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Chapter Text

The idea came up one day as Dylan and Harry were at a bar with Tyler and Louis. As they both were ogling and pining waiting for the other two to come back with the drinks, Dylan gave a loud sigh and muttered, "We are such losers. Why don't we just date each other?"

Unseen to Dylan, Harry's curly head stilled and slowly turned towards Dylan. A bright, mischievous (and sort of desperate-the years of pining had taken its toll) glint came into his eyes.

"Why can't we?" said Harry.

Dylan's head shot up from its resting position on his arms, and he stared at Harry like he'd lost his mind. "What?"

"I said, why can't we date each other?"

Dylan's eyebrows drew together in a pinched line of worry-maybe Harry had drunk one too many beers? He had been so sure that he'd only snuck the underage kid a few beers, and really, Harry was of age in the UK, surely he had experience enough that he'd graduated from being a one-pint lightweight.

"Come on, Dylan, it's brilliant!" said Harry enthusiastically.

Dylan shook his head slowly, wondering if he should check for love drugs (did they exist in the real world as well as the world of Teen Wolf?!) in Harry's glass. "Harry, remember how you love Louis? And I lo-lur-lik-have feelings for Tyler? Remember that? Remember how we're best friends, we're bros? Not, er, not love interests?"

Harry shook his head vigorously, causing his curls to bounce around erratically (really, Louis, how do you not see the beautiful curls? Even Dylan could appreciate them, and he was madly in lo-lik-lur-feelings with the abs-god of the USA). "No! Dylan, I'm not professing my love for you. Also, you really need to get over that thing you have against expressing your feelings for Tyler. You looooooove him." With that, he poked his tongue out in a childish gesture.

"Oh really? Well let's see you express your feelings!" Dylan retorted.

Harry blushed a bright red color and spluttered, "I, he, you, no! I mean, I can! I just-want to, uh, save my words of lo-lik-feelin-fanc-affec-stuff! For Louis!" Dylan chortled gleefully as Harry made a mess of himself trying to recover from his "stuff for Louis" moment. Harry jabbed irritatedly at Dylan, "Stop laughing, dammit! It's not like you're any better!" Dylan was about to reply when they heard two voices that caused them to sit up straight and try their hardest to look innocent.

"What is Dylan not better at?" asked a confused Louis.

Tyler smirked and said, "Cooking, for one. They both can't cook for shit, but Dylan's the only one that managed to get the kitchen to catch on fire from boiling water."

Louis cackled at the reminder of that day, he remembered that all four of them had been at Dylan's flat (which the Americans called apartment-weird), and one moment they had been watching the Avengers, the next moment, there was smoke in the air and a fire in the kitchen. Dylan pouted (inwardly relieved that the two hadn't asked further), and tried to valiantly defend his cooking skills-he could order pizza, thank you very much.

Harry caught Dylan's eye as Tyler and Louis started explaining in great depth that ordering pizza wasn't cooking, and tried to signify that their previous conversation wasn't over. Dylan rolled his eyes at Harry, he wasn't paying attention to the British boy until Harry had recovered from whatever bout of insanity that he had been going through.

Of course, it didn't exactly go like that.

Chapter Text

It was a few days after that day in the bar when Harry mentioned it again. This time, Dylan was absolutely positive that Harry was sober, as they were playing Mario Kart on Harry's (fucking massive) bed, and they had only eaten pizza and chips since Dylan had come over that morning.

"We should date each other."

Dylan looked at Harry with a raised eyebrow, pausing the game because Harry's loss of sanity was much more important than Princess Peach winning the game (for now, and also, no one was allowed to judge about Princess Peach, she was a BAMF at Mario Kart).

"No, I'm serious, hear me out!" insisted Harry, green eyes sparkling with mischief. Dylan cocked his head to the right, and shrugged, might as well listen, at least then he'd have more to describe to the psychiatrist he called for Harry.

"You know how we're both pining--" here, Dylan made an indignant noise of objection, but Harry waved it off, "--over them, right? Well, your comment, it makes total sense! We date each other, and then they'll be so jealous that, BAM! I'll get Louis, and you'll get Tyler!"

Dylan looked skeptically at Harry and questioned his friend's sanity.

