Summary: “Only bought this dress so you could take it off” SMUT ;) !!!
Dean pressed you against the hotel door. His mouth came down on yours.
Hot and demanding.
You wrapped your arms tightly around his neck, pulling him closer.
No one else knew about the looks he gave you.
No one knew about the late night hookups.
He pulled back just enough to look at you, his breathing heavy and his expression drowning in lust.
Every second felt like a risk, yet neither of you wanted to be anywhere else.
Dean dropped his room key onto the dresser. He unclipped his bowtie with one hand, letting it drop to the carpet, before turning his gaze to you.
“You're fucking killing me in that dress.”
“Yeah?” You took a slow step backward, your heels sinking into the rug. “You didn't seem too bothered by it earlier.”
Dean let out a low laugh.
He pulled off his suit jacket, tossed it over a chair, and walked toward you. “Because I was exercising a terrifying amount of self control. All I could think about the entire night was this moment.”
“Hm.”
He closed the distance between you, his large hands finding your waist. The heat of his palms burned straight through the thin fabric.
Dean leaned down, his lips brushing against the shell of your ear, his breath hitching.
A shiver shot down your spine.
Dean’s thumb traced the edge of your hip.
His touch deliberate and heavy.
He was used to getting exactly what he wanted, when he wanted it.
But right now, he was taking his time.
Making you ache for it.
“Dean,” you breathed, your hands coming up to rest on his shirt.
His eyes darkened as they dropped to your lips. “Tell me to take it off.”
You smiled against his mouth. “Take it off.”
Dean didn't need to be told twice.
“God, you’re so beautiful," Dean muttered, unzipping your dress.
“We have to be quiet. Hannah and Garrett are next door.”
“Let them listen. I don't care.”
You traced the sharp line of his jaw. “If this gets out, we're done.”
He pulled you flush against his body. The fabric of your underwear rubbed against his suit pants. “I spent the whole night watching men look at you,” he growled softly. “It drove me insane.”
He hooked his fingers under your chin, tilting your face up to his. “Say you're mine for tonight.”
“I’m yours.”
He didn't waste another second. He took your lips again.
His hands shifted, lifting you to wrap your legs around his waist.
“Good. Because I'm not sharing you with anyone.”
He carried you away from the door. Both your movements clumsy and frantic as neither of you wanted to break the kiss.
You tumbled onto the mattress together.
“Condom?” you asked quietly.
Dean nodded, reaching for his wallet.
After a brief moment, he leaned back over you.
His gaze locked entirely on yours.
There was so much heavy tension between you both.
It was suffocating.
But also, everything you’ve ever wanted.
“Fuck me,” you whispered. “Please, Dean.”
With no warning, his cock pushed inside of you.
“Like that?”
“Mhm.”
His fingers caressed your clit, using your wetness for a lubricant.
“That’s it, baby. Look at how well you’re taking me.”
You stared down, and if that isn’t the hottest thing you’ve ever seen.
The rush of lust and adrenaline was all consuming.
Your moans filled the room.
Every thrust was rough and euphoric.
“Fuck,” you cried.
The feeling was overwhelming. You couldn’t take it any longer.
“I’m going to—”
Your orgasm came quick.
Your legs trembled and moans grew louder.
“Just like that, baby. Ride it out.”
You moaned his name again. Letting the wave crash through you.
“Fuck. You feel so good.”
“Come for me,” you begged, still nauseous from the high.
A string of curses left his mouth as he pulsed inside of you, filling the condom up completely.
“Fuck, baby.” He rested forehead on your shoulder as his breathing slowly leveled out.
For a few minutes, neither of you spoke. The only sound was the distant noises of city traffic below the hotel window and your heavy breathing.
Dean shifted his weight, kissing the top of your shoulder one last time before sliding out of the bed. The mattress lifted as he walked across the hotel room toward the bathroom.
A moment later, the sound of running water echoed into the bedroom.
He returned holding a towel that he had soaked in warm water.
He sat back down on the edge of the mattress. “Sit up a little, baby.”
You did just that.
He used the warm towel to gently clean your body.
When he finished, he tossed the towel onto a nearby chair and pulled the heavy duvet back over your shoulders.
He slid under the covers beside you. He pulled you back flush against his chest. “Better?”
You nodded against his chest. “Much better.”
Dean let out a satisfied hum and tightened his grip around your waist, burying his face in the crook of your neck. “Sleep, baby. I've got you.”
That was the annoying thing about him sometimes. He could be half-laughing at something Garrett said, one hand wrapped around a drink, looking like he was only barely paying attention to the room, and still catch every tiny thing that mattered.
Especially when it involved you.
You were standing across the crowded living room at the hockey house, talking to one of Garrett’s friends from class. Or maybe former friends. Dean had decided he did not care enough to remember the name. The guy was smiling too much, leaning in too far, and looking at you like he was trying to memorize your face for later.
Dean’s jaw tightened.
He said nothing at first.
Garrett, sitting beside him on the couch, glanced over and immediately followed his line of sight. “Oh,” Garrett said, because he was an annoying bastard and apparently enjoyed being observant for sport. “That guy.”
Dean took a slow drink from his cup. “What about him?”
Garrett’s mouth twitched. “He’s been looking at her for a while.”
Dean kept his expression blank with effort. “Has he.”
“Yep.”
Dean’s eyes stayed on you. “And you’re telling me this because?”
Garrett turned toward him with that look that always meant he was about to be unbearable. “Because you’re doing the thing.”
Dean finally looked at him. “What thing?”
“The quiet thing.”
“I’m not quiet.”
Garrett gave him a long look. “Dean, you’ve barely spoken in ten minutes.”
Dean ignored that and looked back at you just in time to see the guy laugh at something you said. He laughed a little too loudly. Too confidently. Then he leaned in again.
Dean exhaled through his nose.
Garrett saw the movement and smirked. “Yeah. That face.”
Dean gave him a warning look. “Say another word and I’m throwing your drink in the sink.”
Garrett grinned. “You love me too much to waste the alcohol.”
Dean made a very rude gesture with his hand and stood up before the situation could get worse. Garrett watched him go with open amusement, the traitor.
You were still talking when Dean approached, and the second you saw him, your expression changed. Not much. Just enough to soften. Enough to make him feel better immediately, which was a little unfair considering how annoyed he’d been three seconds ago.
“Hey,” you said, smiling.
“Hey.” His tone was calm, but he positioned himself slightly closer than necessary, just enough to make the point. “You’re needed.”
The guy you’d been talking to glanced between the two of you. “Oh. Right. Sorry. I was just,”
“It’s fine,” Dean said, because he was not rude, just very obviously done. Then he looked at you. “Come sit with me.”
It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t dramatic. But it was enough to make the guy’s smile flicker.
You blinked at Dean. “What?”
Dean held your gaze, all easy confidence and quiet certainty. “Come sit with me.”
You looked at the guy beside you, then back at Dean, clearly trying to work out whether he was serious. Dean didn’t move. Didn’t explain. Just stood there looking at you like there was no other reasonable option.
Then, very slowly, your mouth curved. “Okay.”
Dean’s hand settled at the small of your back the second you stepped closer, and the guy’s expression went just a little awkward.
“Nice talking to you,” you said politely.
The guy nodded, clearly too uncertain now to be smooth about it. “Yeah. You too.”
Dean guided you away before the conversation could revive itself.
You made it about three steps before you looked up at him and murmured, “What was that?”
He didn’t answer right away. He just led you to the couch, waited until you sat, then sat down and pulled you straight into his lap like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Your eyes widened.
A few people on the opposite side of the room noticed too, which was exactly why Dean had done it.
He wrapped one arm around your waist and leaned back against the couch, looking entirely too pleased with himself.
You stared at him. “Dean.”
“What?”
“You did that on purpose.”
He looked innocent in the way only he could manage, which was to say, not at all. “Did what?”
“This.” You gestured vaguely around you, at the room, at your position in his lap, at the fact that everybody now knew exactly whose attention you had. “All of this.”
Dean’s mouth twitched. “I invited you to sit with me.”
“You did not mean this.”
“I absolutely meant this.”
You narrowed your eyes, but the smile threatening at the corner of your mouth ruined the effect. “You’re ridiculous.”
Dean settled his hand at your hip and gave you a look like he was weighing whether to be honest or smug. He chose smug. “He was staring.”
That made you pause. “You noticed that?”
Dean gave you a flat look. “Yes.”
“Since when?”
“Since before I came over.”
You turned slightly in his lap so you could look at him properly. “And you didn’t say anything.”
He tilted his head. “Would you have wanted me to make a scene?”
“No.”
“Then there you go.”
You watched him for a second. “So you just decided to carry me off like a territorial cat?”
You laughed softly. “You are definitely being territorial.”
His hand flexed once at your waist. “Maybe a little.”
The answer was so calm that it made you smile wider. Dean saw it and looked mildly offended by his own sincerity. “Don’t look so pleased with yourself.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
You leaned in just a little, close enough that only he could hear you over the noise of the room. “You got jealous.”
Dean’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “I did not get jealous.”
“You absolutely did.”
He looked at you for a long second, then said, very quietly, “He was looking at you like he had a chance.”
You blinked.
The room around you blurred a little at the edges, not because anything had changed, but because Dean had lowered his voice into that serious register he almost never used unless something actually mattered.
You studied him. “Did that bother you?”
Dean’s expression shifted, then softened in a way that made your chest go warm. “Yeah,” he admitted. “A little.”
Your lips parted.
He glanced away for half a beat like he regretted saying it, then looked back at you again, calmer this time. “I don’t like people thinking they can step in where they don’t belong.”
The words settled over you in a way that was equal parts flattering and dangerous. Because Dean wasn’t possessive in a loud, messy way. He wasn’t trying to own you. He was just honest enough to admit that he liked being the one you were with.
That, somehow, was worse.
In the best way.
You touched his cheek, and the tension in his face eased instantly. “He didn’t have a chance.”
Dean watched you for a second, still visibly less tense than before, then murmured, “Good.”
Your smile softened. “You know you could just tell me when you’re jealous.”
He gave you a flat look. “That seems humiliating.”
“It’s kind of cute.”
Dean made a face. “Do not call me cute.”
“You are cute.”
“No.”
You laughed under your breath, and the sound made his expression shift into something warmer, more private. He pulled you a little closer just because he could, and you let yourself settle against him.
Across the room, Garrett saw the whole thing and pointed at the two of you from the couch like he was deeply amused by the display. Dean ignored him.
You glanced toward the guy you’d been talking to earlier and noticed he had very wisely found another conversation already.
You looked back at Dean. “You scared him.”
Dean’s mouth curved slightly. “Good.”
You gave him an incredulous look. “You are enjoying this too much.”
“I’m enjoying you being here.”
That made you go quiet for a beat.
Dean noticed immediately, of course, and looked at you with that half-smile that always meant he knew exactly what kind of effect he was having.
You tilted your head. “You really wanted me to sit in your lap?”
“Yes.”
The answer was instant.
You blinked, then laughed softly. “That was very direct.”
Dean shrugged one shoulder. “You asked.”
“I did.”
He looked at you for a second, then added in a lower voice, “I like when you’re with me.”
The words should have been simple. Maybe they were. But coming from him, in the middle of a crowded room, with his hand at your waist and his attention fixed entirely on you, they landed with far more weight than they should have.
Your chest warmed all the way through.
You looked down for a second, then back up at him. “I’m already with you.”
Dean’s expression softened.
Then he smiled, small and real and just for you. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”
His thumb moved once over your side, absent and familiar. The room was still loud around you,somebody laughing in the kitchen, music playing too loudly in the background, Garrett and someone else arguing near the stairs,but none of it seemed particularly important anymore.
Dean leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss to your temple, then settled back with obvious satisfaction.
You glanced up at him. “So this was all just because he was staring?”
Dean took a sip from his drink, then looked at you with a completely straight face and said, “He was looking at my girlfriend.”
Your face heated at the word girlfriend, though you absolutely hated that he knew it would.
Dean saw the reaction and smiled.
“You did that on purpose too,” you muttered.
He tilted his head. “Did what?”
You narrowed your eyes. “You know exactly what.”
Dean’s mouth curved, slow and smug and far too pleased with himself. “Maybe I just like reminding people.”
“Of what?”
“That you’re mine.”
You stared at him, and the room suddenly felt a little too warm.
Then, because he was Dean and clearly had every intention of making this worse before it got better, he leaned in and kissed you properly this time,quick but certain, just enough for everyone nearby to understand the assignment.
When he pulled back, he looked calm again, like he had not just made your whole face go warm in front of half the hockey house.
You, on the other hand, were definitely blushing.
Dean noticed and smiled.
“Oh,” he said softly, clearly delighted. “There it is.”
You buried your face briefly against his shoulder, mortified and smiling at the same time.
Dean laughed under his breath and held you a little tighter.
And when you finally looked up at him again, he was still smiling like he had won something.
Maybe he had.
Because for the rest of the night, you stayed in his lap, and Dean looked perfectly content to let everyone know exactly where you belonged.
Summary: You were walking into the hockey house with your friends, Hannah and Allie. Your brother, Garrett Graham, lived here with his teammates and friends. John Tucker, John Logan and Dean Di Laurentis. You all attend Briar University (Briar U). The guys had won a game tonight, which meant that it was party time at the house, the house was packed with people. More specifically, Puck Bunnies.
Fake it until you make it (or try to) {Dean x sick!reader} no warnings
P1, P2
Summary: You get the flu and try and hide it, but Dean finds out. Dean then gets sick, tries to hide it, but you find out.
Change for good {Dean x reader} no warnings
High Maintenance {Dean x reader} no warnings, just fluff :)
My Girl {Dean x reader} no warnings, just fluffy :)
Light as a feather {Dean x curvy!reader} no warnings
a/n: hi everyone, long time no see. not my usual obsession, but what can i say? i'm obsessing over daddy dean. hopefully this reaches the right target audience 🫡
The universe has a funny way of working. Sometimes it places people in your life for only a moment, and other times it keeps pulling you toward the same person until ignoring it becomes impossible. Maybe it’s timing, maybe it’s coincidence, or maybe some people are simply meant to find each other no matter how hard they try not to. And before you realize it, they’ve become part of your routine. Part of you.
The party was loud, well, Briar U’s parties were always annoyingly loud. She didn’t really want to come out, but in a way she felt like she should. She moved through the crowd, the smell of cheap beer lingering in the air as she said hi to a couple of people she recognized. The girls weren't here yet, and without them she almost felt out of place. She made it to the kitchen, her eyes wandering and deciding what to drink.
Logan approached her leaning in close “Hey, you. Thought you were staying home tonight!” Leaning in for a hug, as they talked for a few minutes.
And that was the exact moment he noticed her.
Across the kitchen Dean stood listening to Beau rave about the hockey game- well he wasn’t really listening to him. His focus eventually narrowed in on the girl with long hair and a bright smile as she talked away to Logan.
“Who is that?” Dean asked Beau, cutting him off mid-sentence, his words coming out quickly, “The one talking to Logan,” He clarified, keeping his eyes on her. He had never seen her before or maybe he had, but he told himself he was just curious. But the thing about Dean was that he was never curious. He was a playboy, along for the ride, he was never that curious about a girl.
It eventually became a pattern with late night hook ups that occasionally blurred into her spending the night. Sometimes it was just a quick and sloppy hookup, other times it turned into laughter and late night talking.
“We should really stop doing this…” She said against his lips. They were in his room this time, on top of him, her chest bare and her skin flushed from the heat of his mouth as he kissed down her neck. Grinding down against him slowly as his erection pressed up into her.
His large hands slid down her back, palms warm and slightly calloused, tracing her back, before settling on her hips, shivering at the way he touched her. "Hmm, why is that?" he mumbled against her skin, smiling as he kissed along her jaw just under her ear.
She moaned.. A little too loud. He always did this. He was always distracting her, clouding her judgment until she lost her train of thought.
His fingers dug into her hips, guiding her movement as he shifted, slipping one leg between hers until she opened wider for him. His hand came down, hooking his pointer finger to push her panties to the side. She gasped when he flipped her over onto her back, hooking her legs around his shoulder with one hand wrapping around her ankle to hold her into place. He lined himself up, pushing the tip in making her hips buckle “Didn’t catch that, you were saying we should stop?" His voice cocky with a smirk.
She shook her head no, her mouth falling open as she tried to form a sentence on why this was a bad idea. His thumb dragged to her mouth and pressed past her lips, and she sucked without thinking as she circled her tongue, her eyes on him. "Shit," he whispered, his head falling back for a split second before his eyes found hers again. His thumb slid out of her mouth with a wet pop, and his hand traveled down her stomach, eventually reaching down to press slow circles on her clit.
“Pretty fucking girl,” He mumbled.
The bell above the door jingled as she walked into Malone's, the familiar smell of beer, and greasy food. The diner was packed, hockey players filled the booths near the back, closer to the band that was playing tonight. Hannah was already waving over from a table near the jukebox, Allie sliding a menu toward the empty seat before she'd even sat down.
"Took you long enough," Hannah said, stirring her drink with a straw. "We already ordered fries."
"I had to change twice," she admitted, sliding into the booth. "Nothing felt right."
Allie raised her eyebrows but didn't push, and she was grateful for it. Because the truth was, nothing felt right because she knew he'd be here. The team always came to Malone's after practice and she'd spent forty minutes in front of her closet telling herself she wasn't picking an outfit for him.That she wasn't already counting the minutes until she'd see him again.
The night continued on. They both knew they were in the same room, and that simple knowledge made her heart pound in a way that was almost embarrassing. She could feel the weight of his presence like pressure against her skin, even from three booths away.
"Beer run," she announced, sliding out of the booth before the girls could ask for one too.
She made her way through the diner, weaving between tables, and time seemed to slow down. Dean was walking toward her and their eyes locked.
He was giving her that smile. The one that made his dimples poke out, that crinkled the corners of his eyes. And for a moment, nothing else existed. No noise. No crowd. Just him, looking at her like she was the only person in the room.
They passed each other quickly. His shoulder nearly brushed hers. Their hands didn't touch but she felt it everywhere.
She let out a breath and kept walking, her hands trembling slightly as she reached the bar ordering a drink as she watched the band play. She eventually turned her back to the room, facing the bar fully as she took a sip of her beer, hoping it would calm her.
And then she felt it.
Him.
Like a sixth sense. Like her body knew before her brain could catch up. A shift in the air, a warmth at her side, the faint scent of his cologne. Goosebumps erupted across her skin, trailing up her arms, raising the hairs at the back of her neck.
"YN," he said, looking straight ahead. His voice low and casual, like they were strangers making small talk.
"Dean," she said back, proud that her voice came out steady. She felt a smile creeping across her face—that stupid, giddy, excited smile she couldn't seem to control around him. She bit the inside of her cheek to contain it, but she knew he could see it anyway. He always saw everything.
Neither of them said anything else after that. He rested his arms on the bar beside her, close enough that she could feel the heat radiating off him, and she kept her hands flat against the counter. And then she felt it. Her eyes flicked down for half a second, then back up, staring straight ahead, to try and seem like he didn't have an effect on her. Her breathing slowed and she looked down again at their hands.
His pinky had shifted. A slow, deliberate movement. It touched hers, barely grazing at first, just a whisper of contact. And then it pressed fully against her, warm and certain. He was looking straight ahead, casual, like he wasn't doing anything at all. Like his pinky wasn't tracing small, intimate circles against her skin, right there in plain sight where anyone could see.
Her heart was pounding so hard she was sure he could hear it.
But she didn't pull away, she pressed back.
“There you are,” She turned at the sound of his voice giving him a small smile, watching him as he pulled up a chair right beside her. She watched him sit down in the chair, manspreading, his long legs stretched out, watching his thighs clench as he shifted his hips up slightly to get more comfortable.
The boys had thrown a party to celebrate the end of the semester. Exams were done, bags were packed, and everyone was buzzing with restless energy that came before heading home for break. But she'd needed air and a minute to herself.
Things had shifted the last several weeks. She looked for him everywhere, waiting for his calls, staying close to him at all times, not just privately but publicly. She was becoming dependent on him. He felt it too. He was locked in, it was pathetic really. He watched the way she was kind to everyone she met, he loved watching her laugh, he loved the way she would study on his bed completely lost in an assignment as her brow furrowed in concentration. He loved to watch her. He was infatuated with everything she did and said. She was just special, special to him.
She lifted her legs up, draping them over his thighs and his hand came down to trace a slow path up and down her leg. He watched her take a long hit of the blunt, slowly exhaling the smoke as she passed it back to him avoiding his eye contact. His fingers brushed hers as he reached for it but stopped abruptly, not taking the blunt just hoping she would look at him.
“You spending the night?” He asked, still keeping his eyes on her as she continued to watch the fire burn, her shoulders shrugging.
“Maybe.”
His hand came to a stop on her thigh.
Maybe.
Maybe?
The word hung between them, echoing inside his mind almost taunting him. That word didn't exist in their vocabulary. She always spent the night. It was an unspoken, assumed, part of the rhythm they'd fallen into. She felt him staring at her, felt the weight of his eyes boring into the side of her face, but she couldn't even look at him. If she looked at him, she'd cave.
"Bullshit," he said, a small laugh escaping him, like he was trying to keep things light. But his smile dropped when she still didn't look at him, instead she bit her lip and stayed silent for a moment.
"I have an early morning," she said quietly.
"You always have early mornings."
She didn't answer him, because really the truth was harder than a lie. She needed to draw the line between them. She could feel herself becoming infatuated with him, craving the sound of his voice, his hands on her body.
She could see it in her periphery, the way his jaw clenched because he was starting to get frustrated that she was avoiding him.
"Don't feed me some bullshit about early mornings."
She swallowed hard, feeling small wanting to sink into the chair and disappear. She tried to move her legs off his lap, but his hand shot out, gripping her knee gently to keep her legs there.
“Look at me,” her eyes found him as he watched a tear fall down her face, he sat up straighter, stretching his arm out to wipe it away.
“Listen, I-, I’m not asking you to marry me,” a small, self-deprecating laugh escapes him.
He continued, “You've been in my bed more nights than you haven't."
He paused for a minute, taking her hands into his, giving her a small smile, slightly shaking his head, “I like that you steal my clothes even though your clothes are in my dresser, I like seeing your makeup and hair products scattered all over the bathroom, I like-” he paused,
His voice faltered, dropping his head for a moment, gathering himself, then looked up at her again. “I like you,”
“I like us,” he added quickly.
Silence.
She didn't know what to say. Her brain had locked up and all she could hear was the thumping of her heart in her ears. She could feel her eyes watering again, she wanted to tell him she felt the same way but her adrenaline was pumping and she just froze, her throat closed with her lips pressed together.
He wasn’t angry at her lack of response. He wasn’t mocking her or pushing her into saying something she wasn’t ready to say, because he understood that she was scared.
"Okay," he finally said, his voice barely above a whisper, his hand went back to her thigh, back to tracing that slow, familiar path up and down. ”Just stay tonight.”
Summary: when the pre-med girl with the perfect GPA meets the hockey player with the far from perfect reputation, neither of you expects to become each other’s biggest distraction. You’ve got your whole life planned out. He’s never planned anything past Friday night. But somewhere between study sessions and split lips, you discover that the scariest thing isn’t falling, it’s admitting you want to
Warnings: 18+ content
Read part one here
Three weeks of sleeping in Dean’s arms, and you’re going insane.
Not in a bad way. In a “every morning I wake up pressed against him and it takes all my willpower not to do something about it” way.
You’ve never wanted someone like this. Never understood the appeal of physical intimacy. But Dean is different.
The way he touches you, always careful, always asking permission. The way he kisses you, like he’s got all the time in the world. The way he holds you at night, protective and gentle.
You want more.
The realization hits you one Thursday evening when you’re supposed to be studying healthcare policy but you’re actually just watching Dean work through a problem set. His brow is furrowed in concentration, and he’s absently chewing on the end of his pen, and you want to climb into his lap and kiss him until neither of you can think straight.
“You’re staring again,” he says without looking up.
“I know.”
That makes him look up. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” You close your textbook. Then your notebook. Set them both neatly on his nightstand.
“Done studying?” He checks his watch. “It’s only eight.”
“I’m done studying.”
There’s something in your voice that makes him set down his pen. “Y/N?”
“I want you to have sex with me.”
Dean blinks. Once. Twice. Opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again.
No sound comes out.
You forge ahead, because if you stop now you’ll lose your nerve. “I’ve been thinking about it, and it makes sense. I’m nineteen years old. I’ve never had sex. At some point, I need to cross this off my list of college experiences, and logically-”
“Wait.” Dean holds up a hand. “Wait. Did you just say—are you—are you a virgin?”
“Yes. I thought you knew that.”
“I thought—Maggie said you’d never had a boyfriend, but I didn’t think—I mean-” He runs both hands through his hair. “How are you a virgin?”
“I went to all-girls schools and I’ve been focused on my studies. It’s not that complicated.”
“It’s extremely complicated!” He’s staring at you like you’ve just announced you’re an alien. “Y/N, you can’t just announce you want to have sex like you’re ordering coffee!”
“Why not? It’s a logical decision.”
“It’s not supposed to be logical!”
“Why not?” You’re genuinely confused now. “I want to lose my virginity at some point. You’re clearly experienced. You’d make it good for me. It’s the most logical choice.”
Dean makes a strangled sound. “You think—you want me to—because I’d make it good?”
“Well, yes. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?”
He stands up, starts pacing. “This is insane. You’re insane. I’m insane. This whole situation is insane.”
“Dean-”
“No.” He spins to face you. “No. You can’t just—Y/N, do you understand what you’re asking?”
“I’m asking you to have sex with me.”
“You’re asking me to take your virginity!”
“Is there a difference?”
“YES!” He’s practically shouting now. “There’s a huge difference! Your first time is supposed to be special! It’s supposed to mean something!”
“Why?”
The question stops him cold.
“Why does it have to mean something?” You continue. “It’s just sex. People have sex all the time without it meaning anything. You’ve had sex without it meaning anything. I’ve seen you with two girls at once who you didn’t even know the names of.”
Dean flinches. “That’s different.”
“How?”
“Because this is you!” The words come out fierce, almost angry. “This is you, and you deserve better than being another item on your checklist. You deserve romance and candles and someone who loves you.”
Your heart stops. “Someone who loves me?”
He looks away. “You know what I mean.”
“Do I?”
“Y/N-”
“Do you love me, Dean?”
The silence that follows is deafening.
“That’s not the point,” he finally says.
“I think it might be exactly the point.”
He sits back down at his desk, head in his hands. “You can’t ask me this.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ll say yes!” He looks up at you, and there’s something raw in his expression. “Because I’ve wanted you since the moment I saw you, and if you’re offering yourself to me like this, I’m not strong enough to say no. But you deserve better than that. You deserve better than me taking your virginity just because you’ve decided it’s time to check it off your list.”
You sit with that for a moment. “What if I told you it’s not just about checking it off a list?”
“Isn’t it?”
“Not entirely.” You pull your knees to your chest. “I want you, Dean. I’ve wanted you for weeks. Every time we sleep in the same bed and nothing happens, it gets harder to remember why I said we should take things slow. But I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of losing focus. Of letting someone in and having it mess up everything I’ve worked for. Of feeling too much.” You look at him. “But I think I already feel too much. And I don’t know what to do about it.”
Dean’s staring at you like he’s seeing you for the first time.
“I’m not good at this,” you continue. “The feelings part. I’m much better with logic and facts and studying. So I’m approaching this the only way I know how — by making a logical decision. And logically, if I’m going to do this with anyone, I want it to be with you.”
“Y/N-”
“But you’re right. I don’t want it to just be another checkmark. I want it to matter. I just don’t know how to make it matter without losing myself in the process.”
Dean moves from the desk to the bed, sitting beside you. Not touching, just close.
“Can I tell you what I think?” He asks.
“Please.”
“I think you’re terrified of wanting something outside your plan. I think you’ve built your whole life around these goals, and anything that threatens them feels dangerous. And I think-” He takes a breath. “I think you care about me more than you want to admit, and it scares you.”
You can’t quite meet his eyes. “Maybe.”
“I’m scared too,” he says quietly.
“Of what?”
“Of not being enough. Of being exactly the guy you thought I was at that party — someone who’s just going to hurt you. Of caring about you so much it’s actually affecting my game.” He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Coach pulled me aside yesterday and asked if something was wrong because I’ve been distracted.”
“Really?”
“Really. I spent an entire practice thinking about the way you scrunch your nose when you’re reading.” He finally looks at you. “You’re in my head, Y/N. All the time. And I’ve never felt like this before, and I don’t know what to do about it either.”
You’re both quiet for a long moment.
“So where does that leave us?” You finally ask.
Dean thinks about it. “I’m not going to have sex with you tonight.”
Your heart sinks. “Oh.”
“Not because I don’t want to. Trust me, I want to. But not like this. Not as an item on a checklist.” He turns to face you fully. “But I could … teach you some things. If you want.”
“Teach me?”
“Yeah.” His eyes are dark now, intent. “Show you what it would be like. What I’d do. Without actually going all the way.”
Your breath catches. “How would that work?”
“I could talk you through it. Tell you what to do. Watch you.” His voice has dropped, gotten rougher. “Would you want that?”
Your heart is racing. “I—yes. Maybe. I don’t know.”
“It’s okay if you don’t.”
“No, I—I think I do. I’m just nervous.”
“We can stop anytime. The second you want to stop, we stop. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Dean stands up, and for a second you think he’s going to come to you. But instead, he moves to his desk chair, pulling it to face the bed.
“What are you doing?” You ask.
“Getting comfortable.” He sits, and there’s something intense in the way he’s looking at you. “I’m going to stay here. And you’re going to stay there. And I’m going to tell you exactly what I want you to do.”
Oh.
“Okay,” you whisper.
“First,” he says, his voice steady despite the heat in his eyes, “I want you to lie back. Get comfortable.”
You do, your heart pounding so loud you’re sure he can hear it.
“Good. Now … you’re wearing my shirt.”
“Yeah.”
“I want you to take it off. Slowly.”
Your hands are shaking as you reach for the hem. “Dean-”
“It’s just me,” he says, and his voice is gentle now. “Just me, Y/N. Nothing you don’t want to do.”
You trust him. You realize that’s what this comes down to: you trust him completely.
So you pull off the shirt.
You’re in your bra and underwear now, and Dean’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t move from the chair.
“You’re beautiful,” he says roughly. “I need you to know that.”
“Dean-”
“I need you to know that every time I look at you, it takes my breath away. Every morning when you’re still asleep and the sun comes through the window, I spend at least ten minutes just watching you. You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Your eyes are stinging. “You can’t say things like that.”
“Why not? It’s true.” He shifts in the chair. “Now I want you to touch yourself. Nothing crazy, just run your hands over your skin. Your arms, your stomach. Learn what feels good.”
You do, feeling self-conscious but also … excited. Your skin is sensitive, every touch amplified by the way Dean’s watching you.
“That’s it,” he murmurs. “You’re doing so good, baby.”
The endearment sends a shiver through you.
“Do you like being watched?” He asks.
“I-I don’t know. Maybe?”
“That’s okay. We’re figuring it out together.” He’s gripping the arms of the chair now. “Touch your breasts. Over the bra first.”
You do, and the sensation makes you gasp.
“Feels good?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s because you’re sensitive there. Most people are.” His voice is like honey, dark and sweet. “Now under the bra. I want you to feel how soft you are.”
You slip your hand under the fabric, and — oh. That does feel good.
“I wish I could touch you,” Dean says, and there’s something almost pained in his voice. “Wish I could put my mouth on you. Would you like that? If I kissed you there?”
“Yes,” you breathe.
“Maybe next time.” His eyes are locked on you. “Take the bra off. I want to see you.”
You hesitate for just a second, then reach back and unhook it. Let it fall away.
Dean makes a low sound in his throat. “Perfect. You’re absolutely perfect.”
“Dean-”
“Keep touching yourself. Both hands now. I want to watch you learn what you like.”
You’re lost in it now, in the sensations and the sound of his voice and the heat in his eyes. Every instruction he gives, you follow. Every word of praise makes you braver.
“That’s my girl,” he murmurs when you arch into your own touch. “So responsive. So perfect.”
“I need-” You don’t even know what you need.
“I know. But not tonight.” He stands up, and you make a disappointed sound. But he just comes to the bed, pulls you into his arms. “You did so good. So, so good.”
You’re shaking. “That was-”
“Intense?”
“Yeah.”
“Too much?”
“No. Not enough, actually.”
He groans. “You’re killing me.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He presses a kiss to your forehead. “I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than you trusting me like that.”
You burrow into his chest. “This doesn’t count as sex, right?”
“Definitely not.”
“Good. Because I think I want to do it again.”
Dean laughs, and you feel it rumble through his chest. “Anytime you want, baby. Anytime you want.”
You fall asleep like that, wrapped in his arms, and for the first time in your life, you’re not thinking about medical school or your GPA or your carefully planned future.
You’re just thinking about Dean.
And how maybe, just maybe, letting someone in doesn’t have to mean losing yourself.
Maybe it means finding parts of yourself you didn’t even know were there.
***
The tutoring sessions become a ritual.
Thursday nights, after studying. Sometimes Tuesday nights too, when you can’t wait until Thursday. Dean in his desk chair, voice low and commanding. You on his bed, learning your own body under his careful instruction.
“You’re a quick study,” he says one night, watching you with dark eyes. “Best student I’ve ever had.”
“You’re a good teacher,” you manage, breathless.
“Yeah?” He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “What have you learned?”
“That I like being watched.”
His jaw tightens. “What else?”
“That I like your voice. The way you tell me what to do.”
“Keep going.”
“That I trust you.” You meet his eyes. “Completely.”
Something shifts in his expression. “Come here.”
You go to him, and he pulls you into his lap, kissing you like he’s been holding back for hours. Which he has.
“I want you so badly,” he murmurs against your lips. “Do you know how hard it is to just sit there and watch?”
“Then don’t just watch.”
“Y/N-”
“I’m ready, Dean.” You pull back to look at him. “I’ve been ready. I’m just waiting for you.”
“I want it to be right.”
“It will be. It’s you.”
He searches your face. “You’re sure?”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything.”
***
It doesn’t happen that night. Dean insists on planning it, which is very unlike him but somehow perfectly him when it comes to you.
“I want it to be special,” he says when you protest.
“It will be special because it’s with you.”
“Still. Just let me do this right.”
So you wait. Another week of tutoring sessions that leave you aching and frustrated and more in love with him than you thought possible.
Yes, in love. You’ve stopped denying it, at least to yourself.
You’re in love with Dean Di Laurentis, and it’s terrifying and exhilarating and completely outside your carefully planned life trajectory.
And you wouldn’t change it for anything.
***
Friday afternoon, Dean texts you.
Dean: pack an overnight bag
You: Why?
Dean: because i’m taking you somewhere tonight and we’re not coming back until tomorrow
You: Dean, I have to study
Dean: no you don’t. i checked your schedule. you’re ahead in every class
You: How do you know my schedule?
Dean: i pay attention. pack a bag. i’ll pick you up at 7
You: Where are we going?
Dean: it’s a surprise. trust me?
You: Always
Dean: good. wear something comfortable. and y/n?
You: Yeah?
Dean: tonight. if you still want to. no pressure
Your heart stops.
You: I want to
Dean: okay. see you at 7
You stare at your phone for a full minute before Maggie notices.
“What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Dean’s picking me up at seven.”
“Okay? You guys hang out all the time.”
“He told me to pack an overnight bag.” You look up at her. “I think tonight’s the night.”
Maggie’s eyes go wide. “Oh my god. OH MY GOD.”
“Stop screaming!”
“I’m not screaming! I’m just—oh my god, are you ready for this?”
“I think so. Maybe. I don’t know.” You stand up, start pacing. “What if I’m bad at it? What if I do something wrong? What if-”
“Y/N.” Maggie grabs your shoulders. “It’s Dean. He’s crazy about you. It’s going to be fine. Better than fine.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve seen the way he looks at you. Like you’re the only person in the world.” She grins. “Plus, the guy’s had a lot of practice. He’ll know what he’s doing.”
“That’s not helping.”
“Okay, okay.” She pushes you toward your closet. “Let’s pack. Comfortable clothes, he said?”
“Yeah.”
“So jeans, a cute top. Definitely your nice underwear—you did buy nice underwear, right?”
You pull out a small bag from your drawer. “I may have gone shopping.”
Maggie opens it and whistles. “Damn, girl. Dean’s not going to know what hit him.”
“You think?”
“I know.” She hugs you suddenly. “I’m proud of you, you know. For letting yourself have this.”
“I’m terrified.”
“That’s how you know it matters.”
***
Dean shows up at exactly seven, looking unfairly good in jeans and a henley. He’s holding flowers — actual flowers, like this is a real date.
“Hi,” he says when you open the door.
“Hi.” You take the flowers. “These are beautiful.”
“Not as beautiful as you.”
“That’s incredibly cheesy.”
“Don’t care.” He leans in and kisses you, soft and sweet. “You ready?”
“I think so.”
He takes your bag, and you follow him down to his car. But instead of his Audi, there’s a different car waiting — a Range Rover you’ve never seen before.
“New car?” You ask.
“Borrowed it from my dad. Thought we could use the space.” He opens the door for you, and you see the back is loaded with bags. “I may have prepared a little bit.”
“A little bit?”
He grins. “Okay, a lot. But I wanted it to be perfect.”
The drive takes about an hour, heading west out of the city. Dean won’t tell you where you’re going, just holds your hand and lets you control the music. You talk about everything and nothing — your Healthcare Economics exam, his upcoming game, whether Dunkin is better than Starbucks (you say yes, he says absolutely not).
It feels normal. Easy. Like you’ve been doing this for years instead of months.
Finally, he pulls off the main road onto a smaller one, then onto a long driveway that winds through trees. At the end is a house — no, a cottage. Wooden and perfect, with warm light glowing from the windows.
“Dean,” you breathe. “What is this?”
“My grandparents’ lake house. They’re in Europe for the month, and I asked if we could use it.” He parks and turns to you. “I wanted somewhere private. Somewhere special. No roommates, no interruptions. Just us.”
You’re going to cry. “You did this for me?”
“I’d do anything for you.” He says it simply, like it’s obvious. “Come on, let me show you.”
The cottage is beautiful inside. Rustic but elegant, with a stone fireplace and wide windows overlooking a lake. There’s a fire already going — he must have come earlier to set up.
“Dean, this is-”
“There’s more.” He leads you to the bedroom, and you stop in the doorway.
There are candles everywhere. Not lit yet, but arranged carefully on every surface. The bed is made with fresh white linens, and there are rose petals scattered across the comforter.
“I know it’s over the top,” Dean says, suddenly nervous. “But you said I deserve romance and candles, and I wanted to give you the same thing. So if this is too much, we can-”
You kiss him. Pour everything you’re feeling into it — gratitude and affection and love and want.
“It’s perfect,” you whisper against his lips. “You’re perfect.”
“I’m really not.”
“You are to me.”
He pulls you closer, deepening the kiss, and you feel the shift. The way it changes from sweet to intense, from gentle to urgent.
“We don’t have to do anything tonight,” he says, even as his hands slide under your shirt. “We can just be here. Together.”
“I want to.” You pull back to look at him. “I want you, Dean. All of you. Now.”
His eyes darken. “You’re sure?”
“Stop asking me that.”
“Okay.” He kisses you again, backing you toward the bed. “But I’m going to take my time with you. We’ve got all night, and I’m going to make this so good for you.”
“Promises, promises.”
He laughs against your mouth. “Oh baby, you have no idea.”
***
Dean has thought about this moment for months. Dreamed about it, planned it, obsessed over it. But now that it’s happening, now that you’re here in his arms, trusting him with something so precious, he’s almost overwhelmed.
“Hey,” you say softly, touching his face. “Where’d you go?”
“Just thinking about how lucky I am.”
“I’m the lucky one.”
“We can both be lucky.” He sits on the edge of the bed, pulling you to stand between his knees. “I want to do this right. So if at any point you want to stop, or slow down, or-”
“Dean.” You run your fingers through his hair. “I trust you. Completely. Just be with me. Okay?”
“Okay.”
He takes his time undressing you. Peels off your sweater, presses kisses to your shoulders. Unbuttons your jeans, slides them down your legs. You’re wearing the new lingerie, and his breath catches.
“Jesus, Y/N.”
“Too much?”
“Not enough. Never enough.” He stands, turns you around so you can see yourself in the mirror above the dresser. His hands span your waist, and he meets your eyes in the reflection. “Do you see how beautiful you are?”
“Dean-”
“I need you to see it. See what I see.” His hands slide up, cupping your breasts through the lace. “Do you remember the first time I watched you touch yourself here?”
“Yeah,” you breathe.
“You were so nervous. So shy. And now look at you.” He kisses your neck. “So confident. So beautiful. So mine.”
“Yours,” you agree.
He turns you back around, and his hands go to his own shirt. But you stop him.
“Let me.”
You undress him slowly, learning the planes of his chest, the strength in his shoulders. He’s beautiful — you’ve always known that, but seeing him like this, knowing what’s about to happen, makes your breath catch.
“You’re staring,” he says, echoing your words from months ago.
“Can’t help it. You’re very watchable.”
He grins, and then you’re both laughing, and it’s perfect. This moment is perfect.
Dean lays you back on the bed, careful of the rose petals. “I’m going to make you feel so good,” he promises. “But first, I need to—I’ve been dreaming about tasting you for months.”
“Dean-”
But he’s already sliding down your body, pressing kisses to your stomach, your hips, the inside of your thighs. When he hooks his fingers in your underwear, he pauses.
“Still okay?”
“Yes. Please.”
He slides them off, and then — oh.
You’ve learned a lot in your tutoring sessions, but this is different. This is Dean’s mouth on you, his hands holding your hips, his name falling from your lips like a prayer.
“That’s it, baby,” he murmurs. “Let me hear you.”
You’re not quiet. Can’t be quiet. Every touch, every kiss, every clever thing he does with his tongue makes you louder.
“Dean, I—I’m going to-”
“Let go. I’ve got you.”
And you do, falling apart under his mouth, his name the only word you can remember.
When you come back to yourself, he’s kissing his way back up your body, looking incredibly pleased with himself.
“Okay?” He asks.
“That was—I don’t have words.”
“Good.” He kisses you, and you can taste yourself on his lips. “Want to keep going?”
“Yes. Please yes.”
He reaches for the nightstand, pulls out a condom. “I’m going to go slow, okay? Tell me if anything hurts.”
“I will.”
He settles between your legs, and you feel him there, hard and ready. “Look at me,” he says softly. “I want to see you.”
You do, meeting his eyes as he slowly, carefully, pushes inside.
There’s pressure, a brief flash of pain, and then-
“Oh,” you breathe.
“Okay?” His jaw is tight with the effort of holding still.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay. You can—you can move.”
He does, slow and careful, watching your face for any sign of discomfort. But there’s none. Just fullness and rightness and the feeling of being completely connected to him.
“You feel incredible,” he groans. “So perfect. Like you were made for me.”
“Maybe I was.”
Something flashes in his eyes at that, and his next thrust is deeper. “Say that again.”
“Maybe I was made for you.”
“Y/N-” His control is slipping. You can see it, feel it in the way he’s moving faster now, harder.
“It’s okay,” you gasp. “I want—I want all of you. Don’t hold back.”
“You’re killing me.”
“Good. Now stop being so careful and actually-”
He kisses you, swallowing whatever you were about to say, and finally lets go. The careful control disappears, replaced by raw need, and it’s exactly what you wanted.
You meet him thrust for thrust, finding a rhythm that has you both gasping. Your nails dig into his shoulders, his hand fists in your hair, and it’s messy and intense and absolutely perfect.
“Touch yourself,” he commands, his voice rough. “I want to feel you come around me.”
You do, and the added sensation combined with the feeling of him inside you is overwhelming. You’re close, so close-
“That’s it, baby. Come for me. Let me feel it.”
You shatter, and the feeling of you clenching around him sends Dean over the edge too. He buries his face in your neck, your name on his lips, and you hold him through it.
After, you’re both breathing hard, tangled together, and you’ve never felt more complete.
“You okay?” Dean asks, brushing hair from your face.
“Better than okay.”
“No regrets?”
“Not a single one.” You kiss him softly. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For making it perfect. For being patient. For caring enough to do all this.”
“Y/N, I-” He stops, and something vulnerable crosses his face. “I love you. I’m in love with you. I have been for months, and I can’t keep pretending otherwise.”
Your heart stops. “Dean-”
“You don’t have to say it back. I just needed you to know. Needed you to know that this … it wasn’t just sex for me. It was-”
“I love you too,” you interrupt. “I’m completely, terrifyingly in love with you.”
He stares at you. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I think I have been since that night at the party. I was just too scared to admit it.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m still scared. But I’m more scared of not being with you.”
He kisses you, deep and slow and sweet. “We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?”
“Apparently.”
“So where does this leave us?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never done the relationship thing before.”
“Neither have I. Not like this.” He pulls you closer. “But I want to figure it out. With you.”
“Me too.”
“Even if it’s messy?”
“Even if it’s messy.”
“Even if your perfectly planned future gets a little derailed?”
“Maybe my future needed a little derailing.”
