I Write Stuff!

When he got home, he didn’t sleep.

Dex sat at his kitchen table until five in the morning with a notebook open in front of him, trying to work out how to earn you like it was a mission and a mathematical problem all at once.

He had never had this before, at least not romantically or properly.

He had wanted people before, sure. He had fixated and watched and needed. But he had never met someone he wanted to impress. This was different because it was you.

So Dex pulled up a notebook and started to brainstorm.

At the top of the page, in painfully neat handwriting, he wrote:

What can I do to earn it?

He stared at the sentence for a long time.

Then, because he had no idea what normal people did, he wrote the first thing that came to mind.

Jewellery?

He paused, but it seemed right. Women liked jewellery. He had seen his colleagues back at the FBI buy silver and gold for anniversaries, engagements, and apologies. He had seen men do it in restaurants, in movies, and in department-store advertisements with stupidly saccharine music every February.

Still, Dex knew you wouldn’t want something bought. That felt too ordinary, too impersonal. Anyone with money could buy a necklace, anyone could stand at a glass counter and let a bored sales assistant choose whatever they thought  looked pretty.

That was not earning. To Dex, that was outsourcing.

Dex tapped the pen against the paper, before modifying it.

Stolen jewellery?

Better.

He underlined it once.

You liked flair, and a heist had flair. A heist required planning, timing, and risk assessment. It had alarms to silence, guards to drop, and glass to break.

Then he wrote:Necklace with red stones.

He paused, then kept brainstorming.

Clean first. Get a box.

He underlined clean first twice.

You would probably appreciate that he had been forced to kill his way through a collection of financiers, traffickers, and Task Force donors to get it. But you would appreciate the necklace even more if he cleaned every trace of their blood from it before he gave it to you.

See? He was learning.

—

A week later, you woke up to the report of a jewellery heist.

The story was already playing on the television in the kitchen by the time you wandered in, rubbing sleep from your eyes while the kettle hissed behind you. Blue police lights flashed across the screen, staining the marble frontage of some private gallery in a gray-ish intermittent colour. The windows had been shattered inward, glass glittered across the pavement like ice, and several black body bags were being wheeled past a row of reporters pressing microphones toward anyone wearing a badge.

Mia sat at the table with a bowl of cereal and the front page spread open beside her. She had placed an unloaded handgun across the article to keep it flat, which felt disrespectful to both journalism and breakfast but was hardly the strangest thing she had ever done in your kitchen.

You poured hot water over your coffee and leaned against the counter, only half listening as the reporter explained that the gallery had been used as a private showroom for a collection owned by three wealthy financiers. Between them, they had laundered money for traffickers, moved illegal weapons through shell companies, and funnelled anonymous donations into several Task Force operations.

Now they were dead.

The security team was dead too, although the report was careful to describe them as “private contractors,” which sounded much better than armed men paid to protect criminals and their stolen wealth. 

Apparently, only one item had been taken.

The reporter’s image changed to an old catalogue photograph of a necklace laid against black silk. It was beautifully dramatic, set in dark metal with deep red stones that looked almost black before the studio light flashed.

You paused with the mug halfway to your mouth. “Huh.”

Mia glanced up from her cereal, spoon hovering near her lips. “What?”

“It’s pretty.” You looked at the necklace again.”

And that was the full extent of your interest.

That morning, it didn’t occur to you that Dex had done it.

Dex was many things, but he was not a thief. He took weapons when he needed them, and sometimes files, keys, evidence, ammunition. Those were practical things with a means to an end. You couldn’t imagine him breaking into private galleries for jewels. He had never shown any interest in luxury, money, or expensive objects for their own sake.

You finished your coffee, watched another body bag disappear into an ambulance, and thought no more about it.

—

Dex tapped on your apartment window shortly after midnight.

The sound was small enough that Mia didn’t hear it from her bedroom, but it pulled you out of the book balanced across your knees. You stayed still for a moment, listening. 

Your hand went instinctively toward the knife tucked between the sofa cushions as you walked across the apartment. There was no shadow from the other side of the curtain, but when you saw Dex through the gap between the blinds you sighed.

Of course.

Dex stood on the other side, jacket zipped, his hair pushed back, and there was no visible blood on him anywhere. He held a small black velvet box between both hands with such care that, for a second, you wondered whether it might contain an explosive.

“Shhh,” you pulled a finger to your lips, and Dex only tilted his head.

You pulled back the window, his eyes found your face immediately, then flicked down toward your mouth before returning upward. 

“What are you doing here?” You tried not to smile as you stepped into the fire escape and pulled the window back down behind you before Mia could wake up and discover Bullseye standing outside with what looked alarmingly like a romantic gift. 

The metal steps were cold beneath your bare feet, and the night air smelled of rain, rust, and old brick. Traffic moved several storeys below, tyres whispering across wet roads while the glow from nearby windows softened the edges of Dex’s face.

For all you knew about him, he looked almost nervous.

The box remained cupped in his palms. When he finally offered it to you, his fingers lingered against the velvet for half a second before releasing it.

You looked at him, then down at the box, Dex watching your face like he was waiting for a verdict.

You opened it.

For several seconds, you didn’t understand what you were looking at. The stones were darker in person, a deep garnet red that seemed to hold light inside them. The metal had been polished until every curve gleamed. It was old, heavy, and far too beautiful to have belonged to any of the men who had kept it locked inside that gallery.

Then the television footage came back to you.

You lifted your eyes slowly.Dex didn’t look away.

“You did the heist,” you whispered, eyes wide now.

It was not really a question, but he nodded anyway, enough so that  the cold air touched the back of your teeth while your thoughts rearranged themselves around the fact that Benjamin Poindexter had robbed a jewellery vault.

He had never been a thief before. Apparently, you had turned him into one.

The realisation hit you, so unexpectedly absurd that a tiny bit of laughter escaped before you could stop it. You lowered your head, one hand tightening around the box as the sound spilled into the alley below.

Dex’s face changed immediately. His shoulders drew in slightly, and for one second, he looked as if he thought you were laughing at him rather than the situation he had created. He had killed his way through a private gallery, stolen one necklace from an entire collection, cleaned it until it reflected fucking lasers, found a box, and knocked politely on your window.

All because you had told him to earn a kiss.

You pressed your lips together, trying to stop giggling long enough to speak.

“Dex,” you whispered, grabbing his arm, “I genuinely didn’t know this was you.”

His brow furrowed. “You didn’t?”

“You don’t steal jewellery.”

“I do now.”

That nearly started you laughing again.

You looked back down at the necklace instead. Up close, you could see the tiny details in the metalwork, dark vines curling around the stones like thorns. There was not a smear, fingerprint, or trace of blood anywhere on it. Dex must have cleaned it meticulously, working over every setting until nothing remained of the people who had guarded it.

You lifted the necklace carefully from the box. The chain slid over your fingers with a cool, satisfying weight. “It’s beautiful."

He was relieved all at once, you could tell when his jaw loosened and his shoulders dropped. 

You turned the necklace over in your hands.

Of course he chose this one out of everything in the gallery.

His gaze drifted toward your throat, lingering there just long enough to answer the question you hadn’t asked: he had chosen it because he had imagined it on you in more ways than one, you were willing to bet.

You gathered your hair away from your neck and fastened the clasp yourself. The stones settled against your skin with a cold shock before gradually warming to your body. They rested directly over your collarbone, against your throat.

Dex’s eyes followed the necklace downward, tracing the chain and the red stones before returning to your face. His hands stayed still at his sides, but there was tension in every finger, as though not touching you required the same concentration as hitting an impossible target.

You had thought the gift was simply a gift, but then you saw the way he kept looking at your mouth.

Oh. 

Oh.

How sweet.

You bit your lip. “This… was about the kiss.”

Dex’s face went still, and you could almost see him deciding whether denying it would help. He didn't bother.

“Did I earn it?”

There was something so painfully sincere in the question that your chest tightened. Dex hadn’t treated your teasing like flirtation. He had treated it like a task, or a standard he could meet.

You stepped closer.

The fire escape shifted faintly beneath your weight, metal creaking as you tried your hardest to still not make noise. You simply couldn’t bear to hear Mia fucking talk your ear off about manners anymore. 

You touched the front of his jacket. His body went rigid beneath your palm.

For a second, you let him believe it.

You tilted your face toward his, close enough to feel the warmth of his breath. His eyes dropped to your mouth, his lips parted slightly, and every single part of his consciousness seemed to narrow onto the tiny distance remaining between you.

Then you turned your head and kissed his cheek.

Again.

This time, you let it linger as your mouth rested against the scar on his cheekbone while the red stones he had stolen for you pressed coldly against your throat. Dex closed his eyes, his breath leaving him in a wounded exhale.

When you drew back, he looked dazed.

You smiled and touched the necklace lightly. “It’s incredibly sweet.”

His gaze moved from the stones to your mouth. “But?”

“But not quite.”

The disappointment flashed across his face before he could hide it. It lasted only a second, and he quickly replaced it with a familiar, frightening focus. Then, very quietly, he said, “I’ll do better next time.”

You probably should have been worried. Instead, you smiled.

“I can’t wait.”

—

The second attempt involved your cutting off your ex-boyfriend’s pinky finger.

Dex hadn't gone looking for him. At least, that was what he told himself. He had simply seen the man leaving a bar one evening while he was on his way back home. Unfortunately for your ex, he'd made the mistake of bragging about his ex being a dangerous and wanted vigilante, loudly enough for Dex to hear.

"I used to have her wrapped around my little finger,” He laughed loudly, as if that would impress the girl he was currently talking to. 

Ugh.

The package appeared on your fire escape the following morning, wrapped in brown paper and tied neatly with butcher’s string, with anote that said : Though he shouldn’t have this anymore.

It was small enough to fit in your palm, though the dark stain beginning to spread through one corner gave away that it was definitely not jewellery this time. 

You found Dex that evening on the opposite rooftop, watching your apartment with anticipation, waiting to hear whether a gift had been received. You should have been horrified. Instead, you kept thinking about the specificity of it. He had not killed the man, because apparently Dex had decided death would be too impersonal. He had taken the exact part of him that he had mentioned and removed it with surgical attention, leaving your ex alive to understand why.

When you met him on the roof, Dex straightened. Hope appeared on his face almost immediately, fragile beneath all that lethal stillness. You stepped into his space, rested your hand against his chest, and kissed his cheek in the same place as before.

Dex watched you leave with his fingers pressed against the place you had kissed, already reconsidering the scale of the gesture.

The third attempt happened during one of your outings together.

Calling it an outing was generous. You had spent most of the evening following a Task Force accountant through Hell’s Kitchen while Dex moved along the rooftops above you, appearing occasionally in dark windows and reflective surfaces like an omen. The job ended early, leaving the two of you walking without urgency through streets still wet from rain. You stopped for food from a cart, shared greasy hotdogs beneath the awning of a closed shop, and let yourself pretend for several minutes that this was what normal situationships did.

The man who ruined it came out of a bar angry. His shoulder struck yours hard enough to spill the drink in your hand, and instead of apologising, he grabbed your wrist when you turned toward him. His fingers tightened. He called you a bitch.

Dex knew you could more than take care of yourself, but instead of letting you deal with it, his head thought ding, ding, ding! This is your chance to earn it!

Without waiting to see what you would do, Dex killed him with his hands because the offence had been physical, and a primitive part of him apparently believed the answer should be too. By the time you reacted to them, the man’s face had already gone slack beneath the dirty wash of the streetlights. Dex remained crouched over him, breathing evenly, blood along his knuckles and the cuff of his sleeve.

He looked up at you without remorse, as if the man’s hand created a simple problem and Dex had solved it in the most direct way available.

You… looked disappointed, almost sad that you weren’t given the choice to end him yourself.

You should have scolded him. Instead, you crouched and wiped a thin streak of blood from beneath his eye. 

His eyes dropped to your mouth before you had even begun leaning closer, and for a brief second, the hope on his face made you consider giving him what he wanted.

You kissed his cheek again.

This time, your mouth landed nearer the corner of his lips, close enough that Dex inhaled and turned his face by instinct, chasing an act you had already withdrawn. You smiled, tracing your thumb once over his bloodied cheekbone before leaving him kneeling beside the body with his restraint hanging by a thread.

His fourth attempt was less impulsive and considerably more elaborate.

Someone had begun watching your building. You noticed the same dark sedan twice in one week, though it always disappeared before you could approach it. Mia found a listening device beneath the kitchen windowsill, hidden so badly it was frankly insulting. T

Three nights later, an entire surveillance crew disappeared.

Their operation had been housed in a rented office two streets from your apartment. Dex dismantled it room by room. The people inside had worked for a private intelligence firm funded by Task Force donors, and Dex killed the ones who had apparently fucking photographed your bedroom, even if he had done the same himself. He left the technician who had installed the device alive with both hands broken and every hard drive stacked beside him.

Then Dex brought you the files.

He arranged them across your kitchen table while you slept, pages separated into neat categories: From the names of the donors, their addresses, their routines, and the amounts they had paid to look into your life.

You found him later that night when you stepped onto the fire escape, crouched between his knees, and held his face in both hands. This time, your kiss landed at the edge of his cheek, close enough to his mouth that the corner of your lips brushed his for less than a second.

He went rigid.

The contact on his lips had been so slight it might have been accidental, but both of you knew it wasn't. Dex followed when you pulled away, stopping himself only after his mouth had moved an inch toward yours. His eyes had gone unfocused, his breathing suddenly uneven as he stared at the tiny distance you had created.

You thanked him for the files, and told him not quite.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

—-

Dex ran out of ideas three days later.

The almost-kiss had destroyed what remained of his ability to think rationally. He could still feel the exact place you had pressed your lips to his skin, which he thought about often enough to become embarrassing.

You had been so close. Closer than ever before.

That would have meant he was improving, right?

Instead, he sat at his kitchen table until nearly dawn, staring at the same notebook he had used after your first date.

The original page looked almost childish now. Jewellery? was written in black ink, followed by notes about red stones, boxes, and cleaning off the blood. That had seemed like such a strong idea at the time. He had been proud of it. He had planned the heist meticulously, selected the necklace from an entire private collection, and polished every link of the chain himself.

You had loved it.

Still. It was not enough.

Everything he had tried afterwards filled the next several pages. Names, addresses, little reminders of things that bothered you and people who no longer had the opportunity to do so. Some of the ideas had been crossed out because they were too excessive, although Dex’s definition of excessive remained alarmingly generous. Others had been completed and marked with neat dates in the margin.

Beside each attempt, he had recorded the result.

Cheek.

Cheek again. Slightly longer.

Corner of mouth. Almost.

Pathetic. It really was fucking pathetic.

Dex stared at that final entry until the words began to blur.

He could do more, obviously. There were always more people to kill, more enemies to drag to your feet like a sad cat. 

But Dex had begun to suspect that scale was not the problem.

He picked up his pen and wrote: bigger jewellery heist?

Then he crossed it out.

He wrote: kill Task Force Leader?

That one remained on the page for several minutes before he reluctantly crossed it out too. Powell definitely deserved it, but you had never mentioned him specifically. Killing someone you hadn’t complained about felt like guessing, and Dex was starting to understand that guessing wrong could push him farther away instead of bringing him closer.

He considered returning your ex’s other pinky finger.

No, he thought, too repetitive.

He considered finding every man who had ever frightened you and arranging them alphabetically in a warehouse.

Impractical, he thought. That idea had flair, but he could not work out what you would do with one.

By six in the morning, the notebook contained several increasingly desperate fragments and one entire page where Dex had written WHAT DOES SHE WANT? hard enough to leave the words embossed through the paper beneath it.

The answer didn’t appear.

For the first time since you had told him to earn the kiss, Benjamin Poindexter had no plan.

—

Mia discovered him outside your kitchen window at two in the morning.

She had come in for water wearing an oversized pyjama set, her hair twisted into a loose knot that had mostly collapsed. The apartment was dark except for the light above the stove, and she nearly walked past him before she noticed the shape crouched on the fire escape.