"Think about it! Tyler is a possessive bastard, he gets mad at any waiter or waitress that looks at you for longer than two seconds, if he thinks that you're dating me, well, at least he can't afford to beat me up because I'm one of his friends. Er, well, I hope he feels that he can't beat me up..." Harry trailed off at this train of thought, suddenly, panful scenarios were popping up in his mind.

Dylan scoffed, "Like that'd ever happen, oblivious as Louis is to how much he wants to fuck you--"

"Oi! Louis' a gentleman!" interjected Harry, and then winking, remarked, "'sides, I wanna top."

Dylan blanched at this extra information that he really didn't want to know. Trying to recover, he continued on like he never heard. "Oblivious as Louis is, he'd never let Tyler or anyone beat you up."

"Huh. I guess," agreed Harry, and then his head shot up and stared at Dylan. "So, you're agreeing to this?"

"What? No! I never--" spluttered Dylan, rubbing a hand over his bristly head [nb:no lonnngggerr] nervously.

"You so did! You're discussing strategy with me now!" cried Harry happily. He then proceeded to jump on Dylan in glee. Dylan tried to fend Harry off of him, but accidentally rolled them both off of the bed and onto the floor. Of course, this did little to dissuade them from continuing to wrestle.

Of course, this is how Louis found them when he walked in a few minutes later. Harry was in the process of winning (no matter how much Dylan might think he was going to make a comeback soon), and he had pinned Dylan's hands on the ground. They were both startled at the cough from the doorway, and turned their heads to find an embarrassed looking Louis leaning against the door awkwardly.

"Uh...hi?" squeaked Dylan. Even though Louis had seen Harry and Dylan in many awkward positions before, it was still rather awkward. Harry's face was flushed, and Dylan could tell from the breeze on his stomach that his shirt had ridden up on his torso. He could only imagine what his face looked like (damn his blushing genes) and on top of that--Harry was on top of that.

"Uh, you guys were...wrestling?" asked Louis, and Dylan could detect the hopeful hesitancy in his words. And maybe it was that hopefulness (and the absolutely besotted expression on his best friend's face) that made Dylan do it, but he had made his decision (he was so fucked).

"Um...ah...no? I mean, we started out doing that, but then you know, Harry's so...y'know, and so we were um...can you give us a minute?" Dylan tripped over his words, this was why he didn't say anything to Tyler, he sounded so stupid. Harry's eyes widened as his brain processed what Dylan was implying. He turned to look down at Dylan, and Dylan widened his eyes back at Harry, trying desperately to convey "hellpppp meee" to him. With a loud snort of laughter, Harry winked at Dylan (oh god he was so regretting his decision right now) and turned back to Louis.

"Yeah, Lou, what Dylan is trying to say is, we're dating. And, um, you may have interrupted something."

Well, Dylan thought, subtlety is not our strong point...we should probably work on that.

Louis turned bright red and started spluttering. "What-he, you? NO! I mean, not, uh, I mean...together? You, Dylan, oh my god you guys were kiss--no! DYLAN WE NEED TO TALK. NOW."

Dylan stared, alarmed at the purple color that the normally happy Louis was turning. Maybe it was Dylan was the one that needed to worry about getting beat up. "Uh, no! I'm, uh, I'm good with not talking, uh, we, uh, I need to, HARRY."

Harry hid a grin behind his hand, and got up off of Dylan. Dylan looked beseechingly at him, Louis couldn't kill Dylan if Harry stayed near Dylan, so Harry needed to come back right the fuck now.

"Dylan, why don't you talk with Louis right here? I'll just go downstairs and get some cookies." With that, Harry (the traitor, thought Dylan) walked out the room. As soon as his footsteps faded away, Dylan found himself pressed against the wall, in a manner eerily similar to the way Tyler did on set at Teen Wolf filming.

"What. The. Fuck. You need to break up with him right now," growled Louis. Dylan eeped.

Chapter Text

"So...got any threes?" Harry looked hopefully at Dylan. Dylan, nodding his head, looked up, accidentally looked directly into Harry's eyes and then quickly started frantically shaking his head no while trying to subtly scootch [my mac tells me this is not a word, it lies] further away from Louis on his right, causing Tyler to glare at Harry, causing Louis to scowl at Tyler before a silent truce is called (again), and everyone looks back down at their cards.