He grins. “I’m definitely telling everyone you said that.”
“Don’t you dare-”
He kisses you again, and you forget what you were protesting.
***
Later, after you’ve showered together (which led to round two against the tile wall), you’re curled up in bed, wearing one of Dean’s shirts, his arm around you.
“Can I tell you something?” You ask.
“Anything.”
“I kept a list. Of reasons why falling for you was a bad idea.”
“Oh yeah? How long was it?”
“Eighteen reasons.”
“Damn. That’s detailed.”
“I’m a detailed person.”
“What were they?”
“Different goals. Different lifestyles. Risk to my GPA. Risk to my focus. Your reputation. My inexperience. The fact that you’d probably break my heart.” You pause. “Among others.”
“And yet here you are.”
“Here I am.”
“What changed?”
“I realized that every reason on that list was just fear. Fear of feeling too much, of wanting something outside my plan, of being vulnerable.” You turn to look at him. “But being with you — it doesn’t make me weaker. It makes me braver.”
“Y/N-”
“I’m not done. You make me braver. You make me want to take risks I’d never take otherwise. You make me believe that maybe I can have both — my career and someone to share it with. And that’s everything.”
He’s looking at you like you hung the moon. “I don’t deserve you.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to deserve you.”
“The rest of your life? That’s a long time.”
“Better get started then.” He kisses you, slow and thorough. “Ready for round three?”
“Already?”
“What? I’m making up for lost time.”
“We have all night.”
“Exactly.” He rolls on top of you, settling between your legs. “And I plan to use every minute of it.”
And he does.
***
You lose count somewhere around four. Or maybe five. Dean’s insatiable, and you discover you are too. Every touch builds on the last, every kiss leads to more, until you’re boneless and satisfied and completely wrecked in the best possible way.
“I can’t move,” you announce as dawn starts to lighten the sky.
“Don’t need to move. Just need to stay right here.”
“We should probably eat something.”
“Food’s overrated.”
“Dean.”
“Fine.” He kisses your shoulder. “But only because I need to keep your strength up. We’re not done yet.”
“How are you not exhausted?”
“I’m a hockey player, baby. Stamina’s kind of my thing.”
You laugh, and he grins against your skin.
“I love that sound,” he says.
“What sound?”
“You laughing. You happy.” He props himself up on one elbow. “Promise me something?”
“What?”
“Promise me we’ll figure this out. Whatever happens next. Promise me you won’t let the logistics scare you away.”
Your chest tightens. “I promise. As long as you promise the same thing.”
“Deal.” He holds out his pinky, and you link yours with his, sealing it with a kiss.
“Now,” he says, suddenly energized. “Let me make you breakfast.”
“You cook?”
“I make a mean scrambled egg. Also toast. I’m very versatile.”
You follow him to the kitchen, stealing one of his hoodies because you’re not ready to actually get dressed yet. He puts on coffee and starts cracking eggs, and you sit on the counter watching him, and it’s so domestic it makes your heart ache.
“What?” He asks, catching you staring.
“Just thinking about how different this is from where we started.”
“When you told me I was just some guy?”
“When I was convinced you were going to be a disaster for my carefully planned life.”
“And now?”
“Now I think maybe you’re the best disaster that ever happened to me.”
He abandons the eggs to kiss you, thorough and deep. “Best disaster. I’ll take it.”
“The eggs are burning.”
“Don’t care.”
“Dean!”
He laughs and goes back to the stove, salvaging what he can. You eat breakfast at the small table overlooking the lake, your feet in his lap, talking about everything and nothing.
“I should take you home eventually,” Dean says reluctantly.
“Eventually. But not yet.”
“No?”
“No. We have the cottage until tomorrow night. I want to stay here. With you. In our little bubble before we have to face reality again.”
“Reality’s not so bad. We’ll still have Tuesday and Thursday nights.”
“And Friday nights? After games?”
“Every night if you want them. I’m yours, Y/N. For as long as you’ll have me.”
“That might be a while.”
“I’m counting on it.”
You spend the rest of the day in bed, learning each other, talking, making love until you’re both exhausted and satisfied. And when Dean finally, reluctantly drives you home Sunday evening, you’re already counting the hours until you see him again.
“Text me when you’re home?” You say at your dorm door.
“You’re literally watching me leave.”
“Still. I want to know you got home safe.”
“Yes, dear.” But he’s smiling. He kisses you one more time. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Inside, Maggie takes one look at you and squeals.
“Oh my god, it happened! Tell me everything! Wait, don’t tell me everything. Tell me some things. The appropriate things.”
“It was perfect,” you say, and you can’t stop smiling. “He was perfect.”
“And? How do you feel?”
“Different. Good different. Like something fundamental shifted.”
“You’re in love with him.”
“I’m in love with him,” you agree. “Completely, stupidly in love with him.”
“And your plan? Medical school? All of that?”
“Still the plan. But maybe the plan has room for him now.”
Maggie hugs you. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Me too,” you say.
And you are. Despite the fear, despite the uncertainty of what comes next, you’re happy.
Because for the first time in your life, you’ve let yourself want something outside of your carefully constructed goals.
And it turns out, it’s the best decision you’ve ever made.
***
Finals week is hell.
This is a universal truth, but it’s especially true when your girlfriend is pre-med with a 4.0 she’s determined to maintain.
“I haven’t seen you in four days,” Dean says into his phone, sprawled on his bed. It’s Tuesday night, which used to be your night, but you’ve been holed up in the library since Saturday.
“I know. I’m sorry.” You sound tired. “I just have two more exams and then I’m done.”
“When are they?”
“Thursday and Friday.”
“So after Friday, you’re free?”
“After Friday, I’m comatose. But yes, technically free.”
“I miss you.”
“I miss you too.” He can hear the smile in your voice. “But I really need to focus right now. Organic chemistry waits for no one.”
“Not even for your devoted boyfriend who’s slowly dying of Y/N withdrawal?”
“Not even for him. Sorry, babe.”
“Fine,” he sighs dramatically. “Abandon me in my time of need.”
“You’re so dramatic.”
“It’s part of my charm.”
“It really is.” You pause. “I have to go. My study group is waiting. But I love you.”
“Love you too. Kick organic chemistry’s ass.”
“That’s the plan.”
After you hang up, Dean stares at the ceiling. Four days feels like four years. He’s gotten used to having you around — your presence in his space, your voice, your laugh. The bed feels too big without you. Everything feels too big without you.
“You’re moping,” Garrett says from the doorway.
“I’m not moping.”
“You’re absolutely moping. It’s pathetic.”
“She’s studying for finals. I’m being supportive.”
“You’re being miserable.” Garrett sits on the edge of the bed. “Dude, it’s been four days. You’re acting like she’s gone to war.”
“It feels like she’s gone to war.”
“Oh my god, you’re so far gone it’s actually painful to watch.”
Dean throws a pillow at him. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”
“Nope. This is too entertaining.” Garrett grins. “Remember when you used to go days without seeing girls and you didn’t care? Remember when you had a different girl every week? Remember when-”
“Okay, I get it. I’ve changed.”
“You’re whipped.”
“I’m in love. There’s a difference.”
“Is there though?”
Dean considers this. “No, probably not. I’m definitely whipped.”
“At least you’re self-aware.” Garrett stands. “Just go see her. Bring her coffee. She’ll appreciate it.”
“She told me she needs to focus.”
“And you’re listening to that? Since when do you listen to reasonable requests?”
“Since she asked me to.”
Garrett shakes his head. “Man, you really are gone.”
***
By Wednesday afternoon, Dean’s desperate.
He’s tried texting. You respond, but they’re short, distracted messages. He’s tried calling. You answer, but only for a few minutes before you have to get back to studying. He even tried sending food to the library, but according to Maggie, you just smiled and kept highlighting your notes.
“I have an idea,” he tells Beau.
They’re at the gym, supposedly working out, but Dean’s been staring at the same weight for ten minutes.
“Does it involve you actually lifting that or are we just looking at it?” Beau asks.
“I need you to punch me.”
Beau doesn’t even blink. “In the face?”
“Yeah.”
“Hard enough to leave a mark?”
“Definitely.”
“Because you miss your girlfriend and you think if you’re injured she’ll take care of you?”
Dean stares at him. “How did you-”
“Dude, Garrett told everyone about the hockey stick thing. You’re not subtle.” Beau sets down his own weights. “And now you want me to punch you because she’s been studying too hard?”
“When you say it like that it sounds stupid.”
“It is stupid.”
“But you’ll do it?”
Beau sighs. “I can’t believe you went from being the campus manwhore to so whipped for one girl that you’re literally begging me to punch you in the face.”
“I’m not begging.”
“You’re absolutely begging.”
“Will you do it or not?”
“What’s in it for me?”
“My eternal gratitude?”
“Not compelling.”
“I’ll do your Applied Logic homework for the rest of the semester.”
“Now we’re talking.” Beau stands up, cracking his knuckles. “Okay. Where do you want it?”
“Somewhere visible but not too bad. I don’t want to actually break anything.”
“So cheekbone? Maybe split your lip again?”
“Lip’s good. She has a thing about my mouth.”
“I did not need to know that.” Beau positions himself. “You ready?”
“Wait-” Dean holds up a hand. “Not here. Too many witnesses. Let’s go outside.”
Five minutes later, they’re in the parking lot behind the gym. Dean’s bracing himself, and Beau’s looking at him like he’s crazy.
“Last chance to back out,” Beau says.
“Just do it.”
“You’re insane.”
“Frequently.”
Beau shrugs. “Your funeral.” And he pulls back and-
CRACK.
Dean’s head snaps to the side, stars exploding behind his eyes. His lip splits immediately, and yeah, that’s going to bruise.
“Jesus,” he gasps, tasting blood.
“You literally asked for that.”
“I know. Doesn’t make it hurt less.” Dean touches his lip gingerly. “How bad is it?”
“Pretty bad. Your lip’s bleeding like crazy and your cheek’s already swelling.” Beau hands him a towel from his gym bag. “You better hope this works because if Y/N finds out you did this on purpose, she’s going to kill you.”
“She won’t find out.”
“Famous last words, man. Famous last words.”
***
You finish your study session at six, exhausted but confident about tomorrow’s exam. Your phone has three missed calls from Dean, which is unusual. He’s been good about giving you space this week.
You call him back.
“Hey,” he answers, and his voice sounds weird. Muffled.
“You okay? You sound funny.”
“I’m fine. Just had a little accident at the gym.”
Your exhaustion evaporates immediately. “What kind of accident?”
“It’s not a big deal-”
“Dean. What happened.”
“I caught an elbow playing basketball. My lip’s split and my cheek’s a little banged up, but I’m fine.”
You’re already packing your bag. “Where are you?”
“At home, but Y/N, you don’t have to-”
“I’m coming over. Have you iced it?”
“Not yet-”
“Ice it. Now. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
You hang up before he can protest, throwing your books into your backpack with more force than necessary. Basketball. Of course. Because Dean can’t just go to the gym and work out like a normal person, he has to play contact sports.
The walk to The Boy’s House takes twelve minutes because you’re power-walking the whole way. You let yourself in — Dean gave you a key two weeks ago — and take the stairs two at a time.
He’s sitting on his bed, holding a bag of frozen peas to his face, and when he lowers it your heart stops.
“Oh my god.”
His lip is split badly, still oozing blood. His left cheek is swollen and already turning purple. There’s dried blood on his chin.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he says.
“It looks terrible!” You drop your bag and go to him, gently tilting his face toward the light. “Have you cleaned this at all?”
“I was waiting for you.”
“Dean-” You stop, take a breath. “Okay. Don’t move. I need to get supplies.”
Ten minutes later, you’ve assembled everything you need from his bathroom and the first aid kit he keeps under the sink. Dean watches you work with something soft in his eyes.
“You don’t have to do this,” he says. “I know you have studying-”
“Shut up.” You’re cleaning the blood from his face with gentle swipes. “You’re hurt. Obviously I’m going to take care of you.”
“You’re amazing, you know that?”
“I’m aware.” But you’re smiling a little. “This is going to sting.”
“I can han—OW.”
“I warned you.” You’re applying antiseptic now, careful around the split. “How did this happen exactly?”
“I went up for a rebound and Beau’s elbow caught me right in the face.”
“Beau did this?”
“It was an accident. He felt terrible.”
“He should feel terrible. This is-” You stop, looking at the injury more carefully. “This is a really clean hit.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean Beau’s elbow would have caught you at an angle if you were both going up for a rebound. But this-” You touch the area around the injury lightly. “This came straight on. Like a punch, not an elbow.”
Dean’s eyes widen slightly. “I-”
“Did Beau punch you in the face?”
“No! I mean, not exactly-”
“Dean.” You sit back, crossing your arms. “Did you ask Beau to punch you in the face?”
The silence is deafening.
“Maybe,” he finally admits.
“MAYBE?”
“Okay, yes. I asked him to punch me in the face.”
You stare at him. “Why would you-” And then it clicks. “You missed me.”
“So much.”
“So you had Beau punch you in the face because you thought I’d come take care of you.”
“When you say it like that it sounds stupid.”
“It IS stupid!” But you’re fighting a smile now. “Dean, you could have just asked me to take a study break.”
“You said you needed to focus.”
“I did need to focus. But I also need to eat and sleep and occasionally see my boyfriend. I would have made time.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.” You go back to cleaning his face. “You didn’t need to get punched.”
“It worked though. You’re here.”
“I’m here because you’re injured and I was worried about you, not because your manipulation tactics worked.”
“Semantics.”
You laugh despite yourself. “You’re ridiculous.”
“But you love me anyway.”
“I love you anyway.” You finish cleaning the wound and start applying butterfly bandages. “Although this isn’t the first time you’ve done something like this, is it?”
He freezes. “What do you mean?”
“After that game months ago.”
“I told you, I took a high stick in the-”
“Dean.” You meet his eyes. “Garrett told me.”
“He WHAT?”
“Told me. Right after it happened, actually. He said, and I quote, ‘I can’t believe Dean hit himself in the face with his own stick to get your attention.’” You’re grinning now. “He thought it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen.”
Dean drops his head into his hands. “I’m going to kill him.”
“You’re not going to kill him. He was right, it was hilarious.”
“It was strategic.”
“It was unhinged.”
“It worked!”
“It did work,” you admit. “We did kiss that night. But Dean-” You cup his face gently. “You don’t need to injure yourself to get my attention. You already have it. You’ve had it since that first night at the party, whether I wanted to admit it or not.”
“Really?”
“Really. So next time you miss me during finals week, just tell me. I’ll make time. I promise.”
“Even if you’re drowning in studying?”
“Even then. Because you’re important to me. More important than a 4.0.”
His eyes widen. “Did you just say-”
“Don’t make a big deal out of it.”
“You said I’m more important than your GPA!”
“I said don’t make a big deal out of it!”
But he’s grinning now, wincing when it pulls at his split lip. “I love you so much.”
“I love you too, you absolute maniac.” You finish with the bandages. “There. You’re all patched up. But seriously, no more fake injuries. Deal?”
“Deal.” He pauses. “What if they’re really small injuries though? Like a paper cut or-”
“Dean.”
“Kidding. I’m kidding.” He pulls you into his lap. “Thank you for taking care of me.”
“Always.” You kiss him carefully, mindful of his lip. “Now, I really should get back to studying-”
“Or,” he says, his hands sliding under your shirt. “You could stay. Take a break. Let me thank you properly for being the best girlfriend in the world.”
“I have an exam tomorrow.”
“You’re going to ace it. You always do.”
“Dean-”
“Please?” He’s kissing your neck now. “I’ve missed you so much. Four days is too long.”
“You’re injured.”
“I’m fine. Better than fine now that you’re here.”
You should say no. Should go back to your dorm, review your notes one more time, get a good night’s sleep.
But his hands are warm and his mouth is on that spot below your ear that makes you melt, and you’ve missed him too.
“Fine,” you sigh. “But only for a little bit.”
“Whatever you say, baby.”
***
“A little bit” turns into three hours.
You’re lying in Dean’s bed, thoroughly debauched and completely relaxed, wearing his t-shirt and nothing else. He’s next to you, propped up on one elbow, just watching you with that soft expression that still makes your heart flutter.
“What?” You ask.
“Just thinking about how lucky I am.”
“Even with your busted face?”
“Especially with my busted face. It got you here, didn’t it?”
You shake your head, laughing. “You know what’s crazy?”
“What?”
“Six months ago, if someone had told me I’d be here — in your bed, in love with you, happy to blow off studying for you — I would have thought they were insane.”
“And now?”
“Now I can’t imagine being anywhere else.” You trace the line of his jaw, careful of the bruise. “You’ve completely derailed my carefully planned life.”
“Sorry?”
“Don’t be. It needed derailing.” You shift closer. “I had everything mapped out. College, medical school, residency, career. No room for anything else. Definitely no room for a relationship.”
“And now?”
“Now I have all of that plus you. And it turns out, I can have both. I can be focused and driven and still make time for someone I love. Who knew?”
“I knew,” Dean says softly. “From the beginning, I knew you could have everything you wanted. You just needed to let yourself want it.”
“When did you get so wise?”
“I’ve always been wise. You just thought I was a dumb jock.”
“I never thought you were dumb.”
“Just a jock?”
“A very hot jock,” you amend. “With surprisingly good political acumen and an unexpected talent for making me laugh.”
“Keep going. This is good for my ego.”
You laugh and kiss him. “I love you. Even when you’re getting yourself punched in the face for attention.”
“I love you too. Even when you’re so focused on studying you forget to eat.”
“That was one time!”
“It was three times.”
“Who’s counting?”
“Me. Because I care about you.” He kisses your forehead. “Speaking of which, when’s your last exam?”
“Friday at two.”
“Okay. So Friday at two-oh-five, you’re officially done with finals. What do you want to do?”
“Sleep for sixteen hours?”
“After that.”
“I don’t know. What did you have in mind?”
“Well,” he says, rolling on top of you. “I was thinking we could go back to the lake house for the weekend. Just us. No studying, no hockey, no responsibilities. Just us.”
“That sounds perfect.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” You wrap your arms around his neck. “But right now, I’m exactly where I want to be.”
“In my bed?”
“In your arms.”
His expression goes soft. “You’re going to make me emotional.”
“Big tough hockey player can’t handle feelings?”
“Not when they’re about you.” He kisses you, deep and slow. “You destroy me, you know that?”
“Good. You destroyed me first.”
“Best disaster of your life?”
“Best disaster of my life,” you confirm.
He grins and starts kissing down your neck. “You know what I just realized?”
“What?”
“You’re supposed to be studying right now.”
“Dean-”
“But instead you’re here. With me. Naked in my bed.” His hands are wandering now. “Priorities definitely shifted.”
“This is a one-time thing. Finals week exception.”
“Uh huh. Sure.” He’s at your collarbone now. “You keep telling yourself that.”
“I will. Now stop talking and-”
But you lose your train of thought when his mouth finds your breast.
“What was that?” He asks innocently. “Stop talking and what?”
“You know what.”
“I really don’t. You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Dean Di Laurentis, if you don’t-”
He moves lower, kissing down your stomach. “Don’t what?”
“Oh my god, you’re infuriating.”
“But you love me.”
“I’m starting to question that decision—oh.” Your hands fist in his hair as his mouth finds exactly where you need it. “Okay, I take it back. I love you. I love you so much.”
“That’s what I thought,” he murmurs against your skin, and then he’s making very sure all thoughts of studying — all thoughts period — leave your head completely.
***
Later, when you’re both thoroughly satisfied and drowsing in each other’s arms, you make one last attempt at responsibility.
“I should really go study,” you mumble into his chest.
“Mmm, no.”
“I have an exam in-” you crane your neck to see his alarm clock, “-fourteen hours.”
“You’ll ace it. You always do.”
“Confidence based on what data?”
“Based on the fact that you’re brilliant and you’ve been studying for days.” He tightens his arms around you. “Stay. Please. I’ll wake you up early and make you breakfast and quiz you on whatever you need.”
“You don’t even know what the exam is on.”
“I’ll learn. For you, I’ll learn organic chemistry overnight.”
You laugh. “That’s not possible.”
“Maybe not. But I’ll try anyway.” He kisses the top of your head. “Stay.”
You should say no. Should be responsible. Should-
“Okay,” you hear yourself say. “I’ll stay.”
“Best decision you’ve made all week.”
“Second best. Best decision was coming to take care of your ridiculous fake injury.”
“It was real! Beau really punched me!”
“You asked him to!”
“Details.”
You’re both laughing now, and it feels so good, so right, that you don’t even care about the studying you’re missing.
“I can’t believe I’m blowing off organic chemistry for you,” you say.
“I can. I’m very compelling.”
“You’re very something.”
“But you love me.”
“I really do.” You prop yourself up to look at him. “Even when you’re being an absolute disaster of a human being.”
“Takes one to know one.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. You’re just as much of a disaster as I am. You just hide it better behind color-coded notes and perfect grades.”
“I am not-”
“You once stayed in the library for twenty-seven straight hours during midterms!”
“I was on a roll!”
“You forgot to eat three times in one week!”
“I was focused!”
“My point exactly. We’re both disasters. We just disaster differently.”
You consider this. “Okay, that’s fair.”
“We’re perfect for each other.”
“We really are.” You settle back against his chest. “Disastrous together.”
“But happy.”
“So happy,” you agree.
And it’s true. Despite the chaos, despite the derailed plans, despite every logical reason why this shouldn’t work — you’re happy. Happier than you’ve ever been.
“Hey Dean?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being patient with me. For waiting while I figured out what I wanted. For showing me that having you doesn’t mean losing myself.”
“Y/N-”
“For loving me even when I was too scared to love you back. For making me believe I could have everything.”
He pulls you closer, and you can hear his heartbeat, steady and strong. “You’re going to make me cry.”
“Big tough hockey player-”
“Can’t handle feelings about you. We’ve established this.” He tilts your face up to his. “I’d wait forever for you. You know that, right?”
“I know.”
“And you’re not losing yourself. You’re just making room for one more thing. One more person who thinks you’re incredible and wants to support every single dream you have.”
“Stop it. I’m going to cry now.”
“We can cry together.”
You’re both laughing through tears now, and it’s messy and perfect and exactly right.
“I love you,” you say.
“I love you too.” He kisses you, soft and sweet. “Now go to sleep. You have an exam to ace tomorrow.”
“You’re letting me sleep?”
“You’re the one who keeps initiating round three.”
“That is—okay, that’s fair.”
“Get some rest, baby. I’ve got you.”
And he does. His arms around you, his heartbeat in your ear, his presence solid and real and yours.
You fall asleep thinking about how far you’ve come. From that first night at the party, convinced Dean was just another distraction. To study sessions that became something more. To falling in love despite every logical reason not to.
The best decisions aren’t always the logical ones.
Sometimes the best decisions are the ones that scare you. The ones that derail your carefully planned future. The ones that make you feel too much.
Sometimes the best decisions are the disasters that turn out to be exactly what you needed all along.
And as you drift off in Dean’s arms, you can’t help but smile.
Because if this is disaster, you never want to be safe again.
꒰ summary ꒱ when a misunderstanding leaves your family convinced you’re bringing a plus one to your cousin’s wedding in Japan, the last person you expect to volunteer for the role is your infuriatingly observant intern, Satoru. it’s supposed to be temporary. professional. strictly off the record. but with your mother already sold on the idea of your mystery boyfriend, and Satoru proving far too good at the role, pretending starts to feel a little too dangerous. also, why is your “intern” secretly the heir to gojo corporation?!
꒰ tags/warnings ꒱ fake dating ⚹︎ undercover ceo! satoru ⚹︎ accountant! reader ⚹︎ satoru is 29, reader is 26 ⚹︎ lots of family pressure. reader has a complicated relationship with her mom ⚹︎ forced proximity ⚹︎ one bed trope ⚹︎ slow burn ⚹︎ mutual pining ⚹︎ wedding chaos ⚹︎ angst and fluff ⚹︎ some suggestive content but no explicit smut ⚹︎
꒰ authors note ꒱ hi cuties! this is a commission piece, and it is about 12k total. this first part is just shy of 6k and the second part will be out next week. i hope you enjoy 🫶🏻 (art by @/hanamin_0123 on x)
"Oi. Boss lady."
“No.”
One problem at a time, and the spreadsheet in front of you wins by default. Because Column F is wrong. It’s been wrong for forty fucking minutes, and if it stays wrong for forty seconds longer, you may actually die here at your desk — hunched over, half-blind, and found by Shoko on a Monday morning with your face pressed into a pivot table like a cautionary tale.
"But… you don't even know what I was gonna—"
"—the answer is no, Satoru."
Unlike the human embodiment of a headache currently lingering on the other side of your desk, the spreadsheet in front of you is at least pretending to be important.
The chair beneath him creaks, and then comes the silence you know too well. It’s the one that comes right before he decides to be a problem on purpose. Attention is gasoline and Satoru is, structurally, a fire hazard. Still, your eyes flick up, and—
"No fair…” he huffs, that ridiculous pout tugging at his lips. “You didn't even let me finish the question."
Your eyes roll back down.
“Mhm.”
"And it was such a good question.”
You turn a page. "Really?”
“Yup.” He’s draped over the corner of your desk now, like gravity has wronged him, whining. “It was such a thoughtful… personal… deeply relevant… extremely genius level getting-to-know-you tier question that—”
You scowl. "—Satoru, enough. Just do your job."
It lands harder than expected. The sigh he lets out is deeply, theatrically offended. And when you glance up again, he’s sprawled over that same corner of your desk you made the mistake of clearing for him on day one because you’d thought, foolishly, that giving him a designated surface might contain him.
It had not.
Nothing about Satoru had ever suggested he could be contained.
Snowy white hair falls against his brow, sleeves rolled to his elbows; looking far too expensive and far too comfortable for someone whose official title is intern. His coffee is sweating beside your open planner — the one with a date next week circled in red: WEDDING, scrawled across the margin in your own handwriting. The condensation trails towards a stack of vendor invoices and—
…
Wait.
Are those the same vendor invoices you asked him to file yesterday?
Fucking great.
“Oh, c’monnn,” he grumbles, blinking at you over the rim of those absurdly expensive sunglasses he insists on wearing indoors. “One question. Just a tiiiiny one. It’s completely harmless. Humor me, yeah?”
You narrow your eyes.
“Satoru, you’ve been trying to ask one question for the last four months.”
“Yeah,” he says. “And you’ve been dodging it for four months. Imagine that.”
Technically… four months and four days. But who’s counting?
With an exhausted groan, your eyes fall shut, pinching the bridge of your nose. Noise drifts in from the hall — the elevator, the printer, a phone trilling somewhere nearby. But when you look up again, it all seems to fall away.
He’s gone strangely still. The smug grin hasn’t disappeared, but it’s softened at the edges, hooked at one corner with his head tilted slightly. And those eyes…
Oh.
That’s — no. You’ve seen his eyes before. Obviously. Four months of them. But right now, with the morning light doing something cruel and unhelpful behind him, they catch in a way that makes you forget you were mid-thought. The kind of blue that doesn’t ask if you’re looking. It already knows.
Which means of course, you look away first. “Fine.” Your hand drops as you mutter. “One question. But if it’s stupid, I’m sending you back to HR.”
It’s not much of a threat. It’s his last day, after all, and for reasons you still don’t fully understand, Satoru has always seemed oddly immune to consequences — which, frankly, feels statistically improbable given the amount of shit he’s managed to pull in the few months of being here.
“One question?” his grin sharpens. You point your pen at him. “Don’t make me regret this.” Yet his pleased chuckle is already making you. “Awhh… look at you. Finally yielding.” His pen twirls between his fingers, nodding with false solemnity. “Okay. So, here’s the thing… throughout these four months working beside you, I’ve seen a lot—"
“—that’s not a question.” You deadpan.
But ignoring you, he reclines back in the chair, hands clasped behind his head.
“Liiiike… I’ve seen the exact face you make when Mei-Mei emails you,” he smirks. “Even noticed you work through lunch more than you should. And I’ve noticed that little line right here—” he gestures vaguely between his own brows “—every time the budget goes sideways.”
Lips parting, you blink.
…why is he so observant?!
For someone who acts like he doesn’t give a shit, he’s strangely attentive.
You clear your throat, huffing. “Okay… what’s your point?” Your hands straighten a stack of papers that doesn’t need straightening. “Is there a question in here somewhere, or are you just reciting my habits back to me for fun?”
His grin is far too pleased. “Relax. I’m getting there.” And leaning forward, his voice drops, like he’s unraveling a conspiracy. “I just find it interesting how you answer work calls before the second ring. Every damn day. Doesn’t matter who it is.” His head tilts with a smug grin. “But for whatever reason, for the past month, your personal phone’s been ringing off the hook, and you never pick up. Not once.”
Heat creeps up your neck. Not because he’s wrong — but because he’s right. And he said it like it was nothing. Like noticing the pattern of your avoidance was just something that happened to him between stamps.
Oh.
Way too observant.
Shit. He couldn't have settled on what's your favorite color!? Or, what superpower would you have!? No. Of course he had to go for the fucking jugular.
His eyes drop to the planner lying open beneath the invoices. The circled date: WEDDING. And his grin sharpens. “Ohoho… I get it now,” he whistles, leaning back in his chair and kicking one leg over the other. “What’d your fiancé do to screw up this bad? Is the wedding off?”
Your head jerks up. “F-Fiancé?!” And he rolls his eyes with a scoff, still grinning. “Knew it. God, he must be really in the doghouse. Or maybe he’s just clingy as hell to be calling that much.”
You blink.
Okay. Nevermind. He’s wrong. That is not even remotely what’s happening. The most committed relationship you’ve had is the one with your coffee machine. And yet… part of it feels almost cosmically cruel.
Because somehow, this is the second time in a month that someone had looked at the scattered pieces of your life and decided a man must be hiding inside them. Except the first time, you never even got the chance to correct it.
After all… how do you tell your mother she’s wrong?
Last month, you still answered her phone calls.
Not because you expected anything different. But because somewhere between the second ring and the third, there’s this gap — this stupid, paper-thin gap — where you still believe she might ask how you’re doing and actually wait for the answer.
Some habits taste like smoke. Some burn like liquor. But yours, unfortunately, had always looked a lot like hope.
Hope is a terrible habit you’ve never been able to kick.
“Oh—uh, hi mom!”
Your phone was wedged between your ear and shoulder while you stepped out of your car, juggling your purse and what was left of your sanity. You were already behind schedule, and your mother was calling — which meant the day had already made its intentions very clear.
“What’s up?” the door slammed shut with your hip. “I’m actually about to—”
“—Trish sent the venue photos,” she blurted, launching into a conversation like always.
Blinking, you shook the bitterness away. Striding toward the towering glass of Gojo Corporation. “That’s—yeah, that’s great,” you muttered, badge in hand as you pushed through the front doors. “But I’m actually heading into work right now? So—”
“—It’s such a beautiful venue,” she ignored you. “Very traditional, very grand. But you know the Zenin family—they never do anything small.” And as she sighed in awe, you resisted the urge to roll your eyes.
The rational part of your brain told you to let this go to voicemail. But the rational part of your brain has never once won this fight. Because…
Hope is a terrible habit you’ve never been able to kick.
"Mom, I'm sure it's lovely, really… but I'm kind of—um, excuse me…" you pivoted around a man in the bustling lobby with a sigh. “Sorry. I’m literally walking into the building right now? But maybe we can revisit this later and—"
"—have you booked your flight yet?"
Your mouth flattened.
Clearly, your half of this conversation is optional.
“No… not yet,” you mumbled, as patiently as you could manage, jabbing the up button harder than necessary. “It’s been a crazy ass week so I haven’t had a chance to, but—”
“—every week is a crazy week for you.” The huff she let out sounded almost offended by the inconvenience of your life. “Why can’t you just book it now while we’re talking? I mean, it literally takes five minutes.”
A miracle, really, that your blood pressure isn’t a medical emergency.
Every week is a crazy week?
Yeah. No shit.
Two managers resigned last quarter. Another got escorted out by security. And their work didn’t disappear. No. It landed on your desk. Because that’s how it goes. That’s how it’s always gone. Group projects. Internships. End-of-quarter disasters no one else wanted to touch. If something needed fixing, it found its way to you.
You’re the one people relied on.
Just… never the one people chose.
“Mother. I’m at work,” you said, stepping into the elevator as the doors slid open, dropping your voice as you stabbed at floor fifteen. “Look—I’m about to walk into an eight a.m. meeting. But I’ll book it tonight, promise.”
“…eight a.m.?” she repeated slowly, before letting out a small, unbothered laugh. “Oh! Right. It’s eight p.m. here. Silly me. I keep forgetting.”
…
Keep forgetting?
She keeps forgetting that she’s ten thousand miles away? Forgetting that twenty years ago she abandoned you in another country to live abroad in Japan—handing you to your grandparents like a detail she'd get back to later?
How convenient that she forgot that.
The elevator slid shut, and you watched the numbers tick upward. “Um. Yeah…” you managed, trying to keep the hurt out of your voice. “Anyways. I’ll book it tonight. After work. Okay?”
"Okay, okay. Sure. Sounds good. But are you bringing anyone?”
Squeezing the strap of your bag, you swallowed the lump in your throat. This again? The last thing you needed was to walk into your shitty eight a.m. meeting looking emotional.
No thanks.
“I… uh…” you cleared your throat. “I um—actually—haven’t decided yet. But anyways, I gotta go, so—”
“Waitwatiwait. Haven’t decided? Does that mean… you actually found someone?!”
Her voice pitched up so fast it almost startled you, and your mouth dropped so low it could’ve hit floor one.
Shit.
“I-I—I didn’t say—"
“—oh, thank God. This is incredible!!” she squealed. “We’ve been so worried. I mean—Trish is younger than you and she figured it out,” her tongue clicked. “People have been asking questions, you know. Your aunt Sara keeps bringing it up every time I see her and—”
“—Mom, I—"
“—It’s about time,” The laugh she let out was relieved, like a problem in her life had finally begun resolving itself. “You can’t keep putting love on hold forever, because men aren’t going to wait around forever. You’re already twenty-six—not getting any younger, dear.”
Love?!
Who has time for that?
And why the fuck is twenty-six the age a woman expires?!
“What’s his name?” she pressed, practically beaming through the phone. “What does he do? Is he from there, or—oh, is he Japanese? Your father would love that, he always said—”
And she was off.
Spinning an entire man out of thin air. An entire future, really. Building him in real time from a tiny slip up you had because you were too tired and cornered and desperate enough to answer the phone in the first place. And you stood there, letting her. Because interrupting her has never once worked in the history of your life.
“—actually, never mind,” she chirped a moment later, as if she was being considerate now. “You have work. I’ll call tomorrow and you can tell me everything, yes? Okay, bye-bye honey—”
Click!
And just like that, the elevator went quiet. You were left staring at your reflection in the metal doors, phone pressed to your ear, listening to the silence where your mother’s voice had been.
‘We’ve been so worried.’
…
If they were so worried… why had you spent most of your life learning to take care of yourself? And yet, the second there might be a man, suddenly you’re worth getting excited about?
Funny how that works.
Scoffing, you lowered the phone, shoving it into your bag just as the elevator chimed open. Itadori Yuji’s head snapped up behind the reception desk.
“Morning, boss,” he waved, radiating sunshine as you walked towards the conference room. “Kento’s asking if you’re still good for the budget review at eight… or if I should just tell him to panic.”
Your smile softened, burying the sting. “Yes… I’ll be right there.” And as you stepped through the polished glass doors, you played the role you’d always played.
The reliable one. Twenty-six years old, with two master’s degrees, a career at one of the most competitive corporations in the world, and a team of seven that would quietly fall apart without you.
But…
None of that glitters quite like a diamond ring, does it?
“Oi,” Satoru frowns. “You’re makin’ that face again.”
“Huh?”
Blinking out of your spiral, your eyes trace back to the man across from you. His chin is resting in his palm, those impossibly blue eyes fixed on you with a quiet stillness that makes something in your chest trip over itself — like a lock turning in a door you didn’t know was closed.
“Oh.” You clear your throat, forcing the pen back into motion. “…what face?”
“The one you make when something’s wrong,” he says quietly, gaze unmoving. “When you’re upset and trying to act like you’re not.”
For a second — one terrible, unguarded second — you don’t have a single thing to hide behind. It’s just him, looking at you like your well-being is something he’s been keeping track of in a column you didn’t even know existed.
But then the sarcasm kicks in, right on time. "Wow," you say, forcing your hands back to the papers in front of you. "So… now you read faces?"
“Mm... nah. Just yours, sweetheart.”
And that grin — god, that fucking grin — hooks at one corner like he knows exactly what just detonated inside your chest. You don’t acknowledge it. Acknowledging things have consequences, and consequences with this man are not something you can afford.
"…that’s highly inappropriate," you mutter, shoving it down. "Let’s maybe redirect some of that insight toward the invoices, yeah?"
“Sorry, sorry.” He leans back, hands up like he’s the picture of innocence. “Wouldn’t wanna start shit with your dear future husband.” His grin goes sharp as he twirls his sunglasses between two fingers. “Though, wow. Tough look for him. Whatever he did, he clearly fucked up bad.”
Why does he sound… bitter?
No. You must be imagining it. This is Satoru. Satoru, who treats everything like a joke until proven otherwise. Satoru, who doesn’t care enough about anything to sound bitter over a man who may or may not exist.
You scoff. "You’re making some wildly stupid assumptions right now…"
He perks up at that. "Oh?" With his grin hooking higher, almost hopeful. "Wait. So, there’s no fiancé, then?"
Your lips purse.
What does he care? He’s not your mother.
“I wish you’d be this interested in your actual job,” you sigh, arms crossing. “Those invoices have been sitting there all week.”
“Uh-huh.” He tips his head. “And yet somehow, I noticed you still didn’t answer me.”
You frown.
What the fuck are you supposed to say!?
Oh. Um. Actually, Satoru, there is no fiancé. That’s the problem, actually! My mother invented him the other morning and I haven't worked up the nerve to call her back.
Yeah. No. You'd rather die at this desk.
“Maybe because it’s none of your business.”
“But I—”
“Drop it.”
He stares at you for a beat, then he flops back in the chair with a dramatic huff, long legs kicking out in front of him, mouth dragging into a sulky pout.
“Well, damn,” he grumbles, pushing his sunglasses up into his hair, rolling his eyes. “No wonder you’re single if this is how you shut people down…”
The second the words leave his mouth, he blinks. His gaze flicks up to yours like he hears it too late — like he realizes, all at once, how shitty that sounded.And it only feels worse the moment he sees your face.
God.
Of all the places to hit.
“Oho… wow. Okay. This?” you say with a thin, self-deprecating laugh, chair scraping as you shove back from your seat. “Yeah. This is exactly why I shouldn’t have let you ask, Satoru.” You reach for your planner, your purse, anything to do with your hands besides let them shake.
He straightens, watching you scramble. “Whoa. Wait. I—"
“—because you don’t know when to stop!” The words come out louder than you mean, blinking at the sting behind your eyes. “You just keep pushing and pushing and pushing until you get what you want. Well good. I hope you’re happy.”
Before you can turn away, he’s on his feet. “Wait—” And the moment his hand catches yours, you freeze, breath snagging.
His voice is quieter now. His grip is firm yet gentle, and the air between you shifts, while something warm and uneasy twists low in your chest. The kind of feeling that makes you want to lean in and run in the same breath.
Though your eyes stay down. “Satoru… let go.”
“I didn’t…” he starts, then stops, gaze flicking to where his fingers still circle your wrist — before climbing back to your face, slower this time. “I’m… sorry. I just—” His mouth tightens. “I see how hard you work, okay? I see it. And every time that phone rings, you get this look on your face like it’s already ruined your day before you even touch it. And…” His brows pinch. “Fuck. I dunno why, but it pisses me off!”
Your gaze hesitantly drags to his, and the look in his eyes is softer than they have any right to be — all that blue, stripped of its usual sharpness, turned careful. Like he’s stepping toward something breakable and knows it. Like… if he asked once more, something in you might actually give.
“Satoru…” your breath hitches. “I-I—"
“Oh, finally.”
Shoko’s voice trails in, and your head snaps up so fast your neck almost goes with it. She’s leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, coffee in hand — looking like a woman who arrived exactly on time for something she's been expecting all week.
Her gaze flicks down to where he’s holding you, and the corner of her mouth twitches.
"Sooo… not to interrupt whatever this is," she says, taking a sip, "but Kento's one eye-twitch away from a medical event. He needs you to sign off on the variance line before he starts reconciling his own will and—"
You're already jerking your hand back. "Yup—coming!" And as you step away, heat floods your face, but you don't look back. Not once. Not even when you feel him still standing there, watching you go.
Because looking back would mean acknowledging that something just shifted. And you are not — not — doing that today.
Unlike those invoices, perhaps some things are better left… unfinished.
You’re gone in a blur of heels, nerves, and professional self-preservation, leaving Shoko trailing behind and Satoru staring at the empty doorway like maybe the conversation might wander back through it.
It doesn’t.
And it’s not long before his mouth is pulling into a slow, petulant pout—just before he flops back in the chair with all the elegance of a man personally betrayed by the universe.
Un-fucking-believable.
He’d almost had you! After four months and four days of being stonewalled, redirected, and professionally shut down, you’d finally looked like you might give him something. A crack. A sliver. And then Kento had to ruin it with his stupid reconciliation sheet, his stupid earnest face, and his stupidly impeccable timing.
…
He could fire Kento.
Should he fire Kento?
As tempting as that thought is, Satoru settles for glaring at the empty doorway a second longer before dragging a hand down his face and raking it back through his hair. There’s no point. This performance will end soon. Because by this time tomorrow, he’ll be on a flight back to Tokyo. Where he can resume the slow, agonizing process of preparing to inherit a company he didn't actually give a shit about.
'Grow up, Satoru.'
'Apply yourself, Satoru.'
'You have no idea what it takes to run something like this, Satoru.'
Right. Because apparently, the heir to a multinational corporation needed to learn humility. Alphabetize files. Sit in a cubicle. Fetch coffee like some goddamn spreadsheet slut with a trust fund and nowhere to put it.
Four years of business school, two years shadowing his father; and yet, this is what they had for him?!
He scoffs. And when his gaze drops to the wreckage of your desk, he’s pulling the stack of vendor invoices toward him with a sigh that sounds put-upon even to his own ears. You’ve been nagging him about filing them for the better part of the week and… the least he can do is clear one thing before he goes.
The stamp thuds against the first page. Then the next. Then the next. And with muscle memory taking over, his face goes blank in the way it always does when boredom finally wins. It’s mindless shit. Still, he’s used to it. So naturally, when the phone on your desk buzzes, he doesn’t think twice; snatching it up, tucking it between his ear and shoulder as he reaches for the next invoice.
It’s probably another budget nuisance. Or Mei. Or one of the other thousand little crises that seem magnetically drawn to your extension.
“Yo,” another stamp echoes. “Satoru speaking.”
There’s a sharp inhale. “…who?”
His brow lifts. “Uh… Satoru?” Another thud of ink slams against the paper and he huffs, annoyed. “What do y’need?”
The line goes quiet for a beat too long. Before the woman on the other end finally murmurs, “Satoru…” Sighing in awe. “What a lovely name. Is that Japanese?”
"Uh… yeah?” he snorts, flipping to the next page. “I mean. Last I checked.”
“Mm… I thought so!” She giggles. And her voice pitches like she's just unwrapped a present she didn't know she was getting. “So… Satoru. Why exactly are you the one answering her phone, hm?”
…
Why the hell does this woman sound so invested? And why is she asking questions that should be obvious?
Frowning down at the invoice, he stamps it harder.
“Because it rang?” He says it like it’s obvious. “And uh—sorry, but. Maybe because I’ve been with her for months, so… why the hell wouldn’t I?”
"Months?!” A soft gasp crackles, far too delighted. “You've—you've been with her for months?!"
"Mmm… four months and four days, technically."
He’s been her intern for that long.
That’s the question, right?
"—technically?!" she squeals, like the word personally seduced her. "Ohmygoodness—oh, this is perfect. Four months and four days—that is so specific.”
He blinks. But she doesn’t give him time to process.
“Look at you Mr. Devoted. Keeping track. I was starting to worry she’d never find someone like you. Every time I asked it's like pulling teeth. But I knew there had to be someone. I told her father—I said, there is a man, I can feel it.”
Pausing mid-stamp, the words slowly begin to catch up. Satoru straightens.
"…sorry. Who is thi—"
“—everyone is so excited to meet you at Trish’s wedding. I already reserved your seat and—"
Her voice keeps going… and going… and going. He pulls the phone away slowly as her voice echoes on the receiver, staring down at the phone in hand to see:
📞 Mom
Oh.
Oh, shit.
This is not your work phone. Your work phone is currently sitting at its dock twelve inches to his left. And it dawns on him that he accidentally just spent the last sixty seconds answering your personal phone like an absolute jackass and—
"Uh…” he backpedals. “Wait. I—"
"I told Sara, I said, we have to meet him and—”
"Stop. I-I really think—"
“—Satoru, what are you doing?’
His head snaps up at the sound of your voice, mouth dropping as he sees you standing at the doorway, eyes wide in horror.
Oh, fuck.
“Who is on the other end of that phone,” you hiss.