Dex tapped once against the glass.

Mia flinched hard enough to spill water over her hand. “What the…”

Within seconds, she had a pistol aimed directly between his eyes.

Dex had expected that.

Mia stared at him through the window, exhausted because she had repeatedly asked you to stop contributing to her life becoming stranger and had been consistently ignored. Her eyes moved from his face to his empty hands, checking for blood, weapons, packages, or severed pieces of anyone she recognised.

There was nothing, and that seemed to concern her more.

She unlocked the window but only raised it several inches, leaving enough space to talk without giving him room to climb through. 

“She’s asleep,” Mia said quietly.

“I know.”

Her eyes narrowed. Of course he did.

Dex looked past her toward your bedroom door on the side, which was closed. He could picture you behind it, curled beneath the blankets, breathing into your pillow. He forced his attention back to Mia before the thought became distracting. “I need help.”

Mia’s grip shifted on the pistol.

For several seconds, she seemed unsure whether she had heard him correctly. Dex understood that he didn’t ask people for help. Help created debt and uncertainty, and it was usually more efficient to solve the problem himself.

Unfortunately, he had tried that.

Mia raised the window another few inches, though the gun remained.

Dex took the notebook from inside his jacket and passed it through the gap.

Mia didn;t lower the pistol as she took it. She placed the notebook on the counter, flipped it open with one hand, and began reading. Her expression changed as she moved through the pages: Confusion, followed by disbelief, then amusement.

Dex watched her read the record of his attempts, and when Mia reached the page headed POSSIBLE NEXT ATTEMPTS, she stopped.

The list beneath it included stealing a deed to a building, acquiring a tiger, and locating the person responsible for cancelling the brand of hot chocolate you liked three years ago.

Mia looked up. “A tiger?”

“She likes cats,” Dex shrugged.

Mia sighed. “That doesn't mean she wants a tiger.”

“I crossed it out.”

She looked at the notes again. “It says here you researched three private zoos.”

“I needed to know whether it was feasible.”

Mia shut the notebook and pressed her fingertips against her forehead. The gun was still in her other hand, but it had lowered toward the floor, apparently because exasperation had temporarily overtaken self-preservation.

Dex waited for her to provide an answer.

Instead, she looked at him through the narrow opening and began to laugh, and it was not the same laughter you gave him. Yours eventually made his chest warm. Mia’s laughter made him feel as though he had failed the test at every hurdle.

He thought about hurting Mia for making him feel humiliated, but then decided against it because you’d probably hate him for it.

“I’m serious.”

“That’s the problem,” Mia managed, keeping her voice down so she wouldn’t wake you. “You are thinking about this like you’re trying to overthrow a government.”

Dex didn’t see how that was relevant. Overthrowing a government required less guesswork.

Mia opened the notebook again and flicked through the pages, staring at each carefully planned act of violence. The laughter eventually faded, leaving behind a reluctant sympathy that Dex disliked even more.

“You’re thinking too much,” she told him.

The statement felt insulting. Thinking was how he avoided mistakes. “She told me to earn it.”

“I know. She told me everything.”

Dex’s attention sharpened. “Everything?”

Mia ignored the question. “You keep acting like there’s a secret combination of murder and theft that unlocks her mouth.”

He reached under the window for the notebook, but Mia pulled it back before he could take it. “She’s just a girl, Dex.”

He stared at her, because she wasn’t making sense.

You were not just anything. How fucking dare she insinuate that?

Mia seemed to read the objection on his face.

“I know she’s a fucking lunatic,” she continued. “I live with her. I’ve helped her sink bodies. Just… stop trying to earn the kiss by making her owe you.”

Eventually, she released the notebook back to his custody.

That had never been his intention. He didn’t want you indebted to him. He wanted you to be impressed, delighted. But perhaps those things were not as different as he had believed.

Perhaps the gesture had the undertone of the same question:

Was that enough? Do I get it now?

Mia had seen it. You probably had too.

Dex looked down at the notebook in his hands and the pages felt heavier than before.

Mia started lowering the window, apparently done with his bullshit for the night. She paused with only a narrow gap remaining. “Again,” She started, “She’s just a girl. Don’t overthink it.”

Easier said than done. 

—

For once, Dex listened.

The next time he came to see you, nobody had died.

There was no breaking-news report waiting for you that morning, no stolen artefact displayed across the front page, no mysteriously vanished Task Force officials, and no parcel on the fire escape leaking through its paper wrapping. The day passed so uneventfully that by evening, you had started to suspect Dex was planning something truly catastrophic.

You checked the news twice. Nothing.

You glanced toward the window whenever a shadow shifted outside, but the fire escape remained empty. It was nearly eight when someone knocked on the apartment door.

You looked up from the sofa.

Mia looked up from the weapon catalogue spread across her lap. She was in her bedroom with the door ajar. “You expecting someone?”

“No.”

Mia turned another page. “Weird.”

There was no urgency in the knock, no coded pattern, and no scraping sound suggesting someone was trying to slide a body across the hallway carpet.

When you opened the door, Dex was standing beneath the weak yellow light with a bunch of flowers in his hands.

For a moment, you only stared.

They were not arranged professionally. The paper around them had been folded precisely in some places and crushed in others, as though Dex had spent far too long trying to hold them without damaging anything. There were no red stones, no bloodstains, and no expensive velvet box. Just a slightly unruly collection of pale flowers and greenery, fresh enough that tiny droplets of water still clung to the petals.

Dex looked almost painfully uncertain.

He had faced rooms full of armed men with less visible tension. His shoulders were held too squarely, his fingers carefully positioned around the stems, and his eyes kept moving between your face and the flowers as though he expected one of them to tell him what to do next.

Oh. this was new.

“You… brought me flowers.”

“I uh…” Dex nodded, “yeah.”

Your eyes narrowed with suspicion as you accepted them. The paper rustled beneath your fingers, damp where the stems had been wrapped. “Did you steal them?”

“No.”

“Threaten the florist?”

He had another pause, just long enough to become concerning. “No.”

“Dex.”

“I paid.”

You looked up properly at that.

His eyes looked… defensive, as if buying flowers had required more courage than stealing a priceless necklace from a fortified vault. Maybe it had. Violence gave him a shield to hide behind. This was only Dex standing outside your door with a simple gift and no proof of obsession beyond the fact that he had remembered you might like flowers in your favourite colours.

You looked down at the flowers again.

They smelled green somehow, faintly sweet but not overwhelming. A little piece of leaf had caught against the paper near your thumb. One stem was slightly bent, probably from Dex gripping the bouquet too tightly on the journey over and then attempting to straighten it before knocking.

The imperfection made it strangely charming.

There was no note demanding that you understand what he had done for you, though you had at least expected it. There was no list of names or severed pieces of someone who had wronged you. He hadn’t even brought them as evidence that he could protect you, avenge you, or remove inconvenience from your life.

He had brought you flowers because Mia had told him you were just a girl.

And sometimes girls liked flowers their will-they-won’t-they situationship brought for them.

Finally, after all his increasingly elaborate attempts, he had tried doing something… simple.

“They’re beautiful,” you smiled,watching relief pass over his face so openly you nearly melted.

Dex’s eyes flickered toward your mouth out of habit, but he stopped himself almost immediately. He didn’t ask whether he had earned it, he didn’t even step closer or look expectant. He only stood there in the hallway, hands empty now, waiting to see whether you wanted to invite him inside.

Oh, Dex.

You stepped into the hallway and placed the flowers carefully on the console table beside the door. Dex watched you do it, cautiously hopeful, but he still didn’t move.

Without any warning, you grabbed the front of his jacket and pulled him down, pressing your lips to his.

His mouth was warm beneath yours, parted slightly with surprise, and for one suspended moment he did absolutely nothing. 

Apparently, he had failed to consider that flowers might work.

Eventually, though, he kissed you back carefully at first, as if the kiss might disappear if he wanted it too much. His hand lifted toward your waist but stopped just short of touching, every part of him still suspended between hope and disbelief.

You pulled away.

Dex followed without meaning to, his mouth chasing yours by an inch before he caught himself. His eyes opened completely dazed, and the devastation on his face made your stomach twist.

At that moment, he seemed to think that was all he was getting.

Then you smiled, tightened your fist in his jacket, and pulled him back.

The second kiss was deeper, and Dex made a soft, wrecked sound against your mouth as his hands finally settled around your waist. The restraint he had been pushed down for weeks cracked beneath your fingers. He kissed you like he had memorised every near miss: every cheek, every corner, every cruel fraction of an inch you had left between you.

Behind you, Mia peeked out her bedroom door.

Mia took one look at Dex leaning down on you in the doorway, your hands gripping his jacket and the flowers abandoned beside the door, then silently reached around the frame and pulled the door shut again.

You laughed into the kiss, breathless against his mouth.

Dex felt it in his bones, not quite believing the  fact that you were finally kissing him back without a tally to settle or another task waiting. When you eventually pulled back, he followed helplessly until his forehead rested against yours. His breathing had gone uneven, and his eyes kept dropping to your lips as if he still expected you to change your mind and put unbearable distance between you again.

“D’you wanna come in?” you asked.

Dex nodded far too quickly. “Mhm.”

It came out so pathetic and eager that you smiled, caught his hand, and pulled him through the doorway. The flowers stayed forgotten on the little table while you dragged him toward your bedroom, kissing him again before you had even made it down the hall.

Mia’s door was still shut, and Dex briefly considered knocking to offer her headphones.

Then your hands found his belt loops in his waist, your mouth moving hungrily against his, and he decided she could survive one noisy night after advising him on how to win your physical affection.

After all, she had been right.

You were just a girl, and all Dex had ever needed to do was bring you flowers.

—end.

NOTE : I genuinely love seeing all your requests in my asks, but I do get a lot and I physically can’t write every single one. I usually write the ones that catch my eye, and it’s probably every 1 in 5. 

That’s why I have Ko-fi! If you request there, it’s pretty much guaranteed I’ll write it within a month of responding as a token of appreciation (keep this post in mind for July and August 2026). If I’m uncomfortable with the request or don’t think I can do it justice, I’ll let you know and we can brainstorm something else.

Please remember I run this blog for free, so any support means a lot, only if you’re able to give it! Love y’all and thank you for reading!!! <3

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Dex taglist part 1:

Daniel Shaw had owned the movie studio currently paying your invoices, which made his sudden death inconvenient more than tragic. He had been found in his suite less than an hour ago. Someone said it was a heart attack. Another person said it was suicide after someone found a bullet in his head. It was so sudden! Your coworker kept repeating, as if the situation might become less alarming if she repeated it enough. You had worked under his studio for three months and met him properly only twice. He was charming, rich, and distant. Powerful men often were, which meant he remembered nobody’s name unless they could make him money.

You were a stunt choreographer. That put you somewhere below the director, below the producers, below the lead actress’ wellness coach, and slightly above the poor intern sent to buy twelve green juices at six in the morning. Shaw dying wasn’t personal to you, but it was close enough to your paycheck to keep you at the bar instead of going upstairs to sleep.

You took a sip of your whiskey and watched the room in the mirror behind the bottles.

That was where you found him watching you.

He didn’t look away when your eyes met, and it made you smile. Most men glanced down when caught, then looked back later with some lazy excuse written across their face. This man didn’t bother. He simply held your gaze in the mirror, almost amused, like he had known you were going to notice him and had been waiting for you to decide what to do about it.

You turned slightly on your stool. “You’re staring.”

His mouth curled up, barely. “You finally noticed.”

“I’m trained,” you shrugged, trying to keep things vague. “I notice when someone is watching me.”

He simply raised his cup to his lips. “Good to know.”

“Is it?”

“It explains the bruises.”

You looked down at your knee, where the hem of your dress had ridden up enough to show the dark bloom of a rehearsal bruise above your shin. It wasn’t your worst one this week, but it wasn’t the prettiest, either. Still, the way his eyes touched it and moved on made your skin warm, because he didn’t leer. He assessed. 

You picked up your drink and carried it down the bar to him because the night was already strange, your contract might be cancelled by morning, and you had never been especially good at leaving interesting things alone.

“Since you’re apparently studying me,” you said as you sat beside him, “what else have you learned?”

He turned his glass once against the bar top, eyes moving over your face with infuriating patience. “You’re not drunk, but you’re trying to decide if you want to be. You’re not sad, but you know you should look sadder. You’ve checked the exits twice since I sat down, and you keep favouring your left side, which means either your hip hurts or your knee does.”

“My knee,” you confirmed, hating how impressed you sounded. “And I checked the exits because this room is full of dickheads. That’s just good sense.”

He managed a small, performative frown. “They’re just film executives.”

“Eh,” you shrugged, “same difference."

This time, he smiled properly. “Fair.”

You angled your body toward him, letting your shoulder rest against the bar. “Your turn.”

“My turn?”

“What have I learned about you?”

His eyes stayed on yours. “Go ahead.”

You let yourself look, because he had started it, though that pretence felt childish and paper-thin now. He had a dark jacket on and an expensive watch worn like he didn’t  care whether anyone noticed it. His posture was relaxed, but not loose. His hands were still on the bar and had no wedding ring, no visible nerves, no grief, no curiosity for anyone in the room except you.

Your sister had taught you to read people pretty well. 

“You’re too quiet to be an actor,” you said. “You’re not a producer either, because you haven’t checked your phone every six seconds and you don’t look like you’re about to ruin someone’s career over a schedule change. You could be security, but you’re not standing like you’re being paid to watch the door.”

“Maybe I’m off duty.”

“Maybe,” you allowed. “But if you were off duty, I think you’d still know exactly who in this room was carrying, who was lying, and who would scream first if the lights went out.”

The amusement in his face was evident. “And who would scream first?”

You glanced around the bar and nodded toward a red-faced producer loudly saying Shaw had been like a father to him. “Him. But only after checking whether TMZ is watching.”

The man beside you laughed under his breath. You liked the sound too much immediately, which was annoying because you didn’t even know his name yet.

You held out your hand. “I’m not calling you stranger all night.”

His hand closed around yours. “Dex.”

“Just Dex?”

“For now.”

“That’s weird.”

“Do you like weird?”

You should have denied it. Instead, your smile gave you away. “I like interesting. Weird is reviewed on a case by case basis”

Dex didn’t release your hand immediately. He brushed his thumb over your knuckles, where tape residue still clung from that afternoon’s rehearsal. When he let go, you had to remind yourself not to stare.

“So,” he said, “stunt performer of some kind.”

You narrowed your eyes as if you were surprised that the handshake had given it away. Still, it was fun to play along, right? “Were you at the dinner?”

“Briefly.”

“And did you know Shaw?”

He considered his answer this time “Briefly.”

You chuckled, and Dex watched as if he wanted to understand the mechanics of it. It was unsettling, but it didn’t make you want to leave. If anything, it made you lean closer, because he was giving you so little that every small reaction felt like a gold star. You worked with performers all day, people trained to externalise every emotion so the camera could catch it. Dex did the opposite. He made you want to get your hands on him just to see what he was like underneath.

“What do you do, Dex-for-now?” you asked.

“Private security advising.”

You tilted your head. “That is the most fake Hollywood job I’ve ever heard.”

“It pays well.”

“I bet it does.” You smiled, “Do you consult on security, or do you just stand around looking intimidating?”

His eyes dropped to your mouth again, and this time he wasn’t quick enough to hide it. “Depends on who’s paying.”

You shifted on the stool, crossing one leg over the other, and watched his eyes flick down for the briefest second before returning to your face. 

Controlled, you thought again. He was controlled enough that making him look felt like winning.

“You know,” you said, “for a security advisor, you’re not very reassuring.”

Dex leaned slightly closer, his voice dipping beneath the noise of the bar. “And yet you came over.”

“I was bored.”

“You’re not bored now.”

