You swallow hard, blinking against the tears clouding your vision before forcing your feet to move. Your shoes feel strangely heavy as you make your way toward the staircase, your breathing uneven no matter how hard you try to steady it.
The first stair creaks beneath your weight as you sniffle, scrubbing impatiently beneath your eyes with the sleeve of your sweatshirt, but the tears keep coming anyway.
The staircase is dim, lit only by the warm glow from the kitchen downstairs. Your vision swims again, forcing you to focus on the next step before carefully lowering your foot.
You catch yourself against the railing before you can stumble, your fingers wrapping so tightly around the wood your knuckles ache.
You draw in a slow breath through your nose, willing your heartbeat to settle, but it only makes the ache spread further, every beat reminding you of his voice and the words he’d whisper to her.
I like us.
I haven’t stopped thinking about New York.
This feels different.
You’d spent years imagining what it might feel like to hear Dean Di Laurentis confess his feelings to you. You just never imagined you’d be the one he practiced them on before saying them to somebody else.
You weren’t jealous of Allie. You were jealous of the version of Dean she’d gotten to meet.
You didn’t want her life. You wanted the words he’d chosen for it.
The worst part was that the words sounded just as beautiful as you’d always imagined, but they weren’t yours. They were Allie’s.
“I get it now. You love love.” Dean smiles as he admits it, watching her closely. Allie stands almost perfectly still in front of him, her fingers tightening around the strap of her bag before loosening again.
She glances up at him, biting her cheek, her eyes going wide before they dart away. He mistakes the color rising into her cheeks for something sweet—like maybe he finally understands what she’d been trying to tell him all along.
“That’s what you said you wanted, right? That night at the fire pit.”
He moves closer to her, the confidence he’d carried out of the house still holding despite his nerves. His hand rests on her hip and her shoulders turn away slightly.
“So, I came here to tell you that, uh… I didn’t complete the assignment.”
“What?” she asks, her expression changing so quickly he nearly misses it. Her lips part, but nothing comes. There aren’t any words that make this better, not when Dean matters to her and she already knows this is going to break his heart.
He sees the confusion but not the panic underneath it. Even now, with her staring at him like he’s said something impossible, he only thinks he’s caught her off guard.
“Why?” Her voice breaks around the word, her head tilting as she tries her best not to cry.
“Because I like you. I like us,” he answers surely, his thumb rubbing absently against her skin. “I know that’s not what we said, but I was hoping—”
“Hey, no, Dean. You can’t,” she blurts as he steps so close she can feel the warmth of his body, the smell of his cologne amplified with the heat of his anxiety.
Her hand comes up slightly between them, but Dean’s too caught up in the rush of finally saying it to notice how rigid her shoulders have become.
He thinks she’s scared. He is too, and somehow that only makes him more certain they’re standing in the same place. Both of them nervous. Both of them trying to figure out what comes after the agreement they’d made. His eyebrows lift as he looks down at her, the confidence returning to his voice before he says, “And yet, I am.”
Allie blinks up at him, her tears balancing on her waterline as the bar rages around them.
But she’s silent.
Dean feels a wave of unease, his eyes drifting around the bar as he realizes just how many people are there, everything closing in a little tighter.
“No, I mean, like, you have to complete the assignment,” Allie whispers, her voice barely carrying over the music. She draws in a shaky breath before finally forcing herself to meet his eyes. “Because—”
“Because why?” he asks quietly, his eyebrows pulling together.
His heart pounds so hard he can feel it in his throat. He’d been terrified she would laugh it off. Terrified he’d stumble over the speech he’d practiced with you. You had cried. You’d called it beautiful. You’d told him to tell her. Somehow, being here now, he realizes there had been one outcome he never once prepared himself for.
She nods once, looking sick to her stomach. “Because I did. I swear, it didn’t mean anything. I—Joanna set me up with this guy, like a total stranger at a bar.”
He stares at her, waiting for her to say there was more to it—that she hadn’t wanted to, that it didn’t matter, that she’d stopped before anything happened.
“You…” His voice comes out quieter than he means it to. “You actually did it?”
“I’m sorry.” The words barely leave her mouth before fresh tears gather in her eyes.
Nothing else comes. She doesn’t take it back. She doesn’t laugh. She doesn’t tell him she misspoke.
Every sound in the bar swells until it becomes one unbearable roar. Somebody bumps his shoulder walking past, muttering an apology he doesn’t hear. A loud bark of laughter cuts clean through the noise.
Dean glances over his shoulder, watching as Hunter steps through the front door, eyes drifting across the room.
Hunter finds Allie almost immediately, a smile tipping at the corner of his mouth as he nods in her direction. The look of someone who’s on the receiving end of an assignment she completed.
Hunter’s smile falters for only a second as his eyes finally land on Dean standing beside her.
They’d spent years trying to get under each other’s skin. Dean sees it the moment it clicks. Hunter understands why Dean’s standing beside her. He doesn’t know the whole story, but the smile curling on his lips tells Dean Hunter’s enjoying every second of it.
Dean turns back to Allie, meeting her gaze. He doesn’t even need to ask—but he needs to hear it.
“Him?”
“No,” she croaks, eyes pinching shut as she shakes her head. “Yes—do you know him?”
And for the first time all night, Dean takes a step back, then another. His hand reaches up, raking through his hair as every sound around him crashes together like a freight train. The rose-colored glasses he’d walked in wearing had been ripped clean off, and all he could see now was red.
His skin crawls with the thought of it, heartbreak clawing at the back of his throat as his stomach sinks. How could he be so stupid? How could he possibly think either one of them would come out unscathed?
Maybe it’s because he never thought it would end like this when he agreed…
Maybe he thought the only person she could see herself with was him. He’d never even been the only option. And it broke his heart because he’d been the only one falling in love.
I like us. Not enough…
I haven’t stopped thinking about New York. I have.
This feels different. And it still isn’t enough.
None of this mattered.
“Dean, I’m sorry,” Allie whispers, taking one careful step toward him before stopping herself. “Dean…”
Dean doesn’t even look at her. His jaw flexes hard enough to ache as he turns away, forcing the people lingering nearby to shuffle out of his way.
“The fuck are you doing here?” Dean asks, grabbing onto the anger before the sadness can split him open in front of everyone as he turns to Davenport.
“I heard your team needs saving,” Hunter says, taking a beer from the bartender’s hand.
He takes a slow drink without taking his eyes off Dean, leaning his body against the edge of the bar like he doesn’t have a care in the world.
“Yeah?” Dean laughs bitterly. “Get the fuck out.”
Hunter huffs out a laugh, the corner of his mouth pulling higher as he sets his beer back down. Dean can see Garrett and Tucker already closing in.
“Hey,” Hunter scoffs, putting his hands up in surrender, his demeanor anything but. “Logan said this was your idea—”
Dean doesn’t answer him. His eyes drift past Hunter instead, landing on Garrett standing a few feet away, confusion written all over his face.
“You weren’t there. Logan had to make a call,” Garrett mumbles.
“I’m not skating with this prick.” Dean squares up to him, stepping closer as Hunter studies him. A crooked grin spreads across his face. Neither one of them looks away.
“Aww. What, are you scared I’m gonna dust your ass again?” Hunter closes the distance until they’re nearly chest to chest.
“You wanna try?” Dean asks, shoving Hunter backward with both hands.
Hunter plants his feet, catches himself, then steps right back into Dean’s space. “Yeah? Yeah, I do.”