He winces, pulling the phone from his ear like it’s toxic — and you’re snatching it right out of his hand. He lets you have it without a fight, sinking back into the chair like he’s trying to physically dissociate from the situation he’s just created while you press the phone to your ear.
“And I mean…” she rambles. “I certainly was never one to wait around at twenty-six, believe me. But—"
"Mom."
"Oh! Honey!” She gasps. “Oh, my goodness, hi—I was just having the loveliest chat with—"
"I'm at work. Gotta go."
"—okay! I can't wait to meet Satoru, he—"
Click!
The phone sits in your hand like evidence.
And Satoru — to his credit — has the decency to look like a man standing in the blast radius of his own stupidity. His mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. Like he’s rehearsing an apology in a language he hasn’t learned yet.
You stare at him.
He stares at you.
And somewhere ten thousand miles away, your mother is already calling your aunt Sara.
“Sooo… funny story…”
“—what did you do?!”
Satoru flinched, and now, the tears were already rolling down your cheeks — hot, fast, completely unauthorized. Not the kind you could disguise as allergies or blame on the air conditioning. No. The ugly kind.
Great. Fucking great.
You were standing in the middle of your own office, in the building where you work, crying in front of your intern. And Satoru felt the weight of it all at once. In the last four months, he had seen you in every flavor of workplace misery there was. Pissed off, stressed out, one spreadsheet away from actual murder.
But cry?
Never.
And this had his fingerprints all over it.
"Shit," he breathed, panic flashing across his face. "I—fuck. Okay. Please don't—I can fix this. I can—"
"Fix this?" A splintered laugh ripped out of you, and you hated how thin it was. "Fix what, Satoru? You just confirmed a boyfriend to my mother, a boyfriend that doesn't exist—and she is, at this very moment, probably already—"
Another break in your voice cracked, and you squeezed your eyes shut, pressing your hand to your forehead hard like you could hold the tears in by sheer force. But it only made it worse, because now you could feel the wetness on your own face, the heat of it under your palm, and the mortification landed like a second wave.
God. How fucking humiliating.
"Hey, hey—it's okay,” his voice softened. “We'll just… call her back. Right? Tell her it was a misunderstanding. Easy."
“Easy?” you scoffed, the word coming out strangled. “Y-You don’t understand my mother, Satoru,” you managed, voice gone thin as thread. God, you sounded like a child. “If she thinks something is true, then it’s true. That’s it. That’s—there’s no correcting her, there’s no walking it back, she’s already told my aunt Sara by now and Sara’s told Trish and—oh, fuck—”
Another sob tumbled out, and your fingers dug harder into your temple.
God. Stop it.
Stop it stop it stop it.
Think.
Think logically. You're good at this. You solve problems for a living.
But every time you tried to grab onto a thought, it slipped — replaced by the echo of your mother's voice, high and delighted. The happiest she'd sounded talking to you in years. Maybe ever.
…what look will she give you when you show up alone?
"I can’t," you whispered, and the word came out waterlogged. "I-I'm supposed to get on a plane to Japan in a week and—do what? Tell them there's no one? Tell them I'm still—"
Single.
The word sat in your mouth like a stone. You didn’t realize you’d gone silent until the silence itself started ringing — your sniffling, the hum of fluorescent lights, the muffled life of the office continuing beyond the door like yours wasn’t actively coming apart at the seams.
And through all of it, you could feel Satoru looking at you. His stillness; holding you with an expression you'd never seen on him before and couldn't categorize if you tried.
"Um…” he looked down, scratching the back of his neck. “Soooo... the wedding's in Japan?"
You blinked. “What?” And as you wiped your face with the back of your hand, his gazed tentatively flicked back up. “The wedding…” he repeated, voice careful. “It’s in Japan?”
"Yes." Your brow furrowed, not understanding. "Why?"
He didn't answer right away. Just looked down at the floor for a second, jaw shifting, like he was turning something over in his head — something he hadn't fully assembled yet but could already feel the shape of.
"Huh… okay."
Okay what?
You watched his expression change in real time — from guilt to calculation to something else. "Right then!" He said, clapping his hands once, bright and sudden. "No biggie. I'll just go with you."
No biggie?
Your mouth dropped.
That wasn’t even an option, was it?
…is he crazy?
“You’re kidding,” your laugh was awkward and breathless. His eyes rolled with a smug grin. “Sweetheart, c’mon,” and he was gesturing between the two of you like the answer was sitting there in plain sight and you were the only person in the room committed to not seeing it. "Your family thinks you're bringing someone? Cool." A hand pressed to his chest with theatrical solemnity. "I'm someone."
You stared at him. Genuinely stared.
Oh. He wasn’t kidding.
Yup. He’s crazy.
"You are not 'someone,' Satoru. You are my intern."
“Yeah. For like… another six hours?"
He checked his watch with a shrug, and your lips flattened.
"…that is not the point."
“Mm… feels a little like the point."
He smirked, but it faded faster than usual, dimming at the edges as his blue eyes hesitated on yours. Something shifted in his posture; the performance pulling back, like a tide going out. "Um… look…" He pushed off the desk, stepping closer. "It’s really no hassle." He said, hands sliding into his pockets. "I already have a flight scheduled. My family's in Tokyo. And I was going back after this internship anyway, so… this just moves my timeline back a little."
He was shrugging like it wasn’t a big deal. Like he wasn’t agreeing to fly across the world with you and walk straight into the disaster that was your family.
…
His family’s in Japan too?
You barely knew anything about him. He kept his life sealed off with the same practiced deflection you kept yours — jokes in place of answers, charm in place of honesty. You never bothered to ask, because asking meant caring and that was a door you never intended to walk through with anyone.
But…
"Just… let me come with you. I’ll be your boyfriend for the weekend. For the wedding. For… whatever you need,” he said. And this time, when he stepped closer, there was no grin to hide behind. "I can be useful. I caused this. So… let me fix it."
Heat creeped up your neck, and you scoffed, weakly.
"Okay… but you can't fix my mother."
"No…” he murmured, tilting his head. His hand came up and brushed a tear trailing down your cheek with a careful gentleness. “But… I can make sure you don't have to walk in there alone?"
Your breath hitched, and when your eyes finally lifted, the morning light was being cruel again — catching in that impossible blue and turning it soft. Like stained glass dipped in sunlight. Like something holy made dangerous by the simple fact that it was looking straight at you.
“Mhn. So, do I get the job, boss lady? Because that look you’re giving me…” a slow smirk curls up the corner of his mouth. “Very encouraging for my boyfriend résumé, by the way. Might get addicted to it and wanna make it a full-time gig.”
“Shut up,” you mutter, looking away too fast to be convincing.“That was not a look. I was just—” You grimace. “…never mind.”
He’s chuckling as you brush past him. And his words are what scared you the most. Which was bad. Very, very bad. Because your mother was one problem. Japan was another. But Satoru looking at you like that?
Shit…
That felt like the kind of complication that didn’t stay neatly contained. And you knew better than anyone. Nothing about Satoru had ever suggested he could be contained.
a/n: hehe. this has been fun to work on! i am excited to share the next part. clearly i love these fake dating/fake marriage tropes aha 🙂↕️ bc this is like... what—my third time doing it? soooo i tried to change things up and make it feel less standard/generic :) but anyways, like i said pt 2 will be out in a week, pls lmk if you wanna be tagged 💖
Summary: Dean’s father threatens to cut him off after another scandal hits the hockey team, so Dean lies and says he’s in a serious relationship. The problem? The girl he asks to pretend-date him is the one person on campus who genuinely can’t stand him.
wc: 1179
Pairing: Dean Di Laurentis x reader
A/N: highly requested part 2
Masterlist | Part 1
The problem with fake dating, Dean realized very quickly, was that pretending to be in love required an alarming amount of touching.
Not dramatic touching.
Worse.
Natural touching.
The kind that happened without thinking.
A hand at the small of Y/N’s back while walking through crowded restaurants.
Her stealing fries off his plate.
His thumb brushing her wrist during conversations because his body apparently hated him now.
It was becoming an issue.
A serious issue.
Because Dean Di Laurentis was starting to forget which parts were fake.
“You’re staring again,” Y/N said from across the library table.
Dean blinked. “I’m literally reading.”
“You’ve been on the same page for ten minutes.”
“That’s because economics is emotionally abusive.”
Y/N snorted softly before returning to her notes.
Dean watched her anyway.
Which was becoming another problem.
She looked different lately.
Or maybe he was just noticing things he hadn’t before.
The way she tucked hair behind her ear while concentrating.
The tiny wrinkle between her brows when she was annoyed.
How she always stole his hoodies but complained they smelled like hockey.
Normal things.
Dangerously normal things.
Across from him, Y/N looked up slowly.
“…You’re doing it again.”
Dean leaned back in his chair lazily. “You’re very distracting.”
“You’re impossible.”
“You’re pretending to date me voluntarily.”
Her expression flattened. “Temporary psychosis.”
Dean grinned automatically.
And there it was again.
That shift.
That stupid warmth in his chest every time she looked at him like she was trying not to smile.
God.
This was becoming catastrophic.
The hockey team noticed next.
Of course they did.
Hockey players noticed emotional instability the way sharks noticed blood.
Dean walked into the house kitchen one Friday morning to find Logan, Garrett, and Tucker staring at him.
Dean stopped immediately. “Why do you all look like detectives.”
Garrett pointed at him slowly. “You’re humming.”
Dean blinked. “People hum.”
“You don’t.”
“That’s profiling.”
Tucker narrowed his eyes. “You also made breakfast.”
“Okay, now you’re just inventing crimes.”
Logan took a sip of coffee. “He made pancakes.”
Silence.
Garrett looked horrified. “Oh my God.”
Dean crossed his arms defensively. “They were frozen.”
“That somehow makes it worse,” Logan muttered.
Dean hated all of them.
Mostly because they looked way too smug.
“You like her,” Garrett said suddenly.
The kitchen went quiet.
Dean laughed instantly.
Too quickly.
“Relax,” he said. “It’s fake.”
Logan looked unconvinced.
Tucker looked entertained.
Garrett looked suspicious.
Dean grabbed his coffee and fled before anyone could say something emotionally devastating.
Cowards.
All of them.
The real problem started during Dean’s family charity gala.
Apparently, pretending to date someone for one weekend had evolved into “ongoing appearances.”
Which felt legally fraudulent.
“You clean up okay,” Dean admitted as Y/N stepped out of the apartment bathroom.
She adjusted one of her earrings. “You sound shocked.”
“I’m always shocked by you.”
“That’s because you’re not very bright.”
Fair.
But Dean barely heard the insult.
Because she looked—
Dangerous.
Black dress. Bare shoulders. Hair down.
And suddenly Dean understood why men in historical wars used to write poetry and lose their minds.
Y/N noticed him staring immediately.
“…Why are you making that face?”
Dean blinked once. “I forgot how language works.”
She stared at him.
Then laughed despite herself.
And something in Dean’s chest tightened painfully at the sound.
Oh no.
No, no, absolutely not.
He was not falling in love with the fake girlfriend.
That felt deeply against the rules.
The gala itself was torture.
Not because of his father.
Because of everyone else.
“You’re so good for him,” one woman told Y/N warmly.
Dean nearly choked on champagne.
Y/N smiled politely. “That’s sweet.”
Sweet.
Dean’s family had never once used the word sweet to describe him.
Responsible, maybe.
Talented.
Promising.
Difficult.
Never sweet.
“You’ve calmed him down,” another person added.
Y/N glanced toward Dean instinctively.
And smiled.
Actually smiled.
Not fake.
Not polite.
Soft.
Fond.
Dean felt his entire nervous system short-circuit.
Because for one terrifying second, it looked real.
Not the relationship.
The feeling behind it.
Then his father approached.
“You two seem happy,” he observed carefully.
Dean prepared himself for criticism automatically.
Instead, his father looked at Y/N and said:
“I haven’t seen him like this before.”
Silence.
Dean went still.
Y/N did too.
Something about the statement landed strangely heavy.
Because Dean didn’t know what “like this” meant.
Softer?
Calmer?
Happy?
The thought made him deeply uncomfortable.
His father moved away before either of them responded.
And suddenly Dean couldn’t breathe properly.
“You okay?” Y/N asked quietly.
“Yeah.”
Lie.
Big lie.
Because now he was realizing something horrifying:
He liked who he was around her.
And Dean Di Laurentis had spent years carefully avoiding that kind of vulnerability.
Things finally exploded in the hotel elevator afterward.
Not dramatically.
Worse.
Quietly.
The elevator doors closed.
Silence settled around them.
Dean loosened his tie slightly while Y/N kicked off her heels with visible relief.
“That was painful,” she muttered.
“You did great.”
“You almost called a senator ‘bro.’”
“In my defense, he had aggressive bro energy.”
She laughed again.
Dean’s chest hurt.
Again.
Everything hurt lately.
Y/N leaned back against the elevator wall. “Your father was weird tonight.”
Dean looked away slightly. “That’s normal.”
“No.” She studied him carefully. “He looked proud of you.”
That word hit like a punch.
Proud.
Dean swallowed once.
Hard.
“He likes you,” he said instead.
“That’s not what I said.”
“I know.”
Silence stretched.
Then Y/N stepped closer slightly.
Not much.
Just enough to matter.
“You know,” she said softly, “I think he’s starting to realize you’re not who he thinks you are.”
Dean laughed under his breath. “You give me way too much credit.”
“No,” she said quietly. “I think people don’t give you enough.”
The elevator suddenly felt too small.
Dean looked at her.
Really looked at her.
At the girl who challenged him constantly. Saw through every joke. Called him out without ever making him feel small.
The girl who somehow made him want to be better instead of just pretending to be.
Dangerous.
So unbelievably dangerous.
“You need to stop doing that,” he said roughly.
Her brows furrowed. “Doing what?”
“Looking at me like I’m worth something.”
The words slipped out before he could stop them.
Silence.
Y/N’s expression changed instantly.
Softened.
And that was somehow worse.
“Dean…”
He should’ve backed up.
Should’ve laughed it off.
Made a joke.
Instead he stayed exactly where he was while her hand lifted slowly to straighten his loosened tie.
Again with the tie.
Again with the tiny touches that felt too intimate.
“You’re an idiot,” she whispered.
Dean smiled faintly. “Frequently.”
Her hand lingered against his chest.
The elevator stopped.
Neither of them moved.
The doors slid open.
Still neither of them moved.
Then Dean looked down at her mouth accidentally.
And Y/N noticed.
Which became a problem immediately.
A huge problem.
Because she didn’t step away.
And suddenly the fake relationship wasn’t the thing scaring Dean anymore.
summary your friends dare you to sext a random account on instagram, who so happens to be dean di laurentis, your worst enemy. despite hating the idea of it, you couldn't deny him, not when he's offering more than you're willing to take.
content SMAU, mature content, sexting, praise, use of pet names, cringe, enemies (but it's one sided), desperate dean, reader has an attitude, and likes being called a brat, lots of teasing, dirty talk with a side of humor
a/n this is kinda rusty but i had sm fun writing it so i hope you guys enjoy reading it!!
vibe rators 😈
al 🦭: alright we've come to a decision
you: ... hello to you too
hans 🐢: hi my sweet angel
al 🦭: there's no time for greetings
al 🦭: this is urgent business
you: i'm scared
you: i don't like where this is going
you: what did you do al
al 🦭: actually me AND hans came to this decision
hans 🐢: i'm only a tad bit involved
hans 🐢: it was her plan
al 🦭: you suggested it??
hans 🐢: I DIDNT????
hans 🐢: i said it would be fun
you: i should leave
al 🦭: get back here.
al 🦭: alright so
al 🦭: do you remember the bet you lost at tucker's party?
you: i don't actually
hans 🐢: look at her trying to escape...
you: don't gang up on me 🙁
you: i thought you guys forgot about that
al 🦭: how could we
al 🦭: we finally get the chance to torture our precious pie
you: don't call me that
hans 🐢: LMAOO
al 🦭: as i was saying
al 🦭: me and hannah finally decided what we want you to do
hans 🐢: why am i more nervous than her
hans 🐢: SPIT IT OUT ALREADY
al 🦭: alright man i was building up the suspense
you: how about girls night and i treat you guys to the most delicious toe curling meals of your lives instead of whatever you have planned ☺️☺️
al 🦭: as tempting as that sounds... what we have is More fun
you: Fuck me.
hans 🐢: i'd love to
you: i'm telling your bf
hans 🐢: hey :c
you: al baby can you please just tell me i'm dying to know
al 🦭: Fine...
al 🦭: okay so how does trolling some random guy online and making him think you're really into him and that he can get into your pants sound
hans 🐢: okay now that you phrase it like this it definitely sounds cringe
you: Okay
you: no
you: i'm not doing that
al 🦭: WHY NOT
hans 🐢: it'll be fun hey...
you: are you guys crazy
you: why would i dm a random MAN that i'm into him.
al 🦭: because men suck and they deserve to be humiliated
hans 🐢: oh wow ❤️
hans 🐢: love that!
you: no but seriously why would i do that
you: out of all the things i could've done why THAT
hans 🐢: because you're very anti love so weve decided to spice up your love life
you: sexting a random man online is going to spice up my love life huh
al 🦭: exactly
you: do i ever have a choice here...
hans 🐢: if you don't feel comfortable you don't have to do it bae
you: it's just really embarrassing
you: but it's fine ig
al 🦭: FUCK YEAH
al 🦭: alright wait i'll grab his profile for you
you: scary
hans 🐢: drumroll drumroll
al 🦭:
you: DI LAURENTIS????
hans 🐢: yeah...
you: oh FUCK no
you: we said a random man not fucking dean di laurentis
hans 🐢: AL I TOLD YOU IT WOULD BE A BAD IDEA
hans 🐢: y/n hates him
you: he's the bane of my existence.
you: i'm not doing that
you: nope not even gonna entertain the idea of it
al 🦭: oh come on
al 🦭: THATS WHAT MAKES IT MORE FUN
al 🦭: laugh in his face
hans 🐢: dean is actually very sweet why do you hate him so much
you: he's a manwhore
you: he's fucked every girl on campus
you: + he's a DICK
you: i don't like him
you: on top of the embarrassment i have to shove compliments in his face???!!??
you: as if his ego needs it
hans 🐢: im giggling
hans 🐢: c'mon it's not that bad
hans 🐢: besides you'll be doing it from an anonymous account so he wont know it's you
al 🦭: PLS PLS PLS YN PLS 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺
you: get that ugly emoji off my screen god
you: i'm never ever ever ever ever everrrrrrrr doing anything like this ever again
you: only once
hans 🐢: ONLY ONCE
al 🦭: YES PLS
you: you guys are a little too excited about this
you: i need to avenge myself
al 🦭: do that later
al 🦭: now go on and text him
hans 🐢: keep us updated :3
you: i hate you both
al 🦭: aw ☺️
al 🦭: luv you too
────────
────────
vibe rators 😈
you: i'm so fucking screwed
────────
a/n AND THATS IT. this took me so long to fucking do and for WHAT also something is messed up in those ig pics but its too late to figure it out rn... all support is appreciated wahhh i hope this doesn't flops or i'll cry and repost tmr 😇😇
summary: Dean Dilaurentis has been the only person in your class who comes close to your grade. You've been pretending not to notice him for three months. Then a professor pairs you together for a semester project, and suddenly you have no choice but to sit very close to him in a library for five weeks and figure out what to do about that.
notes: hii i'm back!! i really hope you guys enjoy this one as much as i enjoyed writing it. this came to mind because i'm obsessed with legally blonde the musical thanks to the show, and then obviously i had to rewatch the movie immediately. i read the dean book years ago so i genuinely didn't remember the plot, so for all intents and purposes let's just agree that he went to law school and moved on. also first time writing smut, so i think it's kind of mid, but i did my best 😭 also the legal cases i mention might not be entirely accurate since i am not a lawyer, but i do feel very comfortable using legal jargon in everyday life. thank you so much for reading and please let me know what you think 🤍
warnings: swearing, kind of academic rivals to lovers, library shenanigans, one very unhappy night librarian, legally blonde references (many), dean is a menace, reader is a menace back, sexual tension with footnotes, and SMUT (making out, oral f!receiving, unprotected piv, light dirty talk, "good girl", dean calls you baby and honey a lot) 18+ only please, mdni.
word count: 11.8k
For the past four years, you had spent countless moments thinking about these final months of college.
Truthfully, college had always felt like a dream, a dream that for a long time had seemed impossible and far away, so when the acceptance letter arrived all those years ago, you had been ecstatic in the disbelieving way of someone who had wanted something so long they had stopped being sure they deserved it. What nobody told you was that dreams came with deadlines, sleepless nights, and enough stress to make your eye twitch on a random afternoon for no particular reason.
The dream of becoming a lawyer had started when you were young. It hadn't started glamorously, no single defining moment, no courtroom drama that changed everything. Although you really did have a knack for binge-watching shows like How to Get Away with Murder and Suits. But the real want had started with the slow, accumulating understanding that the world was not fair, and that fairness was something you had to build rather than wait for, and that the people who built it tended to know the rules better than everyone else. You had decided, young and furious, that you were going to know the rules.
Now, years later, it finally felt within reach.
Last summer you had taken the LSAT. When the score came back — 176 — you had screamed so loudly your roommate came running from the other room convinced something had happened. Something had happened. Everything had happened. Applying to Harvard had been a no-brainer after that, the natural conclusion of four years of work that had never once felt like anything other than work. To say it had all been a dream would be a lie. You had earned every grade, every internship, every recommendation letter. Every achievement had come attached to long nights and sacrificed weekends and more cups of coffee than you were prepared to account for.
Still, every now and then, you allowed yourself a moment to appreciate how far you had come.
Then you remembered the Harvard interview scheduled in just a few weeks, and the knot in your stomach returned immediately. It lived there, that knot had been living there for months, through the application and the waiting and the acceptance, through every good thing that should have dissolved it and didn't. You had stopped expecting it to go away. You had just learned to work around it.
What if you stumbled over your words? What if they asked something you couldn't answer? What if four years of work came down to one bad afternoon?
Which was exactly why Professor Whitaker's announcement nearly made you lose your mind.
The second she wrote Semester Project across the whiteboard, a collective groan spread through the lecture hall. Over the next month, students would work in pairs to complete a research project on the evolution of constitutional rights in the United States , a project worth a significant portion of the final grade.
At any other point in your college career, that would have been merely annoying.
Right now it felt catastrophic.
You could not afford for your GPA to slip. Not when Harvard was finally within reach. Not when everything you had worked for was balanced on the edge of these last few months. And that meant you absolutely could not get stuck with a partner who didn't care like a jock who only cared about a sport, someone who would contribute three bullet points to a shared document at the eleventh hour and disappear for six weeks while your entire future quietly collapsed.
The thought alone made you grimace.
So as Professor Whitaker reached for her roster and began assigning partners, you found yourself doing something you almost never did.
Praying.
"The class will be sorted according to performance on the most recent exam," Professor Whitaker announced, scanning the room over her glasses. "That way the workload stays balanced and the pairing is fair for everyone."
A few students groaned.
You sat a little straighter.
Actually, that wasn't terrible. At least now there was a reasonable chance your partner wouldn't be dead weight. You had carried enough dead weight in your academic career to last a lifetime and you were done with it.
Professor Whitaker called your name first. You looked up from your notebook on instinct, even though she already knew exactly where you were. You hated change. You liked knowing where everything was. You liked routines, systems, the quiet reliability of things being where you left them.
More importantly, you liked being good at things.
Which was why hearing that your partner would be someone on your level was oddly comforting. Most of your life had been spent balancing on a very thin line between confidence and crippling self-doubt. On good days, you knew you were intelligent. On bad days, you were convinced everyone else was smarter and better than you. The trick was not letting either version get too loud.
Professor Whitaker glanced down at her roster.
The next five seconds would remain engraved in your frontal lobe for at least thirty years.
"Dean DiLaurentis."
Silence.
Jesus H. Christ.
Your head snapped up. Not because you needed to find him. You already knew exactly where he was sitting. You always knew where he was sitting, a fact you had never examined too closely and were not going to start examining now.
Middle of the sixth row. Today he was wearing a green cardigan over a white t-shirt, looking far too comfortable for someone who had just become the source of your newest academic crisis. He was mid-conversation with Beau Maxwell when his name was called, laughing at something, completely unaware that your entire carefully managed semester had just been handed to him without his consent or yours.
Dean turned around.
Then he smiled.
That smile. The one that belonged on toothpaste advertisements and nowhere else, the smile of someone who had never once in his life worried about whether he was welcome somewhere. It was the kind of smile that assumed the answer before the question had been asked, and it had always, privately, made you want to argue with it.
His eyes found yours immediately.
The realization landed half a second later, oh, you're my partner, and his grin widened, and then, because apparently the universe had a sense of humor that you had never personally found funny:
He winked.
He actually winked.
You stared back at him with the expression of someone who had just been personally wronged by the laws of probability.
You knew Dean. Not personally, god forbid. But you knew of him, the way everyone knew of him. Hockey player. Trust fund. Chronic flirt. The kind of person who walked into a room and somehow became the room. Loud and charming and surrounded by people at all times, the social gravity of someone who had never once had to earn a seat at the table.
Meanwhile, you considered making eye contact with strangers a form of cardio.
This could not be right. There had to be a mistake. How could Dean DiLaurentis possibly have a grade comparable to yours?
You spent your Friday nights in the library. You color-coded your notes by subject, by date, by relevance. You had cried over constitutional law, like actual tears, in the bathroom of the third floor study room, alone at eleven pm because that was what it cost and you had paid it without complaint.
Dean spent his weekends at hockey games and parties.
The math simply wasn't mathing.
Unless.
Oh.
Oh, god.
He was sleeping with the TA.
That had to be it. Everything suddenly made horrifying, perfect sense. The TA was a graduate student from somewhere in the Midwest who had spoken to you exactly three times all semester, and every single interaction had felt like she was being held at gunpoint. If Dean was somehow managing to maintain a functional relationship with her —
Honestly? He deserved the extra credit for that alone.
Three months earlier, it had started.
Professor Whitaker had a specific way of running discussion that you had privately categorized as controlled chaos. She threw a question into the room and stepped back and let whoever was going to talk, talk, with the quiet authority of someone who already knew what she thought and was waiting to see if anyone else did. The lecture hall always felt different during these sessions. Bigger somehow, the overhead lights slightly too bright, the charged quality of a room full of people deciding whether to say the thing they were thinking.
You almost always said the thing you were thinking.
Today the question was about Shelley v. Kraemer.
You had opinions about Shelley v. Kraemer.
"The court got it right," you said, when Whitaker's gaze landed on you. "State enforcement of a racially restrictive covenant is state action. The fourteenth amendment doesn't care that the covenant itself was private — the moment a court steps in to enforce it, the state is complicit. You can't separate the two."
Whitaker nodded — the small, noncommittal nod that meant continue or let someone else.
"I'd push back on that a little."
You turned.
Dean had his pen between two fingers, not quite raised, the posture of someone making a point rather than asking permission. He was looking at Whitaker, not at you, which was somehow more irritating than if he had been looking at you directly. Like the argument was with the room rather than with you specifically. Like you were incidental.
"The ruling is right," he said, "but the reasoning has a ceiling. If state enforcement equals state action, you've created a framework that depends entirely on whether someone decides to litigate. The protection isn't structural, it's reactive. It only exists if someone can afford to fight for it."
The room was quiet for a moment.
You became aware, distantly, that your jaw had tightened.
"That's not a flaw in the ruling," you said. "That's a flaw in the system the ruling exists inside of."
"Sure." Dean looked at you then, for the first time. His eyes were steady, interested in a way that wasn't performative. "But you're writing a decision, not a philosophy paper. The decision has to function in the system it's handed to."
"So your position is that the court should have ruled differently because the system might not implement it correctly."
"My position is that a protection that requires money and access to activate isn't really a protection." He said it evenly, without heat. "I thought that would be something you'd agree with."
The last sentence landed differently than the rest.
Not unkind. Not pointed exactly. Just specific, in a way that implied he had thought about what you would and wouldn't agree with, which was a thing he should not have been thinking about. Which meant he had been paying attention quietly and consistently.
Whitaker moved on.
You looked back at your notes and wrote nothing for the remainder of class. Outside the lecture hall windows the sky was the flat white of a November afternoon, and you sat with the particular discomfort of someone who had just been surprised by a person they had already decided to understand.
That was when it had started. Which meant that three months later, sitting in the lecture hall watching him smile at you like you were a problem he was looking forward to solving, you did not have the excuse of not knowing better.
The lecture hall emptied in a slow, shuffling wave that you had no patience for.
You were already packing your bag when you heard him.
"So." Dean dropped into the empty seat beside yours with the casual confidence of someone who had never once been unwelcome anywhere. He turned to face you, one arm resting on the back of the chair, bringing with him the faint smell of something clean, something woody, or the cold outside air. "Partners."
"Observant," you said, without looking up from your notebook.
He made a small sound, not quite a laugh, not quite not one. You could feel him watching you with that specific brand of unhurried attention that probably worked on most people and was currently working on you in ways you were categorically refusing to acknowledge.
"We should exchange numbers," he said. "Figure out when we can meet."
"I have time Thursday afternoon." You zipped your bag closed. "After three."
"Thursday I've got practice until five." He pulled out his phone, apparently unbothered. "What about evenings?"
"Tuesdays and Thursdays I tutor until nine." You finally looked at him. "Weekends I pick up extra sessions when I can."
Something shifted in his expression, brief, almost imperceptible. Not pity. Something more like recalibration, the specific adjustment of someone updating a model they had been working from.
You watched him process it and kept your face completely neutral, the way you always did when people did the math on your schedule and realized there was no give in it, no free afternoon that existed just for the sake of existing. You didn't need him to feel bad about it. You just needed him to understand that his time was not the only time being managed here.
"Okay," Dean said, and to his credit, he didn't make it weird. "Wednesday? I'm free after two."
"I have a session at two."
"After three, then."
You considered this. "Three. Library. Third floor."
"Done." He held out his hand for your phone with the easy expectation of someone who had never once been told no and somehow, inexplicably, made that feel more like charm than arrogance.
You looked at his hand for exactly one beat longer than necessary.
Then you unlocked your phone and placed it in his palm, your fingers brushing his warm hand briefly.
"Don't put anything weird in my contacts," you said.
Dean smiled and typed with the focused, two-thumbed efficiency of someone taking the instruction very seriously.
He handed it back.
You looked down.
Dean DiLaurentis 🏒 (ur partner deal with it)
You stared at it for a long moment.
"Truly," you said, "a legal mind."
He laughed then , a real one, surprised out of him, and stood to leave, shouldering his bag. He paused at the end of the row and looked back at you with the expression of someone who was about to say something and had decided against it.
"Wednesday, then."
"Wednesday," you confirmed, already looking back at your notes.
You did not watch him go.
You listened to his footsteps until you couldn't anymore and then looked back at your notebook and found the page completely blank.
By the time Wednesday rolled around, you had done the mental gymnastics of calculating exactly how much this project was going to cost you. Not much, you had decided. You were already at maximum stress capacity between the Harvard interview and the end of semester closing in, so there was simply no room left for anything Dean DiLaurentis-related to take up residence.
This was the conclusion you had reached.
You woke up early anyway, restless, and got ready with the focused efficiency of someone who was absolutely not anxious about a study session. In the kitchen, Elisa was at the stove, hair still in a braid from the night before, doing something that smelled like butter and brown sugar.
"Morning, sugar plum." She turned and pointed her spatula in your direction. "Do you want to have breakfast with me?"
Elisa was the easiest person you had ever lived with, which was not something you said lightly. You had moved into her house sophomore year knowing no one and she had made you feel like you had been there the whole time. Wednesdays were her day off no classes, no obligations, and she spent them cooking elaborate things and playing at domesticity in a way that you found deeply comforting. She called them the Tradwife Wednesdays, in a joking manner.
"I can't, I have a class I can't miss." You grabbed your bag from the hook by the door. "Sorry."
"That's okay." She stirred something. "Are you coming back for lunch? I'm trying a new caesar salad recipe I found on TikTok. Caesar 2.0."
"I can't do lunch either. I have a study session at noon."
"Bring your partner. We can all have caesar salad 2.0."
"My partner is —" you paused, already regretting what you were about to say — "Dean DiLaurentis."
Elisa put down the spatula.
"Shut up."
"I'm not going to —"
"No way. You hate him."
"I don't hate him."
"Despise, then."
"Not even that." You pulled on your jacket. "I don't care about him at all. He just exists in the same world as me."
"Sure," Elisa said, in the tone she used when she was humoring you. She picked up the spatula again. "Ask him if he remembers our little trip in the Mystery Machine."
"Goodbye, Elisa."
"Caesar salad is on the table if you change your —"
You closed the door.
session one
He was already there when you arrived.
That was the first thing that threw you off, small and inconvenient, the kind of detail that shouldn't matter and did anyway. Dean DiLaurentis, sitting at the table you had specifically chosen because it was tucked into the back corner of the third floor, away from foot traffic and group study noise and every possible social distraction. You had chosen it because it was your table, the one you came to when you needed to actually work, claimed over three years of afternoons and late nights. The carpet near the window had a worn patch from your chair. You knew which overhead light buzzed slightly and had learned to tune it out.
He was sitting in your chair.
He had a coffee on each side of the table.
Two coffees.
You stopped.
"I didn't know your order," he said, not looking up. "So I got you black. You seem like a black coffee person."
You were a black coffee person.
You sat down without commenting on it and pulled out your laptop.
"I started an outline," Dean said. "Sent it to your email."
You opened it without responding. It was actually structured. Clean headers, logical progression. You stared at it for a moment longer than you intended, turning it over, looking for the flaw. There wasn't one.
"You cited Marbury v. Madison in the intro," you said.
"It's foundational."
"It's also the first thing every professor expects to see. It makes us look like we opened the textbook once and called it a day."
He looked up then. "So where would you put it?"
"Section three. After we've established the framework."
Dean looked at the outline. Then back at you. "...Yeah, okay."
You pulled it up on your own screen and started restructuring. He watched for a second, then turned back to his own laptop without making it a thing, and something about that: the absence of wounded ego, the lack of argument, the simple yeah, okay, was quietly unexpected.
You worked in silence for a while. A real silence, the functional kind, punctuated only by typing and the occasional ambient noise of the floor around you, someone whispering two tables over, the elevator arriving and departing, the hush of a library in the afternoon when the day outside has gone grey.
At some point he shifted in his seat and his foot knocked against yours under the table. He pulled it back immediately, said a distracted sorry without looking up, and kept typing.
You looked back at your screen.
Ten minutes later it happened again his foot finding yours under the table, settling against it with the absent, unthinking quality of someone who wasn't paying attention to their own body. This time he didn't notice. Or didn't move. You couldn't tell which.
You didn't move either.
You looked at your screen and read the same sentence four times and told yourself it was nothing, the table was small, it meant nothing at all.
His ankle was warm against yours for the rest of the session.
An hour passed, and then another. The coffee went cold. The light through the window shifted from afternoon grey to early evening grey, and you were deep enough in the due process section that you had stopped noticing either.
"Take a break," Dean said, without looking up.
"I don't need a break."
"You've reread that page four times."
You looked up. He was still looking at his notes, which meant he had been paying attention to you without appearing to pay attention to you, which was somehow worse than if he had just been watching you openly.
You closed the case study.
"Fine," you said. "Break."
Dean leaned back in his chair all the way back, with the easy, unhurried comfort of someone who had never had to fight for a seat at any table he wanted to sit at. You had noticed that about him early, the specific posture of someone for whom things had always been available, every room an environment that had been pre-adjusted to suit him. It was the kind of thing that was difficult not to notice when you had spent your entire life doing the opposite.
"You know," you said, mostly because the silence was starting to feel companionable in a way you weren't ready for, "you hooked up with a friend of mine once."
Dean looked up. Something shifted in his expression mild interest, maybe the faintest trace of wariness. "Oh really."
"Daphne."
A pause. He turned the name over, and you watched the moment he didn't find it.
"I don't remember," he said.
"She was dressed as Daphne for Halloween. You were, surprisingly, dressed as Fred."
Something cleared in his expression. "Halloween two years ago?"
"That would be the one."
He considered this with the equanimity of someone who had made peace with a certain kind of personal history. "Can I ask why you're bringing this up?"
"No particular reason." You picked up your cold coffee. "Can you even remember her name?"
"I just said I couldn't."
"Right." You set the coffee back down. "Well. For the record."
Dean looked at you for a moment with the expression you were already starting to recognize the one that meant he was deciding whether to say the thing he was thinking. He usually said it.
"You know," he said, "you hooked up with a friend of mine too."
You kept your expression very neutral. "Did I."
"Garrett."
"We made out at a party freshman year," you said, with the patience of someone correcting a factual error. "Did he tell you we hooked up?"
"He didn't say anything." Dean's mouth curved slightly. "I saw you two leaving and made an assumption."
"A wrong one."
"Clearly." He tilted his head. "So. Has Daphne said anything? About her experience."
You considered the question with the gravity it deserved.
"She tried to tell me," you said. "I didn't want to hear it."
"So she didn't give a great review."
"Ravishing," you said pleasantly. "It almost made me want to sleep with you too." You paused. "But then I remembered I have something called self-respect."
Dean laughed a real one, sudden and unguarded. It was, you noted with some irritation, a genuinely good laugh. Warm and surprised, the laugh of someone who had not seen it coming and was delighted by that fact. The kind of laugh that made you want to have caused it again.
"That's funny," he said.
"I know."
He was still smiling when he looked back down at his notes. You looked back at your case study. The library settled back into its particular silence the low buzz of the overhead light, the distant elevator, thirty people pretending they weren't exhausted but something had shifted in the quality of it. Imperceptibly, the way temperature changes in a room before anyone acknowledges it's warmer.
You didn't say anything about it.
Neither did he.
Twenty minutes later he slid his notes across the table, pointing out something you had missed without making it feel like a correction. You leaned in to look without thinking about leaning in and then you were close, closer than you had been all session, his shoulder warm against yours, and you could see the slight curl of his handwriting on the page and the way his finger traced the line he was pointing to, and you became aware very suddenly of his hands. How big they were. How deliberate.
You had not thought about his hands before. Or you had thought about them in passing and moved on. But up close, right now, pointing at a citation on a page they were careful and unhurried, the kind that did things with attention.
You looked at the citation.
"You're right," you said. "Good catch."
He glanced at you sideways, briefly, with that expression.
You both looked back at the page.
Neither of you moved away.
It was near the end of the session when it happened. You were flagging sources, half your attention on the screen, the room around you reduced to the low hum of concentration, when Dean said, mostly to himself, still reading:
"You always sit in the same seat."
You glanced up. "What?"
He seemed to catch himself, just barely, a slight tensing around his jaw. "In Whitaker's class. Third row, right side, second from the aisle. Every lecture."
The air shifted in a way that was difficult to name. Outside the library window the sky had gone fully dark, the glass reflecting the room back at you, two people at a table, closer than they had been three hours ago, the space between them negotiated down to nothing without either of them signing off on it.
"I like consistency," you said, after a beat.
"Yeah." He looked back at his screen. Something in his jaw had gone slightly careful. "I know."
I know.
Two words. Completely neutral on the surface and yet carrying the specific weight of something that had not been meant to be said out loud. Not an admission exactly. More like a door opened a half-inch before he caught it and eased it shut , slowly enough that you both knew it had moved.
You looked at him for a moment.
He did not look back up.
"We should finish the first amendment section," you said.
"Yeah," Dean said. "Probably."
You both looked at your screens.
Neither of you said anything else about it.
You packed up at eight-fifteen, twenty minutes later than planned. The third floor was empty by then, the overhead lights on their late setting. You walked to the elevator in a silence that had become, somewhere in the last six hours, a different kind of silence entirely, not neutral, not loaded, just inhabited.
In the elevator he stood beside you with his shoulder against yours, the same way it had been at the table, and neither of you shifted. The floor numbers climbed down. You looked straight ahead.
His ankle had been warm against yours for three hours and you had not moved away once.
You filed that under the place where you kept everything you weren't ready to examine yet.
session two
The second study session had started with considerably less hostility than the first, which you were choosing not to read into.
It was late afternoon again, the library emptying out around you as people made the reasonable decision to leave, and you and Dean had been working for three hours straight with the focused efficiency of two people who were both too competitive to be the first to suggest stopping. The case briefs were spread across the table in a system that was half yours and half his and somehow, irritatingly, better than either would have been alone. Your color-coded tabs and his margin notes. Your precision and his instinct for where an argument wanted to go.
You had noticed that yesterday too. Filed it away.
What you had not filed away or had tried to and failed was the moment an hour into the session when he had reached across you to grab a case brief from your side of the table without asking, and his arm had crossed in front of you close enough that you felt the warmth of it before it was gone. He hadn't noticed. He had grabbed the brief and gone back to his side of the table and kept reading, completely unaware.
You had read the same paragraph for twelve minutes after that.
"Okay," Dean said, dropping his pen and leaning back. "Break."
"We just had a break."
"That was an hour ago."
You looked at the time. It had been an hour and twenty minutes, which meant you had lost track of time, which meant you had been absorbed enough in the work — in the conversation around the work, the back and forth of it, the way he argued a point and actually listened when you argued back — that the time had disappeared without asking permission.
You put your pen down.
"Fine," you said. "Break."
Dean stretched his arms above his head with the unselfconscious ease of someone completely comfortable in his own body, the cardigan riding up slightly, a sliver of skin at his waist, the line of his shoulders, the way his head fell back for a moment, which you observed in a purely detached and analytical capacity and then looked at the ceiling.
"So," he said. "Harvard Law."
"What about it."
"That's the goal?"
"That's the goal," you confirmed.
He nodded slowly, with an expression that was hard to read. Then, in a voice of complete casual confidence: "What, like it's hard?"
You turned to look at him.
He was already smiling.
"That's the second time today," you said, "that you have made a Legally Blonde reference."
"Is it?"
"You quoted it earlier when I said the admissions rate was three percent."
"I don't remember that."
"Dean."
"It's a great film."
You looked at him for a moment. "Is it your favorite movie?"
"Top two," he said, without hesitation. "Just after Top Gun."
You stared at him. Dean DiLaurentis. Hockey player, pre-law, top of the class, sitting in the library surrounded by case briefs, whose top two films were Legally Blonde and Top Gun.
"God," you said.
He laughed. "What?"
"Nothing." You picked up your pen. "It explains a lot actually."
"Does it."
"The confidence," you said, gesturing vaguely at him. "The hair. The complete inability to walk into a room without knowing exactly how you're going to be received." You paused. "You've watched both of those films a concerning number of times, haven't you."
Dean pointed at you. "Elle Woods and Pete Mitchell are two of the most —"
"Please don't finish that sentence."
"— compelling character studies in the history of American cinema."
You laughed and put your head down on the table.
His laugh was warm and close and you could feel it more than hear it, and when you looked up he was leaning on his elbow facing you — close, comfortable in the way he had gotten over the past two sessions, close enough that you could see the specific color of his eyes in the library light, and the way they crinkled at the corners when he was actually amused rather than performing it. The late afternoon light was doing something completely unreasonable to his face — the angles of it, the warmth of it, and you looked back at your notes with the focused energy of someone making a deliberate choice.
"Back to work," you said.
"Back to work," he agreed.
But he was still smiling when he turned back to his notes, and you were very carefully not smiling, and the library was quiet around you in that way it had been yesterday, warmer than it should have been, the silence between you easier than it had any right to be.
Top two, you thought, against your will. Just after Top Gun.
God help you.
You made it another forty minutes before it went sideways.
It started, as these things often did, over something small.
Dean wanted to include a law review article you thought was analytically weak. You had said so. He had disagreed. It had escalated with the particular efficiency of two people who were very good at arguing and had been carefully not arguing for weeks, the pressure of it finding the first available exit.
"It's not a weak source," Dean said, for the second time. "You just don't like the conclusion."
"I don't like the conclusion because the methodology doesn't support it. There's a difference."
"You've said that. You haven't explained it."
"I sent you three paragraphs —"
"You sent me three paragraphs about why you were right," he said. "That's not the same thing."
You looked up from your laptop. He was looking back at you with the expression that meant he was done being patient, and something about that, the specific quality of it, the fact that he was allowed to be done being patient when you had been managing your frustration for weeks —
"You know what, it doesn't matter," you said. "Include it. It's fine."
"Don't do that."
"Do what."
"Shut down and say it's fine when it's not fine." He closed his laptop halfway. "If you have a problem with the source, say it."
"I have a problem with a lot of things," you said, and it came out with an edge you hadn't entirely intended. "I have a problem with the fact that I have no idea how much of this grade I'm actually carrying."
The air in the room changed entirely. The low buzz of the overhead light was suddenly very audible.
Dean went very still. "What does that mean."
It means I've been doing this alone my whole life and I don't know how to stop assuming I'm about to have to do it again. That was what it meant. That was not what came out.
"It means," you said, and your voice was measured in the way it got when you were saying something you couldn't take back, "that I don't actually know how you scored high enough on that exam to get paired with me."
Silence.
Dean looked at you. Something moved behind his eyes, not hurt exactly. The thing that came just before.
"Say what you mean," he said quietly.