You hated that he was right. You hated it more because of how certain he seemed, as if your interest was another fact he had collected. The room around you blurred into a swirl of candlelight, glass, perfume, and expensive panic. Upstairs, a billionaire was dead. Down here, this stranger watched you like you were the only interesting target. 

You took another sip of your drink. “You’re very sure of yourself.”

“With some things.”

“And with others?”

Dex’s gaze held yours. “I like to be certain before I touch.”

It was absurd how quickly a fucking line got to you. Nothing in his tone was crude, and he barely even moved. But suddenly you were thinking about his hand around yours, his thumb over your knuckles, his mouth close to your ear.

You looked away first, which made him smile. 

You didn’t answer right away. Instead, you set your glass down and let the silence stretch. Dex didn’t rush to fill it. He only watched you while the whole room kept mourning a man neither of you seemed able to miss.

Finally, you said, “My job might be gone tomorrow,” you sighed as if that didn’t affect you. It probably didn’t. Your family had enough money that you could just jet to the Bahamas tomorrow and not look back, but you actually liked the project you were working on. “That should bother me more.”

“Doesn’t it?”

“It does,” you said, then shrugged. “Just not enough to make me behave.”

Dex’s eyes moved over your face, and he shifted a little. “How badly do you want not to behave?”

Fuck. 

It was so direct. It was certainly too much, maybe, from a man you had met fifteen minutes ago in a bar full of vultures dressed as mourners. But you had spent your whole life around danger. Dex was not pretending hard enough to be safe, and the reckless part of you respected that.

You leaned close enough that your knee brushed his. “That depends.”

His breath changed. 

There. You had him.

Dex stood and offered his hand.

You looked at his hand, then at his face. “You always pick girls up in weird hotels?”

“No.” He managed a dry laugh, “you’re special.”

You laughed despite yourself and placed your hand in his.

The elevator ride up was a lesson in restraint. He stood beside you without touching you again, which made every inch of space between your bodies feel like you were pulling teeth. The mirrored walls showed you too many versions of him: his profile, his hands, the line of his throat where his shirt opened. You could feel him watching your reflection instead of your body directly, which shouldn’t have been hotter, but was.

The elevator doors opened before you could say anything.

His room was high up, expensive, and nearly untouched. There was no mess or scattered clothes. No sign that anyone had lived there longer than necessary. Los Angeles glittered beyond the windows, silver streets and distant headlights, while the door clicked shut behind you.

You turned to face him. “You’re not really a security advisor, are you?”

Dex looked at you for a long moment. “Not tonight.”

You should have asked what that meant. You should have cared. Instead, you stepped closer and reached for the open collar of his shirt, letting your fingers slide beneath the edge of the fabric.

“Good,” you said. “I’m off the clock too.”

When he kissed you, the control didn’t vanish all at once. That would have been too easy. It was slow, first with his hand at your waist, firm enough to make you gasp against his mouth. Then his other hand at the back of your neck, fingers threading into your hair as he angled you exactly how he wanted you. He kissed like a man who had thought about doing it before he allowed himself to move, like every second of restraint in the bar was hell on earth. 

You pushed his jacket off his shoulders. He let it fall without looking away from you. When you started on the buttons of his shirt, Dex caught your wrists, not to stop you, but to slow you down, his thumbs pressing lightly to your pulse points like he wanted to feel exactly what he was doing to you.

“You’re impatient,” he murmured, and for a second, you realized, holy shit. He really didn’t do these one night flings often. 

Still, the only thing you managed to say was: “You’re overdressed.”

His mouth found your neck, and your answer dissolved into a breathless laugh. He smiled against your skin. You felt it more than saw that private satisfaction, and then his hands moved again with a precision that made your knees feel unreliable. He never grabbed thoughtlessly. He touched with the same focus he had watched you with downstairs, learning what made you arch, what made your fingers dig into his shoulders.

By the time he walked you backward toward the bed, you were hot and irritated by how badly you wanted him. Dex seemed worse off for trying to hide it. His shirt was open, his hair no longer perfect because your hands had been in it, and his breathing had gone rough, making you smile against his mouth.

You pulled him down with you.

After that, the night turned feverish. It became his mouth on your skin, your dress pushed away, his hands gentle until you guided them, and suddenly they were not. He was careful in ways that made you ache and rough only when you dragged it out of him, and the first time you felt his composure slip, you laughed breathlessly because you could not help it.

Dex lifted his head, eyes narrowed. 

“You’re not as controlled as you look.”

“No,” he said, his mouth brushing yours. “Not like this.”

You believed him, though you had no reason to. Maybe that was the point. All you knew was that this was just a bad day with bad timing and a dead man upstairs whose absence had left the door to the evening just  open enough for a stranger to step through.

Later, when the room was dark and your body fell beside his, you lay with your cheek against his chest and traced one of the old scars near his ribs. He was quiet under your hand, but not asleep. You knew the difference. 

His fingers moved slowly along your spine, almost absent. “Dex?”

“Mm.”

“Were you really there for Shaw?”

His hand paused for less than a second before it continued.

“Briefly,” he said again.

You smiled into the dark because you knew he was giving you nothing, and for tonight, only tonight, you decided to let him.

You should have gone back to your own room. You should have asked better questions. You should have treated this as a stupid one night stand and pretended this never happened.

Instead, you closed your eyes and stayed exactly where you were.

—

Six months after that night, you moved to New York.

Officially, it was for work. A Broadway production had brought you on to choreograph the stage combat for a lavish, over-funded revival with sword fights, balcony falls, and a dramatic death scene that had to happen eight times a week without sending the lead actor to hospital. 

It was a good job. You even put it on exclamation points and sent it to your agent like you had made a responsible career decision.

It had absolutely nothing to do with Dex being based in New York.

Mostly.

Fine, maybe a little.

Your sister was there too, which made the decision feel less incriminating. Elektra had an apartment in Manhattan, three passports in names you were not supposed to know, and an art studio collecting ancient weapons, because technically, that was her job. 

You knew better than to ask where the acquisitions came from, and Elektra knew better than to ask why you had suddenly accepted a Broadway job in the same city as a man who called himself a security advisor and looked at you like he would happily ruin his life if you asked sweetly enough.

You and Dex had been officially dating for three months.

It was a good three months of late-night dinners, hotel room mornings, flowers delivered to rehearsal with no card because he knew you would know. It was three months of you pretending not to notice when the news mentioned a man connected to Shaw’s circle dying strangely overseas. Three months of Dex pretending his work calls were about security logistics and not whatever thing he did for people rich enough to afford him.

You knew what he was. Dex carried violence too naturally for it to be a hobby, and sometimes, when he came to you after work, the calm around him was too emptied out. He would shower before touching you, scrub himself raw, come out with damp hair and bare feet.

Your moral compass had raised one weak little hand in protest, but then Dex had kissed you against your kitchen counter, murmured sweetheart like a prayer, and made your entire sense of right and wrong pack a bag and leave the state.

Maybe that made you terrible. Maybe it made you Elektra’s sister after all.

Or maybe Dex was just so unfairly, stupidly, devastatingly hot that you just kept getting distracted.

And Dex knew that you knew after the first month or so, when you jokingly called him Hot John Wick.

Dex had always expected you to figure it out sooner or later. He knew you were a smart girl. He just didn’t realise you’d figure out this soon. 

Instead of being shocked though, he just raised his eyebrows and said, “John Wick is already hot.”

You chuckled and pulled him close. “Shut up and take it as a compliment that I find you even hotter.”

“Yes ma’am.”

And that was that. 

—

Earlier today, you had texted Dex and asked if he could come over and cuddle. 

Ha. 

You were already on the couch when he got in, cozy in sleep shorts and an oversized hoodie, one fuzzy sock half-off your foot, your body tired from rehearsal and your brain still muddled with stage falls, sword cues, and actors who didn’t understand that “again from the top” didn’t mean “try to improvise a stabbing.”

Dex took off his coat and looked at you like he had been waiting all day to come home to you.

“You’re late,” you said.

“‘M sorry.”

He came closer, and you let him pull you up just so you could immediately drag him down with you again. Dex caught himself over you with one hand braced beside your head, his knee sinking into the couch, his body warm and heavy enough above yours to make your whole chest loosen.

He kissed you, mouth moving over yours like he wanted to settle there. Like he needed a minute to remember what it felt like to be wanted without being useful. You went pliant underneath him almost immediately, because apparently that was what you did now. You let murderers kiss you tenderly on your couch and call it romance.

His hand slid beneath your hoodie and you hummed against his mouth.

Dex’s palm dragged up your ribs, then paused over your breast, cupping you through the thin fabric beneath like he was not even trying to pretend the cuddling was innocent anymore. His thumb moved once, and your breath caught hard enough for him to smile into the kiss.

“Dex,” you murmured.

“Mm.”

“That is not cuddling.”

“It’s close.”

His mouth dipped to your throat, and the laugh you tried to give him turned embarrassingly quiet halfway out. He knew exactly what he was doing. 

His hand slid down again over your waist, then your hip, then lower.

He pushed his body down yours, mouth tracing heat along your neck while his fingers found the waistband of your shorts. He tucked himself there, resting under the elastic, knuckles brushing warm skin.

Dex loved having his finger between your legs, knowing he can’t seem to miss the sweet spot, ever. Which meant you knew exactly how to make him suffer.

His fingers started to slip lower, and you caught his wrist.

Dex stopped.

Slowly, he lifted his head, looking offended, as if you had interrupted him mid-prayer.

“Sweetheart,” he said carefully.

You smiled. “My birthday is coming up.”

For a second, he just stared.

His wrist flexed under your fingers as you held it still. “I know.”

His thumb slipped under the edge by half an inch, expecting you to give in, but your hand only tightened, keeping him out of your shorts still.

Then his eyes lifted to yours, already suspicious. “Baby.”

You smiled. “Ah-ah.”

His gaze narrowed. “What are you doing?”

“Negotiating.”

“With my hand?”

“With your access,” you corrected

His desire didn’t disappear. It only got interrupted by confusion. “You’re blackmailing me.”

“I’m making a birthday request.”

His eyes flicked down to where you were holding his wrist. “With leverage.”

You held back a chuckle, trying your best to look innocent. “Smart girls use leverage.”

Dex opened his mouth, then closed it again.

You smiled sweetly. “That’s what I thought.”

For a second, he looked like he wanted to argue. Unfortunately for him, he also wanted control of his hand back very, very badly. “What do you want, pretty girl?” he asked.

You knew he meant presents, like actual presents. He was prepared to buy his way out of this. Hitman money in New York apparently paid well enough that Dex looked genuinely prepared for you to name something like a weekend in Paris.

You tightened your grip on his wrist. You looked up at him, very pleased with yourself. “I want you to meet my sister.”

Dex went still, much more still than when you had called him a hitman for the first time, actually, which told you a lot about his priorities.

“Your sister,” he said.

“Yes.”

“For your birthday.”

“Yes.”

“That’s what you want?”

“That’s what I want.”

He looked at you like you were a puzzle he hadn’t been hired to solve. Dex looked down at his trapped hand, then back at your face. “You’re really withholding this until I say yes.”

“Yes.”

“Fuck.”

His teeth clenched as your thumb stroked idly over the inside of his wrist. You were not even trying to be seductive with it, but Dex watched the movement like it was actively shortening his lifespan.

“Baby,” he said.

“Mm?”

“Let go of my hand.”

“Say yes.”

“You don’t play fair.”

He made a sound that was half a laugh and half suffering. “You know I adore you, right?”

“Then say yes.”

Dex lowered his head until his forehead rested against yours. His eyes closed briefly, like he was gathering strength. It was ridiculous. He could probably walk into a guarded room and come out alive without messing up his hair, but you asking him to attend one birthday dinner had him acting like you had handed him a bomb with a pink bow on it.

“You haven’t told me anything about her,” he said.

“She’s my sister.”

“That’s not information.”

“She’s important to me.”

It managed to shut him up. 

You sighed, just a little, though you still didn’t let go of his wrist. “I want her to meet you. Isn’t that enough information?”

Dex opened his eyes, and he looked almost undone by it.

You kissed him lightly. “Please.”

His breath caught.

You knew that would get him.

“Don’t,” he murmured.

“Please, Dex.”

“Sweetheart.”

“For my birthday.”

He stared at you with the exhaustion of a man who had never stood a chance. “Fine,” he sighed. “I’ll meet your sister.”

Your smile bloomed. “You’ll be nice?”

“I’ll be polite.” Dex looked pointedly at his wrist. “Can I have my hand back now?”

You hummed like you were thinking about it.

His eyes darkened. “Baby.” His mouth brushed yours.

Eventually, you released his wrist.

Dex didn’t move immediately, even though he had been desperate two seconds ago.

Dex kissed you first, like he was still thanking you for wanting him at dinner. His hand slipped lower and you gasped against his mouth, laughing breathlessly when you felt his smile.

“Now,” he hummed, “where were we?”

—

You and Dex stood outside Elektra’s apartment door with his hand at the small of your back and enough tension in his shoulders to make you bite back a smile.

For a man who had once admitted, very calmly, that he preferred entering buildings through service corridors because front doors made people too expectant, he had spent an absurd amount of time preparing for your birthday.

He had brought you flowers first, an arrangement of red ranunculus, white anemones, dark tulips, and little sprigs of jasmine tucked between them because he remembered you once saying jasmine smelled like nights in expensive hotels. 

You had stared at it for so long that Dex had asked,  “Too much?”

“No,” you said, already smiling like an idiot. “It’s beautiful.”

Only then had he relaxed.

The second gift was smaller, slim black leather notebook with your initials pressed into the bottom corner in gold, the pages thick enough for blocking notes, sketches, injury reports, and all the frantic choreography scribbles you usually left on call sheets and napkins. Inside the front cover was a thin metal bookmark shaped like a tiny sword.

You had smiled, and he looked painfully pleased with himself.

Then, because he was Dex, he had stopped in a supermarket on the way there and very pragmatically asked, “What kind of wine does your sister like?”

“Expensive.”

He only nodded.

Now he stood beside you holding a bottle that probably cost more than your weekly food shop, his jaw tight, his scarred face composed, his coat immaculate. He looked less like a boyfriend arriving for dinner and more like a man approaching a guarded border with falsified papers and a personal stake in crossing.

“You know she’s not going to fucking kill you.” You nudged him gently.  “She made dinner. That’s basically a peace offering.”

“She made dinner for you,” Dex said flatly. “I’m the complication.”

Right.

Dex didn’t care about charming people for the sake of being liked. He didn’t need Elektra’s approval because he wanted a pleasant evening or a normal story to tell later. He needed it because Elektra mattered to you, and she was the one person whose opinion could matter. Because, in Dex’s mind, your sister was not an enemy. She was a hurdle to get to you more permanently. That’s all.

You turned toward him and straightened his collar, even though it was already perfect. “Be nice.”

Then the door opened.

Elektra stood there in silk trousers and bare feet, beautiful in the effortless way she had always been beautiful. Her eyes moved from you to Dex, then to the flowers in your arm and the wine in his hand.

“Well,” she said, “at least he brings tribute.”

You managed to chuckle. “Elektra.”

Dex offered the bottle and said, very flatly, “Thank you for having me.”

Elektra took it, glanced at the label, and lifted one eyebrow.

You could practically see Dex winning one microscopic point in a war he had invented entirely inside his own head.

“Come in,” Elektra said.

Dex’s hand found your back again as you stepped inside.

He was here. He was trying. 

From somewhere deeper in the apartment, a familiar voice called, “Are they here?”

Dex stopped, and not enough for Elektra to notice, maybe. 

Then Matt Murdock appeared at the edge of the dining room, one hand against the wall, his red glasses reflecting apartment light.

Dex’s voice changed.

“Oh.” he said, “Murdock.”

Matt seemed to recognize the voice immediately because his head tilted in recognition.

Wait.

Wait. 

What?

“You two know each other?” Your voice cut through the apartment before anyone else could decide what kind of lie to tell.