Dean grabs the front of Hunter’s shirt, hauling him close enough that their foreheads nearly touch. “I’d like to see you fucking try.”
“Get the fuck out of my face,” Hunter shoots back.
Dean buries both hands in Hunter’s shirt, shoving him hard enough that he crashes into a high-top table. Glasses shatter and beer spills, the crowd parting as he surges forward, driving both palms into Dean’s chest.
Dean stumbles backward into the bar rail, his lower back slamming into polished wood. His fist connects with Hunter’s jaw almost on instinct, snapping his head sideways before Hunter answers with one of his own that catches Dean beneath the eye.
The two of them crash sideways into another cluster of people, chairs scraping violently across the floor as somebody dives out of the way.
Hunter lands a punch deep into his ribs that drives the air straight out of his lungs. Dean grabs onto him as he folds, dragging Hunter down until both of them hit the sticky hardwood in a tangled heap.
Hunter’s elbow catches the corner of Dean’s mouth—his lip splitting, blood flooding his mouth.
“Dean!” Garrett shouts. “Break it up!”
People reach for both of them from every direction, but neither man lets go. Dean tears free long enough to throw another punch that lands against Hunter’s ribs before Hunter answers with one across Dean’s cheekbone, his vision blurring again as people shout over one another.
Beau finally hooks both arms around Dean from behind, hauling him backward across the beer-slick floor while Garrett and Tucker wrestle Hunter the opposite direction. Dean strains against Beau’s grip anyway, shoes scraping against the bar floor as blood drips steadily from the corner of his mouth onto the front of his shirt.
“Enough!” Garrett barks into the space between, breathing hard himself.
Dean glances back, and Allie’s standing exactly where he left her, crying hard enough she has to cover her mouth. He tears himself out of Beau’s grip and storms toward the front door without another word.
“…Hey.”
Your stomach twists. You hadn’t even considered somebody else might still be here.
Logan’s leaning against the kitchen counter, dressed for the bar, absentmindedly eating a bowl of cereal. His eyes squint, taking a better look at you through the dark house, before his expression immediately changes.
Logan lowers the spoon back into the bowl, his eyebrows pulling together as he straightens away from the counter. “Hey, sweetheart…” he says carefully, his gaze moving over your face for less than a second before all the color drains from his own. “What’s wrong?”
You pull your bag a little closer against your side as you force yourself to look anywhere but at him, swallowing hard around the lump already sitting in your throat.
You open your mouth, fully intending to tell him you’re fine, but the words refuse to come, leaving you standing there in complete silence while another tear slips free despite your best efforts.
Logan sets the bowl down without taking another bite. “Hey,” he says again, this time much softer as he walks around the counter toward you. “C’mere.”
You suck in one sharp breath, another tear sliding down your cheek before you can stop it. You shake your head, blinking hard as you try to pull yourself back together.
“I’m okay.”
“No, you’re not.”
He reaches for you, wrapping his arms around your shoulders as carefully as if he thinks you might fall apart in his hands, and for the first time since Dean walked out that front door, you let yourself cry.
The front of his t-shirt grows damp beneath your face while one of his hands rubs slow circles across your back, his other resting gently against the back of your head.
You don’t remember the last time someone held you while you cried. Dean never had to. He’d always made sure you laughed before it got this bad.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs quietly. “I’ve got you.”
The cool night air hits Dean like a slap the second he shoves through the front doors.
His shoes pound against the sidewalk as he puts as much distance between himself and Allie as he can, dragging the back of his hand across his split lip.
Every breath stings his ribs—his left eye’s already swelling shut—but none of it hurts as much as the pressure sitting in the middle of his chest.
“Dean!” He doesn’t look back as he hears her voice. “Dean, wait!”
Allie hurries after him, weaving around the crowd standing outside Malone’s. She reaches for his arm, fingers barely brushing the sleeve of his jacket before he jerks away so fast it startles both of them.
He shakes his head, breathing hard through his nose. “Don’t.”
Her hand falls back to her side as she searches his face, tears continuing to roll down her cheeks. If she’d reached for him five minutes earlier, he would’ve melted into it.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m fine. Go back inside,” he huffs, turning back around to walk away.
He only makes it a few steps before she reaches for him again, her hand wrapping around his arm. “How is this fine, Dean? You’re not okay. We’re not okay—”
“We? We’re not okay?”
“Yes we—us, Dean.”
“Why are you acting like there’s a fuckin’ we here when you clearly… you—you just. Fuck! You weren’t supposed to say that,” Dean cuts her short, the words sounding almost childlike, leaving him mortified.
“…What?” she asks breathlessly, staring up at him.
“You weren’t supposed to say that.” His voice cracks this time. “I was supposed to come here.” He gestures back toward the bar with one bloody hand before letting it fall uselessly to his side. “I was supposed to tell you how I felt.”
“Dean…”
“You were supposed to tell me you felt the same way.” His breathing grows more uneven with every word, his chest rising sharply as he struggles to keep himself together. “You were supposed to tell me I’d been an idiot for waiting this long. We were supposed to laugh about that stupid fucking assignment. We were…”
His voice disappears completely. He swallows hard, looking away for a second before forcing himself to meet her eyes again.
“How do you not feel the same way? How, Allie? I don’t get it. And that's my issue to work through, not yours—”
“I never wanted this to happen.”
“Neither did I,” Dean whispers, his eyes glassy despite how hard he’s trying to keep himself together.
“I’m so sorry.”
“I know you are.” He presses his lips together for a second, his jaw flexing as he tries to steady his breathing. “I just… I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this now.”
He’d spent so long wondering how good it would feel when he finally told her how he felt that he’d never once thought about what came after she said no.
Allie’s eyes drift back to the cut beneath his eye, another thin line of blood working its way down his cheek. “You’re bleeding.”
Dean reaches up, touching the corner of his mouth before looking at the blood on his fingertips, completely numb.
“It’s nothing.”
“Dean, it’s not nothing.” She fumbles through her purse until she finds a bar napkin, unfolding it with shaky hands as she steps closer again. “Just… hold still for one second.”
She barely gets close enough to lift her hand before Dean takes another step backward. “Please don’t.”
Dean holds her gaze for a moment before letting out a shaky breath, his gaze dropping to the cracked sidewalk.
“Forget it.”
She says something else. He sees her lips move. Another apology, maybe. Another explanation. He doesn’t hear a word of it because the thoughts in his head are so, so much louder.
She never asked him to come tonight.
…Hunter was there.
And maybe, just maybe, that’s exactly where Allie wanted him to be. His throat burns as he swallows hard, his vision blurring again.
The front doors of the bar burst open behind them, music spilling out onto the sidewalk along with a chorus of raised voices. Allie looks back toward the entrance as tears of frustration stream down her cheeks.
“Where is he?” Beau asks, already looking past her.
Allie whips around toward where Dean had been standing, but he’s gone. “He…” Her voice catches before she manages to finish. “I don’t know.”
“You really don’t wanna tell me?” Logan asks against the rim of his beer bottle before he takes a sip.
You shake your head almost immediately, your head resting heavy on his shoulder as you look out onto the empty street.
Logan nods like he’d expected that. He glances down at the porch beneath his feet for a second, tapping the toe of his boot lightly against the wood before looking toward you. “…Alright,” he says quietly. “Then don’t.”
You let out a long breath through your nose before quietly agreeing.
“Mind if I take a guess?” he asks gently.
Your fingers tighten around your sleeve until the fabric bunches in your fist.
