he leaves for ten minutes
beau maxwell x fem!reader
summary: a night out takes an uncomfortable turn when beau is away for a moment, leaving dean to step in and protect his best friend’s girlfriend
established relationship
warnings: misogynist trying to flirt with/intimidate the reader, reader feels trapped, confrontations, beau and dean are sweethearts though
word count: 5.7k
a/n: based on this request!! i hope this is wat you had in mind :) also, i love protective dean and beau sm
beau maxwell masterlist off campus masterlist
── ᵎᵎ ✦
you should’ve known the night was going too well, though there had been absolutely no reason to think that at the time.
getting the four of you to malone’s had been surprisingly easy. dean and allie had met you and beau there. there had been no argument over where to go, no waiting forty minutes for somebody who claimed they were already on their way, and no last-minute debate about whether malone’s would be too crowded on a friday night.
it was, of course, far too crowded.
by the time you made it through the door, the place was already warm with the press of too many bodies and loud enough that you had to lean close to hear each other properly. music played from somewhere toward the back, nearly swallowed by the noise of overlapping conversations and laughter, while people stood two and three deep around the bar waiting for drinks. every time the front door opened behind you, a brief rush of cold air slipped inside before disappearing almost immediately.
beau’s hand settled against the small of your back before you’d taken more than a few steps.
you hardly noticed it anymore. not because you didn’t like it, but because beau touched you so often that his hand finding you had become as familiar as anything else about him. in crowded places, it was almost guaranteed. his fingers would find yours, or his palm would settle against your back, or he’d hook an arm loosely around your waist while he talked to someone else. sometimes you thought it was less about keeping track of you and more about reassuring himself that you were still there.
you’d never asked him about it. you liked the habit too much to risk making him self-conscious about something he probably didn’t even realize he was doing.
he guided you through the crowd with his hand resting lightly at your waist, glancing back every few steps as though there were any possibility you could’ve disappeared from beneath his palm without him noticing.
“i’m still here,” you said eventually.
beau turned his head toward you, eyebrows pulling together because he hadn’t heard. you leaned closer and repeated yourself, nodding toward the hand at your waist, “you keep checking.”
his expression cleared with understanding. his gaze dropped briefly toward where his palm rested against your side before returning to your face, and for a moment he looked almost sheepish, “people keep pushing past.”
“and?”
“and you’re—” he stopped himself at your raised brows. his mouth opened, then closed again as he apparently reconsidered whatever answer had first occurred to him, “easier to lose in a crowd than me.”
you stared at him for a moment. “that was almost offensive.”
“but it wasn’t.”
“debatable.”
his mouth twitched, but he continued walking, keeping his hand exactly where it had been before. you tried not to smile.
the four of you managed to find a booth tucked against one of the walls near the back of malone’s. it was one of the larger ones, curved around a rectangular table, and for once there was enough space that nobody had to sit half on top of anyone else. allie slid into one side first, dean following her, while you took the opposite side with beau beside you.
you ended up near the wall, which suited you perfectly. beau settled in, stretching one arm along the back of the booth while his knee rested against yours beneath the table. across from you, allie was already shrugging off her jacket while dean attempted to flag down someone for drinks.
the first hour passed easily as conversation wandered without direction. allie told you about something that had happened in one of her classes, dean interrupted often enough that she eventually started ignoring him, and beau spent several minutes pretending not to be interested in the fries someone had ordered before eating more of them than anyone else.
the booth became increasingly cluttered as the night went on, glasses leaving rings of condensation across the table and discarded napkins collecting near the empty basket that had once contained food.
you liked nights like this.
there was something easy about being with the three of them. beau had known dean for so long that half their conversations seemed to rely on context neither you nor allie possessed, while you and allie had become increasingly good at communicating your shared confusion through increasingly expressive looks across the table.
beau stole the lime from your drink and you stared at him as he ate it without the slightest trace of remorse, “that was mine.”
