Work Text:
Five more minutes. Hannah’s giving it five more minutes, and if her Hinge date still hasn’t walked through the front door with a really good excuse for being late, she’s gone.
She’s been nursing her third Diet Coke for almost twenty minutes now, and being alone in a bar without the swaddle of active addiction just plain sucks. It’s busy tonight, alive with the buzz of the weekend crowd, but Hannah feels like an island in the middle of it. She sighs, leaning back in the high chair.
She glances down at her still phone, hoping for a message or a call from her date explaining the delay. Nothing. Setting the phone down on the bar with a little more force than necessary, Hannah closes her eyes, wondering how this became her dating life. It’s not the first time she’s been stood up, but rejection in any form always stings a little. She takes a deep breath, finishes her drink, and motions to the bartender for the check.
She scribbles a signature and gathers her things. As she’s weaving past patrons to get to the door, she runs smack into a familiar face.
“Oh, Hannah.”
Hahn-uh.
Only one person enunciates her name like that, like each syllable is important and precious and a luxury for him to say. “Fancy seeing you here,” Dean says with his signature smirk. It’s the closest thing to a smile he ever offers, and it’s almost always directed at her.
“Dean!” she greets, moving out of the doorway. He follows her. “Yeah, I was waiting on a date… it’s looking like a no-show though, so I’m just gonna dip.”
Dean’s face immediately falls to a frown. “How long have you been waiting?”
“’Bout an hour at this point,” she admits, trying to keep her tone light.
“Really?” he asks, scanning the bar. She purses her lips and nods.
“Yup. Guess I’m not the best at picking them.”
“Seems not,” he says, but his voice is empathetic. “What kind of guy no-shows on Hannah Asher?”
She laughs, appreciating his grumpy concern. “David, 52, apparently.”
“52?” Dean asks, incredulous. Hannah blushes. “Standing up a woman at that big age, my my.” She jostles his shoulder good-naturedly.
“I was hoping setting my age range to 45 to 60 would help, but no dice.” It’s Dean’s turn to blush, which Hannah finds quite pretty, actually.
Dean hesitates for a moment, then sighs. “I was about to place to-go order, but how about we ditch this place and go to a diner? I know a good one a few blocks down.”
Hannah immediately brightens at the prospect of spending the night doing something other than eating a pint of Hagen-Daz on her couch and swiping till her thumb falls off. “Please,” she says in relief. “I’m sad and bored and starving.”
Dean nods, leading her out of the bar. Something tugs at her chest when he moves gracefully around her to stand on the outside of the sidewalk. A few minutes later they end up at a quiet, low-end place hidden between what looks to be two sister clubs. Dean motions for her to follow him into a slightly sketchy hallway that opens up to the most quaint little place she’s ever seen in downtown Chi-town.
As they move to a table, Hannah takes in the atmosphere. This diner is Dean encompassed: a throwback to a simpler time, with a line of stovetop griddles, ‘50s-style black vinyl booths, and an authentic jukebox in the corner that still works. There’s a neon Coca-Cola sign on the wall that flickers occasionally. Dean seems more at ease here than Hannah’s ever seen him, and she’s charmed by it all.
When they’re into a booth, Hannah looks around with sparkling eyes. “When you said diner, this is both exactly what I expected and also… not what I expected at all.” She looks back at Dean, who’s staring at her like she’s staring at the restaurant. He averts his eyes quickly to also look around, but Hannah can tell it’s mostly for show. She’s seen that look before, catching his eyes across the nurses’ station or when they tag-team a case.
With an unidentifiable pang, tonight Hannah wishes he’d never looked away. She’d give anything to keep him looking at her like that, in the ED or a diner that’s older of either of them or elsewhere, she thinks, even if she doesn’t know why.
“It’s reliable,” Dean says. “Been around forever. No frills.”
“So, like you?” she asks.
Dean rolls his eyes but can’t suppress a small smile, which Hannah takes as a win. When the waiter comes, she orders the stereotypical diner staple—cheeseburger all the way, fries, and a chocolate shake. Dean orders a cobb salad (“Found you liked the renal diet, huh?” ) and a strawberry milkshake. Conversation flows easily as they wait. As it usually does, Hannah feels her bubbly energy slowly chip away at Dean until he’s open and relaxed.
Hannah’s phone pings in her purse. She pulls it out and audibly sighs, which Dean lifts an eyebrow at.
“Let me guess. David, 52?”
Hannah groans. “Hey, where are you? he says. Almost two hours after we were supposed to meet. Like… huh?”
“Just leave him on read,” Dean says, casually stealing one of her fries. Hannah looks at him shocked.