You keep your eyes fixed in front of you, blinking quickly as another sting builds behind them, but you can’t quite bring yourself to answer, so you nod.
“It has something to do with Dean?”
Your chin trembles as you try your hardest to stay still, telling him everything he needs to know anyway.
“Mhmm,” he hums. “…Dean and Allie?” The names hang in the cool night air swirling around you.
You draw in another shaky breath, staring out at the emptiness for another second before the words finally leave you. “I just…” You swallow hard. “I don’t want to lose my best friend.”
Logan shifts toward you, pressing a kiss against your hair before he rests his chin on the top of your head. He draws in a deep breath, letting it out nice and slow.
“That’s not gonna happen,” he whispers.
You shrug helplessly, your voice barely rising above a whisper. “Everything changes when people fall in love.”
He chuckles breathily. “Nah… It’ll change some things,” he admits honestly. “Life always does.”
He turns toward you, brushing a tear away with his thumb.
“You’re not gonna lose Dean.”
His arm tightens around your shoulder, headlights sweeping briefly over the porch, and your heart plummets—the thought of Dean and Allie stumbling out of an Uber, laughing and kissing, tearing away at your last thread of sanity. The car disappears and you blow out a breath, nodding because Logan is waiting for some kind of response.
“You can talk to me, you know? It’s me.”
“How are you so sure?” you whisper.
Logan’s lip pouts a little, so slight you barely catch it out of the corner of your eye, when he hears just how broken you are. He takes another drink from his beer. “You two have been attached at the hip since freshman year. One girl isn’t gonna change that.”
“One girl,” you breathe, the words leaving your lips like you can’t believe he could possibly think that’s all she is—but he doesn’t know Dean like you know Dean.
Like Allie’s no different from the dozens of girls that have walked in and out of that door behind you. Like she isn’t the first one who made him nervous enough to ask for your help—caring enough to ask you for the first time if what he was offering someone else was enough. If he was enough.
Another car turns into the neighborhood and chills fall down your spine. “She’s not just some girl.”
The ring on his finger clinks against the bottle before he speaks. “I just mean Dean’s had people come and go before,” he continues. “You haven’t. He trusts you more than anybody. You know that, right?”
“Yeah,” you manage.
“And he’s always gonna need you.” Logan dips his head, trying to catch your eyes. “That idiot barely knows what he’s feeling until he talks it through with you first. You really think he’s gonna stop calling because he has a girlfriend?”
The word settles between your ribs, sharp and heavy.
“He talks about you constantly,” he adds. “Half the time somebody asks him a question, he starts with, ‘Well, she said—’ like we don’t already know who he means.”
You shake your head quickly, trying to get Logan to stop being so kind because each comforting word he offers to “Dean’s best friend” just pulls the woman who would do anything to mean what he means to her deeper underwater.
“Besides…” Logan huffs quietly, shaking his head. “They’ve been… whatever this is… for what? Five minutes?”
“It doesn’t matter,” you press the words past your lips.
“Exactly. I mean… they literally made a deal to hook up with other people.”
“No,” you whisper. “I mean—I just,” you stumble over your words, trying to put your misery into something coherent but it’s too fucking much. “I’m being stupid.”
“No, c’mon.” His hand slips from your shoulder, lifting to cup your cheek, turning you gently so you finally have to look at him.
His expression softens, his eyebrows pulling together with worry.
“If you think Allie’s gonna have some issue with you being close to him, she won’t,” Logan says, like it should be obvious. As though the possibility is so unreasonable it doesn’t require more than a sentence to dismiss.
“Okay,” you whisper, wanting the honesty to stop, hating how small your voice sounds.
“She knows you.” He gives you a confused little smile, like he can’t figure out how you’ve managed to scare yourself this badly over something so simple. “She knows what you and Dean are like.”
And how is that?
Your breath catches in your chest and your lashes flutter anxiously. A tiny part of you waits for him to say you’ve got it all wrong.
That Dean’s just taking the long way around. That one day he’ll realize he’s been looking at you all this time and finally understand why he could never let you go.
He doesn’t.
“You’re not competition, sweetheart.”
His expression softens when he says it, like he’s finally found the sentence that should make all of this better. The tears fill your eyes, blurring him so much that you can barely see.
“Thank you,” you whimper. You turn away from his touch, face crumpling before you can stop it, wiping away your tears with the heel of your hand.
“Hey.” Logan’s voice drops. “I didn’t—I didn’t mean to make it worse.”
“No.” You shake your head, drawing in a trembling breath as you stand up, crossing your arms tight over your chest. “I appreciate it.”
“She’s not gonna want to take away somebody who’s like family to him.”
“You’re right,” you whisper.
“Hell, you’re probably gonna end up with one of us anyway,” Logan laughs quietly before shaking his head. “I mean…” His cheeks redden ever so slightly as he scratches the back of his neck. “We all love you.”
You barely hear the first part. The last three words only make the ache inside your chest that much harder to bear because you know exactly what kind of love he means.
You nod, forcing the corner of your mouth upward, tight and unsteady, but Logan’s shoulders lower slightly in relief when he sees it.
“I don’t need to go to the bar,” Logan mumbles. “You wanna come back inside? Watch a movie or somethin’?”
And be here when he comes home? You try to keep your expression from changing, terrified that the question is painted all over your face anyway.
“No, you should go.” Your voice cracks at the end, so you clear your throat. His eyes search yours, moving over your tear-streaked cheeks before he finally lets out a quiet breath. “Everybody’s probably wondering where you are—”
“They’ll survive,” Logan stops you, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees as he looks up at you.
Silence stretches between the two of you.
Finally, Logan pushes himself to his feet, studying your face as he slips his hands into the pockets of his jeans.
He watches you for another long moment, and for one awful second you think he can see straight through it. You think he’s going to pull you back into his arms and keep asking questions until the truth spills out of you, but his shoulders slowly loosen.
“Text me when you get home.”
“I will.”
“And if you’re still upset, call me.” He reaches up, rubbing away a tear. “Don’t care what time it is, alright?”
Logan draws you into one last hug, and you let yourself sink into it as the pressure in your chest starts building again. “You’re not gonna lose him,” he whispers once more, pressing another kiss against the top of your head before giving you a final squeeze and letting you go.
He stays near the doorway, watching while you cross the yard, so you keep your shoulders straight and your steps steady. You even lift a hand when he reminds you to text him, pretending you can hold yourself together for another ten steps.
You make it out of sight before your hand flies over your mouth, a sob breaking through as the strap of your bag slips down your shoulder and you struggle to drag air into your lungs.
You were his best friend. His safe space. His family. Close enough to stay beside him through every part of the life he was about to build with someone else.
You weren’t going to lose him.
Dean was still going to choose you.
Just never the way you’d dreamed he would.
Dean runs until his lungs start burning.
His shoes hit the pavement as his heart pounds in his chest. He stumbles off the curb at the end of the block, catching himself before he goes down completely, his hands still trembling with adrenaline.
His phone vibrates against his thigh, but he doesn’t reach for it. He doesn’t want to know if it’s Allie. He doesn’t want to hear Garrett asking where he went or Beau telling him to come back. He can’t go back.
He gasps for a breath, his split lip tearing open more as the cold air bites at his skin. He’s a little drunk, and he hates to admit it. Those beers he threw back to calm his nerves are catching up with him at the worst possible time.
