Aenwan

They make it to the stairs. Concrete and cold air and the echo of their boots, and Price's breathing is wrong- too loud, too ragged, scraping against the inside of his ribs like something clawed and panicking has gotten loose in there. He can hear his own heartbeat in his ears and it sounds like your name, over and over, a prayer to a god he stopped believing in somewhere between Pripyat and the moment the first photo loaded on his phone.

She was crying in a cafe. She was crying and alone and he saw her and I didn't. I was in the same city. The same city. And I let her walk out that door because my pride was bigger than my love and she found a monster instead of her father and that is my fault. Mine. Not Makarov's. Mine.

"She's still pinging," Gaz says from behind him, and his voice sounds like it's coming through water, through walls, through the six inches of bone and guilt that separate Price's skull from the outside world. "Top floor. Penthouse."

Still pinging. Her phone is still pinging. That means she's there, she's up there, she's-

But something in his gut knows. Something old and trained and terrible that has kept him alive through two decades of war is screaming at him that a man like Makarov doesn't leave a phone pinging unless he wants it found.

Unless the phone is the only thing left to find.

Price drowns that thought the way he drowns everything- in forward momentum, in boot falls, in the metallic taste of adrenaline coating the back of his tongue like a mouthful of old pennies. He pushes it down into the dark where he keeps the other things he can't look at: your face at five years old when he missed the school play, your face at twelve when you called him from hospital because you'd fallen off your bike and your mum- he now knows- was too drunk to drive, your face ten hours ago when you said I hate you and meant it, meant every syllable, meant it the way only someone who once loved you completely can mean it.

You did this. You built this. Brick by brick, absence by absence, you constructed the exact loneliness that made her vulnerable, and then you left the door wide open.

He shoves the thought away, locks it tight, refuses to think about it because if he does he'll start screaming and he'll never be able to stop.

They clear the last flight in silence four men moving as one, built for violence. The landing outside the penthouse door is carpeted in something thick and expensive, the kind of softness that absorbs sound, absorbs evidence, absorbs screaming.

Soap sets the charge. His hands are steady. Price's are not, so he keeps them on his rifle where the tremor can pretend to be readiness.

A muffled thump. The door gives inward with a shudder, swinging open like a mouth.

"Move. Move."

They pour through the gap, and Price is already listening; straining past the sweep calls and the boot falls for the one sound that matters, the only sound in the world that could stitch him back together right now. Your voice. Your breathing. The startled yelp you'd make, the one that used to come out when he snuck up on you in the hallway as a kid, half shriek half laugh, Daddy, stop it, you scared me-

"Left clear."

"Right clear."

"Kitchen clear."

"Living room clear."

Nothing.

Just quiet. The deep, velvet, suffocating quiet of a place that has already been emptied of everything that matters.

She's not here.

He knew. He knew before they breached the door. He knew from the moment Makarov's smile loaded on his phone screen, pixel by pixel, because men like Makarov don't get caught in penthouses. Men like Makarov leave penthouses, a spider leaving a web- structure intact, prey gone, nothing remaining but silk and the memory of small struggling things.

She's not here and you're too late and you have always been too late.

Price's teeth grind hard enough to send a bright lance of pain up through his jaw, hard enough to splinter molars.

Their flashlights cut white slashes through the dark, and every shadow looks like your body, every shape on every surface rearranges itself into the outline of his daughter until he blinks and it's just furniture, just emptiness, just another room you aren't in.

Two cognac glasses sit on the kitchen counter. One has a crescent of lipstick on the rim- your color, the one you bought with your birthday money last autumn because your mum said you were too young for it.

She wore lipstick for him. She put on lipstick and went to dinner with a man who-

Price looks at that glass and something inside him fissures so deep he's not sure it will ever close again.

The terrace door is open. Night air drifts in, carrying the Thames and diesel and the distant wail of a siren that sounds like a woman screaming if you listen wrong, and Price is listening wrong, has been listening wrong for hours, for years.

"Bedroom," he says. His voice doesn't belong to him. It belongs to something gutted and walking anyway.

The door is ajar. He pushes it open and the smell hits first.

Sex. Sweat. The ghost of your perfume- that cheap vanilla body spray you drown yourself in- tangled with something darker, muskier, something that doesn't belong anywhere near you, has no right existing in the same air as your scent, and Price's vision tunnels so hard the edges go black.

The sheets are a ruin of white satin, twisted and pulled half off the mattress. A pillow bears the indent of two heads.

My daughter. My baby girl. In this bed. With him.

Price can't breathe. His flashlight finds the bed and he takes it in the same way he would a crime scene because that's what this is, that is what this is- the wrinkle of the sheets, the smear of something viscous on the fabric, a single strand of your hair caught on the pillowcase like a crack in porcelain.

I should have followed her. I should have gone after her the second that door closed. I should have swallowed my pride and run down the street and caught her and said I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I know I'm failing you, I know I'm broken, just come inside and let me try-

But he didn't. He made tea. He made tea while his daughter wandered into the arms of a war criminal because she was desperate enough for warmth to take it from the first man who offered.

"Cap." Soap's voice comes from very far away. From underwater. "Cap, there's nothing else. Wardrobe's cleaned out. Bathroom's empty. No luggage, no clothes, no-"

"He planned this." Ghost. Standing in the doorway like a shadow stitched to the frame. "This wasn't opportunistic. The flat's been sanitized. Professionally."

Price knows. God, he knows. Makarov moved through this space like a surgeon and then packed up the operating theatre and vanished, leaving only what he wanted them to find.

Gaz is by the window, breathing too fast. "Everything's gone. Toothbrush, toiletries, even the- there's nothing in the bins. He took the bin liners."

He took everything. He took the evidence and the traces and the proof, and he took my daughter, and all he left was the smell of what he did to her and a bed I'll see every time I close my eyes for the rest of my life.

Price's flashlight drifts to the dresser and he sees something there that makes him freeze.

Your phone.

It sits in the center of the dark wood surface like an offering on an altar, screen down, positioned with a deliberateness that makes Price's stomach lurch because it means Makarov set it there. Placed it. Centered it. Wanted Price to see it and understand that his daughter's only lifeline to the world was severed with the same casual precision as cutting a throat.

She doesn't have her phone. She can't call anyone. She can't call me. She-

Beside the phone, a folded note.

White paper. Crisp. Dark ink in Cyrillic script that loops and curls across the page like something calligraphic, something beautiful, and Price wants to set it on fire.

He picks it up with hands that have defused bombs without trembling and watches his fingers shake.

"What's it say?" Soap is at his shoulder, close enough that Price can feel the barely leashed violence radiating off him. "Cap, what does it- "

"It's Russian." Price's throat is full of gravel and glass.

He photographs it. The shutter sound is obscene in the silence. He sends it to Nikolai with no message, no context, because there is no context for this, no framework in which a father photographs a note left by the man who took his daughter from a bed that still smells like what was done to her in it.

He doesn't need to explain. Doesn't need to type translate this or it's urgent or please. Nikolai will see the photo from Price's number at three in the morning and he'll know. He'll know the way he's always known- the way he knew in Verdansk without being told, the way he knew in Kastovia with nothing but a look. Twenty years of shared foxholes and borrowed cigarettes and the kind of silence that only exists between men who've held each other's lives in their hands. Price doesn't need words with Nikolai. Never has.

And something about that- something about the effortlessness of it, the ease- hits him in the sternum. He knows the cadence of Nikolai's breathing when he's lying. Knows Gaz takes his tea with two sugars and milk. Knows Ghost sleeps with his back to the wall and a knife under the pillow. Knows Soap hums under his breath when he's scared.

He doesn't know your middle school best friend's name. Doesn't know if you still bite your nails. Doesn't know what you want to be when you grow up, or if you've already grown up without him and the question doesn't even apply anymore.

You know a Russian smuggler better than you know your own blood. You know the sleeping habits of killers better than you know your daughter's nightmares. You built a family out of soldiers because the real one was too hard, too soft, too much like looking in a mirror and seeing everything you've failed.

The thought is so violently, hysterically true that something between a laugh and a sob catches in his throat. He swallows it whole. Buries it. Adds it to the mass grave of every feeling he's refused to have for eighteen years.

They wait.

The seconds seem to expand and warp, elongating until they feel like hours instead of moments. Soap is pacing, hand drifting to the knife on his thigh like he's imagining where to put it. Ghost hasn't moved- a statue carved from something cold and furious, the only sign of life the slow, rhythmic flex of his fingers around the grip of his weapon. Squeeze, release, squeeze, release. A heartbeat made of trigger discipline and barely controlled rage.

Gaz picks up your phone. His thumb moves across the cracked screen- cracked because you dropped it in the driveway three months ago and Price hadn't been home to take it to get fixed and your mum hadn't gotten around to it and you'd just lived with it, the way you lived with everything else that was broken in your life.

"It's unlocked," Gaz says quietly. "He left it unlocked."

Because Makarov wanted them to see. Wanted them to scroll through the camera roll and find every image, every frame of the narrative he'd built: the cafe, the gardens, the bridge, the restaurant, the terrace, the bedroom.

Breadcrumbs of a fairy tale that ends with the wolf's teeth in your neck.

"Don't," Price says, and he doesn't know if he's talking to Gaz or to himself.

Gaz sets the phone down like it's made of something radioactive.

Price's phone buzzes.

The room contracts. Four men, four sets of lungs seizing simultaneously, and the sound of that single vibration against Price's palm is the loudest thing any of them have ever heard.

Nikolai's reply.

Three words.

Too slow, Captain.

Price reads it once. Reads it again. The letters rearrange themselves into something that isn't language, that's just damage, a wound opened in ink and smugness, and he can feel Makarov's mouth shaping the words, can hear the accent curling around each syllable like a hand around a throat-

Soap reads it over his shoulder and his fist goes through the bedroom wall a second later. Plaster cracks and crumbles, dust blooming white in the torchlight, and the sound is enormous but Price barely hears it because there's a roaring in his head, in his blood, in the place where rational thought used to live before it was replaced by something ancient and red and screaming.

Too slow.

He was too slow when you were six and broke your arm falling off the swings and he was three countries away. Too slow when you were twelve and got your first period and had to call your mum's friend because your mum was already at the bottom of a bottle. Too slow when you were fifteen and some boy broke your heart and you cried alone in your room for three days while he was clearing buildings in Urzikstan. Too slow, always, every time, for every moment that mattered.

Too slow to be your father.

Too slow to protect you from the thing that crawled out of the dark and smiled at you over coffee and made you feel seen because your own father couldn't be bothered to look.

Ghost speaks. His voice is quiet. Terrifyingly so. The kind of quiet that precedes avalanches.

"He's had her for approximately ninety minutes since the photos were sent. Assuming vehicle extraction, that's a radius of- "

"He'll have switched cars," Gaz cuts in, and his voice is steady now, locked into operational mode because that's all any of them have left, the training, the muscle memory of men who solve problems with violence. "At least once. Maybe a boat. The Thames access from here is-"

"He wants to be chased." Ghost again. "The phone. The note. He's not running. He's performing."

Price stands in the bedroom that smells like his daughter and the man who took her and he holds the phone with the three word message and he feels the last eighteen years of failure calcify inside his chest like concrete setting around rebar.

He thinks of you at six months old, asleep on his chest, your tiny fist curled around his dog tags.

He thinks of you at five, crying because the other girls' dads came to the school play and yours didn't.

He thinks of you ten hours ago, standing in the kitchen, looking at him with those hollow, exhausted eyes and saying let us heal.

He thinks of you smiling in that cafe. Smiling at a monster. Smiling because a monster gave you what your father never could.

"We find her." Price's voice comes from somewhere beneath bedrock. "We find her and we bring her home and then I kill him. Not capture. Not detain. I kill Vladimir Makarov with my hands and I take my time doing it."

Nobody argues.

Nobody even blinks.

Soap pulls his fist from the wall, knuckles split and bleeding, plaster dust coating his skin like ash. He looks at Price with eyes that are no longer the warm, easy blue of the man who makes everyone laugh. They're something else now. Something feral and sharp and utterly committed.

"Aye, Cap." Quiet as a prayer. Final as a coffin nail. "We bring her home."

Ghost turns for the door, already moving, already hunting. Gaz follows, phone to his ear, calling in every thread they have.

Price takes one last look at the bedroom. At the ruined sheets. At your phone, sitting dark and silent on the dresser, the last place your fingerprints and Makarov's exist in the same space.

He picks it up. Puts it in his pocket. Keeps it close to his chest where you used to sleep when you were small enough to fit there.

Then he walks out, and the penthouse swallows the silence behind him like it was never disturbed at all.

***

You wake to the sound of engines.

Low, steady, a constant metal hum that doesn’t quite match anything your brain wants to file it under. Not a car. Not a train. Not a helicopter. Different. Smoother. Higher.

Something soft is under your cheek. Leather, warm from someone’s body heat, faintly scented with cologne and smoke. A blanket is draped over your legs. Your head feels thick, like you slept too hard and not at all at the same time.

You peel your eyes open.

The ceiling arcs above you, curving gently, inset lights casting the cabin in a soft gold that makes everything feel unreal. Oval windows show nothing but black and the occasional smear of stars. The floor between the rows of seats is polished wood. The seats themselves are wide, pale leather, facing each other in little conversational clusters.

A plane, you think, and then: Not just a plane.

Private. Expensive. The kind you only ever see in movies, usually right before something terrible happens.

Your stomach drops.

“Доброе утро, малышка.”

His voice is right next to your ear, warm and smooth and immediately recognizable. You’d know it now even half-asleep on a different continent.

You turn your head.

Makarov is reclined beside you like this is the most natural thing in the world. Shirt open at the throat, sleeves rolled to his forearms, hair a little mussed, bare feet dug into the carpet. His arm is along the back of the seat, his fingers just behind your head, like he was carding through your hair while you slept.

His other hand rests on your knee, heavy and warm.

“Hi,” you croak, because your throat doesn’t want to work properly. “Um. Is it… morning?”

He huffs a soft laugh. “Somewhere,” he says. “Your body, it thinks it is every time zone at once. Very cruel thing.” His thumb strokes idle circles through the fabric of your leggings. “How do you feel, hm?”

Like you fell down a flight of stairs and liked it.

“Fine,” you lie instead. Your gaze skates past him, down the length of the cabin.

There are men in the forward seats. Three, four- you don’t bother counting properly, because they all blur into the same silhouette: big, armed, relaxed in that coiled way you recognize from your father’s friends. They talk quietly in Russian, cards flicking on the table between them, glasses clinking.

None of them are looking at you.

All of them are aware you’re there.

Something prickles at the back of your skull- not quite panic, not yet. More like a frequency your body picks up that your brain hasn’t tuned to. The way rabbits go still in open fields for reasons they can’t name.

“How did we…” You swallow. “I don’t remember getting here.”

Makarov tilts his head. Something flickers behind his eyes- there and gone, quick as a blink- and then his expression settles back into warmth. He shrugs, the motion easy. “You were tired,” he says. “We went down to garage, then car to plane. You slept on my shoulder whole ride.” Something soft edges his mouth. “You snore, little bit.”

“I do not.” You exclaim, mortified.

He smiles, small and genuine looking. “You do. Like kitten.”

Your cheeks heat. You try to piece the last few hours together and hit only flashes: his mouth, his hands, the way your legs wouldn’t hold you on the way to the bathroom. You remember saying you were tired. You remember him tucking you against his side, saying something about “not letting you go.”

You don’t remember leaving the ground.

Your brain trips over a different, sharper thought.

By now, your dad has to know.

The realization hits like cold water. Maybe your mom went up to yell at you about the dishes and found your bed empty.

Maybe she thought you went for a walk. Maybe she called your name once or twice. Maybe she shrugged and went back downstairs and poured another drink.

You try to picture her face when she realizes you aren’t coming back tonight.

Your chest aches.

Your dad, though- John Price does not shrug and pour another drink. He paces. He calls people. He pulls strings. He chews through a city like a dog with a bone.

He’ll be furious. He’ll be scared. He’ll be tearing London up by the roots looking for his idiot daughter who walked into a stranger’s car and up to a stranger’s bed and onto a stranger’s plane.

You swallow hard and reach, almost automatically, for your pocket.

It’s empty.

A jolt of pure animal panic bolts through you. You pat the other pocket. Nothing. You dig under the blanket, fingers searching the seat, the gap between cushions. Nothing but leather and the faint crackle of some safety card tucked too far down.

“Easy,” Makarov’s hand tightens on your knee just enough, just a fraction more pressure than comfort requires, and then it softens again so fast you almost think you imagined it. “What are you looking for?”

“My phone,” you say, too fast. “I had it, I- it was in my jacket. Or my bag. Where’s my bag?”

You twist, scanning the cabin. No backpack. No cheap canvas tote. No familiar scuffed corners of your life shoved under a seat. Just sleek luggage that clearly belongs to someone else, lined up near the door like obedient dogs.

Your heart starts to race.

“Hey- ” Your voice shakes. You clamp down on it. “My phone. I need my phone. I have to- I need to call- ”

“малышка.” His hand slides up from your knee to your thigh, firm pressure anchoring you in place. “Breathe.”

“I left my mom,” you blurt, because the words won’t stay down anymore. “She doesn’t know where I am. She- she’s gonna freak out, and my dad- ” Your throat closes around the word. “He’s going to… I don’t even know, but I need to at least text, I have to tell her I’m okay, I- ”

“You dropped it,” he says.

You stop.

“What?”

“In apartment.” His voice is calm, almost gentle. “You put phone on dresser when you came in. You were… distracted, da?” His thumb pulls a little at the hem of your leggings, reminding you exactly what you were distracted by. “We left in hurry. You fell asleep. I did not think to go back for it.”

The penthouse bedroom flashes behind your eyes. Dresser, sheets, his hands on your hips, your phone face down where you tossed it without a thought.

You didn’t bring it.

It’s still there.

Something cold slithers through your chest- not quite fear, not yet, but the precursor to it. The shadow on the wall before the thing that casts it turns the corner.

"I need to contact them," you say, and your voice comes out smaller than you want it to. "Do you have a phone I can use? Just to text my mom. Just to say I'm okay."

Makarov studies you for a moment, head tilted. Then he reaches into the seat pocket beside him and produces a sleek black phone, unlocked, and holds it out.

"Of course," he says simply.

Your fingers close around it and some of the tightness in your chest loosens. You stare at the screen, thumbs hovering, and realize you don't know your mother's number by heart. It was saved in your phone. Your phone, which is on a dresser in a penthouse in London, which might as well be on the surface of the moon.

You know your dad's number. Of course you do- he drilled it into you when you were six, made you recite it like a prayer before bed every night during one of his rare stretches home, as if memorizing ten digits could substitute for his actual presence in your life.

You don't call it.

You don't even consider calling it.

Instead, you sit there with the phone going warm in your hand and your jaw set tight, because fuck him. Fuck him and his drilled in phone number and his tactical parenting that only ever showed up in emergencies. He wants to tear London apart? Good. Let him. Let him feel one fraction of the frantic, gnawing helplessness you've felt every time he walked out the front door with a duffel bag and a vague promise to call when he could.

Let him wait the way you've waited.

“You are angry, da?” Makarov observes. Not a question. He’s watching you the way he watched you in the cafe- attentive, patient, like your emotions are a language he’s been speaking longer than you’ve been alive. “With father.”

“I don’t want to talk about him.”

“Then we don’t.” He takes the phone back when you offer it, sets it aside with a care that almost looks like tenderness. Almost. His hand returns to your knee. “You are hungry, da? You did not eat enough at dinner. I could see. You move food around plate like chess pieces.” He taps the tip of your nose. “Very strategic. Very obvious.”

Despite everything, you almost smile.

He presses a button on the armrest and says something rapid and clipped in Russian to one of the men up front. The tone is different, harder, the vowels bitten short, and for just a moment, the man he is with you and the man he is with them feel like two entirely separate people wearing the same face.

Within minutes, a tray appears: dark bread, smoked fish, sliced cucumber, a pot of tea with a ceramic cup so thin the light glows through it. Simple. Elegant. More care than your mum’s put into a meal in months.

“Eat,” Makarov says, pouring the tea for you. “Body need fuel. You have had…” He pauses, mouth quirking. “Very active evening.”

Your face burns. “You’re terrible.”

“Mmm. I am told often. Never by girl so pretty.” He tears a piece of bread, offers it to you between his fingers. “Come. Eat. Then sleep more, if you want. We have time.”

We have time. Like time is something he owns. Like it comes in the same supply as the private jet and the penthouse and the sleek phone he can offer and take away.

You take the bread. Chew slowly. The tea is strong and dark and faintly sweet, and it settles something in your stomach that you didn’t realize was churning.

“Where are we going?” you ask, and it occurs to you, distantly, like a thought floating past on a river, that you should have asked this first. Should have demanded it. Should have panicked more than you did.

But the cabin is warm, and his hand is on your leg, and the bread is good, and you are so, so tired of fighting.

“I have house,” he says. “Outside Moscow. Quiet. Trees, lake, very boring.” He waves a dismissive hand. “But peaceful. Good place to breathe, da? Away from London. Away from shouting and empty bottles.”

You flinch at the reminder that you must have told him about the empty bottles too, when the city was glittering below and his coat was around your shoulders and you were talking about your dad and mum and things just spilled. You can’t remember exactly what you said. The cognac was strong. The night was long. You probably said more than you meant to.

You must have.

“For how long?” you ask instead.

He shrugs, that easy continental shrug that makes everything sound reasonable. “Long as you like. Day, week, маленькая. I am your…” He searches for the word, eyes crinkling. “Holiday.”

You snort. “Holiday.”

“Da. Every girl deserve holiday from life that make her cry in cafe.”

It sounds like a fairy tale. That’s the problem. It sounds exactly like the kind of thing you’d write in one of your journals at three in the morning- some beautiful stranger who sees you, really sees you, and pulls you out of your awful little life and takes you somewhere soft and warm and safe.

Too perfect. Too easy.

But you’re freshly eighteen and exhausted and your father broke your heart long before this man ever touched it, and the bruises on your neck feel more like proof of being wanted than proof of anything else.

So you eat. And you drink the tea. And you let him pull you against his chest, his arm curving around your shoulders, his chin resting on the crown of your head.

The guilt finds you there, in the warmth of him. Quiet at first, then louder.

Your mum. Waking up to an empty house. Calling your name up the stairs into silence. Checking your room, finding the bed cold, your overnight bag gone.

She’ll pour the first drink by nine. Hands shaking. Telling herself it’s just one.

She’ll be alone. Completely alone. No one to pour the wine down the sink at midnight. No one to put the blanket over her when she passes out on the couch. No one to clean up the glass she drops. No one to lie to the neighbors.

You left her. You walked out the door just like he does- just like Price- and you abandoned the only person who actually needs you.

Maybe you’re more like him than you thought.

“You are thinking loud,” Makarov murmurs against your hair. “I can hear. Like radio left on.”

“My mum,” you whisper. “She’s going to be alone.”

“Mm.”

“She can’t- she doesn’t do well alone. She drinks, and when she drinks she forgets to eat, and when she forgets to eat she gets sick, and- ” Your throat closes. “I take care of her. That’s my job. I’ve been doing it since I was fifteen and if I’m not there- ”

“Then someone else will be.”

“There is no one else.” Your voice cracks and you hate it. “That’s the whole point. Dad’s never there- ”

“Shh.” His arms tighten around you.“Listen to me. You are child.”

“I’m eighteen-”

“You are child.” Firmer. His accent thickens around the edges like ice forming. “Is not job to hold mother together. Is not job to be parent to parent. That- ” He taps your sternum once, gently. “That is what breaks you. Carrying things not meant for your hands.”

Your eyes sting.

“Your father and your uncles,” he continues, voice low, “they could do with little worrying, hm? Gets blood flowing.” His mouth twitches. “Good for heart.”

You huff something that’s almost a laugh, watery and raw. “They don’t worry. They just… show up with biscuits and pretend everything’s fine.”

“Then let them pretend and be useful for once.” His fingers trace a slow line down your arm. “Your uncle Simon, especially. Man like that could use little excitement in his life, da? Bit of worry. Keep him… sharp.”

“He’s already sharp,” you mumble into his chest, half smiling despite yourself because Uncle Simon is the sharpest person you know and the idea of him flustered over anything is almost funny enough to hurt.

Makarov hums. “Good. Then he can handle it.”

His hand moves through your hair. Slow. Methodical. Like petting something he’s already decided belongs to him.

“You have carried enough,” he says quietly. “Put it down. For little while.”

“I can’t just- ”

“You can.” His lips press to the top of your head. “World does not end because one girl rests, зайка. Your mother will survive one day. And you…” His thumb catches a tear at the hinge of your jaw. “You will finally breathe.”

You want to argue. You want to say it’s not that simple, that you can’t just disappear, that people need you… but the exhaustion is heavier than guilt, heavier than fear, and Makarov is warm and solid and his heartbeat is steady against your ear and the engines are humming that low, constant lullaby.

“There,” he whispers. “Good girl. Sleep.”

You let your eyes close. You sink into him like water into sand, like a girl who’s been drowning for years finally letting herself stop kicking. His hand keeps moving through your hair, and the cabin is warm, and the tea sits sweet in your stomach, and for the first time in as long as you can remember, no one is asking you to hold anything together.

You drift.

Half asleep, your thoughts unspool like thread from a bobbin, loose, tangling, catching on nothing. You think about the lake he mentioned. Whether it’ll be frozen. You think about your mum’s face. You think about the bread, and how he tore it for you, and how no one’s done that since you were small.

You think about what Makarov said. About worrying being good for the heart.

Your uncle Simon, especially.

You think about Uncle Simon’s hands, how steady they are. How he taught you to throw a punch in the back garden. Square your hips, little bit. No, like this. There you go.

Man like that could use little excitement in his life, da?

Sleep pulls at you, heavy and warm, and you let it. You’re so close to the edge of it. So close to the place where nothing hurts and nothing matters and-

Your Uncle Simon-

Your eyes snap open.

Every nerve fires at once, a full body flinch that starts in your chest and detonates outward, and your heart lurches, slamming against your ribs so hard you’re sure he can feel it, sure the whole plane can hear it, sure the sound of it is filling the cabin like a gunshot.

Your uncle Simon.

You talked about your dad. You talked about your mum. You talked about the fight and the drinking and the loneliness and the feeling of being invisible in your own home.

You never once mentioned uncles.

Your uncle Simon, especially. Man like that could use little excitement in his life, da?

You never once said the name Simon.

Your stomach drops like the floor has opened beneath you and there is nothing underneath, nothing at all, just black and falling and the sick, spinning vertigo of a truth your body understood before your brain caught up.

How did he know that? How did he-

Your thoughts scramble, frantic, clawing over each other like animals in a flooding burrow. The cafe. The terrace. Dinner. The cognac. You replay every word you said, every raw, stupid, reckless confession you poured into his hands, and none of them included the word uncle. None of them included Simon. You talked about your dad and your mum and that’s it, that is all you gave him, so how-

How does he know?

The air in the cabin hasn’t changed. The engines still hum. The men in the forward seats still murmur over their cards. Nothing is different. Everything is different. The leather under your cheek is the same leather, the cologne is the same cologne, the hand in your hair is the same hand, and all of it- every touch, every soft word, every good girl and зайка and you are not prisoner- rearranges itself in your mind like a photograph developing in reverse, the image dissolving back into chemicals, back into nothing you recognize.

Makarov’s heartbeat thuds against your ear, steady as a metronome. His hand is still in your hair, still moving, still gentle.

You lie perfectly still.

Your pulse is screaming. You can feel it in your throat, in your wrists, behind your eyes; wild, hammering, a trapped bird panic that you are swallowing and swallowing and swallowing because every instinct you have, every shred of prey animal wiring buried deep in the marrow of your bones, is telling you the same thing:

Do not let him know you’re awake.

Do not let him know you know.

His chest rises. Falls. Rises.

You don’t move.

You don’t breathe.

And somewhere beneath you, steady as a war drum, his heart doesn’t skip a single beat.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

it takes you so much effort to finally utter the words "y- you feel so good dex, god- its so fucking deep-" the last word nearly breaks into a loud whine because his hips lift up harshly and impulsively in response to the praise

it truly affects him to his core, just hearing you tell him that he fucks you well enough to have you loud and needy like this

it's all it takes for him to drop his head back with a broken groan, whispering a tortured and elongated "fuck" under his breath

when he doesn't get to hear more of your broken voice, it kinda pisses him off, he fiercely grabs both sides of your face with his huge hands to force you to make eye contact when he demands for more of it

"tell me all about it, don't stop now-" he almost spits it out, desperation radiating off him "tell me how good i fuck you"

and when its him praising you...

he barely knows what string of sentences are coming out of his mouth, he's in the middle of a trance because he cant quite process how lucky he is to have you under him, someone so pretty and so so good

"you feel- fuck! you feel..." he cant even find the word for it so he jumps to another jumbled thought "cant believe you're letting me do this to you, a pretty thing like you-" he says with a wild, dark glint taking over his eyes

then theres the hitch in your breath, the way you smile so giddily even when he's splitting you open so rudely

you're basically glowing at his words and that tells him just how much you want him to keep running his mouth

but theres one problem-

"you're gonna kill me if you keep smiling like that" he snaps, and theres real frustration oozing from his voice when he says it "so fucking sweet" he seethes in between his teeth, like he's angry about it, like its making him feel guilty for fucking you the way he is

the thing is, him calling you sweet only makes you smile wider, moan so much louder, your back arches up into his chest and that about finishes him off before he can hold it back

He only knew how to aim, how to follow through, how to kill. So he told himself that if he pointed all of that in the right direction, it would count. It had to count. 

Bad people existed. That much was obvious. And if bad people were gone, then… that had to count for something, right?

The Anti-Vigilante Task Force were easy enough to categorize as bad. They hunted vigilantes, tried to shut down the kind of people Dex had convinced himself were doing something close to good. And vigilantes were good. They had to be. 

So if he removed the ones hunting them, if he cut those threads before they tightened around someone else’s throat, then that meant he was helping. It meant he was balancing something, somewhere, even if no one was there to see it. Even if no one thanked him. Even if the city didn’t change at all.

That was how he justified it. The only problem was that no one paid him for being good.

His rent didn’t care about intention. His bills didn’t pause because he was trying. The notice on his counter sat there, the very proof that the world moved even as he was laying down the foundations of whatever moral framework he was trying to build. Dex had been ignoring it for days, like it might disappear if he didn’t acknowledge it. 

He was staring at it when his phone buzzed.

The sound was unsettling, mostly because Dex knew that people only messaged him for one of two reasons nowadays: to threaten him (best possible outcome, he could handle it) or to give him a job. When he looked at the notification, he knew it was going to be the latter. 

The text came from an unknown sender. It was encrypted, of course. Dex picked it up slowly, thumb hovering for just a second. He frowned. He really shouldn’t. This was the part of his life he was supposed to be moving away from. He opened it anyway. 

The file loaded quickly. As he suspected, it was an anonymous contract labeled high priority, with a bounty of… oh. 

2.5 million dollars.

Dex leaned back slightly, exhaling through his nose as that figure settled into place. It was much more than rent or bills. This kind of money would give him… breathing room. It would fund his good deeds for years. It would help his progress, right?

His eyes moved down to the target profile: a Former Red Room Widow. 

Objective: extract intel regarding active Red Room operatives. 

Secondary objective: termination upon completion.

Dex’s knuckles shifted slightly as he kept reading, attention narrowing the deeper he went. This wasn't a surface-level hit, like the usual contracts pushed into his number. He usually got the odd job of eliminating a business man’s biggest competitor (he never took those anymore) or a mother giving most of her life savings to him to kill her abusive husband (he did those ones more often than not), but this wasn’t it. Whoever had put this together knew what they were doing. They layered intel, cross-referenced sightings, stitched fragments of reports into something coherent enough to act on.

