped out, grabbing your wrist.
“There you are. Were you planning on standing there all night?” Garrett said, standing at the door, as Logan pulled you through.
The second you were in the house you hated it. The smell of beer, boys, bad music, and hockey hit you like a semi truck and you wrinkled your nose. Your brother laughed at your put out expression and continued dragging you with him and Logan despite you slapping at his arm. Girls and guys looked your way, wondering who the new girl with the Briar U superstars were.
That's why you originally hadn’t chosen Briar. You wanted somewhere you could be something other than Garrett Graham’s little sister and Phil Graham’s daughter. Everyone knew your dad and your brother, because everyone knew hockey. You hated that. You hated hockey. You had escaped for something different. Ireland. Which was safe and different until it wasn’t.
“Look who we found loitering on the porch” Your brother said while chuckling to his friends standing in the kitchen. You finally looked up. Tucker was the first you made eye contact with and he pulled you in for a hug before you knew it. Then your eyes hit Dean Di Laurentiis.
Dean was leaning against the counter with a red solo cup and a stupid smile gracing his features. Somewhere between your senior year of high school and this party Dean stopped looking like another one of your brother’s idiot teammates and started looking like a walking talking issue for your focus. He’d gotten hotter. And taller. And bigger. You had to take a second to ask yourself if this really still is your big brother’s asshole friend Dean. His arms stretched his gray t-shirt and when his eyes locked on you something in them sharpened with sudden interest.
“Y/N, you remember the guys,” Garrett said, oblivious to your reaction as always. “You remember, Logan, Tucker, Dean, obviously, and that’s Beau.”
Beau lifted his glass and smiled in greeting. Your brother was rambling on about Hannah and Ally and wanting you to meet them. You had never heard of your brother having a serious girlfriend but that made you all the more excited to meet her.
“Oh shit, Wellsy’s here!”
Logan pointed to two pretty girls walking into the door behind you and went with Garrett to go get them. Traitors. You thought. Now it was you, Dean, Tucker, and Beau. You hoped they were enough of a buffer that you wouldn’t freak out at the thought of being this close to Dean.
“Do you want a drink?” Beau said from your side, laughing at the look on your face like he knew exactly who you were freaking out about.
“Please.”
Beau stepped around Dean and to the fridge just as Tucker walked out of the kitchen to go talk to a girl he saw in the distance. You moved toward Beau to get the drink he was holding out but Dean beat you to it, stepping in front of you to hand you the drink himself. Beau smiled into his cup, knowing exactly what the look in Dean’s eyes meant. Dean’s eyes looked you up and down slowly and a familiar heat creeped up onto your face, before his mouth tilted into a mischievous smirk.
“When did you get hot, Graham?”
Instead of blushing or swooning at the sentence you found yourself in a fight of laughter. Not soft giggles either, loud, loud laughter that had tears coming to your eyes. Dean always found a way to remind you he hadn’t changed. He was still just another hockey player. An unbelievably charming and hot hockey player, but a hockey player still.
“God, do all hockey players have such shitty lines or is it just you D?” You got out between fits of laughter. Dean blinked at you, clearly not expecting that reaction. Beau joined you laughing. Dean was quick to recover though and his stunned look turned into a shit eating grin.
“There she is.”
Your eyebrows lifted, “There who is?”
“The girl who met me once and immediately told me hockey was a cult?”
“It is a cult. I stand by that” You grinned back at him, shrugging lightly.
“It’s a sport.”
“You literally live together.”
“That’s brotherhood, little G.”
“You all share one brain cell, no original nicknames or ideas.” You rolled your eyes at the nickname, Garrett had the dumbest nicknames for you and his friends always picked up on them.
Dean stepped closer to you and you took a step back, hitting the counter. He looked entirely too entertained and entirely too attractive. Beau had left somewhere in the middle of your stupid conversation without a word, and you suddenly realized you had stopped paying attention to anything besides him.
“Dean.” You said softly, trying to get any words out before you were too flustered to say anything. His eyes locked into yours and your blush was ten tones deeper. He leaned one arm on the counter beside you, keeping the other side open, like he was letting you have the option of escaping, but you stayed put where you were.
“Yes, Y/N?” Dean’s shit eating grin was still plastered on his face which meant he knew exactly what he was doing.