“you were taking too long,” he shrugged.
“i was holding it.”
“exactly.”
you narrowed your eyes before reaching for his drink and taking a deliberately long sip. beau watched you over the rim of the glass, eyebrows slowly lifting, “you have your own.”
you copied his shrug as you took another sip while maintaining eye contact, then set the glass back in front of him.
his mouth twitched, “thief.”
“prove it.”
something warm and amused settled into his expression as he looked at you, and for a second the crowded bar seemed to disappear from his awareness completely. you knew that look. it usually preceded either a kiss or an extremely annoying comment, and judging by the way his gaze briefly dropped to your mouth, you suspected it would be the first.
before he could do either, someone called his name from across the room.
beau glanced over his shoulder, recognition immediately crossing his face. he looked back at you as though considering whether whoever had called him was worth leaving the booth for.
“go,” you said, laughing softly.
“i’ll be right back.”
you nodded, but before he could move away, you caught the front of his shirt and pulled him down far enough to press a quick kiss to his lips.
the smile that appeared was smaller than his usual grin. softer, almost private, despite the fact that you were surrounded by people. his hand briefly squeezed the back of your neck before he straightened and disappeared into the crowd.
you watched him go for a few seconds, following the back of his head until the crowd swallowed him from view. when you turned around again, dean was looking at you from across the table.
you narrowed your eyes. “what?”
“nothing.”
allie glanced at him before looking at you, “he’s judging you.”
“i’m not judging anyone.”
“you have a very judgmental face.”
dean frowned at her, “what does that even mean?”
allie took a sip of her drink rather than answering, and you laughed softly as dean began arguing his case to a girlfriend who had already stopped listening.
the conversation moved on easily after that. you stopped thinking about where beau had gone, knowing he was somewhere nearby and would eventually find his way back to you. he always did.
you were listening to allie tell you something when someone stopped beside the booth.
at first, you assumed he was waiting for somebody to pass. people had been squeezing between the booths and the bar all night, and you barely looked up until a voice interrupted allie halfway through her sentence.
“hey.” the guy standing at the end of the booth looked vaguely familiar, though you couldn’t remember where you’d seen him before. maybe another party, or somewhere on campus. his face was one of those you recognized without being able to attach a name or memory to it.
you gave him a polite smile, “hi.”
he didn’t move. you waited for a moment before turning back toward allie, assuming that was the end of the interaction.
“i know you, don’t i?”
you looked at him again, “i don’t think so.”
“i’ve seen you somewhere.”
you gave a small shrug, “probably around campus.”
he nodded as though that proved something, and the pause that followed lasted a little too long. you became aware of allie watching him from across the table while dean’s attention remained, at least outwardly, on something happening near the bar.
“can i buy you a drink?” the guy asked.
you glanced at beau’s half empty glass sitting in front of you, “i’m good, thanks.”
he followed your gaze. “when you finish that one.”
“still good,” you smiled politely again before turning back toward allie. this time, neither of you immediately resumed your conversation.
the guy remained there, and you could feel it without looking. there was a particular kind of awareness that came with knowing someone was watching you, an uncomfortable pressure between your shoulder blades that made it impossible to return your attention fully to whatever allie had been saying.
after a few seconds, he spoke again, “you got a boyfriend?”
you exhaled quietly through your nose. “yeah.”
“where is he?”
the question irritated you more than it should have. you turned toward him again, one hand still resting around the condensation-slick glass in front of you, “somewhere over there.”
the guy glanced toward the crowded room before looking back at you, “he left you here by yourself?”
you stared at him before looking deliberately across the table at allie and dean, “clearly.”
allie’s mouth twitched, though she quickly hid it behind her glass. the guy didn’t seem to notice, but dean did.
you caught the briefest shift in his expression before he looked away again, and you knew him well enough by now to understand what it meant. he was listening.
that realization didn’t bother you. if anything, it gave you the strange comfort of knowing somebody else had noticed without the annoyance of having them immediately take over.
dean knew you could handle yourself.
you and he had argued enough over the years for him to know that better than most. he had seen you annoyed, furious, stubborn and unreasonable. he had also been on the receiving end of all four often enough to know that stepping into an argument you were perfectly capable of handling would only earn him your irritation as well.
so he stayed where he was, but he listened.