"Uh, Dylan, did you have any threes?" asked Harry again. Dylan jerked his head a bit and then sort of slid his card at Harry. Harry reached towards the cards but when his hand brushed against Dylan's, he retracted his hand like it had been burnt. Harry snuck a glance at Tyler to find that Tyler was already glaring fiercely at him, causing Harry to immediately look away. Louis, having noticed the exchange glared at Tyler again.

Harry tried to catch Dylan's eyes so he could send a silent "what the fuck have we gotten ourselves into" but it was futile because Dylan refused to look up from his cards (in Dylan's defense, his cards were really sucky, he needed to concentrate to win).

~fifteen minutes before the awkwardest game of Go Fish in the world began~

"What. The. Fuck. You need to break up with him right now," growled Louis.

Dylan widened his eyes, partly out of fear, partly out of the whole "lack of oxygen equals bug eyes" thing. He wheezed out "But Harry would be so, uh, heartbroken! We really--" he stopped abruptly with a squeak when Louis' pressed his forearm into Dylan's neck a bit more.

"When did you start dating?" Louis spat out the last word as if it were a curse.

Dylan had a mini panic-fest, they really hadn't discussed anything-oh fuck, fuck his impulsive self and fuck Harry's stupid besotted face and fuck his sudden blank mind.

"Answer the bloody question," snapped Louis, eyes wild with...was that jealousy? Dylan felt a vague sense of success that their plan was working (idea, really, plans needed planning and partners who didn't abandon their fake boyfriend to the scary band members).

"Uh, we, uh, since recently! Like, yesterday, we uh, realized that we had feeling for each other and then--" another squeak cut off Dylan's voice as Louis suddenly let go of him. Well, more like, wrenched off of him, Dylan amended that thought as a furious Tyler Hoechlin yanked Louis back by his shirt collar. Louis struggled half-heartedly, but he must have realized that the much bigger man was a lot stronger and probably couldn't be fought off.

"Dylan, are you alright?" asked Tyler calmly, ignoring Louis' attempts at freeing himself. Dylan nodded, eyes wide, really, Dylan thought, all this drama, he almost preferred the pining staring days. Almost. Because damn Tyler's face was really hot when he was being protective.

"Yeah, um, I'm fine, dunno what's wrong with Louis-boy though, all I said was that Harry and I-" Dylan cut himself abruptly. It probably wasn't a good idea to tell Tyler while Dylan was all by his lonesome, look how crazy Louis had gone!

Louis glared at Dylan from his position in Tyler's headlock (woah when did that happen, Dylan wondered, probably during Dylan's mini session of appreciating Tyler's angry, protective face, he surmised) and snarled out, “Dylan and Harry aredating.” Tyler’s face went black for a second before he released Louis’ head from under his arms. Louis straightened up and rubbed at his neck before turning to Tyler and expounding upon his statement. “They apparently realized they had feelings for each other last night.”

Tyler exchanged a look with Louis, one that Dylan for the life of him, couldn’t interpret. Harry chose that time to bound into the room, all sparkling eyes and bouncy chocolate curls with a bowl of chips and pretzels as well as a few cans of Coke in his other hand.

“Yo, how’s it going, Dyl and Lou-“ Harry paused halfway into the room and through his question, staring at Tyler and Louis, currently engaged in a staring contest. “Uh, guys, what’s up?”

Louis shook his head at Tyler before turning a cheerful grin at Harry. “Nothing, Hazza! Mmm, sourdough pretzels? For me? You shouldn’t have!” Louis reached out to ruffle Harry’s hair but missed because Harry had already laughed and walked over towards Dylan. Louis’ face scrunched together in a dangerous scowl as he watched Harry sling and arm around Dylan’s neck and pulled him in close. His face got even darker as Dylan’s arm wrapped around Harry’s waist automatically. Behind Louis, Tyler’s face became stormy and his face pinched in a disbelieving glower.

