#It wasn’t cheap though tbh and I’m hissing through my teeth a bit but I can pay piece by piece rather than all at once

[bluewithpurplepolkadots]

While not ICDL I have started a different Microsoft Office course as of today. Two out of 12 modules for word done. When I finish it I’ll do my first proper test I guess. Maybe in like three weeks? Eh. We’ll see.

[shotgun--rider]

Love Your Neighbor - One

A Dean x Reader Series

PART ONE

Y/N just wants her neighbor to find some sense of decency and shut the hell up. Her so-called brilliant plan gets messy, though, when it turns out that Dean Winchester is actually kind of perfect, and maybe taking her friends’ advice wasn’t the best move after all.

Word Count: 2900

Warnings: Allusions to sex, Dean Winchester is a fanboy

Dean Winchester isn’t a bad guy. As far as you can tell, actually, he seems to be a perfectly normal, average, unassuming guy. You’ve shared a few elevators and gotten your mail at the same time, waved politely on your way to take out the trash, and your beater car lives next door to his pristine ‘67 Impala in the underground parking ramp. Considering that the neighbors in your last apartment almost blew up the building making meth, living next to a harmless, pie-eating contractor sounded like heaven when you signed the lease. 

There’s just one little problem. And, strictly speaking, it’s none of your business if Dean Winchester also likes banging everything with legs in a twenty mile radius. More power to him, really. It’s just that the walls are cripplingly thin in this building, and while you’re happy your neighbor has a thriving sex life, you’d rather not be forced to listen to it every single night. 

Laying flat out on your bed, clad in the least amount of clothing you can pull off while still being decent, you grit your teeth. It’s a scorching night in July and the A/C in your unit has given up the ghost, leaving you to sprawl out sweating, hoping in vain for a cool breeze from the fire escape. And somehow, in spite of the fact that moving two feet has you wanting to pant like a dog with heat stroke, Dean Winchester has found the motivation to work up a whole other kind of sweat on the other side of your wall. Loudly. 

The apartment you’re renting is a pretty cheap one, and you knew what you’d signed up for when you signed the lease. It works for your purposes, and it’s not like you have loads of spare cash lying around anyway. The issue with the tiny one-bedroom is that it only accommodates your stuff in one possible layout, and yes, that does in fact mean that your bed is directly on the wall you share with Dean. In fact, you’re pretty sure your apartments are mirror images of one another, which is only an issue when he’s railing Lisa two feet from your head and banging the headboard on your shared wall. 

‘Lisa’ has been around for almost a month now, which as far as you’re aware is a new record for Dean, and she moans like a porn star that’s trying too hard. It can’t possibly be natural, you’ve decided, because sure, sex is good, but nobody in real life is having sex that’s that good. And sure, you’ll concede that Dean is an incredibly attractive guy, from what you’ve seen of him, but you’ve learned the hard way many times that that doesn’t automatically make them good in bed. Which means Lisa is just being obnoxiously dramatic. 

You thump your head in frustration against your pillow, contemplating pulling it over your ears as a new round of moaning starts up. God, how does anyone have sex for that long, anyway? 

“Yes, Dean, harder...right there… oh, fuck, yeah, yes, yes, yes!” She subsides into unintelligible screaming, punctuated with the occasional lower-pitched groan and the shuffle-shuffle-bang of the bed frame against the wall. 

“Oh my god, yeah, I’m gonna come, please make me come,” 

Cursing under your breath, you sit up, adjusting the spaghetti straps of your tank top as they try to slide down your shoulder. “Nobody says that shit,” you grumble aloud, shuffling in defeat off of your bed and out to sit on the fire escape. 

It’s not any cooler out here, and you can still vaguely hear Dean and Lisa getting it on, but at least your bed is no longer vibrating. Leaning forward on the iron railing, you pull out your phone and send a vomiting emoji to your best friend. There’s no context needed; she’s heard you complain enough times to know exactly what’s usually happening between the hours of ten p.m. and midnight in your building. 

Kinda impressed with this dude tbh, Meg replies back instantly. I wish I got off that much. 

You answer her with an eye roll. The point is I don’t want to hear it

Just tell him to shut the fuck up. Or kill him. You know like a bazillion ways

Once, when you’d only been living there for a handful of weeks, you’d thrown a shoe at the wall between you in a fit of ill-handled rage. You’d followed that up with taking off your other shoe and repeatedly thumping the wall with the heel, just in case they thought the original noise had been an accident. 

The resulting blissful silence had only lasted for about a minute, after which it was followed by a bout of laughter, and then more enthusiastic sex. No, Dean Winchester was evidently not the type of person to back down after being told to shut the fuck up, and you’d never quite managed to get the courage to just attack him about his sex life in front of the downstairs mailboxes. 

That doesn’t mean, however, that you haven’t been thinking up subtler ways to deal with the issue.  And now, because living on the fire escape until October doesn't actually sound like a pleasant experience, you might just have the perfect excuse. 