And because you were frustrated and tired and the Harvard interview was in two weeks and you had been holding this assumption for long enough that it had started to feel like fact —
"I thought maybe you were sleeping with the TA."
The silence that followed was a different kind entirely. Heavy and still, the kind that has a shape.
Dean sat back. He looked at you for a long moment with an expression you had never seen on him before — not the easy charm, not the careful attention, not the almost-smile. Something stripped of all of that, all the way down.
"I got a ninety-four on that exam," he said. "I got a ninety-four because I studied for it. I study for all of them." A pause. Each word placed with precision. "I know you think I'm here because of my last name or my hockey stats or whoever you've decided I'm sleeping with. I know that's easier than just —" he stopped. Exhaled slowly. "I've been doing the work. I've been here every session. I don't know what else you want from me."
You opened your mouth.
"And the TA," he said, " she has a girlfriend. So."
He opened his laptop again. The sound of it was very loud in the quiet room.
You looked at your screen. The cursor blinked in the document you had been sharing for two weeks, both your names in the top corner. You were acutely, uncomfortably aware of the specific kind of wrong you had just been.
Not about the source.
About him.
"Dean —"
"First amendment section," he said. Not cold. Not cruel. Just done. "Let's just finish."
You looked at him for a moment.
"Yeah," you said quietly. "Okay."
The Legally Blonde conversation felt like it had happened in a different library entirely.
Top two, he had said, and laughed, and looked at you like you were something worth looking at.
You stared at the cursor and said nothing else.
Neither did he.
session three
The third session was on a Tuesday.
You knew because Tuesdays you tutored until nine, which meant you had come straight from the library's second floor where you had spent an hour and a half walking a freshman through the commerce clause, and you were tired in the specific way of someone who had been performing competence for other people all day and had very little left over for themselves.
You had also been thinking about what you said for five days straight.
Not continuously. Like something that sits in the back of your mind and surfaces at inconvenient moments — in the shower, between tutoring sessions, at two in the morning when you should have been sleeping and instead were staring at the ceiling cataloguing every assumption you had ever made about Dean DiLaurentis and finding most of them wanting. I thought maybe you were sleeping with the TA. The words had a particular quality in retrospect, the quality of something that could not be unsaid, that existed now in the permanent record of things he knew about you.
You pushed open the door to the third floor reading room and told yourself you were fine.
Dean was already there.
Of course he was. He was always already there, with his laptop open and his notes spread out in the handwriting you had become, against your will, familiar with, slightly left-leaning, inconsistent spacing, somehow completely legible. He looked up when you came in. The room smelled like old paper and the particular warmth of a space that had been occupied for a while, and the overhead light buzzed its familiar note.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey," you said back.
You sat down. Not beside him, you took the chair across the table, the one you had started in, back when the table felt like a neutral territory that required a border. You pulled out your laptop and opened the shared document and did not look at him.
He did not comment on the seating arrangement.
That was somehow worse than if he had.
You worked. The session had the functional efficiency of two people who were both too professional to let personal things affect the work, which meant the work was fine and everything around it was not. He passed you sources without commentary. You flagged edits without explanation. The back and forth that had become almost conversational — the small arguments, the digressions, the way he said okay when you made a point he couldn't refute — was gone.
The overhead light buzzed. Someone turned a page three tables over.
Around the forty-minute mark he said, "the due process section needs another source."
"I know," you said. "I'm looking."
"I found one this morning. Sent it to your email."
"I haven't checked yet."
"It's good."
"Okay."
Silence.
You checked your email. The source was good. You added it to the document without saying so and heard, very faintly, the sound of him exhaling.
An hour passed like that.
You had just pulled up a new case brief when Dean leaned back in his chair and said, to no one in particular, "I don't actually care about the TA."
You looked up.
He was looking at the ceiling, not at you, with the expression of someone who had decided to say a thing and was committed to the delivery. "I just want you to know that. In case it was still sitting there."
Outside the library window, the campus was dark and wet with recent rain, the paths lit amber under the streetlights.
"It was sitting there," you admitted.
"Yeah." He brought his gaze down to his notes. "I figured."
"Dean —"
"You don't have to." He said it simply, without edge. "I'm fine. I just didn't want it to be weird for the rest of the semester."
"It's already a little weird," you said.
"I know."
Another silence — but this one had more air in it, the quality of a silence that had been cleared rather than accumulated.
"I'm going to apologize properly," you said. "I just haven't figured out how yet."
Dean was quiet for a moment. Then, very carefully, not quite a smile: "Does it involve food."
You said nothing.
"It does," he said. "Okay."
"Back to work," you said.
"Back to work."
You heard her before you saw her.
The click of heels on library floor that had nothing to do with studying, moving with the purposeful energy of someone who had a destination and knew exactly what they wanted when they got there. You didn't look up. You were in the middle of a paragraph and you had a system and you were not going to lose your place.
The heels stopped at your table.
"Hey." Not directed at you. You turned a page. "I've been looking for you."
"Hey." Dean's voice, easy and careful. "Didn't know you were on campus today."
"I wasn't. Now I am." A pause with a specific texture. "Come outside for like five minutes."
"I can't right now, we're working."
We. You noted the word and kept reading.
"Five minutes," she said again. "It's not a big deal."
"I know it's not. I just can't right now."
You turned another page. The paragraph was about tort law and you had read the same sentence three times and retained nothing.
"Dean —"
"Seriously." His voice was still easy but there was something underneath it now, something with weight. "I'll text you later, okay?"
A silence. The kind that meant she was deciding something.
"Who even is she?" The question was directed at you. You looked up for the first time, because that was directed at you, and you had opinions about being spoken about in the third person by someone standing four feet away.
The girl was pretty in the specific, polished way of someone who had never had to try very hard at it. She was looking at you with an expression that was more curious than hostile, which somehow made it worse.
"His project partner," you said pleasantly. "We have a deadline."
"It's literally five minutes —"
"We're aware of how long five minutes is," you said, in the tone you had been practicing for courtrooms. "He said he'll text you. The reading room is a shared space and we're trying to work, so." You smiled. "Thank you."
The girl looked at you. Looked at Dean. Looked back at you with an expression that had shifted into something more speculative, something that said she understood more than you had intended to reveal.
Then she left.
The heels clicked back across the library floor and faded, and the room settled back into its particular silence, and you looked back at your notes with the focused energy of someone who had not just done what they had just done.
From across the table, nothing.
You turned a page.
More nothing.
You looked up.
Dean was looking at his notes with the carefully neutral expression of someone using every available resource not to smile.
"What," you said.
"Nothing."
"Say whatever you're going to say."
"I'm not going to say anything."
"Dean."
"I'm just —" He pressed his mouth closed. The not-smile was winning. "Thank you for your help."
"I didn't do it for you," you said immediately. "She was interrupting. It was annoying."
"Completely understandable."
"I would have done the same for anyone."
"Of course."
"It had nothing to do with —" You stopped. "We have three more pages to get through."
"We do," Dean agreed, in the voice of someone being very, very agreeable.
You looked back at your notes.
I would have done the same for anyone.
You were a pre-law student. You were supposed to be good at arguments.
That one had convinced neither of you.
You packed up at nine-fifteen, later than planned, and Dean walked out with you the way he had started doing without either of you deciding he would.
"She's no one," Dean said, when the elevator arrived. Not defensive. Just offered.
You stepped inside. "You don't have to explain yourself to me."
"I know." The doors closed. "I wanted to anyway."
You looked at the floor number climbing. He looked straight ahead. The elevator was small and you were standing close , his arm against yours, the cedar smell of him in the enclosed space, and something about the cleared air of the session, the I'm going to apologize properly, the we he had said without thinking, settled between you like something that had decided to stay.
The doors opened.
"Wednesday," you said.
"Wednesday," he confirmed.
You walked out into the night and did not look back.
You were going to need a very good cake.
session four
It was week four of the project, and Dean had gone back to sitting beside you, in the most inconspicuous way possible.
It had been gradual and deniable at every individual step. First the chair had been angled slightly toward yours. Then it had migrated. Now your thighs brushed every time either of you shifted, and you were acutely, unhelpfully aware of the warmth of his forearm against yours, the cedar-and-cold-air smell of him that you had catalogued in the first session and had been trying unsuccessfully to un-catalogue since.
Things had been a little strange since the fight.
The fight you had caused. With assumptions you had made. About a TA who, it turned out, had a girlfriend.
You had settled, eventually, on cake — specifically the lemon cake Elisa had made that morning, wrapped in foil and sitting on the table between your laptops like a small citrus-scented olive branch, which Dean had looked at when you arrived and had not yet commented on.
You had not told him it was Elisa's. You were not going to examine why.
"So," you started.
Dean looked up from his laptop.
"I would like to apologize."
He held your gaze for a moment. Something in his expression shifted — careful, like he was deciding how much to give you. "It's okay."
"It really isn't, Dean." You turned to face him, which was a tactical error because it meant you were now very close to him, close enough that you could see the dark blue of his eyes in the library light, and the soft fabric of the cardigan where your knee was almost touching his. "I made assumptions. I think the worst of people sometimes and I let it get ahead of me. You've been doing the work. I knew that and I said it anyway. That wasn't fair."
Dean looked at you for a long moment.
"It's truly okay," he said quiet and uncomplicated, completely without performance. "I get it. I know what it looks like from the outside."
"That doesn't make it okay."
"No," he said. "But it makes it understandable."
You looked at him. He looked back at you. The study room was very quiet, the overhead light doing its particular low buzz, the air carrying old paper and coffee and the warm-wool smell of his cardigan.
"The cake is Elisa's," you said, because you needed to say something. "My roommate. She made it this morning and I brought it."
Dean's mouth curved. "You brought me a peace offering."
"I brought us a snack."
"A lemon cake wrapped in foil."
"We've been here three hours."
"That," he said, "is the most you thing I've ever heard." He reached over and broke off a piece without ceremony, and you watched his hands doing it those careful, deliberate and huge hands of his, and felt something tighten somewhere that you immediately filed under irrelevant.
"Good?" you asked.
"Really good." He looked at you with the quiet expression, the one that sat closer to the surface. "Tell Elisa thank you."
"Tell her yourself," you said, and then realized what that implied, and looked back at your laptop.
Dean didn't say anything.
But he didn't look away.
You worked. The tension in the room had changed quality, no longer the awkward residue of an unresolved argument, something else now, something that had been building for four weeks and was running out of places to go. You were aware of him the way you had been aware of him since that first session, the warmth of his arm against yours, the sound of his breathing in the quiet room, the way he tucked the pen behind his ear when he was reading something carefully.
You were looking at your screen. You were not reading anything on it.
He shifted beside you. His knee pressed against yours under the table, not accidentally, not with the absent quality of the foot under the table in session one, but deliberately, with the specific patience of someone making a point without words.
You looked at your screen.
His knee stayed where it was.
Fine, you thought. Fine.
You did not move away.
Another twenty minutes passed like that, both of you working, neither of you acknowledging the point of contact, the room very warm and very quiet. And then Dean reached over, not for a case brief this time, his hand finding yours on the table, covering it, not grabbing, just resting there. Still. Like a question asked very quietly.
You looked down at his hand on yours.
You looked up at him.
He was already looking at you and he didn't say anything, didn't push, just held your gaze with the patience of someone who had been waiting for a while and had decided to stop waiting quietly.
You turned your hand over under his.
Something shifted in his face. Not the smile, something more careful than that, something that meant more.
Then his hand came up slowly, fingers brushing your jaw, turning your face toward his unhurried, giving you every opportunity to move.
You didn't move.
His eyes met yours — a question, patient and certain — and you answered it by closing your eyes and leaning in, and then his mouth was on yours.
You had kissed people before.
This was categorically different.
It started soft and then didn't stay that way. His hand slid into your hair and yours found the front of his cardigan — soft wool under your fingers, the solid warmth of him underneath — and when his tongue met yours you made a sound you were going to spend considerable time not thinking about.
The kiss was unhurried. Calculated in the best possible way. Dean kissed you like he had all the time in the world, and when air became a necessary concern he pulled back smiling, pressed a soft peck to your lips, and began a slow trail of kisses along your jaw and down your neck.
His mouth was warm on your neck, lips dragging slow enough to make your breath catch, and his hand slid down your thigh with a deliberate patience that made it very clear he was in no hurry whatsoever.
You pulled his hair and got a low, rough sound against your skin in return, and then his hand found your waist and pulled, dragging you onto his lap until you were straddling him and there was no distance left to negotiate.
You could feel exactly what four weeks of thighs brushing and careful silences had done to him.
Dean — you heard yourself saying. Dean, Dean —
Your hands had found their way under his shirt, palms flat against his stomach, and when you dragged your nails lightly down his skin he smiled against your mouth and rolled his hips up into yours with a slow, pointed pressure that dissolved whatever thought you'd been forming completely.
A loud, deliberate cough came from the doorway.
Mrs. Miller, the night librarian, stood in the entrance with the expression of a woman who had seen too much and was being paid nowhere near enough.
You scrambled back. Dean straightened. A beat of absolute silence.
"We're leaving," you said, with as much dignity as the situation permitted. "We're so sorry, Mrs. Miller."
Mrs. Miller said nothing. She held the door open with the energy of someone who had made peace with humanity's worst impulses but did not have to enjoy them.
You gathered your things in record time. Dean had the audacity to look almost completely composed, which was deeply unfair given the state of his hair, which was your fault. You looked away.
Outside in the hallway you made it three steps before he said:
"So."
"Don't."
"I was just going to —"
"I know what you were going to say."
A pause. Then, with great personal restraint: "Okay."
You made it to the elevator before you looked at him. He was already looking at you.
"The cake was really good," he said.
"Shut up, Dean."
He laughed. The elevator doors closed. You stood in the small lit space of it with your shoulders touching and said nothing else the whole way down.
You were both smiling though.
session five
The fifth session was on a Wednesday.
You had been avoiding him since the awkward encounter with Mrs. Miller.
Not obviously, you were too disciplined for obvious. You had shown up to every class, done every piece of work, responded to every text within a reasonable time. You had simply pulled back the parts of yourself that had started, over four weeks of thighs brushing and functional silences and one extremely ill-advised study room incident, to lean toward him without permission.
You were good at pulling back. You had been doing it your whole life.
The third floor smelled like old paper and the warmth of a space occupied all day, the radiator ticking in the corner, the last of the evening light grey through the windows. Dean was already at the table. He looked up when you came in. You sat across from him, the original position, the border re-established, and he looked at it and then looked at his laptop and said nothing.
You worked.
The project was almost finished. This was the last session, a conclusion, a bibliography built jointly over five weeks, your color-coded tabs and his margin notes. It was good work. You were going to get an A on this project.
You were also going to have no reason to sit in this library with Dean DiLaurentis after next week.
You were not examining that.
"We need to talk about the conclusion," Dean said, around the hour mark.
"I know. I drafted something last night, it's in the doc."
He found it. Read it. Was quiet for long enough that you looked up.
"It's good," he said.
"I know."
Another silence. He wasn't reading anymore.
"Are you going to keep doing this," he said, "or."
"Doing what."
"You know what."
"Dean —"
"Because I can." Simply, without heat. "If that's what you want, I can pretend that kiss didn't happen and we finish the project and that's it. I'm not going to make it weird." A pause. "Weirder."
You said nothing. Outside the window the campus was dark and wet, the paths amber-lit below.
"But I'd like to know," he said, "so I can stop waiting for you to tell me."
The library was very quiet. The radiator ticked. The overhead light buzzed.
"It's not that simple," you said finally.
"Okay." He waited.
"I have the Harvard interview in four days. I have a GPA I cannot let slip. I cannot afford to be distracted by —" you stopped.
"By me," he said.
"By anything."
He was quiet. "That's fair."
"And you don't —" you stopped. Started over. "You don't do this. Whatever this would be. I've heard enough to know that's not something you do. Rollercoaster ride or something like that."
Dean looked at you then. Fully, the way he didn't always let himself — all the way, no management.
"What have you heard," he said.
"Dean."
"No. Specifically."
You met his gaze. "That you don't do relationships. That it's always casual. That you're consistent about that."
He held your gaze.
"That was true," he said. "For a long time that was true."
"And now?"
He looked at you like the answer was obvious and he was simply waiting for you to arrive at it, with the patience of someone who had been waiting for a while.
You looked back at your laptop. Your chest felt tight. You had spent five weeks building a careful wall and he had just put his hand flat against it and pushed, gently, without drama, without raising his voice.
The same way he had put his hand over yours on the table.
Just resting there. Like a question asked very quietly.
"Four more pages," you said.
Dean was quiet for a beat.
"Yeah," he said. "Okay."
You both looked at your screens.
You finished the project.
Professor Whitaker announced the grades on a Thursday morning.
You were in your seat when she read them out.
A plus.
You looked up. Dean was already looking at you from the sixth row, and the smile on his face was the quiet one, the one you had catalogued in week two and had been trying not to think about since. It crossed the room and landed somewhere specific.
You gathered your things after class with the focused efficiency of someone with somewhere to be, and you almost made it to the door.
"Hey." He fell into step beside you in the hallway, easy and unhurried, bringing with him the cedar smell. "A plus."
"A plus," you confirmed.
"Told you the Marbury placement was better in section three."
"That was my idea."
"I agreed with it enthusiastically."
"You said yeah, okay and went back to your laptop."
"Enthusiastically," he repeated.
You stopped walking. The hallway moved around you, students flowing past, and Dean stopped too, and you were standing in the middle of it looking at him.
You had done it. You had actually done it. Four years of work and one extremely stressful semester and a project partner you had spent the first two weeks convinced was going to ruin everything, and you had gotten an A plus and the Harvard interview was tomorrow.
The knot in your stomach, which had lived there so long you had stopped noticing it, was gone.
Dean was looking at you with an expression that had gone soft in a way you weren't ready for.
You hugged him.
You weren't sure you had decided to. Your arms were around him and his were around you a half second later, one hand flat between your shoulder blades, and he was warm and solid and smelled so good, and you stayed there for a moment longer than was strictly necessary.
The hallway moved around you. Neither of you moved.
When you pulled back he was still looking at you.
"Good luck tomorrow," he said quietly. "You don't need it. But good luck."
You nodded. Looked at him for one more second.
Then you walked away.
You made it to the end of the hallway before you thought —
oh.
oh no.
And kept walking anyway.
the wednesday after
The Wednesday after the interview, you were in the kitchen with Elisa when the doorbell rang.
Elisa looked at you. You looked at Elisa.
"Are you expecting someone?" she asked.
"No."
"Should I get it?"
"I'll get it," you said, in the tone of someone who had a feeling.
You opened the door.
Dean DiLaurentis was standing on your porch in a green cardigan — of course he was, he owned approximately nine of them — holding grocery store flowers and a DVD copy of Legally Blonde.
You stared at him.
"Hi," he said.
"Hi."
"I heard the interview went well."
"How did you hear that."
"Beau knows your roommate apparently."
You were going to have words with Elisa. "It went well," you confirmed.
"Good." He held out the flowers. The stems were slightly damp from the cold outside. "These are for you."
You took them. "And the DVD."
"Also for you."
"Dean." You looked at him. "I don't own a DVD player."
Something flickered in his expression, that almost-smile. "I know."
"So this is."
"A reason to invite me in," he said simply. "So we can watch it on your laptop. If you want."
"My laptop also doesn't have a DVD player."
He made a gesture as if to throw the DVD across the lawn, which made you laugh despite yourself.
You looked at him standing on your porch and thought about five weeks of sessions, the foot under the table, the arm reaching across you, the knee pressed deliberately against yours, the hand resting over yours on the table, quiet as a question.
"You drove here," you said, "with a DVD."
"I did."
"That's extremely old fashioned. You might as well stand under my window with a boombox playing George Michael."
"If that's what you want."
"Most people would have just texted."
"I'm not most people," he said, simply, without needing anyone to confirm it.
You stepped back from the door.
"Elisa made caesar salad," you said. "She's been waiting for an excuse to feed someone new."
Dean stepped inside. The warmth of the house closed around him.
"I love caesar salad," he said.
"I know you do," you said, closing the door. "It's very you. That and like, Steak Tartare."
"What's wrong with Steak Tartare?"
Elisa lasted forty-five minutes before she announced she was going to her boyfriend's and picked up her keys with the energy of someone who had orchestrated something and was not going to pretend otherwise. You did not look at Dean when she left. You heard the door close and the house settle into quiet and then it was just the two of you on the couch with the TV on and Elle Woods on the screen, his arm warm along the back of the cushion behind you, close enough that you could feel the heat of it without it quite touching.
You had made it approximately eleven minutes into the film.
"I got in," you said, to the screen.
Dean went still.
"The interview —" you stopped. The room was very quiet. The lamp on the side table cast everything amber, warmer than the library had ever been. "They called this morning. I got in."
A beat of silence.
"Harvard," he said.
"Harvard," you confirmed.
Another beat, long enough that you turned to look at him. He was already looking at you.
"I knew you would," he said.
And then he kissed you.
It felt like something he had been waiting to do since the door opened, like Elisa leaving had simply removed the last obstacle between the moment and itself. His lips were on yours immediately, and Dean tasted like mint, and you found yourself wondering distantly if he had come here prepared for this, if this was always how tonight was supposed to end.
He didn't kiss like a careful person. His tongue was thorough and consuming and somewhere in the back of your mind you remembered that cliché about tongues fighting for dominance, that was what Dean was doing, except you found you had absolutely no desire to fight him for it. You would give him whatever he wanted.
Your hands found his shoulders. His found your waist, your thighs, and then settled, decisively, with intent, on your ass. An ass man, you noted, which tracked completely. He pulled you closer and you went willingly, swinging one leg over his knees until you were straddling him. He groaned in satisfaction, his hands pulling you flush against him, his hips rising to meet yours.
Air became a problem. You pulled back, opening your eyes, and found Dean with his eyes still closed, already searching for your mouth again. You gave him a small peck, then made a slow path of kisses from his mouth to his ear to his neck.
On his neck you bit him, lightly, experimentally, and the response was immediate. His hand came down on your ass in a sharp reflexive slap that startled a breathless laugh out of you. Through your skirt and his jeans you could feel exactly how much he was enjoying this, and you rolled your hips deliberately. The sound that came out of him made you stop entirely.
God. You wanted to hear that sound on repeat for the foreseeable future.
He seemed to resurface from wherever he had gone, and then he was standing, actually standing, with you in his arms, your legs wrapping automatically around his back.
"So," he started, eyes dropping to your mouth in a way that was frankly unfair. "Where's your bedroom?"
"Up the stairs, first door on the left," you answered against his neck, punctuating it with another bite.
"Stop teasing me or I'll drop you."
As a direct response you attempted to suck a mark into his neck. He fake-stumbled dramatically on the first step, which made you shriek and then immediately muffle it, and he laughed, low and warm and entirely too pleased with himself.
"I told you," he said.
You made it to your bedroom, and you silently praised the rare burst of energy that had led you to tidy it the night before. He dropped you onto the bed and you propped yourself up on your elbows and watched him pull off his cardigan and then the white shirt underneath.
You let out a slow whistle.
Hockey had been very, very good to him.
"Has anyone ever told you you're kind of annoying?" he said, dropping to his knees at the foot of the bed and pushing your legs open. His eyes went to your underwear. Something in his expression softened. "Cute underwear."
"Only this blond guy I'm sort of into," you said, focusing very hard on something other than what was about to happen. "And I wasn't planning on sleeping with anyone today, hence the polka dot Snoopy panties."
"No, I genuinely think they're cute," he said, and pressed a kiss to your clothed center that made your breath catch. "But they do have to go."
He hooked his fingers in the waistband and pulled them down, and then — you watched, incredulous — tucked them into the back pocket of his jeans.
"Absolutely not —"
"Focus," he said.
"You're so wet," Dean murmured, his gaze on you in a way that made you feel simultaneously embarrassed and triumphant. He kissed the inside of your knee, your inner thigh, everywhere except where you needed him. "All from just kissing?"
"Stop teasing," you whined.
"Not so funny anymore, is it."
"Please, Dean —"
"Please?" He looked up at you, and the expression on his face was criminal. "So you're telling me I spent weeks and months putting up with you being rude to me, when I could have had you this polite just by bending you over a table?"
The image that produced made you moan before you could stop yourself.
"You have no idea how long I've wanted to do this," he said, voice low. "To taste you."
His tongue pressed flat against your center and you moaned so loudly you were immediately grateful Elisa had left. He explored you with single-minded thoroughness, his tongue parting you, learning you, the sounds filling the room obscenely, the wet heat of his mouth and your increasingly frantic responses.
When his mouth found your clit your hands flew to his hair, pulling, trying to bring him impossibly closer.
"You taste so fucking sweet," Dean said against you.
"Fuck — Dean —"
The feeling built and crested and his hand came down across your stomach to hold your hips in place as they jerked. Your thighs trembled. He felt the way you clenched around nothing and knew.
"Be a good girl and come for me."
The orgasm hit like a wave breaking — sudden and total.
"Dean — oh my god —"
He worked you through it, his tongue slowing gradually until he finally pulled back. When he stood you were completely wrecked, sprawled across the bed, unable to form a sentence, staring up at him. His chin was wet. He looked insufferably composed.
He removed his jeans and helped you out of your dress, then came down over you on the bed, his weight settling between your thighs. He kissed you slowly, his hands cradling your jaw with a tenderness that was almost absurd given what had just happened, sweet and careful and at complete odds with the rest of the evening.
You felt him against your thigh.
Oh. He was — yes.
"Breathe, honey."
It was annoying how well he could tell when you'd stopped.
Your hips rolled up against him instinctively, looking for him.
"I need you inside me, Dean —"
"So demanding," he said, cutting you off with a kiss. His hand slid down between you, pressing the length of him against your folds, and the sound you made was not dignified in the slightest. He tapped the head of his cock against you and you dug your nails into his back.
"Please — Dean — please, please —"
He finally gave you what you were asking for, positioning himself at your entrance. The thick head breached you slowly, stretching you out, and you tried to pull him deeper faster.
"Oh fuck —" you moaned as he bottomed out.
"God damn," he breathed. "You're so tight."
His hips pulled back and snapped forward and then he was properly fucking you, hard, deep, everything you had imagined during different library sessions. His mouth found your collarbone, your chest, and then he took one nipple between his lips and you arched off the bed.
"You really do have the most absurd —" he said against your skin.
"Do not finish that sentence —"
"— tits. I could spend all day here."
Your walls tightened around him as the second orgasm built.
"I'm gonna come —" you breathed.
"I know."
He moved back up to your mouth, kissing you as you fell apart, and at the last moment he pulled out, the warmth of him spilling across your stomach. He stood and disappeared into the bathroom, returning with a cloth to clean you up. He discarded it somewhere, then lay down beside you and pulled you against his chest without ceremony, your legs tangling together.
The room was quiet. The lamp was still on. Outside the window the November street was dark and still.
"So," you said finally, staring at the ceiling. "You really are an overachiever."
"Shut up, (Y/N)," Dean said, and kissed you.
You stayed like that for a while, his heartbeat under your cheek, the lamp casting everything amber, the particular quiet of a house when everyone who needed to leave has left.
You had spent four years not allowing yourself anything that wasn't useful. Not a detour, not a distraction, not a single afternoon that didn't have a purpose.
Dean DiLaurentis, you thought, had been the worst possible use of your time.
summary: when dean ends up in a fight on the ice, it leaves words to be said between you both.
request: yes/no
warnings: swearing
word count: 2.71k
authors note: this was kind of written as a second part to the offer however both pieces can be read as stand-alones. honestly i eat up every dean request espeically when we have a chance to make him a little jealous/protective
It had been weeks since the two of you started seeing each other.
Stolen kisses in the treatment room, sneaking you into the house late at night. As much fun as the two of you had been having, you were starting to grow tired of it.
But you had to keep it to yourself, not because you didn’t think you could share. But because you knew what Dean was like, and a long term ride wasn’t something that he wanted.
Not in the same ways that you did.
Dean laughed as he pulled you into his room, helping you jump over his desk, “took you damn long enough.” He mumbled into your mouth as the two of you fell onto his bed.
You scoffed as you rolled your eyes “if I was able to walk through your front door I wouldn’t have taken so long.” You shot back making the boy pinch your side.
It made you gasp, allowing him to kiss you “it’ll be easier next time.” He promised as he rolled on top of you.
He nipped at your neck “yeah cause this is the last time.”
It seemed to be a phrase that got used often between the two of you.
When your parents went to England for Thanksgiving, you ended up in New York with Dean “I promise they didn’t see you.” He threw his phone to the side as he looked at you “so come back over here.” Dean stood up so that he could kiss you.
You sighed as you dropped the bedsheet from around your body “what?” He asked as he kissed you.
Your lips were soft “this has to be the last time.” The blonde never argued with you because he knew how you felt.
Dean never argued with you, not because he didn’t think it was a fight worth making. But because you seemed to repeat this every few days yet lo and behold, you’d still end up right back in his room like nothing had happened, kissing his lips as you complained about what you were doing.
So Dean should have known something was wrong the second you stopped arguing with him.
Normally, when you said things like “this has to be the last time,” there was still warmth behind it.
There was still banter.
Still that look in your eyes that told him you didn’t mean it nearly as much as you were pretending to.
But tonight? No tonight you sounded tired.
And Dean hated it immediately “you say that every week,” he murmured against your neck, trying to pull you back into whatever this was before it became something heavier.
Something real.
You let him kiss you for a second longer before gently pushing at his chest “that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”
Dean leaned back slightly, blonde hair falling into his face as he looked down at you “we’re good right?” He gave you a look like if you went to tell him the truth, he would have let you open Pandora’s box like it was nothing.
Your eyes scanned his as you nodded “we’re fine.” That word nearly made you laugh.
Fine.
As if sneaking into his room after midnight and pretending not to care about each other outside of it counted as fine.
As if the way Dean looked at you when you walked into a room didn’t confuse the hell out of you.
As if you weren’t starting to want things you knew he’d never give you.
Like you were starting to want more than what he could give you.
You pushed your hair out of your face “you don’t get it,” you said quietly.
Dean’s expression shifted slightly at your tone “then explain it to me.” He sat up as you almost felt sick.
Because you almost did and that was the dangerous part.
Because Dean was looking at you in that soft way again, the one that made your chest ache.
The one that made you forget he’d never promised you anything.
Instead, you shook your head and slipped out from underneath him “I should go.” You announced as you reached for your shirt that had found its way onto his floor.
Dean sat up immediately “seriously?” He groaned as he pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Yes.”
“It’s one in the morning.”
You looked out, knowing that it was going to start raining again soon “and?” You were more focused on getting back to your dorm so that you wouldn’t end up soaked.
Dean tugged at the ends of his hair “and you snuck through my damn window,” he said, watching you slide into your shoes “least you can do is stay.” He wanted to reach for you, to pull you into his grasp and keep you there all night.
You laughed softly despite yourself “you should get a good sleep before Saint A’s.” You knew the big game was the next day and you were using that as your excuse.
Dean grinned “you know I do better when I’ve had you the night before.” Dean clicked his tongue as he wanted to hold you.
You rolled your eyes, but the smile tugging at your mouth ruined the effect.
Dean noticed instantly, “there she is,” he said quietly.
Your stomach tightened and that was the problem with him.
Dean always noticed everything.
When you skipped meals.
When you were stressed.
When your smiles were genuine versus when you forced them.
And now he was going to know what you were like before you pulled away, “I was serious about you getting some sleep,” you muttered instead.
Dean watched you carefully “you gonna come to the game tomorrow?”
You paused “kind of my job.” You reminded him as you raised your eyebrows.
His eyes softened slightly, reaching for your hand “still nice to hear you say it.” As his fingers grazed your palm, it hurt more than it should have.
Because he wasn’t yours, not in the way you needed him.
So you went home and hadn’t spoken to him since you left his. The game had already been aggressive before the second period even started.
Big hits.
Shoving matches.
Everything you expected from this game as you were expecting a long night to clean up the bruises and cuts that were bound to come.
A near fight in the first that Garrett had dragged Dean away from by the back of his jersey while Tucker laughed himself sick on the bench.
Your eyes never left the ice. They never left Dean.
Forcing a comforting smile on your face whenever he looked at you, on the off chance that you could calm him down.
Because he moved differently when he was pissed off.
Sharper.
More reckless.
You noticed it immediately when he slammed another player into the boards hard enough to make the crowd erupt. It was the comeback that you guys were desperate for.
The other player shoved him back when Dean smiled as if he was eating it all up.
That was never a good sign “oh god,” Garrett muttered from beside the bench. Unsure almost if he should jump in to say something.
The opposing player said something.
You didn’t hear it, but Dean did. And whatever it was made his entire posture change instantly.
Not annoyed.
Not cocky.
Furious.
Before anyone could react properly, Dean dropped his gloves.
The crowd roared knowing that one of the roughest teams in the conference was now getting a taste of their own medicine “Dean!” Coach Jensen yelled as it fell on deaf ears.
Too late.
He launched himself at the guy so fast the refs barely had time to react before both of them hit the ice, throwing punches.
You felt your stomach drop immediately.
Because Dean didn’t fight like this normally.
Things didn’t feel like it was personal usually, but now they crossed that boundary.
There was no grin on Dean’s face.
No chirping and nothing playful about it.
Just anger, pure anger “holy shit,” Tucker breathed as he sat in front of you.
The other player managed to get a punch across Dean’s cheekbone before Dean shoved him back onto the ice hard enough for the refs to finally drag them apart.
Blood streaked down Dean’s mouth and he still looked ready to kill him “you wanna say it again?” Dean snapped while Logan held him back.
The other guy laughed through a split lip “what? About your little girlfriend?” Your heart stopped when the older player’s eyes landed on you.
Garrett’s head whipped toward you instantly “oh,” Tucker said slowly.
Everything clicked into place at once.
The fight.
Dean losing control.
The fact that the player was now smirking directly toward your side of the rink.
Dean nearly broke free from the refs trying to get back to him “Dean!” Garrett barked, watching him skate towards the locker room as he was now ejected.
The blonde finally looked away, chest heaving. And then his eyes found you immediately.
Like he was checking if you’d heard it too. As if he wanted to protect you from something, you had a front row seat to watch.
Once he got his concussion clearance, you were left cleaning up his cuts as Coach Jensen wanted to talk to him after you cleared him “you are such an idiot.” Dean sat on the treatment table while you cleaned blood from the cut above his eyebrow.
He winced slightly “easy.” As he tried to pull away.
You rolled your eyes as you were annoyed “you started a fight during a conference game.” You reminded him how stupid this was.
Dean shrugged as he leaned against the wall behind him “he deserved it.” His words almost set you off.
You let your fingers grip his chin, “you got punched in the face.” Many many times he had been hit.
“Worth it.” Dean looked entirely unbothered despite the bruise forming across his jaw, “You should’ve heard what he said.”
You mentally cringed as you thought back to what he said “I know what he said.” You were also annoyed that Dean didn’t think that you could handle it yourself.
Dean’s eyes scanned yours “then you know why I hit him.” He shrugged as he knew he’d do it again if he needed to.
You sighed sharply and reached for more gauze.
The room had gone quieter after the game ended. Most of the team had already filtered out, leaving just muffled voices somewhere down the hallway.
Dean watched you move around him carefully “you’re mad,” he said finally.
You laughed once, short and humourless, “no, Dean,” you said softly “I’m tired.”
That got his attention immediately.
His expression changed.
The cockiness faded slightly as if a penny dropped in his brain “what’s that supposed to mean?” He sucked at his teeth.
You tossed the bloody gauze into the bin harder than necessary “it means I can’t keep doing this thing where it just stays in this state of limbo.” You blurted the words out as you shook your head.
Dean frowned, “what?” He asked as pulled back, almost as if you were going to burn him if he got too close.
You puffed out your cheeks “you fought someone over me tonight.” You hated how you felt this level of possession when he did that for you.
“Yeah,” he said immediately “because he talked about you like you were some-”
You groaned “that’s not the point.” You pointed your finger at him.
You finally looked at him properly “then what is?” His split lip caught your attention when he spoke.
The bruise was already forming and the way he looked genuinely confused right now, “you can’t act like this and then pretend we’re just hooking up.” You were scared that Dean had feelings.
Because he wasn’t meant to, that wasn’t what he was known for.
Dean stared at you “you think that’s what this is to me?” You swallowed slightly “isn’t it?” For the first time since you met him, Dean looked honestly offended.
He looked hurt “seriously?” Dean chewed at the inside of his cheek.
“You never want to talk about us.”
He shook his head as he was genuinely feeling frustrated now, “because every time we do,” he said, sliding off the treatment table, “you tell me it’s the last time.” Your breath caught slightly.
Dean pulled you closer.
Not teasing now.
The room felt hot “You sneak out before breakfast,” he continued “you act like I’m gonna wake up one day and decide you’re inconvenient.” His final sentence made you feel sick.
“That’s not-”
Dean cut you off “you think I fought a guy because I casually hook up with you?” It seemed like the world stopped in that moment.
His voice wasn’t loud, which somehow made it worse “I fought him because he talked about you like you didn’t matter.” Dean looked down at you for a second before shaking his head slightly.
“You really don’t get it.”
You stopped as if you had all the time in the world “then tell me.” You bit the inside of your cheek.
He pulled you closer.
Close enough that your hands instinctively grabbed lightly at the strings of his shorts “I’m trying to,” he said quietly.
And suddenly you realised something horrifying.
Dean looked nervous.
The Dean Di Laurentis was nervous “you drive me insane,” he admitted “I mean you’re in my room every night.” He almost let out a laugh.
Dean didn’t stop there “half my hoodies are in your dorm. Garrett calls you my girlfriend already cause apparently, I talk about you too much.”
You blinked at his confession “you talk about me?” Felt your heart throb as your throat constricted.
Dean gave you a flat look “constantly.” His voice was soft and honest.
His shoulders felt lighter when he got it off of his chest “that’s embarrassing.” Your words made him roll his eyes.
He shook his head as he puffed his chest out “you’re embarrassing.” Despite everything, a tiny laugh escaped you at his rebuttal.
Dean’s expression softened immediately at the sound “there she is,” he murmured again.
Your eyes dropped briefly to his split lip “still think getting punched was worth it?” Dean’s hands slid carefully onto your waist.
He nodded “yeah,” he said quietly, “But you being upset with me kinda sucks.”
You frowned “I wasn’t upset with you.” That was the truth; you were mad at the situation above all else.
“You like me reckless.”
You knew he wasn’t wrong, you loved the way he would pull you into the supply closet at the stadium without thinking twice, “you were stupid tonight.” You sighed as you knew he was going to look like he had been on the wrong side of a fight with Tyson Fury in the morning.
Dean smiled slightly, “you gonna kiss it better or keep yelling at me?” His hands rested on his sides as he bit his lip.
If he wasn’t shirtless looking at you like that, you swore you should have hit him “you are unbelievable.” Your fingers ran over his bruising cheek.
Dean smirked, seeing your strength starting to waver again “and you’re still here.” There it was again.
That stupid sentence that always undid you.
You shook your head softly before finally leaning forward and kissing him.
Carefully this time, almost mindful of the cut on his lip.
Dean melted into it immediately anyway, one hand sliding up your back as he pulled you closer between his legs “I think Garrett owes me fifty bucks now.” He murmured against your mouth.
You blinked “why?” You put the wipes back on your tray.
Dean grinned lazily despite the bruise on his face “he bet you’d be the one to freak out about feelings first.” Your jaw dropped as your eyes went wide.
“I don’t know if I should be offended about that or the fact that I was discussed like a conference pool?”
He shook his head “correction,” Dean said smugly as he pointed between the two of you “they discussed us.”
You shoved lightly at his shoulder, and he laughed.
Then immediately hissed in pain from the movement.
You pointed at him, “good suffer.” Dean just pulled you back in anyway as he pressed a kiss against your cheek.
⤿ DEAN HEYWARD-DI LAURENTIS was the boy no one could get enough of. The thing was, you just didn't get it... until you did.
!! wc: 2.8k. fluff. fem!reader. enemies to lovers ish. flirting. innuendo. dean being dean. dean fell first and hard. reader lowkey nonchalant w it. COME TO ME MY FELLOW OFF CAMPUS LOVERS. i will die for this series and briar u and the kids series. taglist open. off campus masterlist coming soon. ENJOY.
By the time you realized Dean Heyward-Di Laurentis was flirting with you, it was already too late to do anything about it.
Not because he was subtle, because he absolutely was not, but because Dean flirted with everyone in a way that made him difficult to read at first. He smiled too easily, leaned too close during conversations, carried this effortless warmth around with him that made people naturally gravitate toward him without even realizing they were doing it. Most girls at Briar noticed him immediately, and most of them reacted exactly the same way whenever he walked into a room.
You hadn’t.
That alone seemed to fascinate him more than it should have.
The first time you met him had been at a party during your sophomore year, one of those overcrowded hockey house parties where the music was too loud and the floors were sticky from spilled alcohol, where bodies moved shoulder to shoulder through dim lighting while somebody shouted along terribly to music in the kitchen.
You’d been standing near the back porch trying to escape the heat inside when Dean stepped out beside you holding two beers.
At the time, you only knew of him as one of Briar’s hockey players, though that was nearly impossible not to know considering how often everyone at this damn school talked about that team.
“You look miserable,” he’d said casually, offering you one of the beers.
You glanced at it before looking back at him. “You offer drinks to unhappy strangers at all of your parties?”
“Only the pretty ones.”
You had laughed then despite yourself, mostly because he’d said it so naturally that it didn’t even sound rehearsed.
“That line probably works on a lot of people.”
“It works better when they don’t immediately insult me after.”
“You survived.”
“Barely.”
There was something unfairly likable about him up close. Maybe it was the confidence that was accented by dimples, or maybe it was the fact that unlike some of the other hockey players, Dean actually listened when people spoke to him. Conversations with him felt easy in a dangerous sort of way, the kind that slipped by too quickly without you noticing.
You ended up talking with him for nearly an hour that night.
Then somehow he started appearing everywhere afterward.
Sometimes it was accidental. Other times it very obviously was not.
You’d find him outside one of your lecture halls leaning against the wall waiting for Garrett or Logan only for him to fall into step beside you afterward, like it was the most natural thing in the world. He’d steal the seat next to yours in class despite it being a lecture hall with plenty of open seats.
He'd distract you while you studied, complain dramatically whenever you refused to help him with assignments he definitely could have done himself if he tried hard enough.
And slowly, without either of you acknowledging it outright, he became part of your life.
It happened in pieces so small you barely noticed them.
Dean texting you first whenever something funny happened.
Dean showing up at your apartment with coffee because you mentioned once that you hated mornings.
Dean touching the small of your back absentmindedly when he moved around you in crowded rooms.
Your friends noticing the shift long before you did.
“He likes you,” your roommate had told you one night while you got ready for bed.
You rolled your eyes immediately. “Dean likes everyone.”
“No,” she drawled carefully, “I think he really likes you.”
At the time, you brushed it off.. mostly because the idea felt ridiculous.
Dean Heyward-Di Laurentis was charming in a way that belonged to everyone around him. He laughed with everybody, flirted with everybody, made people feel wanted so effortlessly that it was hard to imagine any of it meaning something deeper.
And maybe that was the problem.
Because you never realized how serious it had become for him.
Not until much later.
Not until the night everything finally cracked open between you.
It happened in late November after one of Briar’s home games, when the campus had already started settling into winter, and the air outside the arena carried that sharp cold that made your lungs ache when you breathed too deeply.
You waited near the parking lot while students poured out around you in loud groups, bundled in jackets and scarves while snow flurries drifted lazily through the streetlights overhead.
You had almost decided to leave by the time Dean finally emerged from the arena.
The parking lot outside Briar’s hockey rink had thinned considerably over the last fifteen minutes, the loud clusters of students slowly disappearing into the snowy dark while the cold deepened around you in sharp, biting waves.
The game had ended almost half an hour ago, but postgame celebrations always dragged on longer after a win, especially when the team played the way they had tonight. They were fast and aggressive and good enough to keep the crowd screaming well into the third period.
You stood near the edge of the sidewalk with your hands shoved deep into your coat pockets, shifting your weight occasionally to keep warm while snowflakes drifted steadily from the sky overhead. They gathered in the sleeves of your coat and melted against your skin, dampening pieces of hair near your face while your breath curled visibly in the freezing air.
Your phone screen lit briefly in your hand.
11:42 PM.
You should probably go home at this point. Plus, why stick around anyway? The only people who stuck around this long were family, significant others, and girls who were hoping to get lucky with a player. You were none of the above.
That thought had crossed your mind at least four times already, especially considering Dean had no idea you were even waiting for him out here in the first place. You could still leave now before he came outside and preserve at least some of your dignity, because standing alone in a freezing parking lot after nearly midnight waiting for a boy who smiled at you a little too nicely was not behavior you were particularly proud of.
Still, your feet stayed planted where they were.
Which was embarrassing to unpack if you thought about it too hard.
The arena doors finally swung open again a few seconds later, releasing another burst of noise and warmth into the cold night air as several players filtered out alongside a few students lingering near the entrance. You looked up automatically, more out of instinct than intention.
Then you saw him.