“No, Lou, the pretzels are for Dyl here! He loves ‘em, although he’ll probably share with you like you guys normally do,” said Harry, grinning brightly before turning and kissing Dylan on the cheek. 

It was something that the two normally did, being both rather touchy-feely people. In fact, it was something Harry did to Lou almost constantly, and Dylan on a weekly basis to Tyler (Dylan did it partly to annoy Tyler who wasn’t as touchy as him, and partly to ensure that he got to smell Tyler’s enticing scent-sometimes, it was like Dylan was the werewolf, jeez). 

However, this time, Tyler and Louis were looking at the gesture through green-tinted glasses and both were grimacing. Tyler clenched and unclenched his fists while Louis stuffed his clenched fists into his bright red jeans.

Dylan looked over and noted that Louis looked like he really wanted to punch Dylan. Harry peeked through his lashes and could tell that Tyler was reconsidering his friendship with him right then. Dylan and Harry exchanged a look, their plan (shoddily come up with as it was) was working perfectly.

"Guys, why don't we play cards?" Harry asked the room in general. Dylan was the only one that nodded his head enthusiastically. Tyler and Louis continued their silent but angsty glaring.

"Strip poker!" hooted Dylan, slapping a high-five with Harry. Before their hands made contact though, Tyler had grabbed Harry and dragged him off outside the door and Louis was spinning Dylan around to glare at him (more viciously this time).

"No strip poker. No touching. No looking. No kissing. No-n-n-o...nosexallowedever!" the last bit of Louis' dire warning came out in a jumbled mess which caused Louis to blush a bright red.

Dylan raised an eyebrow. "Uh, we're dating now, you can't really control our love-life," as soon as the words were out of his mouth though, he seriously regretted it. Damn his stupid brain for not having any survival instincts. Louis' facial expressions cycled through furious to pissed off to jealous (score! thought Dylan) to I-will-rearrange-your-face-if-you-try-anything-with-Harry. The last expression was told to Dylan in a hissed whisper as Tyler was dragging Harry back into the room.

Harry, Dylan noticed, looked mildly terrified. Catching Harry's eyes, he tilted his head in a questioning manner, was the plan still on? Harry looked grimly resolute as he nodded in reply to Dylan.

"Alright. So, uh, no stip poker, uh, because...yeah. Um, what shall we play?" asked Dylan this time. Tyler and Louis announced their decision simultaneously, having apparently decided what the most innocent game was.

"Go Fish."

Chapter Text

It's a couple days later when Harry and Dylan finally find a moment to themselves. It'd been a hectic week with recording for One Direction's new album and for some reason (Harry knew perfectly well what the reason was, he was just a bit surprised at how well their plan was working) Louis had been ridiculously touchy-feely and it had ruined some of the recording when Harry kept missing cues because of how distracting the constant touching was.

Dylan had been busy as well, they had been filming an action scene, and although "Stiles" didn't have to do too much, Dylan kept forgetting lines as suddenly, "Derek's" growls sounded ten times sexier when there was a bit of a possessive and jealous edge to it.

They were lounging at Harry's penthouse (the boy didn't do things by half) and Dylan was whining about the ridiculous amount of sexy that Tyler managed to exude without even trying.

“Seriously! It’s like—normally good looking people have a relatively okay amount of ‘hey fuck me’ vibes but then you have Tyler and it’s like ‘HEY FUCK ME RIGHT NOW OR DIE’ because damn dat ass!” When he didn’t receive the appropriate amount of commiseration Dylan sat up and glowered at Harry. “Hey, hey bro, what are you—“

Harry shrieked a bit and tackled Dylan back down onto the bed, waving his phone wildly around in the air. “Dylan, the plan is working!”

Dylan groaned and while he was trying to regain the wind that was knocked out of him, he still had enough energy to smack Harry on the nose with his flailing hand. “Dude, we knew that it was working, or do you not remember the worst game of Go Fish in the history of Go Fish?”

Harry shook his head, eyes sparkling with barely restrained excitement, continuing to wave his phone wildly in the air.

“No, no, no! Dylan, listen to this, he’s admitting his emotions!” He patted wildly at Dylan’s face and absentmindedly tried to smooth out his confused frown while loudly reading off his phone. “Hazz, do you like Dylan?”