His shoe catches against a raised crack in the sidewalk and he stumbles forward, one palm scraping hard against the concrete. His knee drops to the wet ground, and he stays there for a moment, head hanging between his shoulders.
“Fuck,” he chokes out, shoving himself upright before his body can decide to stay down.
He makes it another block before the street opens in front of him, the familiar intersection finally slowing his feet.
His hands rake through his sweaty hair. He looks to the right, then the left toward the hockey house, before he glances back to where he wants to go.
Dean’s phone vibrates angrily in his pocket. He tugs it out, seeing a string of notifications, and a list of text messages stacked on top of each other. The latest one hits him like a gut punch.
Just talk to me please. Allie Hayes.
What if she comes looking for him? He doesn’t want to fold if she tells him she regrets what she did. He knows he will.
He doesn’t want to cry in front of her. He doesn’t want her to pity him while she patches him up after this stupid fuckin’ fight with Hunter. He doesn’t want to pretend it’s not shattering him while she tries to explain how it meant nothing.
He doesn’t want to fall asleep in sheets that smell like the two of them.
“I can’t fucking do it,” he whispers, because he knows the boys aren’t far behind. He doesn’t want Garrett or Beau. He doesn’t want Allie. He just wants you.
There’s nowhere else he goes.
He hopes you’re home.
You always know how to make things better.
But it’s gonna hurt. He can already picture the look on your face when he tells you he wasn’t enough. He can already hear your voice soften when he tells you Allie chose somebody else. He can already feel the way you’ll fit in his arms when you hug him and tell him he’s gonna be okay. He just wants to be okay…
He just wants to go home.
And so do you.
You keep your head down, not trusting yourself to look up if anyone passes by. Another tear falls, disappearing against the dark concrete before the next one follows.
Your sneakers scuff quietly against the sidewalk while you try not to think about what Dean’s doing or whether he’s already made it back to the house.
And, even though you don’t wanna know, you’re hyper aware of the phone weighing heavy in your pocket. A text from Dean—a social media update from Allie. Some public display of affection that will surely ruin you. But this limbo of knowing and not knowing what happened makes your stomach twist in knots.
What if you turned around right now? What if you went to Malone’s? Would that help? Maybe seeing them together would be the push you’d need to let that want go.
What’s a little more heartbreak?
You stop walking and in that moment you hear footsteps echo behind you. At first, you don’t think much of it. Briar’s campus is never completely empty, even this late, and somebody’s probably headed home just like you are.
You glance over your shoulder, the hair on the back of your neck standing straight as you catch a man walking toward you fast, too fast, so you move.
Your feet pound against the sidewalk as you look over your shoulder just as a pair of headlights rounds the corner.
For half a second, the headlights catch the face of the man behind you, and your heart nearly stops—his split lip, cheeks stained from tears and blood, his eye already swollen beneath blonde locks plastered to his forehead. He’s breathing hard, shoulders rising and falling with every jagged breath.
Your stomach drops and your voice breaks as you call out for him.
“Dean?”
Even from where you’re standing, you watch his head lift before tipping back toward the dark sky for a second, his shoulders sagging as another broken breath escapes him and his eyes squeeze shut.
“Dean…” You try again, your voice catching as you hurry the last few steps toward him. The streetlight finally catches his face, and your chest tightens. “Dean, what the hell happened?”
He doesn’t answer. The second you’re close enough, he reaches for you. His arms wrap around you so suddenly they almost knock you off balance, pulling you against his chest with enough force that you stumble into him.
Before you can even think to hug him back, he’s buried his face against the side of your neck, another broken sob tearing through him as his whole body shakes in your arms.
“Hey… hey,” you whisper, choking back tears of your own.
Your fingers tangle through the hair at the back of his head while your other arm wraps around his waist, holding him as tightly as you can.
“I’ve got you.”
His hands bunch the back of your sweatshirt in his fists. You can feel every tremor that moves through him, his forehead pressed against your shoulder while you continue stroking his hair over and over, your own heart breaking right alongside his.
“What happened?” you whisper. He draws in a deep breath, blowing it out slow.
You pull back just enough to look at him again, your thumb brushing carefully beneath the eye that hasn’t swollen shut.
His lashes lift slowly and the tears on his bruised cheeks shimmer. And, at this moment, you can’t remember a time when you’ve ever seen him this sad… but you know the feeling. You’ve been living it all night.
For a second, all you hear is the rustle of leaves and the uneven sound of the two of you trying to hold yourselves together.
“Just give me a minute,” he whispers.
“Okay,” you nod. “Where were you going?”
His lips draw to the side, his eyebrows softening as he looks at you like you shouldn’t even have to ask. Dean’s hand slips into yours, his fingers closing tightly around your own before he begins pulling you toward your place.
The two of you walk side by side without another word, your hands still linked between you. Dean keeps his head down, staring at the sidewalk as it passes beneath his feet.
You sneak another look at him beneath the streetlights, taking in the blood drying beneath his nose and along the corner of his mouth. He lifts his free hand, wiping at his mouth, hissing in pain before he pulls away.
Dean must feel you looking because his head turns slowly toward you, his bruised eyes finally meeting yours.
And still, he can’t bring himself to speak. Not yet. Normally, he wouldn’t have let the silence last this long. He would’ve made some joke about you staring at him or squeezed your hand until you finally looked over and smiled. He would’ve told you the other guy looked worse, even if you hadn’t asked.
You wish there was something you could say that would make any of this better.
Dean lifts his eyes, staring toward your place before letting out a long, unsteady breath. You fish your keys from your sweatshirt pocket as the two of you make your way up the short walkway.
You unlock the door and pull it open, holding it for him as he steps inside ahead of you.
The apartment is almost completely dark when the two of you step inside. You quietly push the door shut behind you, the soft click of the lock sounding impossibly loud in the silence.
He starts toward the staircase without saying a word, and you follow him just as silently. The steps creak softly beneath your weight as the two of you climb toward the second floor.
You can’t stop checking on him. Every few steps your eyes drift back to his face, the physical pain and heartbreak painted so clearly across it.
And even so, you hate yourself for the relief that’s settled somewhere deep inside you, quiet enough that you tried to keep it buried.
Dean’s heart is in pieces, and somehow a part of you is grateful that he isn’t spending tonight somewhere else. Grateful that he came looking for you instead of her. Grateful that he’s here.
The realization makes you feel sick.
That’s not what best friends are supposed to think. They aren’t supposed to find comfort in someone else’s heartbreak, no matter how desperately they’ve wished for them.
You swallow hard, forcing your eyes back to the steps beneath your feet as another sting settles behind them. This isn’t about you. Whatever’s left of your own heart can wait. Right now, Dean needs someone to put him back together.
The two of you step into your place and Dean kicks off his shoes, still refusing to let go of your hand, leading you toward the bathroom at the end of the hall, nudging the door open before stepping inside.
The room stays dim, lit only by the soft amber glow from the hallway and the faint wash of moonlight filtering through the small window above the shower.
He reaches up for the collar of his jacket, and slowly eases it from his shoulders, wincing in pain as he drags it off one arm then the next.
He nods toward the shower, waiting for your answer before he reaches for the handle. “Of course,” you whisper. He twists the metal handle until hot water begins pounding against the tile, steam slowly filling the small bathroom.
“…I got blood everywhere,” he whispers, and your eyes flick up to the mirror, the corners already fogging over from the heat.
His t-shirt is stained across the collar, dried streaks trailing down the front where he’d wiped at his face over and over throughout the walk home. There are rusty fingerprints smeared across the sleeves of your sweatshirt too, little reminders of how tightly he’d held onto you in the middle of the street.