And then there was the ledger. Not labeled that way, but Dex knew what he was looking at.

Target Activity Log (Condensed): Kiev — 12 confirmed targets, political dissidents turned assets. Execution, no witnesses. Istanbul — Arms broker extraction turned termination. 7 additional casualties during exfiltration. Lagos — Undercover infiltration of rival weapons trafficking ring. Operation successful. Entire network eliminated. Collateral: high. Madripoor — Unverified mission overlap with Yelena Belova. Outcome classified. Buenos Aires — Diplomatic attaché poisoning. Death delayed 48 hours to avoid suspicion. Moscow — Internal Red Room purge survivor. Multiple handlers eliminated. 

Dex’s thumb paused against the screen as he read through it again. The pattern was obvious to him in a way it wouldn’t be to anyone else. This wasn’t chaos. This wasn’t someone losing control. On the contrary, this was someone who was terrifyingly in control.

This target was a dangerous killer, and Dex didn't arrive at the conclusion lightly.

He liked patterns, needed them. They made the world more predictable to the point where he could sort through without it splintering into noise. And this file was full of patterns.

He scrolled back up, then down again, slower this time, eyes catching on the details most people would skip over: the timings, the methods. 

The target made clean exits where possible and didn’t care much about collateral. Every action fed into the next like it had been mapped out long before the target ever stepped into the room.

Dex’s jaw tightened slightly as he read through the Kiev entry again. Twelve victims. It was not a firefight. It was twelve decisions. Twelve moments where the target could have stopped and didn’t. Istanbul, seven more added during exfiltration. They were not part of the objective, but handled anyway. 

He understood that, and that meant he also understood what it took to do it.

You didn’t rack up a body count like that by accident. You didn’t walk away from operations like Madripoor, with entire networks wiped out and “high collateral” written off like a footnote, unless something in you had already accepted the outcome before it happened.

Dex leaned back slightly, phone still in his hand, thumb hovering but unmoving now.

People liked to pretend there was a line. A moment where someone chose to be good or bad and stuck to it. But that wasn’t how it worked. It was smaller than that. It was in the repetition. And this file read like repetition, over and over. It might happen in different cities and to different victims, but it always had the same result.

Dex couldn’t find signs of deviation or hesitation. There was no indication that the target ever stopped to question it.

His eyes flicked back to the ledger, this time reading the latest additions, entries that hadn’t had time to settle into history yet.

Recent Activity: Prague — Corporate intermediary tied to OXE shell accounts. Interrogation lasted 18 minutes. Target terminated. Two security casualties. No witnesses. DODC Supermax Prison — Perimeter sweep. Three armed contacts neutralized before engagement escalated. Surveillance equipment disabled. Exit undetected. New York — Intelligence courier intercepted en route to New Avengers safehouse. Package recovered. Courier terminated. Civilian exposure: none.

Right. 

The target was still active. 

“Yeah,” Dex muttered, more to himself than anything else.

That was what tipped it for him.

Because even now, even with everything he’d done, Dex felt the resistance. The part of him that tried, however poorly, to redirect what he was into a force for good.  The file didn’t show that.

It showed someone who had been made into a weapon and never really tried to put it down. That meant the target wasn’t in the same place he was. This target wasn’t trying to balance the scales like he was. 

And that made this person not a good person in a way he could act on.

His eyes looked to the image of the target, like he was trying to reconcile the almost fragile and delicate-looking features with everything he’d just read. It didn’t match. It never did. Faces rarely carried the weight of what they’d done. But the file didn’t lie. The patterns didn’t lie.

Dex exhaled slowly, and decided this person was bad.

Not because of one mission. Not because of one mistake. But because of all of it stacked together.

And at this point, in order to preserve what precious progress he had made, he’d rather kill a killer for rent than his landlord. That would be inconvenient.

His thumb moved, tapping the file open fully, letting the image expand across the screen.

And for the first time, Dex really looked at you.

—

Dex expected you to be harder to find.

Most people with a body count like yours didn’t settle. They didn’t usually stay anywhere long enough to be known, didn’t leave behind anything that could be traced twice in the same way. He expected burner phones, rotating safehouses, and multiple fake ids that dissolved the second they were used.

But you hadn’t done that.

You were… easy. He found your address almost immediately. He found your number, your card details, and your passport quite quickly. 

It took him a couple of hours to accept that it wasn’t an error in the data. Financial records were always messy, layered under shells and proxies, but not impossible. He followed the money the same way he followed anything else— patiently, methodically, letting the inconsistencies stand out instead of forcing them to make sense too quickly. One payment turned into a trail, then into repetition.

But still, he found nothing out of the ordinary. You were just a regular person living in New York, paying rent on time. Unlike him this month. 

He stared at the screen longer than he needed today. The more he followed it, the clearer it became that this wasn’t temporary, wasn’t a waypoint or a cover that would disappear in a week. You weren’t passing through. You weren’t hiding. You were living here.

The rest of the records only reinforced it. He found your utility bills, with groceries spaced out in a way that suggested routine. He found nothing excessive, nothing careless. It was almost jarring, how normal it looked on paper, for someone with a history soaked in blood.

Next, Dex visited your building and expected that to be where the illusion broke, maybe an indication that this was all a front.

There wasn’t anything.

It was just a building. Unremarkable, forgettable in the way most of the city was. There were no visible security upgrades, no controlled access beyond the standard high rise. There was nothing that suggested someone with your file should be walking in and out of it every day.

He watched long enough to be sure. You came and went at predictable times, no visible countersurveillance, no adjustments to your movements that suggested you thought you were being watched. You carried your own groceries up the steps. You held the door open for someone once, an older man who thanked you without hesitation, like you were just another tenant, just another face he recognized in passing.

Dex didn’t like that it didn’t fit the rest of you. So he kept digging, because if there was going to be a crack, it would be in the routine and… you had one.

It took him three days to map it out in full, not because it was complicated, but because it wasn’t. You woke early. You jogged through Central Park along the same route almost every morning at the same pace, like it was muscle memory. You didn’t scan constantly, didn’t treat every passerby like a potential threat. You just ran.

After that, you hadcoffee at the same place every time, the same order. 

Dex watched all of it from a distance, writing it down in his little notebook. He told himself it was for this job, that he needed to remember things accurately if he was going to finish the job. 

By the fourth day, he knew watching wasn’t enough. It never had been. Patterns only got you so far before they started turning into assumptions, and assumptions got people wrong. 

The problem was, he didn’t have a plan for that. He wasn’t a spy. He didn’t build relationships, didn’t ease his way into proximity. 

But standing across the street, watching you disappear into the crown like you’d done every morning that week, he understood one thing clearly enough: He didn’t know how he was going to do this. He just knew he had to get closer.

—

The next day, he “accidentally” ran into you on that jogging trail in Central Park.

He already knew the exact time your foot would hit the gravel. All he had to do was figure which way you were going: was it the route you’d take when you wanted to clear your head, or the one you’d take when you wanted a challenge?

He waited outside your apartment today and…. You were taking the hard route.

He followed, and his plan of taking you until you got to the cafè, where he would sit next to you, would’ve been perfect until… Dex timed it wrong.

He knew he did the second he adjusted his pace to match yours and felt the rhythm slip. He was too fast for a clean pass, too close for it to look incidental. 

This wasn’t what he was good at. There was no distance. Only proximity and the vague, uncomfortable awareness that if you were anything like the file said you were, you’d clock him immediately.

You didn’t. You just kept running.

He tried to correct it, cutting slightly across your path like he meant to pass you, like he belonged in your space. The movement was off by half a second, just enough to turn clumsy. His shoulder clipped yours, momentum carrying him forward a step too far. You caught before you could trip and looked at him like, what the hell, man?

“—shit, sorry,” Dex said quickly, breathing unevenly. He turned back, forcing himself to meet your eyes. “I didn’t… are you okay?”

Up close, everything went a little sideways.

He’d seen your photo. But a still image didn’t account for the way you actually were when you looked at him. You were focused, yes, but there was no immediate suspicion or recalculation behind your eyes. He could tell you were doing a quick assessment and—

“You’re fine,” you huffed, brushing it off like it really had been nothing.

Dex blinked once, recalibrating, trying to drag himself back to the whole point of this endeavour: Intel. 

Simple, right? 

Except now you were standing there, waiting just long enough that it demanded a response.

Right. Say something. Anything.

“Uh… there’s a coffee place just up ahead,” he heard himself say, the words coming out before he could fully filter them. “I can make it up to you. Buy you one or something.”

There was a lull of silence where even he registered what he’d just done.

That wasn’t part of any plan. That was stupid.

Dex forced himself not to react to it outwardly, even as his chest tightened in irritation. This wasn’t how he should’ve handled a target like you. He shouldn’t’ve improvised like this. What was he thinking, basically asking you out like some idiot who didn’t know what he was doing?

But you were still just looking at him.

And up close, all he could think about was how… disarming you were.

That was the word his brain landed on, unhelpfully. You made him lower their guard without realizing he was doing it. 

Dex swallowed, keeping his expression neutral, like this was intentional, like this was just another step in a plan he actually had control over.

This is for intel, he told himself, firmly. Just intel via proximity. That’s all this is.

You tilted your head slightly, considering him in a way that made him feel, for a split second, like he was the one being assessed.

“Coffee?” you repeated. 

“Yeah,” he said, a little more steady now. “Least I can do.”

“For what?” you managed an amused chuckle, and Dex could’ve sworn that hearing you make that noise lit up the world around him. “bumping into me? Is this a line?”

“I just…” he stammered, and bit the inside of his cheek. “I’ve seen you around.”

I’ve seen you around??? He mentally slapped himself. What kind of fucking stupid explanation is that? What does that have to do with anything?

Surprisingly, though, all you did was tilt your head and said, “Okay.”

Oh?

Dex forced himself to nod once, like he’d expected it, like this hadn’t just gone completely off-script.

“Okay,” he echoed, turning slightly to fall into step beside you as you started moving again.

He kept his focus forward, matching your pace, already running through what he needed to ask, what he could realistically get without pushing too hard, how to steer the conversation where he needed it to go.

And still, somewhere in the back of his mind, something felt off. Dex ignored it, because this was a job. You were a target.

And this was just the easiest way to get what he needed. Nothing more.

—

The café was small, tucked between a bookstore and a laundromat.

On the way there, you exchanged your names— he said he was “Tony,” and you, surprisingly, had given him your real name. You were easy to talk to, and you talked about the weather, the park, the surprisingly little snow last winter.

When you got to the café, Dex was relieved to see that it wasn’t too crowded, just a couple of people on laptops, a murmur of conversation, the hiss of the espresso machine every so often. Fewer variables, Fewer eyes.

You ordered first: iced latte, like you’d done it a hundred times. He followed with an Americano, mostly because he panicked and it sounded normal enough.

Now he sat across from you, fingers loosely wrapped around the glass cup, watching the condensation bead along the outside of your glass as you stirred your drink with your straw. You looked… relaxed.

You took a sip, then glanced at him over the rim, and there was mischief in your expression. A second later, you let out a giggle, tapping the straw lightly against the lid.

“So,” you said, dragging the word out just a little. “Why does Bullseye want to take me out to coffee?”

Dex choked.

It wasn’t subtle. The coffee went down the wrong way, and he had to turn his head slightly, coughing into his fist. For a split second, he thought he might actually spit it out all over you, which—thank fuck—the café being mostly empty made slightly less of a disaster.

His eyes snapped back to you.

“…You knew?” he asked.

You blinked at him like that was the stupidest question you’d heard all day, then shrugged, taking another sip like this was a casual conversation. “Of course,” you said. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know me.”

There was no accusation in it. You said it as if it was a fact.

Dex just stared at you. His brain tried to catch up, running through possibilities, angles, trying to figure out where this had gone wrong. Had you clocked him earlier? On the run? Before that? Had he missed an obvious tell?

You didn’t look alarmed. You didn’t look like you were about to bolt or reach for a weapon. If anything, you looked… curious.

“Oh,” he said, because that was all that came out at first.

Great. Perfect. Real smooth.

He forced himself to take another sip of his coffee, buying a second to gather his thoughts, to shove everything back into place where it belonged.

She’s a target. This is a job.

“Yeah,” he added, steadier now, nodding once like this hadn’t just blindsided him. “I mean—yeah. I just…” His teeth tightened for half a second before he settled on the first thing that felt even remotely usable. “I’m a fan of your work.”

You didn’t react immediately. You watched him over your drink, eyes narrowing slightly.

Dex held your eyes, forcing himself not to overcorrect, to let it breathe. Let it land.

“Right,” you said finally. You didn’t sound entirely convinced, but you let it go.

The silence stretched, but not too uncomfortably. It was just charged. You knew there was no chance of going back to a civilian conversation as you leaned back slightly, exhaling.

“Alright. No, we’re not doing this version,” you decided, more to yourself than him. Then you straightened again, meeting his eyes properly. “Can we start over?”

Dex blinked, thrown just enough to answer honestly. “I… yeah.”

You nodded once, resetting playfully. 

“Hi. You already know my name, so I’m skipping that part,” you said, gesturing vaguely with your cup. “I’m a former Red Room Widow. I live in New York now.”

You said it like a random woman introducing themself as an accountant.

Dex opened his mouth, then closed it to filter through the responses. “Hi,” he tried again, because apparently that was all he had today.

You waited.

“Hi,” he repeated, then dragged a hand down his face, exhaling through his nose. “I’m Dex. Not—” he made a vague, frustrated gesture, “not Tony, I don’t…”

Your lips twitched. “I got that.”

“Right. Yeah.” He nodded once, a bit too quickly. Then, as if he was forcing the words out his throat. “I’m… a good guy.”

The second it left his mouth, he knew how weird it sounded. You blinked at him. Then, to his surprise, you chuckled, and it was not unkind.

“Hi, Dex Not Tony,” you said, teasing him. “That’s a strong introduction.”

His mouth pressed into a thin line, but his shoulder reluctantly eased a fraction. “It’s… yeah,” he muttered. “Workshopping it.”

That earned him a small huff of laughter, and just like that, the tension changed. It was not gone completely, but it loosened enough to breathe around.

“Mm,” you hummed, tapping your straw against the rim of the glass. “Maybe workshop faster.”

That earned you the smallest exhale that might’ve been a laugh.

“So,” you went on, glancing at his drink. “Americano?” 

He looked down at it like he’d forgotten it existed. “Mmm.”

“Do you actually like that,” you took a sip of your own drink, “or did you panic-order?”

Dex hesitated, but decided against lying. “Panic-order.”

You grinned. “Thought so.”

“Yours?” he asked, nodding toward your cup.

“Iced latte. Always.”

He nodded once, filing it away without thinking. “Predictable,” he said.

“Consistent,” you corrected.

“Same thing.”

“Not even a little.” Your smile tugged a little wider, and for a second, it made your whole face look gentle in a way that didn’t match anything he’d read.

The conversation after that was not awkward, even as it came in uneven starts. You both drifted out half-finished sentences, small corrections, circling around what you weren’t saying more than what you were. But eventually, it found a rhythm. 

You talked about nothing, mostly. The weather again, somehow. The park. The café. You made an offhand comment about the coffee being great here but the pastries were better two blocks over, and Dex filed that away without meaning to. He asked a question that sounded almost normal, and you answered it like it was. 

For some reason, he could not bring himself to ask about intel. Still, neither of you got up as time stretched right before your eyes. 

“Okay,” you said after a moment, glancing at your drink, then back at him. “For the record, this is the weirdest coffee I’ve had in a while.”

“Same,” he said.

“And I’ve had coffee in worse places.”

“Same.”

You narrowed your eyes slightly, amused. “You’re just copying me now.”

There was that pause again. This time, neither of you rushed to fill it. 

You checked your phone briefly, then sighed, like you didn’t actually want to say what came next. “I should probably…” you started, gesturing vaguely toward the door. “…go.”

Dex nodded immediately. “Yeah. Yeah, sure.”

You stood, grabbing your jacket, then hesitated just slightly. You looked at him, like you were weighing your options, then reached into your pocket and pulled out your phone. “Give me your number.”

Dex tilted his head. “…What?”

You held it out, unfazed. “In case you decide to bump into me again,” you said. “Might as well schedule it next time.”

He stared at you for a second, like he was trying to find an explanation, a reason not to… 

Then he took the phone.

“Right,” he nodded. “Yeah.”

He put it in and handed it back. After all, he had convinced himself that it was just so he could get the intel he was supposed to do today.

“See you around, Dex Not Tony.” 

“Yeah,” he said, quieter now. “See you.”

You turned, heading for the door. The bell chimed again as you left.

Dex stayed where he was for a moment longer than necessary, staring at the space you’d just occupied, the echo of your laugh still sitting somewhere in the back of his mind.

Something about that had gone very, very wrong. Or very right

—

That night, Dex had trouble sleeping.

The apartment was too quiet, the city noise bleeding faintly through the windows, the weight of the day sitting wrong in his chest. He laid there for a while, staring at the ceiling, replaying the conversation in fragments: your voice, your eyes, the way none of it lined up with the file. Eventually, he gave up trying to sleep at all. 

He sat up, reached for the notebook on his nightstand, and flipped it open. The logs he had on you were already there: Times, routes, and observations.

He stared at it for a moment, pen hovering. Then he added a new line, pressing just slightly harder than necessary: 

Likes iced lattes

—

Two days later, Dex’s phone buzzed.

He didn’t get messages he wanted to open. He didn’t need another contract— he got his hands full as is. So for a second, he just stared at it from across the room, letting it vibrate once. Unknown number.

His jaw tightened before he picked it up and unlocked it.

There was a photo of a newspaper, slightly crumpled, held down by what looked like your hand. The headline was clear enough:

THREE ANTI-VIGANTE TASK FORCE AGENTS FOUND DEAD IN ALLEY

Below it, you had texted: 

is this you?

Dex stared at the screen, figuring out exactly who it was. He read it again, trying to wrap his mind around this. His thumb hovered over the keyboard.

You knew. Or you suspected. Or you were testing him. All three were problems.

Dex exhaled slowly through his nose and typed.

Dex: no. Why would you think that?

He was lying, but then again, he was the one who’s supposed to do the interrogation here. It would be stupid to give anything away. 

He hit send before he could overthink it. Three dots appeared almost immediately.

You: just thought I’d ask

Dex frowned. That was it? No pushback? No follow-up? Did you not think he was interesting enough? 

Dex: You just ask people that? “hey did you kill three people”?

There was a pause this time. Dex found himself watching the screen, shoulders slightly tense without realizing it.

You: not usually, but you don’t usually “accidentally” run into me either so

Dex’s grip on the phone tightened just a fraction.

Right. You weren’t letting that go. Dex: I said I’ve seen you around.

He only had to wait a few seconds 

You: sure

He could hear the tone in it. That same almost-amused voice from the café. Not hostile, but curious. Dex leaned back against the wall, phone still in his hand, mind already thinking about what you knew, what you were pretending not to know.

You sent another message before he could respond.

You: also for the record, if it was you, I know you’d say no anyway

Dex managed a smile.

Dex: Probably.

You texted back just as quickly

You: so I’m choosing to believe you 🙂 You: congrats

He huffed, a dry laugh catching in his throat. This was… strange.

You weren’t pushing. You weren’t backing off either. You were just… there, talking to him like this was normal.

Dex stared at the screen for a moment longer, then typed again. 

Dex: Why’d you actually text me?

The typing bubble came and went once. Then, it stayed.

You: because I wanted to You: ??? You: do I need a better reason than that

Dex frowned slightly. That answer didn’t fit neatly anywhere that his brain could  categorize, 

Dex: People usually have reasons.

This time your reply took longer. Long enough that Dex caught himself rereading the earlier messages, analyzing tone, punctuation, timing, looking for something he might’ve missed.

You: okay, fine You: I was bored You: and you’re interesting You: better?

Dex froze.

Interesting. Was that what you thought of him?

Dex: You don’t seem like you get bored.

He could almost picture you rolling your eyes 

You: wow. you are a fan

He stared at the screen for a second, then forced himself to snap back into place. 

You were a target, he had to remind himself. Nothing more. He needed intel to pay rent, and he could only get that after he eliminated you, so… 

Dex: if you’re bored, we could go on another date

He hit send and immediately had what did you just do moment. This wasn’t part of the job. This wasn’t… date wasn’t the word he should’ve used. 

The typing bubble popped up, disappeared, and came back within three seconds. 

You: is that what that was the first time? a date??

Dex blinked.

“…No,” he muttered under his breath, already typing.

No. It was—

He stopped. What was it?

Dex: maybe?

That was all he could send. Oh, he was never playing spy after this job was done. Not ever again.

You: right You: with a guy who “sees me around”  You: very normal

Dex pressed his lips together.

Dex: Do you want to go or not?

During the wait, Dex felt something unfamiliar settle in his stomach. It was something he could only describe as butterflies. 

You: yeah sure 

His grip on the phone loosened slightly.

You: same place? or are you gonna “accidentally” run into me again?

Dex huffed.

Dex: how about the pastry place you were talking about? 

Oh so now he was paying attention to your recommendations?

You: okay. Friday?

The only thing he had on his calendar was killing task force, and that could wait, so… 

Dex: Friday works.

He tapped on his phone screen, anxiously waiting for confirmation.

You: cool You: try not to kill anyone before then. It ruins the vibe

Dex stared at that one for a second.

Dex: No promises.

There was no reply after that.

That night, in his notebook, he wrote another thing about you:

Initiates contact.

—

The second date felt different before it even started.

You were standing at the counter of the bakery when he saw you, pointing at something in the display case, smiling at the cashier like this was the easiest thing in the world. “Hey, Dex.” 

You ended up at a small table by the window, a couple of plates between you. A flaky and golden croissant, a banana-flavoured donut-like dessert dusted in powdered sugar (his choice), a molten-in-the-middle pain au chocolate, and one with custard that looked like it might fall apart if you breathed too hard near it.

Adorably, he knew you had picked too many things. Dex didn’t comment on it, but he noticed then, how you pointed without overthinking, how you changed your mind halfway through, how you added one more at the last second “just in case.”

It felt indulgent in a small, contained way. Like this was the only thing you let yourself have. 

The plate between you looked excessive now, but you nudged it toward him anyway.

“Try that one,” you said, already reaching for another.

Dex picked it up without arguing. It was… good, but he didn’t say that out loud.

You watched his face anyway, like you were waiting for the reaction.

“It’s fine,” he said.

You snorted. “Liar.”

“I’m not—”

“Don’t pretend it’s just fine,” you rolled your eyes, though you had said it with your mouth full, so it sounded more like downt pwetend it's jusft fwine.

“I’m not pretending.”

“You are.”

He hesitated, then let you win this one. “It is good,” he admitted begrudgingly.

“There it is.”

The conversation slipped into place easily after that. It was not smooth, but it didn’t catch as often. You didn’t circle each other as much. You just… talked.

You even went on for a good fifteen minutes about watching a squirrel in the park yesterday. You said something about how it would grab something, run halfway up the tree, stop, look around like it forgot what it was doing, then go back down and start over. You went on saying, it did this, like, five times, I think it lost the nut at some point but just committed to the bit.

Dex was surprised a former Red Room operative would even concern herself with things as trivial as a little rodent. He was even more surprised that he let you go on and on about it. It was as if he liked listening to you, no matter what you said. 

You reached for the sweeter pastry next, taking a bite, and Dex’s eyes automatically tracking the movement. A small smear of custard caught at the corner of your lip.

You didn’t notice. You kept talking, mid-sentence about the squirrel again, something about it being “committed to chaos, like hoarding random park objects were its hobby,” and—

Dex raised his hand before he could stop it.  “Hold on,” he said, almost a whisper.

You paused. “what…”

His thumb brushied lightly at the corner of your mouth, wiping the custard away, before licking the liquid off on his own tongue. The contact was brief and altogether too gentle for a man like him. For a second, neither of you moved.

His hand dropped back to the table. “You had…” he gestured vaguely. “Custard.”

“Oh.” You blinked once, then let out a small, surprised laugh. “Thanks.”

“Yeah.” Dex looked down at his hands. That felt… Unfamiliar.

He didn’t know when the last time he’d done something like that was. He didn’t know when the last time he’d wanted to.

There was this strange warmth sitting in his chest now, almost weightless. He didn’t even have a name for it.

And while he wasn’t sure he liked that, he definitely didn’t hate it.

You were the one to break the silence, coughing awkwardly like you couldn’t stand another second of silence. 

“Ummm speaking of hobbies?” you echoed, wiping your mouth just in case. “You… don’t strike me as a hobbies person.”

“I had some,” he said, easing back into the chair. Thank fuck you could carry the conversation for the both of them, because his brain had just fully stalled. 

“Past tense is concerning.” You leaned forward just a little. “What, like, knitting?”

“No.”

“Scrapbooking?”

“No.”

“Be honest,” you taunted, “I can see it.”

He almost smiled, and looked down when he said it. “Baseball.”

You paused, then nodded, like that made perfect sense.

“Yeah, I can see that,” you said, then added casually, “I used to do ballet.”

Dex blinked. He looked at you differently now. like he was trying to fit that into everything else he knew. “Oh,” he managed to say.

You shrugged. “Standard Red Room stuff.”

Dex’s posture shifted slightly, attention narrowing. 

Oh, this was it. This was what he came for. This was the thread he needed. This was the confirmation that you had been trained in HQ, right? If you had survived it, then there were doors inside you that led back to places he couldn’t access any other way. 

These were not guesses, not patterns he had to infer from distance, but direct proximity to the Red Room itself, to its methods, its remnants, its current reach. He just needed to keep you talking, keep you close, long enough to pull it apart piece by piece. So he asked, “What does that mean?”

You froze, as if a flash of memories ran through the back of your eyes. Then shook your head once. “Mm—nope.”

“What?”

“Not here,” you said lightly, but there was an immovable conviction underneath it now. “I’m not getting into that here.”

Dex watched you as held his hazel eyes. Then, just as quickly, you leaned forward, resting your chin lightly against your hand, expression shifting back from dark to a lighter tone. “Come by my place on Saturday,” you said, like it had just occurred to you. “We’ll call it our third date.”

Dex blinked. “What?”

You shrugged, completely unfazed. “If you’re really curious,” you added, a small tilt to your head. “There’s… fewer people.”

He stared at you, his eyes empty and calculating at the saw time, fingers anxiously tapping the underside of the table. This was… this was not in the plan. This was not one of his controlled outcomes. This was not…

“Okay,” he said anyway. The answer seemed to have left his mouth before he fully processed it.

“Okay,” you echoed.

And somewhere between the pastries, coffee, and conversation, he realized, a little too late… 

This doesn’t feel like a job.

—

Dex had expected a decoy. A secondary location, maybe a shell apartment. He was expecting something stripped down and impersonal, designed to be burned the second it was compromised.

Not this. Not the exact place he had already mapped out in his notebook.

So yeah, you had given him your real address.

For just a second, he wondered if this was the play. If you knew how much he knew. If this was some test he hadn’t caught onto yet.

The building was exactly what he expected. It was a high-end high rise. The doorman glanced at him once, then nodded like he’d already been cleared.

“You’re expected,” he said simply.

Dex didn’t respond, already moving past him. The elevator took him straight up.

By the time he reached your door, he had an uneasy feeling in his chest. Was this… a trap? 

He knocked, and the door opened almost immediately.

“Hi,” you said.

Dex opened his mouth to respond, but you interrupted his train of thoughts by pressing a quick kiss to his cheek, right at the scar.

Dex froze. By the time you pulled back, his brain still hadn’t caught up.

You smiled like nothing had happened, stepping aside to let him in. “Come in.”

He couldn’t find words to say, because apparently, his brain was on pause now.

Still, Dex stayed half a step behind you as you pushed the door open, his eyes already scanning past your shoulder and realised…

The place was… expensive.

Not in a loud, gaudy way. You had no gold fixtures or ridiculous statement pieces. It was intentional. It had floor-to-ceiling windows stretching across the far wall with a view that swallowed half the city. It had two bedrooms, if he researched it right.

“How…” he started, then cut himself off. What he meant to say was, how can you afford this? But decided against it. 

You didn’t seem to notice. “Make yourself comfortable,” you said, already shrugging off your jacket and tossing it onto a chair like it wasn’t worth more than half the furniture in his apartment. “I just need the bathroom. I’ll be quick.”

And just like that, you disappeared.

Dex stood there for a second longer than necessary, processing everything. 

You lived here. And not as a cover, not temporarily. There were no signs of rotation, no packed bags, no readiness to leave at a moment’s notice.

“That’s stupid,” he muttered under his breath. Or reckless. Or you were just arrogant to a fault. Maybe you just didn’t think anyone could touch you.

Dex stood still for a second, listening to the water running. He heard the slightly delayed pipes and realised you weren’t rushing. Good.

His eyes tracked the room the way they always did, scanning for inconsistencies. He didn’t try to look for what was there, but what didn’t belong. Because people like you didn’t leave things out.

Which meant if anything existed, it would be hidden. His gaze slowed down and shifted… There. A section of the wall paneling near the shelving was barely misaligned. It was not enough for anyone else to clock, but Dex didn’t miss patterns like that.

He stepped closer, fingers brushing lightly over the seam. There must be a pressure point. Eventually the panel gave just enough of a click to confirm it. Dex didn’t hesitate before easing it open.

Inside was a compact hidden compartment.

The first thing he saw was a keycard, worn at the edges. The insignia was barely visible, but he didn’t need it to be clear. He knew what it was the second he saw it: Hydra.

“Of course,” he muttered under his breath.

Red Room had a historical overlap with Hydra. Old, but not irrelevant.

It surely was a small enough thing that you wouldn’t miss it, right?

He pocketed it and moved on to the only other thing hidden in the panel: Documents. It wasn’t exactly a full archive, but it was enough.

He flipped through them, scanning fast. Inside were names of Red Room operatives. The dead ones were labeled. He assumed the ones who didn’t have a red Xs on their files were still active. 

You had annotated them too, with locations, partial intel, and movement patterns.

This was the kind of access people killed for.

His thumb moved, grabbing his phone. He flipped through quickly, taking a picture of each page, each note, each annotation. He made sure, of course, that it was legible.

This was high-level access, closer than anything he’d gotten from a distance. This… This was the job.

Then he heard the sound of water shutting off.

Shit. Dex froze. Then, he moved. He closed the folder immediately, sliding it back in.

Everything went back exactly as it was, the panel sealed until the seam disappeared into the wall again like it had never existed. By the time you stepped back into the room, he was already on the couch.

“Sorry,” you said, drying your hands casually, completely unbothered. “That took longer than I thought.”

Dex looked up at you. There was a split second, where something in his expression didn’t line up. The. it was gone.

“You’re fine,” he said evenly.

You nodded, like that settled it, and stepped closer. You dropped down onto the couch beside him, close enough that your shoulder brushed his, as if this was normal. As if he wasn’t here to dismantle you piece by piece. He didn’t even realise that you had a bottle of wine and two glasses on your hand. 

You leaned back slightly, turning your head toward him, “…So,” you said, more direct. “What do you want to know?”

—

It can’t be this easy right? Dex thought. 

Turns out, it was. 

Which was weird, because people like you didn’t just… hand things over. So either this was the cleanest setup he’d ever walked into, or you really didn’t think he was a threat. Neither option sat right with him. 

His fingers flexed slightly against his knee as he watched you pour two glasses of red. You handed one to him, and Dex took it quickly. “Thanks,” he said, smaller than usual.

He didn’t even usually drink anymore. He turned the stem slightly between his fingers, watching the liquid catch the light. For a brief second, his mind did what it always did: it ran through possibilities. 