“Do you think if I left this party right now my brother would send a search party out?”
“Graham, I think if you tried to leave this party right now before meeting Hannah your brother would send the campus police after you.” You tried to focus on anything but the way you could feel his breath on you or his hand inches away from your waist.
“Do you like her?”
“Who? Wellsy?” You nodded, trying to change the subject. And if Dean noticed he didn’t do anything to stop it.
“Yeah, Garrett likes her a lot. She’s really good for him.” Dean pauses. “Are you still with that guy from Ireland?”
Your eyes moved from your brother and Hannah making their way to the kitchen back to Dean. You hadn’t realized you didn’t delete those pictures.
“Oh, uh no. I’m not.” You had dated Ernie for 6 months while you were in Ireland. 6 months of telling your family about him and bragging and posting him. 6 months of him cheating on you with your roommate. But you didn’t tell anyone that last part.
“His loss.” Dean got the hint to change the subject when all you did was hum in response. “Do you still hate us?”
“Hockey?” You corrected. “Yes. Deeply. Passionately. For the rest of my life.”
“You know it’s your families whole personality right?”
“And look how that turned out.”
Dean laughed again. Not the same as before, when he was tyring to flirt. It was softer. More real. And you laughed with him.
“You know,” He said thoughtfully, “Last time I saw you was when you were yelling at Tucker and Logan for eating all your tiramisu.”
“Hey, I had spent like 3 hours making that” You said, trying to be serious and failing immediately. A big grin taking over your features. “I stand by my reaction.”
“I still can’t believe you were making tiramisu at 17.”
You shrugged. “Some people develop useful hobbies”
“Some people have dedicated their lives to a sport”
“Some people also peak in college.”
“Ouch” Dean laughed, staring at you with a look you couldn’t quite figure out. “You know after a whole year in Ireland I figured you’d knocked that Boston accent out of you.”
“I do not have a Boston accent, you ass.”
“You do. Garrett never really had one but yours was always there. You can hear it when you say vowels.”
Your hand flew to your mouth, embarrassed. “Oh my god, Dean, shut up”
“There it is again.”
“I don’t have an accent.”
“You absolutely do.”
“It comes out when I’m tired.” You try defending.
“That’s so cute.” Dean smiled smugly.
Your stomach did a horrifying flip and you laughed with your head in your hands. Dean’s hand was now resting on the counter behind your back and it was like his closeness was bruning into you now. Before you could say anything, Garrett’s voice cut threw the kitchen.
“Why are you standing so close to my sister?”
You went to take a step away but Dean stayed put, not caring. Which unfortunately made you look a lot guiltier. Dean, on the other hand, looked unbothered.
“Relax, G.” he said easily, grabbing his cup off the counter behind where you were standing. “We were catching up, I haven’t seen her since freshman year.”
“About your trip?” Garrett sounded like he was about to accuse you and Dean of something else but Hannah thankfully stepped up instead.
“Hi, you must be Y/n, I’m Hannah.” She was adorable, you’d give Garrett that. You smiled at her, grateful for the interruption and the chance to feel like you could breathe again with Dean slightly less close with you.
“Hannah!” You repeated warmly. “Logan and Garrett do not shut up about you.”
Garrett scoffed and Logan started to interrupt you but you continued anyways “Garrett made me listen to him talk about you for an hour on facetime like a week ago when you guys met. I almost hung up.”
Hannah laughed and gave you a quick hug as another girl came up to stand next to her.
“This is Allie.” Hannah said, pointing to the girl standing besides her. They were both even prettier up close. Allie smiled at you very knowingly. As if she had seen Dean and you pressed against the counter and understood everything going on in your head.
“It’s nice to finally meet you.” Allie said.
“You too.”
Garrett and Hannah were absorbed in their own world within seconds, and Allie had run off to find her boyfriend. Logan was staring at Hannah like he was going to cry if he had to watch her be with Garrett for a second longer. You liked this. You liked Garrett’s friends. Almost enough to distract you from the hate you had for parties.
Dean pushed off the counter and came closer to you again, dipping down to talk into your ear so you could hear him over the music.
“Are you hungry?”
“What?” Your brows furrowed and you turned away from your brother towards Dean behind you.
“You look hungry.” Dean shrugged.