“You’re okay,” you whisper.
He reaches for the hem of his shirt first, pulling the bloodstained fabric over himself before dropping it onto the bathroom floor. You quietly do the same with your sweatshirt, leaving it beside his before slipping out of your jeans.
Neither of you says anything about it. By the time the two of you step beneath the spray, he’s wearing nothing but his boxers, and you’re standing in your panties and bra.
The hot water runs over Dean’s hair, wetting dried blood, sending it ribboning down the side of his face. The chain on his chest flickers with every shaky breath, the tanned skin on his ribs a watercolor of purple and blue bruises.
Pink water circles lazily around the drain, carrying away blood and fresh tears.
He simply stands there with his eyes closed while you carefully press the damp cloth beneath the cut at his eyebrow, your other hand resting lightly against his shoulder to steady him. Every now and then he whimpers, but he never pulls away.
You rinse the washcloth beneath the spray before pressing it against the corner of his mouth. Dean’s head tips down slightly to give you better access, his eyes staying closed while you wipe away the blood still caught along his jaw.
“Who did this to you?”
He swallows hard enough that you see the movement in his throat. For a second, you think he might avoid the question but he doesn’t.
“Hunter.”
Your brows pull together in confusion. There are probably a dozen Hunters somewhere on campus, but there’s only one who could make Dean say it like that.
“Davenport?”
He nods, and the answer only leaves you with more questions. You look over his bruised face again, the cut at his eyebrow, the swelling already darkening beneath his eye, and the fresh scrape across his cheekbone that hadn’t been there when he left the house.
Hunter and Dean had never needed much of an excuse to get under each other’s skin, but this wasn’t the aftermath of another stupid chirp taken too far. Dean hadn’t run across campus crying because Davenport made some comment about hockey.
“Why?”
His lips part, but nothing comes out. Dean blinks a few times, unable to put his disappointment into words.
“Do you want me to guess?” you whisper. The question sounds painfully familiar the moment it leaves your mouth. A few minutes earlier, Logan had offered you the same mercy while the two of you sat on the porch, quietly filling in the spaces around everything you couldn’t bring yourself to admit.
Now Dean is standing in front of you with the same helpless look you must’ve worn then, and somehow you already know where to begin.
“She did the assignment?”
Dean bites down on his split lip, turning his face away from you before he nods.
“I’m sorry,” you whisper.
His jaw locks so tightly you can see the muscle jump beneath his skin.
And suddenly, everything starts to fall into place. Allie had completed the assignment. Dean had found out after telling her everything. Hunter had ended up with blood across his fists. But your heart still resists placing the last one where it belongs.
“With who?” you ask.
His nostrils flare and his arm circles your waist, pulling you closer beneath the water.
“No,” you breathe, but you can see Hunter stepping through the bar doors without having been there. You can see the look Dean must’ve caught between him and Allie, the one answer neither of them would’ve needed to say aloud. Your free hand rises to cover your mouth, but it does nothing to hide your emotions. “She couldn’t have known.”
“She didn’t,” he says, his voice breaking beneath the steady rush of the shower. “She had no clue.”
Dean lets out a slow breath, his forehead lowering until it rests against yours. “It…” His voice catches, forcing him to stop before he can get the rest out. “It could’ve been anybody. Would’ve hurt either way,” he whispers. He draws in another shaky breath, his lips flattening into a thin line before he finally forces himself to finish. “It just…” Another pause. “It being him fucking hurts.”
Your palm slides slowly over his shoulder before settling against the back of his neck, pulling him closer when a tremor moves through his body. “I’m sorry,” you whisper again, because there isn’t anything else you can give him.
“I really thought it was gonna go well.” Dean says it so quietly that the words almost disappear beneath the water, but you hear every one.
He had walked into that bar convinced the words he’d practiced with you would be enough to make Allie choose him. And fuck, if those same words had ever left his mouth for you, you think you could’ve lived on them for the rest of your life.
You can’t tell him that. You can’t admit that while he’s standing here broken over somebody else, not when he trusts you to be the one person who will hold him without asking for anything in return.
So you don’t.
“I love you,” he whispers, his voice cracking when he speaks as your fingers continue moving gently through his hair.
“I love you too.”
Your eyes burn all over again. The last traces of blood disappear down the drain beneath your feet, but neither of you makes any move to step away.
“You’re the only person I can count on.”
“Always,” you whisper.
He steps close enough that the tip of his nose nearly brushes yours. His hands slide from your waist, lifting between you to hold your face, his bruised knuckles resting beneath your ears while his thumbs sweep over your cheeks. Your mouth trembles when you try to give him a reassuring smile.
He’d been too consumed by everything that had happened to realize you’d already been crying long before he found you.
And after he’d left you crying on his bed, you’d probably never stopped.
Dean’s thumb slides along your bottom lip, feeling it tremble under his touch. The fact that you’re holding your breath to keep from sobbing makes his heart start to race all over again.
“Babygirl,” he whispers. “Hey.” He stops you when you look away, searching your face for another long moment, looking at you like he’s only just beginning to realize that he wasn’t the only person whose heart was broken. “What’s wrong?”
summary: in which a late-night argument with your boyfriend follows you home, beau finally voices what everyone has been thinking, and dean watches you break apart while realising just how unhappy you've become.
notes: hi!! i've had this one sitting in my drafts for awhile now, i hope you all enjoy <3 💌
*note: this takes place prior to dean and y/n's secret relationship
ꪆৎ
it’s nearly one in the morning when the apartment door finally opens.
new york glows beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows that stretch across the living room, the city still awake despite the hour. somewhere in the distance, a siren echoes briefly before disappearing beneath the constant hum of traffic.
the skyline looks endless tonight.
bright. restless. alive.
inside the apartment, everything feels strangely quiet by comparison.
beau and dean have been camped out on opposite ends of the couch for almost two hours now, half-watching an action movie that neither of them are particularly invested in.
empty beer bottles clutter the coffee table, a bowl of pretzels abandoned between them. the television throws shifting blue light across the apartment as they speak about their upcoming respective seasons.
the lock clicks, and both of them glance towards the front door automatically.
you step inside first, dean knows immediately that something is wrong. you're not crying, you're not visibly upset.
if anything, you're trying far too hard not to be.
but the version of you standing in front of him feels unfamiliar somehow.
you're barefoot, your heels hanging loosely from two fingers. your makeup is mostly gone now, though faint traces of mascara remain beneath your eyes like you'd wiped them away repeatedly throughout the night. your hair, which had looked perfectly styled when you left earlier, now falls messily around your shoulders.
and your face-
your face looks tired, like you're emotionally wrung out. it's the kind of tired dean has only seen a few times before.
the second your eyes land on the couch and realise you aren't alone, something flickers across your expression.
disappointment.
like you'd been hoping everyone would already be asleep so nobody would see you looking like this.
dean's stomach sinks immediately, "hey."
you visibly pull yourself together. a smile appears so quickly it almost feels rehearsed. "hi."
it sounds wrong. far too quiet, too careful, too measured.
dean briefly shifts his gaze onto beau, who seems to notice it too. beau straightens slightly, eyes narrowing, his expression shifting from relaxed amusement to concern almost immediately.
your boyfriend steps through the doorway behind you and suddenly the entire atmosphere changes. he looks furious, not in a loud or obnoxious way, something much colder than that.
his jaw is tight, his shoulders rigid.
his eyes are hard in a way that immediately tells dean whatever happened tonight happened recently. probably in the elevator, probably in the taxi home.
probably five minutes before walking through the front door.
your boyfriends gaze shifts and lands on beau, then dean, and everything changes instantly.
dean watches as his posture loosens and his expression smooths out, the irritation disappearing behind something casual.
a performance so seamless it actually makes dean blink.
whatever version of this man existing outside the apartment apparently isn't the version currently standing in front of them.