It might be a sedative. It could be poison. He could handle most of that, maybe. And if he couldn’t…  Well.

He huffed quietly to himself. What the hell.

Dex took a sip. It burned a little on the way down. Not unusual, just normal wine. 

The first sign that it wasn’t poison was that you were drinking it, too. The second sign was that you didn’t react; you didn’t watch him like you were waiting for something to happen. You just leaned back into the couch and tucked your leg under yourself.

It was cute, Dex thought. You looked like a bird, nesting. He liked it.

Then, he took a deep breath and started asking questions. At first, it was light, like where did you grow up? Where were you trained?

You answered, and you sounded detached for the first couple of sentences. It was as if you were testing the limits and throwing pieces out to see what stuck.

But when the alcohol kicked in and your cheeks turned rosy pink, you spoke more candidly. About the Red Room. About being taken. About being trained.

Even Dex, who was starting to feel more bubbly, didn’t interrupt.

At first, he listened like he always did. He filtered, sorted, and pulled out what mattered. But somewhere along the way, that changed. Because you started giving less intel and more… context.

“You don’t really realize it when you’re in it,” you said, staring into your glass like the answer might be somewhere at the bottom. “It just feels normal. Like this is what life is supposed to be. You don’t question it because there’s nothing else to compare it to.”

Dex’s grip tightened slightly, and you kept going.

“They don’t just train you. They… build you. Strip everything out first. Then put back only what they need.” You gave him a small laugh.“Honestly? It’s basically a cult. You have no idea what it’s like to be manipulated like that.”

Dex looked down, and exhaled slowly through his nose. “Yeah,” he said. “I do.”

You glanced at him then, and your eyes shifted. You were not shocked at all, but you recognised it as well as you would recognise kin. “Oh,” you looked down. “Right.”

Dex poured himself another glass without thinking. You kept talking, but slower now. It was less like you were explaining, more like you were… unloading. Like you didn’t have anywhere else to put it.

That’s when it clicked: This must not be a trap or a strategy, he concluded, because the reason you were telling him all of this on a third date was… because, like him, you had no one else.

You might have neighbors, maybe even actual friends. But surely, you had no one else who could possibly understand you the way he did, because who else could you possibly know in this line of work? 

That was why you decided that he was the safest place to put it.

Dex stared at the rim of his glass for a second too long. That was stupid of you. And dangerous. And—

“…And you?” you said suddenly, nudging his knee lightly with yours. “C’mon.”

He blinked, pulled back into the moment.

“If we’re trauma dumping,” you added, a crooked smile pulling at your mouth, “we might as well commit. This is probably our only chance to say it out like.” You took another sip, then shrugged. “Doesn’t exactly look like either of us go to therapy.”

Dex huffed. “Yeah,” he muttered. His brain caught up half a second later.

He shouldn’t, though, right? He shouldn’t tell you anything about him that could possibly be compromising but… The booze was getting to him. 

And, besides, what harm could trauma dumping to you be? The job ends one way: with you dead after he got all the intel. So did it really matter what you knew about him?

Dex leaned back slightly, exhaling a little. 

And then, before he could stop himself, the extra bit of liquid courage bypassed his brain, and he told you everything. 

The words came out flat at first. But the more he drank, the less he cared about what he gave away and what he did not. 

You didn’t interrupt him. You just listened. And that, more than anything, kept him talking. 

At some point, the wine started to blur the edges for you, too. Your shoulders leaned closer. Your knee stayed pressed against his. Your laughter came easier as he cynically explained being in prison, and because you felt bad when you did, you gasped and covered your mouth. 

Dex didn’t seem to mind. He even smiled, the corner of his mouth warping the pronounced scar on his cheek. At one point, you tilted your head slightly, watching him with an understanding that hadn’t been there before.

“God,” you said, almost to yourself. “We’re so fucked up.”

Then, unexpectedly, you giggled. Dex, for once, cannot help but chuckle himself. 

“Yeah.” He took another sip, “You more than me,” he added, almost immediately.

Your head snapped toward him immediately. “Excuse me?”

A faint smirk pulled at his mouth. “Y’know,” he said, “Child soldier and all.”

You stared at him for a second, before letting out a disbelieving laugh. “Really?” you shot back, leaning closer, eyes narrowing in mock offense. “I’m more fucked up?”

He lifted a shoulder slightly in a shrug.

You pointed at him with your glass. “Your boss broke your spine and you lived.”

Dex managed to roll his eyes. 

“You got thrown off a roof and you lived,” you continued, leaning in further now, your voice picking up energy. “Sounds like you’re pretty far from normal.”

Dex huffed again. “Didn’t say I was normal.”

“Mm,” you hummed, satisfied. You sipped again. 

The space between you closed without either of you noticing when it happened. Your knee pressed against his. Your shoulder brushed his arm. Neither of you moved away.

The wine kept going. Half a glass. Then another.Words came easier after that, less filtered, less controlled.

You interrupted each other more. You laughed more. You even talked over the ends of sentences like it didn’t matter who finished them. At some point, you were both smiling for no reason.

Dex didn’t realize when the room started to feel warmer. He didn’t realize when your voice started to blur slightly at the edges. He didn’t even realize when he stopped thinking about the job entirely. He just knew, at this point, that you were close. Really close.

And you looked… Pretty.

That was a stupid word. It was too simple. It didn’t cover the gnawing claws that were starting to take over his heart.  

But it was the only word his brain gave him. You were smiling at something (he didn’t even remember what) and it made you look… harmless. 

Dex felt a warmth shift in his chest. As unfamiliar as it was, he didn’t pull away from it. For a second, you looked at him, too.

Dex swallowed the last of the wine, mostly because it was the only distraction that could possibly take up all the space you had started to occupy in his mind.

The room had dimmed at the edges in that deceptive way alcohol always did. The lights seemed warmer. 

Dex didn’t usually get to this point. He knew that with uncomfortable clarity. He also knew he should stop.

You were sitting too close, closer than before, closer than necessary, your shoulder pressed lightly into his as if neither of you had noticed the distance shrinking over time.

Your voice had gone gentler, words starting to come in slower waves instead of quick exchanges. There was less explanation, more confession disguised as conversation. And he was doing the same, even if he wouldn’t have admitted it out loud.

Parts of him he usually kept locked down were just… loosening, one by one, without permission.

You laughed at something he said, he didn’t even remember what it was, and the sound stuck in his head longer than it should have. 

“You’re smiling,” you observed suddenly, tilting your head slightly like it was a fossil discovery.

“I’m not,” he said automatically.

You hummed, unconvinced. “You are.”

He should’ve corrected you. Instead, his eyes drifted without meaning to, down to your mouth when you spoke again. The way your words drooped at the edges when you were tired, or tipsy, or both. For the love of god, he could not get over you the way you kept licking your lip absentmindedly, like you weren’t even aware of it.

It made something in his brain go pop.

You noticed. “…What?” you asked, pouting adorably.

Dex didn’t answer right away. Because, really, there was no tactical reason for him to be looking at you like this. There was no intel angle. No extraction logic. No job framework he could hide behind.

It was just you. And him. And the space between you that didn’t feel like space anymore.

He leaned in before he could reassemble himself. He hadn’t planned on doing it. It wasn’t even a decision he consciously made, really. 

It was, for lack of better word, gravity. As if he was a meteor falling into your orbit. 

For a while, you didn’t move away. 

Your breath caught in your throat, but you stayed there, watching him come closer instead of stopping it. Your eyes flicked down once, like you were considering it too.

Dex stopped just short of you. He wanted, no needed— to know you wanted it, too. 

Still, he was close enough that he could feel your breath now. Close enough that if either of you moved even a fraction—

That would be it. The line would be crossed.

You lifted your hand slowly, but you were not pushing him away. You weren’t pulling him closer, either. Your palm was hovering for a moment against his chest like you were testing whether this was real.

Dex didn’t move. Neither did you.

You exhaled. It was a small, almost reluctant sound. “…Dex,” you murmured, and his name sounded different like that. His eyes flicked to yours again.

Too close. This was way too close.

Your eyes dropped again to his mouth again, and stayed there. For a second, he could clearly see that fraction of hesitation where neither of you could pretend anymore that you weren’t thinking the same thing.

Dex leaned in that final inch… but you didn’t meet him halfway. Gently, your hand pressed into his chest.

“Mm,” you murmured softly, almost like you were trying to convince yourself this was wrong. Then you pushed him back.

“No,” you said, breath hitching slightly, but your smile was still there, playful, light. “It’s only our third date.”

Dex blinked, still a little too close, like he hadn’t fully processed the words.

You laughed under your breath, giving him a small shove to create space.

“Besides,” you added, eyes flicking down to his mouth for just a second before meeting his again, “I want you to kiss me when you’re sober.”

Oh.

He leaned back this time, letting out a deep breath. There was only one way he could describe how he felt, and that was disappointment. 

Oh, well. What else can he do?

“Yeah,” he managed to say. “Okay.”

Still, he didn’t move far, and neither did you.

And of course, his thoughts, intrusive as they always are, decided to ruin the only tender moment he had in years.  

You have enough. Kill her. 

Honestly, he had more than enough intel on the Red Room. Even the old Hydra keycard was a welcome addition to his anonymous employer’s request. It would most definitely make up for anything else they could have possibly wanted. 

What are you waiting for? Kill her. 

It was definitely more than what that had bargained for. So yeah, he could do it now. 

He had clocked many sharp objects he could throw at you— from your vase to a cheese knife you left out on the island kitchen. He didn’t even need a gun. 

Kill her.

And no, you wouldn’t even see it coming. His fingers flexed slightly against his leg.

Kill her.

But then he made the mistake of looking at you. And from there on out, all he could think was… 

I want another date.

No. He shouldn’t want that, right?

Kill her.

He didn’t want that either. 

But… he needed the money, and you had a body count higher than the Empire State Building. Killing you would make sense right? It would help balance the scales, right?

Right? 

Would it still make sense, even after you laid your heart and soul to him? Would it still make sense, even after he realised you were brought up as an enslaved child soldier? 

Kill her. 

No, he told himself, Not yet.

I want just one more date. 

And to Dex, that was reason enough not to kill you. Yet. 

—

Dex didn’t go to rest when he got home.

The second the door shut behind him, he frowned, burying his head in his hands before pulling himself together. He had called forth the part of him that knew what to do, what this was, what it had to be.

He pulled the notebook out before he’d even taken his jacket off.

He sat down, pen moving across paper. It started the way it always did: Structured and efficient. Intel, in detail.

He wrote of the interior of your apartment; top floor, two-bedroom, open sightlines, minimal obstruction points. Entry points limited. Windows large but not easily accessible from exterior. Security: building-controlled, doorman compliant, prior clearance confirmed.

He flipped the page. He wrote about the hidden compartment: wall panel, right side of shelving unit. Pressure point activation. Contents: Hydra-era keycard, confirmed overlap with Red Room operations. Documents: active survivor list, partial intel, movement logs. Photographic evidence captured.

Another page. This was where he started writing about your routine vulnerabilities, your Behavioral patterns. Trust threshold: high. Counter-surveillance: minimal to non-existent. Open, disarming, prone to disclosure under informal conditions.

His handwriting stayed tight. 

2.5 million dollars would only come after you were dead. That would fund his makeshift crusade for years to come. It was important work he was doing, balancing the scales. 

Dex paused, just for a second. Then he kept going.

Timeline: Saturday meeting. Entry granted without resistance. Physical proximity established quickly. Target displays—

His pen slowed to a stop. It hovered there, a warmth blooming in his chest. Dex frowned slightly, staring at the page like it had changed on him.

Then, almost absentmindedly, he wrote… she kissed me on the cheek, right on the scar.

The pen froze again.

That wasn’t— He exhaled, teeth clenching. —this wasn’t important. 

But still, he crossed nothing out. He just moved on.

Target displays lowered threat perception in close proximity. Conversational drift toward—

His handwriting had changed. Not messy, just less rigid.

… her past. She smells like vanilla. not perfume. Most likely clean laundry and sugar from baking.

Dex blinked. He looked at the lines then at the rest of the page.

What the fuck.

He flipped to the next page like that would fix it.

Red wine is her favourite.

His grip on the pen tightened slightly.

He should stop. This wasn’t relevant. None of the last couple sentences was relevant. Dex leaned back slightly in his chair, staring at the notebook in his lap.

He had everything he needed. He didn’t need to write anything else.

Dex scoffed quietly under his breath. Had he gone soft? 

Then, without really deciding to, he added one more line underneath it…

She laughed when she said “we’re so fucked up.”

He stared at it for a second longer than necessary. Then he snapped the notebook shut.

—

The restaurant for the fourth date was nicer than most places he even bothered to go to nowadays. But if this was going to be your last meal, he might as well make it memorable.

It had soft blue lights, a low hum of voices, the whoosh of knives behind the counter. Dex noticed all of it the second he stepped in, cataloguing angles and exits, the reflective panel behind the chef that gave him a partial view of the room without turning his head.

You need to kill her today.

He exhaled slowly through his nose and followed the host to the table.

When you sat down across from him, smiling like you hadn’t just walked straight into the middle of your own funeral, the room blurred at the edges for Dex.

“Hi,” you said with a smile

Kiss her.

He blinked once, forcing his brain back into place. “Hi.”

You tilted your head slightly, studying him like you always did, like you were trying to solve a puzzle with a missing piece. “You look like you’ve been here for a while.”

“I haven’t.”

“You definitely have.”

“Maybe five minutes.” That was a lie. He had been there for more than ten, cataloging what he could possibly use to finish the job.

You smiled, pleased. “Knew it.”

She’s faking it. She actually likes me. Kill her.

Dex picked up the menu just to give his hands something to do. “You’re late.”

“I’m two minutes late,” you corrected, leaning forward slightly to peek at what he was looking at instead of opening your own. “And I brought personality, so it cancels out.”

He huffed, hiding a smile. “That’s not how that works.”

“It is.” You insisted, tapping the menu. “Also, you picked sushi? I didn’t think you were a sushi person.”

“I’m not.” He immediately said. 

You blinked. “Then why…”

“Seemed efficient.” What he meant was; it’s a nice meal. You deserve a nice meal for the last day of your life. It’s efficient for him, who had an array of ceramic and silverware to kill you with.

You stared at him for a second, then broke into a grin. “You picked it based on efficiency.”

“Yes.”

“That is the least romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”

Kiss her. Tell her she’s pretty.

He didn’t do either.

“You’re still here,” he pointed out instead.

“Yeah,” you said easily, settling back in your seat. “Because I actually like you.”

Liar. Kill her.

Somewhere between you stealing sushi off his plate and laughing at how aggressively he held chopsticks, you asked, almost casually, “You know anything about the ports here?” Dex paused slightly at that, eyes flicking up to yours over his glass. 

The question should’ve put him more on edge than it did, but you just looked curious, relaxed, like this was normal conversation. “Not much,” he admitted after a second. “Fisk uses them to move things through there sometimes.” 

You hummed thoughtfully, listening closely, and Dex found himself talking a little more than he probably should’ve just because you kept looking at him like that.

After a while, though, he managed to change the topic. Work was getting a little old. He found himself wanting to talk about you. “You always order too much.”

You lit up like he’d just handed you a piece of chocolate. “Oh, we’re judging now?”

“I’m observing.”

“Rude,” you said, already scanning the menu. “Also, it’s not too much, it’s strategic.”

“Strategic how?” He tilted his head, genuinely curious.

You shrugged, but there was a stillness underneath it. “You ever go hungry enough that your brain just… rewires? Like you don’t trust ‘enough’ anymore?”

Dex had never felt that way before. He wondered if you were indulgent because you had gone through missions with little food. Would you have gotten days without it, a week maybe? Your Buenos Aires mission was six days, your Lagos mission was seven days. Was it those missions?

How did you even survive? 

She’s a widow. She’s a weapon. She’s a person.

“…Yeah,” he said anyway.

Your eyes flicked up to his, and recognition passed between you. “Yeah,” you echoed. Then you nudged the menu toward him. “So I’ll over-order. It’s fine. We deserve it.”

We’re so fucked up. Kill her. Kiss her.

He nodded once. “Okay.”

You spent the next ten minutes ordering together, leaning over the table, arguing quietly over rolls like it mattered.

“Okay, this one,” you said, pointing. “We’re getting this.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“It has too much…. whatever that is.”

“That is eel,” you squinted.

“Exactly,” he shrugged.

“It’s just eel,” you pointed out. “You’ve eaten weirder things.”

He paused. “That’s not the point.”

You grinned. “I have enough of an appetite for the both of us.”

Kill her. Kiss her.

“…Fine,” he said, pushing his intrusive thoughts away.

You beamed. 

By the time the food arrived, the conversation had settled. You didn’t hold back when you ate, and you never did. You leaned forward, talking between bites, pointed things out like it mattered that he experienced them properly.

“Try this,” you said, holding your chopsticks out toward him without thinking.

Dex looked at it, then at you. You didn’t even realize what he was going to do to you.

Kiss her. Kill her.

He leaned forward and took the bite. Your eyes stayed on his face, waiting.

“It’s good,” he admitted.

“I know,” you said immediately, all too pleased with yourself.

He shook his head slightly.

She’s dangerous. She could kill you. Kill her first.

You wiped a bit of sauce off your thumb absentmindedly and kept talking. “We used to have this thing—training-wise—where they’d reward you with food if you hit certain targets.”

Dex’s attention shifted immediately.

There it is. Focus.

“Targets?” he repeated.

You winced slightly. “Okay, that sounded worse out loud.”

He didn’t respond.

You laughed, a little self-aware. “I mean—it was worse. But at the time it felt like a game, you know? Like ‘hit this, get that.’ Pavlov, but with putting bullets between your classmates' eyes.”

You popped another piece into your mouth like you hadn’t just said that.

She’s a monster. She’s a victim. She’s both. Kill her.

“Do you ever miss that?” he asked before he could stop himself.

You tilted your head, chuckling at the absurdity of the question. “The food or the brainwashing?”

“Either.”

You smiled faintly. “Sometimes I miss knowing exactly what I was supposed to be.”

That…. He understood.

Kill her. Ask her about OXE. Ask her about the DODC. Kiss her.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Me too.”

You didn’t make a big deal out of it. Instead, you just nudged his foot under the table. “Hey,” you said, lighter now. “At least now we get sushi instead of, like… boiled cabbage or whatever.”

His lips formed the ghost of a smile. “I didn’t get cabbage.”

“Oh, sorry,” you deadpanned. “Did your government program have better catering?”

“No.”

You grinned. “Then you get it.”

He did. He really, really did.

You started talking about stupid things again—bad takeout, a guy you saw trying to fight a pigeon, the way you animated everything just enough to make it feel real.

Dex found himself watching your mouth when you talked.

Kiss her. Kill her. She’s faking it. She actually likes me.

He picked up his chopsticks again, turning them slightly between his fingers. These would be a good weapon to finish you off. He had calculated the angle, trajectory, and distance. He could do it from across the table. It would be clean, straight through the throat.

You wouldn’t even—

You laughed suddenly, bright and unguarded, and it snapped the thought clean in half.

“Earth to Dex?”

He blinked, refocusing on the world around him. 

You were looking at him like you’d caught his mind somewhere far away.

“What?” he said.

“You spaced out,” you said, narrowing your eyes slightly. “That was intense. Should I be concerned?”

Kill her. Kiss her. Tell her she’s pretty.

“No,” he said, coughing a little

You leaned forward slightly, studying him. “You do that a lot. Go somewhere else.”

He held your stare, feeling like an utter fucking coward. “I’m here,” he said. It came out quieter than he meant it to.

Your eyes softened. After that, you kept talking, and he kept listening, but the thoughts didn’t stop.

Kill her. She’s dangerous. She’s a Black Widow. She’s killed for corrupt governments. She’s taken down entire networks. She could kill you. Kill her. Kiss her.

He watched the way your fingers curled around your glass, the way you leaned closer when you got excited about a topic, the way your voice softened when you cared. 

He imagined reaching across the table, but this time not to put a piece of cutlery through your windpipe.

Instead, he imagined reaching out with his hand, touching your wrist. He imagined pulling you closer, kissing you.

—

When the bill landed between you, Dex felt his chest pulled tight, like a thread being yanked too hard. 

His hand moved first, grabbing it before you could even look properly. “I’ve got it,” he said, but it came out quieter than he meant, like the words had to push past thorns  lodged in his throat. You started to protest, but he cut in, “I want to.” 

That part slipped out, honest in a way he didn’t like. His fingers fumbled just slightly as he pulled his card out, a barely-there tremor that shouldn’t exist in a man like him, and he focused hard on the motion—insert, wait, sign—because that was simple, and that was something he understood. 

Kill her.

He could do it after this. He would. After all, that was the plan. But when he glanced up, you were watching him. and it threw everything off balance in a way that made his chest feel too full.

His thoughts only sped up after that. 

Kill her. She needs to go. She’s a monster. She’s a widow. She’s a fucking Black Widow. She could kill you. Kill her. She’s faking it. She’s dangerous.

He signed the receipt, but his grip was wrong. It was too tight, the paper crinkling under his thumb. When he set the pen down, his eyes betrayed him. They dropped to your mouth without permission. 

It wasn't strategic. It wasn’t calculated. It was instinct, human and stupid all the same.  

He imagined leaning forward instead of walking away, closing the distance instead of planning your doom, your lips against his instead of blood on his hands.

Focus.

His breath caught, and he looked away like that would fix it, like he could force himself back into the job he was supposed to do. 

He needed to do it. Now. Outside. 

He slipped a metal chopstick into his pocket. 

But the idea of ending it before he knew what your lips taste like made him recoil.

Kiss her. Tell her she’s pretty. Kiss her. Kill her. She’s a bad person. She’s dangerous. She’s so fucking pretty. She actually likes you. Kiss her. Kill her. Focus.

He stood too quickly, the chair scraping harshly against the floor, and reached for his jacket like movement might help ground him. It didn’t. You stood too, close enough that your arm brushed his.

He could still do it but his eyes betrayed him again, flicking to your lips like he was starving for something he didn’t deserve.

The realization hit all at once: he didn’t want to kill you before he kissed you. 

He needed that first. Just once. 

“I’ll walk you home,” he said, and the words came out before he could stop them. You looked up at him, surprised. When you said “Okay,” it didn’t make anything easier. It just gave him more time to ruin himself, one step at a time, chasing something he shouldn’t want before he did what he came here to do.

Kiss her. Then kill her.

—

The street outside your building felt eerily quiet, like the world had thinned down to just the two of you and the glow of the lobby lights behind glass. The doorman had the day off, you mentioned. There were no footsteps. No interruptions. 

Good. No witnesses.

Dex barely registered the thought this time. It flickered and passed, swallowed immediately by the thundering anxiety brewing in his mind.

Kill her.

“Hey,” you said. It was absurd, really, how shy you sounded.

He gulped. “Hey.”

His heart melted when a smile tugged at your mouth.

“I think,” you started, stepping just a little closer, your voice lowering like it was meant only for him, “you earned it.”

Dex didn’t get to ask what that meant, because you stepped in, closing that last inch of space like it meant nothing, and your lips met his…and everything in him just gave way.

His hand dropped from his pocket instantly, the weapon forgotten as his fingers caught your waist instead, pulling you closer like he was afraid you’d disappear. The kiss wasn’t gentle. It was only warm for half a second before it deepened, before he leaned into it with a careful urgency that didn’t belong to him.

Kiss her like you mean it.  

When you pulled back slightly, just to breathe, just to smile that pleased smile that made your whole face light up, he followed. He actually chased your lips, closing the distance again before you could get far, like he couldn’t stand the idea of it ending already. His hand slid higher, thumb brushing your jaw, tilting your face just enough to kiss you again. It was slower this time but no less hungry, like he was trying to memorize it.

You tasted… fuck! Sweet.

His brain latched onto it immediately, irrational and completely useless: Strawberries and cream. Probably lip gloss, but it didn’t matter to Dex. 

Kiss her like you fucking mean it. 

He smiled into it. It felt wrong on him, but he couldn’t stop it, not when you leaned into him like that, not when your fingers curled into his jacket like you wanted him just as much.

Kill her.

The thought slammed back in hard enough to almost make him flinch. His hand paused at your side. He knew the metal chopstick was still in his pocket.

Do it now.

He could, theoretically.  You were right there. You were more than close enough. More importantly, you were trusting enough.

One movement, and you would be dead. He would cradle your lifeless body in your arms and the last thing you would ever do was… kiss him. 

“I’ll see you soon?” you asked hazily when you finally pulled back, your voice carrying the echo of the kiss.

Dex froze.

You were smiling at him. You were not suspicious or guarded. You were just…  hopeful. And all he could think about was the way you’d kissed him. The way you’d let him.

Kill her.

His fingers curled in his pocket, brushing the metal again. He imagined it: a quick thrust, handled efficiently…

No. Not like that. I can’t kill her like that.

It was too slow, too messy. You’d bleed. You’d feel it. You’d die a slow, painful death…

She didn’t deserve that.

That was it. That was his excuse this time.

You deserved to die a quick, painless death. Maybe a shot in the back of the head when you weren’t looking. Just… bang! 

His chest ached at the thought. He was still leaning toward you, like part of him hadn’t caught up yet, like he might kiss you again if you gave him half a second more.

“I—yeah,” he said, voice, rougher around the edges. “You will.”

You smiled like that was enough. Like he hadn’t just made a decision that should’ve gone the other way.

Dex stood there for a second longer than necessary, like he was trying to memorize you again. He thought about your mouth, your eyes. the way you were still a little flushed… Then he stepped back, because if he didn’t—

Kiss her.

He almost did.

Instead, he let you go. And when he got home, all he wrote in the notebook was:

She tastes like strawberries and cream. 

—

The park on a Sunday felt too bright for what Dex had come to do.

Sunlight filtered through the trees in shifting patterns, the grass warm and uneven beneath the blanket he had brought.

It was your idea, “a picnic!” said so casually over the phone, like it was something people like you did, like it didn’t involve him sitting across from you with a gun tucked under his shirt, pressed against his side like a second heartbeat.

He’d decided before he even got there, that today, he was going to kill you.

It ends today. Kill her.

Then you showed up. And the world tilted for him.

You were wearing a sundress that moved with you when you walked. It wasn’t tactical, it wasn’t anything like the person he’d read about in that file. You looked… beautiful.

Kill her.

He swallowed it down. “You look…” he started, then stopped, like the word wouldn’t come out right.

You tilted your head, smiling. “What?”

His eyes dragged over you again before he could stop himself. “Nice,” he settled on.

It was insufficient. He knew it.

You laughed anyway, pleased, like you hadn’t just undone him.

Kill her. She’s dangerous. She’s a weapon.

He swallowed, hard, forcing himself to look away, to move, to do something before he stood there staring like an idiot. He dropped down onto the blanket he’d set up, hands already busy unpacking what he’d brought.

You noticed immediately. “You brought strawberries and cream?” You asked in disbelief. 

Dex shrugged, like it wasn’t a big deal, like he hadn’t thought about it too much. “You like sweet things.”

You went quiet for a second. “I…” you started, “I do.”

He didn’t look at you. If he did, he’d…

Kiss her. Kill her. Focus.

You sat across from him, smoothing your dress under your legs, and that was so normal it made his chest ache.

For a while it was just conversation, the kind that didn’t feel like work. You started with small things, normal things. Then, maybe out of morbid curiosity, you asked him about Fisk, almost casually, like it was something you were only half-remembering. Dex hesitated before answering, more out of instinct than suspicion.

Red Hook came up next, and that made him pause longer, because it wasn’t the kind of thing people usually asked about in passing. Still, he gave you what he had, watching you the whole time for a reaction that never really came. You just nodded along like it made sense to be talking about it like this, and that made him talk more than he should have.

But how could he focus on any of that when his mind…

Shoot her in the head.

“I’ve never done this before,” you said after a moment, glancing around. “A picnic, I mean.”

That caught Dex off guard. “What?”

You huffed a small laugh, a little embarrassed. “Yeah. Not like this, anyway.” You picked at the edge of the blanket. “We used to pretend, though. In the Red Room.”

You said it so lightly. Like it wasn’t something that should gut him. “In the basement of the facility I was raised in,” you went on. “Some of the girls would lay out scraps of cloth, call it grass.” You smiled, but it was fragile. “We’d share whatever we could steal from the kitchen and pretend it was… nice.”

Dex stared at you.

Kill her. She’s a Black Widow. She’s killed people. She’s—

“You deserved better,” he said.

You looked up at him, surprised. Then you smiled. “Yeah,” you said, after a second of consideration. “I think so too.”

Make it quick, coward.

He grabbed a strawberry just to have something to do with his hands, dipped it into the cream, and held it out toward you. It was an imitation of what you had done with sushi the other night. 

You chuckled, then leaned forward, taking it gently, your lips brushing his fingers just slightly.

Kiss her.

He watched you bite into it, watched the way your mouth curved, the way your eyes closed like you were enjoying it. Cream caught at the edge of your lips, but you didn’t notice. And that was it.

Kiss her. Indulge.

He leaned in because he couldn’t help it. He did it slowly, like he was giving you time to stop him.

You didn’t.

Your lips met his, and it was not rushed, not desperate like before. His hand came up to your jaw, thumb brushing your cheek as he tilted your face slightly, deepening it just enough to feel you respond, just enough to feel you lean into him.

You don’t deserve her. Kill her. Get it over with. 

His chest tightened painfully as he pulled back, breathing uneven, forehead almost brushing yours.

You smiled at him, a little dazed, and he knew. He couldn’t do it here. Not like this.

He leaned back fully, dragging a hand through his hair, trying to put himself back together. “I don’t…” he started, then stopped.

You tilted your head. “What?”

He looked at you again, and felt his heart break in real time. “I don’t want to stay here,” he said.

You were now confused and a little unsure. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” he said immediately, more panicked than he meant to. “No. It’s not that.”

Kill her. Do it right.

He let out a deep breath. “Come back to mine,” he said.

Fucking coward. What are you waiting for?  She’s a terrible person. She’s killed more people than you. 

Your brows lifted slightly. “Your place?”

He nodded once.

If he did it there, it would be quiet. He would still make it quick and painless. And afterwards… he could mourn you in peace. He could hold your body as he cried into your neck. And maybe, some part of you would stay with him forever. 

“Yeah,” he said, voice smaller now. “I just… want more time with you.”

That part wasn’t a lie.

You studied him for a second, then you smiled the same trusting smile. “Okay,” you said.

And just like that, you followed him home.

—

The walk should have been simple. It was a straight line, a familiar route, nothing Dex hadn’t done a hundred times before without thinking. 

But inside his head, his thoughts were deafening.

Kill her.

It wasn’t a thought anymore. It was a command, pressing in from all sides until it felt like it might split him open from the inside.

Kill her. She’s dangerous. She’s lying. She’s done this before. You know what she is.

His jaw tightened, teeth grinding together as he kept walking, forcing his steps to stay even. You were beside him, close enough that your shoulder brushed his every few strides, like you hadn’t noticed the tension winding tighter and tighter in him.

Kill her. Do it before she does it first.

The words didn’t fade after they came anymore. They repeated, layered and stacked on top of each other until they stopped sounding like language and started sounding like pressure.

Kill her. Kill her. Kill her.

But then, another voice cut through.

Kiss her.

It didn’t argue. It pulled.

Kiss her again. Don’t let this end. She chose you. She’s still here.

His breath hitched slightly, chest tightening as the two sides collided, over and over, faster now, louder now, until there was no space between them.

Kill her. Kiss her. KILL HER. KISS HER.

It built and built, escalating into unbearable noise. They clawed and scraped and demanded all at once. His fingers twitched at his side, curling slightly like they were reaching for an answer, like his body was trying to decide for him.