“That’s got to be the worst line you’ve used”
“It’s not a line.” He protested. “You just don’t seem like you like this party and you look like you’re planning on robbing our kitchen.”
“It’s not that, I just don’t like parties” You don’t know what made you be honest. Dean just seemed to bring it out of you tonight. Dean didn’t seem to enjoy that answer and took your drink from your hand, putting it on the counter.
“Dean–” You started protesting, but he ignored you completely.
“You hate parties?” He repeated as he guided you somewhere through the crowd. Your brother and his friends left behind you in the kitchen.
“I hate hockey parties.”
“It’s because you were never at my hockey parties”
“You all smell like axe body spray and terrible cheap alcohol.”
Dean laughed loudly, dinally stopping at the edge of the makeshift dancefloor in their house. The music was too loud, the bass vibrating beneath your too high heels.
“This is my nightmare.” you yelled over the music, gesturing wildly.
Dean turned towards you with an amused smile, “Yet you still followed me.”
You rolled your eyes but warmth spread through your chest despite yourself. Dean moved closer, one of his hands settling on your waist like it belonged there. Your brain short circuited as you looked down at the hand.
“You’re tense.” He said like it was the most obvious thing, like there was no reason to be, like his hand wasn’t sitting on your waist, swaying you.
“I’m standing in the middle of a dance floor surrounded by drunk athletes and girls who would kill to be dancing with you.”
“And?”
“And I’m much too sober for this.”
Dean barked out a laugh. “That bad at dancing, huh Graham?”
“You have no idea”
“You know,” Dean said, leaning too close, “for someone who hates hockey players, your eyes haven’t left me all night.”
Your jaw dropped instantly at the insinuation. You thought you were being so slick.
“I am not staring at you.”
“Sure, Graham.”
“You are delusional. You just think every girl would kill to be with you.”
“Cute deflection.”
Before you could come up with a response, Tucker came barelling through the two of you, much drunker than when you had left them.
“OH MY GOD.” He slurred loudly at the two of you. “It’s time for shots!”
Tucker grabbed both of you, and leaned towards Dean, whisper shouting at him.
“Dean, if Garrett kills you I am taking your room.” Dean shoved him away with a laugh and the three of you made your way to the kitchen.
The night blurred after that. Somewhere between Beau and Allie singing showtunes and Tucker starting a dance battle with himself, you stopped checking the time and accidentally started having fun.
By midnight your ribs were sore from laughing and by one in the morning you were sure your cheeks were permanently red thanks to Dean. And by two, you were drunk. Not blackout drunk, but too drunk to stop yourself from saying something stupid. And way too drunk to walk home. Way too drunk to pretend like every time Dean leaned in you didn’t stop mid sentence to look at him.
“You okay?” He asked, steadying you as someone bumped you while walking by.
“I hate you.”
“For what?”
“You made me enjoy a hockey party. That’s deeply embarrassing.”
Dean’s grin softened. “There she is again.”
“Stop saying shit like that.”
“Like what?”
“Things that make me almost like you.”
Dean looks genuinely offended. “Almost?”
You laughed into your drink at his reaction before finally checking your phone. 2:27am. Your eyes widened. You had to go home.
“Oh my god.”
“What?”
“I need my brother.”
Dean made a face immediately and you shoved his shoulder. “Shut up, D. I need him to take me home. Him and Hannah were the only ones not drinking.”
Dean pulled his phone out to call your brother for you as you tried and failed to stand up straight without his help. A few seconds passed before he started laughing.
“What?”
Dean just turned his phone toward you.
Garrett: DO NOT COME UP HERE UNLESS IT’S AN EMERGENCY.
Garrett: also hannah says bye :)
“Oh my god” You groaned, putting your face in your hands.
“Well,” Dean said, looking far too entertained. “Looks like your ride abandoned you.”
“I hate everyone in this house.”
“That’s not fair.” Dean laughed again. “Beau didn’t do anything.”
You grounded dramatically and leaned your forehead against his chest for a second to steady yourself before realizing what you were doing and immediately straightening. Dean noticed. Of course he noticed. His grin turned lazy.
“You’re drunk, Graham.”
“And you need to think of a better nickname.”
“Drunk and mean.” He laughed. “Baby doll, you’re swaying.”
. “That’s what you think was the better option.” Your face burned at the nickname. “I’m standing perfectly still.”
