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NOTE: Hi! This came out of nowhere. It’s extremely impromptu and unedited, and it’s based mainly on the show, although I have read the books. I did take some creative liberties with the circumstances of some of the scenes since we aren’t sure how they will unfold on the show. Just a fun little bit of creative indulgence. :)
She’s doomscrolling when it happens.
They’ve been unofficially-official for almost two months now, and given the absolute shitshow that it’s taken to get to this point, she feels like she’s still in a perpetual state of relieved exhale.
She’s still not proud of the way she handled everything: her inability to commit to a lack of commitment, her stubborn dipshittery over her feelings for Dean, and her futile effort to prove one fling by heaving herself brainlessly into another. Now that she’s managed to claw her way through the fog of whatever the fuck she had been thinking, she can see her own mistakes with disturbing clarity, and while she knows she didn’t do anything wrong from a moral standpoint, she now recognizes (too late) her betrayal of her true feelings because those feelings scared the absolute shit out of her, and her feelings for Sean? Well, they never did.
No strings attached fling with Hunter? Totally fine. Great, even. Except that there were strings involved–they were just in a knotted mess that led back to Dean.
So after many (many) tearful conversations with Hannah, apologetic text messages to Dean, and a surprisingly levelheaded conversation that had taken place on the floor of her bedroom of all places, she and Dean sitting crisscross-applesauce as they each did their best impressions of emotionally-mature adults, they had come to the conclusion that they did want the same things but they had both been too scared and egotistical to admit it.
Started from the bottom and now they’re…well, you know.
Which is how she landed here: alone in Dean’s room, wearing a pair of shorts and one of his Briar Hockey tees, impatiently waiting for him to get out of an evening class. She’s pretending to work on a paper for her Theater History and Evolution class–an activity that looks remarkably like scrolling mindlessly through Instagram. A glance at the clock tells her there’s another ten minutes left in Dean’s lecture, so with a sigh, she scrolls on. She’s chuckling at a reel of a cat riding on the back of a horse when the notification pops up.
Dean Di Laurentis mentioned you in their story.
Sure, okay. They’ve been in a ton of group photos that have been shared across the stories of everyone in the hockey house. The whole group is always tagging each other.
She taps. Freezes. Taps again.
It’s not a group photo, and it’s not just a story.
It’s a photo of just the two of them. She recognizes it immediately. It’s one Hannah had taken when Garrett and Dean had taken them ice skating. As a lifelong athletic failure, Allie had attempted no less than five times to veto the chosen activity. It had taken Dean promising her a French-only movie night for her to acquiesce. Even to this day she hasn’t admitted it, but she’d had a lot of fun. In the photo, Dean has wrapped both arms around her from behind, lifting her off the ice as she laughs hysterically and holds on for dear life to his arms.
Tapping on the photo, it takes her to a post on his grid. A carousel with a simple two-word caption: my favorite ❤️🔥
She can’t help but roll her eyes at the cheesy lack of creativity, but the smile that creeps onto her face matches the fluttering that she feels in her stomach. Curious, she continues to swipe through the photos.
There’s another Hannah had taken of Dean carrying Allie piggyback over a small creek during a long hike Allie had suggested…and then regretted almost immediately.
There’s another of them at a Briar basketball game, Dean hunched down, his chin resting on her shoulder as she turns and sticks her tongue out at him.
She giggles at the image of the two of them standing proudly, arms aloft, as they present their snowman from an unusually heavy snowfall, a Briar U SnowHawk, as they had dubbed him, complete with Dean’s jersey, a hockey stick, and a face made from Hot Cheetos.
She’s flattered and a little shy to discover he’s included a couple of solo photos of her: one of her grinning at him from behind the bar as he waited for her to finish her shift at Malone’s. Another of her standing on the stairs at the hockey house, posing as she wore his jersey to a game for the first time–a moment she knew he had secretly been anticipating.
Her mind humming with excitement, she scrolls for another ten minutes before hearing Dean’s familiar footfalls on the stairs, and moments later, he practically falls into the room, obviously exhausted after a long day. The sight of her perched on his bed lights a smile on his face, and his eyes soften the way they always do when he looks at her. She smothers the giddy grin that fights to break free and lifts a playful eyebrow instead.
“Awfully active online for someone who’s supposed to be focused on Constitutional Law.”
Dean shakes his head, chuckling and drops his school and hockey bags before dropping to his back on the bed in front of her. “I’m a champion multitasker.” He drops a hand to her bare knee, caressing it, before turning and pressing a tender kiss to the spot.
“Lecture was pretty boring, huh?” she questions, twining her fingers with his on her knee.
“Professor Statler is utterly fascinating,” Dean replies tiredly, dropping his head back against the mattress. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Dean.”
He raises his head at her direct tone and eyes her curiously.
She cocks her head. “Did you just hard launch us?”
His tired expression turns confused. “Hard launch? Are we not already launched?”
“You posted our photos on Instagram.”
“We have tons of photos on Instagram.”
“You posted relationship photos on Instagram. On your grid.”
His brow furrows with genuine confusion. “Was I not supposed to? I liked the photos. And everyone knows we’re together.”
“Everyone in our friend group knows we’re together. Now everyone knows we’re together.”
He still looks baffled. “Is that a bad thing? Did you want me to take it down? Was there a photo you didn’t like? You look so good in all of them, I just didn’t think–”
She’s leaning down to press her lips to his before he has a chance to finish his thought. He moans softly against her lips, and then he is pulling her down to lie next to him brushing a hand up under the hem of his own worn t-shirt to trace the soft skin of her lower back.
“I don’t want you to take it down,” she assures him breathlessly when they break apart. She’s flushed now, overcome by his physical proximity and still overwhelmed by his very public declaration of affection. “I like that you want to share us. I was just surprised.”
He watches her carefully before nodding. “I’m sorry. I guess I should have run it by you. Honestly, it didn’t even occur to me. You’re so seamlessly a part of my life at this point…”
She interrupts him once more to drop another kiss against his lips and then settles back against the mattress weaving her fingers with his once more.
They rest in comfortable silence for several long moments before Dean lifts her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to her fingers. “I need to shower. Today has kicked my ass. But then I’ll give you one episode of Solange. One.”
With a delighted little squeal, Allie pushes him up to his feet. “You’re a gentleman and a scholar. One of one. The prince of my heart. Now go. Hurry. Solange waits for no man.”
She watches as he leaves the room with a bemused laugh and then she picks up her phone once more.
Tapping her way to Dean’s post, she notes the 163 likes that have already accumulated, and she can’t help but skim through some of the comments.
Hannah and Garrett have already been there with their respective “my bestieeeeessss” and “bro is dating up!”
The comments stack up:
The cutest!!!
Goals!
Yall are soooo cuteeee!
Lord I see what youve done for others…
Allie smiles to herself, knowing that these people don’t even have an inkling of how lucky she is. She glances with a grin once more at Dean’s cheesy caption before typing quickly into the comment field and hitting the post button.
And mine.♥️
Settling into the comfort of his bed, she queues up the next episode of Solange and waits.