Dean Heyward-Di Laurentis, himself, walked out laughing at something one of his teammates said, hockey bag slung over one shoulder while exhaustion visibly weighed through the line of his posture. His damp hair curled slightly from sweat beneath the harsh overhead lights, and even from a distance, you could see the fatigue sitting heavily across his face after the game.
Then his eyes landed on you.
And his entire expression changed.
It was subtle enough that most people probably would not have noticed it unless they were looking carefully, but you did.
The exhaustion softened first.
Then his shoulders loosened slightly beneath the weight of his bag, tension easing from him in real time as warmth spread slowly across his features. The tiredness didn't disappear entirely, but something gentler replaced it now, something so immediate and instinctive that it sent an annoying little flip through your stomach before you could stop it.
“There you are,” Dean said once he reached you, his voice roughened slightly from yelling over the game and the freezing night air.
Something about the familiarity of it settled strangely in your chest.
Not the words themselves, but the way he said them, easy and certain, like he had expected to find you waiting for him outside the arena all along. Like your presence beside the rink after every home game had become something reliable to him, something normal.
You tried not to think too hard about why that affected you as much as it did.
Instead, you shoved your hands deeper into your coat pockets and forced yourself to sound casual when you said, “You played decent tonight, Di Laurentis.”
Dean immediately looked offended.
“Decent?” he repeated, adjusting the strap of his hockey bag higher onto his shoulder while he stared at you in disbelief. “That’s what I get after scoring twice? And defending my goalie after he got knocked? And pointing to you after I scored? And cheering G up in the locker room?”
You shrugged, though his grin was already making it annoyingly difficult to hold onto your composure for very long. “You want me to lie and say you were amazing?”
“Yes, actually, that would be nice.”
The laugh that slipped out of you came easier than you intended, soft and visible in the cold air between you.
For a second, Dean just looked at you.
Not in the careless, charming way he usually looked at people, but openly because your amusement was something worth paying attention to. Snow caught lightly in his light hair and along the shoulders of his jacket, while the harsh lights from the parking lot reflected faintly across his face. Despite the exhaustion still lingering around him after the game, there was some playful warmth creeping back into his eyes.
The look on his face made your chest tighten in a way you were trying very hard not to examine too closely.
Without really discussing it, the two of you started walking toward Malone's together.
The arena noise slowly faded behind you with every step, swallowed by the quiet stillness settling over Briar this late at night. Snow crunched softly beneath your boots as you moved side by side down the sidewalk, your shoulders brushing occasionally whenever one of you drifted too close. The roads nearby had mostly emptied by now, leaving only the occasional headlights cutting through the dark or the distant sound of voices carrying across campus.
The snow had started sticking properly sometime during the third period.
Now it dusted across the ground in thin white layers and gathered along Dean’s hair in uneven flakes, catching briefly in his lashes whenever he glanced over at you. The cold had turned the tip of his nose pink, though somehow it only made him look more unfairly attractive.
“You waiting long?” he asked after a moment.
“Not really.”
“Bullshit. That's a total lie.”
You glanced sideways at him despite yourself. “Fine, maybe a little.”
His mouth twitched immediately, like he was trying not to smile too hard at that answer.
Then something in his expression shifted. The teasing faded first.Then the easy confidence.
What replaced it was quieter somehow, more focused, and the sudden intensity of his attention made your stomach tighten unexpectedly.
“You came to every game this month,” he said.
The observation landed softly between you, but your pulse reacted instantly anyway.
You forced yourself to shrug. “I support Briar athletics, I love that my tuition money goes towards the team throwing free shirts into the stands and paying for your overpriced locker room. I figured I should get my money's worth.”
“Bullshit, again.”
You looked away too quickly, trying to hide the smile already pulling at your mouth, but Dean noticed anyway. Of course he did.
“That smile means I’m right.”
“You’re so annoying after wins.”
“I’m annoying all the time.”
“That’s... Actually, yeah, that's true.”
His laugh came low and warm beside you before he nudged his shoulder lightly against yours.
The contact lasted barely a second.
Still, warmth spread slowly through your chest anyway, familiar now in the worst possible way.
Because that had become the real problem with Dean lately.
Not the flirting.
Not the confidence.
Not even the fact that nearly every girl at Briar looked at him like he personally hung the moon.
The problem was that he made everything feel like more than it was. Truthfully, that could have been because, in your heart, you didn't want to believe you'd fall for an athlete's charm so easily. But based on what everyone around you said, you weren't delusional in thinking that it was more than it seemed.
Every glance lingered slightly too long. Every touch carried enough softness behind it to leave you thinking about it afterward. Even his attention felt different from other people’s somehow, steady and deliberate in a way that slowly worked its way beneath your skin before you even realized it was happening.
Being around Dean felt dangerously similar to standing too close to a fire in the middle of winter.
Comforting at first.
Then overwhelming before you noticed yourself getting burned.
And lately, whatever existed between the two of you had started drifting dangerously close to becoming something real.
Neither of you talked about it.
Maybe because acknowledging it aloud would ruin the fragile balance you’d fallen into together.
Or maybe because both of you were too afraid the other person didn’t feel it too.
“You know,” Dean said eventually, quieter now, his gaze fixed ahead on the snowy sidewalk instead of on you, “Tuck thinks I’m in love with you.”
Your entire body nearly short-circuited.
You missed a step slightly before catching yourself again, your head swiveling in a double-take. “Sorry.. what?”
Dean let out a huff of a laugh under his breath, though this time there was tension underneath it that hadn’t been there before.
“That reaction’s making this just a little harder for me.”
You stopped walking for half a second before hurrying to catch up beside him again. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not.”
The simplicity of the answer made your stomach twist sharply.
Snow continued drifting lazily around the two of you while silence settled heavily between your footsteps. Your pulse suddenly felt uneven beneath your ribs, loud enough that you were half convinced Dean could hear it if he stood any closer.
For several long seconds, neither of you spoke.
Then finally, carefully, you looked over at him. “And what did you say?”
Den exhaled slowly through his nose.
The faint smile that touched his mouth this time looked different from his usual ones somehow, smaller and quieter, almost disbelieving.
“I told Tuck he was an idiot.”
“That sounds more believable.”
“Yeah,” he murmured softly. “Except I think he might’ve been right.”
Everything inside you seemed to still at once.
Not dramatically.
Not like movies where music swelled and the entire world stopped turning.
Just enough that suddenly every detail around you became painfully sharp all at once.
The sound of snow beneath your boots. The cold wind brushing against your face. The uneven rhythm of your breathing. The way Dean was looking at you now.
And maybe the strangest part of all was realizing he looked nervous.
Dean Heyward-Di Laurentis, who could walk into any room and immediately own it without trying, who flirted effortlessly and smiled without hesitation, looked genuinely nervous standing beside you on a dark, snowy sidewalk.
Like you had the ability to hurt him.
“You don’t have to say anything,” he added quickly after the silence stretched too long, his voice quieter now, rough around the edges in a way you had never heard from him before. “Seriously, I just…” He broke off briefly, glancing away before laughing once under his breath. “I got tired of pretending this feels casual to me when it doesn’t. And trust me, it's just as crazy for me to say that as it is for you to hear that.”
Your chest tightened painfully at the honesty in that.
Because suddenly the last few months rearranged themselves inside your head into something entirely different.
Dean waiting outside your classes even when his own were across campus.
Dean memorizing your coffee order after hearing it once.
Dean always finding you first in crowded rooms.
Dean texting you every night before playing an away game.
None of it had been accidental.
None of it had ever been casual.
And maybe the worst part was realizing yours hadn’t been either.
“You fall hard, huh?” you asked quietly.
A surprised laugh escaped him then, softer than before, carrying something almost embarrassed underneath it.
“You got no idea.” He drawled, his hands pushing his hair back in more of a 'I-Don't-Know-What-To-Do-With-My-Hands' way than anything else.
The honesty of it hit you harder than anything else had tonight.
Because Dean wasn’t teasing now. Wasn’t flirting. Wasn’t charming his way through another conversation with that easy confidence everyone associated with him.
He meant it.
And standing there beside him while snow gathered slowly across the shoulders of his jacket and melted into your hair, you realized with sudden, terrifying clarity that somewhere along the way, without meaning to, you had fallen hard too.
18+ | MDNI - stantastic's bucky's dream house collab
PAIRING: librarian!bucky barnes x professor!reader
SUMMARY: bucky barnes falls in love with you, his gorgeous literature professor, on his first day of college. four years and a degree later, he’s one of the librarians at the very same college he attended, and now there’s nothing stopping him from asking you out… if not for one tiny detail: his spectacularly clumsy and painfully shy nature. that’s when his colleague, several romance books and a pen come to his aid.
WARNINGS: she/her pronouns for reader; college au; pov switch; unspecified age gap (bucky is younger than reader and started college in his early 20s, so now he should be around 25); original characters; secret admirer!bucky; shy & clumsy!bucky; confident!reader; reader wears skirts and a dress; angst; insecurity & anxiety; mild jealousy; heavy yearning (sam, steve & darcy are so done with his ass); unrequited love (according to bucky); fluff; mutual pining; smut; masturbation (m) & sexual fantasies (nipple play; riding; oral); mention of edging; public indecency.
WORD COUNT: 19.5k (sorry)
A/N: hi barbies 🎀 this is my first ever collaboration and I'm so glad I could do it alongside the amazing, sweet people that are the stantastic members! and of course, thank you @miraclediviner for putting so much love into planning this collab, and @metal-armed-muse for your feedback 🥹 hope you'll enjoy 🫶🏻 ps: read end notes if you'd like to know which books I quoted.
Back when Bucky was a student, the library had felt like a refuge, a place where every worry could be neatly pressed between the pages of a book and shelved away for later. Between the sound of pages turning somewhere in the distance and the low hum of fluorescent lights overhead that no one ever really notices until they stop working, expectations lower their voices and time stretches just enough for him to breathe.
Four years later, standing behind the front desk with a stack of returns balanced precariously in his hands, it feels… well, not so different, except that now he’s the one expected to know where everything goes.
Which, in theory, he does.
In practice, however…
“Barnes?”
Bucky blinks, the sharp sound of his name pulling him out of the slow drift of his thoughts, and as he looks up a little too quickly, the top book in his stack shifts just enough to send a brief flicker of panic through him before he tightens his grip.
“Yeah, yes,” he corrects himself mid-breath, stepping closer to the computer. “Sorry. I was just—uh—thinking.”
The blonde girl on the other side of the desk watches him mildly unimpressed, fingers drumming lightly against the wood.
“That’s usually how that works.” She replies dryly, nudging three books toward him. “Can you check these out?”
“Right. Yeah, of course.”
Bucky sets his stack down with exaggerated care, as if the pages would turn into ashes at the slightest bump, and begins scanning the books one by one, his movements just a fraction too aware of themselves. He knows how to do this, he’s done it hundreds of times. There is absolutely no reason for his hands to feel like they belong to someone else.
“Okay, so these are all set,” he hums, sliding them back across the desk with what he hopes resembles confidence. “You’re good.”
“Thanks.”
“Yeah, anytime. I mean, during open hours. Not, like, anytime anytime.”
The student pauses as she is putting her university badge back in her wallet just to send him a glare that reeks of poorly concealed judgment.
“… Right.”
She takes the books in silence and Bucky watches her go for longer than necessary before letting out a slow sigh, tipping his head back to the ceiling as his lips press together.
“Good recovery.” He murmurs under his breath.
“Buck.”
He doesn’t need to look to know who it is, there aren’t many people who call him that, but his head turns anyway. Steve is leaning casually against the edge of the desk with his arms crossed, expression already bordering on amused in a way that makes Bucky immediately defensive.
“You just told her not to come back.” Steve grins.
“I did not,” he huffs, words coming out a little too quickly. “I just clarified the hours.”
“I clarified.” He insists in response to his raised eyebrows, less animatedly this time, because arguing with Steve is like trying to hold water in his hands—pointless and inevitably messy.
His best friend’s grin only grows as he follows Bucky to the shelf he was previously organizing, but whatever he’s about to say next never makes it out, because at that exact moment the heavy front doors open with a quiet creak that still somehow cuts through everything else.
Bucky doesn’t think, nor decides. His body just knows, gaze lifting instinctively, like pulled by an invisible thread, and then, you walk in.
You move unhurriedly without being slow, composed without being rigid, the soft rhythm of your heels echoing faintly against the polished floor as you cross the entrance. There’s nothing ostentatious about you, nothing that demands attention in the obvious way. And yet, it gathers around you anyway, inevitable, drawn in by the quiet confidence you carry so naturally.
Bucky forgets how to breathe for a moment.
He has known you for years, but he’s never quite prepared for the way his chest seems to tighten and soften all at once, a reflex he has no control over.
“Oh,” Steve snickers beside him. “There she is.”
Bucky doesn’t respond, not when his entire focus has narrowed on you making your way to the front desk, already smiling in that easy, familiar way that feels like it belongs in this space just as much as the books do.
Darcy spots you at once, straightening with visible delight.
“You’re late.” She announces, though the accusation is entirely undermined by the grin tugging at her mouth.
“I’m fashionably late,” you set your bag down with a soft thud, your tone teasing. “There’s a difference.”
“There isn’t. You just enjoy making an entrance.”
“I enjoy making you wait.”
At that point, Darcy laughs, bright and unrestrained, and you follow a second later, the sound softer, but no less captivating.
And Bucky…
Bucky sighs.
It slips out of him before he can stop it, quiet but unmistakably there, the kind of sound that belongs more to a fairytale than to real life.
Without realizing it, his body shifts, leaning slightly to the side as if captured by your melody, and the way your expression changes as you speak: the subtle lift of your brows, the absent gesture of your manicured hand as you emphasize a point, the way—
The cart.
There is a cart behind him. A very real, very solid cart, stacked with books that are waiting to be sorted.
His elbow does not meet empty air so much as it fails to meet anything at all.
His balance tilts, center of gravity rearranging in a way that is both slow and horribly inevitable, and for one suspended, dreadful moment, Bucky is aware of what is about to happen, completely incapable of stopping it.
“Oh—”
The impact is catastrophic.
The cart slams into the nearest shelf with a jarring metallic crash that reverberates through the silent open space, books jolting and tipping, one slipping free entirely to hit the floor with a heavy, echoing thud that seems to stretch far longer than it should.
When the commotion dies, a religious silence settles back in its place, thick and absolute. And Bucky is on the floor, flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling like it might offer him an escape route.
“… I meant to do that.” He strains out to no one in particular.
Somewhere nearby there is a snort that is quickly hidden by a cough. On the contrary, Darcy doesn’t even try: her laughter breaks through the quiet, too loud.
Bucky refuses to look at you. He likes to believe he still has some dignity left and he intends to preserve it for at least another three seconds.
Footsteps approach, quick and entirely unsurprising.
“Jesus, Buck.” Steve frets, already crouching beside him, one hand braced on his shoulder as he looks him over. “You good?”
“Yeah,” he mutters, dragging himself up with Steve’s help, hands brushing at his clothes in a futile attempt to appear unbothered. “Yeah, I’m great. That was—great.”
“Mm-hm.”
“I just… misjudged the space.”
“You mean you forgot about the heavy cart behind you because you were too busy daydreaming?”
Blushing, Bucky bends down at once, grabbing the nearest fallen book if only to have something to do with his hands.
“I knew it was there,” he insists under his breath, suddenly feeling too warm.
Steve leans in slightly, voice close to a whisper. “She saw everything, you know?”
If a stare could kill, he would already be at his funeral.
“I’m aware.”
“You sighed.”
Bucky freezes for half a second.
His head snaps towards his friend. “I did not.”
“You totally did.”
“I breathed, Steve. Just like any other human being.”
“That was not breathing, man, that was you yearning like a damsel in distress.”
His eyes close in dejection, as if that might erase the last thirty seconds from existence.
“I hate you.” There’s no real weight behind it.
“No, you don’t.”
“… No, I don’t.”
With a satisfied grin, Steve straightens up while Bucky gathers a precariously balanced book, gripping it a little tighter than necessary.
“C’mon,” Steve adds, nudging him lightly. “Let’s clean this up before you take out a whole shelf trying to impress her.”
“I’m not trying to impress her.” Bucky mutters.
“Could’ve fooled me.”
Despite every instinct screaming at him not to, Bucky decides to glance up. Just for a fleeting peak.
You’re still by the desk half-turned toward Darcy, but your attention has shifted, your frown flickering in his direction with a kind of faint curiosity that sends electricity straight through his veins. And for one ephemeral moment, it feels like you’re looking directly at him.
His grip loosens enough for the book to slip from his hands and hit the floor.
Again.
At least Steve has the decency to press his lips together to hide his laughter. “Are you going to offer her your handkerchief now that she looked at you?”
Bucky has spent a considerable amount of time—far more than he would ever willingly admit—trying to convince himself that what he feels for you can be contained within the boundaries of his own mind, that can exist without demanding anything from him other than the occasional, carefully controlled glances when he’s absolutely certain no one is paying attention. Because it would be easier to carry it if it remained small and undefined and safely unspoken. A feeling that could be tucked away between routine and responsibility like a pressed flower between the pages of a book, preserved but ultimately harmless.
The problem, unfortunately, is that it has never been harmless.
Not even at the beginning. And that is something his mind recalls with a kind of stubborn clarity that refuses to fade.
It had been his first day of college, a morning that should have easily blurred into all the others, marked only by nerves and unfamiliarity and the low thrum of anticipation that comes with stepping into an entirely new world. He had been running just slightly behind schedule, not enough to cause a scene, but the lecture hall was already filling when he slipped through the back doors, shoulders drawn in just a little as if that might make him less noticeable. His bag shifted awkwardly against his side as he scanned the room for somewhere that felt sufficiently out of the way.
The space itself had been warm with early sunlight, long beams of gold stretching through tall windows illuminated the rows of seats that were already occupied by students who seemed, at least from where he stood, far more composed and certain of themselves and their place there. And Bucky, who had never been particularly skilled at navigating spaces that required that kind of confidence, had done what he always did best in these situations: move swiftly and quietly out of the way like a scared little mouse, choosing a seat that allowed him to exist without the pressure of being perceived.
The room had smelled faintly of old wood and chalk, filled with the soft murmur of conversations that wove together into a low, indistinct hum. His notebook was rigid beneath his trembling fingers, the nervous energy still alive under his skin.
And then you walked in.
There wasn’t any dramatic shift or unnecessary urgency, yet your effortless composure altered the rhythm of the room all the same.
Bucky had looked up without thinking, his attention drawn by instinct, expecting nothing more than another ordinary face to catalogue and then promptly file away as part of the background of his new routine.
He didn’t look away. Couldn’t.
There had been something in the way you carried yourself: assured without feeling unapproachable, and that inexplicably held him captive.
Bucky had found himself marveling at you doing something as simple as carefully setting your things down. You then turned to face the room, your eyes sweeping briefly across the rows of students, almost pleased.
“Good morning, everyone.” You had started, voice clear and even.
At the time, he had dismissed the gentle pressure behind his ribs without much thought, attributing it to the unfamiliarity of the environment. This was a completely new experience and therefore bound to feel odd at first, so Bucky had resolutely turned his attention to his notebook, pen moving a little too frantically across the page as he attempted to anchor himself to a practical and tangible task.
However, as you spoke—not just about the material, but around it, through it, as if literature was not a bunch of static concepts to be memorized, but a universe to be explored—his attention kept shifting not to what you were saying, but to how you were saying it. To the way your hands moved when you explained a particularly important paragraph, to the small pauses you allowed yourself when choosing your words, because precision mattered more to you than simply filling the silence.
You were the professor. The kind that doesn’t just teach students concepts and ideas, but changes something fundamental in the way they see the world. You taught nineteenth and twentieth-century literature—British mostly, with the occasional American detour—and spoke about it in a way that made it feel alive and still unfolding.
You could recite passages without looking at the pages, entire lines of Pride and Prejudice slipping easily into conversation as if they had always belonged there, as if they were simply another language you spoke fluently. And you quoted your favorite poets with the same certainty. Never showy, never exaggerated.
You carried that knowledge with that poised, quietly seductive composure of someone who knows—knows that she knows—and because of that, never needs to raise her voice to be listened to.
Watching you interact with students was fascinating. You truly listened, fully immersing yourself in their words to the point that even hesitant responses felt worth being heard. But most importantly, Bucky noticed the way your glossy lips curled around a smile each time someone was brave enough to participate—a genuine and unguarded curve that seemed to belong more to you than to the role you were occupying.
At first, he told himself it was normal. Students notice things about their professors all the time; admiration—academic or otherwise—is not unusual, it doesn’t mean anything beyond a simple appreciation for someone who is good at their job.
He held onto that explanation for longer than he probably should have.
Through the first few weeks of returning to that lecture hall, he always chose the same general area in the back that allowed him to exist without drawing attention to himself.
Except distance, Bucky would eventually realize, did very little to lessen the effect you had on him.
Somewhere along the way, his thoughts of you had become more constant and less easily dismissed. Bucky began to notice not just the obvious aspects, but the smaller, more specific details that had no real reason to matter to a student, and yet traitorously lingered in his mind before falling asleep.
Your fingers played with the corner of the page whenever you were concentrating on a passage. Your head moved in a small, curious tilt to an unexpected answer, because as you always said, “there is no correct, absolute way to interpret literature.” Your handwriting curved just slightly to the right across the board, neat but not rigid, structured but still distinctly yours. Your voice softened when reading aloud, as if you were stepping into the text rather than simply reciting it.
And Bucky found himself anticipating those moments.
It was a gradual, subtle change that sinked rather than struck, growing steadily in the background of everything else until one day, without any clear warning, Bucky became aware of it in a way that could not be easily undone.
Sitting in that same lecture hall, long after most of the other students had left, his notebook opened in front of him though he had long since stopped writing, and listening as you gathered your things at the front of the room, he realized that what he felt had extended far beyond anything that could be reasonably categorized as harmless or temporary.
Yet, he had not said anything. Because even allowing the words to take shape in his mind had felt like crossing a line he had no right to approach, let alone step over.
So Bucky had done what he deemed best at the time.
Keep it contained.
He finished the course, handing in his assignments and accepting your feedback with reverent attention, all while maintaining that same distance he had cultivated from the beginning.
He had graduated.
He had left.
He had told himself, at some point, that it would fade. That time would do what it’s supposed to do.
Except it failed.
Because now, standing in the same building years after his first day of college—the same quiet hum surrounding him, the same soft rays filtering through the windows—and watching you laugh across the room as if no time has passed at all… his heart still tilts toward you, inevitably drawn to your light.
It was a root that burrowed deeper instead of retreating, patiently lying dormant until it became, without his permission, far too ingrained to pull free. And the truth is, he did not just develop a passing affection, or carry a fleeting admiration that lingered longer than expected.
Bucky fell in love with you.
Silently.
Completely.
And he never really found a way to fall out of it.
By the time the library begins to empty, the building itself seems to settle back after holding its breath for the entire day. Chairs sit askew where students have left them in a hurry, some pens lie abandoned on the desks, and the overhead lights seem just a fraction too bright now that there are fewer people around.
Bucky has always liked this part of the day. There is something comforting in the slow winding down and the small, predictable tasks that come with closing. It gives him something to focus on that doesn’t involve thinking too much about the way your smile lingers behind his eyelids each time they flutter close, or how his own reaction to your sole presence was… deeply unfortunate.
You had left not long after his embarrassing fall.
He had not watched you go. Not obviously, at least. But Bucky had been aware of the subtle shift in the air when you moved toward the door, your voice lowering as you said something he couldn’t quite hear from where he stood, that made Darcy smile in a knowing, almost conspiratorial way.
He had pretended not to notice.
Bucky likes to think he is very good at pretending. Which is exactly why he doesn’t immediately react when he hears footsteps approaching the desk, lighter than Steve’s, accompanied by the casual sound of hands dragging across a surface, before coming to a stop right in front of him.
“Long day?” Darcy asks, her tone light to the point that it immediately raises suspicion.
Bucky firmly keeps his eyes on the screen.
“Not really different from the others.” He shrugs. The safest answer he can give without committing to anything.
She simply hums, leisurely leaning her elbows against the desk as she studies him with open curiosity.
“You fell over today.”
Bucky’s eyes flutter close for a moment.
“I tripped.” He corrects.
“You collapsed,” she counters deadpan. “There was a whole sound effect and everything.”
Muttering, he blinks at the screen to focus back on his task. “It was an accident.”
“Right,” Darcy draws the word out. “And the sigh?”
His fingers stop over the keyboard.
“What sigh?”
“You sighed.”
“I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.” She grins, far too pleased with herself. “It was, like—so romantic, yet a little tragic. Honestly, if I didn’t know better I would’ve thought you were rehearsing for one of those Netflix romantic movies.”
His lips part indignantly, but nothing comes out, because arguing will only make this worse. “I was just tired.”
“From sitting at the front desk all day?”
He squints at her, nodding once. “Yes.”
Tilting her head, Darcy considers him in a way that feels dangerously teasing.
“You know,” her fingers tap lightly on the wooden surface. “It’s kind of fascinating.”
Bucky doesn’t like that word.
“What?”
“The way you look at her.”
There it is.
He blinks, going for his best deadpan face.
“Who?”
“Her,” she repeats, saying your name. “My friend. The professor who should’ve gotten the Teaching Excellence Award last year instead of that jerk Mr. Campbell.” She rolls her eyes. “The one you definitely did not sigh at earlier.”
Bucky lets out a short, incredulous breath, a nervous scoff slipping out before he can stop it. “What? No! Why would I even do that?”
The words come out too fast and high, tripping over each other in their urgency. His head shakes just a little too quickly as he leans back slightly, like physical distance might somehow reinforce the denial.
“We barely speak to each other.”
Darcy observes him in silence for exactly three seconds. Then her lips gradually twist into a smug smirk. Not unkind, but still, it suggests she has already decided how this conversation is going to end.
“Bucky,” she starts with a raised eyebrow, regarding him almost fondly. “You look at her like she invented happiness.”
A pathetic sound claws out of his throat, caught between a laugh and a choked whimper that does absolutely nothing to help his case.
“What are you even rambling about?” He insists with an exaggerated chuckle, though the conviction is… lacking.
“Hey, it’s actually kind of impressive. I didn’t think people did that in real life.”
“Look, Darcy, I don’t—” He starts again, then his shoulders fall. There is no version of this where he wins. “I’m just… looking. People look all the time, we have eyes for a reason. It’s not that serious.”
“Didn’t know ‘not that serious’ meant staring at someone like they’re the best part of your day.”
Heat violently creeps up the back of his neck, cruelly manifesting across his face with a red blush. He turns back to the computer screen in a poor attempt to hide it.
“You’re seeing things that aren’t there.” He mutters.
She shakes her head, and her blue eyes seem to soften, but it could be a trick of the light. “Bucky, I’ve known her for years, and I’ve known you for what, a few months? And even I can tell.”
That—unfortunately—lands like a punch to his stomach.
Swallowing, his gaze drops to the way his fingers curl weakly against the edge of the keyboard.
“I don’t…” He tries again, fainter this time, because the denial thinned precariously under the weight of being seen. “It’s not—it’s nothing like that.”
Darcy doesn’t interrupt him and that somehow makes it worse.
“She’s—” He sighs. “She was my professor. She’s older, and so… amazing. And—and pretty, and she’s got her whole life together, while I’m...”
He gestures vaguely to himself, to the desk, to the library. As if that explains everything. “This.”
There’s a brief pause.
“You’re ‘this.’” Darcy repeats, her tone pensive rather than dismissive. “And what exactly is ‘this’ supposed to mean?”
Bucky huffs a small, humorless laugh.
“Temporary,” he swallows. “Unimpressive. A guy who falls over carts in the middle of the day because he can’t—” He cuts himself off abruptly, pressing his lips together.
“Because he can’t what?”
Bucky shakes his head again, eyes hardening. “It doesn’t matter.” With his back straightening a little, he mentally retreats back into that safe cocoon made of denial and insecurity that has protected him since middle school.
She is quiet for a moment longer, studying him far less amusedly now.
“It’s been years, hasn’t it?”
His whole body stills and that says more to her than words ever could.
Sighing, she pushes herself off the desk. “You know,” her tone is casual as she adjusts her glasses. “She likes books because they say what people can’t bring themselves to say out loud.”
Bucky glances up at that, caught slightly off guard.
His colleague simply offers him a knowing smile.
“Just… something to think about.” She adds with a light tap of her knuckles on the desk, before turning, already stepping away as if the conversation has reached its natural conclusion.
“Darcy.” Bucky protests tiredly, but the words don’t quite form anything coherent. She’s already waving him off without turning back.
“Lock up, Barnes.” She calls lightly over her shoulder. “And try not to fall over anything on the way.”
The door closes behind her with a final click, plunging the library back into a deafening silence.
Bucky stands there for a moment longer than necessary, his hands resting against the edge of the desk and his gaze unfocused as her words echo in his mind in a way he doesn’t particularly appreciate.
She likes books because they say what people can’t bring themselves to say out loud.
Exhaling and with a hand dragging down his face before letting it drop, his shoulders tighten as a sense of discomfort begins to surface in his chest.
Because it would be easy, in theory.
To do something.
To say something.
Huffing a quiet breath, Bucky shakes his head with a sad smile. “Don’t be ridiculous.” He mutters.
The idea alone is absurd, so dangerous that he doesn’t have the courage to examine it too closely.
Because what would he even say? How would he say it?
The image forms anyway, uninvited and entirely unhelpful: him standing in front of you, words tangling somewhere between his brain and his mouth, his fingers fidgeting awkwardly and unnecessarily because they never know where to go, his voice catching on something as simple as your name—
He grimaces.
“Yeah,” he murmurs dryly, reaching for the stack of keys as he steps out from behind the desk. “That would go so well.”
He moves through the library methodically, switching off lights one section at a time, the space dimming in stages as shadows stretch across the shelves. By the time he finishes, the only light left is the soft, warm glow on the desk.
He pauses there, keys still jingling in hand, his tired reflection faintly visible on the black computer screen. With a tired sigh, Bucky reaches forward and turns the lamp off.
The click of the lock echoes faintly in the empty space, and just like that, another day is over.
Morning, in theory, is supposed to fix things.
It’s a universally accepted fact: sleep settles thoughts. Tangled and overwhelming woes will loosen with rest, and even a few hours of unconsciousness create order and resolution where there was none. A reset that doesn’t require effort.
Unfortunately, this morning proves, with irritating efficiency, that theory and reality have very little interest in aligning. Because when Bucky wakes up, there is only a dull, persistent pressure behind his eyes that comes from thinking too much and sleeping too little, and the immediate awareness that nothing has been resolved overnight. In fact, if anything, as soon as his eyes snap open, his stomach starts somersaulting in ways that make focusing on anything else significantly harder.
His first conscious thought is, inevitably, you.
His second is the memory of yesterday.
He exhales slowly into his pillow, pressing his face against it like that might physically muffle his thoughts.
“Shit.” He mutters, voice still rough from hours of disuse.
He lies there for a moment longer, staring at nothing and fully aware that going back to sleep is not an option. Lingering in bed will only allow his mind to spiral harder.
So he gets up and carries it with him anyway.
By the time he reaches the library, the day has already begun without him. Once he pushes the door open, it’s the echo of familiar voices easily threading together that hits him first, suggesting an unspoken complicity built over shared breakfast and coffee breaks lasting more than they should.
Steve is leaning against the front desk, coffee in one hand and posture relaxed in that effortless way that means he has been awake and productive for hours. Sam is right beside him, mid-sentence, gesturing lightly with a half-eaten pastry, while Darcy stands across from them behind the desk, her own cup balanced precariously in one hand as she guffaws at something Sam has just said.
It’s… too lively. Especially for someone whose brain is still trying to catch up with the rest of his body.
“I’m telling you,” Sam warns jokingly. “If he falls again today, I’m not helping him.”
“Mind to remind us exactly when you ever helped?” Darcy asks, incredulous. “From where I was standing, you looked like you were choking on your own laughter.”
“Hey, I offered emotional support. And don’t act like you weren’t cackling on this same desk.”
“Sam, you almost fell from your chair. You had tears in your eyes.”
He side-eyes Steve offended. “Because I was thinking about his wellbeing, man.”
Bucky seriously considers turning around. Ultimately, he decides against it, because that would be suspicious and he is already operating at a disadvantage.
When he steps fully inside, all three heads turn toward him almost automatically.
There is a brief, collective pause, before chaos descends upon him.
“Well, look who survived the big, bad cart.” Sam smirks with entirely too much energy.
Bucky simply sighs, regretting getting up from his bed.
“Good morning to you too.” He mutters, walking toward them and hoping they will drop the topic if he doesn’t engage too much.
“Good morning.” Steve echoes, his tone noticeably lighter than usual, which is never a good sign.
Darcy, on the other hand, narrows her eyes at him.
“You look terrible.”
“Thanks.” Bucky replies flatly.
“You’re welcome.”
Sam leans forward on the wooden surface, arms crossed and eyes studying him with a barely concealed grin. “Did you sleep at all, or did you just lie there thinking about your life choices?”
Bucky doesn’t answer, which does nothing to stop him.
“Man,” Sam continues, shaking his head. “You really committed to the tortured lover bit.”
“It’s not a bit.” Bucky sighs, dropping his bag on a chair.
Steve simply watches him, quieter and more observant, his gaze flicking briefly over the tension in Bucky’s shoulders and the slight heaviness in his movements.
“You okay?”
Bucky simply shrugs. “Fine.”
His friend hums doubtful but doesn’t push. Sam, however, is desperately waiting for a reaction.
“So,” he claps his hands once. “About yesterday—”
“No.” Bucky’s head snaps toward him.
Darcy beams. “Oh, we’re absolutely talking about yesterday.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” Bucky insists, already bracing himself.
“You fell.” Sam counts on one finger.
“For fuck’s sake—I tripped.”
“You sighed.” Steve adds.
“I breathed.”
“You were in absolute awe.” Darcy counters with a beam.
“I was just curious.”
“I thought you were about to fall to your knees and ask her to marry you in the quad.” Sam smirks, taking a sip of his coffee.
“What—” He sputters, his cheeks quickly turning red at the slight implication of you... marrying him. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means,” Darcy cuts in, her tone taking a more serious note. “That you need to do something about it, Barnes. Now.”
Bucky looks at her like she grew a second head, then tucks his chin down, fidgeting with a stack of random papers lying close to the computer.
“Can we not do this right now? I slept like shit, my head is throbbing and I’m only running on a cup of coffee because I didn’t have any cereal left. Just… please.”
Sam exchanges a fleeting, subtle look with Steve, before his lips part, eliciting a stressed groan out of Bucky.
“What if,” he hums, like the thought has just occurred to him, nothing more than a passing idea with no real weight behind it. “You just… didn’t talk to her.”
Bucky frowns.
“Is this a joke? I already don’t.”
“No, I mean on purpose.” He clarifies, eyebrows raising knowingly. “Like, instead of overthinking every conversation into oblivion.”
With a tired exhale, his eyes close momentarily as if the action alone could give him the strength to deal with his nosy friends. “Sam, that doesn’t make any sense.”
“It does,” his friend insists, straightening up. “Okay, listen. You’re bad at talking—or whatever it is that you do with her—we’ve already established that.”
“Thank you.” He replies sarcastically.
“So stop trying to talk!”
Bucky stares at him deadpan, mouth opening and closing as his brain elaborates.
“That is the worst advice you’ve ever given me!”
“Not talking is not the same as saying nothing.” Steve corrects quietly.
Bucky’s eyes land on him, more suspicious than confused. “What are you getting at?”
Darcy sets her coffee down with an air of finality. “Sam’s trying to suggest an alternative method.”
“Which is?”
Said man gestures vaguely. “Anything that isn’t you standing there and short-circuiting in real time.”
All three look at him with different degrees of amusement, to which he can only sigh, tension leaving his shoulders at once.
“… Okay, I guess sometimes I kind of short-circuit.”
“Sometimes, he says… ” Sam coughs. “Anyway, just don’t put yourself in a position where you have to speak.”
“So what should I do?” Bucky asks sincerely curious for the first time that morning.
At his friend’s shrug, his head falls back dejected.
“This is going nowhere.”
At that point Darcy crosses her arms, leaning forward on the desk, eyes solemn and fixed on Bucky’s.
“Barnes, you don’t have to tell her… everything. No one’s expecting you to stand in front of her and confess your feelings like a fucking Hallmark movie.”
“Good,” Bucky mutters. “Because I’m not doing that.”
“But you could communicate something.” She continues.
“It’s not like I never talk to her.”
“I mean, you say ‘hi’.” Steve shrugs, grimacing at the memory of his friend nearly tripping over his own feet the time they ran into you in the hallway last month—one of the rare times they’d managed to pry him away from the library for more than five minutes.
Bucky points at him, pleased. “See?”
“Barnes, that’s barely a syllable.”
He frowns. “Okay, so what do you want me to do then?”
There’s a brief pause, the silence too heavy for Bucky to sustain and he’s ready to put an end once and for all to this useless discussion, but then Darcy shrugs nonchalantly.
“Write it down.”
He freezes.
“What?”
“Write it down,” she repeats, like it’s obvious. “You’re better when you have time to think, not to mention the effect her mere presence has on you. Right? So think. Then write.”
“That’s—no,” Bucky frowns. “No, that sounds so much worse! That’s permanent.”
“It’d be on a piece of paper.” Sam quips up. “It’s literally the least permanent thing. One wrong gust of wind and puff, it’s gone.”
“You don’t even have to sign it.” Steve adds.
Hesitation glints in his blue eyes as they silently jump between their hopeful faces.
“You’re asking me,” he says slowly. “To write her a note.”
“No,” Sam corrects. “We’re asking you to write her a love note.”
“There is a difference.” Steve’s eyebrows wiggle teasingly.
“A very important one.” Darcy nods.
Sighing, Bucky’s gaze drops briefly to nothing in particular, his thoughts already starting to move faster than he can keep up with.
It’s a bad idea. It tastes like something he’s going to definitely regret a few months from now, like taking on a hobby you were so certain it was going to be funny and stimulating, but now it only steals your patience and money.
And then what’s he going to do when you are going to eventually find out the notes came from him? Resign and move to another state? How is he going to face you?
But what scares him the most, is the fact that the idea of confessing doesn’t feel as impossibly pathetic as it did yesterday night.
“He’s thinking about it.” Sam sings songs into his cup of coffee.
“I’m not—” Bucky starts, then shakes his head. “I wouldn’t even know what to say.”
Darcy takes a sip of his coffee. “I think you do, but you don’t have to come up with something from scratch. You already know the kind of books she likes.”
Bucky’s chest tightens faintly.
“Yeah.” He sighs, eyes timidly meeting the floor. “That I do.”
“Borrow something,” she continues. “Then make it yours. Oh! If it helps,” she perks up. “She’s coming by later for The End of the Affair. We’ve got this weird tradition going on every spring—I randomly pick one book for her every week and she treats it like rewatching a comfort show, except it’s all different love stories on pages instead of seasons on a screen.”
Bucky lets out a slow breath, his shoulders dropping just a fraction, not exactly in defeat but in something closer to reluctant consideration. His lips press together, before resolutely looking his friends in the eyes.
“One.” His voice breaks embarrassingly, like it costs him everything to say it out loud. “Just one and… we see how it goes.”
Sam’s grin lights up the entire room.
“All we need is for you to try.” Steve gives him a pat of encouragement, though Bucky could use a lot more than that right now.
Just a note and they’ll finally leave him alone.
You arrive later in the day, the end of your teaching hours bleeding into the tranquil part of the afternoon, when the library becomes more about the familiar rhythm of study sessions and exchanging small pieces of conversation that never feel particularly rushed.
When you walk in, Bucky is at the front desk, pretending to be busy with some books he has already sorted twice.
“Hello, James.” You greet him easily, his name warmly rolling on your tongue like this is just another part of your day and not a personal attack to his soul that makes his entire nervous system briefly forget how to function.
Bucky looks up and immediately regrets it when he meets your eyes.
“Hi.” He answers, too quickly, too quietly, and then clears his throat as if that might fix the way it came out. “Hi.”
It doesn’t fix it at all. His ears go slightly red but you don’t seem to notice. Or if you do, you are kind enough to not comment.
“Long day?” You set your bag down and lean into the desk’s edge, one hand closing softly as your temple rests against it.
“Uh, kinda. Well, it’s nothing compared to that of a professor.” His fingers fidget nervously.
You smile faintly at that, like you understand more than you let on. “Don’t underestimate your job, James. You’re surrounded by voices that refused to disappear. And you take care of them. That counts for more than you think.”
His lips part slightly, failing to find any words that could rival your beautiful mind. He isn’t used to hearing his job described like it holds weight, more meaningful than a temporary position and a set of tasks he performs without thinking too much about them.
Before he can think about anything worthy enough, your eyes glance sideways as Darcy appears from the back.
“There you are,” she bubbles. “I was starting to think you’d abandoned me.”
“I would never skip our afternoon gossip session.”
Bucky watches as the conversation flows without effort, leaving him standing just slightly outside of a bubble he doesn’t quite know how to enter. It’s actually adorable how his eyes try to stick to the books in front of him, yet still end up on you.
Darcy disappears again almost as quickly as she appeared, muttering something about “perfect placement” and leaving you and Bucky in a quieter space that immediately becomes more noticeable.
“I swear she gets more dramatic every week.”
Bucky huffs something that might be a laugh if it were louder.
“Seems… consistent characterization.” He manages, regretting it the second it leaves his mouth.
There’s a pause in which Bucky considers walking into the nearest shelf and staying there, but then you smile. At him. Because of him. It’s a shy curve, amused and fleeting, that makes his heartbeat accelerate just enough to hope you won’t hear it.
His eyes are already flying away from your beautiful face, hands reaching for the nearest thing like it might save him from the way his blood is pumping wildly in his veins.
His fingers close around a stapler. A fucking stapler.
Your eyes follow his movements, until they are distracted by a book lying nearby with a yellow post-it stuck to the cover, your name elegantly written on it.
“Oh,” you perk up. “She picked it already?”
“Yeah.” Bucky nods once, your fingers lingering over the cover as if touching an old friend. The shift in your expression is immediate: the tiredness doesn’t disappear so much as it gives way, naturally bringing you back to life. He watches it happen with quiet wonder, struck by how easily something simple as a book can reach the very core of your soul.
“Mmh,” you turn it in your hands. “Good one to start my yearly re-reading.”
“Yeah,” he agrees softly. “Thought so too.”
You glance up at that, curious, but before the moment can stretch too far, Darcy reappears again to insert herself between you both with suspicious efficiency, and the conversation drifts easily into lighter territory, from complaints about deadlines to a sarcastic comment about your best friend’s enthusiasm for emotionally ruining you with the book she picked.
Bucky listens more than he speaks—as usual—until eventually, you gather your things, saying your goodbyes with the same lovely smile, and then you are gone again, slipping back out into the world beyond the library. One where Bucky can’t follow you.
So he stays behind, his stomach churning as your perfume invades his nostrils, and his cheeks warm, the same color of a strawberry.
The parking lot is less busier than expected as you settle into your car with ease, dropping your bag onto the passenger seat. A soft exhale claws out of your throat, your shoulders finally loosening and your head momentarily resting back against the headrest.
It’s only when you reach for your bag to adjust it properly that something about the book feels slightly off.
The edge of a white paper is sticking out from between the pages, just barely, but enough to catch your attention. You pause, frowning at it as you pick it up carefully. For a moment, you assume it must be nothing: maybe a forgotten bookmark, or a note Darcy accidentally left there. It wouldn’t be the first time it happens. She often leaves her things at your apartment, later in the week complaining about having lost them.
Still, there is something about the way it’s folded that makes curiosity swirl in your stomach as you open it with caution.
“I couldn't have thought of her more. Even vacancy was crowded with her.”
Of course you would recognize it immediately given how many times you have already read it. It’s a passage from the book itself, written in careful handwriting. Deliberately selected. And it’s… beautiful in its simplicity; romantic in a way that makes your breath slow without you meaning it to.
You read it once again, smiling softly at the gentle words.
And then you finally notice the second part.
“I hope your day was kind to you.
Love, B”
The shift in your expression is immediate. Because that is something personal, directed not toward a character, but toward you.
Your fingers tighten slightly around the edges as your heart gives a small, unexpected lurch, catching you off guard to the point you bring your palm to your chest just to make sure your body is still functioning. Sitting still, your mind tries to make sense of what you are seeing, and the thought of the note being a mistake crosses your mind pretty quickly.
A misunderstanding, right.
Maybe this B left the note for someone else.
Maybe it’s a joke.
But the words are too intentional. A quiet, sincere message that doesn’t feel performative yet is entirely too thoughtful, causing your cheeks to heat up. It seems to be directed at you but you don’t link the signature to anyone in particular.
Your stomach twists in a strange, fluttering sensation as you read it one last time. Then, you finally lower the paper and stare at the parking lot in front of you for a moment longer, before carefully folding the note back up with trembling fingers, your pulse still uneven and your thoughts scattered in a way you don’t fully trust yet.
It could be nothing. But it doesn’t feel like nothing.
Once the note is safely placed back inside the same pages, almost reverently, you slip the book into your bag, out of your sight.
