February 3, 2022—Seattle, Washington—13 Days Later #3
Dean blinked, momentarily pulled out of whatever space he’d disappeared into. “Huh?”
Logan gestured to the phone. “The one that’s making you grin like a fourteen-year-old girl scribbling hearts next to the name of her crush in her diary.”
Dean’s mouth twitched. Not quite a grin. Not quite a smirk. His gaze flickered—briefly, instinctively—toward Alon’s room, then dropped again to the screen.
“Oh, fuck you,” he said lightly, like it meant nothing. “We’re just dating. Four months now.”
The words floated away, intended to vanish before taking root.
Yet, Logan perceived their underlying meaning: the subtle curl at the edge of Dean’s mouth, the calmness of his hands, and the slight dip in his voice that hinted at something more serious.
All of this was evident in the silence that surrounded their exchange.
He noted how Dean’s shoulders relaxed, his body appeared eager, the brightness in his eyes, and the smirk that formed—along with the change in his gaze.
Logan tilted his head, a slow, knowing smirk creeping across his face.
“Dude… if you’re counting the months, that’s not just dating, she’s your girlfriend.”
Dean hesitated. Just long enough for Logan to know he’d struck something deeper. His thumb stilled on the phone screen. His posture changed—not tense, just uncertain.
And then, slowly, carefully, Dean dropped his gaze.
He was quiet for a beat. Then another. Like he was sorting through the thousand ways not to say the thing he’d already decided to say.
When he finally looked up, his voice was quieter than before. Less sharp. Less armored.
“You let me in on a secret,” he murmured. “So I’ll tell you one too.”
He didn’t look at Logan. He didn’t have to.
A breath passed. The kind of pause where something important waits.
“It’s a he,” Dean said finally. “Not a she.”
And just like that, the world didn’t change—but something did.
There was no cinematic stillness, no collapsing ceilings or dramatic hush of fluorescent lights.
The hallway buzzed with the same tired hum, nurses still moved past with quiet efficiency, machines still blinked behind closed doors.
But inside Logan’s chest, something shifted—quiet and seismic.
A thread pulled loose. A beat caught between his ribs.
Dean. Of all people—Dean—had just come out to him.
Logan didn’t move. Didn’t reach for a joke or let some reaction stumble out.
He just looked—really looked—at the man in front of him.
At the edges of him. At the way the usual armor had fallen away without fanfare.
No smirk. No deflection. Just a softness, a fragility that hadn’t asked permission to be seen.
Dean’s gaze stayed low, flickering near Logan but not quite touching him. A smile ghosted at the corners of his mouth—not playful, not performative. Tentative. Like a door half-opened.
Then Logan blinked, and the words spilled out with a lopsided grin, unable to hold back the rush that followed. “Dude! Welcome to the other side.” It wasn’t mockery, it was joy, too stunned and too sincere to be filtered. His grin broke wide across his face. “Have you told Adrian?”
Dean shook his head, “No…” The word was barely audible
Logan’s eyebrows shot up. “Your literal best friend in the entire world is as gay as possible—”
“What does that even mean?” Dean cut in, half-exasperated.
“You get the meaning,” Logan said, waving a hand. “Point is, your best friend is gay and you’re dating a guy and you haven’t told him? For four months?! He’s going to lose his mind.” He laughed—sharp, delighted, somewhere between disbelief and admiration. “Who is he?”
Dean chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck in that way people do when they’re caught off-guard but don’t mind being seen.
His eyes dropped for a second, not shy exactly, but something adjacent.
Like the feeling you get before saying a name that matters.
His smile changed, softer, almost hushed.
It wasn’t fear, but something far more delicate: reverence.
Like the name he carried was too new to expose, a fragile thing he was keeping warm in his chest until it was strong enough to stand in the open.
Before Logan could press further, a soft ding broke the moment.
Dean’s phone illuminated in his hands, transforming his entire demeanor, his eyes gravitated toward the screen as if drawn by an instinctive force, bypassing thought entirely.
A spontaneous grin spread across his face, bright and unguarded, appearing before he even recognized that he was smiling.
A delicate flush brushed his cheeks, genuine and revealing, exposing his emotions far more than any words could.
His fingers danced across the screen with urgency and excitement, almost trembling as he crafted a reply—oblivious to the rest of the room, his focus entirely ensnared in a world that felt singular, intimate, and intensely personal.