“Now where did you learn what ‘leave on read,’ means?”
Dean smirks. “Sean’s dating life isn’t much better. Apparently that barista at Med isn’t replying to his messages anymore.”
Hannah frowns sympathetically. “It’s rough out here.”
“So no second chances for our favorite Biblically-named senior citizen?”
“Senior citi—? Oh, whatever. No, he’s getting left on read.” At that, she happily throws her phone back into her bag.
They eat in what Hannah thinks is a comfortable silence until Dean clears his throat.
“I know it didn’t exactly… work out the first time,” he begins, which perplexes Hannah. His tone and inflection are the same as when he would ask her over to help with his dialysis, like he’s forcing out the words despite their vulgar taste. “But you always could…” he trails off unhelpfully.
“Could?”
“I just mean, if you wanted to. I think he’d be… open.” Dean shoves another of her fries in his mouth like he’s covering a grimace.
“Dean, you’re gonna have to give me a little more here.”
He groans. “Sean. You could ask Sean. The dating pool sucks, right, so…”
Hannah’s eyes soften when she realizes what he’s asking. As much as she cares about Sean, the idea of being more than friends with Dean’s son doesn’t sit right with her.
Briefly, she wonders if it has less to do with Sean and more to do with Sean’s dad.
“That’s a good thought, but… I think Sean and I are better as friends.”
He exhales, almost like he was afraid of a different answer. Rather than overanalyze that, Hannah flips the script.
“So what about you, huh? Having any better luck?”
Dean chuffs and swats the air as if waving away the question. “Oh, my luck ran out a very long time ago.”
“Psh,” she replies. “No way. What’s the real reason you don’t date?”
Dean averts his gaze and sighs long-sufferingly. “Island life suits me,” he says simply. Hannah really wishes she was the type of person who could leave things be, but she’s not.
“Is that you or your commitment issues talking?”
Dean’s mouth falls agape. “Is this you or Dr. Charles talking?” At last, she holds up her hands in surrender.
“Fair enough,” she says. “But for real, Dean. You’re smart as a whip, funny, attractive—”
“You of all people should know flattery will get you nowhere.”
“—and kind, at least when you want to be.”
Dean purses his lips. “Now you’re just spreading rumors.” Hannah looks at him softly until he returns her gaze.
“I’m not, Dean.”
She can tell Dean is officially done with this conversation, because he grabs the check from the end of the table and, sighing one last time, stands and takes it to the register.
“I could have paid for mine,” Hannah says as they walk out the long hallway that led them to this gem. “But thank you.”
“Island life pays well,” he says. They linger on the sidewalk for a second, hands in their pockets. Dean shifts his weight. “Did you drive?”
“No, I cabbed it.” Hannah exhales long. “Doesn’t matter how long I live in Chicago, driving downtown gives me the heebie-jeebies. Plus, I was rather hoping I wouldn’t need a ride home,” she admits.
“But now you do, and here I am. Come on, I’ll give you a ride.”
Hannah looks at him gratefully. “You sure?”
Dean waves her off like it’s a stupid question—which yeah, she guesses it kind of is. Dean’s soft spot for her is no secret, and besides, if he didn’t want to, he wouldn’t ask. She knows him well enough to know that for a fact.
“Well thank you. You parked around here?”
“Nah,” Dean says, motioning for them to walk. “I live a fifteen minute walk away, straight shot. C’mon.”
Hannah knew Dean lived near downtown, but she had never realized how truly near he was. “No wonder you’re so familiar with this area.”
“We bought that house when Sean was a kid and I kept it in the divorce, thank God. So yeah, pretty familiar.” He shoots her the tell-tale smirk that means he’s about to show off. “Obviously you know about Slim’s and the hidden gem that is Mecca. One block that way,” he says, pointing to a cross street, “is the parking garage I recommend everyone. And one block that way”—he points in the opposite direction—“is a place called the Morning Times, which has spectacular coffee made by people who have not ghosted my son.” Before Hannah can process the fact that Dean apparently knows what ghosting means, he continues, pointing to a sign that reads “CAM” and another that reads “Crazy 8s.”
“That’s the Contemporary Art Museum, and that’s—” Hannah cuts him off, stopping mid-stride. She points to a neon sign on the block ahead reading “LIMELIGHT.”
“Wait, Limelight is right here?” She can’t keep the giddiness from her voice. Just last night she added a TikTok to her “to visit in chi” collection of a woman and her friends at a club downtown called Limelight. Hannah was going to recommend it to Maggie for a girls’ night out, but it feels almost kismet that she’s come upon it tonight.