“You haven’t stood still in 20 minutes.” Dean said. “You almost ran into the wall.”
“The wall almost hit me.”
Dean let out a soft laugh and reached out to steady you. The contact felt unfairly natural at this point in the night, you leaned into it.
“So what do I do, D?” You pouted. “Sleep on your disgusting sex couch?”
“You can take my room.”
“That’s arguably so much worse.”
Dean laughed at you but pushed you towards the stairs anyways.
“Dean, stop, where will you sleep then? I can’t take your bed the night before practice.”
“Great point, guess we’re sharing.”
You tried to ignore the warmth in your chest at his offering. You tried to convince yourself it’s just because you’re drunk but you know better. You tried to remind yourself who this was. It’s Dean Di Laurentis. Your brother’s Dean. Cocky, flirty, hockey, Dean who you know has slept with half the girls on campus.
“Dean.”
“Y/N.”
“This is a bad idea.” You tried to sound confident but it came out more as a question than anything.
“Your brother would kill me if I let you walk and he’d kill me if you slept on the couch.” He pursed his lips, thinking for a second before deciding it was fine. “It’s fine.”
The two of you headed up to his room and he tossed you a shirt and sweatpants that were way too long. You laughed.
“What?” He looked at you staring at the clothes. “Are they ugly?”
“No, no, they’re just huge.”
“Well if you’d rather sleep without clothes, I won’t protest.”
You threw a pillow at him as he laughed and you went into the bathroom. When you came back out Dean was shirtless wearing just sweatpants. You looked at him, frozen where you were standing for a second before dumping your dress and heels outside of the bathroom and swaying over to the bed.
“You had fun tonight.”
You opened your mouth to protest but stopped yourself. You couldn’t deny it. Because annoyingly, you did have fun, a lot of fun. Not just with Dean. With Logan and Tucker and Allie and you had fun watching your brother fall head over heels with Hannah too. A soft silence passed between the two of you before he got in bed next to you.
“Thank you, Dean.” Something in his expression softened. And then his eyes flickered down to your mouth. For a second both of you were too close. But neither of you moved. The music downstairs died down softly and the only sounds that could be heard was the shuffling of people coming upstairs and voices from the other rooms.
“You know,” Dean said with a smirk that made you think he was 100% going to ruin the moment. “This is going to make me look really good when you tell people you don’t actually hate hockey players.”
You laughed softly at him and shoved a pillow in his face. “Don’t push it, Di Laurentis.”
Dean grinned at you and then before either of you could do anything too stupid he turned around and turned the light off.
“Get some sleep, Graham.”
Dean settled beside you and you realized two very unfortunate things. One: Dean Di Laurentis is going to be the death of you. Two: You don’t think you mind.
summary: Retired from your old life, you had comfortably settled down at Hell's Kitchen running a bookstore next to Nelson & Murdock. When your past comes knocking at your door again, you pray to god it doesn't affect your relationship with Matt.
warnings: cussing, lack of proofreading (rip), canon typical violence, it’s mostly action, fluff, and comedy
a/n: going through the matt drafts like my life depends on it lmaooooo enjoy <3
——————————————————————————————————
Blood dripped from your busted lip as you looked up from your knees, another blow snapping your head to the side. Your assailant loomed above you, fists still clenched, breathing heavy. You laughed at him, knowing that even after his efforts and all that he's putting you through, he is either going to walk away without the information he's in search of, or he's not going to be able to walk away at all.
"I'm asking you one last time, bitch. Where is she?"
"Go to hell," you sneered, your voice dripping with malice.
Before he could react, you surged upward, slamming your shoulder into his gut. He stumbled back with a grunt— off balance just long enough for you to twist, swing your leg out, and sweep his feet from under him. He hit the ground hard, and you didn’t give him time to recover. You dropped your weight on his chest, drove your knee into his ribs, then slammed your forehead into his nose with a sickening crack.
He yelled, tried to shove you off, but you were faster— rolled to your side, hooked your tied wrists under his chin, and yanked back with everything you had. His head snapped back. The struggle was short. One last jerk, and he slumped beneath you, out cold.