“Well no dur, why else would you be dating me?” Dylan muttered, smacking Harry’s hand away from his face and settling in for a lengthy mooning session, a la Harry loves Louis style.

“Yeah, I mean, I think he’s nice.” Harry continued, blithely ignoring Dylan.

“Nice? I’m more than nice, thank you very much,” Dylan continued to snark under his breath, irritated that Harry was still sitting on him.

“So uh, if I told you someone else liked you, would be willing to give them a chance—Dylan he’s talking about himself!” Harry prodded at Dylan giddily.

Dylan poked his tongue at Harry, causing Harry to roll his eyes before continuing on reading.

“Uh, it depends who, like if it were someone I knew well I’d give them a chance.”

“Wow, Harry, really being subtle there,” Dylan snickered but was smothered by Harry’s hand dropping down and covering his mouth. He made a face but Harry ignored him in favor of reading the next text.

“Yeah he knows you well. Um, I mean unless you like Dylan.”

“mmf-mf-mff-mffff-mmf!” Dylan mumbled under Harry’s hand, glaring. Harry rolled his eyes again and refused to take his hand away.

“I mean yeah, he’s my boyfriend, I like him.”

Dylan sighed internally, well, that wasn’t going to be encouraging sounding to Louis would it now. Sure enough, another ping for an incoming message came and Harry’s excitedly anticipating expression fell as soon as his eyes scanned the text.

“Never mind, I think he got over you, he wishes you and Dylan happiness?!” Harry didn’t sound very happy, Dylan mused, maybe Louis should wish it again. Harry glared at his phone and grumbled, “That’s not how I—“ another ping interrupted him.

“I guess you too make a cute couple.” Harry said flatly, eyebrows scrunching together and tilting his head to the side in a kicked puppy movement.

Dylan shrugged at Harry when Harry pouted at him. It wasn’t like he could do anything about how idiotic Louis was. Harry lifted his hand, looking prepared to anxiously type out another text when yet another ping sounded.

“Tyler…Tyler agrees, he’s with me right now, he just asks that you guys stop PDA-ing all over the place.”

Dylan shot up with an enraged shout, “What?! HE AGREES?”

Harry didn’t reply, busy with trying to clamber back to his feet as he had been violently dislodged from his position sitting on Dylan when he’d sat up so quickly.

“Harry!”

“Dylan!” Harry snapped back, finally plopping back down on the bed, this time next to Dylan.

“The plan is backfiring! Plan CAWAABD is going the exact opposite of how we want it to go! Abort! Abort!” Dylan screeched unhappily.

Harry scrunched his eyebrows at Dylan, his lips mouthing something before clearing his throat and poking Dylan to stop his theatrics. Dylan glowered at Harry, it was all Harry’s fault, he’d been doing perfectly fine with his long-distance ogling relationship with Tyler’s ass, and now Tyler thought that he and his best friend made a cute couple.

“Plan Cuh-wah-b’d?” Harry asked.

Dylan shook his head at Harry’s inability to pick up on the name. “Plan C-A-W-A-A-B-D, also known as Plan Catch A Wolf And A Band Member.”

Harry snorted at that. “Really, Dylan, that’s the best you could come up with? Teen Wolf is even a better name than that,” he mocked.

Dylan narrowed his eyes at Harry, “Hey, don’t knock the name, Directioner.”

Harry scowled at Dylan and crossed his arms. “It’s a cool name,” he grumped.

Dylan glared at him, “Well, Directioner, our plan is backfiring, what do we do?”

Ignoring his friend’s glare, Harry climbed off the bed and wandered over to his movie collection. Scanning the names, he plucked out a couple of the movies and plopped the first one into the DVD player. Grabbing the remote, he settled himself back on the bed and shoved at Dylan so that he was leaning against the backboard like Harry.

“What.” Dylan jabbed Harry’s side, confused at the opening credits rolling across the screen.

“Research,” Harry said simply, “I figure if we watch the pros of chick-flicks, we’ll get some ideas and a strategy.”

Dylan blinked at Harry and then sighed before shrugging, he flopped against the backboard. Well. It wasn’t like he had any better ideas.