It’s the direction they’re walking, but Dean still angles himself between Hannah and the building as if he can feel her anticipation to go in. It’s 9:30 and the music coming from inside is loud, but there’s no line yet. “Let’s go in.” Dean balks. “Oh, come on!” she continues, determined. “I’ve been thinking of bringing the girls—I had no idea it was so close to you!”
“Yeah, well, it is. Can we go home now?”
A couple rounds of back-and-forth later, Hannah can feel his resolve breaking.
“Look, can’t we go just for a minute? Just for like, two songs. Just to see if it’s worth bringing the girls.” With an exaggerated sigh, Dean finally relents.
When the bouncer with a hundred percent seriousness asks to see Dean’s ID, he looks incredulous but whips it out anyway.
“Genuinely do not remember the last time I got carded,” Dean says on their way upstairs to the main area of the club. Hannah laughs.
Upon a quick scan of the room, she realizes there are exactly zero chairs in this place. When she spots a free hightop to the left of the bar, she points it out to Dean, who nods. “I’ll get drinks,” he says, close to her ear so she can hear him over the DJ. “What do you want?”
“Shirley temple, please!” Dean nods, then starts weaving his way to the bar. Hannah claims the table, leaning against the wall to people-watch.
The club is sticky and fragrant with sweat and spilled drinks, but the atmosphere is vibrant and welcoming, buzzing with life. Somehow, seeing the easy camaraderie of clubgoers gives Hannah the same high as a successful birth. Humans need each other. Having a baby, dancing with a crowd, sharing a plate of fries—we’re best when we’re together, Hannah thinks.
As if on cue, Dean comes back holding two glasses. He hands her one, keeping the dark liquid for himself.
“Rum and coke?” Hannah asks playfully, taking the first sip of her shirley temple.
“Minus the rum,” Dean says, then lifts his glass. “To island life.”
Hannah laughs. “No way.” She raises her glass but doesn’t tap his yet. “To friends.”
He doesn’t respond verbally, but when their glasses clink, Hannah feels Dean’s smile like a forest fire.
They stand there sipping for a minute before a bass-boosted remix of what Hannah thinks is an MIA song turns into a bass-boosted remix of what Hannah knows is the Killers. The lyrics haven’t even started, but “Mr. Brightside” needs no introduction beyond the first note.
“Oh shiiiiit,” Hannah exclaims, abandoning her quarter-full drink on the table and grabbing his hand. “Dean, come on!”
“Oh no, Hannah, no way,” he says, pulling his hand back, but she won’t let it go. “I’m about three decades too old to even be in here as it is.”
Dean should know that a determined Hannah Asher is a force to be reckoned with. “Coming out of my cage and I been doing just fine…” she sings at him, taunting. As she knew he would, Dean relents. By the time the crowded dancefloor erupts in the second incantation of it was only a kiss!, Hannah is twirling around him.
Like a thawing, Hannah feels Dean’s awkwardness gradually melt away as he watches her dance, her joy infectious. When she realizes that he’s not going to move on his own but he will move if she’s pulling him, Hannah grabs both his hands. Standing close, she twists side to side until he starts to stiffly twist with her.
“See? You’re having fun!” She presses her lips close to his ear. She feels him shudder, but catalogs that moment to dissect later. Instead, she pulls back and sees him looking down at her with an expression she’s hard-pressed to decipher. At the very least, however, he looks fond.
“No, I’m tolerating your fun,” Dean deadpans, as if Hannah can’t tell when he’s lying. “For this song only,” he clarifies. She can live with that.
As the last of the I neeeveeeeeeeeeeers warps into yet another bass-boosted remix, Dean nods towards the door. Hannah smiles and, dropping his hands, begins to follow him out.
Suddenly, she notices a woman on the outskirts of the floor catch Dean by the arm, pulling him aside. The woman is striking, all dark curls and red lips. Hannah’s heart stutters when she watches the woman lean in close to Dean. Dean’s expression is polite but disinterested, and he quickly declines whatever she wanted before making sure Hannah’s still behind him. She is, of course. Yet the memory of that woman so close to Dean follows Hannah through the throng of people, making her stomach churn with a feeling she hasn’t encountered in a while: jealousy.
Jealousy?
Nope, Hannah thinks as soon as the question Why would I be jealous of someone hitting on Dean? enters her brain.
Nope. Not going there.
Except she’s maybe definitely going there, because the questions keep coming. Why should she care? She wanted him to date someone, right? “To friends,” she’d cheersed. Still, waves of possessiveness ripple over her. She feels a pang of something deeper, something she doesn’t want to acknowledge. She ducks her head, trying to shake off the feeling but it lingers, gnawing at her.