The sky is gradually darkening with soft hues of orange and pink and you still need to stop by the store to buy some produce, yet you allow yourself to sit in silence for a couple of minutes, hands lightly resting on the steering wheel and gaze lost somewhere far away. And when you finally decide to start your car, the radio blasting some latest pop song, your thoughts can’t help but circle back to the words you just read.
You
say… do you know anything about a certain piece of paper inside the book you gave me?
Darcy
a piece of paper?
oh shit is it the receipt for that blue shirt I’m supposed to return tomorrow? bc if I miss it again I’m gonna lose those 60 dollars for good 😭
You
I thought you returned that yesterday? btw I don’t know what it is, looks like a love note I think? is this your umpteenth “subtle” way to tell me I have to start dating?
Darcy
no you said you were coming with me tomorrow
oh? I have no clue what you mean 😇
maybe the books took pity on your nonexistent love life and are finally starting to write back to you? wouldn’t that be something?
You
fuck off 🙄
Darcy
love you too <3
“He could not be mistaken. There were no other eyes like those in the world. There was only one creature in the world who could concentrate for him all the brightness and meaning of life. It was she.”
You don’t notice it, but your smile lights up every corner of my world.
Love, B
The following week, the book comes home with you without attention, just another familiar weight in your bag that you don’t think twice about once class starts.
It’s only later in your apartment, when you are finally allowed to exist without answering to anything or anyone, that you reach for it again almost absently. Now comfortable on your couch, you are already halfway into the thrilling anticipation of losing yourself in yet another story that has nothing to demand from you, except attention.
Once you open it, something small slips out before you even register the change in weight. The folded piece of paper lands on your knees with no sound, yet you flinch anyway. For a long moment you just stare at it with wide eyes, because this can’t be an accident, not anymore.
The first note could have been an oversight, something forgotten, or probably meant for someone else. That’s why it had been easy, then, to push it into the background of your thoughts and let it become a harmless detail in an otherwise ordinary week.
Your fingers move before your brain fully agrees to it, the paper already familiar in its structure now: the same placement of a line from the book first, and beneath it, a simple, personal addition, almost disarming in how unremarkable it tries to appear.
Your eyes trace the words slowly, as if savoring every letter.
There is a particular kind of attention in it that doesn’t feel casual. Not in the way people are ordinarily kind, or polite. This feels like someone has been observing without announcing it, leaving behind traces of themselves instead of explanations.
When was the last time anything in your life felt like it was aimed at you specifically, rather than at the role you occupy, the version of you that is expected to respond in proper, predictable ways? And who would do something like this? Not in the dramatic sense of confessions, but in this understated, quiet way of slipping fragments of themself into pages, trusting that you would find them when you were meant to.
It feels almost intimate in its restraint.
And as your mind tries to analyze that, it naturally reaches for an old memory—an unconscious comparison. A place where you’ve been before, back when everything at work still felt new and open.
At some point in the last months of your previous relationship, your ex was part of your life like those people who exist just close enough to feel superficially involved. There were evenings you’d come home carrying the day still alive in you: students who had sparked a debate with their brilliant answers; stimulating discussions that had shifted something in your thinking; all the small, unremarkable moments that shaped your job into something more than a simple obligation.
He listened as if you were talking about the weather.
And over time, you learned how to adjust yourself around that. To smooth out the edges of your enthusiasm before offering it.
Your jaw tightens at how miserable you were.
After you broke up, you didn’t stop loving love. You just stopped expecting it to arrive in a form that chose you back. Books filled that space more easily than people ever did, love stories especially—those could be held at a distance, experienced without consequence. You could allow yourself to feel everything without needing to risk what came after.
Until now.
The note in your hand doesn’t feel like it was ever meant to remain tucked away between the pages of a book. But you have to remind yourself to keep your feet on the ground. It’s too easy to misread things like this, assigning meaning where none is intended.
You should stop here. You almost fold it back and place it on the coffee table like an afterthought, ready to jump straight into the first page. But then, uninvited, a face appears at the edge of your memory.
The person you have seen behind the desk more than once. The way he looks up too quickly when you approach, as if he can sense your presence the moment you cross the threshold. The carefulness of his voice when he speaks to you. The way he seems to take up less space when you are near.
James.
You exhale sharply, as if that alone can dismiss the thought.
Sweet, kind and clumsy in a way that makes him easy to underestimate and difficult not to notice. But also younger, and most importantly, your student once, even if those years have settled behind you both by now.
There are boundaries that people like you don’t cross. And yet, the thought refuses to leave.
Sighing, you fold the note with precision, as if returning it to order might also restore the sense of control you are gradually losing track of. You tell yourself, as you set it aside, that there is probably a logical explanation behind this. Many things sound unreasonable when analyzed under the microscope between the walls of your own mind. But even as you try to convince yourself of that, you are aware that something in the air between you and that possibility has shifted. This is starting to become a pattern, and patterns begin to ask for interpretation whether you want them to or not.
The thought of someone seeing you as a creature that could hold that kind of light is enough to make your lips curl into a serene smile for the rest of the night.
“Do I love you? My god, if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches.”
You seemed a little tired today. I hope you’re being gentle with yourself.
Love, B
Sam is the reason Bucky is outside at all.
“Man, if I have to watch you reorganize the same shelf one more time, I’m reporting you.” He had said an hour earlier, already halfway to the front door before Bucky could argue. “You need air. Sunlight. Human interaction that isn’t whispering.”
“I talk to people.” Bucky had protested under his breath, grabbing his jacket anyway.
“Yeah,” Sam shot back, holding the door open. “At a volume only ghosts can hear.”
Now they’re crossing the quad on their way back to lunch, the faint bitterness of coffee still lingering on his tongue as the campus feels alive but not too overwhelming. Students are scattered across the grass, their smiles tired and their bags dropped carelessly by their side.
Sam is talking about something Bucky isn’t entirely following, gesturing with what remains of his drink, when it happens.
The collision is light, but the consequence is deadly for his poor heart.
You’re walking toward them from the opposite path, a heavy tote bag slipping slightly from your shoulder, completely focused on something you’re pulling out of it.
Bucky sees you before you see him but he doesn’t move out of the way fast enough. The impact of your arms bumping is barely more than a firm brush, but it’s enough to knock the balance out of what you’re holding.
“Oh shit, I’m so sorry!” Bucky startles, already reaching forward as the books in your arm tilt dangerously. You manage to catch most of them, but a few slip free anyway, hitting the concrete with a dull thud.
“No no, it’s okay, that was me.” You apologize quickly, crouching down to pick them up, though you’re a fraction slower than usual, like your body is lagging behind your intention.
He is already on the ground, hands closing around your books before you can reach them, then arranging them in a neat stack.
“Sorry.” He mutters again, offering them back to you, though he doesn’t let go right away, not when you look this tired. Your fingers brush against each other for an ephemeral moment, causing a shiver to run down his spine, and when you straighten up, your eyes finally land on him.
“Oh, James!” Your eyebrows lift in surprise, voice warming almost instantly. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Bucky parrots back, a little breath caught in the word.
Up close, it’s easier to notice the heaviness under your eyes and the lazy curve of your smile—it takes a bit more effort to reach your face. Yet it’s the sparkle he’s used to see in your movements that worries him the most. The energy is still there but buried a little deeper than usual.
“You okay?” The question slips out before he can filter it, his eyebrows furrowing.
You blink, caught off guard not by the question itself but by how swiftly and directly he gets there.
“Yeah.” You nod at first. A small, polite answer that is meant to close the subject rather than invite more questions.
Although Bucky doesn’t say anything, something in his expression must give him away, because you let out a small breath that turns into a self-deprecating chuckle.
“Is it that obvious?”
He shrugs, a little awkward now that he realizes he crossed a line.
“Only if you’re paying attention.” He mumbles, then promptly looks down, like he’s said too much.
“Okay, I’m a little tired.” You admit, shifting the books against your chest. “It’s been a long week, nothing to worry about.”
Bucky hums pensively, like he’s been expecting that answer. “Yeah, you look—” He stops himself, frowning. “Not bad. Just—tired.”
You beam properly for the first time that day, a hint of amusement breaking through the lack of sleep.
“Wow. You really know how to cheer a woman up.”
“I didn’t mean—” His eyes go comically wide. “I just—”
The words trip over themselves before he can stop them.
“You are always beautiful.” He blurts out, too fast, too honest.
You still, eyebrows raised in shock. But as Bucky feels his stomach drop somewhere near his shoes, your expression brightens in a way that he almost feels like he has died and gone to his own personal heaven.
“Oh, thank you.” You momentarily glance down, a coy smile taking over your lips. Your voice is a low, breathy thing, but it lands heavier than anything else in the conversation so far.
His brain scrambles uselessly for damage control, for something to say that might undo the moment, but everything just sounds worse before it even forms completely.
Behind him, Sam lets out a quiet, poorly concealed snort, but Bucky ignores it.
“I—” He starts again, yet you’re still smiling at him. Which, somehow, makes it infinitely worse.
“You should get some rest,” he swallows, in a last, desperate attempt to direct the conversation. “If you can.”
It’s simple, a bit clumsy even with the way he can’t seem to meet your eyes as you study him like you’re not used to people saying that and meaning it.
“I will,” you nod. “Thank you, James.”
His hands twitch at his sides, wishing he could offer to carry your books, your bag, or say something useful, something that might actually help and not further push him to hide forever—but words fail him, dying in his throat.
You shift your weight slightly, lips parting as if you are about to say something else, when your gaze flicks past Bucky’s shoulder and lands on the man watching the scene like his favorite reality show.
“Oh—Sam?” You greet him, a little surprised.
His friend straightens immediately, stepping forward with a grin that’s just a little too knowing.
“Miss—” He starts, out of instinct more than anything else.
You groan softly, already shaking your head. “Oh God, no. Please don’t. We are not doing that.” You chuckle. “We are almost colleagues at this point. Or close enough, Doctor Wilson.”
Sam lifts his hands in surrender. “Force of habit.”
“It makes me feel ancient.” You add jokingly.
“You look far from ancient, professor.” Sam shoots back easily with a friendly wink.
Bucky glances between the two of you laughing like two old friends, a knot forming in his throat at how naturally the conversation unfolds, how easily Sam fits into it.
“How are you doing?” You ask him, genuine interest threading through your tone.
“Good,” Sam crosses his arms to his chest. “A lot more busy. They’ve got me running around a lot, but I guess that’s part of the deal.”
“You’ll be great at it.” You state without hesitation.
Sam grins. “Yeah, I know.”
You laugh at that, shaking your head.
“I’m serious,” you add a tad more serious. “You’ve got the right instinct for helping people.”
Sam briefly glances down at that, not used to compliments. “I appreciate that.”
There’s nothing wrong—nothing Bucky can point to and say this is why—and maybe that’s what makes it worse. Your interaction with his friend isn’t forced, not tentative in the way it always seems to be with him. It flows, not leaving room for hesitation, and hesitation is the only language Bucky’s ever been fluent in.
His hands keep hovering uselessly at his sides before one of them comes up to rub the back of his neck, an old habit he falls into when he feels disquieted. For a moment, he considers stepping in, adding something—anything—but he wouldn’t even know where to begin. He would rather leave in silence than try inserting himself into a rhythm that would carry on just fine without him, and probably end up being ignored. Even if he knows rationally that neither of you would do that to him.
So he stays where he is, half a step behind, listening. As usual.
You nod once, satisfied, then glance back at Bucky.
“Well,” you give him a little smile, drained but real, adjusting your grip on the books again. “I should let you both get back to it.”
“Yeah,” It comes out as an involuntary whisper, so Bucky quickly clears his throat. “See you.”
“See you around, James.”
You give Sam a small wave, then turn, walking across the quad until you gradually blend back into the movement of the campus.
There’s a beat of silence in which Bucky is still looking longingly in your direction, when Sam exhales.
“Wow.”
“I mean, wow.” He repeats at the lack of response, dragging the word out this time. “You just stand there and do that with no warning?”
“Do what?” Bucky mutters, already starting to move again.
His friend falls into step beside him, shaking his head. “You ever notice you stop blinking around her or is that just me?”
Bucky shoots him a look. “Shut up.”
“I’m serious,” he continues, completely undeterred. “You were gone. I could’ve run around naked and you wouldn’t have even noticed.”
“I wasn’t that distracted.” Bucky replies flatly.
“Liar,” Sam counters. “You didn’t even know I was still there until she spotted me.”
Bucky can’t argue, because for once he’s right, but Sam doesn’t need to know that.
His friend shoots him a sidelong glance, lips already twisting into a small smirk. “You’re in trouble.”
He sighs tiredly, yet doesn’t even try to deny it.
“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope... I have loved none but you.”
I get the feeling I’m already in deeper than I have any right to be.
Love, B
Darcy called it a “fair” exchange, half-sprawled against the front desk earlier that afternoon while Bucky pretended to log the latest entry of the day, hopeful she would eventually forget the whole thing if he looked busy enough.
“I helped you with the note thing,” she stated, like it was a perfectly reasonable transaction. “I require my payment now.”
He had eventually agreed, which in hindsight felt like the first mistake of the day.
It’s simple, really. In and out. Pick a pastry, hand the money and run back to the library where words are predictable and the space knows his name.
But the cafeteria is loud, exposed. Trays clattering, chairs scraping, too many conversations overlapping so nothing can be separated cleanly. And too many people existing too close together without thinking about it.
Bucky moves through it like he’s slightly out of sync with the floor beneath him. He’s been here before throughout these past few years, of course. With Sam, Steve… even Darcy recently, when she drags him out on their breaks, talking the entire time so he doesn’t have to. But being here alone makes such an ordinary task sound impossible. He is suddenly aware of his damp hands and how he shouldn’t let them hover uselessly at his sides. Of his posture, too straight or not straight enough. Of the fact that no one is guiding him through the space with casual familiarity, splitting the crowd ahead of him with easy conversation that makes him feel less like an intruder.
Bucky eventually reaches the display case feeling like he’s halfway through a side-quest that tastes more and more like an ambush. Pastries sit behind the glass in neat rows, almost judgmental in their little safe corner, yet he doesn’t really see them. His focus keeps slipping, attention unable to find anything to attach itself to for more than a second.
Two options blur together in his mind.
He should just pick one. It doesn’t matter, it’s just pastries.
But he hesitates too long. A couple behind him shifts closer. Someone laughs too loudly nearby and it hits his ears too suddenly, his shoulders tightening instinctively, like his body is trying to make itself smaller.
He should choose. He should leave. He should do anything that involves not standing still like an idiot.
And then, without his permission, his eyes dart away mindlessly, stopping right to the far end of the room, on a face he knows too well. And the chaos is entirely forgotten.
You are here—always somewhere inside the rhythm of the building. But Mr. Fowler is here too, seated across from you like it’s the most natural arrangement in the world.
Professor Fowler is a math genius. He is always composed, always too comfortable in spaces that aren’t entirely his, sporting that cunning smile as if he were the sole keeper of the secret to having the last word in every conversation.
You are leaning forward, hands moving animatedly as you talk about something that matters more than anything else in the room. Maybe a student’s absurd answer in one of your quizzes. Or maybe is it something more personal? It doesn’t really matter, because Fowler is laughing and there’s nothing polite about that. He genuinely finds it funny. There is no hesitation, no carefulness.
And you answer that at once, smiling at him so easily.
That’s the first word that comes to mind, uninvited and unhelpful. Ease, Bucky realizes with unpleasant clarity, has a shape, and you and Fowler fit inside it without effort.
He has heard things before. Even if they came from voices that don’t matter, they start to form patterns when they repeat often enough in passing corridors, in the kind of giggles that bubble when something is slyly assumed.
Your names are linked together too lightly, followed by a glance that suggests there is nothing to confirm and nothing to deny, just the ultimate assumption everyone makes when two well-matched people keep ending up in the same orbit: both of them good-looking, established, sharp in their own fields. The sort of pairing that doesn’t need to be announced to feel plausible, which somehow makes it worse than a confirmation would have.
Bucky realizes he has stopped breathing properly at some point during that realization. His hands still hold nothing useful, and the counter is now farther than he remembers, his body having gradually drifted away without noticing.
Across the room, Fowler says something, and this time you laugh—properly, head tipping back and eyes squeezing shut. And there is nothing performative in it, only familiarity unfolding candidly between you like it has always been there.
It feels real.
And it doesn’t include him.
He should have left the moment this stopped feeling like speculation and started looking like certainty.
There are people who move through the world as if it already recognizes them, and people who don’t quite manage to step into that recognition without friction. So Bucky turns away and doesn’t look back.
There is no point in that, not when your smiles are for another man.
When he finally reaches the library, Darcy’s voice catches him before he can fully disappear into the stacks.
“Barnes,” she calls, far too bright for the way his day has just fractured. “Where is my muffin?”
“They ran out of pastries.” The shock at the way his own mind promptly provides him with a convincing lie doesn’t manifest on his face.
Darcy squints at his back like she is trying to decide whether something happened or it’s just one of his days. “You okay?”
With a non-committal hum, Bucky keeps walking until he’s standing in his usual dark corner, no memory of the steps in between and the people he brushed past along the way. The books are already there, waiting in the same order, and for a moment he simply stands in front of them.
Then, almost mechanically, he begins to rearrange them.
Not because they need it.
“She did not understand the beauty he found in her, through touch upon her living secret body, almost the ecstasy of beauty. For passion alone is awake to it.”
Sometimes I think standing too close to you would be enough to undo me. I find myself stopping thoughts before they become something I can’t easily take back.
Love, B
A single touch of his shoulder was enough for his cock to stir. Well, it wasn’t just that.
Bucky was talking with Steve in front of the library when he spotted you and Darcy making your way back after your break.
He didn’t realize he stopped speaking mid-response until Steve glanced at you and then back at him with understanding.
The effortless grace in your movements made it impossible for him to look away, a mixture of admiration and longing dancing in his own blue eyes... until they landed on your outfit. The skirt you were wearing moved differently than the ones he was used to, shorter and tight enough to sinfully cling onto the flesh of your thighs covered by sheer, light fabric that made his breath hitch embarrassingly loud.
And then you had come closer, and his knees almost buckled when he noticed how much skin your shirt was revealing. It’s pretty hot today and you were here for a conference organized by the Department of Literature. It’s only normal for you to put a little more effort in your outfits when you are not in class; you could be a little bit bolder.
The open collar was covering almost all of your breasts, still, the curve of your tits was completely visible for his eyes to feast upon.
The final blow was you touching him. You’re mid-sentence, when your foot caught on the uneven pavement, and his body just had to react before thinking. His hand was already around your waist, your fingers going for the nearest thing for support: his shoulder. You ground yourself for a moment as you corrected your step, thanking him with a sweet smile that will haunt him for weeks.
It was barely contact. An instinctive touch and nothing more.
Still, now he can’t stop the phantom brush of your digits on his covered skin from giving him goosebumps. Or the tingling sensation on his palm as it closes uselessly around nothing, trying to remember what the curve of your waist felt like.
It wasn’t long before Bucky had to excuse himself, conveniently holding his jacket in his arms because of the hot weather and low enough to hide his big bulge.
The walk to the restroom was nothing short of humiliating. He felt like every single pair of eyes was burning through his skin, judging him for popping a boner in the middle of a conversation with the prettiest woman in the world wrapped in tight silk and nylon.
It’s not the first time Bucky comes with your name on his lips, and images of you moaning and crying out under him rolling in his mind like the lewdest of movies. Still, it never happened in a public place.
As soon as he locks the door behind him, Bucky’s slacks are so unbearably tight he clumsily unhooks his belt, lowering them enough to relieve the growing pressure on his erection. He wishes to indulge in one of his perverted fantasies so bad, but it doesn’t feel right. Not here.
In a desperate attempt to calm down, he presses his back against the wall, sweat causing his hair to cling to his forehead and eyes squeezing shut. Until the image of the swell of your breasts comes back traitorously behind his closed eyelids, and that soon transforms into your naked tits bouncing in front of his face, nipples hard and glistening with his spit after he thoroughly kissed and sucked and pinched the sensitive nubs.
Yes, in his mind you are a sensitive little thing that needs her breasts worshipped. If he had a little more experience, Bucky is certain he could make you come just by toying with your nipples.
And then he thinks about that damn skirt. His fingers would lightly trace your soft skin covered by the pantyhose, ripping the fabric apart just to hear you gasp, and then taking his time in covering your pretty thighs with his mark.
Bucky always starts with the best intentions: slow, light touches, trying to make the pleasure last as long as possible. But he is far too eager to wait. He could learn to be patient for you, though. Edge you and himself for hours until you can’t take it anymore, indulge in your shaky thighs squeezing his head as his tongue teases your clit to bring you so close... and then pull away just to hear you beg and whimper for him to fuck you until you pass out, until the only thing your mind can remember is his name, and your pussy the shape of his cock.
A whimper claws out of his throat when his fingers instinctively reach down, wrapping around his length. Bucky is both long and thick, his palm sliding up and down, following the upward curve so easily. A shiver runs down his spine when he focuses on the tip, smooth and rounded, his hips jerking forward as his thumb smears precum across the crown.
He is sure you wouldn’t have any problems taking him. You are a determined, strong woman, and even if the stretches would burn at the beginning and your cheeks would be wet with fat tears of overstimulation, you’d still look down at him like a goddess with her favorite devotee, stubbornness burning in your eyes as you’d ride him with the little strength left.
Brows furrowed in concentration and head thrown back against the white wall, Bucky strokes his cock at a steady pace, lips parted around muffled breaths and low groans that fall into the palm pressed firmly against his mouth. At some point his eyes snap open, traveling down to the space between his legs, and his brain must really hate him, because it offers the image of you knelt there, shirt unbuttoned and skirt bunched at your hips, enough to expose your wet core. Your hand plays with his balls while your glossy lips stretch around his cock.
“Just like that, baby—fuck—”
His hips twitch in wild, frantic thrusts, the sloppy, wet sounds of his fingers picking up their pace echoing in the empty restroom. He is throbbing at the phantom feeling of your tongue tracing the veins and your lips closing around his tip to suckle on it like a damn lollipop.
He isn’t prepared for the violent, abrupt wave of pleasure that hits him only a few seconds later. Ropes of cum steadily paint his palm, a few, thin stripes spurting on the floor as his choked groans die behind pressed lips.
When the room finally stops spinning, Bucky tiredly slumps back against the wall, eyes accidentally falling on the mirror right in front of him. His chest heaves with rugged breaths and his hands are now dirty with his own cum. The sight makes his already red cheeks look like two tomatoes.
His cock is still out and half-hard—it makes such a crude picture next to his creased pants and underwear.
Only then shame curls hot in his belly.
“I have for the first time found what I can truly love—I have found you. You are my sympathy—my better self—my good angel.”
There are people you admire, and then there are people who quietly become part of how you think about everything else. I didn’t expect the difference to feel this irreversible.
Love, B
Classes have just let out, so the hallway is still quite full but thinning at the edges, students spilling out in clusters to move toward exits; some linger just a little longer than they need to. Bucky is standing off to the side, a folder tucked under his arm for the administrative office, waiting for the flow to clear before he moves.
You come out of one of the classrooms a few steps ahead of him, mid-sentence, turning slightly as you finish saying something over your shoulder to a student who stands by the door.
“That’s actually a really good point—just don’t stop there, okay? Push it a bit further and you’ll see where it goes. Actually, you know what? I have some articles about the psychological function of the Gothic in nineteenth-century literature, and I believe they could be very helpful for your essay. Just send me an e-mail to remind me, okay?”
The student nods, half-confident, half-lost, and you give her an encouraging smile before she heads off. You fully step into the hallway while adjusting the strap of your bag on your shoulder, and only then your distracted gaze lands upon him.
You shift the thick stack of papers in your arms, catching Bucky’s attention.
“Monthly assignments?” He guesses.
You glance down at the stack, then back at him, lips already curling knowingly.
“Unfortunately, yes.” Your shoulders move with a deep sigh. “And they all seem to have been written at three in the morning, which makes them… pretty creative.”
He huffs a quiet chuckle, a mix of sympathy and amusement.
“Yeah, can’t blame them.”
“I don’t even mind the lack of sleep,” you continue. “It’s the confidence. They’ll write something completely unhinged and still conclude it like it’s the most solid argument ever made.”
That pulls a real smile out of him.
“Honestly, I respect that.” He says before thinking too hard about it. Then, almost immediately, “Not—the unhinged part. Just... the confidence.”
Something about your laugh shakes the butterflies in his stomach.
“No, I get it. There’s something admirable about committing to a bad take.”
He nods along, then hesitates like he’s deciding whether to say the next part.
“Are they actually bad? Or just… not what you were expecting?”
Your head tilts a little, considering him for a moment.
“Some of them are bad,” you admit quietly. “But some are... uh, unfinished thoughts, yes. Like they’re almost there, but they stop right before it gets interesting.”
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “That’s worse, I think.”
Your eyebrows shoot up curiously.
“Because they could’ve been good... if they’d dared to go further.” He quickly explains, then immediately wonders if that sounds stupid. Too obvious. Too—
“Yes, exactly. Dare is the right word.” You sound elated to be finally understood. “They get scared.”
There’s a small pause in which you hurriedly look for one paper in particular, pulling it out from the middle of the stack.
“This one actually had a really good point,” you mumble to yourself as you frown at it, eyes smoothly skimming the text. “About how emotional restraint in early twentieth-century fiction isn’t absence, but displacement.”
Bucky looks up at that, interest showing on his features.
“Like—redirected?”
“Exactly,” you nod, a little more animated now. “But then they just didn’t follow it through.”
“They could’ve tied it to narrative voice,” he muses. “How what’s left unsaid actually shapes the way the story is told.”
“Yes!” You smile. “That’s what I thought.”
There’s a flicker of something in your expression—approval, maybe, or just satisfaction—that gives Bucky enough confidence to continue.
“Do you ever…” He clears his throat. “I mean—do you ever feel like they just don’t trust their own ideas enough?”
Your smile turns a little gloomy.
“All the time.” You shake your head. “They think there’s a ‘correct’ answer they’re supposed to land on, so they don’t follow their real thoughts on the matter.”
He nods, more certain now that the conversation is finding its rhythm.
“Yeah,” he agrees. “Like they’re writing for approval instead of… figuring something out.”
You hold his gaze for a second longer than before.
“You read my mind.”
The words settle between you with finality, your gaze meeting his, surprised at first, like you’re still turning the conversation over in your mind. And Bucky doesn’t lower his eyes like he usually would.
He holds it, because stepping away first would mean breaking this rare moment he gets to enjoy just existing with you. Because there’s a soft attentiveness in your expression that makes it hard to pull back from.
Like he’s worth listening to.
The moment stretches for a second too long. Then another, until it no longer feels like a mere pause in a conversation, and giving away even the slightest of hints about his feelings for you is enough to scare Bucky into talking again.
He clears his throat first, the sound cutting abruptly through the quiet hallway as he looks down at the papers like they’ve suddenly become very important.
“Uh—” He has no idea how to finish that.
You blink like you’ve just been pulled out of a dream, your posture adjusting slightly as you look away as well, fingers tightening just a little around the stack in your arms.
A small, almost embarrassed breath leaves you.
“Yes—” You murmur, then shake your head faintly, as if resetting yourself. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s—” He mentions at the same time, then cuts himself off, heat uncomfortably creeping up the back of his neck.
The brief, clumsy overlap of words goes nowhere, but then you shift your weight, grounding yourself back into something familiar, something safe.
“Actually,” you take a small step closer, a little more composed now. “While I have you—”
His head snaps up a bit too fast at your wording.
“I wanted to ask you something about one of the students who’s been coming to the library a lot—tall, always looks like he hasn’t slept in three days? His name’s Peter. Peter Olson.”
Bucky blinks, searching his memory.
“… That doesn’t narrow it down much.” He admits hesitantly.
An embarrassed chuckle falls from your lips. “Fair. Mmh, well he usually sits by the back tables. Keeps switching books every couple of hours like he’s looking for something and not finding it.”
“Oh,” Bucky perks up. “Yeah. I know who you mean. The one who wears the same grey hoodie every day?”
“Yes, that’s him!” You snap your fingers. “I was just wondering if you knew him, since he spends so much time there. Has he ever said anything to you?” Your brows furrow. “Or anyone you know? He’s been struggling in class, and I can’t tell if it’s the material or something personal.”
It’s not the question per se that catches him off guard, but the way you ask it. Not like it’s your job, like you’re obligated to care.
“He doesn’t talk much,” Bucky starts slowly. “But he stays late. Sometimes he just plays games on his phone until we close.”
You nod pensively, like that confirms something.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. I might check in with him,” you mutter, more to yourself than to him. “Just... in general.”
You glance back at Bucky then, a soft smile already brightening your features.
“Thank you so much.”
He shrugs, hoping to come across as nonchalant as Sam. “Yeah, of course. Anytime.”
You shift your grip on the papers again, but you don’t move away immediately. Instead, you squint at him.
“Hey, are you doing okay?”
The question lands unexpectedly.
He blinks. “Yeah.”
You tilt your head slightly. “Just yeah?”
He chuckles at that. “I swear,” he repeats, a little more honest this time. “I’m good.”
You hold his gaze for a second longer, like you’re deciding whether to believe him or not. Despite your initial doubts, you nod anyway.
“Okay.”
No lecture, no attempt to force him to speak.
“Well,” you announce ruefully, taking a step back. “I really need to go and start grading these now. Thank you again, James.”
“No problem,” he gives you a thin-lipped smile. “See you around, and good luck with those.”
Bucky stays there minutes after the shape of your body has disappeared behind a corner, the folder meant for the administrative office still waiting in his hands.
Nothing big just happened. It was just a normal conversation, honestly. You didn’t say anything extraordinary, nor did anything that should linger in his chest like this. You talked about literature and essays. You exchanged ideas. You asked about a student. You asked about him... And then you let it be enough.
Later, when he’s alone, it comes back to him in pieces—the subtle pride burning in his chest at being on the receiving end of that kind of attention, like he exists in the same category as everything else you choose to care about.
“Her presence altered the flow of time itself, making the hours feel lighter when she was near and heavier when she was gone.”
I’ve started measuring time around the moments you are by my side. I didn’t realize how much that would change things until I started noticing the difference when you are not there. Something in me refuses to settle properly without you in my day. Am I going mad, or does that happen more easily than people like to admit?
Love, B
Irritation curls hot in his chest as Bucky focuses on his phone, on the message from Steve warning him he’s running late. Waiting alone like this has never sat well with him, not when the constant sense of not belonging thrums high in his veins.
He steps forward in line anyway—they discovered this quaint café years ago while looking for a place to study for the days they actually didn’t feel like opening a book at all—barely paying attention to what he’s ordering, until a familiar voice cuts through the jazz melody coming from the speakers.
“James?”
He turns around in surprise, because there you are, sitting at one of the tables by the window, one hand wrapped around a cup, the other lifting in a small, happy wave when you catch his eye.
His body stiffens at once.
There’s no distance of a desk between you, no quiet formality shaping the interaction, like a college hallway. You look… softer, somehow. Draped in light fabric that catches the faintest movement of your body even when you’re still. It’s a dress that falls more naturally than the usual careful lines of trousers and shirts he associates with you.
Why does Bucky feel like he’s committing the sweetest kind of sin, seeing this version of you that belongs entirely to yourself?
His phone is still in his hand, screen gone dark, but he doesn’t even register the weight of it, because in that moment, there is just you in a pretty dress and afternoon light, smiling up at him like you are an angel genuinely delighted to see him.
Only then does he remember he is supposed to respond.
“Oh—hi.”
“Hi,” you echo, your smile growing—easy and relaxed, fitting perfectly into a sunny Saturday morning. “What are you doing here?”
“Uh—waiting. For Steve.” He gestures vaguely with his phone. “He’s late.”
You laugh, a quiet, knowing sound. “Always the last one to arrive and the first to go away. I see nothing has changed.”
Your hand points at the empty chair in front of you. “You can come sit, if you want. I’m waiting for my friends too.”
It’s said so casually, like it doesn’t require consideration.
Bucky hesitates anyway.
“Are you sure?” He is immediately aware of how unnecessary the question is.
“Of course! We can keep each other company.” You bubble. “I don’t bite.”
That gets a small, startled huff out of him—half laugh, half whimper—before he steps closer to you than he’s ever been.
The first few minutes are clunky.
Bucky sits a little too straight, hands not quite knowing where to go, fingers brushing the edge of his cup like he needs something to keep him anchored to reality. His answers are short at first, slightly off-beat, but you don’t let the conversation stall.
“How’s work been?” You rest your chin on your closed hand.
“Uh—good. Quiet. Mostly just… books.” He winces a little at his lame answer.
“That’s literally my favorite category of things!”
A quiet chuckle escapes him, some of the tension easing from his shoulders thanks to your cheerfulness.
“Yeah, I figured.”
“You get to spend your whole day around them,” you continue. “That sounds like a dream to me.”
He shrugs, a reflex more than a response. “It’s just… temporary. You know, nothing serious.”
You don’t answer that right away.
“Temporary doesn’t mean meaningless,” you explain calmly. “And being around something you love every day isn’t small, James. Most people don’t even get close to that.”
He opens his mouth to respond—out of habit more than anything—but doesn’t have anything ready for that, in fact. And you don’t push it, opting to take a sip of your drink.
Sometimes silence says more than words ever could.
Somewhere along the conversation, things shift.
Maybe when you start telling him about one of your classes and how a student arguing with you over an interpretation somehow made you rethink your own reading of the text. Maybe when he finally finds himself asking a question without rehearsing it first. Maybe when you laugh again, and this time he doesn’t freeze around it.
“You let them argue about Joyce with you?” His eyebrows shoot up, a hint of disbelief slipping through.
“Of course!” Your eyes widen, like it’s obvious. “That’s the fun part. Otherwise it’s just me talking to a bunch of nodding heads for two hours.”
The corners of his mouth lift properly this time, not the small, careful version he usually allows in public.
“Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”
You agree with a shake of your head, taking a sip of your second cup of latte. “You’d be good at it, actually.”
That catches him off guard.
“At… teaching?” He tentatively asks.
“Yeah. You pay attention. That’s half the job.”
He doesn’t know what to do with that either. So he just nods, a little slower this time.
“Have you ever considered that?”
His brows furrow in surprise. “Actually... no.”
You don’t react immediately, and for a moment he thinks the conversation might just drift away on its own, like so many of the others have, but instead you tilt your head slightly, studying him with that same quiet attentiveness that never fails to bring a blush to his cheeks.
“I’m serious,” you add, softer now. “You make people feel like what they’re saying matters. That’s rarer than knowing things, honestly. You can always study content, but some people never learn how to make someone want to keep talking.”
No one has ever framed him like that before, as if it were something worthy of praise rather than just a byproduct of him being timid, or quieter than most people.
His distant eyes drop briefly to the table as if the surface might offer him something solid to hold onto while his thoughts rearrange themselves around the idea, his fast heartbeat almost drowning any other sound at how beautifully you keep describing him and his job.
“I never thought about it like that.” He murmurs, not sure if it was meant for himself only.
You don’t push it further, just lean back into your chair with a serene smile.
“I’m telling you, there is a difference,” a voice behind you abruptly ripples through the quietness. “You can’t just say a flat white and a latte are the same thing.”
You flinch at the rising volume of the statement.
“They are basically the same thing,” another voice argues back, annoyed. “It’s milk and coffee. That’s it.”
“That’s like saying all literature is just words on paper. Don’t be ignorant, Joe.”
Bucky’s gaze flick up to you at once, a sparkle of amusement dancing in his eyes, like he’s silently asking if you’re hearing this too.
You are, clearly, because you’re biting your lips so hard to avoid laughing and draw their attention.
“There’s a texture, there’s a ratio—there’s an actual difference if you pay attention.”
“I am paying attention,” Joe replies, sharper now. “I just don’t think it’s worth pretending it’s deeper than it is, Mary.”
“That’s not pretending,” she counters quickly, almost cutting over him. “That’s just… caring about things.”
He lets out a short, disbelieving snicker. “No, that’s overcomplicating things that don’t need it.”
“Right, because you hate when things get too complicated.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know very well what I mean, Joe.”
“It’s coffee, Mary.” The guy insists exasperated, but there’s something defensive in his voice now, less certain. “You’re acting like it’s a personality trait.”
“Maybe it is,” she snaps back. “Maybe the way people choose things does say something about them.”
“Or maybe you just want it to.”
“Or maybe you just don’t notice anything.”
And just like that you watch Mary stomp out of the coffee shop with a sighing Joe right on her heels.
There is a brief, silent pause in which you and Bucky just stare at each other, before you both burst out laughing.
“They’re not wrong, you know?” You breathe out, still smiling. “People get very attached to their preferences to the point it becomes a personality trait.”
Bucky leans back a fraction in his chair now, more at ease than he had been at the start.
“I think it’s less about the coffee,” he crosses his arms to his chest. “And more about wanting to be right about something.”
You hum around a sip of your drink. “Or wanting something small to feel important.” You argue back. “It’s easier to defend a preference than to admit it doesn’t really matter.”
“Do you think people actually taste the difference,” he asks after a moment. “Or they just decide they do?”
A grin takes over your lips.
“I think sometimes they decide first,” you rest your chin back against your hand. “And then convince themselves their senses agree with them.”
It feels like that explanation applies to more than just coffee, to more than just the harmless debate that unfolded right behind you between two strangers who you will probably never meet again.
His gaze lingers on you for a second longer than necessary before he looks down again, almost unconsciously.
“Well, I think I’m in trouble.” His grin is poorly concealed.
That makes you smile. “Why?”
“Because I don’t think I’ve ever made a defining coffee decision in my life.”
“That’s fine,” you gesture with your hand. “Not everyone needs to be a person of conviction.”
He squints his eyes at you. “I feel like that’s not a compliment.”
“It wasn’t.”
He huffs out a laugh through his nose, shaking his head at your serious expression.
“Movies are like that too.”
That catches his attention a little more.
“What do you mean?”
“Everyone has one classic opinion they feel morally obligated to defend.”
“That’s… accurate, unfortunately.” He rolls his eyes, suddenly reminded of his sister and her obsession with Casablanca.
You lean back a little in your chair. “Like people who act like you personally attacked their family if your favorite movie is not some... I don’t know—” You gesture loosely with one hand. “French, silent short film from the twenties.”
Bucky closes his eyes tiredly, head falling back. “God, I hate those people.”
“I kinda am those people.” You eventually admit with a smirk.
That earns you a look.
“I’m joking!” Your giggle is so contagious his own lips twist into a small smile. “Well, maybe sometimes...” Your index finger rhythmically taps your chin as you think for a few seconds.
“I just love classics.”
“I don’t... actually like most classics.” He scrunches his nose.
You blink, slightly taken aback. “That sounded like a confession.”
“It felt like one. I’ve never told anyone.”
You lean forward in interest, whispering conspirationally. “Okay, so which ones don’t you like?”
He hesitates for a moment, like he knows this is about to become a problem. “Grease.”
Your expression falls at once, humor slipping away just as quickly as it came.
“What?”
“I didn’t say I hated it.”
“That’s worse.” Your eyebrows shoot up.
“How is that worse?” He frowns.
“Because it means you watched it and still chose neutrality.”
He stumbles over his words, hands raising in defeat. “Wait, wait. I didn’t choose anything. I just didn’t... connect with it.”
You straighten up slightly. “That’s not allowed.”
His lips press together, trying to hide a smile. “Why not?”
“Why?” You balk. “Because it’s Grease, James!”
“That’s not an argument.”
“It is culturally! It’s been around forever for a reason.”
That makes him laugh properly this time.
“Well, now I feel like Joe.” You chuckle at that, shaking your head in fake disappointment.
“This is exactly what I meant about people having strong opinions about things they don’t care about.”
You tilt your head at that, mildly affronted. “Excuse me, I care deeply.”
“It’s a musical.”
“It’s one of the musicals.”
At that point Bucky leans back on his chair with a glint of delight dancing in his eyes. “So I’m not allowed to just… not like it?”
“No.” You shrug, lips already twisting into a grin.
It makes him smile again, his ears burning a little at the fleeting realization that he just had a funny banter with you without making a fool of himself.
“Okay.” He sighs resignedly. “Then what do I get to dislike without being judged?”
You think about it seriously, arms crossing to your chest as you look out of the window.
“Ah!” Your face lights up. “Modern remakes of classics.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “That’s safe?”
“That’s universally safe.”
“I feel like you’re setting me up.” He squints at you.
“I swear I’m not,” you lift a hand in sincerity. “That’s just objective truth.”
Bucky’s blue eyes study you for a moment with something you can’t fully decipher, ultimately opting for a thin-lipped smile. “You’re impossible.”
His gaze inevitably falls on your lips, so lost in his own thoughts that he doesn’t notice the way your own lies on his.
However, your phone lights up, the strong vibration of an incoming text breaking the spell. Bucky suddenly straightens up, expression sobering now that he has been pulled out of whatever quiet complicity had settled between you. Meanwhile, you throw the screen a quick glance, then your eyes fall back on him.
“My friends are here.”
Bucky moves quickly, pushing his chair back with too much strength, the scrape of it against the floor making a few heads turn.
“Steve isn’t here yet, right?” You ask, and then, more tentative. “Stay.”
As if surprised by your own request, you correct yourself frantically. “I mean, if you want to, of course. I just… I’d really like it if you stayed. I can introduce you to my friends.”
That’s when Bucky stops entirely.
Your eyes are so hopeful and devastatingly pretty, your expression open at how uncomplicated the request is even if it clearly costs you something to make it.
He almost says yes.
It’s there, immediate, unfiltered, so close on his tongue. Because there’s no calculation, no expectation dressed up as politeness. Just the simple, disarming fact that you want him there.
Then the door opens. Voices spill in. Energy, movement, a kind of ease he hasn’t been part of in a long time.
And then—
Fowler.
Of course he’s here. Of course he belongs to this part of your life too.
Bucky bites his tongue and shakes his head before you can say anything else.
“No, it’s—I should go, really.” He is already stepping back. “Steve just texted. He can’t make it. I’ve got… stuff to do. Groceries.”
He knows you can see through his lie, but he doesn’t really care to fix it right now. Still, that small shift in your expression—disappointment flickering in your eyes before you smooth it over with a polite smile—shatters his heart to pieces.
“Oh. Okay,” you nod. “Well… I’ll see you on Monday, then?”
“Yeah,” his voice dims. “Yes. Monday.”
He doesn’t trust himself to stay longer than that.
Outside, the air suddenly feels colder than it should for a morning of late spring.
His feet don’t stop moving until he’s across the street. Then he turns back, even if he knows what’s going to see will make him lie awake all night.
Through the window, he can still spot you—only now you’re not across from him, not contained in that small, manageable space of a shared table.
You’re part of an organized mess, alive and warm. Inside jokes repeated over the years and questions that require only a knowing look.
Your friends lean in, talking over each other, laughter overlapping easily, and you’re right there in the middle of it—the center of it all—responding without hesitation, without that small pause he’s come to recognize when you speak to him.
Fowler is closer than that day in the cafeteria, seamless in the way he occupies the space beside you. You laugh at something he says, and it’s probably the same laugh he has heard just a few minutes ago. It shouldn’t matter but Bucky stands there longer than he means to. Long enough for the pit in his stomach to return and set him a few steps back in your blooming friendship.
Could he even call it that, what you had? Talking about literature, stopping for a meaningless chat in the hallways, and randomly bumping into each other on a Saturday morning?
He is just an acquaintance. Those are your friends. They fit in a way that doesn’t require adjustment, that doesn’t need to be questioned.
And Bucky thinks about how long it took him to stop tripping over his own words, how even at his best, it had taken effort to reach something that, for Fowler, seems to exist without trying.
He thinks about his job. Replaceable. A placeholder more than a direction.
He thinks about the way his life still feels like it’s waiting to start.
Your life looks full, complete in a way his isn’t. And the people in it... they belong there. They’ve already figured out what he’s still trying to understand.
He exhales slowly, the sound barely leaving his chest.
Whatever existed in that small space between the two of you inside that café, it’s meant to stay there. It doesn’t extend here and it never will.
This time, when he turns away, he doesn’t stop again.
By the time Bucky reaches the end of the street, the decision has already been made, agonizing but certain.
Tomorrow will be his last note.
“The human heart has a way of making itself large again even after it's been broken into a million pieces.”
I didn’t know how to write these notes in a way that didn’t sound like I was still your student trying to impress you. I think I’ve been confusing proximity with possibility, standing too close to something I was never meant to touch. I’m still a temporary version of myself, still borrowing space. Time. Confidence. And I don’t think I’m the kind of man you would ever choose. You… you’re not temporary. You come into people’s lives to brighten them with your presence, and I don’t believe I am worthy enough to deserve that kind of warmth.
So I think this is the right thing to do.
I am going to let you go.
Not because I want to, but because I don’t know how to keep loving you without shattering into pieces, until there’s nothing left to recognize.
Always yours, B
You don’t make it home today. The thought of this small, unexpected thing finding its place in your life without asking permission, like it has belonged there all this time, always returns persistently in the back of your mind. It has translated into pure anticipation of what you’ll find next inside your books, and today it has been impossible to ignore since the moment your eyes opened. You catch yourself thinking about it between lessons, tasks, in the small pauses where it blends with the image of a certain person, already fantasizing about what’s going to happen the next time you’ll see him again.