“Does he know about Adrian?” he asked gently.
Dean blinked slowly, his gaze flicking upward before landing somewhere distant. “Yeah,” he said. “He knows.”
“Wasn’t he upset you’re gonna be away for at least a month?”
Dean gave a small, guarded shrug. His hands were in his pockets, but his shoulders spoke louder than anything his mouth could’ve formed. There was something unsettled about him. A low static, humming just beneath the surface.
Logan stepped in a little closer, not imposing, but deliberate—his voice dropping to a near whisper, something meant to stay just between the two of them.
“You could’ve asked him to come,” he said, almost gently. “Make it romantic. I would’ve helped you plan it… it’s not too late, you know. You could call him. Tell him to come. We’ll figure something out.”
Dean didn’t respond right away. Something in him paused, not in hesitation, but in exposure, a truth that had accidentally been touched.
His jaw clenched, then relaxed again. His leg began to bounce, a nervous tell that betrayed the armor he tried to present. He bit at his lower lip, flicking his gaze between the two hospital room doors down the corridor.
Adrian’s.
And then—
Alon’s.
Logan didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.
He just watched.
He watched the way Dean’s gaze lingered too long on the second door. The way his shoulders stiffened, like he was holding something too heavy for casual denial. The way his breath subtly changed caught somewhere between confession and restraint.
It came to Logan not in a flash, but gradually. A realization that didn’t strike but rather rose, inevitable and soft.
He thought back.
To the way Dean had shadowed Alon from the moment they arrived.
The way he’d insisted on carrying his bags, the way he hovered, never obvious, always close.
The way he sat by his bed without needing to be asked, the gentle way he’d reached out to adjust a pillow or offer water, as if Alon might break if he moved too fast.
The way his voice softened when he said his name.
The way his eyes never seemed to leave him.
There had been something there, something tethered and tentative, unspoken and raw. Something sacred. And now, it clicked. All of it.
Dean hadn’t just come here for Adrian.
He tilted his head, a slow smile forming as he watched Dean carefully, the way a person looks when they’ve finally put together a puzzle that’s been in front of them all along. “It’s Alon, isn’t it?”
Dean went still.
Frozen, breath caught, eyes wide in a look that was half shock, half surrender. A deer blinking against the glare of headlights he knew were coming. For a suspended moment, he didn’t move, as if motion itself might give the truth too much shape.
Then finally, with a sigh that held more than fatigue, he ran a hand over his face and let out a dry, reluctant breath. “Don’t tell Adrian yet, okay?”
Logan’s smile blossomed, a deeper warmth rising from within, quiet but steady.
Something in him—soft, gentle, and quietly expanding—began to unfurl, delicate as a flower finding its way back to light.
In the midst of all the chaos, somehow, against all odds, he and Dean had grown into each other’s closest confidants.
Through grief and healing, through the stillness of long-distance silences and the unexpected intimacy of late-night conversations, over half-meant insults and fully-meant laughter, through their relentless teasing and the sharp-edged comfort of banter that only ever masked care, trust had taken root. Not loudly, but deeply.
“Of course,” he said simply. Sincerely. “But... how did it even start?”
Dean flushed instantly. It was subtle, but unmistakable—color blooming at his cheeks, climbing his neck. Blushing. Actually blushing.
That’s gold.
“You remember when you were in Israel?” he began, shifting in his seat, his voice a little faster now.
“That night we went to the club? I kept texting someone the whole time—yeah, that was Alon. I was just checking in, making sure he was okay. He was just starting his military service, and I knew it must be hard on him, and with Adrian… I should have reached out sooner. And then we met up the next day. Talked for hours.” His voice softened.
A memory threading itself into the air. “I’ve known him since we were kids, you know?
But now... now he’s just...” Dean drifted for a moment, his eyes unfocused, a distant smile tugging at his lips.
“Amazing,” he whispered. “I couldn’t stop thinking about him after that. ”
It wasn’t performative. It wasn’t for show. It was honest. Raw. Real.
And Logan felt it—the weight of what it meant. This wasn’t a fling. This wasn’t a crush. This was something that had taken root.
Dean ran a hand through his hair, that shy, lopsided smile still there. “It’s new... but Alon’s basically been living with me.”
Logan blinked. “Wait, what?”