Elektra, of course, looked delighted. “Oh,” she raised an eyebrow. “Interesting.”

You turned on her. “Don’t start.”

Matt’s mouth twitched, but the almost-smile disappeared quickly.

Dex’s hand hovered over your back, not quite touching you now, which irritated you more than it should have. 

You looked at Matt again, your confusion finally catching up with the rest of the room. “I didn’t even know you were coming.”

Matt’s mouth softened when he turned toward you. “Happy birthday.”

You blinked at him. “I didn’t even know you and Ellie were back together.”

Beside you, Elektra took a thoughtful sip of her wine like this was all very normal and not at all insane.

“We are,” she said.

You stared at her.

Matt’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Apparently.”

Despite everything, despite Dex standing beside you like a wire pulled too tight, you felt a laugh threaten the back of your throat, because this was them. This had always been them.

You had known Matt since high school, back when Elektra was in college for art history. Your sister brought him home during holidays with the same indifference she used for all things she secretly cared about. You remembered him at your family table, too stubborn and too principled for his own good, arguing with Elektra about morality while she stole food off his plate. You remembered being younger and thinking their breakups sounded serious until Matt appeared again two months later with flowers.

So no, Matt being here was not strange. Matt being here with Elektra again wasn’t even that strange.

Matt recognizing your boyfriend was the problem.

You looked between them. “How do you know each other?”

Dex went quiet.

“Our paths crossed professionally,” Matt said.

You stared. “How vague.”

“That’s all you need to know,” Dex said. 

Elektra’s smile widened behind her glass.

Matt looked worried, but it wasn’t really dramatic. Matt never looked dramatically anything unless Elektra was bleeding or lying to his face. But you knew him. You knew the slight tension in his mouth, the way he seemed to listen to more than what people were saying.

“You look worried,” you said.

Matt paused. “I’m not worried.”

“Matthew.”

Dex’s eyes twitched at the familiarity in your voice.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

You glanced back at him and found him standing there with perfect manners, trying very hard not to strangle a blind man from across the table for no apparent reason.

Elektra noticed too, and naturally, this pleased her.

“Well,” she said, stepping aside to let everyone further into the apartment. “This is already a much better birthday dinner than I expected.”

“It is my birthday dinner,” you said. “Not an interrogation.”

“That depends entirely on your boyfriend.”

Dex looked at Elektra then.

For the first time since the door opened, his attention moved to your sister, realising the human hurdle had a knife in its hand.

You sighed and clutched your flowers a little tighter.

Matt stepped closer. “It really is good to see you.”

Your irritation waned, because he sounded sincere, so you hugged him.

Matt hugged you back, one hand warm between your shoulders, gentle in the way he had always been somewhat of a big brother to you. “Happy birthday, kid.” he said again, quieter this time.

“Thank you,” you muttered. “Even though all of you are being weird.”

“We’ve barely started,” Elektra said.

“That is exactly what I’m afraid of.”

When you pulled away from Matt, Dex was still watching him.

You looked at the three of them and pointed toward the dining room. “Everyone sit down,” you said. “And someone is going to explain what professionally means before dessert.”

—

Dinner began with Elektra leading you to the table, Matt followed by memory, and Dex stayed close enough behind you you could feel him breathing on your neck. The food was already laid out, far more elaborate than she had admitted over the phone, with candles burning between the plates and your cake waiting beneath a glass cover on the counter.

You sat beside Dex. Matt took the chair opposite him, and Elektra sat beside Matt with the calm of someone who had accidentally arranged the most interesting seating plan possible.

For the first few minutes, the conversation stayed on you. Your birthday, your Broadway production, the lead actor who kept trying to make the sword fights faster, the balcony rig that had failed inspection twice. Matt asked intelligent questions and Elektra asked whether anyone deserved to be pushed from the balcony for real. Dex was deathly silent, and you assumed it was for fear of saying the wrong thing and losing Elektra’s favour, which in turn meant losing your favour, too.

Then, Matt mentioned teaching now, and your eyes went as wide as dinner plates. 

“Holy shit,” you managed. “Professor Murdock?”

Matt had laughed under his breath. “That surprised you?”

“A little. Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

Then you had turned to Dex, trying to make it casual, trying to move the night away from whatever ugly thing was coiling beneath the table. See? this is fine, you tried to say with your eyes 

Well. It was until Matt decided to say, “And Poindexter, you’re still in security?”

Dex’s eyes had flicked to Matt for half a second.

“Yeah,” he said, with his hand warm on your knee, “She knows my work.”

Matt had gone still.

Dex hadn’t smiled, but you felt the satisfaction in him anyway. 

You could feel him think, Matt cannot use that against me.

Except Matt kept going.

Matt didn’t sound like he wanted to humiliate him. He sounded worried, and maybe that was what made Dex more anxious. Accusation, he could meet. Concern made him look like an animal.

And because you had no idea what the fuck to do, you blurted out the one thing you probably shouldn’t have. 

“Um,” you choked out. “Would you like to tell us how you met?”

Oh fuck. 

Mistake, you could tell from the way Dex was looking at you now. Big mistake.

“It was years ago,” Matt said finally. “During my work on a civil suit. Nelson, Murdock, and Page represented several former employees of a private security firm.”

Dex’s thumb stopped moving on your knee.

Matt continued. “We found evidence of illegal surveillance, witness intimidation, and coercion.”

Elektra leaned back slightly, actively thinking of Dex’s bad influence on you now. 

Dex’s face didn’t change.

“He worked for them?” Elektra asked.

Matt’s head angled toward Dex. “Ask him.”

Dex’s teeth shifted once.

You felt the violent urge in him before you saw it. His body didn’t lunge and his hand didn't move. But you could tell he was thinking of hurling a fork in Matt’s direction. 

You put your hand over his and squeezed hard.

Dex’s eyes snapped to you.

You didn’t say anything. You only dug your fingers into the back of his hand, right where the skin was thin over bone. It was a warning, a plea not to escalate things. Your nails pressed in harder when his eyes moved back toward Matt.

Dex. You warned with your eyes. 

His nostrils flared.

Please don’t.

Matt kept speaking, unaware or too aware. “His name came up in access logs and reports.”

Dex’s hand flexed under yours.

You pressed harder, until your nails broke skin. A tiny crescent of blood welled beneath your thumb, bright against him.

Dex looked down, and that’s what did it. All the focus in him fractured around the sight of your hand gripping his hard enough to hurt him, your fingers trembling. This was your silent refusal to let him become the thing Matt was describing right in front of you.

Though the haze in his mind didn’t disappear, he turned his face away from Matt. It came back to you and the fact that you were frightened enough of what he might do to stop him with pain.

Dex swallowed. Under the table, he turned his hand over and caught your fingers carefully, like he was afraid you might pull away.

Matt was still talking, though.  “One witness was hospitalised the night before deposition. Another vanished for three days and came back with a different story.”

Elektra looked at Dex. You looked at Matt. Dex looked at nobody but you.

“And nothing stuck,” Dex said.

His voice was too controlled.

Matt paused. “No.”

Dex’s fingers tightened around yours once, not enough to hurt, enough to ask whether you were still there.

You were.

You hated that you were.

Dex’s eyes finally lifted to Matt again, and there it was: you knew he wanted to fucking hurt him, and not because Matt was lying. Because Matt was telling the truth in front of you. Because Matt had dragged a past version of him into your sister’s dining room and set it between the candles.

Your grip tightened again.

Dex breathed in slowly, then he looked at you.

You shook your head once. Please.

The fight went out of his shoulders by force, not surrender. He leaned back a fraction, still holding your hand under the table, your bloodied little nail marks hidden between his fingers like a secret.

Elektra set her wine down. “Dex,” she said. Her voice was smooth. “Can I speak with you?”

You looked at her immediately. “Ellie.”

“Privately.”

Dex didn’t answer right away.

His thumb moved over your fingers once. There was blood on his skin because of you, and somehow that made his touch gentler.

“It’s fine,” he said.

It was absolutely not fine. He stood anyway.

Before he followed Elektra, he bent close enough that his mouth brushed your temple. It was not quite a kiss and more like proof of control. 

Then he left with your sister as the balcony doors shut behind them.

For a second, you only stared at the glass, watching Elektra turn on him with folded arms while Dex stood very still in front of her, hands visible, every inch of him pretending he had not almost lost himself at your birthday dinner.

Matt was still across from you when you turned back to him slowly.

He looked… worried.

You wiped your thumb against your napkin, and tried to breathe like your heart was not still stuck somewhere in your throat.

“Ummmm,” you said, because if you started with Dex, you might cry. If you started with the lawsuit, you might scream.

Matt turned his face toward you.

“So,” you said, voice smaller than you wanted it to be. “Are you sticking around this time?”

Matt didn’t answer right away.

That was very Matt of him.

He sat across from you at Elektra’s dining table with one hand curled near his wine glass, head angled faintly toward the balcony doors. Outside, your sister had Dex backed into a conversation you could not hear properly through the glass. Elektra’s arms were folded. Dex’s hands were visible at his sides.

That alone told you he was trying very, very hard.

You watched them for another second, then looked back at Matt.

“So,” you said, because there was no clean way to ask it. “Are you sticking around this time?”

 Matt swirled a bit of his wine. Awkward.

“I… think so,” he said.

You stared at him. “You think so?”

The smile he gave you was small. “I’m trying.”

“Mmm. Very convincing.”

He huffed, almost a laugh, and it tugged at an old memory in your chest.

Because before he was Professor Murdock, he was Elektra’s on-again-off-again disaster boyfriend, and that made him your on-again-off-again big brother. He had been the person who helped you with homework at the kitchen table because Elektra said she was too busy and then corrected every other answer from across the room anyway. He had been the person who let you complain about school and teachers and boys without making you feel stupid for being young. He had been the one who said, very seriously, that no, you probably could not sue your PE teacher for being annoying, but he admired your commitment to the argument.

And then he would leave.

“She was awful last time you guys broke up,” you said.

Matt lowered his head.

You picked at the edge of your napkin. “Not in the fun way. She was actually awful.”

“What do you want me to say?” He sighed.

The candles on the table flickered between you. Elektra had made too much food, of course. Your flowers sat in a vase near the counter, lush and ridiculous and beautiful, and you could still feel the small dent of Dex’s hand where he had held yours under the table.

“She missed you,” you said. “She pretended she didn’t, obviously, but she did.”

His mouth fell.

“And I missed you,” you added, staring very hard at the napkin. “Who else do I get to complain about her to? Mom and Dad don’t give a shit anymore.”

Matt’s laugh was tiny and helpless. “I missed you too.”

That almost made you forgive him.

You looked back at him. “Then stay. Or don’t. But don’t drift in and out like we’re all supposed to just reset every time you and Ellie get bored again.”

He nodded once, accepting the hit. For a second, it felt like being sixteen again. Like he was still family, sitting at your family table.

Then his head shifted slightly.

Toward the balcony. Towards Dex.

And you felt the whole conversation distort.

Matt didn’t pounce. He was much worse than that. He eased into it, like he was only following the evidence where it naturally led.

“You know why I’m worried about your boyfriend,” he said.

You sat back and sighed. “There it is.”

“I’m not trying to start a fight.”

“No,” you shook your head. “You’re building a case.”

He didn’t deny it.

“I know you care about me,” you said. “I do. But please don’t do that... That lawyer thing with your wording. You're making me feel like I’m supposed to realise I’ve accidentally admitted something.”

“I’m not cross-examining you.”

“You are.”

“I’m asking questions.” Matt exhaled.

You hated how much you still wanted his approval, because he was one of those people who had seen you grow up and therefore they had earned the right to worry.

He leaned forward a little.

“How did he tell you about… what he does?”

You looked at him and took a sip of wine to buy yourself time. “I’m not thick.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

“No,” you said. “But he didn’t have to tell me shit for me to realise his job was more than sit around looking pretty with a gun.”

Matt’s jaw clenched slightly.

Outside, Elektra said something to Dex that made his shoulders go tense.

“He gave you a version,” Matt said.

You laughed once, without much humour. “Everyone gives a version.”

“Some versions are omissions.”

“God, you are so irritating.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t,” you cocked your head. “You think irritating is fine when you’re right.”

Matt tried again.

“There are patterns,” he said. “That’s all I’m saying.”

“Patterns.”

“Yes.”

“With Dex.”

“With men like him.”

You looked sharply at him. “Men like him.”

Matt’s mouth tightened. “Men who know exactly how much truth to give you.”

Your throat tightened despite yourself.

He heard it, because damn that freakish hearing of his was apparently still going.

His voice flattened a bit. “I don’t think you’re stupid.”

“Always very generous.”

“I mean it. I think you’re smart. I think you know more than most people would.”

You looked down at your hands.

There was still the faintest mark beneath one nail where you had dug into Dex’s skin hard enough to pull him back. You could still feel the moment he snapped back into himself. The way his fury turned, not gone, just redirected because you had asked without words.

Matt said your name, like he used to when you were younger and trying not to cry.

“I think you’re too close to the facts,” he said. You almost smiled because only Matt Murdock would say something like that at a birthday dinner.

You set the fork down. “You mean I’m biased.”

“I mean you’re involved.”

“I’m allowed to be involved in my own life.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

Matt went silent.

You looked at him now, studying his posture “Because it sounds like you think if you arrange the argument properly, I’ll reach your conclusion.”

“I think you’re making a dangerous choice.”

“There we go.”

His face soured. “He is dangerous.”

“So is Ellie.”

“She’s different now.”

“And?” You leaned forward. “And?”

Matt didn’t answer fast enough.

You lowered your voice. “We both know what she’s done. We both know what half of that collection cost before she started using invoices and whatever else she claims is legitimate now.”

“She got out.”

“Good for her.”

“I mean it.”

“So do I,” you groaned. “But she still deserves love, doesn’t she?”

Matt looked pained, and you hated hurting him. 

“You love her with a whole archive of exceptions,” you said. “But I’m supposed to treat Dex like one bad document is the entire record?”

“It’s not just one bad document—“

“It’s close enough.”

“No,” Matt said, and there was that courtroom firmness in him now. “I’m saying you probably know what the record looks like. You're just ignoring the parts you don’t want to read.”

You swallowed.

“I know what it costs,” he said. “To love someone and start making room for things you would have condemned.”

You looked toward the balcony.

Dex had turned his head slightly, like he could feel you looking. 

Matt kept going, though kinder now. “You start with mitigation. Then you start giving out exceptions. I’m just asking you to consider—”

“No.” Your voice cracked a little. “No, you’re asking me to accept your ruling.”

Matt stopped.

Ruling.

Huh. You really have changed over the two years he was gone.

You breathed in shakily. “I’m not saying you’re wrong about him. Maybe you’re not. Maybe there are things I don’t know yet. Maybe I’ll regret this so badly I’ll hear your voice in my fucking head for the rest of my life.”

Matt’s shoulders lowered. 

“But my mistakes are mine to make,” you said.

Oh. 

You saw the tiny break in his knuckles. The big-brother part of him, the one who never really had anyone but himself, the part that still remembered you as a teenager at the kitchen table with bruised knees and far too much attitude for your own good, wanting to protect you from yourself because he had loved a more bloody Elektra the way you loved Dex. 

“I don’t want to watch you get hurt,” was all he managed to say, 

You looked down. “You might have to.”

He looked down.

You reached across the table first and found his hand, because touch had always been a sensory experience he reacted to. 

“I’m not blind,” you said, then immediately groaned. “Sorry.”

Matt’s mouth twitched. “It’s fine.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do.”

“I know he’s not safe.”

Matt’s thumb brushed once over your knuckles.

“But he listens to me,” you said. “And maybe that’s not enough for you. But it matters to me.”

Matt didn’t agree, but he didn’t argue either.

For once, it felt like mercy.

Outside, you heard a scrape against the balcony table.

Matt’s head tilted. “What’s happening?”

You looked past him through the glass.

