Overview: It started with a chance meeting, a bold request, and a book. With a past full of loss and a future centered on searching for something more, one person may make all the difference in what tomorrow could bring.
Pairing: DylanxReader
Word Count: 2,053 (this one’s a bit of a filler chapter, more action to come later ;)
Warnings: language
Soundtrack for Ch5: “Seven” by Sleeping At Last
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It takes him a few seconds to remember where he is when he wakes up.
Dylan blinks the sleepy haze from his eyes and sits up on the couch, arms extending above his head in a stretch. Y/N and Zeke are nowhere to be seen, but the dinner plates from last night have disappeared, and in their place sits a bright pink sticky note.
He picks it up with a smile and reads -
Coffee is in the fridge.
He stands up and scans the room for a clock to determine the time. A manual one in the shape of a dinosaur hangs above the mantle and informs him it’s about half past six.
Dylan makes his way into the kitchen and pauses upon seeing another sticky note on the fridge. He pulls it off -
I know we just met a few days ago. I know we don’t really know what this is. But...
He flips the note over, but nothing is on the back. He opens the fridge and sees a cup of coffee on the top shelf with a third note attached to it.
...I know I want you to stick around.
He picks up the mug, and a final note appears from underneath it.
I’m out in the garden.
He closes the fridge with a smile, finds his almost dry shoes, and heads outside.
----------------------
I’d woken up well before Dylan did, curled up against his side, his arm around me and mine draped over his stomach. I’d laid there for a long time, watched the sun start to make its way through the blinds as his chest rose and fell evenly alongside a steady heartbeat.
Peace. It’s the only way I can describe it, a peace I hadn’t felt since I got the phone call from the hospital that day telling me my husband had been in an accident. But it’s also an uneasy sense of settlement, because the tangibility of Dylan feels ephemeral, like he can and will disappear at any second.
My brain was wide awake, so I’d stealthily slipped out from underneath his arm, made some cold brew coffee, left a trail of notes for him to find upon waking up, and went to sit with Zeke in the garden to process through my many thoughts.
“Hey.” I look up as he walks over and joins me on the bench, one arm immediately finding its way around my shoulders while the other hand holds his coffee. “I’m surprised I fell asleep.”
I relax comfortably against his side and adjust the blanket I’d brought out with me around my bare legs. “I don’t even think I made it to the end of the movie.”
“Yeah, no, you definitely didn’t.”
I crane my neck to look at him. “Wait, did you make it to the end?”
“Of course, it’s ‘Gladiator’. The ending is the best part.”
I speak in concurrence with my brain’s processing of his words. “So… you chose to stay.”
He takes a sip of his coffee and then pulls me closer into his side. “Yeah, I guess I did.”
“What does that mean?”
He pauses, thinking. “I don’t know. I just know I wanted to stay...so I did.”
It’s a fair answer. Honestly, I don’t know how I would have answered my own question. I know that I love spending time with him, talking to him, just sitting here with him. I know he helps still my restlessness, and I also know that deep in my bones there’s still that itch, that drive forward, the desire to move towards something else before what I’m currently existing in becomes tainted, a new adventure to counteract the possibility for stagnancy.
“I’ve been making plans to travel to Colorado for a few weeks, once I got the van fixed,” I say quietly, “and now…now I’m not sure if I should go anymore.”
“Why not?” he asks, pulling away slightly so he can see my face better. “That sounds awesome, and I’ll be stuck in Canada soon for filming, so it’s not like I’d be around here to see you.”
My teeth find my bottom lip, chewing gently. His hand is suddenly on the side of my face, a few fingers under my chin tilting it up, brown eyes intently capturing mine. “Hey, you should never give up something like that for me, for anyone. If that shit makes you happy, you keep doing it, and don’t let anyone or anything stop you.”
I nod, not trusting my voice, and he drops his hand to draw me back against him.
I swallow and manage the next few words as a whisper. “Do you want to stay? Do you want me to stick around? Because it wouldn’t be hard for us to disappear from each other’s lives. It’s only been three days.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s just… I don’t want to complicate things for you,” I say, growing more adamant with each word. “I don’t want to be a burden, a regret. Your life is about to get really busy, and I don’t want to be the one who holds you back in some way. So we can end this, now, while everything is on a good note, and then we won’t have to-”
“Wait, wait, wait, slow down,” he interjects, setting his coffee down. This time when he lets go of me, he turns so that he can grasp both of my shoulders in his hands. “Do you want that?”
“It doesn’t matter what I want-”
“Actually, it really fucking does.”
I avoid his determined gaze and look down, and that’s when I notice pink paper sticking out of the pocket of his shorts. I pinch the edges of them with my fingers and lift them out, holding the notes up for both of us to see.
“This is what I want. I meant it.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do.”
“Stick around?”
“Hell yes.”
He’s smiling, and my cheeks mimic his. “So… what are you doing tomorrow?”
“I’ll be at Comic-con,” he reminds me, releasing his grip on my shoulders.