"you guys are still up?"
beau stares at him, his voice flat. "obviously."
your boyfriend laughs lightly, like everything is normal, like you're not standing beside him looking one bad question away from completely falling apart.
he reaches for you then, his hand settling carefully against the small of your back.
gentle, possessive, performative.
dean doesn't know why that word appears in his head, only that it does.
the gesture looks right. it looks affectionate exactly in the way a caring boyfriend would be, except for the fact that your entire body seems to tense beneath his touch.
slightly, so slight most people wouldn't notice, but beau and dean do, of course they do.
you step away immediately, moving from his touch.
"don't."
the word barely exists, coming out soft enough that your warning almost gets lost beneath the noise of the television.
it lands anyway, heavy and final.
something flashes across your boyfriend's face. annoyance, embarrassment, perhaps even anger. dean isn't entirely sure, whatever it is disappears a second later.
"okay."
the silence that follows his response feels uncomfortable and the air feels as though its growing thicker with tension as seconds pass.
you clear your throat, your gaze landing towards the ground beneath you, clearly avoiding at looking anyone directly in the eye, knowing that you could break any second.
"i'm gonna shower."
"baby-"
"i'm tired."
your voice doesn't waver, still refusing to look at him.
you don’t look at beau or dean either.
you just disappear down the hallway, the sound of the bathroom door shutting filling the silence that had previously filled the living room space.
your boyfriend lingers awkwardly by the kitchen island, muttering something about going to bed before disappearing after you. the sound of the bedroom door closes and silence settles over the apartment once more.
slowly beau turns towards dean. dean looks back, neither of them saying anything, just a shared look of understanding and knowing.
-
half an hour later the movie is still playing, or at least the television is still on.
neither beau or dean could've told you what had happened during the last twenty minutes, even if somebody had held a gun to their heads. the volume remains low enough that the distant explosions and dialogue blur together into background noise.
beau sits forward on the couch, elbows resting against his knees, the remote loose in one hand. dean occupies the opposite end, one ankle hooked over the other knee, phone forgotten somewhere beside him.
every few minutes one of them glances towards the hallway.
neither comments on it, doing so would properly require acknowledging what they'd both seen.
the expression on your face, the way your boyfriend had immediately changed the second he realised there were witnesses.
outside, the city continues moving, inside, the apartment feels strangely suspended, like everybody is waiting for something.
suddenly your bedroom door opens, both their heads lift automatically.
you emerge slowly from the hallway, freshly showered, changed into an oversized t-shirt that hangs almost to your knees.
your damp hair falls over one shoulder, your face scrubbed clean now.
no makeup, no mascara, nothing left to hide behind.
somehow that only makes it worse, because now there's nothing disguising how exhausted you look.
nothing disguising the faint puffiness around your eyes, or the way your shoulders seem slightly rounded inward, as though you're carrying something too heavy for one person to hold comfortably.
for a second dean is struck by how young you look. not physically, emotionally.
like the confident, bright version of you he had spent years knowing had slowly been replaced by somebody waiting for permission to take up space.
you don't seem to notice either of them watching, or maybe you do.
maybe you simply don't have enough energy left to pretend otherwise. without saying anything, you cross the apartment towards the kitchen, the hardwood floors creaking softly beneath your bare feet.
the refrigerator light spills across the darkened kitchen as you pull the door open. you stand there for a second staring into the fridge like you've forgotten what you came for.
the movie previously playing on the tv pauses and the sudden silence makes you freeze. slowly you turn around.
beau is already looking at you, concern written plainly across his features. "you okay?"
the question settles heavily between all three of you.
it's only a simple question, the sort people ask every day. except it carries a certain weight to it, and everybody in the room already knows the answer.
your eyes drop immediately towards the bottle in your hands, your fingers fiddling absentmindedly with the cap. "yeah."
lie, an obvious lie.
the kind of lie that sounds tired before it even leaves your mouth, the one people tell when they're hoping nobody pushes for more information.
dean feels something twist uncomfortably inside his chest. you've always been terrible at lying, particularly to the people who know you best.
beau exhales slowly, long enough that it almost sounds like frustration. dean already knows exactly where this conversation is heading.
"y/n."
you close your eyes briefly, just for a second, like hearing your own name spoken that gently somehow hurts more.
"i'm fine."
another lie. quieter this time, less convincing.
beau lets out a short humourless laugh and the sound makes you visibly tense. "you're not."
silence.
the refrigerator hums quietly behind you, traffic moves somewhere below, a siren echoes several streets away.
you stare down at the water bottle, trying your best to avoid eye contact with your brother and his best friend.
beau watches you. dean watches the both of you, and suddenly the room feels too small.
beau drags a hand slowly across his jaw as his expression hardens. not because he's angry at you, because he's angry for you.
he's been watching this happen for months. watching pieces of his sister disappear one at a time and he's finally run out of patience.
"you can't keep doing this."
your shoulders immediately stiffen, a reaction so instinctive it almost looks unconscious. "beau."
"no."
his voice sharpens, not loud, worse, serious. the kind of serious that instantly makes your stomach drop. "seriously."
you look away, towards the windows, toward literally anywhere except your brother. dean can already see the tears beginning to form, you're losing the fight to keep yourself together.
"he treats you like shit, y/n."
the words hit the room like broken glass.
"beau."
"he does."
"keep your voice down."
your response comes too quickly, like you've had this conversation before. like you've spent months managing everybody else's reactions. months smoothing things over, months making excuses for your boyfriend.
"why?"
your gaze flicks instinctively towards the hallway, towards your bedroom, towards the closed door behind which your boyfriend is currently sleeping peacefully.
the movement lasts less than a second but it says everything. suddenly something genuinely ugly settles low inside dean's chest.
even now, even after whatever happened tonight, even after walking through that front door looking like you'd spent the entire evening trying not to cry, you're worried about him hearing.
worried about upsetting him, worried about protecting him.
"he'll hear you."
"good." beau is standing before the word fully leaves his mouth. the movement sudden enough that you physically take a step backward.
his frustration finally bleeds through. raw, unfiltered. "let him."
"beau."
"i don't care."
his voice cracks slightly, just enough, emotion sneaking through the anger. "i genuinely don't care."
he doesn't sound angry anymore, he just sounds hurt.
which somehow makes everything worse because anger is easy. anger burns hot and fast. hurt lingers, it comes from loving somebody, from watching somebody you care about slowly disappear in front of you and feeling completely powerless to stop it.
"you're miserable."
silence.
the words land heavily between you. not cruel, not dramatic, just honest, painfully honest.
your throat works once, then twice, like you're trying to swallow around something sharp.
"you haven't been yourself in months, y/n."
your eyes shine immediately and dean knows. he's seen this expression before, seen it every time somebody accidentally gets too close to the truth.
"that's not fair." your voice comes out smaller now, fragile.
beau laughs once, though it carries no humour. "it is fair."
he takes a step closer, then another, closing the space between you. "you barely laugh anymore."
another.