You sat there for a moment, breathing hard, blood on your tongue and your pulse roaring in your ears. You managed to free your hands, the binds falling away. Instinctively, you brought one hand up to rub at the angry, red mark circling your opposite wrist— thumb pressing into the sore skin as you exhaled through your nose, steadying yourself.
Slowly but carefully, you staggered towards the dresser and pulled out the burner phone you had stashed away, to be used only in case of emergencies. You called the only other number on the phone, your voice strained but low.
"Yelena. We have a problem."
——————————————————————————————————
"Mac and cheese? I make really good mac and cheese."
"No, Yelena. I'm good."
"Suit yourself."
You sat at the counter of your kitchen, icing your split lip. Yelena rummaged through the pantry, letting out a satisfied 'a-ha' when she found a box of Kraft mac and cheese tucked all the way at the back. You know, the usual routine after you get rid of a body with your colleague from ages ago.
"So, is now a good time for you to tell me why a guy broke into my apartment asking for you, or..."
"You sure you don't want my mac and cheese? Trust me, it's really—"
"Yelena."
"Alright, fine. I may be on the run from the Ranskahov brothers."
You exhaled sharply, dragging a hand down your face, jaw tight and eyes closing in defeat. "You're what?"
"It is no big deal, I can deal with it."
"No big deal? Yelena, a man broke into my apartment at midnight and we just got rid of his unconscious body."
"Your point being?"
"Wh— This is a big deal!" you exclaimed, unable to comprehend how she was so relaxed about it.
"Relax, Sunshine. I got this under control, I promise."
You stared at her, slack-jawed. “Clearly, you don’t. I just took a punch to the face in my own apartment because of your mess.”
She shrugged, unfazed as she stirred the mac and cheese with a wooden spoon. “Well, technically he was already in your apartment. You were just... surprised to see him.”
You set the ice pack down with a thud. “You’re unbelievable.”
“Oh, come on,” she said, grinning. “What happened to that sharp reflexes, stone-cold killer, don’t-mess-with-me energy? Getting soft?”
You narrowed your eyes. “You think I’m out of touch?”
Yelena tilted her head, weighing it. “You’ve been... domesticated.”
You raised an eyebrow. “Try me.”
She considered you for a beat, then gave a small, amused nod. “Alright. Point taken.”
You leaned back, arms folded. “Let’s end this. You and me. Whatever's left of the Ranskahov crew— we shut it down.”
Yelena raised her hands in mock surrender. “Your words, not mine. I’m just here for emotional support and cheese.”
Then, a beat passed. She stirred the pot idly, quieter now. “You sure you're up for this?”
You gave her a look.
“No, I mean really,” she said. “You're not worried about the lawyer finding out?”
You froze, just for a second.
“It’s been, what— five, six months?” Yelena added, not unkindly. “You think he’s gonna notice if you disappear for a day or two?”
You glanced down at the counter. “It’s not about him noticing.”
Yelena shrugged. “So what is it?”
You didn’t answer right away. The silence between you filled with the soft bubbling of the stovetop and your pulse in your ears.
“It’s just... different now,” you said finally.
Yelena gave you a knowing look. “I mean, no one’s gonna know. It’s what we do, isn’t it?”
You looked up at her.
“Ghost in, ghost out. We finish what we started.”
“Let the record show,” you said, getting to your feet, “I’m helping because you nearly got me killed. Again.”
“Let the record also show,” she said, sliding a bowl across the counter to you, “I did not ask for help.”
You took the bowl, a smile tugging at your lips despite yourself— soft, almost reminiscent. There was something familiar about the moment. The crappy mac and cheese. The bruises. The adrenaline still fading from your bloodstream. For a second, it felt like the old days. Like the good parts in between the hell you went through.
Yelena caught the look immediately. “Aha,” she said, pointing the spoon at you. “You missed this.”
“Shut up.”
——————————————————————————————————
The next afternoon, your shop smelled like cinnamon and dust— paperbacks piled on mismatched shelves, the old ceiling fan overhead rattling faintly in protest. In complete contrast to your past, you had made quite a home for yourselves at a cosy little corner of hell's kitchen, snuggled right next to the Nelson & Murdock office.
Matt sat across from you at the little table in the back corner, his cane resting against the chair, his jacket draped on the back of it.
The two of you had made a habit of lunching here once or twice a week— sometimes with food, sometimes with nothing but stubborn cases and terrible coffee. Today it was takeout from the Thai place around the block.
