Neglected
☄︎ Warnings: Posessivey behaviour. Miscommunication. Arguing!! (but happy ending) ☄︎ Pairing: Beau Maxwell x F!Reader x Dean Di Laurentis ☄︎ Rating/Genre: PG. Angst. Jealously. ☄︎ Words: 1767 ☄︎ Summary: The project you're working on has taken over your life, leaving you no time for the needy men in your life.
💭: so i realised i don't actually know how to write jealousy, and this came out super angsty (with a happy ending!) lmao. not my best work but i wrote it so... here you go i guess
Original request here. 〣 Off Campus Masterlist here.〣 Beau & Dean Masterlist here.
The project that you’d been working on was given to you by your most no-nonsense professor. He was the type to expect perfection, but so rarely see it. He was also the type to make one project worth 70% of your entire grade for the semester.
Luckily for you, the project partner that you had been assigned was the most dedicated of students. For any one idea or piece of research you contributed, Luca contributed two more. The only catch was, his schedule only aligned with yours during evenings and weekends.
That’s why, for the last two weeks straight, your social life had basically been non-existent. You spent all of your free hours hunched over textbooks, creating and scrapping PowerPoint presentations, and trying to understand research articles written by people with decades more experience than you had.
You and Luca were creating something you felt truly proud of, the hours and sacrifices you were making made sense.
Unluckily for Luca, he also had the misfortune of being genuinely funny, annoyingly handsome, and completely oblivious to the fact that the men you usually spent a significant amount of time with were... territorial.
Admittedly, giving enough attention to your two needy men was a challenge you were losing recently. You often went back to your dorm exhausted, having only managed to send a few texts to the group chat before falling into deep sleep.
On the rare occasions they did finally catch you, like today, you were usually about to rush back off to the library.
“Again?” Dean asked, arms crossed as he leant against your dorm room doorframe. “You’re going to spend time with him again?”
Your eyes narrowed at the accusatory tone. You cared for Dean, more than you could admit out loud without having spoken to Beau about it first, but he had no right to be implying whatever it was that he was implying.
“That’s usually how group projects work, Dean.”
Beau scoffed from where he was lounging on your bed and Dean turned to glare at him.
“You think this is funny, Maxwell?” Dean asked, his voice devoid of its usual teasing angle. “Because I’m failing to see the punchline here.”
Beau rolled his eyes, tossing his phone onto the mattress, the relaxed posture he’d had gone. He sat up, resting his elbows on his knees. “I’m not laughing at you.”
“I called you three times last night,” Dean said, turning back to look at you. “Every single time, it went straight to voicemail. Then I get a text at two in the morning telling me how you were still with Luca?”
A sharp spike of annoyance hit your chest, masking the sudden heavy ache of guilt that was rising. “I just want to pass the semester, Dean. We’re only focused on working.”
“Right...” Dean mocked, crossing his arms tighter over his chest. His jaw clenched so hard a muscle jumped in his cheek. “With a man who happens to be a 6’2 varsity athlete who keeps his desk close enough to touch your shoulder. I know his game. I know the type. I am the type.”
“You’re being unreasonable,” you retorted, your fingers gripping the strap of your backpack. “If you can’t trust me to sit in a brightly lit library with a classmate, then we have much bigger problems.”
“It’s not about trust,” Dean growled. The defensive mask he always wore was slipping, revealing the terrifyingly fragile insecurity beneath it. He hated how much he cared about someone he technically wasn’t in a relationship with. He hated that another man was occupying your mind. “He’s looking at you, he’s making you laugh, and you’re letting him take up every single second of your day while we’re left with whatever scraps you have left.”
The heavy silence that followed Dean’s words was suffocating, ringing in your ears like the aftermath of a physical blow. You felt an uncomfortable and nauseating swirling in your stomach, your heart hammering painfully against your ribs as you stared at the raw hurt on his face.
“Scraps?” You whispered, looking between the two of them, it wasn’t fair that you felt guilty right now. “Is that really what you think this is?”
“Isn’t it?” Beau’s voice was uncharacteristically quiet. “Dean’s acting like an asshole, but he isn't entirely wrong. You come back here, you drop your bag, you sleep for eight hours, and then you leave again. We barely see you.”
You looked at Dean, waiting for his face to break out in a smile or a teasing wink that told you he was just messing with you. But it wasn’t there, his face was tense, lips pressed into a thin, straight line.
Even worse, when you looked at Beau, his face mirrored Dean’s.
“I have a deadline,” you said, your voice trembling as you adjusted the heavy strap of your backpack. “A deadline that dictates seventy percent of my grade. If I don't go right now, I'm letting Luca down, and I'm ruining my own semester.” You turned to look directly at Dean, your tone turning sharp. “And honestly, Dean, you don’t get to be jealous. I don’t want to get into this with either of you right now.”