“what’s your name?” the guy asked.
“does it matter?”
his smile faltered slightly, “i’m trying to be friendly.”
“and i’m trying to talk to my friend.” the words came out more sharply than you’d intended, but you couldn’t bring yourself to regret them.
something in the guy’s posture changed, “you always this rude?”
you stared at him for a second, “i said no to a drink.”
“i heard you.”
“then i’m not sure what we’re still talking about.”
a silence settled around the booth that had nothing to do with the noise of malone’s. the rest of the bar continued around you, music playing and people laughing only a foot away, but your attention had narrowed to the man standing at the edge of the table.
he looked irritated now. not embarrassed or disappointed, but genuinely irritated, as though you’d broken some unspoken rule by refusing to participate in a conversation you had never asked to have, “you don’t have to be a bitch about it.”
allie’s expression changed immediately. you felt your temper flare before common sense had a chance to catch up, “and you don’t have to still be standing here.”
across the table, dean went very still. he hadn’t said anything, and he wasn’t even looking directly at the guy yet, but the awareness between them was immediate, “you got something to say?” the guy asked.
dean finally looked at him, “no.”
the answer was so simple that the guy seemed almost disappointed by it. you looked back at him, “great. are we done now?”
his attention returned to you, “you think you’re funny?”
“no.”
“could’ve fooled me.”
you frowned, your patience almost entirely gone by then, “what do you want?”
“nothing now.”
“then go.”
that was when something changed.
you saw it before he moved, though later you wouldn’t have been able to explain exactly what you had noticed. maybe it was the tightening of his jaw, or the way his shoulders shifted forward, or the sudden disappearance of whatever thin layer of friendliness he’d been pretending to have.
he stepped closer to the booth and the irritation inside you vanished so quickly it left you cold.
until that moment, you’d been angry and annoyed. completely certain that, however unpleasant the interaction was, it was still only an argument. you’d dealt with men like him before, the kind who treated rejection as the opening of a negotiation rather than the end of a conversation, and you had never particularly struggled to tell them exactly what you thought.
suddenly, you weren’t so sure that was all this was.
you became acutely aware of where you were sitting. against the wall, with the table in front of you and the stranger standing at the only open end of your side of the booth.
for the first time since he’d walked over, you felt trapped.
the realization must have shown on your face. you didn’t know how. maybe your eyes widened slightly, or your shoulders tensed, or you simply stopped arguing. whatever it was, dean saw it.
his reaction was immediate, because he was out of the booth before you fully registered that he’d moved, crossing around the end of the table and stepping directly between the stranger and your side of the booth, “back up.”
his voice was calm, and something about that calmness changed the atmosphere immediately. you’d seen dean loud before. everyone had. he was loud when he was annoyed, competitive, amused, or losing an argument he insisted he was winning.
this was different.
allie knew it too. you could tell from the way she had gone still across the booth, watching him carefully without attempting to interfere. there was no alarm in her expression, only attention. she knew him well enough to recognize that the absence of his usual theatrics meant he was genuinely angry.
the guy scoffed, “we were talking.”
“she’s done talking.”
“she can tell me that.”
dean was silent for a second, “she did.”
there was nothing clever in the response and no attempt to make the moment into something it wasn’t. dean simply stood there, broad shoulders blocking your view of the man almost entirely.
the guy tried to look past him, but dean shifted so he covered you.