One pull of the trigger. That’s all it would take, that’s—

Then, he felt your hand slip into his.

And for the first time in a long time, his brain was… quiet. 

It wasn’t sudden. It wasn’t forceful. It was almost tentative at first, how your fingers trace his thumb lightly before settling into his palm like you’d done it a thousand times before. Like you hadn’t even considered that you shouldn’t.

Dex stopped breathing. His step faltered, just slightly, like his body didn’t quite know how to move without the noise driving it forward.

The commands that had been screaming seconds ago, the overlapping voices, the relentless pressure…they just ceased. As if you had reached inside his head and flipped a switch.

Dex stood there for half a second too long. His mind, which had been a constant storm of instruction and contradiction, felt… clear.

His fingers closed around yours slowly, almost cautiously, like he was afraid the moment would shatter.

You didn’t pull away. You didn’t even hesitate. You just… walked with him. 

And the quiet stayed. Step after step, it stayed.

By the time you reached his building, a fact had already settled into place inside his chest. He didn’t have to argue with himself about it. There was no internal debate, no weighing of outcomes or consequences.

He just knew he wasn’t going to kill you anymore.

Not tonight. Not later. Not at all.

Good person be damned. Bad person be damned. Rent be fucking damned. Whatever fragile system he’d built to justify what he did, none of it held any weight here, not anymore.

He wasn’t looking for redemption, and he wasn’t chasing some shallow kind of bliss that killing you might give him. That had never really been the point, no matter how many times he told himself it was. He just wanted you.

And it was a primal, wild want. 

He wanted your mouth on his again. He just wanted you to kiss him deeply and show him everything he’d missed, everything he’d never been given.

Dex slowed as he reached his door, keys already in his hand, but he didn’t unlock it right away. Instead, his eyes dropped briefly to where your fingers were still threaded with his. Then he looked at you. And there was nothing in his head telling him what to do anymore.

His thumb brushed lightly over your knuckles, a small, almost absent motion, before he finally unlocked the door. “Come in.”

—

His apartment was nothing like yours. In was just one open space, a bed pushed too close to the wall, a kitchen that barely separated itself from the rest of the room. No personality, no indulgence other than you. 

You didn’t say anything, though. No teasing comment, no subtle comparison, just that same acceptance you always gave him, like this was enough. Like he was enough.

Dex barely gave you time to take it in. The second the door shut behind you, he lost any semblance of restraint. 

His hand caught your waist and pulled you into him, his mouth crashing against yours with a kind of hunger that didn’t belong to a man who was ever in control. The kiss was messy, as if he was trying to take something he didn’t know how to ask for.

You gasped against him, your hands coming up to his chest, then his shoulders, leveling him and undoing him all at once. 

He walked you backward without breaking contact. One step, then another, until the back of your knees hit the bed and you fell onto it with. He followed instantly, like space between you was unbearable.

His hands were everywhere, your neck, your sides, your thigh, like he needed to confirm you were real, that you were still here, that you hadn’t disappeared the second he let himself want you this much. And then you felt him shudder just a bit, shoulder shaking. 

You pulled back just enough to look at him, your breath uneven, your hands coming up to his face, thumbs brushing his cheekbones.

“Dex?” you whispered, concern threading through everything. “What’s wrong? ”

“Nothing,” he insisted, almost defensive. “Nothing.”

But his eyes were glassy. He swallowed hard, like he was trying to force it down, trying to push it away before you could see it. After all, he didn’t know how to explain it.

How would he even begin to explain that you made his head quiet? That just being near you feels like something he’s never had before? That he doesn’t know what this is, but it’s too much and not enough at the same time?

“I’m fine,” he added, but it didn’t sound convincing. Not even to himself.

You said his name again, gentler this time. 

And that was it. That was the last thing holding him together.

“I wanna taste you,” he said honestly, almost reverently. 

You were caught slightly off guard. A small, breathy laugh escaped you. “You’ve kissed me before.”

But he shook his head, his big hands already frantically bunching the fabric of your sundress with an urgency that didn’t feel casual anymore. It felt like a need. Like an instinct he couldn’t hold back even if he tried. One hand gripped on your ass as the other hooked on the waistband of your panties, tugging it down desperately.

“No,” he said, voice deeper now. “I want to taste you.”

Oh.

Your breath hitched, but you didn’t stop him. You didn’t pull away. You let him move closer, let him guide you, let him fall on his knees like he was praying to a goddess in the altar of an ancient temple. You let him take that space between your legs as he wondered how much sweeter you could get. 

Here, he could at least pretend that he hadn’t been thinking about killing you not that long ago.

Dex sank lower, slower now, like he was trying to learn you, not take from you. His hands steadied himself against your thighs, his forehead dipping for just a second like he needed to breathe you in. He felt… wrecked.

His breath hitched softly as he leaned closer, the space between your heat and him shrinking until there was almost nothing left and then—

click.

It was quiet, but unmistakably the sound of safety coming off. 

Every instinct he had lit up at once, snapping back into place so violently it almost hurt. His body froze, breath catching.

He lifted his head slowly. And there you were, with a gun pointed at his head.

It was small, and easy to hide, the red room insignia etched to the side. You probably pulled from that little purse you always carried like it was just an accessory.

Of course.

Dex didn’t reach for anything. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t even try to put space between you. He just… looked at you.

And instead of anger, his chest folded in on itself. What he felt was closer to heartbreak than it was rage. Because for one stupid, moment he had naively believed you felt safe with him.

“…Oh,” he said softly.

The gun wasn’t the most horrifying part. It was the fact that even now, even with the metallic click of the safety still ringing in his ears, even with death staring him directly in the face, Dex could not stop looking at you.

You were sprawled beneath him on his bed, dress dragged up your thighs by his own hands, your breathing still uneven from the way he had kissed you seconds earlier. Your lips were swollen and puffy. Your chest rose and fell too quickly. One of your sandal straps hung loose around your ankle where he’d nearly pulled you apart getting you onto the mattress. And somehow… he still wanted you so badly it physically hurt.

How could he be this fucking stupid?

He should’ve known. Especially with questions about Red Hook. The ports. Fisk. That was why you kept asking.

Every little question over food and coffee and pastries. Every casual mention between laughter. Every moment he thought you were trying to know him better—

No. You were working. Just like him.

Your employer wanted information, and you had been sent to pull it out of him piece by piece while he sat there completely fucking mesmerized by you.

And now you had what they needed. Or maybe they realised he didn’t know enough to be valuable. That was worse, because it meant that he was just another loose end.

His stomach twisted hard enough to hurt. Not because you’d played him, because some pathetic, starving part of him had genuinely believed this had stopped being a job somewhere along the way. That maybe the way you kissed him outside your building had been real. That maybe when you held his hand and silenced every screaming voice in his head, it had meant something to you too.

Humiliating. Absolutely humiliating.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered.

It you had looked cold, detached, amused, even cruel, this would have been easier. He would have known where to put it. Would have known how to hate you properly. But you looked devastated.

Your hand trembled slightly around the weapon pointed at him, and your eyes kept betraying you, flicking down to his mouth before snapping back up again. You looked like you hated this.

“I…” You swallowed. “You’re not useful to OXE anymore.”

He had known something felt off. He just hadn’t cared enough to stop. He just wanted you more than he wanted to survive.

Dex let out a shaky breath that almost sounded like laughter. “Fuck,” he murmured softly, and you twitched, feeling his breath on your naked core. 

You flinched immediately. “No. Don’t do that.”

His eyes flicked back to yours.

“Don’t act like this was just me manipulating you,” you said, and your voice cracked slightly now. “I know there was a contract on me. I know you got sent it. I know about the gun under your shirt. Don’t you dare pretend like you weren’t planning to kill me too.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it. Because what could he even say? You were right.

The notebook was sitting in his apartment right now, pages and pages documenting your routines, your apartment, your vulnerabilities.

He had memorized the ways to kill you before he ever memorized the sound of your laugh.

And all this time, you had let him follow you, let him think he was in control in that “accidental run in” in Central Park, when you were planning to eliminate him, too. 

And somehow, the two of you still ended up tangled together on his bed, half-dressed and breathing hard from kissing each other like starving people.

Dex’s gaze dropped involuntarily to your thighs, to the skin exposed beneath the ruined hem of your dress. To the way your body was still open for him despite the gun in your hand.

Fuck.

His fingers tightened unconsciously where they still gripped the fabric pooled around your hips.

You looked vulnerable.

And the absolute worst fucking part was that he still wanted to bury himself between your legs so badly he could barely think straight. Even now. Even knowing this was the end.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

“You know what’s pathetic?” he asked quietly.

Your brows pulled together slightly.

Dex looked up at you from between your thighs, eyes dark and wet and unbearably earnest. “I still want to taste you.”

Your breath caught audibly.

“There’s a gun pointed at my head,” he whispered in disbelief. “and all I can think about is that I never got to know what you taste like.”

“Dex…” you breathed shakily.

But he shook his head immediately. “No, listen,” he said quickly. “I know what this is. I know what happens next.”

You looked away for half a second. That almost destroyed him, because he realized then that you didn’t actually want to kill him either. And that made him want you even more.

God, I’m so sick.

“I know you’re gonna kill me because it’s the job,” he continued. “Fine. I get it.” His eyes dropped again helplessly to the way your thighs trembled around him, then back up. “But Christ…” His voice cracked. “Just let me have this first.”

Dex looked humiliated and ruined all the same. And still completely sincere.

“I could die happy,” he admitted. “Just… let me taste you first, sweetheart.”

Your hand trembled. Not enough to miss, but just enough that Dex noticed.

The barrel of the gun was pressed against the center of his forehead now, cool metal against flushed skin, and still he didn’t move away from you. 

“Do it, then,” you whispered.

You swallowed hard, trying to steady yourself, trying to force your hand not to shake while he knelt there between your thighs looking at you like this was the closest thing to worship he had ever known. Amazed that even like this, you were soaked for him.

“Fucking do it,” you said again, almost pleading now. “Before I…”

Before you what? Changed your mind? Cried? Dropped the gun?

Dex could see every possibility running through your brain all at once.

His hands slid down your thighs reverently.  “You’re shaking,” he murmured quietly.

“So are you.”

That almost made him smile.

The apartment felt impossibly small around the two of you. The warm yellow light above the kitchen sink made you look divine, coupled by the sound of your uneven breathing. The mattress dipped beneath your weight every time you shifted. Dex tilted his head slightly against the gun like he was accepting his fate. Accepting you.

That should have terrified him. Instead, all he could think about was how beautiful you looked above him— dress ruined, eyes glossy with tears you clearly didn’t want him seeing.

He had wanted you from the beginning, even if he hadn’t admitted it. But this was something else entirely. This hurt.

Dex tilted his head just enough to press a slow kiss against the inside of your thigh, and the sound you made nearly destroyed him. 

His eyes flicked up immediately, watching your reaction with awe. He couldn’t believe he was allowed to touch you like this. Like he couldn’t believe you were reacting to him this way.

Dex kissed higher, and your hand flew to his hair immediately, fingers tangling there hard enough to pull a rough sound from his throat in return. He moaned against you.

The vibration of it shot through you so suddenly your back arched off the mattress, breath breaking apart, embarrassingly needy.

Dex's eyes kept fluttering shut every time you touched his hair, every time your thighs trembled around him, every time another helpless sound escaped you. He looked less like a man in control and more like a vampire feeding on his first prey. It was overwhelming.

Every time you twitched or gasped or tried to pull away from how intense it felt, he noticed immediately. He adjusted immediately, making you feel good mattered more than breathing. Like your pleasure mattered more to him than the gun pressed to his skull.

And fuck, did his tongue feel so fucking good. You could barely think straight. The room blurred at the edges, your thoughts dissolving one by one. Every nerve in your body felt lit raw, burning hotter and hotter every time he moaned pathetically against you again like he couldn’t help himself.

Dex sounded addicted to you already. He was too consumed by you and the sounds you were making now. They were small broken noises you clearly hated letting out but couldn’t stop anymore. Too consumed by the way your body kept reacting stronger and stronger beneath him despite your obvious attempts to stay composed.

Your hands tightened helplessly in his hair as another wave hit you, harder this time, your thighs trembling violently around his shoulders. “Dex—” you gasped brokenly.

He looked up instantly at the sound of his name. His eyes were blown wide. His lips swollen from kissing your skin. Hair ruined beneath your fingers. 

Then he sank back down, a man eating his last meal. He needed it to be a feast. 

Too much. It was too much.

Your body tightened all at once, every nerve pulling taut as pleasure crashed through you so hard it hurt. A sob tore from your throat before you could stop it, your entire body shaking as you finally came apart beneath him. Dex held onto you through all of it.

Your fingers slipped from his hair eventually, weak now, trembling as you tried desperately to catch your breath. Tears blurred your vision completely by the time the waves finally started easing enough for you to think again.

Dex pulled back immediately the second he realized you were crying harder.

“Hey,” he whispered instantly, breathing unevenly as he came back up toward you. His hands slid shakily to your waist, then higher, like he didn’t know where to touch to make sure you were okay. “Hey— look at me.”

You were still trembling beneath him, chest heaving as you struggled to come down from the drug-like high of the orgasm he gave you, the barrel of your gun on his temple now.

His thumb brushed shakily beneath your eye, catching tears against the pad of his finger. “Did I hurt you?” he asked, like the idea genuinely horrified him.

“Fuck—no,” you sputtered immediately, breath still wrecked as you stared at him through blurred vision. “Dex, fuck! How could you even say that?”

The concern on his face was so raw it physically ached to look at.

You were still shaking, your body trembling, your thighs dripping with spit and arousal like neither of you knew how to stop this anymore. 

You could trace every conversation backward now, see all the moments you carefully guided him toward the information you needed while he sat across from you like some fucking idiot who came to the conclusion you actually liked him. Except… 

You had fallen utterly in love with him.

Somewhere between the pastries and the wine and him writing down your coffee order in that stupid little notebook of his, the job had become real. Somewhere between him kissing you and him looking at you like your body wasn’t shameful or weaponized or ruined… you had stopped wanting this to end. 

And now here he was. Kneeling between your thighs with your gun to his head and your taste still on his mouth, looking at you like he’d die grateful if you asked him to.

It was as if, somewhere deep down, Benjamin Poindexter truly believed that if loving you ended in death, then maybe that was simply the closest thing he would ever get to being loved at all. That thought almost made you vomit from grief.

Your breathing broke unevenly as you stared down at him.

He still had one hand on your thigh, so fucking gentle.

“I don’t understand you,” you admitted shakily.

A sad smile ghosted across his mouth at that. He was exhausted. “I don’t either.”

You let out this awful sound halfway between a laugh and a sob as tears spilled harder down your face. “Fuck, Dex,” you choked out, “you were supposed to be a job.”

“So were you.”

You swallowed hard enough it hurt. “I should kill you,” you whispered suddenly. The sentence sounded wrong coming out now, like it was collapsing under its own weight before it even reached his ears.

Dex lowered his forehead slightly more firmly against the barrel of the gun, offering himself to you. He readjusted it, making sure that if you shot him now, it would be painless, like he was going to do to you. 

“Do it,” he whispered. “It’s what you were sent to do.” He sounded like he genuinely believed his life was worth less than your mission.

Your vision blurred hard. “I can’t,” you whispered.

He exhaled through his nose. “Yes, you can.”

“No!” You shouted out, panicked. “Don’t fucking… don’t even try to make this easier!”

When your finger jerked against the trigger, Dex still wouldn’t move. Fuck, he really trusted you to end it quick, did he? Even with doom pressed cold against his skin.

Your eyes squeezed shut hard enough to ache. You tried to force yourself back into training, back into discipline, back into the little girl who would get extra pieces of scrap food if she finished her mission well enough. 

But all you could feel was him. His mouth on your skin. The way he’d looked at you while you fell apart beneath him. The way he kept loving you despite knowing exactly what you were. “I’m gonna…” you whispered shakily, but you couldn’t finish the sentence.

You didn’t want to kill him. And that was the first truly selfish thing you had ever wanted.

You pulled the trigger anyway, and the gun went off.

The sound exploded through the apartment violently enough to shake the walls, but the bullet slammed into the floor behind him instead. You had missed a point blank shot intentionally. 

Your hand dropped. You stared at the damage of the splintering wood, breathing hard, horror rushing through your body all at once like ice water. “Oh my god,” you choked.

Dex thought he was dead.

For one longs excruciating second. He truly thought you had killed him. When he realised he wasn’t, he said your name immediately, climbing up the bed toward you “Hey, look at me.”

You genuinely couldn’t. Your entire body started shaking harder now, all the adrenaline and terror and grief finally catching up at once. “I can’t fucking do this,” you sobbed. “I can’t… I can’t—”

Dex cradled your face in both hands immediately.

“I’m a monster,” you whispered brokenly. “Dex, I’m a fucking monster.”

Dex said nothing. He only leaned forward slowly and kissed the tears from your cheeks one by one, like guilt itself had become holy.

And suddenly you understood something terrible about him: He does not love cautiously, nor rationally.

Every ounce of affection he gave came directly from the part of him that had been hurt the most. His soul had been beaten bloody and kept reaching anyway. The heart is a muscle, and his had torn itself apart trying to hold both of you afloat.

“You don’t get to say that like you’re different from me,” he whimpered against your skin.

Your breath hitched and that was when he kissed you like he was trying to pour every shattered piece of himself into your mouth before the world took it away again.

When his mouth parted against yours, you could still taste yourself on him. That made it more devastating. This ruined, trembling man was still carrying evidence of your pleasure on his tongue while he kissed you like you were worth saving.

Dex made a small sound against your mouth when you started crying harder, and suddenly his hands were everywhere, trying to hold you together physically because he didn’t know how else to do it.

His forehead dropped against yours when he pulled away. “We’re both monsters,” he whispered.

But it didn’t sound cruel. It sounded heartbreakingly close to love.

The air is dense and it hums with it, it beads on your forehead and sinks heavy in your chest. Not a lick of wind stirs the dust on the pavement. The powerlines that drape overhead are dead still, devoid of any perching birds that might trick you into thinking life carries on in a backwater town as stagnant as this one. 

Still, quiet is promising. You follow the stripes of black bitumen that stitch the cement as you wander down the crumbling road, ears perked up for the presence of any company — shuffling feet, objects knocked over, the forlorn moaning of an infected. 

There’s nothing. 

You’re not arrogant enough to be hopeful. It hasn’t been a week since your last remaining companion bit the dust, and she didn’t go nicely. Big juicy bite on her hand where the fucking walker took her entire thumb in its mouth. Worse, there was no quick way out. Neither of you had a gun. She wanted death with a shortcut, so one of you had to get their hands dirty — and it was you, in the end. You cut a deep knick in her carotid and she leaked to death in a few minutes. Didn’t look like a bad way to go, in your estimation. 

You miss her, though. Maya was her name. There had been a group of you for a while, six people strong, following the Arkansas river — slowly picked off by varying injuries, diseases, suicides. It was just you and Maya for a good two weeks. Now it’s only you. 

There’s something uniquely terrifying in being alone. In total, vacant, consummate solitude, meandering along with an existential terror that you might be the last person left on earth; paradoxically filled to the ears with dread that there might be someone watching you, listening, waiting for you to turn the corner. 

Typically you’d prefer the beaten path to paved street, temperate woods to abandoned buildings — but desperate times call for desperate measures, and you’ve not got much in the way of a choice. 

You have avoided any population centres for the last few days, following the river as closely as you can without venturing near any roads or buildings. Wasn’t worth the risk until it was, because now you have no food left. Don’t have any antiseptic, either. For all your tools and trinkets, you’ve got nothing much more than three bandaids and a few remaining sachets of berry cherry Kool-Aid. 

You spot a pharmacy up the road. The sun-bleached sign sticks up like a flagpole from the sidewalk; Medi Quick Discount Pharmacy. 

If you’re going to find infected anywhere, it’ll be a pharmacy. You know this, regrettably, from experience. People get bit and the first thing they do is run to a chemist, sweeping the shelves for anything that might help them, a pitifully futile last resort.

Peering in through the sludgy storefront window, though, you can’t see any movement. Can’t see much of anything, really, grime and dust plaster the window in a thick enough film that the interior is dark, especially in the orange lowlight of the evening sun. Looks like there aren’t any spores, though. Windows aren’t broken. Maybe you’re in luck. 

You try the main door and it’s locked, even with a good shake. Next option is to smash the glass, but that’s noisy. Instead you wander around the store, crowbar tight in your fist, eyes scouring the mossy brick walls for any alternative entrance — and, look, there’s a staff entrance round the back. You twist the handle and the heavy door cracks open with a mournful whine. 

The inside is dim, a haze seeps in through newspaper-covered windows, and the air is so thick with dust it’s foggy with it. You’re not hit with the savory odour of spores, but you strap on your mask just in case. Better safe than sorry, as the saying goes. Not to say what you’re doing is particularly safe. 

You find yourself in a stockroom behind the dispensary, and predictably, the shelves have already been thoroughly plundered. 

Since you were driven out of Kansas City, though, you’ve become something of a scavenging maven. Every shelf, every cabinet, every drawer, you finger through until you get blisters. You’ve found some treasures that way: a firesteel, sewing needles, bars of soap. Even a few little trinkets that serve no purpose other than making you smile, like the plushie frog bag charm you found in an old toy store, or the pair of Prada sunglasses you plucked from the glovebox of a rusting sportscar, or the bobby pins you use to keep your hair out of your face. 

And with an unfathomable amount of luck — and a good half an hour combing through the pharmacy tooth and nail — you hit the jackpot. 

Someone else’s stash tucked in a cupboard in the bathroom. Blanketed in dust, so you can safely say nobody is coming back for it. They had good taste, whoever they were — two bottles of codeine, three boxes of ciprofloxacin, ibuprofen blister trays, five droppers of betadine, a vial of gentamicin, an epipen, a box of Ural, surgical tape, gauze, and three sealed hypodermic needles. 

You just about squeal in glee before you bite down on it, scooping every last bit into your backpack, bursting at the seams because holy shit holy shit holy shit — you just won the fucking lottery. 

Little Rock is still several days away, but maybe you’ll survive the journey after all. And you’ve even got stuff to barter with. Gentamicin, you giggle to yourself, the shit’s liquid gold. You hope you can sell it sooner than use it. 

Before then, though, you’ll need food. 

Nothing of the sort could be found in the pharmacy, so you flip the latch on the main door and swing it open before stepping back out into the stree—

Bang. 

There’s a split second between the blistering air that brushes against your face and the earsplitting crack that shockwaves out from a distance. 

For a moment you think you’ve hallucinated. The clap of thunder is gone as it came. A spate of adrenaline floods your body so quickly that your vision falters for a heartbeat, and you flick your head around to see where it had come from, and — there, down the street, a silhouette of a man. 

He’s pointing a rifle at you. 

You move on instinct. It thunders in your temples and buzzes down to your fingertips; the fumes of pure epinephrine, driving you to bolt back inside. You double back and barrel through the pharmacy, hopping over the dispensary counter and bulldozing through the back door you left ajar. 

You sprint in full strides, bounding through the car park and down a perpendicular street, feet landing so hard against the concrete you can feel the shock in your shins. 

You take a left. Bolt down the block. And you don’t hear another gunshot, so you’re safe, maybe — but you think you hear footsteps, heavier than yours, and suddenly they’re closer, faster — and is that panting? You can’t look over your shoulder to check, because you’ll trip if you do, but that’s definitely panting, unmistakable now, the hounding breaths of a man in unrelenting pursuit. 

Now you shriek. It tears itself out of your lungs as you run for your life, a protolithic reaction to a terror so violent it makes your bones ache and your heart ignite like a grenade with the pin pulled. 

There’s nothing but running. Your mind and body become one unfaltering engine, entirely devoted to running, running, running, and leaping over the hoods of cars, and over short fences, and through gates that you slam shut behind you, and soon you find yourself shouldering into another store, a maze of shelves, perhaps you’ll lose him in here—

A weight slams into your back with the force of a train, and you collide with the vinyl-coated cement so hard it leaves you gulping for air. 

There’s a crack down one glass eye of your mask, your teeth ache where they clacked together, and your crowbar shrieks along the floor as it skids out of reach. It takes a good second for your mind to catch up, but when it does, the scream that erupts from your chest so plangent it warbles in your own ears — because he, whoever he is, is clambering on top of you, grunting and growling and out of breath, wrestling as you wriggle underneath him. 

“Christ, you’re fuckin’ noisy.” His voice comes out gnarled and tight, panted through a grinding jaw as he fights to keep you still. 

Whatever prey-like instinct had compelled you to run melts away when the hunger to fight for your life kicks in. It’s scorching under your skin, voltaic along your nerves, magmatic in the fibres of your muscles — a rage so visceral you can feel it in your teeth, and all you want to do is maim. 

You buck and kick, you reach behind you for something to claw at — you find skin, a head, and you dig your nails in like you might peel the leathery face away from the bone. You fling your elbows, throw your head back in the hopes of breaking his nose, and you growl and spit like an animal in the fray — a get the fuck off me! and a few fuck yous while you’re at it. 

But he’s so heavy, and persistent, and his hands are somehow everywhere at once; forcing a shoulder into the floor with one and pinning a wrist with the other as you reach desperately towards the shelf beside you — there’s a screwdriver on the floor. Still strapped to its cardboard but the pointy end is pointy enough. Maybe you can reach it, with one hard buck, you can just about brush it with your fingertips—

You hear the click of something metallic, and then, right beside your face and held in a fist too big for it, is a revolver. 

The boiling fight that had flooded you leaks out like piss and puddles around you on the floor. A wounded whimper huffs out from your throat, because the gun shifts out of sight, and you feel its cold metal mouth against your scalp. 

“Yeah,” he drawls when you go quiet; breathless, satisfied. “Easy now.”

Your hands open flat on the vinyl beneath you, and you remain so still that it aches, but — though you try to keep it in, bite your tongue hard enough to bleed — you sob. It all floods out of you in heaving gulps, spluttering and whimpering and begging for your life. 

The weight on your back shifts. “You gon’ make me kill you?” 

“No — nonono, please,” you wail — Christ, it’s pathetic aloud — “please, plee-he-heeease don’t, don’t kill me — please, I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die—”

The steel weight against your skull moves away, though you don’t know where he puts it. “Settle down, ‘n I won’t.”

You do your best to hush yourself but your body stiffens on reflex, because heavy hands are already raking over your body; down your arms, waist, thighs, lingering over the swell of your ass to fish something out of your back pocket. 

It’s a compromising position he has you in, and it turns your blood cold; face down on the floor, kept flat by the weight of him, a knee on the back of your thigh. 

Surely, you pray, he’s only frisking you. He has more pressing priorities than getting his dick wet. Then he yanks the straps of your backpack down your shoulders, jerking back your arms to pull the whole thing off you, and you find yourself remorsefully wishing for your first fear to be true. 

Instead you hear him unzip your bag and rummage through its innards, and your tears start up again, because now you understand the depth of the shit you’re in. 

He’s a hunter. 

And what do hunters do?

“God damn,” he murmurs to himself, slick with satisfaction — must have found your jackpot. 

“Please don’t take it,” you plead, sobbing and sobbing and sobbing, because without your backpack your death is as certain as the one offered by the gun against your head. “Please — I’ll, I won’t make it without my stuff.” 

“You all alone out here, huh?” He asks, nonplussed. 

The question sends a needling shiver down your spine, and you don’t want to answer it, because there isn’t a right answer. Not as if he’d let you go if you lied about having friends somewhere nearby, but admitting to being by yourself feels like signing a death warrant. You wonder if he has friends of his own. 

“No — I’m not,” you whimper. 

He lets out a huff, not quite laughter. “Not much of a liar.”

You yelp when two big hands grip you by the shoulders and flip you ungracefully onto your back, and you finally get a good look at him as he settles a knee either side of your hips. 

He’s broad. Heavy. 

That’s the first thing you notice, and it frightens you, because only one kind of person can maintain bulk like that in a world like this one. His sun-leathered arms are thick with muscle and a healthy padding of fat, sleeves of his brick plaid shirt are tight around biceps. Hefty thighs secure you casually to the floor through weight alone. 

In his forties, you guess. His eyes are life-worn and wrinkled in the corners, cheeks and forehead russet with old sunburn that may once have been pink but has aged into bronze. A dense-bearded lumberjack type, you think, there’s the odd silver curl in the black scruff on his jaw and flecked through the hair on his temples. 

His expression is what unsettles you. 

Manifest apathy. 

His stare is phlegmatic, dim, hollowed out by years of means-justified survival, and you can read in them that you are far from the first person he has had in this position. Splayed out beneath him and begging for their life, while he indifferently considers their fate. What you can’t tell, though, is whether or not he is enjoying himself. 

He grabs your gas mask by the filter and pulls it from your face, plucking a few hairs with it, and drops it to the linoleum with a clatter. There’s a near imperceptible shift in his expression as you meet his eye; a renewed weight in his glare, a tightening in his lips, the faintest furrow in his brow. Why do you feel exposed? 

“Look at you,” he mumbles, and you’re not quite sure if he is talking to you or himself. He takes your jaw in a hand, rocking your head to the side as if to get a better look, and you groan in uneasy dispute. “Ain’t that somethin’.”

You don’t like his tone. All too familiar. 

He huffs, releasing your chin like he had to force himself to. “You sure ain’t gon’ last long out here.” 

After a heavy beat he sets to standing up, grunting as he does and taking your backpack with him — and where you had just been fighting to get away from him, you’re suddenly scrambling to get him to stay. 

“What do you — wait,” you splutter, pushing yourself up from the floor, “wai-wai-wait – you can’t just take my stuff and leave me here—”

“Said I wasn’t gonna kill you,” he says frankly, adjusting the rifle slung over his shoulder and peering down at you indifferently. “Doesn’t mean I’m stickin’ around.” 

You can’t let him take your supplies. You can’t. But you’re not stupid — there’s no chance you can fight him off to get them back, you’ve no weapons beyond your crowbar, and the worse you could do is break it over his head as he leaves; but his skull looks hard as concrete, and you’re sure that just for the inconvenience he’d put a bullet in yours. 

You resort to sobbing. “But I’ll die without my stuff.” 

“Not my problem,” he grunts. 

Next you’re unabashedly supplicating, on your knees and all — and now, well, you haven’t much left but your last resort. “Please — what if — can you take me with you? Then you — that way you can keep my stuff, as long as I can come with you, please, I don’t wanna die out here, please—”

Something in him seems amused, but there’s no smile. “Don’t need no dead weight.”

“I won’t be dead weight,” you cry, you’re all slobbery with it, “I promise — I-I’ll pull my weight. I’ll be helpful — ‘n I won’t be slow I promise, I’ll keep up.” 

He’s unswayed. “Doubt you’re good for much besides lookin’ pretty and eatin’ my food.”

“No, I promise, I’m good at, um — I’m good at finding things and, and climbing, and I’m good at stitching stuff, and I passed the FEDRA medic course, and—” 

There’s a glint of something in his eye, and he sighs indignantly. Maybe he’s considering it, maybe, if you just push a little harder, he might—

“That mouth good for anythin’ besides makin’ noise?” 

“I — I’m…” your voice trails off, because suddenly all the air is sucked from your lungs, and there’s none left to breathe. 

Only as the question bounces around in your harried skull does the insinuation sink in, gooey and unpleasant as it is. You don’t need to ask like what, because it’s clear enough to make your belly churn. 

What else can you do but indulge him?

It comes out as a whisper. “Yeah.” 

He bounces a shoulder to adjust his rifle strap. “Gon’ show me what else it can do?” 