Elektra and Dex were no longer standing in their neat little interrogation positions. They looked like they were seated across from each other at the tiny balcony table, elbows planted, hands clasped, Dex’s shoulders covering half the scene. 

You blinked.

Then, despite the ache in your chest, you laughed. “I think they’re arm wrestling.”

Matt closed his eyes.

The look on his face was so exhausting that it only made you laugh harder.

—

The rest of dinner went by quickly after Elektra and Dex came back in from the balcony with no visible injuries, which you counted as a birthday miracle. 

Elektra looked smug and Dex looked composed, but there was a tightness around his lips that made you narrow your eyes. When you glanced between them and asked who won the arm wrestle, Elektra only smiled into her wine. Dex said nothing. Which, unfortunately for him, was an answer.

After that, everyone behaved, mostly. Matt stopped trying to lawyer you out of your own relationship. Dex stopped looking like he wanted to fling Matt through one of Elektra’s very expensive windows. Elektra told a horrible story about you at seventeen trying to jump from the garage roof into the pool and missing by an amount she called “humiliating but educational.” Matt laughed, Dex looked absolutely fascinated, like your teenage stupidity was precious. He asked one follow-up question, and you kicked him under the table.

By the time you left, she kissed both your cheeks, held your face for one second longer than usual, and said happy birthday one more time and told you to call her tomorrow.

Matt hugged you too, while Dex and Matt shook hands, proving to God and each other that they could survive physical contact without committing a felony.

Then Dex took you home.

You were sleepy in the car, full from dinner, cake, and emotional warfare. 

At your apartment, you kicked off your shoes by the door and padded into the kitchen for water. Dex followed, taking off his coat, watching you with that careful quiet he got when he was not sure whether he was allowed to touch you yet.

You leaned against the counter and looked at him over the rim of your glass.

“So,” you said. “Who really won?”

Dex’s expression went flat. “No.”

You smiled. “No?”

Dex flexed his hand once, as if remembering. “She’s irritating.”

You laughed. “Mmm.”

“But you love her,” he said.

Your laugh faded.

Dex leaned back against the counter opposite you, arms crossed. “And she loves you. And she’s capable of protecting you.” He said, as if it was the only metric that mattered. “So I guess I’ll try.”

You stared at him. “That is the nicest thing you’ve ever said about anyone.”

Dex rolled his eyes, but there was no bite in it. He looked tired now. Not physically, more like tired from pretending to be a decent person. 

You walked across the kitchen and took his hand.

The little marks from your nails looked worse up close. There were tiny, red, broken crescents on the back of his hand. 

“I’m sorry,” you said, trailing small kisses on them

Dex looked down at your lips touching the wounds. He shrugged as if you did what you had to do to get the result you wanted, and Dex had always been pragmatic like that. 

That night, Dex fell asleep with his arm locked around your waist.

He slept heavy, going slack against your back, his breath warm at the nape of your neck, his hand spread beneath your sleep shirt like he had reached for bare skin even in his sleep. 

Your phone pinged just after two.

Then again. Then again.

You reached for it carefully, lifting Dex’s arm just enough to drag the screen close without waking him.

It was a text…. From Elektra.

I’m glad he’s on your side.

Then the next text.

That’s still not the same thing as him being safe.

Another message came through before you could answer her.

Make an informed decision. That’s all I’m asking.

Then, she sent a link.

You stared at it for a long time in the dark.

Dex shifted behind you, his arm tightening automatically around your middle, his face pressing closer to your shoulder, still asleep. 

You opened it… and there it was. The lawsuit Dex was allegedly involved in.

The text was dense and written in bloodless language detailing private security and consultants. It detailed alleged intimidation and coercion, resulting in witnesses withdrawing statements and misplaced evidence. 

Dex’s name was there.

You read until the words blurred, until the apartment turned orange in the early morning. Dex slept against you while a colder version of him lived through depositions and sealed complaints and things nobody had ever proved.

But you knew your boyfriend. You knew he was capable of this. 

You waited for the feeling to change.

Maybe, you expected to be disgusted. Fear, more likely.

It didn’t come.

You felt the same about him as you did before. 

And of course it wasn’t fine. Matt was not wrong and Elektra wasn’t worried for no reason.

But you had always looked at the world through rose-tinted glasses.

By dawn, you closed the file.

Dex stirred when you set your phone down, as if even the sound of it against the nightstand was enough to pull some half-asleep part of him back to you.

His arm tightened around your waist first. Then he dragged you closer, face pressing blindly between your shoulder and neck, making it impossible to move even if you had wanted to.

“Sweetheart?” he mumbled, barely awake.

You hummed and covered his hand with yours.

For a second, you lay there with the lawsuit still burning behind your eyes. All those careful words and sealed statements. All those allegations circling the man in your bed like vultures.

And maybe Matt was right.

Maybe Elektra was right.

Maybe Dex was dangerous. 

But Matt had loved your sister through her murderous years, hadn’t he? So who were they to look at you like you were insane for dating an assassin?

You were now thoroughly informed, now, weren’t you?

You turned carefully in Dex’s arms until you were facing him. His eyes stayed closed, his brow furrowing faintly at the movement, but his hand slid up your back on instinct, keeping you close.

“Go back to sleep,” you whispered, kissing him softly.

Dex exhaled against your mouth, already sinking again. You tucked yourself beneath his chin, his arm heavy over your waist.

Informed decision made.

—end. 

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Dex taglist part 1:

So you found instant coffee in the back of the cupboard and made it too strong because you were already running late. You burned your tongue, while the clasp on your necklace got caught in your hair. Your tights had a ladder in them, a thin line running up the back of your calf that no one else would probably notice but that you could feel all day like a crack in glass.

You changed twice and hated both outfits.

The third one was acceptable until you got outside and realized the waistband sat weird when you walked. It pinched at one side and shifted at the other. You kept trying to fix it discreetly beneath your coat while waiting for the train, which only made it twist more.

Then the train was delayed.

You kinda wished it would’ve been canceled; it would at least have given you something to be angry about. It was delayed by six minutes, then nine, then twelve, with the announcement changing every time you looked up. The platform filled around you as a lady stood close enough behind you that her bag pressed against your back every time they moved. A man near the stairs was watching videos without headphones, and two women beside you were having an argument in furious whispers.

Your phone buzzed in your hand.

Dex. Coffee machine dead?

You stared at the message for too long.

Normally, you would have answered with something dry and funny immediately. Instead, you typed three different replies and deleted all of them because every version sounded irritated, and you were irritated, but not with him.

You sent a heart.

He replied with three.

That nearly made you cry again.

Work was not terrible enough to justify how terrible it felt.

Nobody screamed at you and nothing caught fire. You didn’t get fired or humiliated, but it was just a constant fucking drag.

An intern, a fresh graduate called Grace, stopped you before you had taken off your coat because they needed help with something they had known about since yesterday. Your computer decided to update while going to the double-booked meeting room, so everyone stood in the corridor pretending not to be annoyed while Brad from HR insisted he had reserved it first. When you finally got inside, the projector would not connect.

Then your manager, Amy said, “This should only take five minutes,” and it took forty-three.

At some point, your coworker Jack, put a hand on your shoulder from behind to get your attention.

You nearly snapped. They apologized. You apologized for reacting. Then you spent the next ten minutes thinking about whether your apology had sounded strange.

That was when you had to go to the bathroom and cry.

You sat in the last stall with the lid down, both feet planted on the floor, trying to breathe quietly so that no one would hear you. You hated crying at work and the bathroom lighting and the thin toilet paper scraping under your eyes. You hated that there was no single problem you could point to and say, there, that’s why I can’t do this today!

Your phone buzzed again.

Dex had sent you a message about going out because task force was spotted in droves on the other side of the city, and that he was going out to get them. 

Then cried harder because you missed him, even though he lived with you and you had technically seen him that morning. 

You washed your face, went back to your desk, and tried to finish the day.

At four, Dex texted that he would probably be home late.

You stared at that one until the words blurred.

It was reasonable and normal, by your standards. He worked strange hours and disappeared with even stranger explanations. You were used to eating without him. You were used to waking up with him suddenly in bed beside you, one hand finding your waist beneath the blanket.

But you had spent the whole day thinking about going home to him.

You didn’t even want to talk to him. You wanted to walk through the door and see him standing in the kitchen. You wanted him to take your bag without asking and tell you to change into a soft cotton shirt so as not to trigger your sensory issues. You wanted to sit between his knees on the sofa while he rubbed slow circles into your thighs.

Instead, you sent. Okay. Be safe.

He reacted with a heart.

You put your phone facedown and finished the last hour.

The train home was worse than the train in.

You had to stand while a wet umbrella kept brushing your ankle, even though you didn’t realise it had been raining. A man across the carriage kept coughing into his fist and then touching the pole. Every time the train stopped, more people got on and nobody got off.

By the time you reached your building, your shoulders ached from holding them up around your ears. You dropped your keys in the hallway, and the sound of them hitting the floor was so annoying that you just stood there staring at them for several seconds before bending down.

The apartment was dark when you opened the door.

You turned on the lamp instead of the main light and you took off your coat and immediately felt colder. You put it back on. Took it off again because the lining felt horrible against your skin. You stood in the living room holding it, suddenly unable to decide what to do with it even though there was a hook three feet away.

You dropped it on the floor.

Then you felt guilty because Dex liked things clean and in their place.

Fuck. 

You sat down beside it and cried with one shoe still on and one shoe off, louder than you cried in the office bathroom. You cried because the apartment smelled faintly like Dex, but he wasn’t there. You cried because you had spent the whole day being reasonable, and now there was nobody in front of you to be reasonable for.

Afterward, you felt stupid and sticky-faced, which just made the sensations worse.

You picked up the coat and put your shoes away. You sent Dex a message asking when he would be home, then deleted it before sending because you didn’t want him distracted while he was out doing very dangerous Bullseye things.

You showered instead, and the water was too hot at first, but you didn’t fix it quickly enough, so your skin felt like it was boiling across your chest and shoulders. You washed your hair. Then the wet texture clung to your back and made you angry, so you wrapped them in one of Dex’s old shirts instead of a towel because it was softer.

You put on your sleep shorts and the gray shirt of his you always stole.

It smelled like the detergent you both used now, not specifically like him, which made you strangely sad.

You tried to eat.

There were pasta leftovers in the fridge. Dex had labelled the container DO NOT EAT in black marker, then added unless you are my girlfriend beneath it in smaller writing because you had told him one you liked one of those cheesy jokes, and Dex being Dex, listened and manufactured it into his life even though he got no real enjoyment out of it. You heated it up, took three bites, and put them back because the tomato sauce was chunky, and it felt weird on your tongue even though technically, there was nothing wrong with it. .

So you made tea and forgot the bag until it went bitter.

You turned on the television, then muted it because the voice of the newscaster irritated you. The silence irritated you too, so you turned it back on quietly with subtitles.

At some point, you checked the locks twice.

You knew Dex would not use the door when he came back. He would use the fire escape.

On most nights, the thought made you smile. Tonight, you wanted him to use his key like a normal person.

You wanted to hear it turn in the lock like a warning. You wanted him to call your name from the entrance so you had time to prepare for being touched.

But whatever. He probably didn't even bring his keys.

You climbed into bed with the lamp on.

Usually, you liked Dex coming home with that focus still in his eyes. You even loved the way he sometimes stood at the foot of the bed and looked at you as if he had followed you there. You liked the games he played to rile you up, because Dex knew exactly how to frighten you without making you unsafe. You liked restraints because he checked every knot, every buckle, every inch of space between your skin and whatever held you down.

You liked being helpless when it was Dex.

Usually.

But tonight, you just wanted him.

You wanted to press your face into his chest and let him complain that your wet hair was soaking his shirt. You wanted him to ask what happened, accept “nothing” as the answer, and hold you still.

The fire escape groaned outside the window.

Then the living room window slid open, and Dex climbed in with blood on his sleeve, still.

You were in that half-sleep state where your body had gone heavy but your mind was still floating somewhere above it, listening to the hum of the television you had left on in the living room and the old pipe knocking faintly in the wall. You were even still aware of your breathing, too shallow to be restful.

You knew what Dex was like after a long night. You knew the way adrenaline ran in his body like a live wire, making him hungry and a little fucking insane. Usually, you were more than happy to let him spend the rest of it on you.

That was the arrangement, after all.

The free use thing had happened over weeks of conversations, some serious, some filthy, some with you sitting cross-legged on the bed while Dex sat on the floor taking it all in like he was memorising a mission brief. What was okay, what was not. It was discussed and re-discussed, picked apart in daylight until even Dex’s paranoid brain had nothing left to gnaw on.

You had said it first half as a joke, grinning over your mug while Dex sat opposite you at the kitchen table looking like you had just handed him a loaded gun.

“What, you don’t like the idea?” you had teased.

His eyes had gone dark in a way that made your thighs press together beneath the table. “I like it too much.”

That had been the problem, Dex had always liked you too much, wanted you too much, so you made rules.

You told him what he could do if you were half-asleep, and what he could do if you were pretending to be asleep, which was different, because sometimes you liked lying there smug while Dex tried to kiss you patiently. You knew what he could do if he came home needy. 

Most days, you loved Dex coming into the bedroom while you were still sleepy, his hands sliding under your shirt like he owned every inch of skin he found there. You loved the first drag of his mouth against your shoulder and the rough sound he made when you pressed back into him without opening your eyes. You loved pretending to be annoyed while he kissed down your spine and told you that he knew you were awake because your thighs were already sticky for him.

You loved being wanted like that, loved Dex murmuring filthy nonsense against your skin about how pretty you were, how good you were for him even when you were barely awake. You loved the way he could make free use feel less like being used and more like being worshipped.

Sometimes he was sweet about it, climbing into the bed clean and careful, gathering you back against his chest, and kissing you awake inch by inch like he had all the time in the world. He would slide one hand over your stomach and whisper your name until you made that cute complaining sound he loved, and then he would laugh like you were the best thing that had ever happened to him.

Sometimes he was not sweet, still shaking with adrenaline and put a hand over your mouth before you could say something naughty, only to kiss your temple immediately. Sometimes he pinned your wrists because you liked to fight him for show, and he liked pretending not to know you were letting him win. Sometimes he found you half-asleep and still managed to fuck you awake so thoroughly that by the time you could think again, your face was hot, your hair was a mess, and Dex was in your ear telling you how good you were for letting him have you.

You liked that.

But tonight, your body had already been handled by the entire fucking day. Your nerves had been touched and touched and touched until touch did not feel like touch anymore. It felt more like threat.

You knew that, but then Dex came home and your first thought was still I want him.

You then heard the movement of him walking around the apartment, and not like a direct line to the bathroom, or the kitchen. Not even to check the lock, which he always did even when he had just broken into his own home like a lunatic.

Instead, he was coming to you.

The bedroom door was half-open, and you kept your eyes closed.

You told yourself it was because you were too tired to move, but part of you liked the game. Part of you wanted to be found like this, buried in the middle of the bed in his shirt and your sleep shorts, pretending you hadn’t been waiting all night, helping you forget the day, forget the job, forget everything except getting his hands on the one thing in the world that belonged to him.

He stopped in the doorway, and before you knew it, the mattress dipped.

Dex was always careful at first, even when he was feral. He put a hand beside your hip, not touching yet. His breathing was slow, but not steady. You could hear the way he held himself back for the sake of a rule he wanted to break only because you had once told him breaking it in the right way turned you into putty.

His fingers touched your ankle beneath the blanket, almost testing.

Your body gave a tiny shiver.

Dex went still, before his hand slid higher, possessive enough to make heat flicker through the exhaustion. His palm travelled up the back of your calf, over the bend of your knee, over your thigh. You heard him exhale, and the sound was so hungry it made your stomach flip despite everything.

“Pretty girl,” he whispered.

Your face warmed.

Stupid body. Stupid, fucking traitorous body.