By the time you step into the library, you’re already smiling to yourself. It’s ridiculous, you know that. Nothing about a person anonymously writing you love notes should matter this much, it shouldn’t feel this addictive.
Despite the fact that the initial on the notes had been easy to dismiss at first, something vague enough to ignore, it gradually became impossible not to imagine a certain someone behind those words. You told yourself you’re being irrational, but as much as your brain tries to keep you grounded, it can’t stop your pulse from picking up every time that possibility takes hold in your thoughts.
You don’t rush, not outwardly. But there’s a lightness to your steps, a quiet impatience that shows in the way your fingers tighten slightly around the cover, in how quickly your gaze moves past Darcy. The world feels just a little less interesting compared to what you’re about to read.
It’s been a long time since anything has made you feel like this. Or, anyone.
You slip away from the main aisle, drawn toward a quieter corner where shelves grow narrower and the sun doesn’t quite reach that far in. Your fingers are already finding the page before you’ve fully stopped walking, a warm sensation blooming in your chest in a way that feels embarrassingly close to a suffocating excitement. And when the folded paper finally reveals itself, tucked exactly in the middle of the book, your smile grows, unguarded and bright.
For a brief, suspended moment, everything feels exactly as it should.
You finally stop between two rows of thick books, hands closing around the edges of the note with a familiarity that shouldn’t feel so natural. For a second, your thumb presses along the crease, tracing it once—enough for you to take a deep breath and calm down your wild heartbeat.
The quote registers first—your mind catching its tone before its meaning fully settles—and then your eyes move down, desperately looking for the rest. For an explanation.
Each line feels like a stab to your heart, those words completely stripped of the gentleness that had softened them until now. There’s no careful distance here, no hesitation disguised as sweet restraint. Whatever has been building silently inside your secret admirer has become an uncontrollable, raging sea, inevitably crashing your heart against the cliffs.
By the time you reach the last line, your breathing has changed.
Your palm rests on your mouth in an instinctive attempt to contain a sob. Your eyes sting without permission, blurring the edges of the words still lingering in your mind.
You read it over and over again.
It’s a goodbye.
And it doesn’t make any sense.
Nothing in the notes before had prepared you for this abrupt ending, for the certainty that your fate has already been decided without you. You try to trace it back, to find the moment where it might have shifted, something you might have missed—a look, a conversation, anything that could explain how it reached this point.
But there’s nothing.
Only the unsettling realization that someone has been feeling this deeply, this painfully, somewhere just outside your awareness. And now they’ve chosen to step away.
Your grip tightens around the paper.
The ache that follows in your chest surprises you more than anything else. These notes had become a small but constant reminder that someone out there saw you as something more than your role and a polite smile. You hadn’t fully realized how much of them you carried with you every day until now.
It had become a possibility you never allowed yourself to name. And now it’s being ripped away from you before you’ve even had the chance to decide if you wanted it.
A wet breath leaves your lips, the paper trembling faintly between your fingers as you lean back against the sturdy shelf, hands stiff on your thighs as you clench your jaw, trying to stop your chin from wobbling so embarrassingly fast in a public space.
That’s why you don’t hear him at first.
Bucky lethargically turns into the aisle with a few books in his arms, already half-thinking about where they belong. He slows when he notices someone ahead, instinctively preparing to move past without disturbing them.
Then he recognizes you, and his body locks into place.
You’re standing too still, your posture drawn inward in a way that doesn’t belong to you. Your bag has slipped from your shoulder, probably without you noticing, because it hangs awkwardly in the bend of your elbow. The fabric of your shirt was dragged with it, the collar now slipping just enough to expose the slope of your shoulder and your collarbones, the seam no longer primly sitting where it should.
You look… undone, in the most mortifying of ways.
And then his gaze drops. In your other hand, a book barely held, your fingers curled around it without intention, like you forgot it was there.
Realization hits fast enough to make his stomach turn, sharp and sudden.
His note.
The air leaves his chest in a shallow breath.
He had imagined you finding out, vaguely, distantly—but not like this. Not with you standing in one of the darkest corners of the library, alone and crying for the very thing he had convinced himself would never affect you so much.
A soft, shaky sniff pulls him sharply out of his thoughts, so Bucky decides that this is enough.
He steps forward, careful like approaching a wild, injured animal.
Your name comes out of his lips more hesitantly than he wants to admit.
Your chin lifts, a flicker of surprise, brief and disoriented, crosses your features, before you realize who is standing before you. At that point you straighten abruptly, instinctively composing yourself, though the traces of what you were feeling can’t disappear with a single swipe of your fingers.
“James.” You greet him with a slight bow of your head, your voice fainter than he has ever witnessed.
His heart hurts at the sight.
“Are you okay?” He whispers.
You nod too quickly. “Yes!” You exclaim, nodding eagerly. “Yes, of course. I’m fine, it’s just—” The sentence falters, dissolving before it can take shape. You shake your head then, swallowing. “It doesn’t matter.”
Bucky should leave. He set the decision in stone last night as he crafted his last note, deliberately, with the kind of resolve he doesn’t usually manage to hold onto for long. And even if right now you are shaken—holding onto that piece of paper that clearly matters to you more than he ever intended—Bucky should step back, let it end cleanly, before it could turn into something more complicated, more humiliating.
You’ll move on. In a few days, maybe a week at most, the notes will blur into a simple memory. You’ll return to your life, to the steady rhythm of it, to things that are real and lasting and meant for you. And eventually—months from now, years, it doesn’t matter—you might remember this with amusement. A strange, fleeting experience. A story to tell with a soft smile to your kids, about that shy, awkward student who hid behind borrowed words because he never quite had the courage to stand in front of you and speak them himself.
It’s exactly what he wanted.
But you’re still holding that damn piece of paper, and he knows every word written there.
“You don’t have to pretend.” He mumbles.
Your eyes lift to his again, searching now, something in his tone catching where everything else might have passed unnoticed.
“… James?” Uncertainty threads through your voice.
There’s a moment where he almost steps back, almost lets this dissolve into something safer.
“I didn’t think you’d read it here,” he blurts out, his voice strained at the edges. “I thought you’d take it home, or… later.”
Your back slowly straightens to face him as realization dawns on your face.
“You wrote this.”
Bucky nods, just once.
“I’m sorry.”
The apology comes quickly, choked, like it has been waiting all along in his throat.
“I shouldn’t have—I didn’t mean for it to end up like this.”
“Like what?” You ask, voice steadier despite tears still blurring your vision.
“Like you having to deal with it.”
You shake your head, a small, almost disbelieving movement.
“That’s not—” Your eyelids flutter shut momentarily, chest raising and lowering with a deep breath as you try to find the right way to say something that suddenly feels more complicated than it should be.
“Why would you think this is something I have to deal with?”
He lets out a short, humorless breath.
“Because it is,” he says with too much certainty. “It’s not something you asked for.”
“And you decided that for me?”
He hesitates. “No. I just… didn’t want to make it harder for you.”
“Harder how?” You press, stepping closer without fully realizing it.
Bucky takes his time to look at you, properly, and whatever he sees in your expression seems to unsettle him more than the fear of being rejected.
“Because I’m not—” His jaw clenches as he searches for words that don’t sound as inadequate as he feels. “I’m not someone you would choose.”
You stare at him with furrowed brows, because of how easily he says it, how certain it sounds, like he has already accepted it as an absolute, indisputable fact.
“That’s not your decision to make.”
“I’m not deciding anything,” he replies, though his voice breaks. “I’m just being realistic.”
“You’re not,” you say, taking another step closer. “You’re assuming.”
“I’ve seen enough to know,” he sighs, and there’s something in the way his voice tightens that suggests he hadn’t meant to say even that much. “It’s not—this isn’t about whether I feel something. That part was never—” He stops, swallows back an embarrassing sob that dissolves his words into a whisper. “It’s about where I fit beside you. And I don’t.”
You silently study how he’s holding himself tightly, slightly leaning back, like he’s already preparing to flee.
“That’s not your decision to make.” You shake your head, stepping closer again. “You’re being afraid.”
He can’t deny that.
And that’s when you close the distance.
Your lips meet in a tender kiss. It isn’t rushed, but it isn’t hesitant either. It’s a decision made without overthinking, without giving him space to retreat behind that safe prison of insecurity he built to protect himself from being hurt.
Initially, Bucky doesn’t move, eyes wide and arms rigid at his sides.
This doesn’t make sense. Your lips on his.
It’s only when one of your hands touches his cheek, warm and hesitant, the other settling over the uneven rhythm of his heart, that his palms lift, almost cautiously, like he’s afraid you’re going to disappear with a single brush of his fingers. Just a figment of his imagination. A beautiful, sweet lie.
He cradles your cheeks, the touch so fragile, like a breath caught between speaking and silence. And your lips part gracefully against his, his tongue gaining more confidence the more you tease it with yours.
Bucky’s a mess by the time you pull back, his ears ringing and his breath shaky. You don’t leave him completely, the tips of your noses still brushing as his eyes desperately search yours for the slightest hint of regret. But he finds none.
“I don’t understand,” he breathes out. “Why would you—”
“Because I want you, James.” You answer simply.
“That’s not—That’s not supposed to go like this.”
Your eyes close with a sigh, and when they flutter open again, Bucky has to swallow back another apology as a set fresh of tears makes them glow so prettily under the dim-light.
“What if I don’t see you the way you see yourself?” Your head tilts. “If I don’t think you’re temporary. If I don’t think you’re out of place in my life.”
There’s a long moment where he just observes you in awe, the certainty of being unwanted he held onto for so long unraveling piece by piece, replaced by something far more delicate yet warm. So warm his chest feels full.
“Then why didn’t you—” His voice breaks, the question catching in his throat.
“Because you never gave me the chance.”
This time, Bucky doesn’t look away. His shoulders loosen, gradually, finally allowing himself to live in the moment. One of his hands shakily moves from your face, like he’s still not entirely sure you are real, and settles lightly against your waist. His eyes follow the movement, grounding himself in your body to convince himself this no longer feels like a ridiculous dream.
“Can I—” His lips press together at your grin.
He doesn’t finish the question. Instead, he simply leans in.
This time, the kiss is his.
END NOTES: thank you so much for reading 💛 here is the link to the collab masterlist!
books quoted:
1. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
2. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
3. The Princess Bride by William Goldman
4. Persuasion by Jane Austen
5. Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
6. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
7. Il barone rampante by Italo Calvino
8. The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller
time to expose myself: I've never read some of these books. yes I suck, I'm a terrible person, I'm illiterate, whatever you want 😩 some I just studied; others I discovered thanks to this story. all the quotes come from a long, thorough and agonizing research on different websites about romantic quotes (😭) and reddit (I swear I always find some interesting info every time I look up a topic I have no knowledge about). I tried to make sure each quote comes from a book with love/romantic relationships as one of the themes, but again, I had never even heard about some of them until a few weeks ago, so my knowledge entirely comes from google. I apologize if the english translation of some quotes is not 100% correct, I had to translate those myself because I could only find them in their original language.
Marie, this was beautiful! And I’m so late, sorry.
I adore the yearn and how clumsy he is, like slamming the cart into a bookshelf because he’s so entranced by the reader’s existence. 😆 The idea to leave her notes that she only later realized she wasn’t ready to lose? 😩
Bucky fell in love with you.
Silently.
Completely.
And he never really found a way to fall out of it.
𓈒 ໒꒰っ ̫ ಇ ⸝⸝꒱ა ୭ৎ some of my fav♡rite Naoya Zenin x Reader fics ! 🍰 ˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡ disclaimer: this may not be for everyone since it contains noncon dubcon, incest etc. please comment/dm for removal , do not start drama. i am not trying to steal or impersonate anyone or anything. i just want to share. credits go all and only to the amazing writers. <3
- married off to naoya (ao3)
- brother naoya x reader sister (ao3)
- falling in love w naoya… (ao3)
- yandere naoya x reader (ao3)
- maid at the zenin clan (ao3)
- arranged marriage w naoya (ao3)
- changing naoya (ao3)
- k!dnapped by naoya (ao3)
- big sub reader x mean naoya (ao3)
- naoya using your feet (tumblr)
- brother naoya x reader sister (tumblr)
- naoya using his technique on you (tumblr)
- naoya eats you out, only to prove a point (tumblr)
- naoya thinks you should learn to shut up (tumblr)
- angry sex w husband naoya (tumblr)
- naoya takes your virginity (tumblr)
- degradation kink w naoya (tumblr)
- hate fucking husband naoya (tumblr)
- naoya loves using you whenever he wants (tumblr)
Content: contrary to popular belief, the fire lord can't have everything he wants. however, even he’d admit that what he wanted was troublesome in itself, which is why he forces himself to be okay with having you by his side as his advisor. [tw: MDNI, angst/fluff/smut, apothecary diaries coded, so much yearning and longing, porn with plot, there is no power imbalance he’s afraid of your father, zuko’s a little shit tho, we’re already married in his head] wc: 4.8k
m.list | chapter one | next chapter
“You want me to do your hair?”
His lips twitch, fighting back a smile. “Yes, precisely.”
You sigh as you step into the man’s chambers, walking up to the vanity that’s more fitting for a queen, in your opinion. If only people saw this side of the fire lord. Zuko, the pretty boy. He has zero insecurities over the scar his tyrant of a father left on his face, but he’d faint at the sight of seeing too much hair shed on the marble floors of his bathhouse.
“When you decide to have me summoned like this, do you ever wonder, hm— what would her father think?” you ask as you grudgingly pick up the boar bristle brush and begin to brush his hair.
“I do,” he dryly responds. “I like the way you do your hair, though, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell on me. You wouldn’t want me getting in trouble, right?”
Zuko might be the fire lord, but he still has to watch his relationships with the other clans in this nation— especially with a certain hot-headed strategist that just so happens to be your father. You can only imagine his outburst upon learning that his daughter is playing with the lord's hair, rather than playing your role as his advisor.
Most fathers would be pleased by the information— not yours, he’s a little more… strict. He already doesn’t like him from a joke made over a decade ago, suggesting you’d make a fine concubine, which wasn’t taken lightly.
Your father threatened to usurp the throne, sending a chill running down a then 21 year old Zuko’s spine.
There was no way in hell he’d hand you off to the imperial palace to become a concubine. You’re the only child of his that inherited firebending. If your father had it his way, you’d be a warrior, for fucks sake.
Lord Zuko may have a dry sense of humor at times, but you have your doubts about how much of a joke that statement was, especially with how much he likes to bug you throughout the day.
Perhaps another conflict should erupt— the man has too much time on his hands. Maybe then you’d fulfill your fathers wish of finally working in the military— put your talents to use, as he’d say.
But would Lord Zuko allow the gentle hands running through his hair to commit such violence? Or would that be when he’d draw a hard line with the aggressive strategist?
As progressive as he is, you sometimes wonder just how much it extends to you. Even as children, he’d go easy on you during trainings. He’s only grown softer with you as the years passed. Despite not being a concubine yourself, you wouldn’t be surprised if he saw you as one of the flowers in his garden— one he’s not allowed to touch.
You slide the hair stick through his headpiece, securing the top knot he had you redo. It looks the same, but you hold off on making a comment. “Is that better?”
“Much better.” His eyes meet yours in the mirror, lips curving into a sly smile. “Now— what are we doing today?”
We. You hate how much he likes to emphasize that at times.
“Well,” you sigh. “Aside from the usual council meeting, nothing much. Perhaps you can visit one of your concubines today… for once.”
He huffs out a laugh. “Are you saying I don’t fuck my concubines enough?”
“Precisely,” you say almost mockingly.
It’s all they ever complain about, and honestly, you’re sure you would, too, if you were one of them. Having to wake up and sit around all day, waiting for a man who never comes. And on the rare occasion that he does, he doesn’t stay long. He’ll show up, fuck the shit out of you for a couple rounds, then leave right after. Allegedly.
“Don’t you want an heir?” you ask.
“Depends,” he hums.
With the way he’s looking at you, you can already tell what it depends on, and it has nothing to do with his current concubines. Lucky for you, he never gets the chance to actually say it because he gets interrupted right after, putting a conversation you’d rather not have to a screeching halt.
“The council is waiting for you, my Lord.”
—
The silk district was notoriously known for two things: brothels and bandits. It was the wild, wild west compared to the other districts in the capital due to high crime and the growing wealth gap. The governments always kept a watchful eye on it, which was never enough in your opinion.
Are you surprised to hear that an entire brothel, including the madame, was discovered to be slain and robbed in the early hours of this morning? Absolutely not.
“Send more military officers to patrol the area,” the chamberlain says without hesitation. “We’ve been too lenient with them. If they want bloodshed, we’ll give them bloodshed.”
Yikes, he wants to rule the area with an iron fist when they’re already clearly struggling. You can’t help but think of how much of a dictator this guy would be if he were in Zuko’s place.
You make eye contact with the lord, who’s sitting at the end of the table right next to you. In that brief moment, he notices the concern in your eyes and gives you a subtle nod.
“Perhaps we can send more public aid?” you suggest. “They’ve been testing out a new rehabilitation program in Republic City as well. I’m sure the Silk District could benefit from—“
“Nonsense,” the chamberlain cuts you off, wondering why you’re even here right now— he thought you only assisted in matters within the court, not outside of it. “I-“
“Careful,” Zuko interrupts the man rather playfully as he continues to read through the scroll. “That’s the military strategist’s daughter you’re speaking to.”
The comment makes you nearly roll your eyes, knowing the only reason why he said it was because you’re having to constantly remind him yourself when he gets too close.
The chamberlain, however, straightens up immediately. You have no idea why it took him this long to realize it. He’s been here for nearly over a year, but at least he knows now. The chamberlain can be quite rude at times, you wouldn’t want him to slip up with your father in the room. Not only would that earn him an earful of insults that are as creative as they are hurtful, but it’d also be embarrassing on your part.
That old man embarrasses you enough when he’s around. Following you around like a lost puppy after meetings, asking if you’ve eaten and if your superiors are treating you right, while side eyeing the fire lord himself. You’d agree so yourself that he has too much power in the court. He enjoys holding it over everyone’s head even more. It’s sickening, really.
You look at the chamberlain, who is now pouting, and offer an apologetic smile. “May I continue?”
“Yes, of course,” the old man nods, struggling to hide his shame.
Always one for games, Zuko finds himself suppressing a laugh, which in turn makes the chamberlain’s slouch worsen. He’s grown to find more and more amusement in his daily tasks, a trait his father would definitely disapprove of— good thing he’s not here anymore.
The rest of the meeting went by as smooth as it could be, with the fire lord, of course, praising the chancellor in the end for being so well behaved, pretending to wonder what could’ve changed his usual demeanor. The usual teasings, all while you once again found yourself thinking of how light he’s become. Even after receiving such upsetting news, he stayed calm while finding a solution.
A humane one.
No longer the grumpy, angsty boy you grew up with. He’s actually quite charming. But you keep that to yourself.
The palace grounds are empty, as they should be during the afternoon. Everyone’s off either eating, napping, or tending to duties such as cooking or cleaning. It’s quiet, surprisingly peaceful. Your footsteps echo throughout the breezeway as Zuko defies the basic etiquette of walking ahead of you as a ruler should. Instead, the bastard walks a little slower than you. If given the opportunity, he’d turn it into a mini competition of who could walk the slowest, up until you both come to a full stop, with him looking at you all smug.
“Your chambers are this way,” you remind the said bastard as if he’d already forgotten.
He doesn’t bother to look back as he responds, walking down a gravel path leading directly to the flower garden. “How about we take a detour today, hm?”
You watch him for a moment, waiting to see if he’d stop. He doesn’t, and you shouldn’t be surprised by it. You’re able to catch up with him in just seconds given his slow pace, this time not bothering to walk behind him as he’s clearly in the mood to be extra stubborn today.
You’re all alone and away from the hearing distance of anyone else, yet you still choose to speak quietly as you start to gently tease the man. “What a surprise to see the king taking some time to enjoy his garden.”
He lets out a soft laugh that fades into a hum. “Only around a select few.”
“Oh, wow,” you pretend to be impressed. “How charitable.”
“It’s an honor that you think so,” he says, placing a hand over his chest to add to the theatrics, trying not to laugh once again. “Tell me, when was the last time you walked through here?”
You hum as you walk further into the sprawling garden filled with wooden arches covered with green vines and flowers in full bloom. “Can’t say I actually remember when.”
“That’s a shame. I had the gardener plant new rose bushes,” he murmurs. “Wanted to ask what you thought of them.”
“I think they’re lovely,” you admit, softly pinching a petal, rubbing your thumb over the velvety skin.
He smiles. “I figured.”
They were your favorite after all.
Why is he like this? The garden’s already filled with enough flowers. A new section wasn’t needed.
Again, he’s just bored.
In an attempt to keep the conversation from getting any more personal, you change the subject. “Are you looking forward to your trip to Republic City?”
At the end of the meeting, it was decided that he’d visit with the purpose of getting more information about the new rehabilitation program the city was rolling out. While the chancellor wanted to take a more aggressive approach, he decided to take a more peaceful route. It’s admirable how hands on he’s chosen to be since taking his father's place.
“Mhm. It’ll be nice catching up with some old friends while I’m there—“ he cuts himself off and looks at you with slight suspicion, “you’re going, right?”
You never said you would, nor did you want to, honestly. It’d be nice to take a break. “I’m sure you and some of your subordinates can handle it.”
“Weren’t you the one who came up with the idea, though?” his tone slightly clips as he reminds you.
“I was,” you respond tentatively, taking back your thoughts from earlier as you look him in the eyes.
This man looks like he’s about to throw a fit.
Zuko opens his mouth again, already knowing he shouldn’t be this pushy towards you, of all people, but he is far from perfect.
So with a forced smile and all the resolve in the world, he murmurs, “you’re going.”
You smile back despite feeling an annoyed heat creep up your neck, heart starting to pick up. “Alright.”
—
Imagine being the fire lord, a literal ruler, and getting the cold shoulder from your own advisor. Every answer is so curt and clinical, and it’s going to drive him up the wall.
Yes, my lord. Of course, my lord. Apologies, my lord.
Give him a fucking break.
As if you weren’t punishing him enough, you went ahead and had two of his concubines “accompany” him on the trip. It’s not like he can say no to that, either, since it’s considered to be one of his duties. Not to mention they both come from high-ranking families that would not be very pleased to hear of their neglect.
So now he has to deal with two spoiled, pent-up brats hanging on him during the entirety of this flight, all while trying not to glare at the biggest brat of them all— you, as you sit directly across from him, reading probably what’s some pathetic romance novel.
This is fucking ridiculous. You haven’t looked at him once since you first sat down.
You’re no better than him. There was a strike of lightning in the direction you walked off in, and given how it was a perfectly sunny day, he’s pointing his finger at you for the damages done in the east wing, despite keeping his mouth shut on the matter. Complain about being dragged to Republic City all you want, but you still have it better than most. If you really did have it that bad, you would’ve been punished for such an offense.
Like, seriously? Blowing shit up, like a fucking child— a terrifying one, to be frank, you are absolutely your father’s daughter— just because you had to do your job? Grow up. His grandfather’s statue was shattered in the midst of it all, thanks to you. You’re lucky he never liked the bastard.
In protest, you’re dressed like a noble's daughter rather than a member of the court. Wearing the finest silk and adorned in gold imported from the Earth nation, quietly refusing to represent your actual nation as you claim to be representing your clan— proof that you have enough power on your own to be acting like he’s actively denying you of basic human rights.
As if he even cared about your attire. Be his guest! You look fucking hot. Someone might even mistake you for one of his concubines, and he might just not correct them, since you think you’re more petty than he is.
Zuko gets pulled out of his thoughts when Concubine Aika speaks, still leaning against him and rubbing on his chest. She asked what book you were reading, which is when you finally looked up from it.
“It’s sort of an adventure novel.” You look at the cover, speaking to her with a certain warmth you’ve been depriving him of. “It’s about a girl escaping an abusive orphanage once she turns 18 and follows her journey for the next 10 years.”
So now you’re fantasizing about leaving him? Good luck with that.
“You look troubled, my lord,” the woman to his right, Concubine Saiyo, says. She’s leaning against him as well, now tracing her fingers along his jaw. “Are you alright?”
“M’fine,” he murmurs, trying to fix his face as he takes a sip of sake. “It’s been a long flight.”
“There’s a private cabin you can retreat to, if you’d like,” you suggest, going back to your little book, missing the way you just made the lord’s eye twitch.
“I know,” he says.
It’s his airship.
Without warning, he gets up from his seat. Was it a little rude? Perhaps. But surely the two women beside him could understand what feeling hounded could do to someone. They don’t, they do their jobs and get up as well, which he understands. However, Zuko’s not in the fucking mood right now and waves a dismissive hand.
“No need,” he curtly says, making his way to the back of the airship. “I just want to close my eyes for a bit.”
. . . . . .
The trip starts off strong with a banquet being held in honor of the fire lord's arrival.
Contrary to Zuko’s wishes, nobody’s stupid enough to mistake you for one of his concubines. At least not within the circle of people you’re mingling with tonight, who all recognize your family's crest engraved on your hairpin.
They were an ambitious bunch that spread all over once Zuko came into power— reaching amongst the highest positions within the military, medicine, and even education.
Funny enough, your position in the court was nothing special in comparison to some of your relatives’ achievements. Some are even bothered by the fact. Being the first of all your cousins to master the art of firebending, being your grandfather's favorite solely for bending lightning with the same grace as he did in his prime, all while excelling in your studies.
All of that potential, just wasted on being the lord’s “pet”.
You don’t have much of an opinion on the disappointment some of them have expressed in the past, though it would’ve been nice if their words had stayed behind closed doors. You didn’t want to hear any of it. If you truly wanted to make use of that said potential, you would’ve worked directly under your father as his subordinate.
Maybe it was the result of growing up feeling like you were enough. You have nothing to prove, and quite frankly, you’re content with having a role that really only requires you to share your opinions with a ruler that shares the same ideals as you… for the most part.
If only he’d also agree that you two spend way too much time together.
Luckily, you’re not required to be by his side tonight since you’re attending the banquet as a representative of your clan— something Zuko had no clue about until the moment you stepped onto the airship, which had him looking like he was about to blow a fucking gasket. He absolutely sucks at masking his frustrations. You’re surprised his concubines still had the courage to cuddle up with him. He looked like he was 2.5 seconds away from throwing you off the ship mid-flight.
Zuko would never do that, by the way, but you’re sure he was daydreaming about it.
But even then, with all the distance between you tonight, you can still feel his eyes on you. Just watching and waiting for you to do something he didn’t like. Very masochistic considering how he wouldn’t confront you if you did end up doing something wrong in his eyes.
You spend the entire night avoiding eye contact, which isn’t too hard given how all you’ve done is catch up with old peers from school and relatives who’ve decided to move here to start new lives.
The relatives you got along with, that is.
You were enjoying yourself. Truly. Until Sokka called you over to their table.
Funny how Zuko wasn’t looking at you then and was instead stuffing his face with spicy dumplings, then downing it with whatever liquor was in his cup.
You walk over with two thoughts running through your head— please don’t let this man be as drunk as Sokka and Aang, and don’t let this be a conversation about how work was been. Sokka tends to ask those things at the wrong time, despite his heart being in the right place.
This time around, it’s not Sokka.
“How’s our flaming hot lord treating you?” Aang asks, throwing an arm around a very drunk Zuko, who’s laughing his ass off over the avatar’s words for once.
Your lips may have twitched a little, as well. Only because Aang gave even less fucks when in an inebriated state.
“Oh, you know— the usual.” You let out a lighthearted laugh, and only you notice the way Zuko’s face momentarily drops.
The air around him quickly screams ‘don’t fuck with me’, then settles back into something more suitable for someone who’s already had half their water weight in alcohol.
“C’mon, you can do better than that,” Zuko forces out a laugh, leaning back in his seat.
You laugh a little harder. “Can I?”
“Yeah, you can.”
Sokka lets out this weird, giddy gasp because he loves drama, and cuts in. “Are you two fighting?”
“No.”
“No.”
You and Zuko look at each other after shutting down Sokka’s question at the same time. The fake smiles you’re wearing are not helping your case at all.
“Where’s Katara? I’ve been wondering where she’s been this whole time,” you ask in an attempt to keep the energy between you from getting any more awkward than it already is
Aang grows a little pale— the instant karma feels nice. “She’s a little sick tonight.”
There’s a bit of fear in his voice. She’s totally pregnant. Not that you say that. Instead, you just point in some random direction behind you. “That’s terrible— my cousin actually just mentioned a bug going around. I hope she feels better soon.”
“Thank you,” the man lets out a sigh of relief, allowing himself to be delusional for just one more night.
“What about Toph?”
“Home. Asleep.” Sokka rolls his eyes. “She’s like a little old lady now. You’ll see her tomorrow, though, she’s been volunteering at the center.”
“Volunteering or beating everyone into submission?” Zuko murmurs, and they all erupt in laughter. “She probably runs that place like the military.”
You find yourself starting to zone out as the conversation moves on to a different topic. You’d like to blame some of the wine you’ve been sipping on throughout the night for that. Everything starts to melt together— the live music, the endless chatter in every which direction. The only thing that pulls you out of it is seeing another one of your cousins who had just arrived, waving at you, and you don't shy away from taking that as an opportunity to excuse yourself.
Aang and Sokka were as kind as usual when you said your goodbyes. Zuko, on the other hand, was harder to read through the pathetic excuse of a smile he gave you. One only meant to save face.
If only he knew just how much worse he makes things sometimes. Although they’re rare, this isn’t the first fight you two have been in. Perhaps you have been a little petty towards the man, but it’s not you who grows so frustrated at someone’s anger that you begin to hold a grudge yourself.
You arrive back to your room in the early morning with the regret of not cutting yourself off from the drinks sooner than you did. You wouldn’t say you were drunk, but you were definitely tipsy as you started to shed layers of clothes and jewelry to get in the hot bath that had been prepared prior to your return.
Aang may be childish at times, but fuck was he a great host. Or maybe it was Katara who had all of these amenities set up for you. Candles and bath salts— you could die a happy woman right now as you settle into the stone tub, taking deep breaths, letting your muscles relax.
Twenty minutes in, you hear rattling and heavy footsteps that seem to hit the ground with more confusion than the determination an attacker would usually have. It forces you to leave the warmth of your bath, slipping on a robe. Getting hit with annoyance rather than fear may be a little foolish. Overconfident, even. But there’s still alcohol running through your veins, and you aren’t the pride and joy of your clan for no reason— you can absolutely hold your own in a fight.
When you walk out of the bathroom, you come face to face with exactly who you were thinking of.
“Fuck,” he looks away for a moment, regretting his decision thinking it was okay to just walk in.
Zuko didn’t think you’d be bathing, for some odd, stupid reason. Judging by the fact that he’s still wearing his usual day clothing and his hairs not up in a bun, it’s safe to assume he went straight here after leaving the banquet.
You let out a long sigh. “God— what are you doing here?”
You don’t even sound mad— just disappointed that you have to see him once more before you lay your head to rest, which slightly hurts the man’s ego. Truth be told, he came here to argue with you, but even in his drunken state, he’s finding it quite difficult to do so since he looks like a fucking pervert now.
“Your comment from earlier— what the hell was that about?” Zuko sounds more wounded than anything right now.
You cross your arms, leaning against the door frame that connects the room to the bathroom. “What comment?”
“The usual,” he says with air quotes. “Do you not like me anymore or something?”
“You’re seriously asking me that right now?” Your face twists, just dumbfounded at this point. “You ask me that as if I don’t work for you?”
He scoffs. “So what, you’re saying I’m not your friend now?”
“I mean, yeah— you are, but I’m still your subordinate at the end of the day,” you attempt to spell it out for him, trying to get it through his brain that he can’t just act like you two are a pair of besties.
But he just continues to argue with you.
“Really? ‘Cause last time I checked, people don’t fight their superiors.”
No, they do not. You’re not sure why you even tried to make that an argument, the line between you has blurred a long time ago.
“You know what, just— forget it.”
The thing is, you're not the best at taking accountability. Most of the arguments you’ve had with him have been swept under the rug after a while. Zuko's not having that right now, though.
“Hm— actually, no— I don’t think I will,” he stubbornly says. “You have been punishing me for fucking weeks now and now you just want me to forget it?”
Punishing him?
You roll your eyes, muttering “oh my god” under your breath, not even bothering to look him straight in the eyes anymore as you walk to the nightstand and pick up a small jar of body cream.
“We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow,” you say dismissively, rubbing the jasmine-scented cream into your hands. “I need to go to sleep, and so should you, honestly.”
It doesn’t matter how well he can handle his alcohol— he reeks of it.
“I’m trying to talk to you right now so I don’t have to deal with your attitude tomorrow,” he says, as if he hasn’t had an attitude himself the last couple of weeks.
“Don’t worry, you won’t have to,” you murmur back.
What feels like minutes pass after your pathetic attempt to settle your issues with him. At first, he just lets out a sigh, trying to keep his composure, but then he laughs under his breath.
“So that’s it?” he asks in a condescending tone. “We’re all good now?”
“Yes. Goodnight, Zuko,” you hum.
More silence follows after. You can just feel his eyes on you despite still facing away, now reaching for some hair oil, waiting for him to leave.
He never does. Even after working the product into your hair, you have yet to hear the door to your room close, making you grow wary.
There are many things telling you not to turn around at the moment— your blurred mind and tensed body. But even you make mistakes, lots of them with Zuko, and so you finally turn around.
His lips are on yours.
You don’t know how long he’d been standing directly behind you, you never even heard his footsteps. All you know is his hands are snaked behind your neck and he’s kissing you and you’re letting him.
It takes you a moment to realize you’re kissing him back— too focused on how soft his lips are, how his tongue glides across your lower lip before slipping inside, so commanding yet so gentle.
Then you sober up— pressing your palm flat against his chest and pushing him back so you two can look at each other, eyes wide and filled with instant regret.
“What the hell was that?” you try to snap at him, but the sharp edge was dulled from the start, already fearing what’ll change between you from this moment forward.
“I— fuck,” he stutters, taking another step back. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
Immediately, you cut him off. “No, you shouldn’t have and you know that.”
“I know.” It sounds like a plea coming from him as his chest tightens. “I’m sorry.”
Even you start to look apologetic, which breaks his heart a little since you did nothing wrong. The one who crossed the line was him, after all. “You should go. You’re drunk.”
He opened his mouth to respond, but then closed it shortly after. There was nothing to say.
And so he slowly nods and turns around, still in shock by his own actions as he begins to walk away, leaving you to deal with the aftermath of what the fuck just happened on your own.
This was going to be the longest work trip of your life.
notes: i hope u guys enjoyed this first chapter!! this was supposed to be a oneshot but then ideas kept popping up in my head and i thought, why don't i just turn this into a longfic like defiance lol. the plan is to follow these two around throughout a couple arcs, with the first one being them trying to navigate their feelings and attempting to go back to normal while trying to fix the shit show in the silk district.
𝒔𝒖𝒎. you've been working at the same company for the last five years and you'd continue to do so if your circumstances hadn't suddenly changed. after you put in your resignation, your boss is doing everything he can to make you stay. . .
𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 ── .✦ mdni (18+), office au ; smut ; light angst ; making out ; porn with plot ; fíngeríng ; cünnilíngus ; biting ; hickeys ; praise kink ; piv ; unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it) ; dirty talk ; big díck gojo ; creampíes ; multiple orgasms ; tiny bit of overstim ; little bit of nípple play ; use of wrist restraints but like not really (it's readers shirt) ; makeshift restraint if you will ; gojo kinda pervy but that's how i like him ; gojo's a yearner (also how i like him) ; f!reader (she/her used) ; pet names used ; no use of y/n [11.6k]
For the past handful of years, you’ve been working at a large marketing company for the CEO as a personal assistant. The job is what it is and the pay makes up for any sort of… eccentricities from your boss. Despite this, it can’t change the fact that you’re struggling to pay rent and need to move back in with your parents.
You were coping before but your roommate… the guy you were… it’s complicated. Anyways he moved out and now things are just too expensive for you at the moment. It doesn’t help that anywhere else close to work is in the same range for rent, stupid fancy company in a stupid nice area. It’s frustrating because you’re attached to this job but it’s not feasible anymore.
So, as much as you’re unwilling to part from your current position, something has to give and you’ve chosen to resign. Steeling your resolve, you walk into Gojo’s empty office and gently place your two weeks’ notice on his desk. Lingering for a short moment, remembering your first day here and how intimidated you were by him.
It was never your plan to stay here so long in the first place but it’s nearly been five years now, maybe it is time to move on to something different. Think positive, you just have to think positive and things will be good. You’ll get a new job and you’ll make new friends and your boss will be kind and maybe not as weird.
Exiting the room, you sit back at your desk that’s located outside Gojo’s office. It’s hard to focus when you’ve got so much on your mind but sometimes you think that he wouldn’t get anything done if you weren’t around.
You’d gotten a text earlier about how he had an early meeting but you know he doesn’t, he’s probably just left the office to go get himself some sweets. He won’t be back for a while either because he’s going to sit in a park or somewhere quiet and eat the evidence before he gets back to the office.
Why he even bothers to lie to you at this point is beyond you but you’ll ignore it because sometimes you want to be alone for an hour too. Unlike him though, you simply don’t have the luxury of doing that on company time.
When he does get back to the office he stops by your desk and smiles at you like he wasn’t just shirking his responsibilities for the better half of the day. He waits very impatiently for you to acknowledge him, and you continue typing at your computer like he’s not there.
Gojo eventually speaks up, “Saying good morning to your boss is the polite thing to do, by the way.”
You hold up a hand while you finish up your email and send it off, only then do you look up and raise a brow at him, “Morning? Gojo… it’s nearly midday and you’re only just now coming into the office.”
“I told you I had a meeting,” he pouts because he knows he’s caught. “And how many times have I told you to call me Satoru?”
“If you had a meeting it’d go through me because no one trusts you to show up to the ones you agree to.” You look back down at your computer and continue working, ignoring the second thing he said.
Sighing dramatically at you, “You’re so mean to me.”
Not even looking up at him when you retort, “If I were nicer to you would your job get done?” He doesn’t answer and you add, “That’s what I thought.”
“I’ll get all my work done so quick you’ll be embarrassed about doubting me.”
“Uh huh,” as he walks off you call after him, “you’ve got chocolate on your tie.”
Gojo pauses, looks down to his tie and then uses his finger to try and swipe it off, “No, I don’t.” He scuttles away into his office.
It’s then that you’re remembering the letter you’d put on his desk and you decide it’s time for your break. Sneaking away, you hide a few floors down in the employee break room. Your hands cradling a cup of tea that was hot but has now gone cold in the time you’ve been holding onto it. You’re staring blankly at it, not knowing how you’re going to face Gojo when he’s read your resignation.
He’s a bit of a drama queen and you’re not sure… you don’t even want to leave so having him fuss over it might make you feel worse. Oh, but what if he doesn’t care. What if he doesn’t say anything and he doesn’t feel like you’re all that important to him. That might be worse. You’re in a hell of your own making.
You’re brought from your spiralling thoughts by a hand on your shoulder, jumping at the touch and looking up to see Nanami. His face is as stoic as ever but his eyes are laced with a mild concern for you.
You talk before he can ask, “I’m fine, just daydreaming.”
A sound of acknowledgement comes from him, not believing you but pacified enough to move on and make himself a cup of coffee. Not facing you when he says, “Gojo’s looking for you.”
Frowning, “What? How do you know?”
He sits down across from you and plainly states, “Because I walked past him and he asked where you were.”
A small grumble leaves you, it’s just not possible to avoid him for the whole day and even if you could, you couldn’t do it for two full weeks.
“What’s going on?”
Your tea is too cold to drink now and you push it away, “Do you really want to know or are you just being polite?”
He takes a sip of his coffee like he’s giving himself time to think about his answer, “…I want to know.”
“I have to resign,” is all you say.
Nanami nods, “Well, that explains the frantic look on his face.”
Scoffing at him because that sounds ridiculous, “I left the letter on his desk and then hid.”
“You can’t hide forever.”
“I can try,” you smile, “he’s always showing up late and sneaking out anyways, I’ll probably be able to avoid him.”
The look on his face conveys severe doubt but he doesn’t comment on your words, “Why are you leaving?”
“None of your business.”
“You’re the only reason why communicating with Gojo is bearable, you leaving is going to be a nightmare for so many people.”
Your eyes roll at the sentiment, “Well, gee, I’ll miss you too.” A silence falls over the two of you and you explain, “I gotta move home for financial reasons.” It’s not everything but you don’t feel like spilling your guts to him right now.
“Ask for a raise,” he shrugs, “you deserve it.”
“It’d have to be one hell of a raise,” you fold your arms on the table and lay your head on them.
His tone comes out monotonous, “There there.”
Mumbling against your arms in reply, “You’re such a comfort, Nanami.”
“I know.”
The clicking of heels alerts you to someone else in the room but you don’t bother lifting your head to look. Not that you need to, the voice letting you know it’s Shoko, “Gojo’s looking for you.”
“I’m aware,” you sigh.
She sits down next to you, “If you’re hiding from him, this was a poor choice because I’m pretty sure he’s on his way here.”
“Have I got time to run?”
There’s a hand on your head, a tight lipped, “No,” coming from above you.
Ah, you’re caught. Sitting up, you smile at Gojo like you’ve not been hiding from him, “Gojo, is there something you need me for?”
He doesn’t bother trying to get you somewhere private, “Why are you resigning?”
Shoko asks, “You’re resigning?”
Sighing out a tired, “Yes,” before getting to your feet and walking out the room.
Immediately, Gojo is hot on your tail, “Why? Why are you resigning?” He keeps pestering you despite the fact you’re not answering, “Is it something I did? Have I been a bad boss? Do you want me to show up on time more?” A pause, “Is it because I never bring you back any sweets? I’m sorry! I just get so excited to eat them…”
Your foot taps impatiently as you wait for the elevator, arms folded and feeling frustrated by him. “It’s nothing to do with you…” he’s generally a good boss, a bit odd but he’s a good person and you’re quite attached to him, “though, you should be showing up on time.”
“Are you really not going to tell me why you’re leaving me?”
“I think my letter covered it.” The elevator dings and his presence is felt looming over you as he follows you in.
“Your letter didn’t cover shit,” he grumbles, “it was all that polite corporate speak.”
“It’s not a big deal, Gojo.” Your eyes meet his properly for the first time and he looks so genuinely hurt, it’s making this harder for you. “It’s nothing you did, nothing the company did. No one did anything, it’s just time to move on.”
“I literally cannot survive without you.” He blinks, “My company is going to go bankrupt without you and then Suguru’s will be number one, is that what you want?”
“If Geto’s company is ever number one it’s because he shows up on time and doesn’t ignore calls from clients.”
He scowls. “They should be calling you anyways, the old bastards only call me because they enjoy pissing me off.”
“Poor, poor, rich boy,” you say, looking away from him.
Gojo’s brows pinch up. “There’s nothing I can do to make you stay?”
“Nope.”
The pair of you walk off the elevator together and he’s still closer than necessary, like you’re going to disappear at any minute. “I’ve got two weeks to change your mind,” he singsongs.
It’s been a few days since that awkward conversation with Gojo and he’s been in the office every day… on time. You thought maybe the first day was just a fluke but then he kept showing up and staying. His behaviour is unpredictable at the best of times but this is the first time in the five years that you’ve been here that he’s shown up on time for multiple consecutive days.
Whatever, you’ve just been ignoring him and continuing your work. At least you would be but he’s not giving you anything to do. Suddenly, he’s interested in doing everything himself and actually staying on top of things. If this is his way of getting you to stay… it’s not working. Not only do you have nothing to do but you’re worried that he’s fucking things up.
A few hours since you’ve been in office and you’re officially bored, staring blankly at your quiet inbox. This isn’t going to work for you, you get up and walk into Gojo’s office. He’s tapping away at his keyboard and you’re a little surprised by the focus on his face.
Pursing your lips as you stand in front of his desk, feeling conflicted on whether or not you should disturb him when he’s like this. There’s papers spread out on the surface beside him, his usually clean desk now messy.
“Gojo, I’m still your assistant until the end of next week,” your voice is gentler than how you feel, taking pity on him.
He doesn’t look to you, eyes firmly on the screen. “Not if I can convince you to stay.”
“I don’t know how many times I have to say this,” you take a step closer, “but my resignation has nothing to do with you, so there is nothing you can do to change my mind.”
His eyes meet yours then, he looks tired.
Continuing to add, “All you’ve done is make me redundant, stop stealing my work and do your own.”
“I won’t hire anyone else.”
“The board will make you.” Tilting your head at him, trying to add some levity, “And there’s no way you’re not messing things up.”
He points at you, “Hey! I’ve been very diligent.”
“Which you won’t be able to keep doing long-term.” Reaching up, you tap the tip of his finger with your own.
That has him deflating, falling back into his chair and humming at you, “Okay, have all your stupid and tedious work back.”
“I will.” You glare at him as you lean over to pick up the papers off his desk.
Shuffling through them, you can see they’re a bunch of companies reaching out and trying to set up meetings or sending through complaints. Things you usually handle before he sees because it’s not worth his time.