He asks it straight-faced. Tired, almost. An indignant expression consequent upon a taxing day and a struggle he didn’t anticipate, sour that you made him chase you. Maybe he’s thinking you can make up for it, that you owe him, because twice he thought about shooting you and twice he decided against it. Probably thinks he’s being merciful. Offering the possibility that you’ll survive him if you — if only you’d — if you’d deign to…

Fuck — is that what he is asking of you? Are you really going to suck him off? 

Bruise-kneed, sweaty all over, sticky on the vinyl floor? Seems he’s unbothered that you’re all grimy and slobbery, still panting from his pursuit. A pitiful lump of meat and bone with a convenient hole or two or three depending on how much he decides to ask of you — or take from you, maybe, if you attempt to refuse him. 

That’s the coin you toss. Tails: you fight him and fail, and he does what he wants anyway — rapes you, kills you, in whichever order he feels like, as hunters are wont to do. Heads: well, that’s self-explanatory. 

You’re pretending you have a choice. Truth is, you don’t hold your dignity above your own survival. That’s the only reason you’ve made it this far.

You sniff. “Will you—” Every word you utter singes your throat on its way out, “—will you let me keep my stuff if I do?” 

His face shows no tells. It’s dead-eyed and wanting. There's no gleaning from his body language whether he intends to return your belongings, let alone whether he has any interest in keeping you alive but for the warm throat you might offer him. 

“Might do,” he grumbles. “You gon’ make a fuss?” 

The breath you let out is shallow and shaky. “No.”

He takes a heavy step towards you, then. “Alright.”

“I—” You choke on a swallow, your tongue suddenly uncooperative, “—right now?”

He lets out a long breath, ragged and frustrated, and you can tell by the thinning of his lips that he’s considering it. Maybe he can spare a few minutes, he’s thinking, as his olive-oil eyes rake over you like he’s assessing a show heifer; you’re already kneeling, after all, and he probably doesn’t have anywhere to be…

“No,” he grunts instead, jaw tight. “Get up.” 

“I don’t — but—”

“Make me tell you twice ‘n I’ll leave you here.” 

Your heart skips over and you don’t waste a second before scrambling up to your feet. You’re dizzy, and your head is throbbing, but you think — that’s what he meant, right? — is he letting you come with him? 

He shoves your pack impatiently into your chest and you just barely catch it, releasing a puff of bewilderment through slack lips. 

“Thanks,” you murmur warily, slipping your arms through the straps as you return your backpack to its rightful spot. It feels lighter. He probably pillaged everything inside it; but as long as you stick with him, at least, it’s all still within reach. Maybe you could find a way to snatch it back if he drops his guard. 

He snorts. The ghost of a smirk is gone as it came. “Sure.”

His tone is mordant and you get the distinct sense that he knows you have nothing to be thankful for; but, in truth, the fact that you’re still breathing is enough to leave you feeling resentfully, shamefully, overwhelmingly grateful. 

“Headed to Little Rock,” he says bluntly, wiping the sheen of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. 

Your eyes brighten a little. “Oh — that’s, that’s where I was heading, too.” 

“Ain’t you lucky,” he sneers. “I wanna be in Coal Hill before dark.” 

You nod vigorously. “I can keep up,” you insist, “I’m quick.” 

“No shit,” he says, without a drop of amusement. You wonder if he’s still a little out of breath from the chase. “Alright then. Move. If you dawdle I ain’t waitin’ for you.”

“Okay,” you nod again, reaching for your crowbar out of habit, because it has been glued to your palm for a month straight and its absence makes your hand itch. 

Before your fingertips graze it, though, there’s a fist around your bicep, tight enough to hurt. “Fuck you think you’re doin’?” 

“Grabbing my — ow,” you bleat. “I’m not gonna do anything with it.” 

“Think I’m stupid?” 

“No, I just — you don’t want me to be dead weight, right? I need it, without it I’m—”

“Christ,” he sighs hoarsely, and you sense he’s already regretting his mercy — but, God, you hope he isn’t, because you don’t want to starve to death in this podunk fucking town with nothing but your thoughts to mock you as you die. 

“Please, I won’t hit you with it or anything, I promise.” 

He squints at you frustratedly as he considers it. You anticipate a no the longer he’s quiet, and you won’t push your luck by insisting any further — but eventually, with a rub of his temple, he grunts; “Fine. But you do anythin’ stupid with it ‘n I’ll put a bullet where it hurts.” 

Your relief deflates you. You don’t like being unarmed. “I swear I won’t.” 

There’s enough give in his grip for you to clutch at the red steel bar, and you snatch it before he tosses you by the arm in the direction of the exit.  

“Move it,” he orders.

You nod and hurry towards the front entrance, nudging open the swinging door and returning to the street. The town is quiet again, but for the laden footsteps of the man that follows you out, and his ireful scoff when you turn and stare at him.

He’s tall. In the amber of the sunlight you might even mistake him for somebody kinder, but you don’t let the notion stick. No sense in pretending he’s anything more than what he is, in taking the risk of assuming he might be a half-decent man beneath that callused shell. He has made himself your only option by force and you’d best not forget it. 

Still, you await direction, because you suspect any disobedience will piss him off. He says nothing but begins striding ahead down the road, and that’s instruction enough to follow. 

You’re quiet for as long as you can bear to be; perhaps you don’t want him to forget that you’re there, a few strides behind, or maybe you missed conversation more than you thought you did. Solitude is maddening, in your experience. Turns you daft after a while. 

“What’s your name?” You ask, cautiously but loud enough for him to hear, and his head turns just slightly over his shoulder. “Since I’m…” — there has to be a nicer way to put it — “Since we’re sticking together, or, you know. Whatever.” 

“Speed up,” is all he says, more of a bark. “And keep your mouth shut.” 

That leaves a pit in your stomach. You’re temporary.

The three-hour walk to Coal Hill is as uneventful as it might have been if you had made the trek along Route Sixty-Four by yourself, though it goes by a lot quicker. 

He’s a quiet man. You’re not sure if it’s a survival tactic or a facet of his nature, but when he speaks it’s in single words, or sometimes two, if he’s telling you to shut up. 

You haven’t been particularly talkative either. Every time you open your mouth it’s a gamble, a test of the waters — you want him to like you, as much as it humiliates you to admit, enough that he doesn’t immediately kill you for inconveniencing him. He walks with his revolver in his fist and his head on a swivel. 

Inspecting him is all you can do in the silence, as you cling to his side or slightly behind, when your legs fail to keep up with his much longer ones. 

He’s a hunter, alright. It’s written all over him so vividly it might as well be inked in his skin; kill or be killed. You get the sense there’s a lengthy trail of bodies behind him, enough that there might still be blood dried in the creases of his palms even after he rinses them. Forearms that have seen many throats, knuckles many noses, boots many ribs. You’re lucky you haven’t been at the end of them yet. 

But — and this is something you noticed when he pursued you, though only now do you have the breathing room to consider it — he’s alone. 

Hunters operate in packs, that you know. That’s what makes them so dangerous, so potently terrifying – where there’s one, there’s many, and by the time you spot one of them the rest have already ambushed you. These are the sorts of things you were told during your education in the Kansas City quarantine zone. You’d always been a touch circumspect of FEDRA’s rhetoric, but then you encountered a pack of them yourself, and the scaremongering suddenly seemed markedly understated. 

You got away by the skin of your teeth the last time, and with not much left but a fuelless lighter and a bullet graze on your shoulder; but you had friends, then. Now you’ve got none. 

Seems he doesn’t have any, either. And you’re not sure whether that’s much of a good thing. 

By the time he finds a place to stop, the sun has set and the shadowy town is dark as pitch. If there’s a moon in the sky you can’t see it, and its lack of light does little to help you find your way as you walk quietly behind him, eyes flicking up from the rubble-covered road to the gas station you approach. There’s an empty pickup under the canopy with a door hanging from its hinges, and the smell of gluey gasoline hangs in a smog around the rusted old pumps. 

“Are we stopping here?” You whisper, squinting at his silhouette as he leans his ear against the glass of the sliding door.

“Shut,” he hisses, before he hooks his fingertips into the door’s metal frame, and pulls it along its tracks; seems it doesn’t want to be opened, because it squeaks and moans for every inch it’s forced wider until it’s finally open enough for him to fit. He steps in before you, and you mousily follow along. 

He flicks on a torch. Flecks of glowing dust drift through the cone of light, stirred up by feet the floor hasn’t seen in a decade, you guess. He combs the shelves with the torchlight, and they are bitterly empty. You imagine thirteen years ago, once the news of the outbreak hit this isolated hillbilly town, some lucky fucker got here first and swept every shelf clean, carting his spoils off in his truck to some field where nobody would reach him. You wonder if he made it far. 

Thankfully, it doesn’t appear that anyone was left behind. 

“Seems like there’s nobody here,” you breathe. 

He grunts in agreement, shambling over to the counter before he slips his pack from his shoulders and dumps it on the surface, and the torch points up towards the ceiling. He lets out a beleaguered huff as he leans on his knuckles, head drooping from thick shoulders, and you’re certain that to speak would annoy him, but—

“Long day?” You ask, quietly but not quite a whisper. 

To that he scoffs. You’re not sure if you amused him. 

“Yeah,” he huffs, turning to face you as he leans himself against the counter. “Long day.” 

“Me too,” you say, a touch sheepish; his rude arrival in your day made it a hell of a lot longer than it needed to be, and you’re sure he’d say the same thing about you. “Least we can get some rest now, right?” 

Fraternising with him feels strange, like an embarrassing faux-pas, because despite efforts you haven’t quite forgotten the deal you had apparently struck. What are you doing here, someone might ask with their nose turned up, you should have cracked him over the head with your crowbar when you had the chance. 

And to that, you’d say; you’re a survivor, just as much as he is. The methods may differ, sure — his is marauding and yours is consorting, two vastly antithetical means, but you’re sure that underneath the ethos is the same: the ends justify them. 

You’re not a fighter, you think. You didn’t do much combat training while you were holed up in a FEDRA shithole and the brief taste of it you did get you were terrible at. You’re better at making friends. Or, allies, better fitting — people aren’t especially friendly in a world like this one. 

This beast of a man is built for the slaughter, that much you can tell. Many will have tried to fight him, and that many will be dead. You don’t plan on being one of them. 

“Uh-huh,” he drones, uninterested. 

You foolishly think, for a moment, that’s the end of the short conversation. That next he’ll tell you to shut up again and to find a spot to lay out a bedroll, because you’ll be up bright and early to continue the journey south-east. 

Seems your luck is still running short, because instead he crosses his arms, and with an impatient huff, grumbles;

“Time to get that mouth busy, girl.”

Well — Jesus — you definitely didn’t expect something so brazen nor immediate. Your guts turn to lead and just about plummet out of you once he says it.

“You want—” you hesitate, digging fingernails into your palms, “here?” 

“Yeah. Here.” 

A dispute bubbles up your throat like a nervous burp, and you almost let it out before you swallow it. You’ve made it too far to refuse him now, and frankly you’re scared of what he’d do if you even attempted to; he’d probably scold you for wasting his time and shoot you in the head. Maybe he’d rend open your jaw like a bloater and fuck you in the throat anyway. Most likely, though, and somehow worst of all — he’d take everything you have and leave you here to die.

It’s only fair, you tell yourself; he has held up his end of the deal so far, because you’re still breathing. He’s simply cashing the cheque you surrendered to him. 

“You’ll… you’ll take me with you to Little Rock, right? If I…” God, why can’t you say it? 

He lets loose a harried sigh. “Sure.”

Not altogether convincing. Even if he said so just to appease you, though, what recourse do you have? It’s a gamble, sure, but — nothing ventured, nothing gained, so the old adage goes. 

“Okay,” you murmur, but the sound barely escapes you, as you slip your backpack from your shoulders and place it gingerly on the floor. You sweep a few loose hairs from your face as you draw in a slow breath, inching closer to him warily as if anxious he’ll bite. 

Lowering yourself to your knees is enough to make you nauseous with chagrin. 

Some part of you wishes he’d just fuck you instead, it’d be much less effort and far less humiliating — but it’s a mouth he wants, so it’s a mouth he’ll get. You wonder if he gets off on your embarrassment, if he enjoys the image of you debasing yourself for a chance at his mercy. You wonder if it’s been a long time since he’s had a girl blow him; stealing pussy from ambushed victims is easy, a pragmatist like him might say, since it doesn’t come with the risk of teeth. Or maybe, if you give him just a sliver of grace, he simply likes getting his dick sucked. 

His eyes track you on your way down, black as beads in the dim torchlight bouncing off the ceiling, and his hands are already at the buckle of his belt. 

Your heart races high in your chest, and your blood is molten, metallic on your tongue from where you bit it when he tackled you. Stomach’s all knotted and queasy with apprehension and it fizzes in your throat. If he has any sort of infection, you loathe to consider, you’ll most certainly contract it. 

But when he pulls his fly down, and you awkwardly shimmy to sit on your knees so that you’re eye-level with it — the cock he pulls out of his boxers is, to your relief, nice. Looks clean, looked after, like he might have even bathed today. A small mercy, you suppose, but your mouth still goes cotton-dry at the thought of swallowing it.

All of it is surreal. Some kind of humidity-induced fever dream, feels like, all sweltering and thrumming — or maybe you just hit your head harder than you thought — because how the fuck have you ended up here? A few hours ago you were still dithering about setting foot on a paved street for fear of awakening a clicker, or setting off a shin-height nailbomb.

Now you’re on your knees and you’re looking at a cock. 

One that was only half-hard when it was first presented to you, but you watch it thicken and climb before your eyes, head rubescent and shiny as it fills with blood. It’s a rake of a thing, just about doubling in size as it swells, protruding heavy from a bed of black curls; darker around the base but ruddy pink at the tip, the clear delineation of a circumcision two-thirds of the way up. 

It’s strained. Angry and belligerent as it bobs with his heartbeat and waits for your tongue. 

He’s not patient. Time slowed as he unsheathed himself but you know, rationally, only a few seconds have passed before his hand is at the crown of your head, fingers clawing through your hair to pull you in. 

He draws a breath through his teeth when your timid hand curls around him, half-heartedly running up the rigid length of him and back down, because the less time his cock spends in your mouth the better. 

You repeat mantras to yourself. Just a dick. You can do it. Just a dick, and you’ll get your stuff back, and you’ll survive. You’ll survive. You’ll survive. 

When you brush the soft head with your lips, you falter. 

“Watch those teeth,” he growls, before you’ve even opened your mouth; “f’you even think of bitin’ I’ll hurt you worse.”  

A threat both menaced through a tight jaw and breathy with a want so savage it sends a shiver prickling down your spine. You don’t doubt it, either. His pistol is — well, actually, you’re not sure where he’s put it — but you bet he’d find ways to use his hands to follow through, if he felt so inclined. 

Instead those hands busy themselves with the hair at the back of your head, and the tip of his cock twitches against your lips, so you hold your breath and open your mouth. 

Goosebumps prickle from your scalp to your ankles as the underside of his glans drags smoothly along your tongue, deeper into your mouth, until you’re halfway down. It’s salty. Briney and sticky with sweat. It takes up more space than you expected it to, sliding against the inside of your cheeks until your mouth starts to water, gooey saliva pooling under your tongue. 

His breathing frays but his hands speak for him; fingers finding a grip on your hair and cradling the base of your skull, he drives your head back and then pulls it in, and it’s clear what he wants from you. No doubt your timidity is making his teeth grind together, too tentative to do it properly; so with a wet breath through your nose, you shut your eyes and swallow your pride.

It’s not your first time sucking a dick. Maybe if you pretend this one belongs to that cute medic from Kansas City, you could even force yourself to put the effort in. You balance yourself with a hand on his thigh, fingers hooking into the folds of his jeans, and the other hand busies itself around the base of him. You suck your cheeks in, and you run your tongue up and down the ridge underneath, paying special attention to the base of his head; and that pulls a hoarse groan from deep within his chest, one that resentfully makes your cheeks burn hot. 

“Yeah,” he grunts approvingly. “‘Atta girl.”

It comes out harsh and breathless, almost proud, and — God, why did that make your stomach flip? 

It’s only biological, you think. Something programmed by millennia of evolution and embedded in the very fibres of you; it’s not like you can control it, how your pussy beats like a heart, rataplan in the organs wound up between your hips. 

Doesn’t make it any less embarrassing, though, no matter how much you try to rationalise it. Your mind is cleaved into contradictory thirds, by turn eager to satisfy him (for pragmatic reasons, of course), and resentful that you’ve lowered yourself to this point, and humiliated that you might even be — no, you’re not enjoying it, it’s something else. Something you don’t quite have the self-awareness to dissect and you’re not sure that you’d even want to try. 

It helps a little, you loathe to admit. Makes your mouth wetter and your throat looser when he groans like that, all hoarse and jagged. You can swallow him a touch deeper with each bob of your head, and your hand moves with it, tightening around the base of him — and soon he’s all but growling, callused fingertips burrowing into the nape of your neck.

He only gets rougher as he climbs closer. 

Warm saliva oozes out of the corners of your mouth and dribbles down your chin. He ruts into your mouth as if driven to, clutching your skull with each mammoth hand, touch-starved, and you try to slip breaths in during the short seconds before the thick head of his cock plugs the back of your throat. 

It doesn’t surprise you that he’s not very talkative. It’s all grunting and ragged huffs through gritted teeth, and every now and again he lets you move your head of your own volition — if you’re charitable, really charitable, maybe he is actually trying to be gentle with you. Gentle as a man like him can be, at least, making an effort not to tear your scalp from your skull or choke you to death with his dick. 

“That’s it,” he chuffs, voice low and raw, punctuated by a grunt, “easy.”

Your head swims, submarine throbbing in your ears, skull so full of blood and confusion and cock that you begin to lose track of up and down — easy? You think that means slow down, so you do, but that only encourages him to drive his cock deeper into your throat, and it hits a spot that induces a noisy gag and a wet splutter. You look up at him plaintively and meet his tight-jawed stare; now your eyes are watering, and your nose is running, and you just want him to hurry up and—

“Mph—fuck,” curses spill from his maw as he fists at your hair, pulling it tight enough to make you chirp but the sound gets stuck in your halfway up your neck. 

You feel his dick jerk in your mouth to the tune of a ripsaw groan, and heat fills up the back of your throat; thank God, you think, he’s coming. Finally. You don’t taste much of it before you swallow, but then it keeps pumping; it’s brackish and bitter, tacky, coats the roof of your mouth as you coax the last of it out with your tongue. Not particularly pleasant. You shudder as it slides down to your stomach until you’re glutted with it. 

His greedy hands are a little softer, now, easing their grip on your hair as you drink the rest of it down. No spitting, you tell yourself; you’re not about to half-ass it, not while your life still balances precariously on his desire to keep you around.

He slumps back against the counter with a sated huff, and winces when you move your tongue; maybe he’s the type who’d like it if you kept going, you wonder, but then he pulls your head back with your hair in a fist, and his still twitching cock slides from your mouth. A band of glossy saliva sticks to the wet tip until it snaps and lands on your chin. 

The quiet that settles is leaden. Broken up only by his abrasive breathing and the noise of you smacking your lips. 

He glowers down at you with a gravity that frightens you, and you feel it sinking in your stomach — panic, because just like that, you’ve ostensibly served your purpose. If that’s all he wanted from you, a throwaway hole to fuck and a mule he could plunder supplies from, then you have little use left. 

Your typical hunter would have killed you by now. Really, your brains should be leaking out on the floor of that hardware store. 

The thought has crossed his mind, you can tell. A glimmer of blood red in the back of his eyes like it had caught the reflection of the torchlight. It’d be easy, if he wanted to. He’s got your throat nice and exposed with his grip on your hair, pulling your head back until you’re facing the ceiling. Heavy stare rakes over you like he’s considering the best way to do it. 

Instead, he lets go of you. 

Maybe your luck hasn’t yet run out. 

“Was,” you pause to swallow, “was that good?”

That seems to amuse him, he lets out a dry huff as he wipes down his cheeks with an open hand. He says nothing for a moment, only regards you circumspectly with tired eyes. 

“Yeah,” he hums, tucking himself back into his boxers and zipping up his jeans. “Y’did good.”

There’s a buzzing in your chest when he says that; because that must mean you’re not as expendable as you had feared, and surely, surely that means he has decided not to be rid of you.

Still, the urge to ask nudges against the back of your teeth a few times before you finally let loose the question, and it comes out as a deflated murmur. 

“Are you gonna kill me now?” 

He isn’t as amused by that question. He rubs his brow with his thumb and shuts his eyes as if exasperated by your persistent eagerness to live. 

“Get yourself some sleep,” he grumbles. “We’re rollin’ out at dawn.”

Your optimism isn’t yet entirely snuffed out. Seems you might survive until morning after all.

You lay out your bedroll beside his, on the dusty sticker-tile floor behind the serving counter. 

If he’s irritated by your proximity he doesn’t say so; not in words, anyway. Perhaps it seems overly ingratiating, an unctuous effort to cozy up with your captor — but in truth, it’s practical. If he gets up and tries to leave without you, you’ll hear him. 

Besides, if he wanted to kill you in your sleep, you think, he’d do that whether you were right next to him or on the other side of the gas station. 

You do your best not to ruminate on the fleeting feeling that it’s nice to lie next to another human again. The sound of steady breathing, of rustling fabric as he rolls onto his side away from you; something about it mollifies you. A paradox of distrust and unease webbed with a deep-seated, primal relief that you’re not alone anymore. It’s nauseating to consider that your inborn desperation for company has you welcoming the presence of a man like this one. Has you willing to swallow his come and sleep beside him like he isn’t a threat to your life.

Maybe if you knew just something about him, you wouldn’t feel like a reprobate for it. 

“Gonna tell me your name, now?” You whisper, lying on your back, head tilted to stare into the back of his head. 

His shoulder rises and falls with a beleaguered breath, and at first you don’t expect an answer. 

“Joel,” he murmurs. And just as you open your mouth to reply, he adds, fed up; “don’t go tellin’ me yours. I don’t wanna know.” 

That makes your brows scrunch together. What, does he think it’ll be easier to be rid of you if he never learns your name? Maybe that’s the only way he’s ever done it, shooting innocent people before they get the chance to speak, so he can pretend their deaths mean nothing. In obscurity they’re all just game to be hunted, you guess. Empty vessels to steal from, wastes of the bodies they occupy. 

You’re not about to let yourself stay nameless, not after what you’ve done for him. 

You tell him your name anyway. 

He says nothing. 

Your sweat-addled dream is interrupted by the moaning of a wounded cat. 

That’s what you think you heard, anyway, the echo of it bounces around between your ears as you break the surface of consciousness, and you’ve already forgotten what your dream was about. And as you lie awake, grasping at thoughts adrift to get your bearings back, you begin to wonder if you had dreamt the noise, too. 

Then you hear it again. 

Mournful, gurgling, the pained wail of something dying. 

It came from inside the station. You’re certain. Next there’s the lazy, inconsistent shuffling of feet, the thump of something heavy knocking carelessly into a wall. The stink, too. You can pick it out from anything. That putrid, meaty miasma that oozes from their open, fungus-glutted wounds; yeast and liver meat and old piss. 

Infected. 

You’ve been lucky not to encounter any up close in the few days since Maya died, and even while you were with her your only hope was to run as fast as your legs could drive you, praying that the sound of your beating footsteps didn’t lure even more of them to your tail. 

Alone, though, you’d have no idea what to do. In such close quarters, a quick-footed runner could intercept you easily if you dared try to bolt past it. Just moving could alert it to your presence there, and if it gets any closer to where you have tucked yourself behind the till, it’ll hear you breathing.

But, you remember, you’re not alone. 

He lies on his back, a hand resting on his stomach, face twitching as he ignorantly dreams. He looks less jaded, less hateful in his sleep; permanently furrowed brows are softer, indignant lips loose and murmuring. In a way, he looks slightly worried. You’re sure myriad horrors infest his nightmares. 

The thought crosses your mind, only briefly, a whisper of a thing — maybe, you could take his things and dash into the night. Leave him to die at the hands of the infected woman shuffling around between the aisles. You could take his handgun, it’s right there, you can see it tucked into his jeans. There’s a rifle propped up by his backpack, that’d be useful. Or valuable. He probably has food, too. Lots of it, by the looks of him. 

By your estimate, though, your odds of surviving are ironically higher with him around. In this very moment, at least, while a runner hobbles around a few feet away from you. 

You gingerly lift an arm, careful not to rustle your sleeping bag, and nudge him on the shoulder. 

“Hey,” you breathe, so quietly you suspect it wasn’t even audible; and despite a jab to the arm, he doesn’t budge. “Joel.” 

With that he awakens suddenly and with a sharp breath, eyes bursting open like you had slapped him awake — and before he can make a noise, you slap a firm hand over his mouth. Beard is oddly soft. 

His eyes dart to you, and there’s a burgeoning fury burning up within them; but then the runner splutters out a well-timed cry, and his knitted brow smooths over in realisation. You carefully withdraw your silencing hand and glare at him supplicantly — please, you want to tell him, don’t let us die. 

He sits up slowly and you back away, watching in silence as he rises to a crouch and peeks around the corner of the serving counter. Returning to you, he points at the floor, and you interpret it to mean stay put — you can read it in his stiffened expression, too — so you do. Your stare follows him as he makes his way to his feet, every movement controlled and balanced; until he takes a step toward the noise, and in panic you grab the jeans at his shin. 

“What are you doing?” You mouth. Surely he’s not planning on approaching the thing unarmed — what kind of fucking lunatic tackles a runner?

He snatches your hand by the wrist and tugs it away. Hisses through teeth; “I’ll handle it.” 

Well practiced in this, you suppose, as he releases your hand and you tuck it into your chest. You wonder if he’s the type to kill all the infected he encounters, instead of running from them as you do. His odds of survival against them are markedly higher, you bet. Proven, in fact, by the way he stalks towards the runner you can now see, shambling through the aisles aimlessly and jerking like a marionette played by a toddler. With his shoulders hunched, entire body at the ready — he lunges. 

You’d sooner shoot yourself than attack an infected hand-to-hand, and yet he has sprung on it like a mountain lion; with your eyes peeking out from behind the counter, you watch him drag the thing down with a thick arm locked tightly around its throat. It splutters and spits and coughs out wet cries, gulping on nothing as he chokes the air out of it — after a moment the noises die down, and he finishes it off with a wrench of his arm and the bone-chilling crack of a snapped neck. 

It flops to the floor once he lets go of it, limp as a sack of flour. A sharp breath escapes him before he pushes himself to stand with a hand on his knee. Just like that. What would have likely been a life-ending encounter for you had you been on your own, done and dusted. 

“Sun’s risin,” he mutters, as he leans and looks out the glass door of the entrance. Still closed. “May as well hit the road.” 

Still looks dark as night by your estimation, but after that display you’re not about to argue. You roll up your sleeping back and stuff it into your backpack, picking the grains of sleep from the corners of your eyes as you stand yourself up. You feel vividly awake by virtue of all that adrenaline pumping from your chest. 

“How the fuck’d that thing get in here?” You ask exasperatedly, creeping over to get a closer look at it. 

Recently infected, as far as you can tell; had functioning eyes, it seems, though blood-red and sunken. Black blood around its mouth and under its fingernails. Doesn’t fill you with confidence to think she likely would only have been bit in the last week or two.

“Probably wandered in through the back,” he says, unfazed. 

You shiver at the thought that they might be intelligent enough to open once-closed doors. “Thanks for killing it.” 

“Uh-huh,” is all he says. 

You wait by the sliding door with your hands around your straps as he puts on his pack, slinging his rifle over his shoulder and returning his handgun to the back of his jeans. You take a mental note of that.

Opening the door is just as noisy as it was the first time, though now it frightens you tenfold, because you expect there’ll be more infected hidden just out of sight, docile until alerted to your presence; he seems unbothered, though, as he indifferently gestures for you to go through the gap. 

Almost smug in his lack of concern, as he strides ahead through the forecourt and back to the unending road. You can’t help but let his confidence rub off on you; if he isn’t worried about some stray infected, maybe you needn’t be either. While you’re stuck with him, at least. Just so long as you don’t get yourself in harm’s way. You don’t expect that he’d rescue you. 

“Where are you headin’?” You ask, scurrying to catch up to him. Right ahead of you lies the imminent sunrise, the faint yellow glow of it beneath the horizon, turning the black sky a vibrant shade of deep blue. You’re still heading east, as you have been for the last week or two. 

“Reckon we’ll head back up to the I-40,” he says frankly, voice still rough with sleep. “Follow it down to Knoxville ‘n stop there for the night.” 

We. You try not to cling to the relief. “How far is that?” 

“‘Bout twenty miles.” 

That pulls a moan from you. “That’s ages away.” 

He scoffs as if to laugh. “Use ‘em quick legs of yours.” 

It’s baking morning by the time you speak again. 

Normally you’d feel compelled to fill the prickly silence, a pathological need to talk and talk and talk, pursuing at least some connection with anyone in your company. It’s a good practice, in your experience, ensuring that you’re likeable, if memorable. Tactic as much as a habit. 

There’s an elephant in the room preventing you from going about normal conversation, though, great and ugly and stuck in your gullet. You don’t know whether to acknowledge it or tip-toe around it; whether you should behave any differently or attempt to act as normal about it all as you can, given the circumstances. It’s not often you suck off a man without knowing his name and under not-quite-stated duress. 

You have questions, but you daren’t ask them; does he expect you to do it again? Will he want something more the next time, if he does? Or, were you lucky enough to get away with sucking his cock only once in exchange for permanent protection all the way to Little Rock?

You don’t particularly want to know the answer to any. Seems he won’t bring it up, so you won’t either. 

The silence is wounding, though. It throbs within your skull like a headache, pounding and angry. 

“Um,” you start with a clear of your throat, “have you got any water?” 

As you think about it, you haven’t had a drink since late afternoon yesterday, because your bottle ran dry. You’d been boiling river water for weeks, and couldn’t help but fantasise about finding a jug of unopened spring water sitting in an old corner-store fridge, free of silt and sand. You were interrupted before you could find yourself anyway. 

“Haven’t got any o’ your own?” He asks, disapproving. 

“No,” you murmur. “I ran out.” 

He’s quiet as he considers how generous he wants to be. “How thirsty are you.” 

You get briefly stuck on how honest to be. The last thing you want is to be demanding or burdensome, because the everpresent threat of his abandonment looms ahead like a black cloud. The answer is very, though. You’re very thirsty, and the more you think about it, the chalkier your mouth feels. 

“I’m — I haven’t had anything to drink since yesterday.” 

“Jesus, girl,” he grumbles, pulling his pack around to his front and unzipping a pocket. “Ain’t got a clue how you made it this far.” 

You scoff. “I would’ve got myself some if you hadn’t attacked me.” 

He gives you a hard look as he pulls out a metal waterbottle, navy enamel chipped around the dents in it. “Count yourself lucky I didn’t put you down,” he sneers, unscrewing the lid. “C’mere.” 

He slows to a stop and you follow suit, just about outstretching a hand to take the bottle you expect him to offer you; instead, though, he catches your jaw in a hand and you almost bite your tongue in the shock.

You’re in trouble. “I wasn’t—” 

“Y’get three sips,” he says rigidly, “no more’n that.” 

“Okay,” you eke, his thumb in your jugular, and he tips your head back as you open your mouth. 

Your eyes fix to him as he begins to pour, and the lukewarm water pools in the back of your throat. He’s miserly with it, a paltry stream of water fills your mouth until you swallow; he continues pouring until your second gulp and with that his generosity runs dry, leaving you lapping at the air once the water stops coming. 

He lets go of you, and you wipe your mouth with the back of your hand, watching mournfully as he takes a sip or two himself before screwing on the lid and putting the bottle away. It was scarcely enough to slake your dehydration, and if anything it leaves you thirstier — still, you’re grateful, and earnestly surprised he gave you any at all. 