“move.”
dean didn’t, “you need to leave.”
the guy laughed under his breath, “or what?”
dean watched him for a moment, his expression unreadable from where you were sitting. the silence stretched for several seconds, though it probably felt longer than it actually was.
“you were comfortable enough when it was her sitting there,” he said eventually, his voice still quiet. “now somebody your own size is standing here and you want to make it a fight.”
the guy’s jaw tightened. dean tilted his head slightly, “doesn’t look great.”
the words weren’t particularly threatening. that was probably what made them land. the guy glanced around at the people at nearby booths who had begun to notice, and the attention seemed to drain some of the confidence from his posture.
he muttered something you couldn’t hear before finally stepping away.
dean watched him disappear into the crowd. he waited longer than necessary, eyes fixed in the direction the stranger had gone, before finally turning back toward you.
the change in his expression was immediate. whatever coldness had been there disappeared, “you good?”
you nodded automatically, “yeah.”
dean looked at you for a long moment.
“i’m fine.”
he didn’t call you a liar, though you suspected he wanted to. instead, he looked toward allie, and something passed silently between them, the kind of easy communication that came from knowing someone well enough not to need words for everything.
allie gave a small nod before dean slid into your side of the booth.
you moved closer to the wall to make room, and he settled beside you in the space beau had left behind. across the table, allie stayed where she was, though her attention remained on the two of you for a few seconds longer.
dean didn’t crowd you. he didn’t put an arm around you or ask again whether you were all right. he simply sat beside you, close enough that his shoulder rested lightly against yours, his presence creating a solid barrier between you and the rest of the room.
across the table, allie picked up her drink and looked at you with deliberate casualness, “do you remember what i was saying before?”
you blinked, “something about your professor?”
“close enough,” she continued her story anyway.
you loved her for that. she spoke normally, picking up somewhere in the middle of whatever she’d been telling you before, and after a moment dean added a quiet comment that made her roll her eyes.
neither of them looked at you too closely. neither of them asked if you wanted to leave. they simply gave you time to stop feeling like your heart was beating somewhere in your throat.
you leaned back against the booth and let their voices wash over you. dean’s shoulder remained against yours, the occasional movement reminding you that he was still there without forcing you to acknowledge why.
you’d known him through beau first.
for a long time, that was how you’d thought of him. beau’s friend. beau’s teammate. one of the people who occupied so much space in the stories beau told you that you’d felt like you knew him before the two of you had ever had a proper conversation.
somewhere along the way, that had changed, because dean had become your friend too.
he annoyed you. frequently. he stole food off your plate without asking and disagreed with you on principle whenever he was bored. but he also remembered your coffee order after hearing it once and texted you whenever beau left his phone somewhere stupid. he treated you like someone who belonged in his life rather than somebody he tolerated because you were dating his friend.
you hadn’t really thought about what that meant until now.
dean had known you could handle yourself. he’d waited because he respected that. and then, the second you couldn’t, he’d been there.
a few minutes later, you saw allie’s attention move toward the crowd. her expression softened slightly as her eyes settled on something, “beau’s coming back.”
your stomach tightened.
dean looked toward the crowd, then at you, and you knew from the brief pause that he was waiting to see what you wanted to do. he didn’t ask, though. he simply remained beside you, his shoulder still resting lightly against yours, while allie watched beau make his way through the crowd.
you didn’t have time to decide what expression to put on your face before he reached the booth.
at first, beau looked relaxed. there was still a faint smile on his face from whatever conversation had kept him away for so long. then his eyes found you, moved to dean sitting beside you, and returned immediately to your face.
the smile disappeared and you saw the exact moment he understood that something was wrong, “what happened?” his voice was quiet, but the question came without hesitation. you shook your head almost instinctively, “i’m fine.”
beau’s gaze remained on you for another second before shifting toward dean.
dean didn’t answer for you. instead, he stood. the movement was unhurried, and his hand touched your shoulder briefly as he moved away, an absent gesture you doubted he had consciously thought about. he walked around the table and slid back into the booth beside allie, who shifted closer to the wall to make room for him.