He leaned over you, and his mouth brushed the back of your shoulder where his shirt had slipped wide at the collar. He started with one kiss, quickly followed by another. It became open-mouthed and filthy, like he was trying to be gentle and got overwhelmed. His hand found your waist beneath the shirt, fingers spreading against your skin.

For one second, it worked.

Your violent, devoted, half-mad Dex came home through windows and touched you like you were the only object of desire in the universe, who could make you feel filthy and adored at the same time, who could make being half-asleep feel like the dirtiest kind of safety.

His mouth moved to your neck, hand tightened at your waist.

“Missed you,” he breathed, rough against your skin. “Been thinking about you all night.”

Your thighs pressed together beneath the blanket before you could stop them.

Dex noticed and made a small sound against your throat, almost broken with relief, and shifted closer until his body was against your back. His hand slid over your hip, tugging you back into him.

For one second, you really wanted it.

Your body remembered him before it remembered itself. It remembered all the other nights he had come home ruined and desperate and crawled into bed like your body was the only place he knew where to put the violence. It remembered waking up already breathless to his greedy hands, his mouth saying filthy, adoring things against your skin until you went undone beneath him.

For one second, you wanted to be that girl again.

Dex’s hand tightened on your hip, and your breath broke in a way that sounded enough like pleasure to confuse both of you. He pressed his face into your neck and inhaled like he was trying to crawl inside your veins.

“Color?” he asked, it was rough, but still good of him.

You meant to say yellow.

The word was right there, sitting behind your tongue. Yellow meant slow down, meant you wanted him, but you needed him kinder. It would mean this was good, but also too much. But Dex’s mouth was on your throat, and his hand was warm under your shirt, and you had missed him so badly all day that admitting you needed less felt like losing him for a stupid reason.

So you said, “Green.”

Dex exhaled against your skin. “Yeah?” he murmured.

You nodded, eyes still closed.

You should have said yellow again then. You should have corrected yourself because there was still a good amount of space to do it, while his hand was only at your waist and his mouth was only at your neck, but your mind was gone and your body had betrayed you with that little shiver, and Dex had never been the best at reading the small things. He was more a flashing lights kinda guy.

Feelings had to be handed to him with both hands. It had had to be said plainly, right in front of his face, with no riddles and no hoping he would guess. Dex, through no fault of his own other than his upbringing, didn’t always know the difference between you trembling because you were turned on and you trembling because your nerves were fraying apart unless you told him.

He caught your hip and flipped you onto your back in one rough movement, fast enough that the mattress jolted under you and your breath left in a startled little sound. Dex was above you immediately, one knee between your thighs, one hand braced beside your head, his eyes blown wide with whatever the night had left in him. There was blood at the edge of his collar, and a smear of it near his wrist. His hair was damp from the rain, falling over his forehead in a way that made him look more unhinged at the same time.

“Missed you,” he said, voice wrecked.

Your stomach flipped.

Fuck, he was beautiful like this. Even terrifying,  he was beautiful, and you had built so much of your wanting around those two things. Dex looked down at you like he wanted to ruin you and worship whatever was left. 

His hand slid to your chin, possessive.

Your thighs pressed together on instincts held apart by his leg between them.

“Mmm ,” he whispered. “My pretty girl.”

Heat curled in you, slick and stupid, even as your skin prickled at the edges. Your bad day had not killed the part of you that loved being grabbed by him, turned by him, handled by him. You loved Dex rough because Dex rough still meant Dex focused, Dex obsessed, Dex so fucking hungry for you that the rest of the world could plunge itself into a void and he wouldn’t give two shits.

His mouth was on yours before you could think. The kiss was hard enough to make your head press back into the pillow. His hand stayed at your chin, holding you there while he took your mouth in a way that made your body go loose for him out of habit. You kissed him back, finger catching the front of his shirt, and when you pulled, Dex made a groan against your lips Then his hand went to the hem of your shirt.

His shirt, technically. He dragged it up your body impatiently, and the cool air hit your skin. You lifted your arms for him before you remembered you were tired. 

“Fuck,” he breathed.

Your face went hot.

He threw the shirt behind him.

Usually, you would have laughed and he would have said something deadpan and filthy enough to shut you up. Tonight, the loss of the shirt made you feel exposed too quickly, like your body had not agreed to be perceived that much even if your mind wanted to. 

But then Dex kissed down your throat, and you forgot for a second.

His hands were everywhere, greedy at your waist, your ribs, your thighs, reminding himself you were real, coaxing himself out of whatever horror he had done.

You arched under him, and that was honest too.

Your back lifted as your hands found his shoulders. He caught both your wrists in one hand and pressed them above your head, pinning them there against the pillow.

His eyes lifted to yours, fever-bright. “Yeah?”

You swallowed, and this time, no color came out.

Dex took it for yes because it did feel like a yes to you. Usually, you liked being held down. Tonight, you were too tired to know the difference.

Dex reached for the drawer beside the bed.

Your heart jumped, not in fear at first, but in anticipation.

You knew that drawer and what was in it. The rope came out in his hand.

Your breath caught.

“Still green?” he asked.

Say yellow.

Say yellow.

Say yellow.

You looked up at him, at the way his chest rose and fell. You thought about the whole day: the train, office, light, the way you had cried on the hallway floor because your coat had fallen.

You thought, I can take it.

So you said, “Green.”

Dex looked relieved and hungry and dangerously grateful, like he had been waiting all night for permission to stop being human in exactly the way you usually loved.

He tied your wrists to the headboard, roughly, because he was Dex.

He checked the space between rope and skin automatically, two fingers, always. Your wrists went up as the expensive silken rope was bound to the bedframe. 

Your body went liquid for one dizzy second.

You loved the helplessness that made your brain melt in a good way. It was a dirty drop of the heart, knowing you couldn’t reach for him now unless he let you. You loved how Dex looked at you when you were restrained, like your trust was the most intimate thing you had ever given him. 

“Look at you,” he whispered.

You looked at him looking at you, and for a moment, it was perfect.

Then the rope shifted just slightly. The knot didn’t tighten or hurt. Still, it felt wrong.

The texture scraped your skin in a way it never had before. You could feel every fiber, every point of contact. Your skin pressing against the rope seemed to get louder than everything else in the room somehow, louder than Dex’s breathing, louder than your own heartbeat. 

Your fingers flexed, and the rope moved again.

Your stomach dropped.

No.

You tried to breathe through it.

You tried to get the good feeling back. You tried to look at Dex, at his face, at the hunger you usually loved so much. You tried to remind your body that this was chosen and safe and that Dex had checked. That you had said green twice. That you loved this. You loved this. You loved this!

But the rope kept touching you and it felt like pure, crawling wrongness. The feeling started at your wrists and travelled up your arms until your shoulders froze and your chest went tight. The knot might as well have been around your throat for how quickly your breathing changed.

Dex lowered his mouth to your chest, still murmuring something against your skin,filthy and half-mad.

You barely heard it as your eyes filled.

At first, you did not even know you were crying. Then a tear slipped sideways into your hair, then another.

Dex felt you go still, and this time, he noticed immediately.

His head lifted. “Hey,” he said.

You blinked hard, but the tears came faster.

Dex froze above you, that predatory stance gone now. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked, panic filling the back of his eyes, unable to read your thoughts.

You couldn’t answer.

His eyes moved over your face, your mouth, your chest, your wrists. He looked almost frantic trying to identify the injury. Was it blood? Bruises, pulled shoulder? Dex was good at identifying wounds. 

Emotions made him useless unless you labelled them for him, but this was blatant enough that even Dex understood something was wrong.

“Baby,” he said, voice suddenly stripped bare. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

Your breath caught as the rope brushed your wrist again when you moved.

You made a horrible little sound, unable to speak.

Dex’s eyes snapped to your hands.

“What?” he said, reaching up but not touching yet. “The rope?”

You nodded once, almost ashamed.

He nodded grimly. “What about the rope?”

“I-It feels wrong,” you choked.

Dex went white.

Your fingers flexed again, and the texture dragged at your skin, and suddenly you couldn't bear it for one more second. Not even half of one. Your whole body reacted around the rejection, and the word  whispered out of you before you had decided to say it. “Red.”

Dex moved instantly.

His hand went to his belt and to his weapons, and for one horrifying second your body thought knife and almost spiralled further under, but Dex was not looking at you like that anymore. 

He pulled the blade free with the same face he wore disarming a bomb.

“Don’t move,” he said, practical.

He didn’t untie the rope, because untying took time.

Dex cut it, a clean slice through the first binding, then the second. The rope fell away from your wrists in loose pieces, useless on the pillow, and Dex threw the knife across the room like he couldn’t stand to have it near you a second longer.

Your arms dropped free, and he was already backing away.

Dex had stopped being a man and become an emergency response. His shoulder hit the dresser, hands lifted, palms open.

You were crying, that was all he saw.

Because of me, he thought.

“I’m away,” he said, a little too loudly and too quickly. “I’m away. I’m not touching you.”

His voice was flat. Dex had never been truly calm a day in his life, so was just forcing panic into a box in his mind that was labeled “procedure.”

You tried to say his name, but it came out broken, and it made him worse.

“I’ll go,” he said. “I can go. I should go. You need space. You need me out. I’ll go to the living room. No, not the living room, that’s not far enough. I’ll go downstairs. Outside. I can wait outside. I won’t come back until you tell me. I won’t touch you, I won’t—”

“Dex—”

“I hurt you.”

You wiped at the tears from your eyes now. “Y-you didn’t.”

He wasn’t listening.

His eyes kept dropping to your wrists. His mouth had gone pale and his hands were still up, still shaking slightly like he didn’t trust them anywhere near you.

You said red and you’re crying, was all he could think of.

“I hurt you.” he said, words coming faster now. “I scared you. I tied you down and you cried. I had a knife in my hand. I shouldn’t have had the knife, I knew I was—”

“Dex.”

“I’ll go.”

You tried to get back up, but even the sheets were starting to crawl as you were getting more and more overwhelmed. “N-No.”

“I need to go.”

“Dex,” it came out breathy.

“I need to not be near you right now.”

“Nuh-uh. Dex—”

“I can’t be the reason you’re looking at me like that.”

You were crying harder now because he was spiralling, and you were spiralling, and the two of you were dragging each other down in opposite directions. Dex kept retreating. You kept trying to pull him back with a voice that was too fragile to reach him.

He turned toward the door, and you finally snapped.

“I need you!”

He froze.

The shout tore out of you raw, loud enough to hurt your throat. Dex stopped like you had fired a warning shot.

You shoved yourself upright, blanket slipping around your waist, cheeks wet, chest heaving.

“Stop,” you sobbed. “Don’t you dare fucking leave while I’m-I’m l-like this.”

His face fell, panic still prevalent. “I’m trying not to make it worse.”

You choked on a breath. “You are making it worse!”

Dex went still.

You pointed at the floor like you could physically pin him there with the gesture. “You are standing over there looking at me like you’re a monster and you keep talking about leaving and I can’t— I can’t do this too, okay? I can’t comfort you while you’re trying to punish yourself. I need you.”

He looked devastated, and maybe that meant he was finally listening.

“I just—” Your voice broke, and the next words came out almost screamed, because gentleness wasn’t cutting it anymore. “I just need you to hold me, you fucking idiot!”

Dex stared at you, looking completely lost.

Every terrible conclusion he had been building in his head had slammed into that sentence like a shield and shattered at his feet.

“You want me to hold you?” he asked, barely audible.

“Yes,” you cried. “Jesus Christ, yes.”

His hands lowered by an inch.

“But I scared you.”

“Because I was already scared of everything,” you managed through gritted teeth. 

“You said red.”

“And you stopped!”

You could see it finally go through to him. His eyes flicked to the cut rope, then to your wrists, then back to your face. He was still terrified of himself, but he stopped backing away.

“I need you clean,” you said, voice shaking. “Then I need you here.”

He moved immediately.

Thank God.

Giving him an instruction helped him. Dex disappeared into the bathroom with stiff purpose, and you heard water slam on. As he scrubbed his hands too hard. You heard him almost losing it over the sink and forcing himself not to because you had not asked for that.

When he came back, the blood was gone.

His shirt was gone too, replaced with the white sleeveless one you liked, because it made him look less like he had crawled out of an alley and more like the man who lived here. Your man, who slept with one hand searching for you.

He stopped by the bed, still afraid to presume after what happened.

You opened your arms.

He climbed onto the bed slowly, gave you every second to change your mind, and only closed his arms around you when you grabbed the front of his shirt and dragged him in.

Then he was truly in, and you folded into him.

You cried into his chest with both fists clenched in his shirt, and Dex held you like he was learning how to touch you all over again. 

“Tighter,” you sobbed.

His arms tightened.

“More.”

He held you properly then, careful but not distant. His chin tucked over your head, one hand spread between your shoulder blades, the other on your back, keeping you against him without trapping you. You could feel his heartbeat racing under your cheek, and still, yours was worse.

For a while, neither of you said anything.

Words had been too much all day. Everything had been too much all day. So this was good.

Dex pressed his mouth to your hair.

“I just had a bad day,” you whispered into his chest.

His arms tightened again.

You felt him inhale. “All day?” he asked.

You nodded.

His hand flexed against your back.

He wanted to ask, you could feel it. He wanted names, causes, targets, so he could follow them home and put them through a wall for making you feel like this. But for once, he held it in.

You cried harder, because he was warm and clean and finally close enough. “I meant to say yellow,” you whispered.

His chest stopped moving for a second.

“I know,” you added, before he could spiral again. “I know I said green. I know. I just wanted to be okay. I wanted it to be like usual.”

Dex didn’t speak for a long moment.

Then he held you a little closer and pressed his cheek to the top of your head. “Okay,” he said roughly.

It sounded like he was swallowing glass.

You pulled back just enough to look at him. His face was serious, jaw tight, laying in bed with the woman he loved crying all over his shirt, trying to work out how to shoot a bad day.

And then, with absolute sincerity, he asked, “Do you want me to kill anyone?”

You stared at him.

He meant it.

Fuck. 

It was so shocking, so cathartic, that a sudden laugh burst out of you, half-strangled against his chest. You tried to stop it, but the look on his face only made it worse. He frowned slightly, earnest, still holding you like he would rather die than move wrong.

“I’m serious,” he said.

You laughed harder. “Dex.”

“What?”

“You can’t kill someone because I had a bad day.”

His brow furrowed. “Why not?”

“Oh my God.”

“If there’s a person responsible—”

“There isn’t.”

“There’s usually a person responsible.”

“There was Brad from HR.”

You blinked at him. “How do you know about Brad from HR?”

“You texted me about him once.”

“That was, like, six months ago.”

“I remember things.”

Despite yourself, you laughed again.

You buried your face against him again, laughing and crying at the same time until you could barely breathe. Dex still looked confused, but his arms settled securely around you. He understood this much, at least, when you pressed closer instead of pushing him away.

“I don’t need you to kill anyone,” you murmured once the laughter faded.

“Okay.”

“I just need you to hold me.”

His mouth pressed to your hair again. “That I can do,” he said.

And he did, held you until your breathing slowed, until the room stopped feeling like it was on fire. 

After a while, very quietly, he added, “I would, though.”

You huffed a tired laugh into his shirt. “I know, honey.”

His arms tightened carefully around you.

“Just checking,” he said.

And because it was him, because he meant it with his whole heart, because the day had been awful and you were safe now, you laughed one last tiny laugh into the dark.

Dex held you like that until you slept.

—end. 

buy me a ko-fi here!

Dex taglist part 1:

The circle was small, just ten people. Twelve if you counted the man asleep near the radiator and an elderly woman named Marie, who was knitting. The coffee was bad and the biscuits were stale. The walls were decorated with cheerful little posters about honesty and surrender and hope, which made you want to peel your skin off because honesty was hard, surrender sounded humiliating, and hope felt like a last resort people offered you when they had run out of practical advice.

Then the chair beside you scraped.

You looked over.

The man at the door had now approached you. 