“Thanks,” you say, squinting in the glare of the hot morning sun as he continues ahead, and you follow. After a minute or two, the need to talk rears its head once again. “Why don’t we cut through the forest?” 

As you’d expect, he’s irked that you even spoke. “What.” 

“It’s so hot,” you lament. “At least we’d be in the shade. Plus I bet there’re more infected hanging around this fuckin’ town.” 

“Takes too long,” he says, after a while. “Only one way to go if we follow the road.”

You sigh glumly. “I’m sweating buckets.” 

“Better find some more water, then.” 

“I could, if we were following the river.” 

“I ain’t stoppin’ you,” he jeers, “you wanna wander off, be my guest.” 

“That’s not fair,” you grumble. 

“Ain’t it? 

“You have my stuff, so I can’t go anywhere else.” 

He clicks his tongue. “Guess you’re stuck, then.” 

If he’s trying to rile you up, it’s working. Frustration simmers up in your chest and you feel it flare hot in the back of your neck. 

“You make a habit of taking people’s shit so they’re stuck with you?” 

“No. I usually kill ‘em.” 

“Gonna kill me next, then?” You argue, though the regret is quick to swallow you. 

He looks at you, and while you don’t meet his glare you can feel it weighing on you — and, like the last time you asked, he takes too long to reply. Busy dwelling on the thought, you bet, combing his eyes over you to look for an excuse.  

“You gonna give me a reason to?” 

You catch his eye, then, and his expression is severe. Crow’s feet crinkled in the sunlight and lips in a line. You could ask him what would count as a reason as far as he’s concerned; only attacking him? Refusing to another sexual favour? Simply saying the wrong thing? 

Doesn’t matter. You don’t plan on doing any of those things. Not yet, anyway. 

“No,” you murmur. 

“Good,” he says. “I like you better breathin’.” 

You blink at him. Nicest thing he’s said yet, but you don’t let it fool you. He likes you breathing because a dead girl can’t suck his cock. 

“You killed a lotta people?” You ask, frank about it as you can be, though you’re not altogether sure why you asked it. Maybe he’ll show a lick of guilt, and the knot of worry in your stomach might loosen just a touch. 

He huffs. Not a good sign. “Just keep walkin’.” 

“I’ll take that as a yes,” you murmur. 

“Take it however you want.” 

The only respite from the heat of the midday sun is a northerly breeze, zephyrs that are cool and dry and evaporate the sweat that lacquers your skin.  

The stretch of road you walk is mercifully lined with tall and bushy shagbark hickories that, if you walk as close as you can to the edge of the street, offer spotty shade from the sun that sits at its zenith in the middle of the sky. 

The highway itself is largely empty. Overgrown shrubbery and kudzu vines spread over the scant cars and guardrails alike, and every now and again you think you see a rat scurry out from beneath the greenery. If Maya were with you she’d try to catch one for lunch. The thought makes your tummy rumble.

“Do you have anything to eat?” You ask, swallowing at the thought, and you wish you hadn’t seen that rat. 

He turns to look at you as if he had forgotten you were there. Squints at you from the shade of his sun-bleached ballcap, orange canvas faded into beige with a Longhorns logo embroidered on the front of it. He’s down to a t-shirt now, having shirked his overshirt an hour ago, once the temperature reached its peak; a Rorschach of fabric darkened by sweat travels down the centre of his back, and you wonder if he’ll end up forsaking that one, too. 

“Not much,” he says, after a moment, turning ahead to continue walking.

“What do you have? More biltong? Or…” 

“Couple cans of beans.”

You’re hungry enough that wet, lukewarm kidney beans sound appetising. It takes you a second to gather the courage. “Can I have some?”

He shakes his head. “Saving ‘em. I’ll get us a rabbit or somethin’.”  

That’s enough to brighten you with excitement; fresh meat, real meat, the thought alone makes you slaver at the mouth. 

“Soon?” You ask hopefully, legs moving a little faster, and you catch up to him. 

“Later.”

You groan. If later is an hour away you’re not sure you’ll last that long. “Surely you’re hungry too.” 

“M’always hungry.” 

You bet. “Then why can’t we stop for food now?” 

“”Cus I said so.” 

Your head tumbles back off your shoulders, though he’s not looking at you to see it. “How long, then?” 

He grunts irately. “Will you stop fuckin’ whining?” 

You scoff, briefly offended, almost having forgotten the pretense of your being stuck with him. It’s incongruously easy to forget that your life is provisional to him, a switch he can flick off should the impulse strike him; but you’re not versed in apathy. It doesn’t come naturally to you, reticence nor disinterest, because you’ve spent a lifetime cozying yourself up to people stronger, hardier than yourself. 

Typically, in your experience, that necessitates congeniality. You’re finding it difficult to maintain the opposite, even in the interest of placating him. 

Spite keeps you quiet for now, and perhaps that was his goal. You seal your tongue to the roof of your mouth and spare him the inconvenience of your voice for another twenty-odd minutes of walking, walking, and walking.

Only once you approach a bridge does he deviate from the highway, hopping over the guardrail and veering into the treeline with a dry, “C’mon.” 

“Where are we going,” you ask mutedly. 

“Findin’ a spot to stop.” 

You let out a moan in relief. “Thank God.” 

He snorts, and you follow him down an overgrown slope, elbowing your way through bristly shrubs towards the bank of a bubbling creak. A minor tributary of the Arkansas river, you suppose. The canopy of the summer trees is dense and bushy along the waterside, it’s well-shaded, the air far cooler than on the sun-baked highway. 

He stops at a bend in the riverbank, where a flat promontory of smooth stones and gravel feed into the water. He kicks one of the rocks as if assessing it. 

“How’re you at startin’ fires,” he asks, hands resting on his hips as he watches you come to a stop beside him. 

“I’m good at it,” you affirm. “I’ve got — well, I mean, assuming you didn’t take it, I’ve got a firesteel.” 

“Good, but it ain’t magic,” he tuts, painfully condescending. “Y’still need good kindling — dry kindling, then you’ll need some—” 

“I know,” you bite, squinting at him indignantly. 

“Alright then,” he sneers, as he slides his hunting rifle from where it was hung on its shoulder and holds it in both hands. 

As you see it up close — slender wooden frame, long thin barrel, bolt-action — you can ascertain the thing is designed for small game. Not something for picking off people at a distance, as you had first assumed. You’re surprised he carries such a thing at all, a weapon that isn’t for human quarry. He must hunt a lot of rabbits. 

“Go’on and light us a fire, then. I’ll catch somethin’ for lunch.” 

“Okay,” you murmur spitefully — and, as he turns to walk along the river; “Make sure you step quietly, y’know, so the prey don’t hear you. Heavy guy like you, don’t wanna scare ‘em all off, do ya?” 

You’re surprised when he chortles, and warns; “Watch it.”

He doesn’t make it ten strides down the river before your worry rears its head. Speaks to a deep-set fear of abandonment, bordering on phobia, so irrational that the possibility of even this man leaving you behind — one who attacked, threatened, extorted you — is enough to send you into panic. 

You don’t want to be a nuisance, nor needy, nor risk reminding him that you’re ostensibly a leech; but the dread is crushing, and the plea tumbles from your mouth anyway. 

“You’re coming back, right?” 

He keeps walking. “Uh-huh.”

You busy yourself in the time he is gone, collecting dry grass and brittle twigs, and a few larger branches that you break into smaller pieces over your knee. You set up a proper fire, the very picture of one; a nice circle of round stones to contain it, a pyramid of twigs and a bundle of straw within it. 

It’s a good forty minutes before he returns, not long after you hear the distant crack of a gunshot carried by the breeze; and by then, you’ve got a nice steady flame going, tending to it dutifully with a prod here and there. 

You look up to see him approach, and from his fist hangs a limp rabbit. Huge thing, a swamp rabbit, grown fat on damp river sedges and overgrown grass without anything to bother it. 

“You caught one,” you say, biting your tongue, because you don’t want to sound too giddy. 

“Mh,” he placidly agrees, dropping his pack on the rocks, and leaning his rifle against it. 

“Big one,” you remark through a smile. 

“Yep.” He sits himself down opposite the fire with a tired grunt.

You quietly observe as he grabs his ball cap by the brim and returns it backwards, then pulls a buck knife from his pocket and unfolds it with his thumb. He’s casual, almost thoughtless about it; holds the dead rabbit in a hand, belly-up, and drags the tip of the blade down its stomach; puts the handle of the blade between his teeth as he slides his fingers into the incision, separating furry skin from meat, working it loose from both flanks; and with a few pulls, its hide comes off whole with the ease of a jacket, and the naked pink carcass beneath it is floppy and shiny. 

His focused stare flicks up briefly and catches yours, and you’re suddenly conscious of how raptly you had been watching him work. You didn’t expect that a hunter — and the irony is not lost on you — would be so competent at it. A deft enough butcher that every movement looks as natural as habit.  

And, well — you abhor that the thought even smears its way through your head — you can’t look away from his hands. From the tendons that shift beneath the skin as he beheads the thing as easily as slicing butter and tosses it into the river. Bronzed forearms that flex and stiffen as he cuts open its belly and pushes his fingers inside, fishing out its stringy innards in one vinous mass and dumping them onto the rocks beside him. 

“How ‘bout you make yourself useful,” he mutters, when he glances up to see you still spectating. 

“Okay,” you agree, it comes out more sheepish than you had intended. “What d’you want me to do?” 

“Find me a nice green stick, ‘bout three feet long and yay thick—” he pinches his bloody fingers together to show you a gap of about half an inch, “—’n make sure they’re green.”

“Yes sir,” you snip, standing yourself up and dusting off your bottom as you head towards the underbrush. 

It doesn’t take you long to find one. The summer shrubbery is lush and busy with new growth, and you pull a freshly sprouted branch from a riverside tree. You pluck off the little leaves on your way back, and present it to him a little too proudly. 

“That’s good,” he drawls, taking it and placing it beside him. “Now how strong are those arms o’ yours?”

“Um,” you pause, looking down at them thoughtfully, “depends.”

“Reckon you could lift a big rock or two?”

“I can try.”

“Alright,” he nods. “Fetch a couple decent rocks, then. Somethin’ to prop the spit on.”

Now you understand what his goal is, and you nod enthusiastically. “Right. Okay.”

This task takes a while longer. Not only for a lack of suitable rocks — you hunt for craggy ones with flat edges that a stick could balance on, and not soft round ones — but also because you are not as strong as you had hoped. 

You were proud of yourself when you managed to pick up the first rock you found, even carried it a few feet; but before he could turn around and see it your arms had given out and you dropped it on the riverbed, where it promptly cracked into smaller pieces. 

Eventually, though, you find one large rock that you roll towards the fire with great effort, then two smaller rocks that stack up to a roughly equivalent height. He watches you while you arrange them on either side of the fire, carefully balancing the second stone on top of the other, then stand once you’re satisfied. 

“There,” you pant, dusting off your hands, “how’s that?” 

He looks up as he finishes whittling the end of the stick you gave him into a sharp point, and nods simply. 

“Good,” is all he says, but that’s approval enough for you to sit back down with a huff. 

You’re back to observing, then. Eyes that follow his movements as he picks up the flaccid rabbit carcass from where he left it on the dry stones, then lines the point of the stick up with its rear; he impales it piecemeal, holding its chest in a big hand and shoving the skewer up its middle, push, push; before eventually the sharp end pokes out through its butchered neck, and he slides it down cleanly, so that an even amount of stick juts out from either end. 

Now your mouth is watering, and you’re slightly uneasy, a feeling in your belly that you can’t pin. Must be hunger, you think, it’s making your mind fog up and your stomach all twisty. 

He’s up and stomping on the fire until it dies to embers, spreading the coals out evenly to, you surmise, distribute the heat for a slower, more even cook. 

“Oh, wait—” you chirp, suddenly standing and heading for your pack, “I’ve got salt.” 

He looks at you blankly. “Huh?” 

“I’ve got a salt grinder,” you repeat, burrowing through a zipped pocket to find it is one of the few things he hadn’t stolen from you. A glass grinder full of rock salt that you plucked from a convenience store a couple of weeks ago. 

He snorts. “‘Course you do.”

“It’ll make it taste good,” you deride, a little patronising, as you walk over to where he stands with the skewered rabbit between his hands. 

“Don’t matter how it tastes.”

You half-heartedly roll your eyes, but he doesn’t stop you when you grind a dusting of salt over the sticky pink carcass — even flips it so that you can salt the underside, too. It might have made you snicker if your hunger wasn’t souring your mood. 

“There,” you say, satisfied.

“Happy?” 

“Mhm.”

He chuffs, almost a snicker, as he goes to lay the skewer over the coals, balancing the stick on the rocks you had propped up for him. 

“How long will it take?” You ask. 

He sits himself down with a long, harried sigh. “‘Bout an hour.” 

The groan you let out is petulant, and your stomach punctuates it with a deep rumble. You reconsider your frustration, though, when you realise that means a nice long rest, and you can finally give your legs a deserved break. You don’t know how much more walking you’ll need to do today, but you can safely assume it’ll be more than you’d like. 

In the hour it takes for the rabbit to cook, he flips the spit every now and again, and you fill up and boil a few pots full of river water to replenish your empty bottles. You find yourself feeling restless after sitting for too long. Doesn’t help that the small hard stones of the riverbed are not all too comfortable to sit on. 

He’s snoozing, by the looks of it, lounging against the trunk of a tree with his cap pulled down over his face — so you go for a listless wander up the riverbank. It’s blackberry season, and you’ve become a practiced picker. For a time it was the only food you survived on, after Maya bit the dust, because you weren’t nearly as good at trapping animals as she was. 

The overgrown banks along the river are abounding in thorny bushes, spiky leaves turned vibrant green by the late summer, and their vines are laden with glossy black bundles. You pick yourself handfuls and eat them by the bunch, even taking a few of the sour red ones just to add to the mass, smacking your lips as you go. You’re sure your lips and teeth turn purple with the quantity that you scarf down, and you eat so many that it makes you burp. 

Once you’ve had your fill, you decide to fill your hands with a pile of juicy black ones, and return them to Joel. 

If it were any other companion, you think, you’d have done the same. He caught the rabbit, besides — if he’s going to feed you, you should feed him. Really, though, you feel compelled to ensure he continues to deem you useful. Not something only good for looking pretty and eating his food. 

You nudge him with your boot where he leans against the tree, and he takes a sharp breath as he wakes up from his kip. He adjusts his cap on his head as he looks up at you. 

“What?” 

You hold out your handsful. “Found some blackberries,” you say. “Want some?”

“Mh,” he grunts, sitting upright, and opens a hand to receive them; you pour them into his palm, and the berries that had fit in two of yours fit in one of his. “Sweet ‘o you.” 

Seems that’s his way of thanking you, so you return with a placid smile. “You’re welcome.” 

Your hands are sticky with plum-purple juice, and you suck your fingers clean, briefly considering going back for more; instead you rinse your palms in the running water, and wipe them dry on your pants. 

It’s another ten minutes before Joel deems the rabbit ready, and by then you’re practically frothing at the bit for it. Its once rosy flesh has turned brown and crispy, the outermost layer bubbles and drips fat down into the embers below. You can smell it, fried meat and grease, the sagey, smokey smell of cooked game, and your tummy is obnoxiously loud as you go to sit next to Joel by the firepit. 

He lets it cool for a minute or two, holding the spit upright in the air and waving away the greedy flies that dare try to take your meal from you. 

You bite your tongue, tempering your expectations, because you’re sure he’ll have his fill and then give you what meat remains on the bones when he’s done. 

He cuts a V into the flank, skewering a chunk of stringy white meat on the tip of his blade, briefly assessing to ensure it’s not raw inside; and then, confounding you, he holds it out for you to take. 

“Oh,” is all you can respond with at first, because the amalgam of surprise and joy keeps your tongue tied. “Thank you.” 

You probably should have taken the hunk of meat with your fingers, but instead you lean forward, and eat it straight off the blade like a dog. Make the mistake of meeting his eye as you do it, and the dark look in his eyes is fleeting but familiar; the delight that fills you when your teeth sink in, though, is enough to flush away any shame that reared its head. 

“Fuck,” you purr, through a mouthful, sitting back and chewing it thoroughly. It’s salty, smokey, the meat imbued with the gamey, peppery taste of a rabbit that lived on onion grass and berry thicket. “Mmm. That’s so good.” 

He chortles as he breaks a whole leg off the thing, bone snapping where it dislodges from the hip;  it’s dripping, and steaming, and you watch keenly as he takes a wolfish bite out of the shank. Though he conceals it well, you can tell he’s enjoying the seasoning you added. He shuts his eyes as he chews it. 

It doesn’t take long for the two of you to strip the animal clean to its skeleton. He offers you a leg and another few hearty chunks, but the rest he keeps for himself. The meal ends with you sucking clean the bones, even the ones he discarded, nibbing off the last dregs of meat uncaring that they had been in his mouth already. 

He’s amused by it. “Must’ve been damn hungry.” 

You nod, pulling the last bone from your mouth with a pop and promptly licking your lips to savour the last of its taste.

You’re sure the slurping sounds you’ve been making aren’t doing yourself any favours, especially not when you glance up at him while your wet tongue runs along your bottom lip. He’s rubbing his cheeks as though contemplating. Ruminating. 

Your tummy feels tight and you look away. Wipe your mouth with the heel of your palm, and clear your throat. Apprehension heavy as a stone sits low in your gut. 

“Alright,” he huffs, standing up with a grunt, grabbing his rifle on his way up. “Let’s get movin.” 

Your shoulders loosen, and you nod. “Okay.” 

By the time you make it to evening your body is a husk. Skin brine-wet and beaten by a full day of sweltering late-summer sun, legs soft as jelly and just as wobbly. 

Post-sunset brings a mild sense of relief, at least. The air is still humid as a greenhouse and too thick to breathe, but at least the sun has dipped below the horizon, and the residual heat is tepid opposed to scorching. Twilight-woken cicadas roar loud enough to make your ears ring, busy music of songbirds sweet enough that you can pretend the wild outside the zones is kind enough to let you live. 

You’ve been trying to keep up with him for a good six hours since lunch, following the unending highway so long that you can see the cement when you blink, and you’ve got blisters on the soles of your feet. You passed a threshold somewhere close to fifteen minutes ago, a mechanical limit on your ability to persist; you can feel your vision closing in, buzzing and psychedelic in your periphery, and suddenly the road beneath you looks a little closer.

“Can we stop soon,” you breathe, as you stumble along, legs locking a few strides behind him. “Please.” 

It takes him a moment to even acknowledge you, lumbering ahead uninterested in your moaning. With a sigh, though, he eventually relents. “Yep. Reckon we can find a spot for the night up ahead.” 

“Okay,” you pant. “Okay, good. My legs are, so, sore.” 

“I ain’t about to carry you if they stop workin’.” 

You snort vindictively. “Wasn’t counting on it.” 

His insistence on following the I-40 has meant that you’ve bypassed most urban centres, which you’re silently thankful for. The further he keeps you from risk the better, because you know he’ll exert no effort to rescue you should the worst come to pass. 

Still, your limbs ache for somewhere to lie down, and the open road isn’t a particularly wise place to lay out your bedroll. 

“There’s not going to be anywhere to sleep on the highway,” you say, “Should we turn off?” 

“We’ll see.” 

“But there might be an empty house, or something,” you plead. “We could sleep in actual beds.” 

He rubs the back of his head with a stiff hand, and you know you’re testing his patience, so you decide to let the matter lie for a little longer. You stumble along behind him for another ten minutes, with your head hanging from your shoulders, watching as the mossy road passes underfoot.

But, your legs are weak. So weak. Bones hollowed out by exhaustion. You think you might have fifty steps left before you inevitably collapse.

“I can’t keep walking,” you lament, “I think i’ll die.” 

“Settle down,” he replies, and you can barely lift your head enough to look at him. “Here.” 

“What,” you say dimly. 

He stops at an RV, parked on the edge of the road. Something out of the nineties, you think, long and angular and painted with stripes, colours you can’t discern in the bluish dark of the evening. It’s rusted, on a slant by virtue of two flat tires, and one of the windows on the side is smashed in. A torn, mouldy curtain floats out through the spikes of glass left in the frame. 

“C’mon,” he orders, as he tears open the side door, and it opens with a loud crack. “We’ll hole up here.” 

“Okay,” you breathe, as he gestures for you to step in before him. 

Inside it’s murky with dust, and the dry air smells like mould and burnt paper. It’s dark, too, save for the low blue light of the evening suffusing in through the lace curtains. 

There’s a small dining booth with a peeling vinyl bench seat wrapping around it, a decrepit kitchenette, and at the end of the narrow space, past some cupboards, a double bed with a striped blanket crumpled up on the mattress. Seems like as good a spot as any. No back doors for an infected to stumble through. Joel steps in behind you and shuts the door. 

You sluggishly go for the cupboards, driven purely by habit as you swing them open and burrow through the shelves — though you find, literally, nothing. The entire RV has been completely gutted, evidently, not even empty cans or rubbish left behind. 

You stop by the table. There’s a small piece of paper sitting on it, torn out from a ringbound notebook, weighed down by a teal-oxidised quarter.

You drop your pack on the floor and lean on the edge of the table as you pick up the note. 

Lisa,

I’ll be gone when you read this. I don’t have a good reason to give you, I’m sorry. Please don’t miss me. 

— Jacob

What a prick. The fact that the note was left on the table tells you Lisa never returned to see it, and you hope she died thinking the man wrote it hadn’t abandoned her and taken everything with him. You also hope Jacob, whoever he was, met a deservedly painful end. 

Joel’s in front of you when you look up from the letter, and your heart suddenly quickens; his arms are crossed over his chest, and he’s looking down his nose at you. Eyes leaden and wrinkled in the corners, and in the near-dark they almost look black. 

“How’re them legs,” he asks. You assume the worst of the question; if you’re unable to walk he’ll put you down like a lame horse. 

“They’re fine,” you murmur. “Numb, mostly.” 

He lets out a humourless puff of air, offering no sympathy. Then he nods at the paper in your hand. “What’chu got.”

“Just a note,” you answer, and you crumple it. “Doesn’t matter.” 

You take a slow breath. You don’t like the way he’s looking at you, you can feel it; you’re not sure if it's resentment, or something worse, because he doesn’t speak. You fish for words to give him instead. 

“How much longer ‘til we get to Little Rock, d’you think?” 

He scratches his chin, runs his fingers through the coarse hair of his beard as he thinks about it. “Couple days.” 

“Damn,” you say, deflated. And after a moment, ask; “you got someone waiting for you there?” 

“S’none o’ your business.” 

You half-roll your eyes, because despite efforts to the contrary he answered your question. “Who is it?”

“Fuckin’ nosy, aren’t you,” he grumbles.

“No, I’m just — I’m making conversation.” 

He exhales irately. “I don’t want conversation.” 

“What do you want, then.” 

You regret the words as soon as they spill from your tongue, because there’s a shift in his expression, and his arms unfold. Hands hook on his hips as he sucks down an irascible breath. 

“What d’you think.” 

He says it so bluntly that it almost doesn’t register as something uttered in hunger, especially considering he hasn’t even put a hand on you yet; instead he’s patient, waiting for you to come to the realisation on your own, because he likely expects you to acquiesce without the need to force it. 

“Um,” is all you can muster, because your heart is tripping over itself, and you don’t know what to say. “I thought…” 

“Thought what.” 

You grimace as you search for euphemisms for what you want to say, because you can’t quite muster the bravery to tell him you thought — hoped, rather — that you’d only have to suck his cock once. That you might have proven your worth beyond the succor your body can offer him. You suppose, as you think about it, that a handful of berries alone was never going to be enough to satisfy a man who was initially going to kill you. 

Refusing is, most likely, a fruitless endeavour, and it’s one you don’t want to risk taking. Not when he’s looking at you like that, and the tension in the air is thick enough to cut with a knife. 

“I um—” Christ, it’s hard to speak, “—I don’t want to, to use my, um, my mouth again.” 

That amuses him. “No?” 

You shake your head. 

“That’s alright,” he concedes. “Turn ‘round, then.”

sorry lovies, this puppy is too long to have in one part on tumblr. read the rest on ao3 <3

The arena screams like it’s been waiting its whole life to be praised.

You move, because you can't stop moving- motion is the only thing that makes sense up here, the only channel wide enough to hold all of it. You cross toward the barricade, fingers grazing the outstretched hands at the rail, security tensed in the pit below as you lean just far enough forward to make the front row tip onto their toes. Your own face stares back from the screens overhead, twenty feet tall, eyes catching the light, every wrecked and salvaged piece of you rendered in high definition.

This is where you live now. On the edge of a note, on the edge of a scream.

The song slams into its final chorus and you hit the high note clean, the kind of note that used to crack when you were sobbing alone in your shitty apartment you used to share with your ex husband John Price, whisper singing into a phone mic at three in the morning. Now the whole world howls it back with you.

The last chord drops; the lights cut to black; the crowd roars.

You’re panting, smiling, hair plastered to your forehead as the stadium goes dark for the transition. The in-ear monitor buzzes softly with your crew’s chatter, the stage tech already counting down to the start of Act Two.

You’re about to move toward the side stairs, toward the quick change area where a rack of costumes and a makeup artist are waiting, when the east side of the arena… flashes.

For a split second, your brain files it in the same folder as pyro. A bright bloom, a flare of light where there shouldn’t be one. Maybe someone misfired a special effect. Maybe you missed a cue in rehearsal. Maybe- 

The shockwave hits.

Air punches the breath out of your chest. The world lurches sideways, stage tilting under you as your knees slam into the floor. Your palms scrape across the rough surface, microphone skittering away in a shriek of feedback.

Your ears ring so hard everything goes underwater. The crowd’s scream distorts into a single, high, endless sound.

You blink.

Smoke curls up from the east gate. Where there was a mass of people- banners, homemade signs, cheap knockoff merch- there’s… nothing there instead. Around it- people shoving, stumbling, bodies climbing over seats, over each other, trying to get away from- 

From what?

Pyrotechnic malfunction? your mind offers, wildly. Some idiot set off something in the stands? A gas main? An amp blew?

You push up, trying to find your feet, and your hand slides.

You look down.

It’s not sweat. It’s not water from a spilled bottle. It’s red, thick and hot and already sticky across your skin, painting your fingers. For a second your brain blanks, refuses it.

And then you see the person on the edge of the stage, slumped over the barrier, their hair matted, their shirt soaked, and your stomach climbs into your throat.

That’s blood.

That’s someone’s blood.

You’re covered in blood. It’s hot and wet and soaking through your bodysuit, sticking to your palms, and it’s not yours. Your brain tries to catch up, tries to make sense of it, but there’s just red. So much red. Someone else’s blood on your hands, your arms, splattered across your chest.

Your mind runs at it and runs at it and can't get purchase, keeps presenting it as a technical problem, a wardrobe issue, something with a solution- and there's no solution, there's just red, and the smell, something scorched and sweet and wrong curling up into your sinuses.

Your vision tunnels. The giant screens flicker; emergency lights begin to strobe. Somewhere in your in-ear, someone is yelling your name, but it’s buried in static and the white roar of forty thousand people panicking at once.

“Move! Move! MOVE!”

The shout comes from behind you, fingers clamping on your upper arm, already pulling, dragging you up and back-

“Wait- ” you gasp, instinctively pulling away, heart hammering. You twist, trying to plant your feet, to see the crowd, to see if anyone is- 

You look up.

Eli.

Close cropped dark hair. Jaw clenched. Security headset askew around his neck. Your head of security, usually so relaxed he’s borderline smug, looks like someone ripped the floor out from under him. His eyes cut over you, fast, assessing- no obvious wounds, conscious, mobile- and then he hauls you harder.

“We’re off, now,” he barks, voice low and sharp, the tone he only uses when drunk fans rush the barricade. “Let’s go, let’s go.”

“What happened?” you demand, stumbling after him because your body is moving even if your brain is still ten seconds behind. “Eli- what- was that- ?”

A crack tears through the air and you know that sound. Everyone does. It’s baked into a hundred movies, news clips, headlines, every video you’ve ever scrolled past and tried not to watch.

Gunshots.

One. Two. Then a controlled burst- short, deliberate, patterned- and there's nothing for your mind to do with it except what it already knows.

You flinch so hard you nearly throw yourself out of Eli’s grip. Below the stage, people scream, trying to get away from the east side, spilling over seats, over each other, tripping, falling, being dragged down by strangers who are just as terrified.

“Down!”

Eli shoves your head down with his free hand, palm heavy on the back of your neck, folding you at the waist as he angles himself between you and the arena, broad shoulders taking up more space than you remember. The world compresses into a narrow, tilted view of the stage floor and the edge of his boot as he drags you backward, toward the wings, toward backstage, toward anywhere that isn’t open and exposed.

You taste dust and metal and the sour tang of smoke. The smell of burned something- plastic? fabric? flesh?- curls under your nose and makes your eyes sting.

You let him move you. You go where you're put.

And the scream, when it tears out of you, doesn't feel like yours.

***

5 years ago…

You’re staring at the papers like if you look at them hard enough, the words will rearrange themselves into something that makes sense. But they don’t. They stay exactly what they are.

Petition for Dissolution of Marriage.

Your name. His name. A case number that reduces years of your life together into administrative processing.

Your eyes drag up slowly, and John Price is watching you. Just… watching. His face is carefully blank, that same expression he uses when he’s delivering bad news to families, to command, to anyone he needs to keep at arm’s length. You’ve seen him use it a hundred times.

You’ve never seen him use it on you.

“What is this?” Your voice comes out smaller than you want it to. Confused. Like you’re asking him to explain a joke you don’t get.

Price shifts in his chair. He won’t quite meet your eyes. “I think it’s pretty clear.”

“No.” You shake your head. “No, it’s not. John, what- what is this? Where is this coming from?”

He sighs, and it’s the sigh he uses when he’s tired, when he’s been patient long enough. “We’re not happy. Either of us. Haven’t been for a while now.”

“I’m- ” You stop. Blink. “What?”

“You’re unhappy. I’m unhappy.” He says it like it’s fact. Like it’s been decided. “This isn’t working anymore.”

Your hands are shaking. You press them flat against the table to make them stop, but it doesn’t work. “I’m not- John, I’m not unhappy. I’ve been worried. You’ve been distant, you’ve been- I’ve been trying to figure out what’s wrong so we can fix it.”

“There’s nothing to fix.” His voice is so calm. Too calm. “It’s just… run its course.”

“Run its course?” You’re standing now, you don’t remember standing. “We’re not a fucking mission, John. We’re a marriage.”

“And it’s over.”

The words hit like a slap. You actually rock back on your heels.

“No.” Your voice cracks. “No, you don’t get to just- we don’t just end. Not like this. Not without even trying- ”

“I have tried.” Now there’s something in his voice. Frustration, maybe. Guilt. “This is what’s best. For both of us.”

“Best for- ” You can’t breathe right. Your chest is too tight. “How is this best? John, talk to me. Please. What did I do? Just tell me what I did wrong and I’ll- ”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Then why?” You’re crying now, you can feel the tears hot on your face but you don’t care. “Why are you doing this? We can fix this. Whatever it is, we can- I love you. Don’t you- ” Your voice breaks completely. “Don’t you love me anymore?”

Something flickers across his face. For just a second, he looks like he’s in pain. But then it’s gone, locked down, and he’s Captain Price again. Unreachable.

“I need you to sign the papers.”

“No.” You’re shaking your head. “No, I’m not- John, please. Please. We can go to counseling, we can- I’ll do anything. Just don’t throw this away. Don’t throw us away.”

“I’ve already signed.” He taps the bottom of the page, and you see it. His signature. John Price. Black ink. Final.