Dean flinched at your words, his jaw tightening so hard it looked painful. A flash of raw, ugly envy crossed his features before he forced his wall back up.
“We’re just... feeling a bit neglected, babe,” Beau said, his tone softening. He looked at your tight grip on the backpack strap and sighed heavy. “Look, I get it. I know it’s seventy percent. I know you’re stressed out of your mind trying to pass this class, and we want you to. We’re proud of how hard you work. It’s just... we miss you. Just go finish it, okay? We’ll be right here when you’re done.”
The sudden reassurance made a tight knot in your chest dissolve, the wave of relief hitting you instantly. You managed a small nod toward him. “I miss you too. I promise, the second it’s submitted, I’m all yours.”
You looked over at Dean, but he still wasn’t making eye contact with you.
You opened your mouth to say something. To defend yourself, or maybe to tell him how much you actually missed him. But you hadn't officially spoken to Beau about what Dean meant to the two of you yet. You were still operating in this grey, unlabelled, territory where Dean joined you on weekends, and the weight of what you wanted to say felt too massive to drop now.
“I’m leaving,” you said, turning on your heel.
Dean let out a bitter laugh, stepping back just enough to clear the doorway. “Right. God forbid you keep Luca waiting.”
You didn’t look back as you pushed past Dean and stepped into the hallway. The walk to the campus library was a blur of angry tears and a suffocating weight in your chest. You spent the next four hours staring at a laptop screen next to Luca, but your mind was back in your dorm.
The next day, you’d finally submitted the final draft of your project. You didn’t go back to your dorm, opting to immediately make your way to the hockey house. You shot a quick text to Beau, asking him to meet you there.
When you pushed open the door to Dean’s bedroom, Beau was already there, sitting on the edge of the mattress. Dean was stretched out on the other side of the bed, his back resting against the headboard with his headphones around his neck, staring blankly at his phone screen.
“It’s done?” Beau looked up at you.
“It’s done,” you breathed, stepping into the room. “We submitted it.”
You waited for Dean to look up, to offer a sarcastic comment or a lazy smirk, but he didn't even move. He kept his eyes pinned to his phone.
“Dean, what’s up? Please look at me.”
Dean slowly lowered his phone, his eyes flicking to yours. “Congrats. I’m happy for you.”
His voice sounded anything but happy.
Your eyes flicked over to Beau’s, you weren’t sure you understood what was happening here, but clearly, he did.
“I think you’re going to need to fill in the blanks for her, Dean,” Beau said.
“You told me I don’t get to be jealous,” Dean whispered. “And you’re right, aren’t you? I don’t. I’m not your boyfriend.”
“Oh.” You felt the oxygen rush out of your body. “No, Dean, that’s not what I meant. I–.”
“It’s fine,” Dean cut you off. He tossed his phone onto the blankets and stood up from the bed. “People come to me for a good time, not a long time or a serious time. And that’s fine by me.”
It clearly wasn’t fine by him. His jaw was ticking again.
“Dean, I don’t see you like that, we don’t see you like that,” you said, gesturing between you and Beau. “I just meant you didn’t get to be jealous of me and Luca, when I saw you and some puck bunny laughing it up the other day.”
Dean’s head snapped to your direction.
“You... what?” Dean stammered, his arms slowly uncoiling from his chest.
“I saw you by the athletic centre on Wednesday afternoon,” you confessed, the words spilling out fast. “You were laughing with some blonde and she was practically throwing herself at you. I was stressed out of my mind about this project, completely exhausted, and then I see you doing that. So, when you started interrogating me about Luca, I snapped. I said you didn't get to be jealous because I was hurting.”
From the edge of the mattress, Beau snorted. He rubbed a hand over his face, a look of profound relief softening his features. “Jesus Christ, you two are idiots.”
“I don't even remember her name,” Dean whispered. “We spoke about the game, that’s it. I swear.”
“Okay.” Is all you said.
“Okay?” Dean asked.
“Yes. Okay.”
Dean’s brows furrowed at your cryptic words.
“I think what she’s trying to say, in a non-emotionally constipated way, is,” Beau said, coming over to wrap an arm around you, “we like you and it’s about time we’re absolutely clear on what we want.”
“Exactly,” you agreed softly, leaning into Beau’s sturdy side.
Dean’s throat bobbed, his shoulders dropping. “What do you want?”
“I want you to be our boyfriend,” you said clearly, making sure every single syllable sank in. “Officially. Publicly. Will you?”
Dean pretended to think about it for a minute, before shouting, “Fuck yes.” And pulling you both into a hug.