You pushed your noodles around with your fork, watching him sip his tea like it wasn’t hot enough to melt steel.
“So,” Matt said casually, “about tonight— I was going to ask if we could rain check.”
You blinked. “Oh— yeah. I was going to say the same thing. I’ve got some errands to run."
He nodded. “Foggy dropped a mountain of files on my desk this morning. I’ll be chained to the office most of the night.”
He said it too neatly. No stammer. No sigh. No frustration about the files. Just a clean, compact sentence, tied with a bow.
Your eyes narrowed— just barely. There it was. That was his tell. You almost knew it by heart now. He didn’t fidget, didn’t shift in his seat. He stilled. Too polished. Too calm.
He was lying.
You smiled like you believed him.
“That’s a shame,” you said lightly, taking a sip of your water. “I was kind of looking forward to it.”
“I was too,” he said, and he meant it— just not the way he said.
You nodded and changed the subject, let it drop between you like nothing had happened. If he noticed anything off in your tone, he didn’t show it. Eventually, he gathered his things and stood.
“I’ll call you later?” he offered.
“Yeah,” you said, standing with him. “We’ll pick a better night.”
He reached for his jacket, adjusted the fold of his cane, and turned to leave— when the bell above the door jingled.
Yelena stepped inside, sunglasses perched in her hair, a paper bag in one hand and a too-innocent smile on her face.
“Aw, look at this. My two favorite nerds.”
Matt paused mid-step. “Yelena.”
“Mr. Murdock,” she said brightly. “Fancy seeing you here. Hope I’m not interrupting any... legal bonding.”
You deadpanned. “You are. But don’t let that stop you.”
Matt chuckled under his breath. “I’ll leave you to it.”
You watched him leave— pausing just long enough to lean in and press a soft kiss to your lips, quick and warm, like punctuation at the end of a long sentence. Then he was gone.
Yelena waited a full beat after the door shut before turning to you with a look.
“You lied to him, didn’t you?”
You picked up your half-finished drink and took a long sip. “Only because he lied first.”
Yelena looked thrilled. “Ohhh, this is gonna be fun.”
——————————————————————————————————
The docks reeked of salt and rust, the fog rolling in heavy over the water like it had something to hide. Yelena crouched beside you behind a stack of shipping containers, her braid pulled tight, her knives already slick with someone else's blood.
"Four more on the upper level," she said, voice low and steady.
"Two by the crates, one pacing by the boat," you added. "Third’s probably on lookout.”
Yelena grinned. “Just like Budapest.”
“I’m not reminiscing with you while hiding and smelling like fish.”
You were already moving— silent, efficient. Two guards down in under a minute. A third turned, startled, just in time to catch Yelena’s elbow in the face.
You were halfway to the second stack when a thud hit the ground behind you. A figure in red.
You turned, ready to strike.
"Easy," came the familiar voice.
Your heart skipped once. Just once.
Daredevil.
Yelena straightened beside you, blade still in hand. “Dude. What the hell.”
“I’m not here to get in the way, I swear,” Daredevil said, tone even, unreadable. “We could work together.”
You exchanged a look with Yelena. Her brows lifted, daring you to call the shots.
"Fine," you said. “Just, don’t slow us down.”
He nodded once, readying himself— then tilted his head slightly in Yelena’s direction.
“She's new. Who’s your friend?”
Yelena smirked, stepping past him with a gleam in her eye. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
And then you moved— no time for anything else.
The fight was fast, chaotic— muffled grunts, broken bones, steel against skin. You worked like you'd never left the field. Knife, fist, elbow. Yelena at your side. And Daredevil... flanking, striking, always just in the right place at the right time.
But that was the problem.
He was too good.
He moved like he didn’t even need to look at the layout. God knows if he can even see anything through that mask. Dodged a swing from behind without looking. Tilted his head slightly every time someone approached, like he heard them coming—
And when you shouted, “Duck!” mid-sweep, he reacted a beat faster than sight could manage.
Your chest went cold.
Blind. Bruises. Lies. His voice. Your eyes locked on his masked face mid-spin and suddenly, everything clicked.
Holy shit.
Holy. Shit.
Matt.
You didn’t miss a beat— kept fighting, didn’t let it show. But you knew. And he didn’t know you knew.