The ‘67 Chevy that lives in the parking space next to yours gets periodically replaced with a slightly rusty old pickup, the words Winchester Contracting emblazoned on the doors. And it’s not like you haven’t seen Dean sporting paint-stained jeans and a bag of tools before. He’s clearly the obvious, convenient choice to ask about the A/C. And if you happen to interrupt his bang-fest while complaining about the heat, well, that’s just two birds with one stone. 

You don’t bother with shoes for the short walk down the thinly-carpeted hall, only realizing once you’re standing in front of his door that you’re not really dressed for this. That could only work in your favor, though, right? Maybe a barely-clothed girl showing up would send Lisa into a jealous rage and she would leave on the spot, rendering Dean mercifully single and silent. And maybe you just need to solve this so you can get some god damned sleep, you thought wryly.

Before you can change your mind, you knock sharply on the door of apartment 914, rocking back on your heels as you wait, straining your ears for any noise from within. For a moment, there’s silence, and then a tell-tale, high pitched squeal. Nope, they’re definitely still shamelessly boinking, as your old roommate Donna would have announced cheerfully. 

At this point, it’s just getting a little ridiculous. Clenching your jaw in anger, you raise your fist to pound on the door again, harder this time. You have a book deadline in two weeks, no A/C, and you just want some fucking peace and quiet. Clearly, the universe has just chosen to laugh at you instead. 

Resisting the urge to hiss aloud in irritation, you pound on the door once more, this time hearing soft voices from inside. There’s shuffling, a muffled yelp, some slightly uneven footsteps, and then the door swings open to reveal Dean Winchester, irritated, half dressed, and making no attempt to hide what he’s been up to. 

“What?” he snaps out, all green eyes and sex hair and bare chest, which somehow manages to short-circuit your very angry brain, leaving you stuttering in his doorway. Seriously, though, knowing you have an attractive neighbor and seeing him in nothing but a pair of sweats are two different things.

“Uh,” you mentally shake yourself. You didn’t come here to drool over him, you’re here to solve a problem. “Listen, I’m really sorry to bother you,” you start. You’re not really all that sorry, but you need the time to try to organize your thoughts. 

“Oh, are you?” Dean returns grumpily, crossing his arms over his chest and Jesus but that’s a lot of tanned skin and biceps right in front of your face. 

“Yeah,” you falter, “I just was wondering if you could maybe help me?” You were laying it on a bit thick now, but who could really blame you? “The A/C quit on me and I know you have that construction business…”

“Dean? Who is it?” That would be Lisa, evidently, coming to the doorway in a bathrobe and, unsurprisingly, looking stunningly beautiful. She blinks at you over his shoulder, pushing dark hair out of her face and giving you an uncertain smile as she looks over your tank top and skimpy sleep shorts.  

“Oh I’m sorry,” you somehow manage to keep the sarcasm out of your voice. “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything,”

“You’re not,” Dean says, and, behind him, Lisa raises affronted eyebrows. Maybe there is trouble in paradise. Filing that information away for later, you shift on your feet, pushing some of your still-slightly-sweaty hair off of your forehead. Dean seems to jolt at the motion, glancing back into his apartment and opening the door wider. “Right, yeah,” he runs a hand through his hair, doing nothing to quiet the wild spikes. “You said A/C? Lemme just…” 

Dean disappears behind the half open door, one bare foot still holding it in place, and you can hear him moving something around, saying something in a low voice to Lisa, who audibly huffs back like she’s annoyed. When the rest of his body reappears, he’s got a black Metallica shirt most of the way on (a shame, really), and he’s carrying a slim black canvas bag of tools. 

“--probably not gonna take long,” he’s saying to Lisa over his shoulder, and it occurs to you suddenly that this plan requires you to bring Dean inside your apartment. Which makes sense, obviously, given that you actually do need the air conditioning fixed, and as long as he’s doing that he’s not banging his girlfriend, but you’re kind of awkward at the best of times and this is probably going to require conversation. Picture everyone naked, Donna would say, but somehow, having seen him shirtless really, really doesn’t help. 

Resigned to your fate, you shuffle back to your own apartment with Dean following, and you wince at the blast of hot air greeting you as soon as you swing open the door. Compared to the hallway, it’s like stepping into a particularly miserable sauna, and Dean huffs a surprised noise behind you. “Damn, you weren’t kidding, were you?”

You show him over to the sad little A/C unit wordlessly, hopping up on your kitchen table and crossing your arms as you watch him squint at it. “Thank you,” falls from your lips belatedly, and you have to remember that for all your irritation with him, Dean Winchester is still, fundamentally, the kind of man who apparently lets his neighbors interrupt sex so he can fix their broken appliances in the middle of the night. “I know it’s really late…”

“S’fine,” Dean shrugs, neatly pulling off the cover to the air conditioning and going after something inside with a tool you couldn’t have named if your life depended on it. “This way you won’t have to sleep on the fire escape.” He smiles at you over his shoulder, those green eyes bright, and your retort about sleeping on the fire escape anyway because of him gets lost somewhere in transit. Not for the first time, you wonder if this is really the brightest idea you’ve had. 