the space beside you was empty again. beau looked at it, then at you, before sliding into the booth.
the moment he sat down, his body angled toward yours as much as the table allowed. one knee pressed against yours beneath it, and his hand settled lightly against your thigh, warm even through the fabric of your clothes.
he didn’t look across the table again, “tell me.”
there was nothing demanding in the words. if anything, the quietness of his voice made the knot in your chest pull tighter.
you looked down at his hand for a moment, gathering your thoughts. the whole interaction had lasted only a few minutes, but trying to explain it now made it feel strangely complicated.
“this guy came over while you were gone,” you began. “he was trying to buy me a drink, and i told him i wasn’t interested.”
beau’s thumb moved once against your thigh, but otherwise he remained completely still.
“he kept talking to me after that. asking where you were and things like that.” you paused, suddenly uncomfortable beneath the weight of beau’s attention, “i told him to leave. he got annoyed.”
you could see beau trying very hard not to interrupt, the effort was written across his face, “how annoyed?”
you hesitated, “he called me a bitch.”
beau’s jaw tightened. you felt the change beneath your hand where it had come to rest over his. the tension that moved through him was subtle, but immediate. across the table, dean leaned back against the booth, watching the two of you without saying anything.
“that’s when dean got up,” you continued. “he made him leave.”
beau’s eyes moved across the table. dean gave a slight shrug, as though the entire thing had been considerably less important than it actually had. “she’s skipping a bit,” he said.
you frowned, “i’m not skipping anything.”
dean looked at you, “you are.”
“i told him what happened.”
“you gave him the edited version.”
you felt beau’s attention shift back to you, “there’s an edited version?”
“no.”
“yes,” dean said at the same time.
you looked across the table at him, “whose side are you on?”
dean’s eyebrows lifted slightly, “not really a sides thing.”
allie rested her chin against her hand, watching the exchange. she had been quiet since beau returned, but you caught the faintest twitch at the corner of her mouth.
you turned back toward beau and found him waiting. a sigh escaped your lips, “i got a little scared. that’s all.”
beau’s expression changed. the anger didn’t disappear, but something else moved over it. concern, quieter and heavier, settling into the crease between his eyebrows.
before he could say anything, dean spoke again, “she couldn’t get out.”
you looked at him, but his expression was no longer teasing, “he was standing at the end of the booth,” he explained, looking at beau now. “table in front of her, wall behind her. when he moved closer, she was boxed in.”
the words made your stomach tighten all over again. hearing it described that plainly was different from remembering it. you had known, in the moment, that there was nowhere for you to go, but you hadn’t put it into words even inside your own head.
beau’s hand stilled beneath yours, “did he touch you?”
“no,” you said immediately, “he didn’t. dean got there before he could,” you added.
something passed across beau’s face at that, too quick for you to identify. his eyes moved toward dean again.
“he wasn’t going to,” dean said, his voice matter-of-fact, “not after i got over there.”
beau looked at him for a moment, before his attention returned to you. his expression softened slightly, though the tension hadn’t left his shoulders.
“it was just for a second, babe,” you tried to reassure him, but you knew he didn’t believe that was the entire truth.
his hand moved from beneath yours. for half a second, you thought he was going to try and find the guy. instead, he reached beneath the table and took your hand properly, threading his fingers through yours. the familiarity of the movement made something inside your chest loosen before you could stop it.
“i’m here now,” he said quietly.
there was anger in his face. you could see it in the tension around his mouth and the way his jaw tightened every few seconds, but he wasn’t making it yours to deal with. he wasn’t demanding a description of the guy or asking why you hadn’t come to find him. he wasn’t telling you what you should have done differently or turning what had happened into a reason for you to comfort him.
he simply held your hand, and as his thumb moved slowly across your knuckles, you found you hadn’t realized how badly you’d wanted him back until then.
your shoulders loosened slightly and beau noticed. of course he did.
he let go of your hand to move his arm along the back of the booth behind you, and you shifted toward him before he even had to ask. the moment you leaned into his side, his arm settled around your shoulders and drew you closer.
you rested your head against him, letting yourself sink into the familiar warmth of his side. beau’s arm tightened around your shoulders almost immediately, drawing you closer until there was barely any space left between you, while beneath the table, his other hand remained wrapped around yours.
for a while, nobody spoke. across the table, dean had settled back beside allie, one arm resting behind her while she leaned into the corner of the booth. beau looked up, and his eyes met dean’s over the table.
the exchange lasted only a few seconds. beau gave a small nod, something quiet and serious passing over his expression, and dean returned it just as subtly. neither of them said anything, but you understood enough anyway.
beau knew exactly what dean had done. and dean, apparently, didn’t think it required discussion.
you closed your eyes briefly as beau’s fingers moved against your shoulder in slow, absent strokes. the adrenaline that had been sitting beneath your skin was beginning to fade now, leaving you tired in its place, and you let yourself concentrate on the small things instead: the warmth of his body beside yours, the weight of his arm around you, the familiar movement of his thumb brushing over your hand beneath the table.
you hadn’t realized how tense you still were until you felt yourself slowly beginning to relax.
after a while, beau lowered his head and pressed his lips to the top of yours. the kiss lingered for a second before he spoke, his voice quiet enough that the words stayed between the two of you despite dean and allie sitting only a few feet away, “i leave for ten minutes.”
the comment was so characteristically him that a soft laugh escaped you before you could stop it. you turned your face slightly into his chest, hiding the small smile that had finally begun to appear, “it was longer than ten minutes.”
you felt him shift beside you, “was it?”
you lifted your head enough to look at him, “mhmm.”
beau seemed to consider that for a moment before his mouth twisted, “shit.”
another laugh slipped out of you, quieter than the first but easier this time. something in beau’s expression softened at the sound, though the concern hadn’t entirely disappeared from his face. it was still there in the slight crease between his eyebrows and the careful way his eyes moved over yours, as though he were checking for something you might not be telling him.
you knew that look, “i’m fine,” you told him.
“i know,” his answer came easily, but his thumb continued moving over the back of your hand.
you studied him for a moment, “really.”
he nodded again, but you didn’t believe him. or, more accurately, you believed that he believed you were fine now. that didn’t mean he had stopped thinking about what had happened before he came back.
the tension in his jaw gave him away. you narrowed your eyes slightly, “you look like you want to kill someone.”
beau’s eyebrows lifted, “i don’t.”
you continued looking at him and he lasted approximately three seconds before sighing, “fine. i’m annoyed.”
“annoyed,” you repeated, unconvinced.
“very annoyed.”
you waited with raised brows. beau looked at your expression and amended, “extremely annoyed.”
“better.” you smiled before you could stop yourself, and some of the remaining tension in his expression finally eased when he saw it. his eyes stayed on your face for another moment before he shook his head slightly and pulled you closer again.
you settled back against his side, and this time the movement came more easily. some of the last tension in your chest went with it.
you though back to the quiet exchange between beau and dean. it was something that made warmth press unexpectedly against the lingering discomfort in your chest.
beau trusted dean.
not just with football or parties or whatever other stupid things they’d gotten into together over the years. with you.
and dean had treated that trust like the most natural thing in the world. not as an obligation, or a favor he would need thanking for. it was just something he did because beau loved you and, somewhere along the way, dean had decided that meant you were his person too.
beau’s thumb continued its slow movement over your shoulder, and you let yourself sit there for another minute before he spoke again. his voice was quieter this time, all traces of humor gone, “do you want to leave?”