And Matt? He was noticing things too.
The precision in your hits. The way you landed without sound. Your balance. Your calm. The way your heartbeat never spiked, even in the thick of blood and noise.
He’d heard it before— more than once, in quieter moments. In the space between conversations at your bookstore, when you handed him a cup of coffee and your fingers brushed his. In the office, when you laughed at something Foggy said and tried to hide it behind a file. He’d memorized your rhythm without ever meaning to.
And now, in the chaos, it was unmistakable. His chest clenched mid-fight.
You.
The realization hit him like a punch to the ribs, followed by an actual punch to the ribs. He quickly recovered and retaliated, still lost in his thoughts.
That was you moving beside him— calculated, silent, lethal.
You weren’t supposed to be here. You weren’t supposed to be like this. But you were. You moved like someone who didn’t just know violence— you had lived in it. Adapted to it. Survived it. He could hear it in the way you breathed, the way you anticipated hits like you'd studied the fight before it even started.
It clicked halfway through the second wave of men— when you threw your body in front of his and took a hit that should’ve been his. You winced, gritted your teeth, and kept moving like nothing happened.
He ducked under a pipe and drove his fist into a man’s gut, head spinning now for a different reason. You weren’t just the girl next door with the most cozy bookstore in the world.
You were trained. Conditioned. Deadly.
Widow, he thought. Of course. Of course, you’re a Widow.
The realization didn’t slow him down— if anything, it made him faster. He pivoted to cover your blind side just as you lunged forward to disarm the final gunman. Back-to-back, two silent protectors tangled in a storm of fists and steel and fury.
The last guy went down hard. Silence followed. Heavy breathing, the clatter of a gun skidding across the dock. You turned to look at Daredevil—
But he was already gone. Just like that.
Yelena jogged up behind you, wiping blood off her knife with a rag. “Okay,” she panted. “That was not part of the plan, but it was less of a shit show than I expected."
You stared at the empty space where he’d vanished.
Your heart was still racing, but for a very different reason now.
“I… I think I know who that was,” you murmured.
Yelena raised an eyebrow. “Well? Don’t leave me hanging.”
You turned to her slowly, wide-eyed.
“Dude,” you said breathlessly. “You’re not gonna believe this.”
——————————————————————————————————
You slammed the door behind you, tossed your keys into the bowl by the entrance, and stood there for a second, wide-eyed and winded.
Matt. Murdock. Was. Daredevil.
You turned slowly to look at Yelena, who was flopped dramatically on your couch, one boot already off, the other halfway dangling.
"Okay," you said, pacing. "Okay. Okay."
Yelena raised a brow. “That’s a lot of okays.”
“He knows. He knows it’s me.”
"Did he say that?"
"No. But— he was there. Fighting next to me. You don’t just forget a person’s rhythm like that.”
“Alright, Mr Miyagi, calm down,” Yelena muttered. “Did he see your face?”
“No.”
“Then he doesn’t know,” she said with finality, grabbing a handful of popcorn from the bowl she'd found somehow. “But you know he’s Daredevil?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Well... that’s fun,” Yelena said. “Kinky. Do you guys roleplay in the suit?”
You threw a cushion at her.
She ducked it easily, grinning. “Relax, Sunshine. He doesn’t know. We’ll deal with it in the morning.”
The next morning
You woke up to a single text on your phone.
Matt: We need to talk.
Your stomach dropped.
You stared at the screen for a full minute, then looked at Yelena, who was eating cereal out of your favorite mug like it was her house.
“He knows,” you said, voice flat.
She peered over the rim of the mug. “About the Widowing or the lying or the whole knife ballet by the docks?”
“All of it.”
Yelena snorted. “You’re being dramatic. He’s a man. I promise you he noticed nothing.
——————————————————————————————————
He didn’t knock.
You looked up from the counter of your shop just in time to see Matt step through the door— coat slung over one arm, jaw tight, his whole presence coiled and deliberate like he’d been rehearsing this confrontation all the way over. Your chest tightened. Behind the mystery section, Yelena dropped into a crouch like she was on mission.
“Hey,” you said cautiously.
Matt held up his phone. “Got your message.”
You blinked. “I didn’t—”
He arched an eyebrow.
“Right. That message.”