You stare at it. At proof that he’s already made this decision. That he’s already left you, he’s just waiting for you to catch up.

“I’ve been asking everyone if something was wrong,” you whisper. Your throat feels raw. “Soap, Gaz, Laswell- I thought maybe it was a mission, something you couldn’t tell me about, I thought- ” You let out a sound that’s half-laugh, half-sob. “I thought if I just gave you space, if I just waited, you’d come back to me.”

Price’s jaw tightens. He looks away.

“But you’re not coming back.” The reality of it is settling over you like ice water. “You’ve already decided. You’ve already… you’re already gone.”

“Sign the papers.” His voice is quiet now. Almost gentle. Somehow that’s worse. “Please.”

You press your palms against your thighs under the table to keep them from shaking. The kitchen feels too bright, the morning sun pouring across the countertops like it doesn’t know it’s not allowed to be cheerful right now. There’s a mug in the sink with a ring of old coffee at the bottom. His jacket on the back of a chair. Your life, scattered in the details of a home you thought you shared.

“What changed?” you ask. “Tell me that, at least. Because several months ago you came home from a tour and you grabbed me in the hallway and told me you missed your wife more than your bed.” Your voice cracks on wife. “So what changed?”

“Nothing changed,” he says. “That’s the problem.”

You stare at him.

“That doesn’t make sense,” you whisper.

He leans back slightly, eyes flicking away from you to the window, to the counter, anywhere but your face.

“We keep doing this,” he says. “You wait for me to come home. You try to… fit around the job. I try to leave it at the door. We pretend it works. It doesn’t. I’m tired.” A pause. “You’re tired.”

“You don’t get to tell me how I feel,” you snap, the first real spark of anger cutting through the fog. “Don’t put words in my mouth because you don’t want to say what’s actually going on.”

His gaze drops back to you, heavy and assessing, an officer sizing up a situation. You know that look. You’ve seen it turned on recruits, on suspects, on men who came back from missions with that faraway stare and bloody sleeves.

You’ve never seen it turned on you.

“I am saying what’s going on,” he says, and there’s a finality in his voice that makes your stomach flip. “I don’t want to be married anymore.”

For a heartbeat, everything goes silent.

There’s still a fridge humming. A car on the street outside. A distant dog barking. But they all sound miles away.

Your hand lifts off your lap without your permission and lands on the papers, fingertips skating over the printed lines. You can feel your pulse pounding under the thin skin of your wrist.

“What did I do?” You’re begging now and you hate it, hate the way your voice sounds, but you can’t stop. “Just tell me. I can fix it. Whatever it is, I can- ”

The question sits between you like something fragile and ugly. You hate that you asked it. You hate that you need the answer.

He flinches, just a little.

“You didn’t do anything.” He’s standing now too, and there’s something desperate in the way he says it. “This isn’t about you. It’s- ” He stops. Runs a hand over his face. “It’s me. I can’t… I can’t do this anymore.”

“Can’t do what? Be married? Be with me?” You’re shaking so hard your teeth are chattering. “John, we built a life together. Years. That means something. That has to mean something.”

“It does.” His voice is rough. “It means I’m asking you to let me go.”

The floor might as well have dropped out from under you.

“Let you go,” you repeat. Numb now. Beyond tears.

He nods.

“John,” you say again, softer now. “Please. Tell me what I did. I can fix it. If I’ve been… too much, not enough, if I’ve been handling the stress wrong, if you need space, we can figure that out. We can- ” Your breath hitches. “Don’t throw this away without even trying to fix it.”

He looks at you then. Really looks. For a moment you see something crack in his expression- guilt, pain, something deep and complicated that you reach for like a lifeline.

Then it’s gone.

He shakes his head once, slow.

“I have tried,” he says, voice low. “Longer than you know. This is me fixing it before it gets worse.”

“How is walking away fixing anything?” you demand. “How is handing me a stack of papers fixing the fact that my husband comes back from missions and won’t let me in? How is this- ” You jab a finger at the document. “- better than a therapist? Or time? Or actually talking to me?”

“Because I don’t want to talk about it,” he snaps, the first crack in his composure. “I don’t want to pick apart every decision I’ve made, every op, every night I didn’t call. I don’t want to sit in a room with some stranger while we pretend this is salvageable when it’s not.”

Your eyes burn.

“So that’s just… it?” you say. “You’ve decided it’s over, so it is.”

“I’ve decided it’s over,” he agrees quietly. “I think that’s the kindest thing I can do for both of us.”

A bitter laugh catches in your chest. It doesn’t make it out. If you start laughing, you’re not sure you’ll stop.

“You don’t get to call this kind,” you whisper. “You’re ripping my life in half at the kitchen table and you think that’s mercy?”

He doesn’t answer.

The clock on the wall ticks. The sunlight moves another inch across the table, catching on the gold of his ring. Your ring feels suddenly heavy on your hand, a band of metal that’s more shackle than promise.

You curl your fingers into a fist to hide the tremble.

“What if I don’t sign?” you ask, because you have to cling to something. Some measure of control. “What then?”

His gaze drops briefly to the papers, to the neatly filled out lines, the places where he’s already written his signature. Where the solicitor’s name sits. Where the process has clearly already started without you.

“Then it’ll take longer,” he says. “And it’ll be uglier. Lawyers. Courts. All of it. I don’t want that for you.”

He keeps saying it like he’s doing you a favor.

You swallow hard. Your tongue tastes like metal.

Images flicker in your mind: him coming through the door with that tired, lopsided smile. The way he kissed your forehead when he thought you were asleep. The time he brought you a mug of tea and sat with you on the floor when you cried over some stupid movie, his big hand moving slow and clumsy on your back because he didn’t know what else to do but refused to leave.

You built a life on those moments. On the belief that underneath the uniforms and silence and scars, you were wanted.

You look down at the papers again. At the blank line next to your name. All you have to do is sign, and seven years of love and trust and building a home together just… ends. Dissolved. Like it never mattered at all.

Your hand is shaking so badly you can barely hold the pen.

“I love you,” you whisper. One last time. One last desperate attempt. “I love you, John. Doesn’t that matter? Don’t you love me anymore?”

He doesn’t answer. 

The silence stretches, taut and strangling. Somewhere outside a car door slams, a dog barks, the world keeps going like it doesn’t know everything inside you is collapsing inward.

You let out a shuddering breath.

“Okay,” you say, even though nothing is okay. “Okay. You want it to be over. You’ve already signed. You’ve already talked to a solicitor without me. You’ve decided this is the best thing for both of us.” Your voice steadies as you go, anger cooling into something colder. “Just… don’t stand there and pretend it’s because you’re doing me some kindness.”

You sign your name.

The pen feels like it weighs a thousand pounds. Your signature looks wrong. Shaky and small and wrong. But it’s there.

“There,” you say, voice barely above a whisper. “Congratulations.”

John’s breath leaves him in a slow, heavy exhale. His shoulders drop a fraction, like something just unclenched inside him. The sight of it makes bile rise in your throat.

Price reaches across the table and takes the papers. Doesn’t look at you when he does it.

“I’ll have my lawyer file these tomorrow,” he says quietly. “Thank you.”

You laugh, broken. “Don’t thank me,” you say. “You asked me to help you burn our life down and I handed you the matches. That’s not something you thank someone for.”

You just stand there. Empty. Hollowed out.

He walks to the door. Stops with his hand on the frame. For a second you think he’s going to turn around. Going to say something. Going to tell you this was all a mistake.

He doesn’t turn around.

The door opens. Closes.

The house is suddenly too quiet. The only evidence he was ever here is the faint smell of his cologne, the ghost of his coffee in the sink, and your name, still wet in ink on a document that says your marriage is over.

He’s standing outside with a pretty blonde girl, sharing a Marlboro Red and whispering sweet nothings.

And you’re shouting. Laughing, too, slung over the shoulder of a security guard, being kicked out for being disruptive. Whatever the fuck that meant.

For what it’s worth, he sits you back on your feet gentler than you deserve. “Oh, so bitches don’t know how to say excuse me and somehow it’s my fault? It’s fuckin’ bullshit, Dennis, and you know it!”

“Not my call, kid,” Dennis explains with a shrug. “Sorry. See you next weekend.” And without another word, the suited man disappears back into the nightclub, leaving you, and the blonde, and one Tommy fucking Miller.

You’d be embarrassed, if it weren’t for the six shots coursing through your bloodstream.

They stare. Both of them, but in different ways. Her gaze is concerned, maybe a little frightened. But Tommy’s is dark. Excited. Filled with lust, but you hadn’t known that yet.

“What? You never seen someone get kicked out before?”

“Sorry,” the blonde says quickly. “You okay?”

Nice. She was nice. That’s about all you remember. She helps you fix your too-tight dress and goes back inside. Tommy promises to follow her in a minute, once he finishes his cigarette. 

But that doesn’t happen.

Instead, he sweet talks you in the way he’s always been good at. Makes you feel real special. Puts his mouth to your ear and makes obscene jokes, the heat of his breath sending goosebumps down your spine.

He touches you softly at first. A simple brush of his knuckles across your cheekbone. He flashes that killer smile and his hand finds a home on your waist. Drifting lower and lower and before you realize it, he’s slipping it up the back of your dress.

In hindsight, that first night should’ve been the red flag to end all red flags. He’d been at the nightclub with someone else, and somehow you’d wound up in the back seat of his truck with his cock buried deep inside you.

No one had ever gotten you to the finish line before that night. A couple of boyfriends had tried, but mostly, you’d had to ignore their rhythm and circle your clit yourself just to get there.

But Tommy isn’t like that. Not even a little. Seems to know the way around your body better than you yourself do. Lifts you off of him and replaces his cock with his fingers halfway through, and moves them just right until you soak him, only to slide right back in with a deep groan and that prideful grin on his face.

He likes to talk real nasty in your ear. That much never changed. That first night, as the condom swells inside you, he looks right into your eyes and says, “Damn, baby. You’ve got the kinda pussy that’ll make a man go fuckin’ crazy.”

If his girlfriend hadn’t been the red flag, you think that should’ve been.

But you were young and dumb and Tommy was older and exciting and delicious.

So, you give him your number when he asks for it. 

Rookie mistake. 

Two weeks later, you get a text on Friday night.

Going to Club Orchid with some friends tonight. Could use a back seat girl.

Back seat girl. 

It makes you so fucking mad, so irritated that you complain about it to your roommates all day. And they all agree that it was a shitty thing to say.

Sure, Tommy was attractive. Tall and broad and rugged with that big Texas belt buckle that deep Texas drawl and those curls and the fucking mustache. 

But he wasn’t God’s gift to the Earth. And when you and your friends find your way to Club Orchid that night, you seek him out to tell him just that.

And you do. Give him a glare sharp enough to cut and call him an asshole in front of all his friends. You remind him that his access to you is a privilege because it is, and warn that you’ll end up in his dad’s backseat if he’s not careful.

But Tommy takes your insults and threats with ease. Smirks the whole time like you’re putting on his favorite show. Leans back with an elbow against the bar and a glass bottle in hand. Licks his lips when you’re done and says, “You’re fuckin’ sexy when you’re all worked up. You know that?”

You roll your eyes and blow him a kiss with your middle finger before setting out to find someone else to dance with. 

And you do. Some pretty boy from out of town who’s all too happy to let you grind on him in the middle of the dance floor. He buys you and your friends drinks all night and runs his soft hands up your thighs with no fear in him. The kind of boy you’d normally take home. Closer to your age. Nice, but not too nice.

You can feel Tommy’s eyes on you from across the room, though. Catch his gaze every couple songs, hot and lingering. You like the way it felt to have his attention. Like that he could have any girl in the room but he stares only at you.

A little after midnight, you step outside for some fresh air. And you can see him leave the bar from the corner of your eye, fully aware he’s following you and trying to ignore the way your skin prickles in excitement.

You don’t even make it to the backseat that night. Tommy shoves your dress up and your panties down and takes you right on the hood of his truck. Presses your face to the black chrome paint and fucks you hard. Tangles his hand in your hair and says, “Pretty girl got her feelings hurt, did she? S’alright, baby. You got me back good. Lettin’ that little boy touch you all night right in front of me. But pussy this good needs a fuckin’ man, don’t it?”

No one on Earth has ever irritated you more. But no one else has made you feel that good, either. 

Tommy likes it deep. Gives you those fast, punishing strokes that have your eyes watery and your head all fuzzy. He brushes his rough fingers over your clit with expert precision, pulling orgasm after orgasm out of you with ease. Like it’s his fucking day job.

He kissed you afterwards. Rights your dress, squeezes your cheeks between his fingers and presses his lips to yours with such intensity it steals the breath from your lungs. He hadn’t done it the first time, and it leaves you a little confused. 

Enough that you consult the group chat the next morning. Half of the responses conclude that you’ve gotten the man pussydrunk, while the other half insist on blocking his number.

But you don’t, of course. Just chang his contact name to Tommy Miller - DNI. 

You ignore his messages for a while and avoid the clubs and bars you know he frequents.

But it does little to change the course you’re on. 

The next time you see him is at your favorite takeout place. You’ve already ordered and are waiting on the other side of the counter, wearing your comfiest pajama pants and an oversized t-shirt. A far cry from your best look, but it didn’t seem to bother Tommy in the slightest. 

He bypasses the woman behind the counter entirely, coming up to your side instead. He towers over you in a way that’s a whole lot clearer in the daylight. So tall you have to crane your head up to watch him speak. “Nice seein’ you here,” he says. “Best barbecue in Austin. Shame only the locals know about it.”

“I prefer it that way,” you admit, nose upturned, a cold edge in your voice. “Keeps away unwanted advances.”

He smirks at that. “Unwanted, huh? S’that what it was?” His eyes flicker down, right between your thighs. “Didn’t seem that way when she was cryin’ for me.”

You roll your eyes and bite your tongue, hoping he’ll take the hint and leave you be. 

But Tommy only doubles down. Leans in close and says the most obscene thing you’ve ever heard in your life up until that point. “You know, some people would call it cruel, keepin’ a little girl from her daddy.”

“Jesus Christ,” you scoff. “You’re disgusting.”

Tommy smiles real wide. Presses a chaste kiss to the top of your head and says, “I’ll see you later, baby.”

He would not see you later, in fact. You’d make damn sure of it. 

When he returns to the cashier, he tells her the name on his pickup order and you try to drown out the sound of his voice and the way he smiles at the girl behind the counter. Try to ignore the way she smiles back, and slides him a piece of paper with a phone number scribbled on it.

But when your order’s finished, and you pull out your debit card to pay, she informs you that it’s already paid for in full. 

You try not to let it get to you. Try not to convince yourself paying for your food means anything. You didn’t ask for him to buy your dinner, and so you don’t owe him a thank you or the last thirty dollars in your account.

But you have a weird feeling he’ll try to hold it against you. Which is why you open that one sided text thread and send a message, half hoping he’ll leave you on read. 

Thanks for buying my food. Didn’t have to do that, but I appreciate it. 

His response is immediate. 

Yeah I did. I always take care of my girl.

His girl. It makes your stomach flip. Makes you feel equally nauseous and elated. 

Not your girl. 

Those typing bubbles pop up, disappear, and then pop up again. He’s hesitating. 

Could be, though.

The hesitation is enough for you to make a decision. Tommy Miller doesn’t seem much the settling down type. You know guys like him. Take pride in seeing right through their facade and turning their own tricks back on them.

And, truthfully, you’re weren’t ready for anything exclusive or serious, anyway. You had no interest in being his girl. No interest in him at all. 

You don’t respond.

But you see him. That weekend at Club Orchid, the following weekend at Frank’s Bar. It seems that no matter where you go, he’s always there. And you try to keep your distance. 

Truly, you do. But it’s like Tommy Miller’s this beacon of light and you’re a brainless little moth. Sometimes he shows up in these too tight t-shirts that barely fit his strong biceps, sometimes he wears this cologne that’s sweet and musky and masculine and mouth watering, and you just can’t help yourself.

You always know he’s around when you walk in some place and you’re given a Jack and Coke before you even make it to the bar. It becomes a running joke between you and your friends. Like it’s his little way of saying ‘hey, baby. be seein’ you later.’ 

And god damnit, you do. 

You christen every god forsaken inch of his truck, the backseat of your friend’s Camry, both the restrooms at Club Orchid, the alley behind Frank’s. He makes you feel like a horny teenager, never satisfied, always hungry.

And it goes on for months. Longer than any other casual hookup you’ve ever had before him.

Tommy has no problem keeping up with you. Even though you always poke fun at him for his age, sometimes offering a viagra when you share a cigarette and ask for round two before you even make it back inside to the thrall of the party.

He says, “I’m thirty five, girl. Not seventy five. Bend the fuck over.”

Each time it’s a little more dirty and a little more depraved. He gets to know you, to really know you. Can hear the difference between a moan that says, that’s good and one that says, Jesus Christ, right fucking there. 

And you come to know him, too. Know just how hard to squeeze his cock to make his breath hitch, know when to suck and when to lick, know that if you look up at him with innocent eyes while he’s halfway down your throat it sends him careening off the precipice of release.

Tommy likes it when you’re sweet to him. He likes when you beg for it, likes when you say please. But you also know he likes the chase. 

Convincing you is half the battle, and if you didn’t know any better you’d assume he enjoyed it more than the sex. He doesn’t embarrass easily, and you find that the meaner you are to him before he spreads your thighs, the harder he is when his cock finds home.

But on one particularly bad Friday, you find yourself at Frank’s alone. Your friends are busy and your roommates bailed last second. Not their fault—food poisoning happens to the best of us.

It’s not bad because you’re alone. It’s bad because you’d been laid off that afternoon and now were in a frantic search for a new job. Something temporary until you made it through the screening process at someplace that paid decently. 

You’re drowning your sorrows when Tommy finds you. Ordering doubles all night and charging it to your credit card even knowing you shouldn’t.

He sits beside you at the bar. Doesn't say a word. Just exists with you in the silence and orders a drink for you both. 

You hate to admit it, but you think it might just be one of the nicest things anyone’s ever done for you. He doesn’t ask what’s wrong, doesn’t offer to fix it, doesn’t urge you to sneak off to the back to have a quickie. He’s just…he’s just there. 

And, after last call, he gently tucks a piece of your hair behind your ear and says, “C’mon.” 

You don’t know why, but you do as he says. End up sitting in the corner of the couch in his apartment, your dress in a pile on his bathroom floor, wearing a well loved Def Leppard t-shirt from his closet. He makes two cups of microwave noodles, sits beside you, and asks, “You like Pawn Stars?”

All you give is a shrug in response. Have never given a shit about reality television shows, really. But somehow, it’s exactly what you need.

Tommy sits there with you, arm draped around your shoulders, and watches reruns until you fall asleep. Doesn’t press you for answers or ask you for anything. He just…he takes care of you. In a way you’ve never been taken care of before. He’s kind and gentle and good.

He kisses your forehead when he turns the television off and retires to his bedroom alone. But, before he goes, your sleepy voice cuts through the silence. “Tommy?”

His heavy steps pause on the hardwood. “Yeah, baby?”

“Thank you.”

A soft smile curls at the corners of his lips. It’s the first time you see it; the love in his eyes. Not love in the typical way of the word. There’s no expectation tied to it, no hidden intention. It’s just good, simple, pure adoration. Given to you freely from a man who has a good heart but isn’t quite ready to give it away.

You wake up before the sun with a splitting headache and a clearer head. Even fully aware that it’s kind of a shitty thing to do, you slip out of Tommy’s apartment before he wakes. Send him a quick text that just says thanks again, and walk back to your car parked in Frank’s parking lot with your shoes in hand.

A little after you turn twenty six, James takes you by surprise. You meet him at a houseparty in Houston and hit it off quicker than you anticipate. He’s the sort of guy you’d bring home to your parents. And when he surprises you at your new office job with a dozen roses in hand just to ask you on a date, you can’t help but say yes.

He opens every door for you, gives you his jacket in the rain, walks on the outside of the sidewalk. Your friends like him, he’s funny, and he never once gives you any mixed signals. Even admits early on that he wants to take things slow because he’s dating not for fun but with the intent of eventual marriage.

James is a good guy. A really, really good guy. And you like him. Truly.

Which is why, several weeks into your relationship, you think it’ll be fine if you accompany your friends to Club Orchid on his arm.

You should’ve known better.

And you know it’ll be bad when that Jack and Coke is presented to you by a waiter before you’re four feet inside the door. 

Your friends give you worried glances, but you try to shake it off. It’s just a drink. It doesn’t mean anything. And so you simply thank the waiter and sip slowly from the glass and go about your business.

The heavy weight of his stare prickles at the back of your neck. James asks to dance and you say yes, trying to convince yourself you’re not doing it just to get a good look around the room. To find him. 

It takes a couple of songs. Club Orchid is busy, bustling with bodies and spilled liquor and the scent of cigarette smoke. But you do find him.

Sitting at a table near the back, feet extended, arms crossed over his chest and that fucking smirk on his face. He’s got on battered cowboy boots and an old pair of wranglers and that fucking Def Leppard t-shirt. The same one you’d slept in on his couch. 

You’re not a cheater. Would never slip off to the parking lot while James waits for you inside, oblivious that you’re getting your back blown out thirty feet away.

And yet, the image in your brain gets stuck. Roots in deep. Makes a home inside. 

But you’re not like that. You’re not. 

When you tell James you’re going to run to the restroom for a second, he can sense your unease. He asks if everything’s okay, asks if there’s anything you need. His concern only makes the obscenities that haunt you feel that much more depraved. 

You promise James that you’re okay, that you just need a second to yourself. 

But you can feel Tommy’s familiar warmth at your back the moment you step through the door.

The restrooms are dimly lit, dark walls covered in graffiti. There’s a couple making out near the sinks and a young woman beside them fixing her lipstick in the mirror.

You don’t turn to face him. Not until you’re inside of the stall at the end, and he closes the door and latches it behind himself. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Could ask you the same thing, sweetheart,” he says. As if he has any right to.

“I already told you. I’m not your fucking girl.”

Tommy laughs. A deep rumble in his chest. “Mhm. Sure. Keep tellin’ yourself that.” He steps forward, crowding you. And when you take a step back to create much needed space, he just keeps coming until your back is pressed against the painted concrete wall. “You're his girl now, s’that it?”

“Yes,” you tell him. But your voice shakes when you say it.

Tommy catches it. Hears your hesitance. “Fine,” he says with a playful smirk. “I’ll bite. Just answer one question.”

A crease forms between your brows. You cross your arms over your chest and find that your heart is beating so fast you can feel it hammering against your sternum. “What?”

Tommy gently takes hold of your wrists, unfolding your arms. He stares you right in the eye, his gaze filled with so much intensity and darkness it chokes you. He takes your hand in his and presses it against the bulge in his jeans, and asks with a syrupy voice, “He fuck you like I do?”

Though you try not to react, your muscles deflate and a quiet whimper slips past your lips. You know if you lie he’ll taste it like smoke in the air. So, you say nothing instead. Keep your lips sealed firmly shut. 

But your silence is answer enough. Tommy smiles wide and presses a kiss to your hairline. He rests his cheek against the top of your head—such a rare, affectionate caress that you almost don’t notice his free hand begin to gather the fabric of your dress at your hip. 

He keeps the other held firmly against his cock, puppeteering your fingers, stroking the hardness there just how you know he likes.

“Don’t know why I asked. Already knew the answer,” he mutters, fingertips dancing over the elastic band of your panties. He slides them from your hip to that spot just below your navel—back and forth, back and forth, feeling the smooth fabric. “He know about that special spot, baby? Hm? He get as deep as I can? He keep up with you?”

No, no, and no. “It’s better with him.” Lie. “He’s nice to me.” True.

Tommy snorts. “You don’t like it nice,” he says. And then he slides his hand between your legs, middle finger pressed against your slit through the fabric of your panties. “Tell me the truth. Tell me what you want.”

His hand stays there, caressing you, sliding against your clit over and over and over. You can’t think like this. Can’t move, can’t breathe. Your hips tilt against his hand and you can feel his smile as he presses another loving kiss to the top of your head. 

Corrupted.

You’re totally, completely corrupted. 

Fucked in the head because you’re going to let him do whatever he wants to you in this dirty bathroom stall while your boyfriend’s alone on the dance floor.

And then Tommy steps away, leaving you cold and wanting and soaked. 

Clarity comes trickling in and your stomach twists. But there’s a part of you, too, that wishes you’d been bolder. A part that regrets not saying yes faster. 

“S’alright,” he says. “If you want to be with some fuckin’ asshole who doesn’t know his way around that sweet pussy of yours then fine. Be my guest. Suit yourself. But don’t let me see him touch you again, cause I’ll bash his fuckin’ head in.”

The words sound so unbelievable in your ears that you laugh. “You’re insane,” you say through your giggles. “Like, actually fucking crazy.”

He grabs your face, gentle enough not to hurt, firm enough that your laughter dies in your throat. “Do what you want, but I don’t want to fucking see it.”

It’s only then that it becomes clear to you. Behind his anger, there’s injury. You’re hurting him. 

And you’d feel bad if you had a reason to. But Tommy’s not good to you. Doesn’t ask to take you on dates, doesn’t make the effort to get to know you, doesn’t even typically kiss you goodbye after he spreads your legs. 

You deserve better and you know it. You deserve someone more like James.

He leaves you alone in that bathroom stall and you fight off the tears that well in the corners of your eyes.

When you regain your composure, you find James at the bar. He asks again if you’re okay and you admit that you’re not. Tell him you’re just not feeling it, that you’d rather spend the night tucked into bed with him. 

And he’s all too happy to take you up on the offer. He makes you popcorn and rents that new romcom starring your celebrity crush. He gets ice cream delivered at midnight just because you say it sounds good.

You try not to think about Tommy. But that dull, thrumming ache between your thighs persists. As if your traitorous libido had been promised sweet, sweet relief, only to be let down.

And you try with James. Really, you do. You tell him what feels good and he goes down on you for half an hour with no complaints. But he’s…he’s kind. And you can only take so much trying before you’re just tired. You know faking it doesn’t benefit either one of you, but you don’t want to hurt his feelings, either. Because he’s so good in every other aspect and you’re terrified of scaring him off. 

And it’s not that big of a deal, right? It’s not like the sex is bad. It’s just not what you’re used to. Different can be good, can’t it?

After he finishes he’s kissing you and saying goodnight and he’s dead asleep in ten minutes flat. It’s fine if you slink off to the bathroom after he’s started snoring to take care of the ache yourself.

It wouldn’t be the first time and you know it probably won’t be the last.

Except…it doesn’t happen. 

You try every trick in the book. Even let your mind wander to places it shouldn’t, but you just can’t get there. 

Ten minutes go by. Fifteen. Twenty. Forty.

Your desire lingers, hot and heavy and suffocating. The entire night has got you so frustrated and worked up that you could cry. 

And you won’t be able to sleep, not with the pent up arousal that demands attention. So, you make a decision.

Your thumbs hover over the keyboard on your phone. Unsure and yet still determined. You type out the classic you up? text, only to delete it.

You settle on a different phrasing. Still no better, but at least it doesn’t make you cringe as hard. 

Are you awake?

Tommy’s response is instant. Like it always is.

Call if you’re serious.

It makes you roll your eyes and sigh in frustration, but you do it anyway. Move to the couch in James’s living room instead, further away from the bedroom to ensure he won’t hear you. 

And then you call Tommy Miller for the first time in your life. 

He picks up on the second ring. “I’ll admit, I didn’t think you had it in you, baby,” is his greeting. Voice dark and sultry as he taunts you, the word baby sliding through you all soft and sweet and buttery. 

It has your stomach fluttering, warmth slithering through your center. But irritation follows it. “Shut the fuck up,” you bite back. Mean.

Tommy just laughs and you can hear the amusement in his voice when he speaks. “Don’t think you called to tell me that,” he says. “Can I guess?”

His voice. Just his fucking voice.

Your heart rate kicks up, that familiar pressure forms between your legs, painful at this point. And you know it’s wrong but you don’t care. You just need relief.

Tommy continues to speak, even though you offer nothing in the way of an answer. Says, “I think I was right on the nose, huh? He might be nice, but he can’t fuck you right. S’why you’re callin’ me, ain’t it? Got that uppity, rich asshole wrapped around your finger, though. An’ it’s no surprise, really. So goddamn pretty in those little dresses.”

You put him on speaker and lower the volume as low as it’ll go, placing your cellphone on the back of the couch. Freeing up your hands so you can lift your t-shirt with one and slide the other beneath the waist band of your pajama shorts.

He continues, oblivious. “Got those sweet, innocent eyes an’ that smart ass mouth that looks like it was made to fit a cock like mine.”

Your head falls back, sighing as you circle your clit with the perfect pressure, the perfect speed. Pleasure shoots through you, building low in your belly. 

“You let him fuck your pretty mouth, baby? Hm? Tell me. You swallow him down easy? Or do you cry on it like mine? Get all teary eyed and messy?”

His voice is so dark, so deep. But he’s looking for an answer and you don’t have the patience for it, you just want to get there. So in the silence all you can think to say is, “Keep talking.”

Tommy hears it, the breathlessness in your words. The need, the desperation. “Oh, shit,” he hisses. But then he chuckles, low and quiet. “You touchin’ yourself right now, darlin’?”

You don’t answer, too ashamed. But you pick up the pace, press a little harder against the sensitive nerves, and you try to swallow a moan. It comes out as a breathy sound instead, stuck in the back of your throat.

Somehow, the cadence in which he speaks grows darker. Sinister, even. ”Dirty fuckin’ girl. Bet you just had him inside you, huh? He in the other room? Tell me.” 

“No,” you say. But it’s so unconvincing that Tommy laughs. 

“Ain’t gotta lie to me. S’okay, though. I know how you get with that little attitude of yours. Too bad your boyfriend don’t know that all it takes to fix it is to get all up in your guts. Ain’t that right, darlin’?”

“You’re so—hmm—so fucking annoying.” You don’t mean it. Not really.

It doesn’t phase him. “You got your fingers inside yet, baby? Or are you still touchin’ her all sweet and soft?”

“Not…God—not yet,” you breathe out, trying to ignore the way your voice sounds so desperate in your ears. The pleasure coiling around your spine is already better than it was before, heightened just because he’s there. 

Tommy clicks his tongue. “Got two hands, don’t you? Go on, now. Just one, greedy girl. Gotta pace yourself. Make it last, make it good.”

Even though you know he can’t see you, you follow his instructions to the letter. Use your free hand to slide a single finger inside—the middle one, pressing hard in just the right spot. 

Your breath stutters the moment it happens, and you can feel your walls clench and shiver around the digit at the sound of that liquid smooth laugh of his.

“Got no fuckin’ clue how hard I am,” he whispers, voice smokey. “Got my dick leakin’ just thinkin’ about ya. From hearin’ all those pretty noises you make.”

You roll your fingers over your clit faster, chasing relief. Somehow it’s both too much and not enough, and before long you find yourself begging. The way you always do when that thick Texas drawl floods your ears. “Oh—fuck. Fuck, please, Tommy—”

His breath hitches on the other side of the phone. There’s a long, shaky exhale—and you know you’re getting to him. Can feel the sudden shift, can hear the strain in his words. “Christ. Slutty little thing. Sayin’ my name while he’s in the other room.”

The shame of it all makes you whimper, but it only spurs him on.

“S’alright, pretty girl. Ain’t gonna tell. Slide another finger in, baby. Ya earned it. Let me hear you,” he says. 

And though your immediate compliance stirs something angry and irritating inside, you do as he says. Tell yourself it’s not because you have to, but because you want to. Would do it right at this moment even without his words. 

The stretch is sweet and aching, fingertips finding home with practiced ease, warmth pooling low in your belly. Quiet, breathy sounds leave your lips, refusing to remain behind your teeth.