you thought about it; you were still shaken. you could admit that to yourself now. every so often, the memory of the stranger stepping closer returned without warning, bringing that same cold feeling into your stomach. but the thought of leaving made the whole thing feel bigger somehow, as though one unpleasant stranger had managed to take the entire night from you.
you shook your head, “not yet.”
beau nodded, his expression giving away nothing but acceptance, “then we’ll stay.”
there was no hesitation and no attempt to change your mind. he simply settled back into the booth and kept his arm around you.
across the table, allie seemed to sense that the moment had passed. she waited another few seconds before starting her story over from the beginning, apparently deciding that none of you had been paying enough attention the first time.
dean frowned, “didn’t you just just tell this story?”
allie looked at him, “nobody was listening.”
“i was.”
“what was i talking about?”
dean opened his mouth, then closed it again.
allie nodded, “exactly.”
a quiet laugh escaped you, and beau’s attention immediately dropped toward you. the corner of his mouth lifted, and his softly squeezed your shoulder once before he turned his attention back to the conversation, though his arm remained securely around you.
you still felt the remnants of adrenaline beneath your skin, and every so often your attention flicked toward the crowd without permission. you caught yourself searching faces you didn’t recognize, checking the spaces between groups of people before you could stop yourself.
each time, beau’s thumb moved gently against your shoulder. you weren’t sure if he noticed you doing it, but you suspected he did.
after a while, dean caught your eye from across the table. you held his gaze for a second, then mouthed a quiet, thank you.
his expression tightened with immediate discomfort, causing you to almost smile. dean had never seemed like somebody who enjoyed sincere emotion being directed at him.
he gave you a brief nod though, and immediately reached for allie’s drink. she moved it out of reach without even looking at him, “no.”
“i didn’t do anything.”
“you were going to.”
“you don’t know that.”
allie finally looked at him, “i absolutely do.”
dean leaned back in the booth, looking unfairly accused.
you looked at beau. he was already looking at you. something passed between you, a flicker of shared amusement that needed no explanation.
the four of you stayed at malone’s for another hour. conversation never returned entirely to what it had been before, but it came close. allie eventually finished her story, dean continued to insist that he had been listening the first time, and beau absentmindedly pushed his glass towards you so you could finish what you’d started.
when you finally left, the cold air outside hit your face hard enough to make you inhale sharply. after the warmth of malone’s, the night felt almost startlingly clear, the sounds of the bar dulling as the door closed behind you.
beau immediately wrapped his arm around your shoulders as the four of you started down the sidewalk. dean and allie walked a few steps ahead. allie slipped her hand into his, and he glanced down at her before adjusting his pace to match hers.
after a minute, dean looked back. his eyes moved over you, then beau. apparently satisfied, he turned forward again and you smiled to yourself.
the night hadn’t gone the way any of you had expected. your heart still beat a little faster when you thought about the moment the stranger’s expression had changed, and you suspected it would take a while before the memory stopped making something unpleasant twist in your stomach.
but beau was beside you, warm and solid, his arm wrapped around you.
a few steps ahead, dean was listening to allie talk, occasionally turning his head toward her as she spoke. she said something that made him laugh, then shoved his shoulder when he apparently responded with the wrong thing.
a couple minutes later, dean glanced back at you one more time. it was only briefly, but you understood then, perhaps more clearly than you had before, why beau loved him like a brother.
it wasn’t because dean was particularly good at saying the right thing. he usually wasn’t. it wasn’t because he made grand gestures or turned friendship into something that needed to be announced.
it was knowing when to stay out of the way and when to step in. it was sitting beside someone without demanding they explain how they felt. it was looking back over your shoulder once, then again, just to make sure the people you cared about were still there.
beau’s thumb moved across your shoulder and when you looked up at him he was already watching you. his eyebrows lifted slightly in a silent question, and this time you didn’t tell him it was nothing. you only moved a little closer and something in his expression softened.
you knew then, that you weren’t alone; you’d never been, and you never would be.