He moved to the counter, leaning forward just slightly. Trying to keep it civil. It wasn’t working.
“You lied to me.”
You crossed your arms. “You’re gonna have to be more specific.”
“Fair enough,” he said flatly. “Last night. The ‘errands’ that somehow involved you taking out the entire Ranskahov crew with a very familiar blonde.”
Yelena’s voice drifted from behind the shelves: “Rude, I was extremely subtle.”
“You stabbed someone while humming Toxic, Yelena,” Matt said flatly.
“It’s called multi-tasking,” she shot back. "Wait, how'd you know I am blonde?"
Matt exhaled sharply through his nose, frustration leaking through his carefully even tone. “I thought I could trust you.”
You blinked, surprised by the weight behind the words.
“I don’t understand why you’d lie to me about something like this,” he went on. “You disappeared for a night, showed up in the middle of a takedown like it was routine, and didn’t think I’d figure it out?”
You crossed your arms, jaw tightening. “Pot, meet kettle.”
Matt’s brow creased. “Excuse me?”
“You’ve been lying to me for months, Matt,” you snapped, eyes narrowing. “So forgive me if I don’t feel guilty for keeping one thing to myself.”
Yelena’s voice chimed in helpfully from behind the shelf. “Technically two things. You also said you were allergic to cats and we both know that’s a lie.”
Matt didn’t even look in her direction. “This isn’t the same, (Y/n).”
“No?” you shot back. “Because I remember you brushing off every bruise, every night you vanished, every time I found blood on your shirt. But when I keep something close to the chest, suddenly it’s a betrayal?”
He looked away for a beat, jaw clenched. You stepped around the counter, folding your arms. “Yeah. So let’s not throw stones, Daredevil.”
Yelena raised a hand. “I’d like to throw one.”
“Shush,” you and Matt both said in unison.
“You really want to stand there and pretend like you’re on the moral high ground, Matt?”
Yelena popped her head up just long enough to say, “Oooh, he’s going to need ice for that burn,” then ducked back down.
Matt turned back toward you slowly, the fight draining from his posture, replaced by something quieter. Something closer to hurt.
“I’m not mad that you can handle yourself,” he said, softer now. “I’m mad that you didn’t let me in. That you didn’t think I could take it.”
You stared at him for a moment, then sighed. “Funny. I could say the same thing.”
Yelena coughed meaningfully. “Anyway, since we’re all being honest now, can I get a ruling on whether this is a breakup or foreplay?”
You and Matt both groaned.
Matt turned toward her. “Do you have to be here for this?”
“Yes,” you and Yelena said at the same time.
You exhaled through your nose, some of the tension bleeding out of your shoulders. “I didn’t keep it from you because I didn’t trust you,” you said, voice quieter now. “I kept it from you because I didn’t want to ruin this. Whatever this is.”
Matt nodded slowly, like he understood— because he did. “Yeah. I know the feeling.”
A beat passed.
“I just didn’t want you in this world,” Matt said after a moment. “Not this part of it.”
You sighed. “I know. And I didn’t want you to see that side of me, either. Not if I didn’t have to.”
A pause. Something gentler settled between you.
“So what now?” you asked. “We just… go back to pretending we’re two normal people who work too much and flirt in the office kitchen?”
Matt smiled faintly. “That wasn’t pretending.”
You mirrored it. “Fair.”
He shifted on his feet. “We’re both good at lying. Maybe too good. But I don’t want to lie to you anymore.”
“Me either.”
Another pause, not quite awkward. Just full.
From behind the shelf: “Boring. Now either make out or fuck. I need to know what genre this is.”
You and Matt turned to her in sync.
“Get out,” you both said.
Yelena grinned. “Love you too.”
She made for the door with a dramatic little bow. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” you muttered.
After the door shut behind her, the silence felt warmer. Softer. Matt was still observing you, his expression a little looser now, the storm behind his eyes finally settling. You stepped into his space without thinking. His arms slid around you like they’d been waiting for exactly this.
Your cheek pressed lightly against his chest. “Well,” you murmured, “now what?”
Matt’s hand traced a slow line up your spine. “She gave us options before she left.”
You glanced up at him. “Options? Sounded more like a to-do list to me.”
A small, crooked smile tugged at his lips. “In that case, I have some ideas.”
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