“Ohh, that’s it, ain’t it? This all you needed? Wanted me to talk ya through it. You cum for him like you’re about to cum for me?”

It’s right there, right there—your eyes squeezed tight, thighs trembling, breath getting stuck at the top of your lungs. 

And then he laughs. A low, baritone sound that sends shivers down your spine. He says, “Nah. ‘Course not. That pretty little pussy ain’t his, is it, baby? My fucking girl. Not his. Mine.”

The way he says it—possessive, controlling, certain—sends you over the edge, diving headfirst into bliss. 

You have to turn your head and press your mouth against your shoulder, fighting back the noises threatening to spill out, trying to keep quiet but failing miserably.

“Sound so pretty right now,” Tommy mutters. “Wish I was there with you, watchin’ you make a mess of yourself. Fuck, baby. That’s it.”

The sensation sticks. Lasts and lasts and lasts until you’re fighting for air, until your thighs clamp down tight around your hands between them. 

And even after, as your orgasm slowly fizzles out and your muscles loosen considerably, your skin still tingles. You let your head roll back, falling limp into the couch cushions, trying to catch your breath.

Tommy says nothing for several seconds, but you can still hear him on the other end of the line. Can feel him. The tension changes. Not awkward, exactly. Reluctant. As if he wants to speak but is afraid to.

You’re the one who decidedly ends the silence. “Uhm…thanks. By the way.”

Whatever Tommy had wanted to say gets lost. Tucked away someplace else for a different time. “Ain’t gotta thank me for doin’ my job, darlin’. Told you, I always take care of my girl.”

With a scoff, you roll your eyes and pick your phone back up. Press it to your ear and deny his words, even though something about the way you say them feels like a lie. “Not your girl, Miller. Goodnight.”

You don’t let him get another word in before ending the call. But just before you hang up you can hear him laughing. 

Not long after, you break up with James. Give the classic, it’s not you, it’s me speech and pick up a box of your belongings from his rental a week later. 

It surprises you how relieved you feel afterwards. How little you care about his absence. Because while, yes, James is kind and honest and good—you realize you’ve gotten bored. Have begun to miss the excitement without realizing it. The push and the pull and the heady desire in the middle of a dance floor.

That first weekend, your roommates insist on going out. Say it’s their way of getting you ‘back out on the playing field,’ which you know is just an excuse to drink too much. 

Still, you go. Decide on one of those nightclubs in the college part of town. Too expensive and too crowded and too loud, but somehow it’s exactly what you need.

And it’s the first night in months you spend just for yourself. You dance with your friends and even though your roommate's boyfriend lingers, the energy is good. Youthful and relaxed and healing, the way all girls' nights are.

You don’t see Tommy’s text message that night until several hours after he sends it. 

Hey. Can we talk? 

It makes your stomach turn. Because it feels like one of those messages. The ones you receive right before you block a phone number, insisting they need more from you. More time, more attention, more.

And you’re not ready to give Tommy up before you even go back to him. Not just yet. 

Don’t want to be tied down after just cutting yourself loose, but you don’t want to lose him at the price of freedom, either.

Because he might be annoying and frustrating and too damn full of himself, but you like him. Like the things he does to you, anyway. 

You’d never admit that, though. Not to his face. At least not now. 

So, you wait until morning to text him back. Hope that time has given him some clarity. He asks to take you out for breakfast, and it only stirs up that anxiety once again. 

Because you’ve been here before. Already know exactly what the conversation will entail. 

If it were anyone else—anyone at all—you would’ve cut your losses by now and added his number to the graveyard at the bottom of your contact list. 

But…his dick curves upwards. He eats you like a man starved for it and grabs you by the jaw and looks you right in the eye while he whispers that perverse filth, all while buried deep inside you. 

You agree to coffee. Not breakfast.

Tommy’s already at the local shop when you get there. Leaning against the brick wall outside the door, silver belt buckle catching the light of the morning sun, one brown leather boot crossed over the other, cigarette hanging loosely in his hand. 

He smiles when he sees you. A big, toothy grin. Laughs when you’re close enough to hear and says, “Jesus. Would you fuckin’ relax? Stop lookin’ at me like I’m holdin’ a loaded gun in my back pocket.”

“Stop looking at me like you’d let me point one right between your eyes,” you chide, hoping to set the tone before it spirals. 

But Tommy doesn’t care. He never has. Just holds open the door and lets himself shamelessly ogle you as you walk over the threshold. 

You order first, listing off the specifics of your favorite drink. The one you use as both a hangover cure and a pick me up on those days that like to drag on. You say please and thank you when the interaction permits and try not to feel the way Tommy crowds you, his warmth seeping through the fabric of your jacket.

He orders a simple black coffee. No cream, no sugar. When the young woman with blue hair behind the counter asks if he’s sure, he says, “Definitely. I like ‘em when they bite back.”

Mortification comes fast. “Oh my god, ignore him,” you interrupt. “I’m so sorry. How much?”

Tommy pays. Insists on it. And even though he tips the barista on his card, you take the stray bills at the bottom of your purse and stick them in the tip jar on the counter, too.

Instead of sitting in the cafe, you decide to go on a drive. Tommy’s truck is clean and smells like old leather and the faint scent of pine coming from the tree shaped air freshener hung around the rearview mirror.

“You know, I don’t…” he shakes his head, eyes focused on the road ahead. There’s no traffic and the city is still wet with morning dew. “I don’t normally do stuff like this, so I’m gonna get right to the point.”

You sit there, silently sipping your latte from the passenger seat, feeling more awkward than you ever have in your life.

“I know we…we’ve got a good thing goin’, you an’ I. And I didn’t expect to want more but I like you. Think about you every damn day. Waitin’ by my phone, hopin’ you’ll text.”

He chuckles and shakes his head, completely oblivious to the way your insides begin to twist and turn uncomfortably.

He glances away from the road for a second, letting himself savor the sight of your profile and the way the rising sun paints the sky orange and pink behind you.

You watch his jaw feather, teeth clenched. He’s nervous, you realize.

“I guess what I’m tryin’ to say is I’d like to…I don’t know. Try somethin’ else, if you’re down for that. Take you out on a real date. See you more than just to get off. S’that…s’that somethin’ you’re interested in? With me?”

Even knowing it’s your turn to speak, the words refuse to form in your mouth. Get lodged in the back of your throat, sitting heavy like a stone. You find yourself wishing you would’ve called this off. Told him you were busy today and tonight and every day going forward for the rest of your life.

Tommy laughs. “Relax, sweetheart,” he says. “Assumin’ lookin’ like you’re about to hurl is the answer. I get it.”

You let out a long breath. “Tommy, I’m sorry. I like…” you stop. The word you doesn’t pass easily. Instead, you amend the phrase, saying, “I like what we have now. And I’m just not ready for anything serious so soon.”

“So you did break up with him, then?” He turns to you, a wicked smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. Looking less like he’d just gotten rejected and more like he’d just found out the most satisfying news of his life.

The smug look only serves to irritate you. With a scoff you ask, “Are you saying you thought I still had a boyfriend and asked me out anyway?”

“Wouldn’t exactly call him competition,” he says, eyes narrowed in amusement. “You only liked him ‘cause he was sweet to you. F’ya want flowers and love notes, I can make it happen. The difference between me an’ him is that I can do all that and fuck you right, too.” 

“God. Do you hear yourself when you speak?”

“Only thing I wanna hear right now is you moanin’ my name,” Tommy says.

At first, you think he means it as a joke. Says it to get under your skin in the way he’s always been good at. 

But then his eyes turn molten as he looks over at you, one hand clenched tight around the leather steering wheel, the other laying loosely on the center console that separates you. His gaze drags down your body; over your neck, lingering on the curve of your chest, over your soft thighs. “Why don’t you go’head an’ take those off for me.”

And god fucking damnit, you do. Try to quiet your breathing as he drives, speed increasing with each inch of skin you expose as you roll your leggings down.

He starts off slow. Calloused fingers kneading the inside of your thighs, creeping ever higher. By the time he presses his hand hard against your aching center, over the lace fabric of your panties (that you promise yourself you didn’t wear in anticipation for this very moment), you’re already so wet that he laughs as your slick soaks through.

Tommy teases you for so long that you’re breathless and whimpering before he even slides the fabric aside and dips his fingers through your sticky folds.

As much as you try to fight it off, he gets his wish. Has you moaning and crying out his name in minutes, fingers buried deep inside you, making a mess on his leather seat.

The worst part, you think, is that he doesn’t even ask for you to touch him back. Just gets you off while he drives in the fast lane, as if he’s satisfied with just that. You can see the bulge in his jeans, pressing hard against the denim, but he doesn’t acknowledge it in the slightest.

And once your head falls back against the headrest and you use a handful of napkins he’s got stored in the glove box to clean the wetness between your thighs, Tommy drops you off near your car in the cafe parking lot.

You don’t really know what to say. Goodbye feels weird and formal. See you feels like you’re promising to see him again, even knowing you need to cut him off entirely before this gets too complicated.

So instead, you say, “Thanks for the coffee,” and try to slip out of his truck without another word.

But Tommy doesn’t let it happen. Grabs you by the back of the neck, pulls you close until you can feel his breath against your cheeks. Smirks in that annoying, confident way of his and says, “Don’t let me see you step out with another man.”

The words are said quietly, like a threat. You curse your body for tightening up at the sound of them in his mouth, muscles tensing, needy in a way you try and fail to fight off. “Then I suggest you stay the fuck home.”

His eyes flicker to your mouth. Attention fixed on the curve of your lips, your cupids bow, the glisten of your lipgloss.

But Tommy doesn’t kiss you. He rarely does. Instead, he licks the corner of your mouth and moans like it’s his favorite taste. “You try an’ get with someone else an’ I’ll ruin it,” he whispers. “Promise.”

The way he says it, like his unwanted possession is a form of devotion has you rolling your eyes and shoving his shoulder. “Go fuck yourself, Tommy.”

With an arrogant raise of his eyebrows, he leans over the center console as you climb out of his truck. “Oh, trust me, baby. I definitely will be. An’ I’ll be thinkin’ of you and that sweet fuckin’ pussy you’ve got the whole time.”

You slam the door in his face and return home both satisfied and angry with yourself.

And the worst part is that when you see him that weekend at Club Orchid, there’s a pretty girl sitting in his lap. 

She’s got her arms around his neck and her mouth pressed up against his ear, miniskirt riding high on her thighs, his big hands tracing the cobalt colored edge.

You try not to react. 

Really, you do.

But how is that fair? Promising to ruin every relationship for you just because he didn’t get his way, only to taunt you like this so soon after?

Your friends, God bless them, do their best to distract you. Buy shot after shot and pull you to the dancefloor. Tell you to ignore him, that you deserve better. Say that he’s an asshole and he’s always been. Encourage you to move on.

Tommy doesn’t look at you, and somehow it feels worse than if he had. Because if he touched the girl on his lap but gave you his attention, you’d know he was doing it on purpose. Goading for a reaction. You would know that he still cared.

But he doesn’t. Just tucks the girl’s hair behind her ear and kisses her knuckles and his hand sneaks higher and higher on her thigh.

It makes your stomach turn. 

Even knowing you rejected him and you have no right to be…jealousy is rarely coupled with sensibility.

You try to convince yourself it’s better this way. Better that he find someone else to twist up. To confuse. Tell yourself you shouldn’t feel jealous, you should feel sorry for the girl.

 When you slip away from your friends for some fresh air just before last call, you freeze when you see Tommy standing outside the front door. Cigarette held loosely between his fingers, smoke curling around his face.

Painfully handsome, even in the low light of the street lamp. He stares with his mouth curved at the corners, unmoving, like he’d been waiting for you.

He doesn’t speak, and neither do you. He just waits. To see who breaks first, to see who opens up the path to all that emotion you’ve both been fighting off. His posture is casual, relaxed, but his eyes are anything but. Sparkling with challenge, with temptation, with invitation.

It would be effortless, you know. To fly off the handle, to be mean the way you want to be. Call him easy, ask him if she could taste you on his tongue, to quote his previous taunts and say, ‘Does she swallow you down easy? Or does she choke on it like I do, crying for it just the way you like?’

But you don’t.

You look right fucking past him. 

Find the group of guys just a little further from the door. Slide into their little circle with no resistance, give the tallest one your sweetest smile and ask if you can share a cigarette.

You’re not sure how long Tommy waits before leaving the club entirely to find his truck in the parking lot. Not sure if he hears you introduce yourself to all three men and giggle when they compliment you on your peach colored nail polish.

The next morning, you wake up to a lengthy text message.

An apology. An explanation.

Tommy admits he has feelings for you. Plain and true and honest. Says he was only trying to make you jealous, to make you want him the way he wants you, that he never even kissed her. Couldn’t fathom tasting anyone but you.

He recognizes that the way he went about it was wrong and says this whole thing is new to him, that he’s never wanted to hold on to someone like this. Even confesses that your apathy had hurt him.

With the anger still fresh in your mind, your response is cruel.

Yeah I’m not reading all that.

He doesn’t respond. 

And for months, you stay clear of Tommy fucking Miller.

Focus on yourself. Your career, your health. You start taking vitamins and drinking less and cooking more at home. Get a promotion and a pay raise, and you’re doing good.

Until one fateful Friday night when you go to pick up your order at your favorite take out place.

He’s sitting there at one one of the tables, leaning back, arms folded over his chest, long legs extended and crossed at the ankles. There’s a black suede cowboy hat on his head and he’s wearing a leather jacket with silver hardware that matches the pointed boots on his feet. Starched blue jeans and that belt buckle, looking all big and Texas and devastating.

Like always, he smiles when he sees you. It’s less playful this time, though. Feels more like genuine affection instead of that teasing smirk he always wears.

You try to ignore him. 

But the brown paper bag sitting on the table in front of him has your name on it.

You try to grab for it, to be quick and get it from him so you can leave without speaking.

That doesn’t happen, though. Tommy’s hand flies out to grab your wrist. Not hard, just enough to give you pause. “Please,” he says, a desperation in his voice that you’ve never heard before.

A crease forms between your brows as you assess him, watching the way his jaw flexes, the way his throat bobs as he swallows hard.

“I can’t get you out of my fucking head,” he says. “Please. Just…sit. Have lunch with me.”

You know you shouldn’t.

But you do. 

Sink slowly down into the chair across from him and wait patiently as he pulls your food out of the bag. He sets it in front of you just as the woman behind the counter delivers him a separate order, as if he’d planned this.

And you think maybe he did, because his words are gentle when he speaks. Cautious. “Look, I’m…I’m sorry. I don’t know how to do this.”

“You mean how to treat a woman like she has feelings?”

You can see the smart remark on the tip of his tongue. But for what it’s worth, Tommy swallows it down. “I should have been better to you from the start,” he admits. “Should’ve done this whole thing the right way, but I didn’t know at the time that I would feel the way I do.”

Unsure of his intentions, you say nothing.

Tommy continues. “The last time we talked, I know you weren’t ready for anything serious. But I…I’ve never felt like this for anyone. And if you could try an’ give me another chance, I swear I’ll be better. Try to be what you deserve. An’ if you still don’t want anything serious, I’ll take whatever you wanna give me. Just friends, if you want. Or we can go back to the way things were before. Whatever you decide, I’ll take it. ‘Cause, Christ, sweetheart. I fuckin’ miss you somethin’ fierce.”

“You just miss the sex. You hardly know me, Tommy,” you say.

“But I want to,” he replies. “An’ you’re wrong. It’s about more than that. F’you want, give me a real chance. Take you out on a few dates. Walk you to your doorstep and bring you those flowers an’ love notes you want. Won’t even kiss you ‘til you say so. Promise.”

There’s so much conviction in his words. So much sincerity. But you know men like Tommy. Know they’re real good at saying exactly what you want to hear and even better at convincing you they’ve changed when really, they’ve just gotten better at lying.

Careful. You have to be so, so careful.

“Let’s just see how lunch goes,” you say.

And much to your surprise, it feels…good. You learn more about him in a single hour than you have in the almost two years that you’ve known him. Learn that his best friend is his brother and that he has a niece named Sarah who his entire life revolves around. 

It’s sort of endearing, the way he talks about her and how proud he was when she won her soccer tournament last week.

But he asks about you, too. About your family and your friends and your job, listening intently as you speak.

By the time you finish your meal, he hasn’t got you convinced exactly, but there’s a little softness around the edges now. He asks if you’d like to go see a movie with him next weekend, and you agree.

Your roommate knows something’s up the moment you walk through the door. And when she pulls the information out of you and the word Tommy falls from your tongue, she’s groaning before the second syllable. 

Still, you go see that movie. He takes you to dinner afterwards, too. And you return home with plans for coffee in the morning and a fresh bouquet of roses in your hands. 

It starts to trickle in slowly; the want. The desire. The need for him to touch you. 

He takes you to a baseball game and splays his big hand on the small of your back, guiding you through the crowd, keeping you safe, touch warm and inviting and possessive in the way that only he can be.

Tommy doesn’t make any moves. But sometimes you can see it in his eyes when you’re talking and he’s watching your mouth, breath hitching in his throat, gaze dark and wanting.

When he takes you out late one night for ice cream, he swipes vanilla cream from your bottom lip with his thumb and sucks the sugar off his finger. Moans quietly at the taste, but doesn’t make the dirty comment you can see swirling in his head.

He starts to text you more often. Sweet, short messages that say good morning, pretty girl and hope you’re having a good day and need anything from the store?

Once, he texts you in the afternoon.

Thinking of you.

And you don’t respond. Not right away. Instead, you wait until the sun sets. Wait until you’re tucked into bed beneath your sheets, thighs pressed tightly together, warmth gathering low in your belly in a way that’s impossible to ignore. 

Thinking of you, too. Wanna come over?

He hesitates with his response, the typing bubbles disappearing three different times before an answer finally comes through.

I’ll bring you breakfast in the morning. Take care of her for me, my needy girl.

You’re not sure if you’re disappointed or satisfied with his response. The offer hadn’t been given with an expectation yet still, it softens you up just a little more.

You drag it out for weeks.

And not even once does Tommy complain.

Things change, though, the night you’re laying in the bed of his truck on top of a mountain of pillows and blankets, trying to see the supposed meteor shower that’s twenty minutes away. You turn on your side and ask, “Are you seeing anyone else? Be honest. I won’t be mad either way.”

You steel yourself in anticipation for his answer.

“Truth?”

You nod.

Tommy licks his lips. “I haven’t been with anyone else since I met you.”

It makes you laugh. You don’t mean to, but the amusement bubbles out of you anyway. “Jesus. You’re fucking lying to my face.”

“I’m not,” he insists. Doesn’t say it with any urgency or frustration, and the tone gives you pause.

You try to search his face. To see an ounce of dishonesty in his eyes. But you come up empty, and Tommy just stares at you. The energy between you turns heavy. Meaningful in a way you’re not used to. “You’re serious?”

“Dead serious,” he says. “You’ve been stuck in my head since that first night. I think about it sometimes.” He chuckles, as if the information is amusing and not the most surprising thing you’ve ever heard.. “I remember that pretty dress you wore an’ the way you’d been screamin’ at the bouncer carryin’ you over his shoulder. Causin’ all kinds of trouble. Stole my heart right then and there.”

“Stole your heart, huh?” You say it with thick sarcasm, but you can’t wipe the grin off your face if you tried.

The realization hits you hard. Sharp and swift.

You want more, too.

More than these nights together. More than sweet gestures and breakfast in the morning and dinner on the weekends. You want to kiss him. You want to hold his hand and sleep in his bed.

You want to be his fucking girl.

Tommy laughs, shakes his head, and playfully shoves your shoulder. “Yeah, stole my damn heart. Fuckin’一thief…s’what you are. Don’t let it go to your pretty head. Forehead’s big enough already,” he teases.

But it’s too late. And you’re moving before you can think better of it, swinging your leg over him, straddling his hips, skin buzzing with anticipation. You take him by the jaw, delighting in the way his eyes darken and the air gets caught in his throat. “You love my big forehead,” you say.

An assumption. A risk.

One that pays off.

Tommy turns his head and presses an open mouthed kiss to your palm. “Fuck yeah I do,” he muses, lips curved at the corners in that way of his, the way that’s always made you weak. “Now c’mere. Let me taste you.”

You lean forward to kiss him, and the intensity skyrockets the moment your tongue touches his bottom lip.

Tommy rests his hand on your throat一not squeezing, just caressing. Feeling your pulse beneath his long fingers. He licks into your mouth, tongue gliding against yours, not just tasting but savoring.

When you start to roll your hips over his, he moans against your lips and his fingers twitch around your neck. “Goddamn, baby. We gotta…fuck. Gotta stop. Wanna do this right. Rose一hm一rose petals an’ shit. Champagne and一”

“I hate champagne,” you whisper, kissing a trail down his jaw, his neck, his collarbone. You slide your hands beneath the soft cotton of his t-shirt and drag your nails gently down his skin, feeling the softness turn to hard muscle, flexing beneath your touch. “But I like you.”

You shove the fabric up, exposing his sunkissed skin, and your lips immediately find it. He tastes warm. Ambery and masculine, like sweat and soap. Your mouth waters, leaving a trail of wetness down his chest, over his belly. When you kiss the left side of his hip, you suck a purplish mark there.

Claiming, without the need for words. 

Shifting lower, you settle between his spread thighs and look up at him through your lashes as you stick out your tongue and lick his bulge through his jeans.

Tommy’s hands fly to your head, twisting in your hair, pulling you back. “Jesus Christ,” he hisses, breathless. “Do you mean that? You fuckin’...you like me?”

“Truth?”

He nods. 

You smile. Can’t help it. “Yeah,” you answer. “I mean it.”

Tommy’s answering grin is full of elation and has you giggling. “My fuckin’ girl,” he states, and you can see the smug look in his eye. Can’t even really be mad at him for it, because there’s satisfaction in the words, too. Happiness.

With practiced ease, you unbuckle his belt and pull the zipper of his jeans down with your teeth. His cock is already hard and aching when you reach beneath his boxers to pull it free.

You start slow一kissing the tip, sliding your tongue over the veins on the underside of his cock. He pulses beneath your touch, his hands in your hair gentler now. Stroking the side of your head softly.

But that softness ends the moment you take him in your mouth and suck. You take him down as far as you can, fighting the pressure at the back of your throat. Wrap your lips tightly around him and watch the way his head falls back and his eyes squeeze shut.

“Shit, baby,” he sighs. “Been dreamin’ about that sweet mouth.” His hand finds the back of your head, pushing you further down.

Your eyes water and you struggle to suck in oxygen, but stay right where he wants you.

“Look so fuckin’ pretty like that, mouth all full’a me.” With his free hand, he swipes away the stray tear that leaks down your cheek with his thumb. “Doin’ so fuckin good.”

When you start to choke, Tommy lets up. Pulls you off of him, hand still in your hair, smiling wide as thick stands of saliva keep you tethered together. Spit coats your chin and your eyes are bleary, but the moment you catch your breath he’s guiding your mouth back to him, his hips bucking, forcing his cock to reach just a little further down your throat.

“Yeah, there you go. That’s it. Slutty little thing. An’ all mine,” he says. “Cryin’ for it. Bet you’re real wet, too. Lettin’ me fuck your mouth like a whore. Takin’ it like one.” You can hear his breath stutter, his grip in your hair tightening. Know he’s close before he even pulls you away again. “Lift up your dress, baby.”

You do just as he says, like you always have. Grab the ends of the flowing fabric and pull it up over your head until you’re sitting there in his truck bed, wearing nothing but honey colored panties, your favorite black bra, and the tears on your cheeks.

This time, you hadn’t anticipated it. Hadn’t anticipated him.

Tommy reaches behind your back and unclasps your bra with deft fingers, pulling the straps down your shoulders. When he traces the elastic band over your waist, he murmurs, “Cute. These, too, pretty girl.”

As soon as you shimmy your panties down your legs and toss them to the side, Tommy’s tugging you up his torso, hands firm on your hips.

“Bring that ass here,” he orders, sinking further down into the blankets beneath you. He pulls you up until your thighs bracket his head, hovering over him. Tommy stares up at you like you’re the most magnificent thing he’s ever laid eyes on, the intensity of it sending a shiver down your spine.

And he doesn’t break stride; holding that eye contact even when his tongue splits you open, flicking over your clit. “Oh, God.”

You can feel him smile against you, stubble scratching lightly against the inside of your thighs. He licks and sucks and leaves no inch of you untouched, tongue circling, your nerve endings spit slick and pulsing beneath his ministrations. 

Though you try to hover, to give him room to breathe, Tommy won’t have it. His arms wrap around your thighs and he pulls you down, pressing you against his face, moaning when you shift your hips and grind yourself against the flat of his tongue. Hot and wet and desperate. “Just like that,” you tell him, your own voice foreign in your ears. “Fuck, yes, Tommy, please一”

He groans and you can feel the rumble vibrate between your legs. His tongue makes obscene sounds beneath you, soft and delicate against your most sensitive parts. He takes your clit gently between his lips and sucks, and you can feel that familiar warmth begin to quickly build.

Tommy’s always known just how to touch you. Has your pleasure down to a science. So it’s not surprising when you thread your hands through his dark hair, silky between your fingers, and your head falls back. “I’m gonna cum一fuck, I’m gonna cum, I’m一ohmygod一”

It hits you hard. Your thighs shake around his head and your vision gets all spotty. Your spine bends, arching against his mouth, seeking the friction that Tommy’s all too happy to give. He just sucks your clit harder, tongue swirling, until the overstimulation becomes too much to bear and you’re pushing yourself up on your knees.

He chases you. Leaning forward to press one last open mouthed kiss to your wet heat. “Fuck, baby,” he mutters, lips glossy with your arousal. “Look so goddamn pretty when you cum for me.”

And even though you can still feel the aftershocks of your orgasm, thighs still twitching, you find yourself insatiable for him. “Tommy,” you breathe. “Please, I need…”

“Tell me,” he urges. “Tell me what you need an’ I'll give it to you.”

“Want you inside me,” you say. “Please.”

You can see the flicker of disquiet as it crosses his face. Not disappointment, exactly, but…something despairing. “M’sorry,” he says. “I didn’t think we were doin’ this tonight. I didn’t bring anything with me. Here一why don’t you lay back. I’ll fill her up with my fingers, baby. Give that pretty little pussy what it needs.”

“It’s okay,” you insist. “I’m…I’m on birth control. If you want we can…” You’re not sure why the suggestion makes you feel shy all of a sudden. You’ve never done this, not with anyone. But you want it with him. With Tommy fucking Miller.

That smug smirk finds its way back to his lips. “You want me to fuck you raw, baby?”

When you nod in response, you swear you can see something shift inside him. As if he wasn’t head over heels for you already, he certainly is now.

“‘Course you do,” he says, tone full of adoration. “Christ, girl. C’mere.”

You straddle him again, sliding his cock through your slick folds, the head nudging your clit in a way that has you panting. You roll yourself over him once, twice一and then you’re tilting your hips at a different angle and he slips right in.

He lets out a groan and pulls you forward, arms wrapped tightly around your middle, chests pressed together. Tommy kisses you hard and begins to move underneath you, cock splitting you open, thick and punishing. “Best fuckin’ pussy I ever had, squeezin’ tight like it wants more. Greedy thing, just like you,” he mutters between kisses, fucking up into you. “So wet for me. No one else can fuck you like this, baby. Can they? Huh? Speak, girl.”

The words don’t come easy, all sense emptied from your brain and replaced with the way he makes you feel. Smothering, everywhere all at once. His heavy hands on your waist, his tongue against your skin, licking up the salty tears on your cheeks, his cock buried so deep inside you you can feel him in your belly.

You shake your head, dragging up the energy to cry out, “No, no one else一just you, Tommy just you一God一!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” he says. “Pussy fuckin’ belongs to me. Not even yours anymore, is it? S’all mine. Gonna fill her up, pretty girl. Fuck you full’a my cum till she’s all cute and sticky.”

That warmth builds again. Slower this time, but searing. Burning like a red-hot coil, curling up your spine. The perversion he speaks only heightens your desire, lewd sounds emitting from between your legs.

His thrusts grow sloppy. Harder, bruising. “S’like you were made to take my cock,” Tommy says. “Shit, baby. M’so close. You’re doin’ so good.”

Tommy doesn’t slow, even though you’re a moaning, writhing mess on top of him. His hold on you stays firm and his pace stays steady.

He grabs you by the throat, forcing you to look at him, squeezing just enough to make your head all fuzzy. “Say it. Tell me what I wanna hear. Tell me you’re mine.”

“I am,” you whimper, the truth burning like hot coals in your mouth. You think maybe you have been for some time, but only now are you able to admit it. “M’yours—fuck, feels so—so good. Your girl, Tommy—I’m your girl—” Your words are clipped, forced out in your haze, panting.

You can feel him pulse inside you, can feel the sudden increase in pressure as he empties himself with his cock buried to the hilt. “That’s right, sweetheart,” he praises, pressing his mouth to yours, moaning against your tongue, capturing your lips in an all consuming kiss that makes you feel robbed.

When you begin to pull away, trying to shift off of him, Tommy stops you with a firm hand at your hip. 

“Nuh-uh,” he says. “Not finished ‘til you cum again. Wanna fuckin’ feel it.”

“But you—”

“Still hard, isn’t it?”

You blink, a little startled.

But Tommy just moves his hand around your neck down your chest, pushing lightly, giving him access to slide his fingers between your legs to press them gently against your clit. “Go on,” he urges. “Take it. S’all yours. Fuck yourself on my cock, baby.”

His words are filthy and depraved and make your clit pulse beneath his thumb. One tentative, experimental roll of your hips has him tensing—but Tommy moans low and thrusts up in tandem, giving you what you need, giving you everything.

It’s euphoric—the way he opens himself up to you, letting you take and take and take, letting you be selfish. Encouraging it. 

All yours.

You find a good rhythm, his cock hitting the perfect spot inside you, buried deep. And with his fingers working between your legs it doesn’t take long before shocks of bliss shoot through you. 

Short bursts at first, chasing it, chasing release—

And then he looks you in the eye and says, “Cum for me, baby.”

It barrels into you without warning—unrelenting, strong, intense the way Tommy has always been. The way you’ve always needed.

He fucks you through it, hips slamming against the back of your trembling thighs, thumb continuing to circle your clit. The breath leaves your lungs completely and the only sounds you’re able to form are helpless whimpers. 

Tommy takes it in stride. Holds you upright when you fall forward, muttering all the while with his lips against your ear. “Yeah, that’s it. Fuckin’ take it, pretty girl. Shit—she’s squeezin’ me so tight. You like that? Hm? Cummin’ on my cock like the good girl you are. So damn cute when you get fucked all stupid.”

When you begin to come down, he slows his pace until he’s barely moving—just reverent, rocking movements beneath you. Tommy holds you close, arms wrapped around your waist, his embrace warm and safe and good. 

He kisses your cheek, your temple, the top of your head. The touches are careful, gentle, a stark contrast to the way he was only seconds ago. You find just enough energy to roll off of him, but Tommy doesn’t let you get far. Helps you tug your dress back over your head, tucks himself back into his jeans, and then pulls you back to his side.

The silence feels weighted, but not uncomfortable. Just…different. You lay your head on his chest, heaving with every breath, and his fingers gently trail over the curve of your spine, pressing into the tender muscle and tracing soothing patterns

And then quietly, he admits, “You’re stuck with me now. You know that, right? Gonna piss you off forever.”

It makes you smile. A wide spread grin, paired with a sudden flush that creeps up your cheeks. And even though no one has ever been able to get under your skin quite the way Tommy has, you find yourself with only one thought at the idea of being well and truly stuck with him.