“Shoot, that’s right.”
A pause, then-
“Come with me.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Go with you?”
“Yeah, why the hell not?”
“Um....” I immediately think of a dozen reasons why I shouldn’t go with him, why I can’t go with him. And then I look at his expectant face, at his unsure smile, at his eyes, watching, waiting for my response. “...Okay?”
His grin becomes more confident. “Okay?”
“Yeah,” I say, trying to sound self-assured, “why the hell not?” Zeke comes into my peripherals, rolling on his back in the grass. “Shit, I don’t know if my dog sitter will be able to watch Zeke on such short notice.”
“Call her,” Dylan says. “Where’s your phone at?”
I reach into my pocket to pull it out and am reminded that it’s not the only thing I have in there. “Oh, hey, I have your phone. The rice did it’s thing.” I place it into his hand and go into my contacts to pull up the number for the local college student I’d found who watches Zeke for me from time to time. I dial and hold my phone up to my ear.
“Hello?” Her voice comes through the speaker after the second ring. “Y/N, what’s up?”
Dylan nudges me with his elbow, prompting words to form. “Hey, Melody, I have a really inconsiderate and kind of desperate request.”
“Yeah?”
“Uh, could you maybe watch Zeke this weekend?”
“Umm…possibly? Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, yes, everything is fine. I just got a last minute invitation to go somewhere and I can’t take him with me.”
Dylan leans in my direction, “Tell her you can pay her double.”
I give him an incredulous look, but he just gestures for me to keep talking. “And, uh, my associate here is authorizing me to pay you double the normal rate.”
“Man, you really are desperate. Okay, let me move some things around in my schedule. I’ll text you in a bit, but I can make it work.”
To my surprise, it’s a feeling of anxiety, not relief, that begins to creep in on me. Because this is actually about to happen, and I’m not entirely sure if I’m crazy for doing it or if I’m even ready to try.
“Thanks, girl, you’re the best. I’ll Venmo you the money soon and leave the key in its usual spot.”
“Perfect. What time are you leaving today?”
I look to Dylan to answer that one. He holds up one finger, checks a message on his phone, and then three more join it.
“Around four. I’ll feed him before I go. And there’s leftover casserole in the fridge, so help yourself to that and anything else you find.”
“Sounds good, Y/N. I’ll text you in a bit to confirm everything.”
“Great, thanks so much.”
“Sure thing. Bye!”
I end the call and let out a deep sigh. “I guess I need to go pack. And shower. And probably run Zeke. But not in that order… backwards from that order. What exactly should I be bringing? Do I need to book a hotel room? They probably won’t even have one available this late in the game. What city are we going to again? I want to check the weather for rain. And I have a shift at the coffee shop and the bookstore that I’ll have to call out of.”
“Okay, um, one question at a time would be great,” Dylan says. He looks me over, and I wish I could hide the anxious creases around my eyes that I clearly feel. “You good?”
I nod a few times too many. “Yeah, just processing.”
“Alright, well, let’s start by getting inside, eat some food, and we’ll take it from there. Don’t worry about getting to Comic-con; I’ll be here at four to pick you up. And for the hotel room, I’m sure you can crash in mine or with the girls.”
“And by the girls, you mean Holland and Shelley.”
“Crystal should be there, too. Pretty sure the whole gang is going to make it out for this one.”
“Oh god.” The anxiety grows as the thought of meeting the entire cast becomes an enlightened reality. Part of me has always wanted to meet them, but that was the fantasizing part of me, where it was just a nice scenario in my head. Now the real me, the one about to actually live it out, just feels nauseous.
“Come on-” he stands from the bench and offers me an extended hand- “we’ve got this.”
“But do we?” I sound a bit sick. Hell, I might actually be sick in a minute. From excitement, nervousness, anxiety? A bit of all of the above.
He tugs me inside the house and we forage for breakfast. I go through the motions of feeding Zeke, changing into athletic clothes, and lacing up my sneakers for a run while Dylan dresses in his dirty clothes from yesterday and waits for me by the front door.
The three of us walk out together, and for the first time I see the vehicle that he’d driven over in.
“It’s the Jeep!”
He laughs and swings the keys around on his finger. “Yep. Best damn thing I could have taken from the show.”
“I’ll say.” I run my hands along the metal hood and peer inside. “This is awesome.”
“I’ll have to take you out for a drive in it someday.”
“Um, yes please.”
He opens the driver’s door and hops inside. “So I’ll be back at four. Text me if you need anything before then.”
“Text? You mean message. On Twitter?”
“Nope,” he says with a mischievous grin.
He starts the Jeep and backs out of my driveway before I can ask him anything else. I open my phone and go into the text messages. There’s a new one there, Dylan’s name on the banner.
You look cute when you sleep.
Right below the words is a picture of me with my head on his shoulder, half of his face in the frame smiling cheesily at the camera.
I zip my phone into my pocket, tighten my hold on Zeke’s leash, and take a deep breath.