Up close, he looked simultaneously worse and prettier, too, which was annoying. He looked tired, probably not attributed to a single bad night but to years stacked inside him. He had clear blue eyes and dark stubble. His left hand stayed in his pocket. His right hand still held the coffee like a prop.

“Seat taken?” he asked.

You blinked at the twenty empty chairs around the circle. “No,” you said.

He managed a smile before you sighed and moved your bag.

He sat down.

Neither of you really spoke for the rest of the sharing. A man named Dennis talked about hiding vodka in a mouthwash bottle. Marie talked about walking past the same liquor store six times and going home crying but sober. Someone laughed and another cried. The last person said they were ninety days clean and the room clapped.

You clapped too, but it was a second late.

The man beside you didn’t clap. He looked at his hand instead, like he had forgotten what applause was for.

When the meeting leader asked if anyone new wanted to introduce themselves, the room went quiet in that gentle, expectant way that made you want to crawl into the carpet.

You stared at your shoes.

The man beside you exhaled.

“I’m James,” he said.

Every head turned.

His voice was rough around the edges. He sounded like he was confessing a crime instead of a name.

“Hi, James,” the room said.

His jaw flexed. He hated that. You could tell immediately. 

He looked down at his coffee. “I don’t know if I’m supposed to be here.”

Nobody interrupted. Nobody corrected him.

His thumb rubbed once over the rim of the paper cup. “I can’t get drunk.”

Your eyes flicked to him.

He said it like a punchline without the mercy of being funny.

“I used to be able to, a long time ago.” His mouth tightened into a flat line. “Then things changed, and my body changed. And now alcohol doesn’t do anything,” he looked down, almost disappointed in how much he was disappointed by his own inability to get buzzed. “I can drink the bar dry and still feel every second of my life perfectly.”

You stopped breathing a little.

“It made me angry,” he admitted, quieter. “I was angry I couldn’t have that. I never cared about fun or the parties.” He gave a humourless laugh. “I wanted the off switch, and when it didn’t work, I hated myself. I hated that that has been taken from me.”

Something in your chest folded. Which one was he? Was your first shameful thought. In a world of superheroes and gods and aliens and people disappearing for five years and then coming back, you really didn’t have the time to memorise names of every Avenger by heart. 

His eyes stayed down.

“So, no. I don’t know if I count. I don’t know if this is taking up space from people who need it more. But I know I keep thinking about it, keep trying to find something that’ll do what it used to do. And I know that probably means I shouldn’t be alone with the thought.”

Then Marie, still knitting, said, “You count.”

James looked up.

The meeting leader nodded. “You’re welcome here.”

You felt a little sting behind your eyes.

Fuck, it shouldn’t have been that moving. It should not have mattered that much. He was a stranger in a church basement with untouched coffee and a voice like a bruise. But there was something so painfully familiar about wanting oblivion and being ashamed of wanting it, about standing at the edge of yourself and wishing there was a button, a bottle, a burn, anything that made being alive more bearable.

The meeting moved on, and you decided not to speak.

You were proud of not crying until the end, when everyone stood and started stacking chairs. People exchanged numbers while stirring powdered creamer into coffee. The world did not change. Nobody looked at you and said, we know what you are, or pointed at your throat and said, liar.

You grabbed your coat and made it halfway to the stairs before his voice found you.

“Hey.” James stood a few feet behind you, hands still in his pockets.

You considered pretending you hadn’t heard him. Maybe you could be rude. You considered leaving and buying the smallest bottle you could find and telling yourself it didn’t count because it was only small

Instead, you said, “What?”

His eyebrows lifted slightly.

You winced. “Sorry. That came out mean.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ve heard meaner.”

For some reason, that made you almost smile.

He stepped closer, careful like you were a wounded animal that might bolt. “First meeting?”

You looked at the stairs. “Is it that obvious?”

“A little,” he said.

You huffed. “Great.”

“I’m new too.”

“I know,” you chuckled dryly, “you spoke.”

“Yeah.”

“I would rather be shot.”

He looked at you for one long second. Very dryly, he said, “It’s overrated.”

A startled laugh escaped you before you could stop it, and his gaze brightened so subtly you almost missed it.

You leaned against the stair rail, suddenly too tired to keep standing like a real person. “I’m not like you.”

James tilted his head.

Your fingers tightened around your coat. “It works on me.”

His face changed, eyes more attentive than just pity.  

You swallowed. “It works too well on me.”

You didn’t know why you said that, but you hated how small your voice got. You hated how much the truth could make you feel naked, and saying it out loud made your whole body ache for a drink with such vicious clarity that you had to grip the rail harder.

James didn’t look away.

You laughed once, but it broke wrong. “You wanted the off switch, I get that. But mine works fast. It works so well that I start thinking maybe I’m only good when I’m drinking. I think maybe the best version of me is the one that can’t feel anything. Or remember anything. Or ruin anything because I’m not really there.”

His teeth clenched, but he stayed quiet.

“And then I get sober,” you said, unable to stop baring your soul to this stranger. “And everything is worse.”

Your eyes burned. You looked down immediately, furious at yourself.

“I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

“Because I told you first,” he said.

Your throat tightened more.

He shifted his weight, and for the first time, you noticed the way he held his left side still, like he was always aware of the space his body took up. He looked like he had spent a long time making himself smaller for other people’s comfort and had never quite learned how to stop.

“I’m Bucky,” he said.

You blinked. “I thought you said James.”

“I did.”

“So you lied at AA?”

His mouth twitched again. “James is my name.”

“So Bucky is what?” You managed a chuckle, “A nickname?”

“To some people.”

“Do you like those people?”

He paused, before looking down, “I’m trying to.”

You looked at him properly, at the tired eyes, the gloved hand, the too-perfect posture. You could see grief sitting on him like a cloud. You didn't know him or his life, but you knew enough about wanting to be someone else. 

You gave him your name.

He repeated it once, like he was trying to get it right.

For a moment, neither of you said anything. Behind him, the meeting leader laughed with Marie near the coffee table as someone dragged a bin bag out of the kitchen. The basement smelled like burnt coffee, wet coats, old wood, and the possibility that maybe you could come back here. 

Maybe this terrible room could exist again next week. Maybe you could still exist next week

Bucky nodded toward the door. “You got somewhere to be?”

You almost lied, but you shook your head.

“Me neither,” he said. “There’s a diner around the corner. Coffee’s bad, but it’s not this bad.”

“You asking me out?” You tilted your head.

He just shrugged, as if duh. Why wouldn’t I want to ask out the pretty girl who’s also struggling with life, like me? “Yeah. I mostly like the pie.”

You narrowed your eyes. “What kind?”

“I don’t know. Pie kind.”

You managed a smile. “That is such a man answer.”

He looked vaguely offended. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

And there it was again, your accidental laugh. You could feel him noticing it, not in a smug way, but like he was relieved there was a sound in you that was not pain.

You should have said no and gone home.

You should have taken the bus and white-knuckled your way through the evening and called it a victory if you made it to bed without stopping at the shop on the corner.

But Bucky stood in front of you like a man who understood the shape of a craving, even if his body refused to let him drown in it. 

You were opposite tragedies meeting in the basement.

And you didn’t want to be alone.

Same terrible coffee.

So you pulled your coat on properly and said, “Fine. But if the pie is bad, I’m leaving you there.”

Bucky smiled and climbed up the stairs next to you, opening the door like a true gentleman, because apparently your standards were that low.

Cold evening air rushed in, and he said, “Fair.”

You stepped outside together.

For the first time all day, feeling sober didn’t feel like a punishment.

Bucky fell into step beside you, close enough to be there, far enough away to be respectful, and when your hands shook in your coat pockets, he pretended not to notice.

You loved him a little for that.

Not love-love. Just the strangest beginning of it.

—

A year later, you were sitting in the same basement where you met him.

The church still smelled faintly of old wood, overbrewed coffee, rain-damp coats, and whatever industrial cleaner someone used on the floor every Tuesday evening. The chairs were arranged in the same uneven circle as always, but there were more rows now. Nobody here had ever managed to make a circle properly, and maybe that was appropriate. Recovery was not exactly known for pretty geometry.

You sat three chairs away from the radiator now.

Now your coat was folded over your lap. Your coffee was cooling between your palms. Your breathing was almost steady.

The dog tags around your neck shifted when you leaned forward.

You saw them slip out from beneath your sweater, the familiar feeling of them falling against your chest, warm from your skin. They caught the basement light for a second, dull silver flashing against the knit you were wearing, and the man beside you noticed.

He was new, you could tell.

New people had a look to them. Sometimes it was fear or anger. This man was sitting with his shoulders held too high and his hands wrapped too tightly around his cup, staring at everything except the people in the room.

His eyes flicked to the tags.

“You serve?” he asked.

You looked down.

For one stupid second, your fingers closed over the metal before you could stop yourself. “No,” you said. “My boyfriend did.”

The man nodded, still looking at the chain. “Oh.”

“They’re his,” you added, tucking them back beneath your collar as if you had been caught showing a memory too intimate. “He gives them to me while he’s away at work.”

“At work?”

“Yeah.”

You managed to say it with a straight face, which was honestly heroic of you, considering Bucky’s “work” very rarely involved conferences or meeting rooms. His work included Captain America showing up at your apartment three days ago with that charming, apologetic smile that always meant, I’m very sorry, but I’m about to borrow your boyfriend for a classified and incredibly stupid mission.

You had rolled your eyes, and Sam did have the decency to bring him back in one piece

You looked down and added, “it’s for safekeeping.”

After all, that was what Bucky called it too.

He had stood in your kitchen two mornings ago with his duffel bag by the door and his boots not quite tied, looking too handsome for a man who was leaving you for a couple of days. His hair had still been damp from the shower, tucked behind one ear, darkening the collar of his shirt. He smelled like soap and coffee and the lavender shampoo you bought for yourself, which he continued to deny using even though you told him he could. He had been quiet all morning.

He washed his mug even though you told him to leave it. He checked the lock on the window he had already fixed months ago. Eventually, he found you by the counter when you were pretending to look for something in a drawer you had already opened twice. His hands came to your waist from behind, and he folded himself around you without a word. His chest pressed to your back, chin resting against your shoulder. For a minute, he simply held you there in the kitchen, reluctant to leave.

You covered his hands with yours.

“You’re doing the clingy thing,” you murmured, not at all complaining.

His mouth pressed to the side of your throat, not a kiss at first. Then he did kiss you, his stubble rubbing against your skin.

“Maybe I just like holding my girl before work,” he said.

“Work,” you repeated, dryly, “As if you’re dealing with team building exercises and doing trust falls with Captain America.”

“I would rather be shot.”

“Bucky.”

“What? I’ve been shot before.”

“You’re banned from making those jokes before nine in the morning.”

He hummed, amused, and turned you in his arms so your back was against the counter and he could look at you properly.

His thumbs slipped under the hem of your sweater, just enough to touch skin. The intimacy of it made your chest ache. You had lived with him, slept beside him, showered with him, kissed him breathless against this exact counter, and still there were moments where his hands on you felt new.

He bent his head and kissed you.

It was meant to be a goodbye kiss. It became sweeter, heavier. His body pressed yours into the counter, careful of his strength even when the kiss deepened and your hands found his hair. He made a sound when you tugged, more breath than voice.

“You’re going to be late,” you whispered against his mouth.

“Probably.”

“Very professional.”

“Never claimed to be.”

His metal hand stayed at your waist. His right hand came up to cradle your jaw, thumb brushing your cheek as if he could smooth the worry out of your face. He kissed you once more, lingering, then pressed his forehead to yours.

“I’ll call when I can,” he said.

“I know.”

“Marie has your number?”

“Yes.”

“Food in the fridge?”

“Yes.”

His eyes searched yours. “You’ll eat?”

“Bucky.”

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly at his worry. 

You wanted to tease him more, because that was easier than saying please don’t go. So your fingers tightened in the front of his shirt.

Bucky took the dog tags from beneath his own shirt and lifted the chain over his head. Your throat tightened before he even touched you. “Buck.”

His eyes softened at the name.

It still did that to him, even after a year.

Buck.

You had been saying it for a while now. At first by accident, then on purpose, then so often it became part of your life. You said Buck when you needed him to pass you a mug from the high shelf, a whiny Buck when he stole your side of the bed and pretended he hadn’t. You had gasped Buck when you woke up from a dream with your heart trying to claw its way out of your chest. 

The name had started in the diner, if you were honest.

That first night after AA, when he took you for pie because neither of you were ready to go home alone. Bucky had sat across from you with the menu in both hands, frowning at the pie section as though it was a tactical document.

You had not known yet whether you were allowed to joke with him. Whether he would flinch or he would shut down. 

“I remember it being less confusing than this,” he said. “There’s too many options now.”

It would take him three months to admit the last time he had pie there was 1944.

You lifted your eyebrows. “You’re panicking.”

“I’m assessing my options.”

“You’ve been looking at the word ‘cherry’ for almost a full minute.”

He had looked back down, gravely. “Maybe I like cherry.”

You squinted, then decided. “You don’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

You managed a smile.“I know everything.”

That was the first time he smiled at you properly, and it changed his whole face.

You remembered staring at him across that sticky table and thinking, oh, that is pretty.

Later, he walked you home in the rain.

He didn’t ask if he could or assume he should. He just stood beside you outside the diner, hands in his jacket pockets, and said, “I’m going this way.” and it just happened to be the same as where you were going.

So you let him walk you home.

A week later, he saved you a seat. A month later, he was going out for coffee with you every other day. Two months later, he fixed your broken window latch and stayed for dinner.

Four months later, he kissed you in a supermarket car park because you had called him crying from the frozen food aisle after the shop rearranged itself and put the wine where the pizzas used to be. He had come so quickly you were sure he must have run part of the way. He found you with your basket on the floor and your hands shaking, and he stood between you and the aisle like his body could block out the whole world.

You cried because you wanted a drink. Then you cried because he came. Then you cried because he looked at you like none of it made you difficult to love.

He kissed you after he got you outside, so gently, his hands hovering until you grabbed his jacket and pulled him closer, like he had been waiting months to be allowed to want you like this. 

After that, Bucky became yours all at once.

Your meetings became his meetings, and his nightmares became your 3 a.m. tea in the kitchen. Your cravings became walks around the block with his metal hand at the back of your neck. Your bad days became less lonely. 

There were mornings where you woke up with his face buried against your stomach, one arm heavy across your hips, his hair a disaster against your bare skin. There were evenings where he cooked badly and you ate it anyway because he looked so proud and because he kissed the back of your shoulder while you washed the dishes. There were nights where the two of you ended up tangled on the sofa with a film neither of you watched, his mouth moving slowly along your neck while your fingers slid under his shirt, both of you laughing between kisses.

It wasn’talways easy, but it was worth it.

So when he gave you the tags, standing in your kitchen with the mission waiting downstairs, it seemed like a little too much.

He slipped the chain over your head. The tags settled against your chest, cool for half a second before your skin warmed them.

“For safekeeping,” he said.

You tried to smile. “They’re metal, Buck. I think they’ll survive your l work trip.”

His thumb touched the chain. “It’s not about them surviving.”

You looked up at him.

His voice dropped. “It’s about me coming back for them.”

Oh.

Bucky kissed your forehead, then your mouth, then the corner of your mouth when you tried not to cry. He was so careful with you when he left, like one wrong touch would make both of you admit how much you hated this. He’d been gone for daytrips before, but four days seemed unbearable now.

“I’m proud of you,” he murmured.

Then he kissed you again, and for a few seconds you forgot the whole world beyond his mouth. His hands were firm at your waist, yours around his neck, the tags caught between you. He kissed you until you were breathless and clinging, until Sam honked downstairs and Bucky muttered something unflattering about him under his breath against your lips.

You laughed. He kissed the laugh out of your mouth.

Then he left.

At first, you were fine.