When they hit the crisp Chicago air, Dean closes his eyes indulgently. “Sweet relief,” he says on an exhale. Limelight was a slight detour, but they’re back en route to his. “Now, I hope you’ve gotten that out of your system. If not, you can Uber home.”
His tone is faux-stern, the way he always sounds when he’s trying to get a rise out of her. She manages a halfway-realistic laugh but doesn’t respond, just continues to walk.
“Reevaluating” isn’t the exact word for what Hannah’s doing right now, but it’s something close. Memories of Dean—him stripped bare in a hospital gown, waiting to be put under, letting no one unaffiliated with his surgery near him save her—flood her in full technicolor, feelings she hadn’t realized were there now bursting in her chest. She thinks about the softness in his gaze when she commandeered his blue bedroom chair—she’d looked back just as softly. Now she thinks, was it longingly? (Was it lovingly?)
What had he said to her, when he asked her to stand-in for him at that meeting? You’re the only one here I trust.
“Hannah.”
Hahn-uh.
Dean’s voice jolts her out of her spiralling, and only then does Hannah realize they’ve made it to his block. “You all right?”
“Yeah!” she says, cringing when her manufactured authenticity falls flat. Dean stops at the front steps to his house, pausing before reaching the driveway. He raises an eyebrow at her and crosses his arms. Hannah’s face falls. “Dean, I’m…” She gestures vaguely. Blessedly sensing that this is more than a 20-minute drive conversation, Dean motions towards the steps.
“Okay then, come on,” he says, unamused but not unkind. Hannah follows him into the house, and even the slight familiarity of that act, in this new context, is enough to rewire her brain. God, it was here all along, wasn’t it? It had to have been here all along. All those qualities about him she rapid-fire listed in the diner—
You idiot, she thinks. Of course it was here all along.
When they’re inside, Hannah and Dean settle on opposite ends of his couch. He studies her patiently, giving her room to speak, so she does.
“I don’t want to go out with Sean,” is what she chooses to lead with. Dean looks puzzled.
“Uh, message received?”
Hannah closes her eyes and remembers the sound of his voice through the phone as she, stranded in a freezing car, talked him through a patient, worry coating not just his words about the mother-to-be but about Hannah, too.
It was here all along.
“I want you, Dean.”
Hannah watches as Dean’s puzzlement deepens before it’s replaced by a hot-red blush. Sunburn, Hannah thinks. Island life doesn’t suit anyone.
He chuffs to buy some time, avoiding her eyes. A range of inexplicable emotions pass over his face before his expression turns blank. “Very funny,” he says. The lack of a glib dig makes her solar plexus ache.
“I’m not joking.” Emboldened by catching him so off guard, she leans towards his end of the couch and grabs his hands. “Tell me to go and I will. But it hit me like a train, Dean. I want you.” Hannah nearly stops before deciding fuck it, she’ll be brave. “And I think you want me too.”
Finally, Dean looks her in the eyes. His expression is pained—near tortured, she’d say. But he squeezes her hands, which seems like a good sign. “Hannah.”
Hannah knows innately that very few people can turn Dean Archer speechless. And oh, how it warms her to be one of them. “Why can’t it be you and me?” she whispers.
Instead of listing the millions of “good” reasons Hannah knows are probably twister-tearing their way through his mind, Dean huffs out a laugh.
“Tell me to go and I will,” she repeats, but neither of them have dropped hands. “Say thank you, you’re flattered, but we’re really better off as friends, and we can forget this ever happened.”
There’s a long pause during which Hannah just listens to him breathe. Her heart’s a web of tension but he hasn’t said anything, just breathes. He gave her room to speak. She can return the favor even if the waiting makes her want to puke.
“I can’t do that, Hannah.” The breath trapped in her sailor’s knot chest escapes at his words. She breathes easier when he releases one of her hands to stroke her cheek. “You and me,” he says with something like wonder. Then he smiles, an honest smile that Hannah logs in her mind’ eye. “It’s quite late now, but can we talk more about this in the morning?”
She smiles back. “Yeah. Still want to take me home?”
Dean withdraws his hands and scratches the back of his neck like he’s embarrassed. “Like I said, it’s late…”
Catching on immediately—and feeling more than slightly giddy—Hannah acquiesces. “I’ll make the coffee tomorrow if you lend me a sleep shirt.”
Dean looks at her, fondness radiating from his gaze. “Deal,” he says, standing. He offers her a hand up, which she takes. Immediately, Dean folds himself around her, pulling her into a tight hug. “You and me,” he says into her hair.
When Hannah feels him relax into the embrace, she smiles, warm and radiant. Golden, like the first fireflies of summer, or sun caressing a once-deserted beach.