“Still,” you say instead, “you probably don’t want to come home from work and do more work,”

“It’s really not a big deal, Y/N,” Dean glances back at you. “It’s Y/N, right?”

“Yeah,” you confirm with a little shake of your head. “What’d you do, read my mail?”

“No,” Dean says quickly, followed by a slightly sheepish, “Maybe. Look, the mailroom’s tiny,”

He’s not wrong, and since you initially collected his name from the moans through your bedroom wall, you’re not sure you’re in a position to talk. When you look back at him, Dean’s wearing a slightly hesitant, definitely-not-adorable look on his face, and you laugh softly, watching him break out into a relieved smile in return. And damn it, he wasn’t supposed to be funny. It’s far easier to vilify someone who’s only kindness has been holding the elevator doors a few times, because plenty of colossal douchebags still have surface-level manners. 

But now your A/C is humming contentedly, working overtime to compensate for its lapse, and you have your loud-ass neighbor to thank for it. Your funny, smiling, half-dressed-at-midnight neighbor who’s currently giving you a great view of his ass in sweatpants as he bends over to grab his tools. Fuck. 

“Thank you,” you get out when your brain gets back online, and you hope it was a brief enough lapse that he didn’t notice. “I might actually make my deadline now that I’m not dying,”

Dean raises an eyebrow at you, shifting to lean back on the wall. “Deadline for what?”

“I’m a writer,” you explain, shaking your head ruefully. “Which is why I live in a crackerbox apartment with shitty air in the first place,”

Dean’s green eyes perk up in interest, and that was hardly the reaction you were expecting. “Oh yeah? What d’you write?”

You uncross your arms and slide off the kitchen table, crossing the living room to pull a black-and-red hardcover out of your hanging bookshelf. “Murder books,” you deadpan, watching for a reaction as you flash him the cover, featuring a man’s limp hand lying in a pool of blood. There’s kind of a small part of you that’s hoping you’ll scare him out of your apartment, because now you’re not really sure how to get rid of him. 

Surprising you as usual, Dean’s mouth drops open shamelessly instead. He gapes at you like a very handsome fish for a few moments before his tongue darts out to wet his lip and then he’s tripping over himself, talking almost too rapidly for you to follow. “No freakin’ way! I didn’t...I mean, you’re Y/F/I L/N. You never have a picture on the jacket--” Dean trails off, a flush rising in his cheeks as he collects himself, only serving to make the freckles dashed across his face more obvious. It’s kind of, maybe, just a little bit cute. “I’ve read them all,” he blurts out, stuck somewhere between shy and kind of proud. “They’re...this is awesome,”

You can’t help but laugh a little, surprised but pleased with the reaction. Your books do fairly well, garnering a moderate amount of attention and the occasional creepy fan message, but Dean’s enthusiasm is...pure. He’s standing in your living room with wide eyes and an embarrassed blush creeping its way down under the collar of his t-shirt, and damn it you were supposed to be mad at him. 

“I’ll sign copies for you as a thank you for the A/C,” comes out of your traitorous mouth instead. “If you want,” 

Dean lights up like a little kid at Christmas, warmth spreading in your chest at his reaction. “That would be awesome. I mean, yeah. Yes, please. Thanks,” He says roughly. Dean swings the compact tool bag awkwardly, rocking back on his heels for a moment, and then he looks hastily back at your little air conditioner. “Well, that’s done, so…”

“Right,” you return quickly, suddenly painfully aware that it’s past midnight as you turn in the direction of the door. “I really do appreciate it, Dean. Bring me whatever you want me to sign sometime, okay?”

He’s still got that terribly endearing, vaguely-stunned expression on his face when you lock the door behind him. 

The air’s had a chance to start working while you were talking with Dean, and you end up spread like a starfish on your bed after he leaves, reveling in the cooling air and the blessed silence. It’s the best sleep you’ve had in months. 

Of course, because the universe and everything in it hates you with a mad passion, the reprieve only lasts two days. You’re sitting cross legged on your floor, scowling at your laptop and your misbehaving chapter, still cringing at the latest biting deadline reminder from your agent, when a soft whimper catches your attention. 

For a moment, you’re prepared to dismiss it, hoping for the first and only time in your life that your apartment has rats. Kinky rats. “Fuck yeah, oh my god, want your cock so bad!”

You flop on your back on the floor helplessly, pressing the heels of your palms into your eyes like that’s somehow going to make a difference. There’s a large part of you that just wants to shout through the wall that nobody in real life says shit like that when they’re having sex, but it probably wouldn’t do any good. “You have got to be kidding me,” you whisper aloud. 

Then again, you weren’t sure what you were expecting. Getting Dean to fix your air conditioning hadn’t actually involved addressing his stupidly loud sexcapades. Because, of course, the thought of bringing that up to him made you want to crawl in a hole and die of embarrassment. 

Defeated, you grabbed for your phone and pulled up your text conversation with Meg.

I need your help.