“So much of that stuff shouldn’t be coming to me.” He’s leaned in closer, annoyance clear on his expression. “It shouldn’t even be going to you; they should be communicating through the team they’re dealing with.”
“Yes, well, a lot of companies overestimate their importance to you.” Picking through the stack quickly, you pull out the papers that are solely for him and put them down on his desk.
His brow raises to you, “Now, where did they get that idea?”
“Who knows?” You smile politely.
His people person skills are severely lacking, especially when it comes to dealing with formalities. You may or may not be making up for it.
“I’ll get back to you about these.” Hand shaking the papers, “Do not even try sneaking off, I’ll need you here while I sort through this mess you’ve no doubt made.”
“I told you I’ve been diligent.”
“And I have absolutely no reason to doubt that.” Turning to leave before stopping. “You should keep coming in on time and staying the whole day, it’s nice.”
Gojo’s groan is heard as you walk back out his office.
After you took back your workload, Gojo decided to try and make you stay through other means. It’s almost as flattering as it is distracting. The very next day and he’s taken to pulling a chair in front of your desk and sitting with you. His arm holding up his head, chin resting in his palm. It’s got you on edge, he’s just watching you. Eyes tracking your every movement, silent like he’s maybe trying to think of something to say.
“Is there something you need, sir?” Phrasing it in a certain way in hopes of reminding him he’s your boss with his own work to worry about.
“Nope.” The singular word popped back at you.
Looking to your screen, you pull up his calendar, “So… you’re all prepped for the meeting later today at three?”
It’s silent and it prompts you to look at him again. The reply you’d been expecting comes only when your eyes meet. “I’m so prepared,” his smile is easy-going and you don’t feel the same.
“Are you sure? Because you’ve just been sitting here doing nothing.”
“Don’t worry about what I’m up to.”
“All I do is worry,” you glare at him, “it’s like my whole job.”
Obviously able to tell you’re growing a bit exasperated now and switching to flattery, “And you’re very good at it.”
“I could be better at it if you’d be a more willing participant in your own company.”
“Bleh,” he pulls his head back and waves his hand at you, the expression on his face disgusted.
You ignore the fact that you don’t find him as annoying as you probably should and change the topic, “Well, while you’re here doing anything but your job, I have some applications you can look through.”
“Applications?” He looks at you curiously and takes the papers you’re handing him.
There isn’t an answer from you as he reads them, his face scrunching up more and becoming annoyed as he realises what it is he’s looking at.
“Resumes?” Gojo’s voice has lost its chirpiness, coming a bit strained, “I didn’t know we were hiring.”
“I know you won’t do it yourself, so I put up an advert yesterday,” you point at the resumes he’s holding, “those are the best applicants.”
“I don’t want anyone else.”
“I can’t stay, Gojo. It’s out of my control.”
It’s his turn to glare, it’s the first time he’s been this angry with you. You still won’t tell him why you’re leaving because you’re embarrassed and also, you’re becoming a little concerned that he’d actually give you an insane raise. You can do without that guilt.
“Fine.” He eventually says.
A breath you didn’t realise you’d been holding leaves you, “Thank you.”
He starts going through the pile, “This isn’t an entry level job,” he flicks away that applicant. “No references,” another chucked. “Wouldn’t be able to put up with me,” that one is crumpled. “This one’s messy,” gone. “This person has put under hobbies ‘organising’,” he squints like he’s weirded out before deciding, “trying too hard,” ultimately it’s chucked too. The rest of the pile discarded in much of the same manner.
You’ve watched him in disbelief, blinking at him, “They all had better resumes than I did.”
“I didn’t want an assistant before you and I won’t want one after,” he shrugs.
Fingers rubbing into your temples, “How did I even get hired when you’re this picky.”
“You’ve raised my standards,” he praises you, “and your resume was so ugly looking that I wanted to see who sent it in.”
You gape at him, shocked, “That’s why I got the interview!?”
“And you got the job because you put up with me during,” his tone has softened again, “you adjust to your surroundings well and it impressed me, even if your resume didn’t.” He thinks for a moment, “Well, your resume actually did impress me but only because it was awful—”
“—Stop,” holding a hand up, “I can’t believe you hired me because you hated my application that much.”
“Don’t leave me,” leaning in on your desk, “I don’t think I’ll ever see a resume that ugly ever again.”
Grumbling and falling back into your chair, you cross your arms. “I knew I shouldn’t have worked here.”
He grins and stands to his feet. “Don’t show me anymore applicants, they’ll immediately get thrown away.”
“Gojo—” You call after him.
“—Bye bye now.” He’d cut you off, done with this conversation and the direction it was headed.
It’s Monday again and you’re concerned about what Gojo’s going to pull this week. Last week he’d obviously stolen all your work rendering you redundant and stared at you disconcertingly for nearly an hour before revealing he’d hired you because of your shit application. He also brought you back various treats every time he left the office, not to mention the insane amounts of praise he kept sneaking into conversation.
It's not something entirely new from him but he’s taken to doing it far more often lately and you hate how much you don’t hate it. His compliments making you a little flustered every time, you weren’t aware how much you liked being reaffirmed until he started doing it so obviously and frequently.
Apparently, he must’ve caught on to you not hating it because he’s not stopped. The grin on his face self-satisfied every time he does it, pleased by your reactions. You don’t know if your heart is going to make it through this week but it’s your last, so you don’t have much of a choice either way.
In the lobby, you run into Shoko. Greeting her with a small smile, “Good morning.”
“Morning, quitter,” she smiles back.
“Ouch,” you hiss jokingly.
Her head tilts at you, “Ah, you lasted five years, it’s impressive really.”
“I’m not resigning because of him,” you roll your eyes.
The rumours in the office have been abundant to say the least, everyone blaming your leaving on Gojo. You correct people every time but they either don’t believe you or are too excited about gossip to let themselves really hear you.
“You’d be the first,” sucking on her teeth as she recounts, “I think there was… five? six? Before you. They all quit because they couldn’t put up with him.” She pauses. “Though, he didn’t hire them personally.”
“Didn’t you hear? He only hired me because he hated my resume.”
“Good luck finding another job with it then.”
You chuckle at that. “I’ll miss you, Shoko.”
“Yeah, whatever,” she brushes you off, “if you really were gonna miss me, you wouldn’t be quitting.”
“For someone who’s so unamused by Gojo, you sure sound like him sometimes.”
She side eyes you, “Take that back.”
“Nope!” You laugh as you walk away.
At your desk, the first thing you do is pull up Gojo’s calendar. Double checking that you’re remembering the itinerary for today properly. He’s got a meeting just before midday with a large company, you’ve been trying to secure a meet with them for months and they finally caved. Taking them on as a client would be a huge win for the company and it’d bring Gojo joy because he knows Geto has been trying to secure a deal with them too.
Competition isn’t something you invest a whole lot of your time in personally but you can’t help but feel happy when Gojo ‘wins’. This week is going to be gruelling; it’s getting harder to ignore how much you enjoy your job. You thought it wasn’t going to be such a big deal. It’s a job, you do it and if you need to, you find another.
Everyone here will be part of what you miss though, you won’t get to work alongside Gojo anymore… Pushing down those feelings of affection, you start your day how you often do and check your inbox. Seeing the first emails coming through as soon as business hours are official always amuses you as much as it pisses you off.
The sound of a soft tap on your desk startles you, it’s just Gojo but you’re still not quite used to his early (on time) arrivals. He’d set a coffee down for you, expression bright as he smiles at you.
You reach for the drink, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he singsongs. “Feel like staying?”
“Because you bought me a cup of coffee?”
“Among other things.”
You’re thinking of how to answer him when he yawns and stretches his shoulders back. He seems tireder than usual, “You been sleeping okay?”
He takes the opportunity to whine, “No, my favourite employee is leaving me.”
“That must be agony for you.”
“It is,” eyes sparkling, “it’s awful, I wish she would just see reason.”
Instead of replying to that, you remind, “Don’t forget your meeting at eleven.”
Dropping the pleading look, he replies, “How could I forget? Stingy bastards took forever just to agree to meet.”
“Try to have a better attitude when you talk with them.”
“You know what would make my attitude better?” Grin on his face showing that he’s clearly plotting something.
“Dare I ask?”
“You basically did.” He points at you and then himself, “You come with me.”
A range of emotions go through you at that but it’s mostly reluctance, “Do I have to?”
“I’m your boss… so, yes?” Not waiting for your reply. “Be ready by ten-thirty.”
It’s going to be a long week indeed.
By the time ten-thirty rolls around, you’re in the garage of the building with Gojo. He’s guiding you towards his car and you’re confused, “Where’s Ijichi?”
“I don’t know,” his answer is dismissive.
“Should we wait?” you frown and look at your phone, “…I don’t want you to be late.”
Clicking on the keys, the car beeps as it unlocks, “We’re not gonna be late.” He moves around to the driver’s side and opens it, stopping before getting in when he sees you’re not moving. “Get in.”
Incredulous look on you face, “Can you even drive?”
“That’s so insulting, I’m a fantastic driver.”
You’re sceptical but get in the car anyways, not willing to be late because you were squabbling with your boss.
“Why am I coming with you?”
He hums, “Because I have a surprise for after.”
“Couldn’t you have just picked me up after the meeting?”
“No. If I have to go then you do too.”
Grumbling back at him, “You’ve never made me come before.”
“If I leave you in the office you might run away before Friday,” his tone carries a playful lilt.
“You’re so dramatic.”
By the way, he is decidedly not a fantastic driver.
The surprise he was talking about was lunch, he’s taken you out for lunch. You’re overwhelmed and feel underdressed, it’s a nice place that you definitely cannot afford.
Just as he’s about to walk inside, you grab his sleeve and pull him back, “Gojo, I can’t afford lunch here.”
He snickers at you, “You thought I’d force you to a meeting with me and then take you out to lunch and make you pay?”
You say nothing.
“Seriously? What do you take me for?” A hand rests over his heart like you’ve wounded him.
Frowning at him, “I’m… I’m also a little underdressed.” Wearing business casual doesn’t feel appropriate for here.
“You look great,” he compliments, “you always look great.”
It feels like your skin grows hotter just from that simple compliment. You can’t linger on it for too long though. From just off to the side of Gojo, you spot Geto and you know this lunch is going to be on the rocks. “Please remain calm and remember that you just got new clients and how nice that feels.”
About to ask what the hell you’re going on about when Geto makes himself known, hand on Gojo’s shoulder. “What a coincidence, Satoru.” He smiles politely, nodding his head at you in acknowledgement.
You’ve always been neutral towards Geto, if you had to describe him in a word, you’d say he’s gracious. But you’re not stupid, you can tell he enjoys pressing peoples buttons. If you didn’t know any better you’d think it was merely an accident but you do know better and you can tell he does it because he gets a kick out of it. He’s similar to Gojo in that way.
“Suguru,” Gojo gives a tight smile. “What are you doing on this side of town?”
Oh, he’s already annoyed by his presence.
“This and that,” answer kept vague deliberately. “You guys about to have lunch?”
“Yes.” You answer respectfully, not forgetting your manners.
From what you know, Gojo and Geto used to be close friends working at the same company before Gojo moved up. Geto left after that and started his own company. Usually, Gojo isn’t so annoyed by him but he’s been a little extra touchy about things ever since you put in your resignation.
“That sounds great,” you reply before Gojo can. Geto walks in ahead of you both and you tug on Gojo to get him to lean down. “It’s just lunch, we’ll both survive.”
“I’m not so sure,” he mumbles back.
It’s awkward, incredibly so. Geto knows that Gojo got the client they’ve both been angling at and it’s all grins with hidden meanings and sly jabs. It’s hard to enjoy the food when you’re stuck observing this disaster of clashing egos.
After a lull in the conversation, Geto suddenly says, “I heard you’re quitting.”
You’re taken aback, you didn’t realise that company gossip would travel so far, “Yes… I am resigning.” Putting emphasis on the last word because you don’t appreciate the attachments to quitting.
Gojo’s tense, you can tell.
Geto pushes past your slight attitude. “May I ask why?”
“You may ask,” you smile politely, taking a page out of his book.
He doesn’t even blink, “Well, if you’re looking for a new job I’d be happy to take you off Satoru’s hands.”
Gojo scoffs at that, “She’s still my employee, you know?”
“From what I hear, not for much longer.”
You hate that you even semi consider Geto’s offer, he’s unfortunately closer to your parents’ home so you could live there and travel to his company. It’d upset Gojo though and you don’t know if you have it in you, even if it is just business.
Stopping their bickering with a simple refusal. “I’m fine, thank you for the offer.”
“It doesn’t expire,” Geto pushes, “if you change your mind, you’ve got a job with me.”
“I want to remind you I’m a personal assistant, Geto, not some highly sought-after marketing whizz.” You can’t understand the push for you, other than he knows it’ll piss off Gojo and you don’t play those games.
Clearly, not one to be shaken so easily, “Oh, I wouldn’t sell yourself so short.”
“Alright, I’m done being all civil now,” Gojo stands up abruptly, “We’re leaving and you can pay the bill for pissing me off, Suguru.”
“Gojo,” you scold him lightly but he’s not budging, “I’m very sorry, Geto,” standing up as well, “lunch was nice.”
Gojo grumbles, “Don’t apologise for me, I’m not sorry.”
Geto ignores Gojo and replies to your last statement, “We’ll have to do it again sometime.”
“Over my dead body,” Gojo points at him.
And then you’re being tugged out of the restaurant, following after an uncharacteristically angry Gojo. It’s not like he’s especially polite and he’s always had little jabs with Geto but it always seemed more like a friendly rivalry to you. To have this kind of reaction isn’t usual and you don’t really know how to approach talking to him now.
It’s not until you’re back in the car that he’s huffing, “Can you believe that? He tried stealing you out from behind my back… in front of me!”
“It’s just business, don’t let it get to you.” You mean it as a comfort but his eyebrow twitches.
He starts the car and mutters, “Not to me.”
Today is your last day. It’s been a busy week so Gojo didn’t bother you as much, anytime you spoke it concerned work. Well, that’s not completely true, he was still trying to get you to stay and begged a little but otherwise.
You don’t feel ready to leave, you know all you’d have to do is say you want to stay and Gojo would welcome you with open arms but you can’t make it work… not right now. It’s already been hard on you physically with all the moving preparations and now it’s hard on you emotionally. You don’t think people usually feel this much regret about resigning, shouldn’t you be all relieved or something.
After work, you and your empty apartment have a date with lots of alcohol. Drinking before you move may not be a great idea but you thought living with a guy would be a good idea and look how that turned out. Fuck him. This situation is so draining and unfair and you wish you could go back and change things but you’re stuck with the cards you’re dealt.
It’s quitting time soon, the hour hand on the wall across from you slowly inching towards six. Your riveting clock watching is interrupted by Gojo standing in front of it, “Could you go down to the employee floor and give this to Nanami?”
He hands you over a file and you take it without complaint, what’s another few extra minutes on your last day. “Okay, I’ll be right back.”
You’re restless, caught between wanting to get out of here and not wanting your last day to end. The elevator dings and opens to the employee floor, when you step out you’re confused by how dark it is. It’s borderline scary, you’ve seen enough scary movies to know that you don’t stay on an empty and ominous dark floor.
About to turn around and head back for the elevator when the lights flick on and people jump out at you. You don’t have a physical reaction aside from a slight jump, only staring blankly and screaming on the inside. Taking in your surroundings you realise it’s a bunch of familiar faces standing underneath a shoddily painted banner that reads ‘we’ll miss you’ with a very small ‘quitter’ written under that. It’s like it was added last minute in pen and you have a feeling Shoko did it.
Gojo runs up from behind you, “Holy fuck, we have so many stairs,” he looks to your face and then at everyone else, “did she scream?”
Nanami answers him, “No, she’s just been staring like that the whole time.”
Gojo moves to stand in front of you, asking, “You okay? Did we get you too good?”
Everyone starts murmuring and you’re very suddenly overwhelmed by all the emotions you’ve been stuffing down all week. Tears slipping from your waterline and trailing down your cheeks before you can stop them.
“Woah, what’s wrong?” he’s fussing over you, “Hey, I’m sorry, we just wanted to send you off properly.”
You use the back of your hands to wipe at your face, “Sorry, I need a moment.” Pushing the file Gojo had given you towards him before running off to hide in the bathroom.
Taking deep breaths, you try to calm down but it’s hard when you’re also dying of embarrassment. It was really nice of them; you weren’t expecting anything so to have so many people set up a going away party was really sweet but it’s just another reminder of your shitty situation and your reluctance to leave.
A soft tap on the door alerts you to someone’s presence, “Can I come in?” Gojo calls.
“No,” you call back.
It’s quiet and then he says, “I’m gonna come in anyways.” True to his word, he enters the bathroom but he doesn’t say anything more.
Unprompted you apologise, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I didn’t mean to cry,” sniffling, “I’m embarrassed.”
“Don’t worry about that,” he walks in closer to you, placing a hand on top of your head. “If you’re so upset you could always stay.”
You laugh a little bitterly at that. “I’m fine now, I’ll come out and we can celebrate.”
“I can send everyone home if you’re not feeling up to it.”
“No, I want to say goodbye to everyone,” you look up to him, “thank you for doing this.”
“Of course,” he tucks his hands into his pockets, expression a little shy, “I couldn’t not give my favourite employee a send-off.” His upper body moves in a little like he’s going to share a secret, “I wanted to do something bigger but Shoko told me not to.”
A smile is on your lips at that, it’s so like him to want to go big. You owe Shoko for that advice, if he’d done something grand you’d be even more embarrassed than you already are. “Let’s go back.”
It’s not rowdy, it’s an office party so it’s mostly mingling and eating some snacks but it’s nice and it beats the hell out of getting drunk alone in an empty apartment. Nanami is the only one you’d given a reason as to why you’re leaving and he’d kept it to himself so you get a bunch of questions but you field them all pretty easily.
Your eyes keep finding their way back to Gojo before you feel a pang of guilt or sadness and you look away. Things slowly die down as more and more people head home and before it becomes too obvious, you slip away back upstairs to your desk.
Gojo’s office is left slightly open and you walk inside; it’s dark. The only light entering the room is coming from the surrounding building lights. You move to stand in front of the large window and look out to appreciate the view. You’re going to miss this part of the city.
“You’re not planning on robbing me on your last day are you?” Gojo asks from the door.
Getting over the shock of him suddenly appearing, you joke, “Are you kidding? I’ve been robbing you blind since my first day here.”
He crosses the room to stand beside you, “Only cause I let you.”
“What a gentleman.”
“I’m gonna say it one more time,” he looks to you, “stay.”
You don’t know how to answer him so you just lean in and hug him.
His arms wrap around you, “This isn’t very professional of you.”
“Cause you’re so professional,” you murmur back, “also you’re not my boss anymore.”
The both of you don’t say anything, just holding each other. Probably far too intimate for a working relationship but… you really needed this. It’s nice, he’s big and warm and he holds you gently. It’s giving you a lot of comfort and at the same time it’s making you want to cry again.
“I’ll miss you, Gojo.”
“I think you’ll be the first to.”
“Not true.” As much grief as everyone gives him, they’d still miss him.
He laughs a little and lowers himself so his lips are by your ear, “I’ll miss you, too.”
A shiver goes down your spine at his voice and you pull back to look at him. His face is close to yours and your eyes linger on his lips. Doing your very best to look into his eyes, you say, “Don’t ruin the company just because I’m gone.”
“I wouldn’t want to ruin all your hard work,” he grins.
You roll your eyes and move to untangle from him. He doesn’t let you. “What are you—”
Gojo’s closed the gap between the two of you with a kiss, a large hand cradling the side of your face. His thumb strokes high on your cheekbone as his lips implore yours. It doesn’t take you long at all to react, hands grabbing onto his jacket and kissing him back.
It’s overwhelming, his kiss all consuming. Almost like he’s been waiting for the perfect opportunity to kiss you like this. Lips insistent on yours, his body coming closer with a single step forward. His hand on your face tilts you up, thumb trailing to the hinge in your jaw and pressing.
You’re opening your mouth to him more and he sighs happily, licking to deepen the kiss as much as he can. It’s dizzying, mind slowly slipping of focus the longer he holds you. Your body shudders against your will because it’s never felt this good to be kissed before.
Pushing back on him, afraid you’re about to lose your mind and all he’s done is kiss you. Gojo pulls back with a suck of your tongue and your legs nearly falter, small whine leaving you. He’s stopped but he’s not moving back, hand still on the side of your face, the other having moved down to rest on your hip.
“You want me to stop here?” He asks, thumb pulling on your lower lip teasingly.
“This isn’t really—”
“Appropriate?” He asks, closer than he was before, lips almost touching yours, “Like you said… I’m not your boss anymore.”
Fuck it.
You’re the one to close the gap this time, kissing him again. It’s messier than before, an even more heated exchange and you’re realising he was being gentle with you a moment ago. Mood suddenly changed as it feels like he’s aiming to devour you whole.
He spins you so your back is against the cold glass of the window, his lower body pressing close to you. Able to feel his erection, it’s scandalous and making you tingle. You wrap your arms around his neck and he moves his hands down lower, sliding to your lower back. His fingers twitch against you like he’s holding back from touching you more.
Lips parting again so he can trail his kisses lower, burying his face into the side of your neck. Teeth nip at your flesh and you gasp, “Gojo!”
His smile reaches his eyes, “Something to remember me by,” he laves over the mark with his tongue.
Your heart twinges when you realise that your close relationship with him is ending and suddenly you’re asking, “Leave another?”
Gojo laughs a little breathlessly at that, “Hah, don’t have to tell me twice.”
He leaves another mark at your request, and then another lower down before trailing back up, his nose brushing against your neck until his lips meet yours. Words coming mumbled as he keeps kissing you, “You smell so fucking good.”
“Just shut up…” you grumble back, “and kiss me more.”
You know he wants to make another smartass comment but your shoving your tongue in his mouth to keep him quiet, he seems to be right where he wants to be though. Hands growing bolder as he grabs your ass and tugs you closer, grinding his erection against you.
Breaths coming heavy as you comment, “Pervert.”
“If I were a pervert…” he hums happily, “I’d do something more like this.” One of his hands is off your ass and slipping into the front of your pants, fingers swiping through your folds over your underwear.
A gasp leaves you, fingers digging into his shoulders as your knees grow weak. He’s prodding at your hole through your panties, almost penetrating if it weren’t for the material of them. It’s cruel, your arousal seeping into your underwear providing a slick glide for him to slide up to your clit.
“My,” he comments as if he’s shocked, “aren’t you a little too wet over a few kisses?”
“You can’t talk,” you pout, skin warming.
His eyes are bright with mischief. “Don’t be embarrassed,” finger carefully circling your clit and keeping you on edge, “it’s cute.” Sliding back to your dripping hole, “Though…” teasing you there too and then trailing back to your clit again, “you being embarrassed is cute too.”
“Are you– hff– gonna tease me the whole time?” You blink up at him.
“Probably.”
Hips rocking slightly, needy for him to touch you more, “Aren’t you being unreasonable?”
“I don’t think so.” He’s purposefully avoiding giving you what you’re seeking.
Your head falls to rest against him, hands gripping his shirt. Pleasure that feels just a little too distant running through you, making you weak and frustrated. Legs shaky to stand on with how antsy you’re getting. You should’ve guessed that he’d be a tease by how he acts regularly.
On the brink of asking him to touch you properly when he slips his hand under your panties, fingers immediately sliding inside your weeping cunt. You’re left gasping out a pathetic moan as he borderline whines. Clinging to him desperately as he angles his digits to hit the sweetest spots inside you. Slow in his pursuit, like he’s learning what gets the best reactions from you.
Gojo’s control is slipping, the tight grip you have on his fingers making it hard to think. Not to mention just how hot and wet you are, he’s not sure how he’s going to last fucking you when you feel this divine around his fingers alone.
Moans tumble from your lips and you struggle to stifle them back down, trying to rock your hips against his hand for anything more he’ll give you. It’s messy, dripping down into the palm of his hand, no doubt ruining your panties in the process. The sound of him finger fucking you obscene and too loud. Your skin is hot and you’re embarrassed from just how horny you’ve gotten, whimpering as he crooks his digits up and hits something sweet.
“Fuck– come over here,” Gojo pulls his fingers from you and tugs you over to his desk. He lifts you to sit on top of it effortlessly, hands tugging your pants and underwear off in one go. Movements rushed, impatience clear.
He’s sitting back into his desk chair and rolling forward a bit, hands resting atop your thighs. You ask him, “What are you doing?”
The answer comes incredibly blunt, “I’m gonna make out with your pretty pussy while you sit on my desk.” All smiles as he pushes your thighs apart, “I’m gonna think about this view every time I sit here from now on.”
Tongue boldly licking through your folds and making you squeal, your hand threads through his hair for something to hold onto. Quickly discovering just how good at this he really is, sliding his tongue inside your cunt and slurping at you lewdly.
Gojo eats you like a man starved, fingers digging into your plush skin as he holds you open. Your juices drip down his chin and onto his desk and all he can think about is how good you taste and how cute you are when you twitch around his tongue and how he’s probably going to get hard just thinking about this later.
Of course, he’s also going to be playing the whines and moans you’re letting out on repeat in his head later too. Finding everything about you completely endearing, even more so in your dishevelled and aroused state. To have you melting under his touch is almost too much for his poor heart to take.
Your lungs seize in your chest at how good it feels, his nose grinding into your clit with how close he’s pressed his face into you. If you had any higher brain function in this current moment, you’d be concerned if he could even breathe.
It’s getting harder and harder to sit still, desperate to move your hips in response to his stimulation. You’re falling back onto your elbows, hoping to leverage yourself better to rut against his face but he’s stronger than you anticipated. As if in punishment for your impatience, he pulls his tongue from you and trails it up to your clit. Licking it gently before wrapping his lips around it and sucking.
The feelings that run through you are immense and head spinning, feet kicking at the shock of it. Your elbows shake and give out, back bowing up in response. Hand reaching back for his head, tugging on his hair which only has him moaning against you. The vibrations have your hole twitching. Ever observant, Gojo stuffs two of his fingers inside you. Hitting all those perfect little spots he’d found earlier. Apparently having learnt a lot about your body in a short time.
“Gojo– hng– you gotta stop– hff– I’m gonna—”
His eyes look up to you, glinting mischievously. He knows exactly what he’s doing. Mouth off you long enough to say, “I’m not gonna stop.”
Almost as soon as his lips are back around your clit are you cumming; twitching and writhing through the high flooding your senses. All sensitive and whingey as he keeps fucking you with his digits. You can’t hear anything but the blood rushing in your head, feeling as though you’re floating.
That is, until Gojo pushes you dangerously close to overstimulation. His mouth off your clit, only to stuff his tongue back inside your cunt along with his fingers. Stretching you open as he eats you in a completely debauched manner.
“Too much– hnn– Gojo.” You push back on his forehead and he relents. “Perv.”
“Sorry sorry.” He grins, looking a little less than sorry about it.
He keeps your thighs open, admiring the way fresh slick drips from you entrance. He really wants to lean in and tongue your hole some more but he’ll refrain, diverting his focus to kiss your inner thighs. Sucking hickeys into your skin as much as he can, starting on the left before moving to the right. Getting a little too into it and biting your thigh a couple times, you twitch and whine at it and he doesn’t miss the way your pussy clenches around nothing in response.
Gojo gets to his feet and leans over top of you, pecking your cheek before kissing you deep and slow. It’s not hurried, taking his time to explore your mouth carefully. You don’t even realise he’d been unbuttoning your shirt at the same time until he’s moving away and opening it.
Hands quick to grope your tits over your bra, “Hmm… this is pretty,” he comments, fingers slipping under the strap and pulling back just to let it snap! back against your skin.
“Gojo!” you chastise, voice coming a little breathless.
He doesn’t even bother to take your bra off properly, just pushing it up and over your tits so he can gain direct access to your nipples. Head ducking back down to leave more marks on your soft skin, licking over your nipple to see what kind of reaction you’ll have. He’s not disappointed when you moan and tug at his hair.
Moving to rest his forehead against the valley between your breasts, he hums out, “You’re so perfect, from head to toe.”
“Don’t think flattery will get me to stay,” you joke, feeling bashful and trying to change his focus.
“How about a really good dick down?”
“Aren’t you a little too self-assured?”
Gojo stands up, shucking off his jacket and then beginning to unbutton his own shirt, “Ask me that again after we fuck.” He shrugs it off his shoulders and lets it fall to the ground.
You knew he was well built but seeing him shirtless is making you realise just how well built he is. All broad shoulders and toned abs, it’s a little hard to stay focused when you’re this horny and he’s that hot shirtless. Happy trail leading out of his pants to his belly button making your mouth water and you’re suddenly remembering that it’s rude to stare when you look back into his eyes.
Though obviously, Gojo takes it as a compliment. Large grin on his face at your blatant ogling. “Like what you see?” He asks.
“I didn’t say anything,” you turn away from him.
“You didn’t have to,” he laughs, “the hearts in your eyes said enough.”
“Oh, shut up.”
He starts unbuckling his belt, “Your pouting will only turn me on more.”
Sitting up as you tease, “You’ve got some weird kinks, huh?”
“Not at all, it’s just that I could get off to anything about you,” he replies smoothly.
You really shouldn’t find that as flattering as you do. “Not appropriate for the workplace, Gojo.”
“Getting tongue fucked on the CEO’s desk isn’t exactly appropriate either but here you are.” He reaches into his pants and pulls his cock out, hissing, “Plus, as you pointed out earlier, I’m not your boss anymore.”
There would definitely be some remark you’d make to that but your focus is kind of caught up on how big his dick is. You knew from it digging into you earlier that he was… well-endowed but to see it now is a little scary.
You point at it accusatorily, “There’s no way I’m taking that.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he laughs. “Don’t stress so much, it’ll fit.”
You quirk an eyebrow at him as if to ask, ‘you sure?’
“The foreplay wasn’t just for fun,” Gojo purrs, “though I definitely did have fun playing with your pussy—.”
Your hand slaps over his mouth, “Do you need to be so vulgar?”
He nods wordlessly from behind your hand, eyes bright with his enjoyment of this interaction.
You take too long to remove your palm and he’s licking it, your reaction immediate as you pull back with a grimace. “Ew, what the hell?”
“Ew? My tongue was literally in your mouth not five minutes ago,” his eyes roll at you.
“This and that are different things.”
“Uh huh,” brushing you off, “Open your legs more, I’m gonna blow my load before I even get inside you at this rate.”
Your legs cross at that, “Say pretty please.”
Gojo leans down and rests his hands on the desk either side of you, eyes level with yours, “Pretty please open your legs for me, sweetheart?”
There’s a bit of a begged tinge to his voice that makes you cave immediately, parting your legs again. He grabs your hips and pulls you closer to the edge of the desk, humming happily, “Thank you.”
The head of his cock is dragged from your clit to your opening and back again, sliding himself through your folds a few times just to make you desperate. Ignoring the fact that you’re already desperate, needy for him to fill you to the brim.
“Stop being a tease.”
“I thought you were worried about it fitting?” He asks.
Your retort is fast, “I thought you were going to give me a good dick down?”
“I believe I said a really good dick down,” notching the head at your pussy hole, “but I’ll forgive you this time.” He doesn’t push in immediately, instead leaving a chaste peck on your lips before he murmurs against them, “Deep breath.”
About to tell him he’s ridiculous and something about his ego being heavy to carry around when your lungs are struggling, the initial slide of his cock entering you making all air knock from you. Nails clawing at his forearms either side of you, not even able to make a noise as he splits you open.
Stopping not even half-way to give you a second to breathe, “I told you to take a deep breath.”
“Hnn– I– hng—” You can’t even reply yet, stopping your attempts to fill your lungs with air.
Gojo’s head dips as he looks at where you’re both connected, “Fuuuck—” he tilts his head back to look up at the ceiling, “I’m gonna cum too early if you don’t relax.”
He’d already held off on cumming just from touching you a couple times, finally being inside you is driving him crazy. Not even at the half-way point and his dick is twitching like crazy, your cunt sucking him in greedily and clenched so tight around him. You’re still panting and struggling to wrap your head around the stretch of him and as cute as it is, it’s also a massive fucking turn on that’s making his life harder.
You’re falling forward into him, head resting on his chest, hands clinging to him desperately. Managing out through moans, “Why– hff– why is your dick so huge?”
Breathless laugh leaving him, “You’re being really cute.”
“Shut up.”
“Getting cuter.”
He wraps his arms around you, lips pressed to your ear. With the movement his cock slides just that bit more inside you. The sound of his soft, needy whine is ringing in your head and making you twitch. Practically creaming around him already, it’s embarrassingly early to be this much of a mess but he’s worked you up so much and you can’t help but fall deeper into the pleasure.
Desire is overflowing from you and you have no idea what to do with it, holding onto him tighter as a result. Turning to the side, you kiss him wherever you can, it doesn’t take long at all for him to dip and kiss you back hard. Getting lost in his lips, wishing you could somehow pull him even closer.
While distracted, Gojo takes the opportunity to fuck the rest of the way into your tight pussy. Your mouth is dropping open with a whine, feeling the tip of his dick against your cervix has you trembling. You can’t tell if you’re imagining it but you’d swear you can feel the thump thump! of the veins on his cock throbbing against your walls.
He lowers you down onto the desk but the movement has him shifting inside you and you’re whining again, back arching against the wooden surface. You wrap your legs around his waist, feeling the need to cling to him even more.
Gojo’s head tucks into the crook of your neck, his words coming out mumbled, “Ooh, you’re gonna have me dreaming about this.”
“You– hng– you have to move.” You can’t take any more of this slow pace, your pussy begging you—and him—to be fucked.
His face comes into view, expression struggling to stay cool, “You need to keep your legs open nice and wide for me then.”
Pout making its way onto your face immediately because you really want to keep him this close but you also really want to do what he says. “This better be worth the embarrassment.”
“It will be.”
He’s pulling away from you at the same time that you’re parting your legs, hoping you’ll get away with resting your inner thighs against his hips. Clearly, that’s not satisfactory enough for Gojo because he’s grabbing behind your knees and pulling your legs further apart. Manhandling you lewdly into a position that exposes you to his greedy eyes.
Sighed moan leaving him, “You’ve got such a pretty cunt.”
“You’ve– ah– got such a dirty mouth.” A laugh moves through his chest at your retort and you don’t understand why you’re feeling butterflies over it.
“I’m gonna move now, sweetheart.”
“Please.”
The heavy drag of his cock pulling back gives you a visceral reaction, fingers digging into his desk, looking for something to hold onto. Every inch of him rubbing up against something delicious with each one of his movements, no matter how small. Tuned into every sensation you’re experiencing and feeling so sensitive with it. You’re feeling everything, pussy creaming around him at it, clearly in love with his dick.
On the other hand, Gojo’s losing his fucking mind about as much as you are—if not more. His cock throbbing, pulsing inside your hot cunt. Even though he’s going insane over how sweet your pussy is, he’s still pausing when he’s pulled out. Watching how your hole twitches and convulses around the head of his dick. Fresh slick dribbling from you and sliding down his shaft, he’s not sure he’s ever going to be normal again.
Slamming his hips to yours in one movement and as soon as he starts, he can’t stop. Repeatedly fucking into you over and over, his eyes glazing over as whimpers spill from him. You’re not doing any better, whining and grabbing onto whatever’s closest, obviously needing something to keep you grounded.
He’s bullying your womb with his tip and you’re so close to cumming, only a few more thrusts and you’re finishing around him. Surprised by your own high, hips meeting his to ride it out. Teeth digging into your lower lip as your eyes roll, too involved in yourself and the pleasure to be embarrassed.
“God– hah– you’re already?– fuck!” Gojo can’t believe it, his heart hammering in his chest at how you cum. Your pussy sucking him in divinely, begging him to keep stuffing you full.
In your fucked out bliss, you slip up, “Satoru– hmf—”
It’s the first time you’ve used his given name and his brain short circuits, everything inside him excited and he can’t help himself. Whining pathetically as he cums, not a hint of shame from him. Caught up in how pretty his name sounded coming from your lips, a little slurred in your messy state.
Not able to stop his thrusts either, your mixed cum drooling down the sides of his cock as he keeps fucking you. Keeping you both on cloud nine to the point of overstimulation. The pair of you buzzing and lost in each other. Everything is hot and messy and feels so fucking good.
His brain is stuck in a loop of your pitiful voice calling for him. “You’re unbelievable– hnn– you should stay– hah– don’t leave.”
“I can’t– ngh—”
“Breaking my heart,” he sulks, hips slowing to a steady rut.
You can feel tingling all the way down to your toes. “That’d– hff– be more believable if you weren’t balls deep inside me.”
He finally stops, pelvis flush to you. Looking down his nose as he replies, “I’m multidimensional.” Sliding his hands from your legs to your waist, “And still horny.”
His dick slips from you and then he’s using his hold on you to flip you over so you’re face down on the desk. Taking a second to admire the way his seed drips from you before plugging it with his fat dick again. Shiver going down his spine, gaze trailing up your body. Disappointed by the lack of skin showing, you’re still wearing the unbuttoned shirt he neglected to properly remove in his impatience.
Touch gentle as he slides the sleeves down your arms, initially going to take it off but changing his mind at the last second. Instead, wrapping your wrists in it haphazardly and turning it into a makeshift restraint.
When you realise what he’s done, you struggle a little against it and then huff. Forehead resting against the wood, cunt overstuffed, and now restrained in your arm movements. You feel a little helpless and it makes your insides flutter.
Gojo checks in, “You good, sweetie?”
“Pervert,” you mutter in response.
“What was that?” Fingers unclasping your bra, sliding his hand over where it’d been fastened.
“I’m good,” you reply.
He pats your ass, smiling to himself, “Then this pervert’s gonna fuck you again.”
Pace instantly brutal, angling his hips so his dick drills into your weakest point. Already having figured out your body far better than you ever have, driving you to the brink of crying from how overwhelmingly good it feels.
You have nothing to hold onto, hands trapped behind you and forced to stay there. It’s got you squirmy, unable to ground yourself with anything and it’s manifesting as you wriggling and your toes curling. Panting and writhing below Gojo, digging your nails into the cotton of your shirt as a pitiful replacement for something sturdy.
Gojo groans, hands holding you still, his fingers digging into your plush skin. “Stay still, pretty.”
“Can’t– ngh– can’t help it.” Your eyes wet from unshed tears.
He moves one of his hands up to the back of your neck, putting just enough pressure there to stop your wriggling. Immobile under him now, taking what he’s giving you. Your pussy shaking around him, consumed by him and his presence. Trusting him wholly in this moment to do what will bring you both the most pleasure, a kind of trust you’ve not given to anyone before.
There’s a creamy ring around the base of his cock from your mixed cum, a sight that makes him even more aroused. Everything you do, everything about fucking you, is only working him up even more. Thinking he’s gotten as horny as he can possibly get only for you to whine, or call his name, or twitch, or pulse around him. Causing him to fall deeper and deeper into his own insanity, borderline unhinged from how you’re making him feel.
Everything feels so much more heightened now that you can’t take it out on the furniture, brain zeroing in on exactly where his tip is hitting or the sounds he’s making for you. The soft whines and moans from him are causing your brain to fry, tingling all over and smiling a little dumbly at how he sighs your name.
It feels so good, too good, it’s almost a little scary just how good it feels. Like you’re going to fall apart at any second and you have no idea of knowing when, kept on edge and waiting for the final thrust that will do you in.
Gojo can’t believe what’s in front of him, able to feel you so vividly but still feeling like he’s dreaming because it’s just too good to be true. But you are here below him, your pussy is crying around him and begging for more. It’s real and it’s heavenly and he’s greedy for more.
“You’re so pretty,” he sighs, “so pretty– hff– and smart and your cunt sucks me in so fucking nicely.”
Managing to pant back at him, “Don’t talk.” Your pussy betrays you though, jumping at his praise.
“Why not?” Soft laugh leaving him, “Feels like you like it.” He hums softly, hand tickling down your spine, “It’s– hah– like how you got flustered by me complimenting your work.”
You’d almost forgotten that, all his words of affirmation and the kindness he’d spilled in an attempt to get you to not resign. It didn’t work but it definitely did make you feel all fuzzy inside. “I don’t know what you’re– ah!– talking about.”
“I think someone has a thing for praise,” he giggles. “That’s okay, I can give you all the praise in the world.”
“I don’t,” you deny poorly. It’s hard to sound convincing when you’re full of his cock.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” you can hear the smile on his face, “you’re doing– haa– such a good job, pussy taking me so well. Being real nice to me too, all wet and needy.”
It’s fucked up how easily he reads you, it shouldn’t be allowed. “Stop– hm– I’m gonna cum if you keep—”
“—Gonna cum because you like being told what a hot cunt you have and how great it is to fuck.”
He’s so annoying, so persistent, so stubborn, and so good at getting you off. You’re cumming around him as he gives you his nasty version of a compliment, moans loud and embarrassing. It’s the hardest you’ve ever cum and it’s knocked the wind from your lungs. A mess of shivers and whines as you ride it out. His cock prolonging your high because he’s not stopped fucking you.
Gojo’s head tips back, eyes watching how you’re squeezing around him, “Fuck– fuck– oh my god– hah– that’s it, cum around me juuust like that.”
It feels fantastic, your bliss washing over you. It won’t stop feeling good, brain all mushy and thoughtless as you barely register his words. You can feel his cock throbbing inside you, holding his own orgasm off through sheer willpower alone. “Satoru… you– hng– you gotta cum, please?”
“That’s not fair,” he whines.
You’re not playing fair. He’s trying his absolute hardest to prolong this moment, wanting it to never end and here you are asking him so very nicely to cum. He couldn’t possibly deny you, not when you’re so placid and sucking him in so lovingly. Pussy practically begging him for another one of his heavy loads.
Voice calling to him again, “Please, I want it.” And you do, you want to hear how his moans get even more pathetic as he finally lets himself go.
Not even all the way through your sentence does he fold for you, hands slamming down onto the desk as his hips jut forward, filling you to the brim with his achy dick. His pelvis keeps you so close to the edge of the desk, the wood digging into you.
Your hole flutters around him at his pretty moans and he feels every second of it, his sensitive cock reacting to it. “You feel sooo fucking good– ngh– I can’t take it, you’re killing me, sweetheart.”
He’s panting from above you, trying to catch his breath as his body shakes from aftershocks. The both of you twitchy messes, all heavy breaths and soft jerks. Your body is all limp on the desk, brain fuzzy and not thinking much of anything aside from how delightful everything feels.
In his hazy state, he manages to remember that you’re still restrained. Struggling a little to untangle the mess he made of your shirt and freeing your hands. Your arms fall to your sides, all lazy and fucked out.
Gojo slips from you and sits back onto his desk chair, taking you with him. Your head flops back onto his chest as you whine in protest but you’re too weak to stand. “Your cum is gonna get all over this chair.”
The laugh that he lets out vibrates against you, “It’s fine, I’m sure the owner won’t mind.” His big hands come around to your front, pulling your bra off properly before cupping your tits in them.
“The owner is a weird pervert.”
He’s playing with you, groping your tits how he pleases, “Oh, you’ve met him? Should I be jealous?”
You continue going along with his bit, “No, he’s some lazy guy who never shows up on time and always sneaks out to blow off work, I’d never have sex with him.”
“Wow, lucky I’m not him,” he tilts your head to the side and kisses you deep. Humming softly against you as he licks at your tongue. When he pulls back he asks, “So, was it a really good dick down or what?”
Your eyes grow wide and your skin heats up, “I refuse to answer that.”
“Because then you’d have to stay,” he grins back, arms moving to wrap around you.
There’s a quiet that goes over the both of you, “I can’t.”
He tucks his head into your neck, asking, “Are you finally going to tell me why?”
“If I told you why you’d want to help and I’m handling it on my own.” There’s a lot you can’t manage to tell him and needing to move is only the tip of the iceberg.
As much as he wants to argue back or push more information from you, he accepts your words, “There will always be a place here for you, I was serious about not hiring anyone else.”
These are your last moments with him, him being kind to you after giving you the best sex of your life and you can’t even be completely honest with him. Instead of mourning the moment before it’s over though, you let yourself be here. Held by him and warm.
𝒂ﾉ𝒏. thank you sm for reading !!! i'm sorry it took me so long to finish it 🥲 my writing speed fluctuates rapidly, i am who i ammmm. ngl i got most of this done ages ago and got stuck on the smut. ANYWAYS,, i have ideas for a second part with a little bit of angst and dramaaa but only if people want it smile ◡̈
also if it seems unrealistic to what working in marketing is like #sorry i've never worked corporate. i'm studying psych and worked as a lifeguard so i've got NO CLUE 😛
request. 18+ content ahead—minors do not interact. preferably watch in private, not public. you must be logged into x (twitter) to watch the videos below. ૮꒰ ˖˚⊹ ꣑ৎ ꒱ა
✘ doggy style with dean
✘ when ‘cuddling’ takes another turn
✘ what you send dean while he’s away on a hunt
✘ biiiiiig stretch
✘ blowjob in the impala
✘ eating you out sideways
✘ double penetration
✘ missed your pretty cunt
✘ bulge kink
✘ strawberry panties
✘ don’t let sammy hear