"you second guess everything."
another.
"you apologise for things that aren't even your fault."
your breathing begins to shake.
"you literally asked me if a dress was disrespectful, y/n."
suddenly your face crumples, completely, instantly, like the memory physically hurts.
dean remembers it too.
he remembers standing in this very kitchen while you'd hovered awkwardly near the island. he remembers the way you'd tugged nervously at the hem of your dress, the way you'd laughed afterwards, pretending the question wasn't serious.
pretending it hadn't mattered. except it had mattered.
confident people don't ask permission to exist comfortably inside their own bodies, and somewhere along the way your boyfriend had convinced you otherwise.
"you used to love getting dressed up."
beau's voice breaks, just slightly. "you used to walk into rooms like you belonged there."
tears begin to spill down your cheeks. fast, silent, uncontrollable.
"beau..."
"you don't even recognise yourself anymore."
that's it, that's the moment everything finally breaks. dean physically watches it happen. he watches the exact second whatever you've been holding together finally gives way.
a sound leaves your throat. it's small, broken, devastating.
suddenly you're crying, really crying. the kind that hurts, the kind that comes from somewhere deep. months of swallowed arguments, months of apologies, months of shrinking yourself, all collapsing at once.
beau's entire expression changes immediately, every trace of anger on his features disappearing.
"shit."
he crosses the room instantly and the second his arms wrap around you, you fall apart completely, like your body had simply been waiting for permission to stop pretending.
you grab handfuls of his shirt, burying your face against his shoulder.
you sob, hard.
loud enough that dean feels his own chest tighten. this isn't sadness, this is devastation. dean has known you for years, long enough to remember every version of you.
the twelve-year-old who cried over a lost bracelet.
the sixteen-year-old who called beau hysterically because she'd backed her car into a pole.
the eighteen-year-old who got emotional during graduation speeches.
he has seen you cry, countless times. never like this, never this broken, never this exhausted.
never like somebody whose heart has been carrying too much weight for far too long.
beau just holds you tighter, one hand cradling the back of your head while the other is wrapped firmly around your shoulders.
protective, steady. the way he always has. "i know."
his voice comes out rough, you cry harder. "i know, y/n. i'm here."
dean has to look away, because watching you break apart in your brother's arms feels strangely private.
down the hallway your boyfriend sleeps peacefully, completely unaware, while the girl he claims to love stands out here falling to pieces.
for the first time, something vicious settles permanently inside dean towards a man he barely knows. if this is what loving him feels like for you, then maybe he doesn't deserve you at all.
summary: in which a late-night argument with your boyfriend follows you home, beau finally voices what everyone has been thinking, and dean watches you break apart while realising just how unhappy you've become.
notes: hi!! i've had this one sitting in my drafts for awhile now, i hope you all enjoy <3 💌
*note: this takes place prior to dean and y/n's secret relationship
ꪆৎ
it’s nearly one in the morning when the apartment door finally opens.
new york glows beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows that stretch across the living room, the city still awake despite the hour. somewhere in the distance, a siren echoes briefly before disappearing beneath the constant hum of traffic.
the skyline looks endless tonight.
bright. restless. alive.
inside the apartment, everything feels strangely quiet by comparison.
beau and dean have been camped out on opposite ends of the couch for almost two hours now, half-watching an action movie that neither of them are particularly invested in.
empty beer bottles clutter the coffee table, a bowl of pretzels abandoned between them. the television throws shifting blue light across the apartment as they speak about their upcoming respective seasons.
the lock clicks, and both of them glance towards the front door automatically.
you step inside first, dean knows immediately that something is wrong. you're not crying, you're not visibly upset.
if anything, you're trying far too hard not to be.
but the version of you standing in front of him feels unfamiliar somehow.
you're barefoot, your heels hanging loosely from two fingers. your makeup is mostly gone now, though faint traces of mascara remain beneath your eyes like you'd wiped them away repeatedly throughout the night. your hair, which had looked perfectly styled when you left earlier, now falls messily around your shoulders.
and your face-
your face looks tired, like you're emotionally wrung out. it's the kind of tired dean has only seen a few times before.
the second your eyes land on the couch and realise you aren't alone, something flickers across your expression.
disappointment.
like you'd been hoping everyone would already be asleep so nobody would see you looking like this.
dean's stomach sinks immediately, "hey."
you visibly pull yourself together. a smile appears so quickly it almost feels rehearsed. "hi."
it sounds wrong. far too quiet, too careful, too measured.
dean briefly shifts his gaze onto beau, who seems to notice it too. beau straightens slightly, eyes narrowing, his expression shifting from relaxed amusement to concern almost immediately.
your boyfriend steps through the doorway behind you and suddenly the entire atmosphere changes. he looks furious, not in a loud or obnoxious way, something much colder than that.
his jaw is tight, his shoulders rigid.
his eyes are hard in a way that immediately tells dean whatever happened tonight happened recently. probably in the elevator, probably in the taxi home.
probably five minutes before walking through the front door.
your boyfriends gaze shifts and lands on beau, then dean, and everything changes instantly.
dean watches as his posture loosens and his expression smooths out, the irritation disappearing behind something casual.
a performance so seamless it actually makes dean blink.
whatever version of this man existing outside the apartment apparently isn't the version currently standing in front of them.
"you guys are still up?"
beau stares at him, his voice flat. "obviously."
your boyfriend laughs lightly, like everything is normal, like you're not standing beside him looking one bad question away from completely falling apart.
he reaches for you then, his hand settling carefully against the small of your back.
gentle, possessive, performative.
dean doesn't know why that word appears in his head, only that it does.
the gesture looks right. it looks affectionate exactly in the way a caring boyfriend would be, except for the fact that your entire body seems to tense beneath his touch.
slightly, so slight most people wouldn't notice, but beau and dean do, of course they do.
you step away immediately, moving from his touch.
"don't."
the word barely exists, coming out soft enough that your warning almost gets lost beneath the noise of the television.
it lands anyway, heavy and final.
something flashes across your boyfriend's face. annoyance, embarrassment, perhaps even anger. dean isn't entirely sure, whatever it is disappears a second later.
"okay."
the silence that follows his response feels uncomfortable and the air feels as though its growing thicker with tension as seconds pass.
you clear your throat, your gaze landing towards the ground beneath you, clearly avoiding at looking anyone directly in the eye, knowing that you could break any second.
"i'm gonna shower."
"baby-"
"i'm tired."
your voice doesn't waver, still refusing to look at him.
you don’t look at beau or dean either.
you just disappear down the hallway, the sound of the bathroom door shutting filling the silence that had previously filled the living room space.
your boyfriend lingers awkwardly by the kitchen island, muttering something about going to bed before disappearing after you. the sound of the bedroom door closes and silence settles over the apartment once more.
slowly beau turns towards dean. dean looks back, neither of them saying anything, just a shared look of understanding and knowing.
-
half an hour later the movie is still playing, or at least the television is still on.
neither beau or dean could've told you what had happened during the last twenty minutes, even if somebody had held a gun to their heads. the volume remains low enough that the distant explosions and dialogue blur together into background noise.
beau sits forward on the couch, elbows resting against his knees, the remote loose in one hand. dean occupies the opposite end, one ankle hooked over the other knee, phone forgotten somewhere beside him.
every few minutes one of them glances towards the hallway.
neither comments on it, doing so would properly require acknowledging what they'd both seen.
the expression on your face, the way your boyfriend had immediately changed the second he realised there were witnesses.
outside, the city continues moving, inside, the apartment feels strangely suspended, like everybody is waiting for something.
suddenly your bedroom door opens, both their heads lift automatically.
you emerge slowly from the hallway, freshly showered, changed into an oversized t-shirt that hangs almost to your knees.
your damp hair falls over one shoulder, your face scrubbed clean now.
no makeup, no mascara, nothing left to hide behind.
somehow that only makes it worse, because now there's nothing disguising how exhausted you look.
nothing disguising the faint puffiness around your eyes, or the way your shoulders seem slightly rounded inward, as though you're carrying something too heavy for one person to hold comfortably.
for a second dean is struck by how young you look. not physically, emotionally.
like the confident, bright version of you he had spent years knowing had slowly been replaced by somebody waiting for permission to take up space.
you don't seem to notice either of them watching, or maybe you do.
maybe you simply don't have enough energy left to pretend otherwise. without saying anything, you cross the apartment towards the kitchen, the hardwood floors creaking softly beneath your bare feet.
the refrigerator light spills across the darkened kitchen as you pull the door open. you stand there for a second staring into the fridge like you've forgotten what you came for.
the movie previously playing on the tv pauses and the sudden silence makes you freeze. slowly you turn around.
beau is already looking at you, concern written plainly across his features. "you okay?"
the question settles heavily between all three of you.
it's only a simple question, the sort people ask every day. except it carries a certain weight to it, and everybody in the room already knows the answer.
your eyes drop immediately towards the bottle in your hands, your fingers fiddling absentmindedly with the cap. "yeah."
lie, an obvious lie.
the kind of lie that sounds tired before it even leaves your mouth, the one people tell when they're hoping nobody pushes for more information.
dean feels something twist uncomfortably inside his chest. you've always been terrible at lying, particularly to the people who know you best.
beau exhales slowly, long enough that it almost sounds like frustration. dean already knows exactly where this conversation is heading.
"y/n."
you close your eyes briefly, just for a second, like hearing your own name spoken that gently somehow hurts more.
"i'm fine."
another lie. quieter this time, less convincing.
beau lets out a short humourless laugh and the sound makes you visibly tense. "you're not."
silence.
the refrigerator hums quietly behind you, traffic moves somewhere below, a siren echoes several streets away.
you stare down at the water bottle, trying your best to avoid eye contact with your brother and his best friend.
beau watches you. dean watches the both of you, and suddenly the room feels too small.
beau drags a hand slowly across his jaw as his expression hardens. not because he's angry at you, because he's angry for you.
he's been watching this happen for months. watching pieces of his sister disappear one at a time and he's finally run out of patience.
"you can't keep doing this."
your shoulders immediately stiffen, a reaction so instinctive it almost looks unconscious. "beau."
"no."
his voice sharpens, not loud, worse, serious. the kind of serious that instantly makes your stomach drop. "seriously."
you look away, towards the windows, toward literally anywhere except your brother. dean can already see the tears beginning to form, you're losing the fight to keep yourself together.
"he treats you like shit, y/n."
the words hit the room like broken glass.
"beau."
"he does."
"keep your voice down."
your response comes too quickly, like you've had this conversation before. like you've spent months managing everybody else's reactions. months smoothing things over, months making excuses for your boyfriend.
"why?"
your gaze flicks instinctively towards the hallway, towards your bedroom, towards the closed door behind which your boyfriend is currently sleeping peacefully.
the movement lasts less than a second but it says everything. suddenly something genuinely ugly settles low inside dean's chest.
even now, even after whatever happened tonight, even after walking through that front door looking like you'd spent the entire evening trying not to cry, you're worried about him hearing.
worried about upsetting him, worried about protecting him.
"he'll hear you."
"good." beau is standing before the word fully leaves his mouth. the movement sudden enough that you physically take a step backward.
his frustration finally bleeds through. raw, unfiltered. "let him."
"beau."
"i don't care."
his voice cracks slightly, just enough, emotion sneaking through the anger. "i genuinely don't care."
he doesn't sound angry anymore, he just sounds hurt.
which somehow makes everything worse because anger is easy. anger burns hot and fast. hurt lingers, it comes from loving somebody, from watching somebody you care about slowly disappear in front of you and feeling completely powerless to stop it.
"you're miserable."
silence.
the words land heavily between you. not cruel, not dramatic, just honest, painfully honest.
your throat works once, then twice, like you're trying to swallow around something sharp.
"you haven't been yourself in months, y/n."
your eyes shine immediately and dean knows. he's seen this expression before, seen it every time somebody accidentally gets too close to the truth.
"that's not fair." your voice comes out smaller now, fragile.
beau laughs once, though it carries no humour. "it is fair."
he takes a step closer, then another, closing the space between you. "you barely laugh anymore."
another.
"you second guess everything."
another.
"you apologise for things that aren't even your fault."
your breathing begins to shake.
"you literally asked me if a dress was disrespectful, y/n."
suddenly your face crumples, completely, instantly, like the memory physically hurts.
dean remembers it too.
he remembers standing in this very kitchen while you'd hovered awkwardly near the island. he remembers the way you'd tugged nervously at the hem of your dress, the way you'd laughed afterwards, pretending the question wasn't serious.
pretending it hadn't mattered. except it had mattered.
confident people don't ask permission to exist comfortably inside their own bodies, and somewhere along the way your boyfriend had convinced you otherwise.
"you used to love getting dressed up."
beau's voice breaks, just slightly. "you used to walk into rooms like you belonged there."
tears begin to spill down your cheeks. fast, silent, uncontrollable.
"beau..."
"you don't even recognise yourself anymore."
that's it, that's the moment everything finally breaks. dean physically watches it happen. he watches the exact second whatever you've been holding together finally gives way.
a sound leaves your throat. it's small, broken, devastating.
suddenly you're crying, really crying. the kind that hurts, the kind that comes from somewhere deep. months of swallowed arguments, months of apologies, months of shrinking yourself, all collapsing at once.
beau's entire expression changes immediately, every trace of anger on his features disappearing.
"shit."
he crosses the room instantly and the second his arms wrap around you, you fall apart completely, like your body had simply been waiting for permission to stop pretending.
you grab handfuls of his shirt, burying your face against his shoulder.
you sob, hard.
loud enough that dean feels his own chest tighten. this isn't sadness, this is devastation. dean has known you for years, long enough to remember every version of you.
the twelve-year-old who cried over a lost bracelet.
the sixteen-year-old who called beau hysterically because she'd backed her car into a pole.
the eighteen-year-old who got emotional during graduation speeches.
he has seen you cry, countless times. never like this, never this broken, never this exhausted.
never like somebody whose heart has been carrying too much weight for far too long.
beau just holds you tighter, one hand cradling the back of your head while the other is wrapped firmly around your shoulders.
protective, steady. the way he always has. "i know."
his voice comes out rough, you cry harder. "i know, y/n. i'm here."
dean has to look away, because watching you break apart in your brother's arms feels strangely private.
down the hallway your boyfriend sleeps peacefully, completely unaware, while the girl he claims to love stands out here falling to pieces.
for the first time, something vicious settles permanently inside dean towards a man he barely knows. if this is what loving him feels like for you, then maybe he doesn't deserve you at all.
I would like to personally thank The Boys, Kripke, the wardrobe department on The Boys and Jensen Ackles himself for blessing us with this outfit because I don't know why but it just does things to me
The shoulder muscles and the hair go crazy in this outfit... As do I