You made breakfast, answered messages, and washed the mug Bucky had already washed, only because it gave your hands something to do. You wore the tags beneath your sweater and touched them whenever you passed the mirror. You went to work and came home. Then ate leftovers standing in the kitchen.

The first night without him was always strange. Then the hours stretched.

The refrigerator hummed too loudly. The upstairs neighbour moved around too much. Your phone stayed blank for too long, and every time it lit up and it wasn't him, disappointment scraped through and you felt childish.

You watched half a film and absorbed none of it.

You opened the fridge, then closed it. Opened the cupboard, then closed it.

Checked your phone, no message.

The next day was the same.

By nine, you were bored. By nine-thirty, you were restless. By ten, your mind had started to tilt.

It was jarring how quickly it happened. No one warned you about it properly, or maybe they did and you had not believed them, but the craving arrived out of nowhere because you were bored. 

You were putting away a clean plate when you thought about the shop on the corner. Then you were gripping the counter so hard your fingers hurt.

You are alone. You are bored.

Nobody would know.

The tags felt too heavy. You pulled them out from beneath your sweater and held them in your hand, the chain slipping between your fingers. Bucky’s name was pressed into your palm, and you stared at it until the letters blurred.

“I’m fine,” you said out loud.

Your voice sounded odd in the empty kitchen.

You put the tags back under your sweater and changed into pyjamas. You brushed your teeth and got into bed. Five minutes later, you got out of bed. You checked your phone. You opened your messages with Bucky and looked at the last thing he sent before takeoff: Be good to yourself for me.

You threw the phone onto the bed.

Then, somehow, you were putting on shoes.

When you thought about it later, that felt frightening, how blank you were. It wasn’t exactly a blackout, because you remembered every moment, but there was a strange sequence to it, as if your body had become a machine built for one purpose: Shoes, coat, keys, stairs, and corner shop.

The bell above the door rang. You told yourself you were buying milk.

You did buy milk. In fact, you carried it to the counter with both hands like evidence of innocence, and then your eyes moved to the tiny bottles behind the register. 

You could leave. You should leave.

You heard yourself ask for one.

The man behind the counter reached back.

You almost said, nevermind. You didn’t.

The bottle was cold when he passed it to you, but it was small enough for your brain to start building arguments before you even reached the door.

It’s little. It’s one. It’s not like before. I have been good for a year. I can stop after this. I just want to know I can.

The walk home felt unreal as the milk knocked against your leg. 

At your door, your hands shook so badly you dropped your keys. you put the milk in the fridge and took the bottle out.

You placed it on the kitchen counter.

You stared at it.

Then you walked away. Then you came back. Then you picked it up. Then you put it down again.

Your whole body was hot and cold at once. Your thoughts were moving too quickly to hold. Bucky’s dog tags rested against your chest beneath your sweater, and you kept touching them, pressing them hard into your skin as if it could bring willpower.

“I won’t drink it,” you whispered.

Then you opened it.

Then you drank.

And alcohol worked on you with humiliating ease. It hit your empty stomach like warmth pretending to be mercy. For a few minutes, missing Bucky became manageable. You stood in your kitchen with the bottle empty in your hand and hated how much relief you felt

Then the relief curdled into horror. Your stomach dropped and skin prickled. The empty bottle looked terrifying in your hand, stupid and catastrophic. You sank to the kitchen floor.

The tiles were cold beneath your thighs. The dog tags swung forward when you bent over, clinking once against the empty bottle still in your fist.

You cried with your whole body, in ugly, breathless sobs that hurt your ribs and scraped your throat. 

You almost called him. You saw your hand reach for the phone.

Then you saw him in your mind, answering because he would always answer if he could. You imagined his face changing when he heard your voice, hearing the guilt he would somehow make his own, because Bucky had never met your pain he didn’t try to carry.

You couldn’t do it.

You rinsed the bottle instead. You stood at the sink with the water running and realised what you were doing and hated yourself so violently you had to grip the counter again.

Evidence.

You were rinsing evidence. You were going to get rid of it, as if this was something to hide from a parent or a teacher or a boyfriend.

You threw the bottle in the bin. Then you took it out. Then you put it back in. Then you sat on the floor until the kitchen light started to feel too bright.

You didn't sleep. Or if you did, it was full of waking.

By morning, your mouth tasted sour and your eyes were swollen.

By night, you were in the basement, a year later.

Marie was talking about her daughter’s wedding. She had her knitting in her lap, a pale yellow scarf growing slowly between her hands, and she was describing the open bar with a detail that made you want to crawl out of your own skin.

Usually, Marie made you feel safe. Tonight, she talked about champagne flutes, toasts, ginger ale, and smiling for the photos. 

The dog tags were hot against your chest.

You shifted in your chair.

The new man beside you was staring at his coffee again. The meeting leader nodded gently as Marie finished.

“Thank you, Marie.”

Everyone said thanks, and the leader looked around the circle.

“Anyone else?”

You stared at the floor. No.

Your heart began to pound so hard you felt it in your throat.

No, no, no.

Still, apparently your body was on autopilot now, because you opened your mouth before you were ready. “I’m—”

Your voice broke so bad that several heads turned at once.

You stopped as heat rushed into your face. You said your name.

The room answered, like it always did.

You could not look at anyone. You looked at your coffee instead, at the small tremors moving across the surface.

“My boyfriend and I met here,” you said, and the words came out thin.

You swallowed hard and tried again.

“My boyfriend and I met here. In this room.” Your thumb moved over the raised letters stamped into the tags beneath your sweater. 

Your breath hitched.

“He doesn’t know I drank last night because he’s away.”

The basement seemed to go still around you.

You let out a broken little laugh that was barely laughter at all. “I was just bored and spiralling and I…” You shook your head, tears spilling hot down your cheeks now, impossible to stop. “I got a little bottle.”

Your fingers curled around the tags.

“It was only a little.”

You knew better than anyone that it never was a little.

—

After the meeting, you cried into Marie’s shoulder in the church hallway until your throat hurt.

You wished you had done it in a dignified way when other people were trying to help you. You cried with your whole face pressed into her cardigan, both hands in the wool while she held the back of your head and kept murmuring, “Oh, sweetheart,” like you hadn’t done something unforgivable, as if you were not disgusting. As if you were just a person who had fallen and was still, somehow, worth helping back up.

She didn’t tell you it was fine.

She only walked you around the block twice in the cold, one arm linked through yours, talking gently about calling Bucky, about honesty, about how a slip didn’t get to eat the whole year unless you fed it the rest yourself.

By the time you got home, you were almost an hour late.

Your eyes were swollen and your face felt tight from drying tears. Bucky’s dog tags were still tucked under your sweater, pressing against your chest.

You opened the door, expecting darkness.

Instead, the kitchen light was on.

Bucky turned from the counter.

He was still in grey sweats, hair damp from a shower he had clearly taken too quickly. There was a smear of frosting on his thumb, and on the counter beside him sat a small, lopsided cake from the grocery store, with too much white icing and little piped flowers around the edge.

Across the top, in blue gel writing, slightly uneven and very obviously done by him, were the words:

ONE YEAR!

Your body went cold.

Was it supposed to be the one year anniversary today? You… hadn’t been counting. Your boyfriend, had, apparently

Bucky’s whole face lit up when he saw you.

“Mission got called short,” he said, so proud and so happy it hurt to look at him. “Happy one year sober, sweetheart.”

You stared at the cake.

The keys were still in your hand. Your coat was still on. You didn’t move, didn’t blink properly, didn’t breathe right.

Bucky kept smiling for a few seconds, but then his smile faltered. “Baby?”

You couldn’t answer as  blue icing blurred in front of you.

Three full minutes passed, maybe less, maybe more, you didn’t know. You only knew that you spent every second of them staring at that little cake like it had been made for someone who had died last night.

You didn’t even realise Bucky had been walking towards you. 

One moment, he was standing behind the little cake, his smile slowly disappearing as he watched you fail to answer him. The next, his hands were on you.

You flinched so hard the keys slipped from your fingers and hit the floor, but Bucky didn’t let go. His flesh hand closed gently around your upper arm while his metal one came to your face.

“Hey,” he said gently. “Hey, look at me.”

You couldn’t. You stared somewhere around his shoulder instead, hardly aware of his thumb brushing beneath your eye, wiping away a tear you hadn’t felt fall.

His eyes moved across your face with alarm. “Are you hurt?”

You shook your head.

“Did something happen today?”

You shook your head again

“Did someone touch you?”

“No,” you managed, but the word was barely there.

Bucky’s shoulders loosened by a bit, but the worry certainly didn't leave his face. His eyes dropped quickly over you anyway, ever so aware of blood, bruises, torn fabric, any danger. There was none.

Bucky looked over his shoulder at it, then back at you.

“Oh,” he said quietly. You didn’t know what he understood. Maybe he thought the anniversary had overwhelmed you, or maybe he thought you were crying because he had remembered, maybe he thought you were happy.

His hand slid from your cheek to the back of your neck. He drew you closer, slow enough that you could have resisted, but you didn't understand what he was doing until your forehead struck his chest and his arms folded around you.

Bucky cradled you against him, metal hand across the back of your coat. His other arm wrapped around your head, his palm cupping your skull as he tucked your face beneath his chin.

You stood stiffly inside his embrace, hearing his heartbeat as your hands remained hanging uselessly at your sides.

Bucky rubbed his palm over your back. “It’s okay,” he murmured, kissing the top of your head. “Whatever it is, it’s okay.”

It wasn’t, and he had no idea.

You couldn’t seem to pull enough air into your lungs. Every breath caught halfway, and your body refused to complete it. Bucky must have felt the change because his grip tightened, holding you together while your knees began to feel like cooked spaghetti.

“Easy,” he whispered. “I’ve got you.”

Your fingers finally curled into the front of his shirt. You clutched him with both hands as if the floor had opened beneath you and he was the only thing left at the edge.

Bucky bent with you when you folded.

He lowered you both to the kitchen floor without ever taking his arms away, one knee touching the tile before he settled against the cabinets and pulled you fully into his lap.

A sound finally came out of you. “I-I’m sorry.”

Bucky startled, but only for a second.

You buried your face against his throat, the apology coming again before you could breathe. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Shh.”

“I’m sorry, Buck, I’m sorry—”

“Shh, sweetheart.”

He held the back of your head while you began to sob. There was no dignity left in it now. You cried so violently that your body jerked against his, words breaking apart between gasps while Bucky gathered you closer. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

“I ruined it.”

Bucky’s hand paused against your hair.

You felt the second he understood that this wasn’t an overwhelmed anniversary reaction. “What happened?” he asked.

You shook your head against him.

His lips pressed to your temple. “Tell me.”

“I can’t,” you hiccupped, “You’ll hate me.”

Bucky pulled back just enough to look at you. His hand remained behind your neck, supporting your head when you tried to turn away. The excitement was gone, but fear remained.

“I won’t,” he said.

“You don’t know.”

“I know I won’t hate you.”

Fuck.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

You talked before you could think. “You were gone, and I—”

Your voice collapsed. Bucky waited, one arm around your waist, his thumb moving through the damp hair at your neck, while you tried to force the words past the pressure closing your throat.

“I drank.”

It came out abruptly. 

Bucky went still beneath you.

“Last night,” you gasped. “I bought one of the little bottles and I drank it. I drank the whole thing.” The confession tore itself out of you all at once. “I rinsed the bottle. I was going to hide it from you.”

Bucky’s face changed, but instead of disgust, it was recognition.

He knew how a craving could take over your body. He knew what it was to want an off switch badly enough to hate yourself for reaching for it.

“It’s okay,” he whispered.

You recoiled inside his arms. “No, it’s really not.”

“It’s okay.” His hand tightened against the back of your head. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

“I ruined the whole year—”

“No.”

He didn't need the details explained to him. He understood every humiliating little ritual because addiction had taught him the same language, even if his body no longer let alcohol answer him.

“I wore your tags,” you choked out. “While I did it.”

Your hand flew to your chest, gripping the metal through your sweater hard enough for its edges to bite into your palm.

Bucky caught your wrist. “Don’t.”

“I shouldn’t have them.”

He gently pulled your hand away from your chest, but he didn’t take the tags. He only folded your fingers around them more carefully, covering your fist with his own.

“I didn’t keep anything safe,” you managed.

Bucky dragged you back against him before you could see more, tucking your face beneath his chin. His palm spread across your back as you broke open in his lap.

“It’s okay,” he repeated into your hair. “It’s okay.”

You shook your head violently, and he kissed your temple.

It’s not that what happened did not matter. It did. You both knew it did.

But he knew what you were convinced of: the certainty that one mistake had poisoned everything that came before it, insisting that because you had fallen once, you might as well stay on the floor.

Bucky knew better than to let that voice speak alone.

“You should be angry.”

His arms tightened, pressing his face against your hair and breathing through it.

“I should’ve called you.”

“Yeah,” he whispered, voice breaking. “You should’ve.”

You flinched.

Bucky immediately drew back enough to cradle your face between his hands. “But I know why you didn’t.”

His thumbs moved beneath your eyes, wiping away tears that were replaced almost immediately.

He knew what shame did, and how it convinced you isolation felt like mercy.

“I thought you’d hate me.”

He shook his head. “Never.”

It was the only reassurance he gave you because it was the only one you could believe.

Bucky pulled you against him again and let you cry until there was nothing graceful left in your chest. He held you through every shaking breath, his mouth pressed to your hair, murmuring the same words whenever your apologies started again.

It’s okay. It’s okay. I’ve got you.

Eventually, the strength went out of your body. You sagged against him, exhausted, your fingers still trapped around the dog tags between your palm and his.

Bucky stayed on the kitchen floor with you until your breathing slowed.

Then he carefully shifted you from his lap and stood, bringing you with him. Your knees nearly folded, but his hands were already at your waist, holding you upright before you could fall.

“Go shower,” he said.

You frowned. “What?”

“Go take a shower,” he repeated kindly. “Put on something comfortable. I’ll make tea.”

You stared at him when his hand slid around the back of your neck, drawing you forward until his forehead rested against yours.

“I’m gonna be here when you come back,” he said.

“You promise?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re not going to leave?”

“No.”

“You’re not going to throw the cake away?”

His eyes flicked toward it.

“No,” he said after a moment. You nodded, though you didn’t entirely believe him.

Bucky kissed your forehead and let you go.

—

The shower took longer than it should have. You stood beneath the water until it ran lukewarm, scrubbing the dried tears from your face, replaying the conversation again and again until it turned into comfort.

When you eventually returned to the kitchen, wearing Bucky’s shirt and a pair of pyjama bottoms, two mugs of tea sat on the table.

Bucky was standing over the cake with a butter knife in his hand and an expression of intense concentration usually reserved for dismantling weapons.

You stopped in the doorway. “What are you doing?”

He glanced at you, then back at the cake.

The blue icing was a mess.

Bucky had scraped away most of the word YEAR. There were deep trenches in the white frosting where he had smushed the letters together, dragging the gel across the surface with very little artistic skill.

ONE YEAR! had become:

ONE DAY!

The exclamation point was still there, slightly crooked.

You stared at it.

Bucky put down the knife.

“I figured we celebrate this instead,” he said.

Your throat closed. “One day?”

He shrugged, suddenly looking uncertain. “That’s what they say, right?”

One day at a time.

But there were so many fucking days.

But there was only this one now.

You managed to walk yourself to the kitchen and threw yourself into his arms.

Bucky caught you, his arms closing around your body. You buried your face against his chest while he kissed the top of your head.

“I’m still proud of you,” he whispered.

You shook your head.

His hand moved down your back. “That’s okay,” he murmured. “I’ve got enough for both of us.”

Later, he cut two uneven slices.

The cake was too sweet, the tea had gone cold, and the blue icing stained your tongues. Bucky sat beside you, his thigh pressed against yours and his metal hand resting open on the table.

When midnight passed, his fingers closed gently around yours.

One day.

You had made it through one day.

—end. 

General Bucky taglist pt 1: