Yaz

How You Became His Beginning:

Suguru didn't know how, but he stumbled upon a little fallen angel. Lost and injured, her darkened wings fractured and bent out of shape. He couldn't leave a sweet little thing like you out there, another demon could stumble upon you and eat you whole. You were still partially angel, which was a delicacy to the monsters of hell. So he took you to his home, a small little place of hell-wood and ash roofing. His fingers delicately worked to wrap your wings with bandages, tightening them so they would heal in the correct places.

Using one of his many brushes for his long hair to brush through your bloody wings, trying to get the dry blood clumps out. Fingers following after the brush to pick up the little pieces the brush missed. Being cautious as to not cause his new little doll unbearable pain.

However when you woke up just a day later, new air filling your pure lungs, you began coughing at the burning sensation at the back of your lungs, screaming between coughs at this male with large deep purple horns and eye blacks with burning purple irises. His large scaly palm slammed over your mouth to shush you. "Don't scream, little angel, you are safe.." He mumbled. Staring at you with an amused expression, like your fear was entertainment. You began to try to piece together words with a cracking voice. "Where.. am.. i?" Cough. He was further amused at that;

"Where else but hell, little angel?" He had barely understood what you said as your voice was quieted beneath his palm. Thankfully he pieced it together, but his answer had done nothing but made you more panicked.

But it didn't last long, you got used to hell, to him, your wings becoming more frayed by the day. You fell into some sort of routine. Being around him, helping, and then sleep. Repeated day by day. Some days he'd add in small things like brushing your hair, letting you do his own, making you clothes. He was so.. nurturing like a mother.

He definitely had gotten used to you, your everyday face of pure beauty. He blames the gods for what happens next;

You were cuddled up to his bare chest. It was hot. Overwhelmingly hot, you had supposedly gotten used to the temperature so why- that's why. A large white portal had spawned above you, you touched your fully healed wings, now white and no longer frayed. Your sins had been forgiven. God has finally chosen you once again to live in the heavens among your brothers and sisters. Why wouldn't you choose the place you belong?

Your large white wings spread, glowing in the dark of Hell, brushing his chest and made him feel cold. His eyes shot open. Seeing your back facing him, wings glowing and sparkling, and a portal of white.. he couldn't accept it. He couldn't be tempted and expected to not take it. He was a demon afterall, he was going to be stuck down here, and he couldn't let you leave him after such a long time. His hand gripped your thigh which made you pause before you flew into the portal.

His husky morning voice spoke, "Where are you going?.." Your trembling hand wrapped his wrist, plucking his large warm palm off your thigh. "Goodbye Suguru, thank you.." How could he expect you to stay? He was some random demon who had helped you, you would see him again, hopefully. If not, that was fine too.

As you began to lift off the bed from your knees, your wings flapping. He shot forward. Wrapping one arm around your chest, tugging your body down till your chest hit the bed. Your wings spread behind you. "Suguru what are you doing!" You yelled, cheek smushed against the pillow. You began pushing your arms against the bed just for him to straddle your legs, forcing you down, wrapping his hand around your neck.

"No, what are you doing? You're mine, Yn. You can't leave after I've done everything for you."

He hummed against your ear, so calm and composed. However, his hand wrapped around your neck tightened to show just how fake his composure was. His free hand reached to the side table, grabbing clippers that were used for hell's bugs. His eyes unnaturally wide as his fingers opened the clippers.

SNIP

The agonizing scream you let out was just one of thousands echoing hell. Blood splattered across each wing, each bone cracking and snapping beneath the clippers. The bone structure of your wings lessening by the moment. Blood and feathers painted the bed and wall. Yet he kept working the clippers through each feather and flesh and bone like stacks of papers.

"Suguru! S-Suguru please!"

Tears and snot ran down your facial features, but not once did he let up until the wings were just the bases under your flesh. His hand left your neck, and finally the portal was too high for you to reach. After such an amount of time, it disappeared, maybe it was because that part of you was gone. All you could feel was your heart pounding with hate and the aching pain of your missing extra limbs. Blood squirting out of tethered flesh, just as your bond was built on loss, it would continue to be a loss. Friends my ass

"Shh.. shh.. you're okay.. I did what I had to, baby.." his fingers skimmed your sides as he began kissing your shoulder. His chest now pressing against your back, not to hold you down, just to feel you beg once more, to hear his name escape your lips.

You bear the pain and forced up confidence to state; "I hate you Suguru, curse you."—"I love you too, little angel." His smooth tone muttered back as he littered kisses to your skin. His hands feeling your body, covered in blood. Your blood. He couldn't let his little birdie leave him before he was ready to accept your disappearance. His once charming smile felt forced against your skin, but it was forced for you.

How He Became Your End.

Tags:

The boiling pot on your stove began to bubble, its way of letting you know that dinner can be made while the sizzling of your pan persisted quietly, just enough so it didn't pop out any hot oil. Each drop of ingredients on it only let out crackles from your heated pan before the hissing died down after you had completely filled the metal bottom.

With a sigh through your nose, all you needed to do now was sit back and relax while the stove does its work. In all honesty, your kitchen was comforting. Usually you would have to deal with sweat from the built up heat of this room but with the cold weather outside as of late, it felt more like a little fireplace than the heat of 1000 suns.

Pit... Pat... Pit... Pat...

Your tired eyes stared blankly into the space of your window, now coated in sheets of raindrops as your body relaxed itself, completely unaware that you were even holding in tension. Who could blame you though after everything you had been through. Life just had its ways to mess with you sadly, and this month was far from normal.

People usually talk about how boring their life has been but in this situation? Yeah, you'd much rather have a boring life than to be pursued by a stalker. The aroma of your dinner felt like the only sense of normalcy you have left.

"........ Haah..."

It's cold out here.

Dinner is served! Your body has been unconsciously bracing itself for so long that you never even noticed the physical and mental toll it took on you. No time to waste though, you need to fuel your body with food and sleep asap.

With the cold stainless steel utensils in your hand, it warms up against the touch of your fingers, the steam curling from your food and brushing against your face before disappearing into the air. You were ready to dig in when—

RIIING!

"Huh?"

Your phone vibrated next to you on the dining table, the lock screen turning on to show some random number you've never seen before.

"Hello! Ms. Y/N? We'd like to confirm your booking for Grandview Heights Hotel on the 2nd August. Check-in will be open by 2pm, thank you for choosing our service!"

The cheerful tone of the man on the other end of the phone didn't help calm your nerves one bit. You figured his friendliness came with the job, but it never sounded forced. If anything, it felt like he genuinely loved helping people.

"What? I'm sorry, I think you have the wrong number," in an attempt to reason it out, mistakes happened all the time. Maybe there was someone else named Y/N? It wasn't impossible, and phone numbers could easily be misdialled.

"Oh? This is L/N Y/N, correct?"

What? You know for a fact that you didn't book anything anywhere, and why would you even do such a thing when you already have a place to live in? It would make sense if you were going for a long trip but that's the last thing on your mind with all this paranoia, not to mention the recent weather.

The man continued to describe the booking details, confirming your nightmare even more when he repeated your exact phone number. This wasn't some coincidence—is it your ex? Did you somehow accidentally booked the hotel while browsing the web? Wait, you never even searched for any hotels to begin with.

Shit, it can't be your ex's doing, can it? Even if you suspected it, what the hell are you even supposed to tell the police? "Officer, my stalker bought me a hotel room!" And with what evidence? The entire booking details are under your name, your phone number, your ID card.

"Um, sir? May I ask, where was the payment made from and under whose name?" You tried to find any clues. Nobody should have access to your credit card details, not even your ex did so it has to be paid by other means.

"I'm sorry miss but I can't tell you confidential details of the payment. However, if you'd like, you may cancel the booking!"

"That'd be perfect, can I cancel it now or—"

"You'll have to cancel it through the website you booked it with."

Fuuuck. You don't even know where the hell this shit was booked from! The hotel's official website? Some advertisement? Or some app? You can't blame the receptionist for refusing to tell you payment information though, it is their policy. To him, he's just speaking to a customer on the booking.

"And what if I don't know where it's paid from?"

"Well, you can cancel it in person at the front desk tomorrow morning. It'll be a free cancellation until 24–48 hours before your check-in time but any longer than that and there will be a fee."

"Alright... Grandview Heights Hotel, right? I'll be there tomorrow by 1pm of that's fine," with reluctance, you had no other choice but to go on with this. Although you could've just left it there and stayed at home, your paranoia has been gnawing at you to find out even a little bit of hints you could share to your detective. You needed answers.

"Sure thing! We apologize for any inconveniences, and once again, thank you for staying with us."

Click!

A groan escapes you as you leaned back against your chair, slouching in the seat with your arms relaxed at your sides. Not the kind where you're calm though. The kind where your body just completely gave up. Even worse? Your dinner you've worked so hard for has long gone cold, forcing you to just accept its condition.

"Mommy, look at this statue!"

"Good morning ma'am!"

"Wait, what time can we go in our rooms?"

The chatter of customers blended into a constant hum throughout the grand lobby. Every polished surface reflected the golden lighting above, from the marble floors beneath your feet to the towering reception desk ahead. Bellhops wheeled expensive luggage past families and business travellers alike, making it painfully obvious that this wasn't the kind of place you normally found yourself in.

As you walked towards the receptionist desk, your footsteps echoes ever so slightly against the marble floors only to be muffled out by the busy lobby of happy families, children running around, and luggages being pushed here and there. It was almost intimidating but right now, that's not your problem to focus on.

"Hello, I'm here to cancel a booking?" Even your voice sounded like you were unsure of what you're saying. To be fair, you just mysteriously got a fully paid booking to a grand hotel you've never even been to, so what were you supposed to explain the staff with?

"Ohh, you must be Ms. Y/N, right? I'm the man you spoke to yesterday!" His cheerful attitude did help you feel welcome compared to the phone call yesterday. For once it felt like you were talking with someone normal.

"Yes! I am. Sorry but may I ask if you have any idea who might've done this?" You didn't waste a second trying to find some answers, pulling out your ID card for the usual credentials needed. Besides, you'd much rather get home as soon as possible when there's a stalker on the loose.

The receptionist began typing away on that computer of his, scrolling and searching for whatever it is he needed to confirm your cancellation. Although his gaze was focused on the screen, your question didn't go unheard.

"Well, as much as I'd like to tell you, I don't know myself. It could be someone who mistakenly booked under the wrong person but that's unlikely considering that it's all under your identity. Do you think it could be a surprise from someone you know?"

The idea of someone wanting to "surprise" you with an expensive hotel stay is not something you want to think about. Usually people would be happy to have a free stay in luxury like this, but you know for a fact that nobody is crazy enough to pay $500+ just because they wanted to be nice and leave no notes of it. Your train of thought had been interrupted when the receptionist spoke up again.

"Okay, I've cancelled your booking! You'll be refunded since it hasn't been the 2nd of August yet."

"Thank you..." You lowered your gaze with a quiet sigh feeling defeated. Great, you came all the way out of your safety just to find nothing. At the very least though, someone else can have your room.

"Seems like you're really eager to find out this mystery though, Ms. Y/N. Although I can't help you with confidential information, I can try and find where the booking order came from?"

"Yes please- I mean... Yeah, that'd be great," you didn't want your efforts and time to be wasted here, and finding someone who's even willing to help with your situation is even harder. Thank God this guy loves helping people.

Click click...

"... That's odd," the expression on the receptionist's face could only be described is utter confusion. Almost like someone trying to describe an animal that doesn't exist.

"What is?"

"The reservation had been made through Horizon Booking, a hotel booking platform. The problem is that the account used to made the reservation had already been deleted. Hold up, let me try to find—"

RIIIIIIIIIIIIIING

The loud sound of the fire alarm blasted your ear drums as you feel the vibration through the entire lobby. What was once a peaceful day had turned into civilians running around, children crying at the chaos, and people rushing out to the main entrance pushing each other.

"Miss, please get out! I'd love to help some more but it's not safe—"

BAM

"Shit."

The receptionist immediately jumps into action, wasting no time as a loud explosion could be heard far above in the hotel rooms. With no choice, you had to leave while he ran the opposite direction up the stairs to save whoever is in danger.

Outside wasn't any better. A large group of civilians had already been grouped up, everybody staring up above. A fire. Smoke escaped the shattered window of a room in large amounts, creating a dark grey soot.

"MY SON IS IN THERE!!!"

"What's going on?"

"The shattered glass didn't cut you did it?"

The disaster team had begun arriving as quick as they could, security taping the area and holding worried citizens back, the triage and transport team rushing in as protocol, logistics here and there. Your senses were overloaded with all the screams and shouts from people, their cries and panic, the fire, the smoke, everything.

With you forced back behind the tape into safety, there was nothing you could do. The only thing anybody can even do now is to depend on the disaster control as men and women rushed into the hotel wearing proper suits and equipments. Inside the hotel though?

.

.

.

"Help! Help!!"

A man could be heard yelling for help behind inside a locked ro, his voice being muffled by the walls and the chaos as he banged on the door for anybody at all.

Right at that moment, the same receptionist could be seen on the security camera attempting to cover his face from the overwhelming smoke, coughing a bit and fumbling with the keys to open the door.

CAM 04

The security camera pointing to the same door could be seen pushed open by the receptionist, only to be dragged into the burning room by a masked man with a black cap and hoodie on. Immediately, he went to the other side of the door to shut it in him, keeping the door shut with his weight while it continued to burn.

BANG, BANG, BANG

Only muffled shouts and banging could be heard by the receptionist.

.

.

.

This couldn't have been a coincidence. Not anymore. You entertained the possibility of it when it came to the mysterious booking, the deleted account, but not this. Not an entire fire caused by some explosion.

Some members of the disaster team rushed out with— the receptionist.

All bloody, bruised, and burnt. He looked like he's at the edge of life, whatever consciousness he had left just glancing at you as he couldn't move before disappearing into the ambulance.

"Y/N?"

Huh...?

"Ms. Y/N?"

In front of you stood detective Kang who's handling your stalker case. It had been a few hours since the incident but it only made you feel worse than before. To see the man who had done nothing but be nice get into this situation, could it have been because of you?

No, it can't be. You didn't do anything, you know that. He chose to save people but deep down, something was gnawing at you that this isn't just by chance.

"I'm sorry you had to witness that... As for your question about the receptionist, we can't confirm his state yet. I just don't think it's related to your ex—"

"I'm sure it is."

You interrupted the detective with your firm belief that your stalker had something to do with this. Even if you didn't have any leads or evidence to back it up, you just knew the "unintentional booking" wasn't an accident.

With a pause followed by a sigh from the detective, her hands swept through her bangs as she tried to be understanding of the situation. They had zero leads into this so pointing it to your ex couldn't help the situation.

"Okay... We can check the security cameras from the hotel once the situation has been controlled but if this doesn't go anywhere, please just leave it to our team to find him."

Reluctantly, you didn't want to just sit back and wait for the police to find anything. Not some damsel in distress. Legally speaking, if nobody can help you then you aren't going to just let any danger happen to you.

The quiet hum of the engine blended with the darkness outside, the city lights passing one after another beyond the window. It was a quiet ride, but not the uncomfortable kind. It was the kind that finally made you feel safe enough to simply breathe.

"Looks like we're here," the detective murmured, her voice calm and measured as she guided the car into the hotel's empty parking lot. The area had long been cleared, leaving only the cool night air and the distant flicker of emergency lights reflecting against the pavement.

As she opened the car door, detective Kang hesitated for a brief moment, making sure you were looking at her before speaking.

"Stay here," she instructed gently. "I'll lock the door so it's safer, okay? Call me immediately if anything happens."

And with that, you're left alone with the soft click of the car lock, the woman soon disappearing into the hotel backdoor. With nothing else left to do, you scrolled through the home screen of your mobile phone. Old chats, call logs, contacts. Nothing new and as you decided to browse random things—

RIIING!

INCOMING CALL

Officer Park

Your screen lit up with the name of an officer you knew, someone working alongside detective Kang Min-Ji. It gently vibrated against your hand with each ring, finally answering the call as you wondered if there was any news of your ex.

"Hello?"

Silence.

There was nothing on the other side of the call but a low hum of what sounded like flickering lights.

"Why were you so close with that service boy?"

That voice. That fucking voice, the same velvety calm like he didn't just ruined your love life.

"What the fuck do you want," immediately, you hissed back at your stalker through the call, voice laced with venom as you straightened your sitting position, body tensing up at his cocky tone.

"Love, you know what I want. Why have you been hanging out with those officers? Are you cheating on me?"

"Don't call me that. Where the hell are you," just as you did, you snapped back at your ex, taking no shit from this man who loves to toy with you. Yet, he didn't respond.

Nothing.

Silence.

"Why don't you see for yourself?"

That line didn't just come from the call. You heard it elsewhere. Somewhere near—

SLAM

A large hand collided with the car window, making the entire thing vibrate at the sheer force. Slowly, that fucking face showed up. The same calm as he did a few days ago at your workplace, slow, casual walks to the side of the passenger seat where you were.

Click

The phone call ended.

"Open the door, hun. Let's talk this through."

His voice muffled slightly behind the only obstacle between the two of you: the car door. Still, that expression of his with that gentle smile—so hollow, so blank, so dead.

"Like hell I am."

You weren't giving up that easily, especially not when your life is in danger right this instance. Your instincts were screaming at you to call the detective but what if— wait, what the fuck?

He simply just... Left. Even with him gone, you felt far from safe. Where the fuck could he be? What on earth is he planning?

Yet, your burning paranoia were answered as he returned back into view of the car window, slowly trailing around the vehicle as if trying to find any way in. An open door perhaps, one that isn't locked before stopping right next to your passenger seat once more when confirming that there's no way to get you out.

"You've heard about the weather, right? I think some disaster is going to happen because of the rain," his voice was just as calm before lowering down to just above a whisper, leaning in closer to the window to talk to you. His hand pressed firmly against the glass, creating a subtle fog around his warmth before releasing it and—

CRASH

A fucking hammer.

He left to take a damn hammer just to break into the car, the vehicle beeping loudly as the sound echoes through the parking lot while you screamed. Glass shattered everywhere as some had managed to cut your skin, flinching at the pain.

Immediately while you were busy with your shock, your ex easily unlocked the car door, opening it wide to expose yourself, completely vulnerable to the situation—to him.

He spent no time hesitating as he dragged you out, kicking with all your might as you screamed at the terror, your arm stretching out to the driver's seat in an attempt to grab a hold of the door knob there for any grounding at all.

"Come on, don't make this hard for us!" His voice rose, almost like a yell but worse of all, it was still calm. Like he was simply talking to you. God, his grip only tightened around your lap the more you struggled, the man giggling a little like this was a fucking game.

In this situation, your phone is the last thing to be worrying about just to make some damn phone call. There's no time. It's felt like an endless nightmare incarnate, being dragged and pulled by a freak, glass shards all over the seats and dashboard but suddenly, it stopped.

His abrupt release on your sore thighs had been followed by a loud thud.

The detective.

Panting and whining a bit from the fear and stress, you moved away as far as you could into the driver's seat until you felt your back hit the opposite door. Outside of the car were the two, his elbow driving backwards into her rib.

"Ghk—!"

Detective Kang doubled over for a split second before tightening her grip around him again. With tosses and turns, punches and attacks being delivered blow after blow to each other, if seemed like she had the upper hand as her hands flew to his face.

Every time he tried to step toward you, she intercepted him, grabbing at his hoodie and shoving him back. He twisted free with surprising ease, only for her to throw herself in front of him again, refusing to let him get within arm's reach.

What...?

A pocket knife.

He had it hidden in his hoodie pocket the whole time, giggling and chuckling during the fight like it was just some tussle. With the detective focusing on detaining your stalker, her reaction came too late as the blade had been forced into the side of her abdomen.

With the woman grunting in pain as she tried to apply as much pressure as she could, your ex taking this chance to flee as he got up with a little hop all while he still smiled at you.

"I'll see you soon~"

"Lucky for her, Detective Kang will recover just fine. The knife injured the muscles in her abdominal wall but missed all of her vital organs."

Relief settled in you as you heard the doctor's explanation, but it didn't remove the trauma from this week and especially not yesterday. Light filtered through the curtains as it painted the floor with a bright gold shade but you knew this warmth would disappear the moment night falls.

Beside the doctor is another officer as he began to explain your situation and the plans they have for now.

"Y/N, if it's okay with you, take this SOS watch and wear it at all times. There will be officers stationed around your apartment twenty-four hours a day."

The minimalist watch rested quietly in your palms, its sleek black face and simple design making it look no different from an ordinary wristwatch. Yet, you knew it was far more than that. Taking a slow breath, you lifted it to your wrist and carefully fastened the strap until it sat snugly against your skin.

"If you're ever in danger, just press the SOS button. It'll immediately alert us to your location, and we'll respond as quickly as possible."

You did feel much better now knowing that there would be security around you 24/7, and it gave you sense of relief knowing that they've finally taken your case more seriously and reinforced protection.

Back home though, surprisingly the feeling did last longer than you expected. As rain poured once again, you could see a cop car parked in view of your rain-streaked window. Maybe now you could finally relax for once in god knows how long, the main issue now being the heavy rainstorm pouring down.

You learned that before medical school, before emergency rotations and back-alley sutures that made men in masks limp to you and bleed all over your tile at 3 AM. You learned it at eleven, crouched near an alley behind your old apartment, palm full of deli turkey your mother told you was for lunch, watching a stray with a torn ear bare his teeth at every adult who tried to corner him. Animal control had come with poles. A neighbor had come with a towel. Your mother came with her worried mouth pressed thin and her hands hovering near your shoulders, ready to snatch you back if the dog lunged. The dog had lunged at everyone except you. He had stared at you with yellow-brown eyes, ribs moving under filthy fur, every part of him made of pain and suspicion, and he had taken the turkey from your hand so gently that you cried on the spot. Full ugly tears, snot and all, as if tenderness from a ruined thing was the saddest miracle in the world.

Benjamin Poindexter reminds you of that dog every time he appears at your door.

Which is insane, clinically. Dex is a man. Dex is a killer. Dex is precise, lethal, too calm in ways that make the hairs on the back of your neck lift even when he is sitting on your exam stool with his shirt off and three cracked ribs under your palm. Dex looked at you with blood in his teeth and asked if you keep the good suture scissors in the second drawer or if you hide them from your 'less charming clients,' and he smiled when you stared at him too long. He is six feet of bad decisions and worse coping mechanisms, and yet the first thing your mind gives you when you think of Dex is that stray dog taking turkey from your fingers.

That knock at this time is unexpected. Matt.

Matt knocks like a man who hates needing help. Two firm taps, a pause, one more. Spiderman kncoks like he's not allowed to come in. Jessica once kicked the door and yelled your name until you opened. Dex, on his own, never knocks at all. He appears. He waits. Sometimes he bleeds on the mat. Sometimes he makes a small, polite comment about your hallway light going out.

You are across the room before the kettle finishes screaming. Your clinic is technically a closed flower shop with a fake lease and a drain installed under the center table, which makes you look deranged. Until someone comes in with a knife wound and then everyone suddenly appreciates plumbing. The place smells like antiseptic, old brick damp from rain, black tea, and the faint copper ghost that never fully leaves, because blood is part of everything. You unlock the deadbolt, undo the chain, tug the door open, and Matt Murdock nearly falls into you with Bullseye hanging off him like a corpse.

For one bright, stupid second, all your thoughts empty out into his name.

Dex.

His face is a mess. Blood has dried under one nostril and smeared across his mouth in a dark shine. His lower lip is split. One eye is swollen enough that it changes his whole expression, turning him younger in the ugliest way, all that sharpness buried under bruising and exhaustion. His suit is torn at the side, tactical fabric shredded into strips. When Matt adjusts his grip, Dex makes a sound so small you feel it under your bones.

Matt's mouth tightens. Blood mats his dark hair near his temple. Only consolation is that he looks a little better than Dex. "He needs help."

You stare at Dex. Dex stares back, or tries to. His good eye drags over your face with the slow, stunned relief of a man who expected darkness and got a porch light. The part of you with a medical license starts counting injuries in a list that stacks too fast. Facial trauma. Rib involvement. Possible abdominal injury. Scalp laceration. Possible pneumothorax. The part of you that has made the mistake of caring about him too much, looks at his lashes stuck together with rain and blood and wants to put his head in your lap.

With a gentleness reserved for skittish animals, you reach for his jaw, two fingers under his chin to angle his face toward the light. "Dex, can you hear me?"

Blood shines over his teeth, as his mouth twitches. "Hey, Doc."

Matt shifts him higher with a grunt, muscles in his forearms cording from the effort. Dex makes another small sound, angrier this time, as if the pain is just now surfacing. "He took the worst of it. I did what I could, but he kept telling me to leave him."

"Balanced the scales," Dex mumbles, head tipping back against Matt's shoulder. Rainwater slides from his hair down the side of his neck. "You had a city to save."

"Ma — you should come in." You catch yourself at the last second. It rises right up, soft from habit, and catches at the back of your teeth as Dex's good eye opens again.

He smiles at you through the blood. Barely. A broken curve of recognition, jealous even while half-dead, which is so Dex that something in you aches. "I know who he is, doc. You can call him Matt."

You close your eyes, breathe through your nose once, a fond sigh, which also is deeply annoying. "Of course you do."

Dex's smile widens enough to make the split in his lip bleed again. "Smart boy."

No. Nope.

"Table. Keep his neck aligned." You tell Matt, stepping back and sweeping one arm toward the center of the room. "If either of you tracked glass in here, I'm making you both sweep before sunrise." You add, not wanting to sound too soft.

Matt obeys with a silence that says he has learned, through years of being injured in your presence, that arguing only rises blood pressure. Dex tries to help. That is the horrible part. His fingers grip the edge of the exam table once Matt lowers him, knuckles white, body shaking with the effort of being useful. His legs drag a fraction of a second behind the rest of him. Your mind sees it, circles it, hates it. You pull trauma shears from the tray and cut through what remains of the suit before any panic can bloom large enough to slow your hands.

"Eyes on me," you tell Dex, softer than you mean to. "You do exactly what I say for the next hour. That's the deal."

His lashes flutter, and his ruined mouth quirks. "I'm always good for you."

Matt turns his head slightly, lips tugging on a frown half formed. 

You feel it. Dex feels it too. They are both bleeding and somehow still measuring each other. Matt's face gives almost nothing away, but you have known him long enough to read the pauses, even the slight angle of his chin. He hears Dex's pulse change around you. He hears your answer. He hears the rotten little truth of it, warm and embarrassing under all the antiseptic.

You press two fingers to Dex's carotid and pretend the pulse under your skin is purely clinical. "That depends on your definition of good."

"Flexible," Dex breathes.

"Try alive."

"That's less flexible."

When you shoot him a look, he settles. It happens so fast Matt's brow pulls in, and despite the blood running down the side of his own face, despite the exhaustion in every line of him, you see him file it away. Dex does that for you. Dex, who would rather spit teeth than accept help from almost anyone, quiets under your hand like you found a switch under his skin.

You hate how much that means to you.

The shears bite up the side of Dex's suit. Rain-wet fabric peels away from him, exposing bruises already darkening over his ribs, long shallow cuts crossing his abdomen, a deeper gash near his left flank with slow, steady bleeding. You talk while you work, partly for him, partly for Matt, mostly for your own sanity. "Breath sounds normal. No deep lacerations. Two tiny blessings. Dex, if you lie about pain severity, I will find out and I will be extremely annoying about it."

His good eye trails over your face. "You already are."

"Funny. You get one joke per liter of blood loss."

Matt huffs through his nose, almost a laugh, then winces. You point at the chair by the wall without looking up. "Sit."

"I can take care of myself."

The room goes quiet enough for the kettle to click off in the corner.

You turn your head slowly, gloved fingers still pressed to Dex's side. Matt is standing near the exam table, one shoulder lower than the other, blood sliding past his ear, jaw set in that martyr shape you have wanted to smack off his face for years. "Sit down, Matthew."

Dex makes a low sound, a grunt, or an attemp at it. "Matthew."

Matt's eyes go over Dex, jaw clenching and unclenching. "This is a bad time."

"For you, maybe," Dex says, and then coughs hard enough that the joke breaks.

You lean over him fast, one hand at his shoulder, the other bracing his ribs. "Small breaths. Look at me." His eye finds yours again, frantic for a second. He would kill anyone else for witnessing this, but not now. Your voice drops even further. "That's it. You can hate me after."

He breathes the way you tell him to. Obedient.

When Matt sits, some ridiculous, childish part of you wants to clap. Another part wants to cry. You do neither, since your hands are full of a man who has decided your voice is a leash he can tolerate.

The first twenty minutes disappear into work. Blood pressure readings, pupils, pulses, lung sounds again, neuro checks, wound depth, rib stability. You listen to Dex's chest and feel him try to keep still under the stethoscope, sweat shining at his hairline while his fingers curl over the table edge. When you clean his lip, he keeps his eyes on you as if the room might vanish if he looks away. When you probe near the gash at his side, his breathing goes jagged, but he bites down on the inside of his cheek instead of jerking away.

"Hey." You catch his face in your hand before he can sink his teeth deeper. "Open."

He opens his mouth, shaking while he does it. 

You can feel Matt's head turn again. You ignore it, cheeks heating as you slide gauze between Dex's teeth to keep him from chewing himself bloody. "Better. Bite this if you need to. No hero teeth."

Dex's gaze moves over you, half-lidded, feverish, words coming out mumbled over the piece of gauze. "Do you treat all your patients like dogs?"

You secure a dressing against his side and let the pressure hold under your palm. "Only my favourite strays."

His eye softens like he cannot control himself. It is small. A tiny failure of the mask. A starved thing hearing a bowl set down.

Matt hears that too. You can tell from his silence, from the careful stillness in his chair. When you finish with Dex, you cross the room with a suture kit for the cut at his temple. Matt turns his face towards you before your knees touch the edge of the chair. He smells like rain, blood, city smoke, and that faint soap he uses which you have always found unfairly comforting. You have stitched Matt under worse circumstances. You have dug glass out of his shoulder while he spit blood into your sink. You have fed him soup with one hand while keeping pressure on his dressing with another. That comfort is old. It sits between you now.

Dex watches it like it is a blade aimed at him.

You dab antiseptic at Matt's temple. "This is shallow. You are lucky."

Matt's mouth curves in that tired, self-punishing way. "People keep telling me that."

"Maybe try believing them once in a while."

Ignoring that, he dips his chin towards Dex. "How bad is he?"

You glance back at Dex. He has his head turned toward the ceiling now, but his eye is still angled in your direction. Watching. Always listening. "Bad enough that moving him tonight would be stupid. He's stable enough. But I need imaging he will never agree to. Possible rib fractures, soft tissue trauma, no obvious neuro deficit from what I can assess here, but I want repeat checks every hour. He needs observation."

"He wanted me to leave him," Matt says quietly, like his voice won't carry in the small room. 

Dex speaks from the table, voice rough around the gauze and dried blood. "You should've. Still think you should."

You thread the needle through Matt's skin with more force than strictly needed, anger showing up in a different place. Matt says nothing, but his mouth pinches.

"No one dies in my clinic unless I say so," you call over your shoulder.

Dex exhales, a soft sigh followed by a start of a complaint. "You really —"

"Please lie down and stop talking."

Matt's hand closes around your wrist after you finish the last stitch. He does it carefully, fingers warm, thumb pressing once against your radius as if he is asking permission through touch. Comfort. Familiar, heavy with years of people trying to survive horrible nights. "Fisk is still moving," he says. "Karen..." His voice thins for half a breath. "Karen may kill him if I bring him anywhere near her."

Dex smiles at the ceiling. "Smart woman."

You look from Matt to Dex, then down at the blood-speckled gauze piled near your knee. "You want to leave him here."

"I think he is safer here than anywhere else tonight." Matt's mouth tightens, next words dragging through his teeth. "I think everyone else is safer too."

Your laugh comes out dry and humorless. "So I get custody of the homicidal puppy while you go deal with the rest of the apocalypse."

Dex turns his head toward you. Even wrecked, even pale, even with gauze stuffed in his mouth and bruises swallowing half his face, the look he gives you has teeth in it. Offended by the word puppy. Pleased by the word custody. Matt catches every ugly shade of it.

"He listens to you," Matt says.

"He has limited hobbies."

Dex murmurs, "You."

The word drops into the room with a wet little thud. One syllable dragged over broken lips, and still it finds some secret place under your ribs and presses. You hate him a little for that. You hate Matt a little for hearing it. You hate yourself most of all for wanting to go back to the table and touch Dex's hair until his eyes close.

Matt rises slowly. You stand with him, suddenly aware of how small the clinic is with three people and so many things no one should say. He reaches for the cowl, then stops. "Call me if he gets worse. If he loses consciousness, if he starts vomiting, if he says anything about numbness or weakness."

"I went to med school, Matt."

His mouth tilts, a small smile, the first real one from him tonight. 

You can feel Dex watching you, clear enough to hurt. Pain pulls his face tight, yet jealousy sits in him like a second pulse, stubborn and alive. He has killed for balance tonight. He has decided dying would be neat, fair. Still, your hand on Matt's wrist bothers him. Your voice saying Matt's name bothers him. The fact that you can tease the Devil of Hell's Kitchen into sitting down while Dex lies cut open on your table bothers him so much that he has dragged himself back from the edge purely to be petty about it.

Trying to ignore him, you walk Matt to the door and keep your voice low. "You owe me."

"I do."

"No, you really do. This is beyond the usual owe me. This is pay my fake flower shop's electric bill for six months owe me."

His hand finds the doorframe. "Send the amount."

You blink at him, at his audacity. "I was making a point."

"I heard the point." His face softens toward yours, bruised and tired, but warmth nonetheless. "Thank you."

You almost touch his arm. You stop yourself, which is silly, since Matt would sense the hesitation anyway and Dex would read the shape of it from across the room. "Go. Try to keep your skull intact."

Before the door closes, Matt turns his head toward Dex. "If you hurt her, I will hear it."

Dex laughs once, and the sound turns into a wince. "If I hurt her, you can have what's left."

The clinic holds the echo of Matt's footsteps after he leaves. Rain ticks against the front window. Dex's breath is slow but uneven, the gauze in his mouth damp with blood and spit. You stand with your hand on the lock and try to make sense of this situation. A murderer on your table. A city outside eating itself alive. A man who wants to die looking at you like he would crawl back through hell if you asked him to stay.

You lock the door.

Dex watches the motion, tracking you. "You're awfully close."

You cross to the sink and strip off your gloves. The snap of latex feels too loud. "You were actively bleeding out fifteen minutes ago. Pick a smarter topic."

"Answer."

Water runs pink down the drain. Your hands shake only after the gloves are off. "Matt and I have history."

Dex's jaw works around the gauze. "So do we."

"You show up here, bleed on my furniture, say alarming things, refuse hospital transfer, and once asked if I had a membership program after your fifth visit." You shut the water off and look at him. His face makes you angry. But only a little. That hungry stare from a man who has no right to demand any part of you after deciding twenty minutes ago that death sounded fine. Yet under it is the dog with the torn ear. The animal watching every hand, every doorway, every flick of attention, trying to figure out who belongs to him, who might leave, who might choose some other dog with a clean fur.

You walk back to the table and take the gauze gently from his mouth. "You are exhausting."

Dex's throat move with effort, swallowing, saliva wetting his mouth. "Do you look at him like this?"

The question is quieter than the others. Worse. It has no blade in it. Only a man lying open under fluorescent light, too hurt to hide the wound he actually cares about.

Your fingers hover near his cheek. You let them settle at his jaw, light enough that he can turn away if he wants. He does no such thing. He leans into the touch so fast it ruins you.

"Dex."

His lashes lower, tickling your palm when he seeks the warmth. 

"I am going to clean you up, give you fluids, keep you awake for neuro checks, and cuff you to the bed in the back room so you avoid doing some noble-suicidal assassin bullshit the second I blink." Your thumb moves once along the unmarred edge of his jaw. His skin is cold. "After that, you can interrogate me about Matt Murdock until I regret saving your life."

A sad smile curves his lips. "You already regret it."

"No." The word comes out so soft. "I really, really do not."

The clinic's back room used to serve as a supply closet, then you stopped having supplies. Now it holds a narrow bed bolted to the wall, clean sheets, a cabinet of emergency meds, and a chain you bought after a masked idiot with a concussion tried to wander into traffic with three fresh staples in his scalp. 

Dex sees the cuff and laughs until pain takes the laugh away from him. You roll your eyes while helping him shift down onto the mattress, every inch a negotiation with his battered ribs.

"You chain all your favourite patients?" He asks once his uninjured ankle is secured with a padded restraint and the chain runs through the bedframe.

You tug the blanket over his waist. "Only the flight risks."

"Matt ever get the chain?"

Your hands pause, which already gives him a lot without meaning to. 

Dex smiles without opening his eyes. "Interesting."

You secure the IV line, check the dressing at his side, and sit on the small chair beside the bed with your back against the cabinet. "Go to sleep, Dex."

"Can't."

"Then lie still and pretend. You're talented."

His fingers slide over the edge of the mattress until they find your sleeve. He grips the soft cotton near your wrist, clumsy but careful. He has enough strength left to hurt you if he wanted. He holds the fabric instead.

You let him.

Near dawn, after the third neuro check, after he has told you the year, the president, your clinic address, and the exact number of tiles in the ceiling section above him like an asshole, his voice comes out thin and drugged by exhaustion rather than meds. "I did it."

You sit up straighter. Hearing him talk through pain is something you don't want to go through, but have to. "Did what?"

"Balanced it. Vanessa for Foggy."

A chill moves through you so slowly it feels like a hand closing around your heart. Foggy. Matt's grief. Karen's rage. Dex's worst crime. The city's endless appetite for payment. You look at him and see, for one horrible second, a man lying at the bottom of a ledger with a red line drawn under his own name. "And now?" 

Dex's fingers tighten in your sleeve, holding you closer. "Now I'm tired."

You reach up and press your hand over his. He looks at the place where your skin covers his knuckles. His expression is too human for the man the papers called Bullseye, and you hate every person who helped turn him into a weapon, including Dex himself. He leans toward the comfort like he never learned how to ask.

"Then be tired here," you whisper. "I can handle tired."

He studies you for a long moment. "Can you handle me?"

You should say something clinical. Something careful. Something with the kind of boundaries you teach medical students when they come through your legitimate daytime job, wide-eyed and terrified of liability. But, you tell the truth. "I keep opening the door, don't I?"

Dex's eye closes. His fingers stay wrapped in your sleeve until sleep finally drags him under.

By late morning, the rain has stopped. The city has that scrubbed-clean look it gets after a night of lying through its teeth. Pale sunlight presses through the frosted glass in the back room, turning the sheets gold where Dex's hand rests on top of them. You wake in the chair with your neck bent at an angle that will punish you for days, hair coming loose from its clip. For one muzzy second, you forget the night. Then the chain gives a soft metallic scrape, and you remember every part of it at once.

Dex is awake.

He is lying still, which is encouraging. Too still, which is irritating. His good eye follows you as you straighten. He looks better, at least in the way people look better when they are still severely injured but no longer actively trying to bleed into the afterlife. Less gray. More focused. The swelling around his eye has deepened purple. His mouth is still split and tender. Stubble darkens his jaw. His bare chest is bandaged in three places, bruises blooming under the tape like ugly weather.

"You stayed," he says.

Your back cracks when you shift, a grunt escaping you. "I live here during disasters now, apparently."

His gaze drops to your wrinkled shirt, the blanket you must have pulled over yourself at some point. "You slept in a chair."

"I have made worse choices." Liking him was one. 

His mouth moves like he wants to smile, but the split in his lip stops him. "Name one."

"You, repeatedly." Apparently early morning you has no filter. 

That pleases him far more than it should. He watches you stand, and when you come over to check his pupils, he tilts his face up before you ask. Trying to be good again. It is awful to your chest, that easy offering. Dex, who fights everyone, lets you put your fingers under his jaw and angle him towards the light, eyes tracking your face more than the penlight. 

"Headache?" you ask.

"Not really."

"Nausea?"

"No."

"Vision changes?"

"Ugly curtains."

"Those are original to the building, and they have seen too much to be insulted by you."

Ignoring that, he looks toward the ankle cuff. "Am I still a flight risk?"

"You murdered someone last night, tried to die at least twice by my count, and keep making jealous comments about a blind lawyer. So, Id say yes."

Dex's eye comes back to you. Slower now. "You're bringing him up."

The audacity if this stupid, beautiful, injured man. "You were going to."

"I was waiting."

"That must have been hard for you."

His fingers flex against the sheet, head dipping once towards his ankle. "Take it off."

You fold your arms, and his gaze moves briefly over your chest before he makes himself look back at your face. The tiny effort, the discipline of it, should not be as intimate as it is. "Tell me why."

"So I can leave if I want."

"Wrong answer."

The old Dex sits up under the wounded one for a second, teeth showing in spirit, even if his mouth is too sore for the full shape. He exhales, irritated. "So I can stop feeling like you expect me to run."

That one is a better answer. He sees that getting to you, which is annoying. Your mouth softening by degrees, fingers loosening against your arms, he sees all of it. You crouch near the bed and unlock the cuff with the key on your necklace. His eyes follow it, the little brass thing sliding from between your breasts, then the lock, then your hand closing around his ankle to ease the padding away from skin.

The chain falls with a dull clink.

Half of you, the pessimistic half, expects him to lunge. But he just lies there and looks at you with wonder in his eyes, as if you have handed him a weapon and he has chosen, for this one morning, to set it down.

"If you run, I will find you and sedate you in public," you say.

"You promise?"

"Dex."

With effort, his hand lifts. The tremor is subtle, visible only because you have spent too many nights learning his tells. He reaches for your wrist and stops halfway, waiting.

You wouldn't have thought more about this if he'd just reached. The waiting is what burrows under your ribs. 

When you give him your wrist, his fingers close around it with almost no pressure, thumb restinh over your pulse like he wants to feel proof you are still here, flesh and warmth, no trick. "Does he get this?" 

He should feel your pulse jump under his thumb, as you sigh and look at him. "Matt gets stitches. Lectures. Soup if he looks starved."

Dex studies your face, eyes tracking every one of your features, scanning. "And me?"

"You get the chain."

He huffs out something close to a laugh, with whatever energy that's left in him.

"You get me missing sleep, changing your dressings while you say upsetting things. You get me pretending I don't worry when you vanish for weeks and then show up with half your side open like a wounded dog dragging itself under a porch."

His hand tightens around the hold, eyes darkening. They are fixed on you with concentration, feeling more like a touch than his actual hands. 

Dex has always looked at targets with focus. You have seen him do it through security footage Matt once brought you, body still, gaze calm, all the world narrowed into distance and outcome. This is different. Messier. He looks at you like he wants to crawl into the space behind your ribs and sleep there where no one can reach him.

"Do you want him?" The question comes out blunt. Too wounded. Subtlety has been stripped from him. What remains is one battered man, waiting to hear if he has already lost something he never properly held.

You sit on the edge of the mattress, careful near his ribs. The warmth of his body seeps into yours. "Matt is my friend."

"He touches you like he has rights."

"He touches me like he trusts me."

Dex's eyes looks pained, his jaw tightening. When you lean closer, his gaze drops to your mouth. Your eyes cleanly capture that small betrayal. His thumb strokes once over your pulse, helplessly possessive. You could still walk away. Probably change his dressing, make tea, text Matt an update, maybe contact someone with imaging access who asks fewer questions than the hospital would. Your brain produces tasks in a neat row. Your body knocks the row over like dominoes.

"He doesn't get this look," you sigh. Hazel eye lifts to yours, stripped clean. You almost laugh at yourself for what you're about to say, too honest for this setting. "No one else gets this look."

His breathing changes. Shallow for a second, then controlled since his ribs hurt. He has to choose restraint with every inhale. It makes the want on his face worse. A man who can hit a target precisely even in motion, is trying to keep still under your hand. The effort has sweat gathering at his temples. His hand closed around your wrist tugs you towards him, wordless, but you don't think words are needed. 

"You have bruised ribs, multiple lacerations, and an ego wound the size of Manhattan," you say, but lean towards him anyway. 

"Your bedside manner was better last night."

"Last night you were closer to death."

His mouth curves faintly, the split lip threatening to open with themotion. "I'm improving. Reward me."

The nerve of him. The absurd, devastating nerve of him, lying in your bed bandaged to hell, asking for you like he has any right, like he has every right. He has learned the existence of a spot in you where affection, fear and desire knot together, and has decided to press his thumb there. This is medically stupid, ethically worse, emotionally catastrophic. 

But his hand on your wrist makes you feel chosen by a creature who has bitten everyone else, torn ear flashing before your eyes once more. 

You bend down and kiss him. You mean to make it careful. A little thing. A test. Dex makes a sound into your mouth, and the kiss opens wider before you can organize your thoughts. His lips are split, so you keep the pressure light, but he chases you anyway, hungry in a ruined, restrained way that sends a wave of heat through your skin. His hand rises to the back of your neck. You expect him to pull your closer, but he just holds you there, that being somehow worse. His palm is warm, fingers trembling slightly against your hairline, whole body focusing on the point where your mouth meets his.

You pull back first, breathing hard, sharing oxygen. "Pain?" 

His eyes open slowly, hazel swallowed by black. "Yes."

"From the kiss?"

"No." 

"Dex."

"Everything hurts," he says, voice rough, like he's holding on by a thread. "That felt better."

The thread is thin. Your forehead lowers to his temple for one second. Just one. But it's enough to smell antiseptic on his skin, blood in his mouth, rain still caught somewhere in his hair. Enough to feel him exhale like the thread has finally snapped.

"This stays slow," you whisper against his mouth. "You tell me if I need to stop."

His thumb moves along your jaw, soft, so soft. "I'll behave."

That word is so gentle, that he has no practice giving, and you kiss him again before you can lose your nerve. Dex kisses like survival has always been a contact sport. Even injured, even careful, his mouth has a desperate steadiness to it, as if he is memorizing the limits of what he can take from you without breaking the spell. His hand slides from your neck to your waist, then stops. Waiting again.

You place his hand over your hip.

A sound leaves him, too soft to be a groan, too hungry to be a sigh, and his fingers dig into the flesh of your hips. Your thighs press together, his eye tracking the movement with a precision that makes your skin prickle. "Doc," he murmurs against your mouth.

"Mm?"

"You're shaking."

"So are you."

"I have an excuse."

A laugh from your mouth, but it comes out breathy and uneven, not nearly as cool as you need it to be. "Shut up."

You don't have a comeback, no sharp thing to say. You're letting Ben Poindexter slide his hand up under your shirt. There's an awful tenderness in being wanted by someone who rarely wants anything without destroying it. So, no. No sharp comeback. 

His palm spreads over your waist, careful of his taped fingers, of the bruises on his own knuckles, careful with you in a way that feels learned from watching rather than experience. His thumb brushes the lower curve of your breast through your bra, and your breath goes thin.

His gaze locks on that reaction. "Can I?" 

When you nod, his hand moves higher, cupping you with an aching slowness that makes your hips shift on the mattress. Dex's eyelid lowers, mouth parting slightly as if the feel of you under his palm is enough to daze him more than his injuries. He squeezes once, gentle at first, then firmer when your fingers curl into the sheet.

"Tell me," he says.

"Half-dead, but still you demand."

He ignores your words. "Tell me what you like."

The command, irritating from any other mouth, only drags heat through every inch of you now. You cover his hand with yours and guide him, showing him the pressure, the spot, how your nipple tightens when his thumb rubs over it through cotton. His attention is unbearable. "Like that," you breathe. "A little harder. Yeah, like that."

"He ever hear you sound like that?"

You kiss him harder, stealing those words from his mouth. He absorbs it with a shudder, hand tightening around your breast while his other reaches for your thigh. 

The position is so awkward, you help him a little to sit up. Two bodies learning each other in the small space of a spare room cot.

Jealousy is still there, you can feel it threaded through every question, but now it has heat behind it, a wounded need that makes him cling and challenge at once. You swing one leg over his hips before he can try to move too much, settling carefully over his thighs, your palms braced on either side of his shoulders so none of your weight hits his ribs.

For once, Bullseye looks struck.

You look down at him, at the swelling, the bruises, the blood cleaned from his mouth, the bandages you placed over skin you are now aching to touch. 

A man who tried to die last night is now staring at you like your thighs around him might be a reason to reconsider.

"This okay?" you ask, voice soft, not to startle him.

Dex swallows as he nuzzles closer, as if it was even possible. "Better than okay."

"Hands stay where they won't pull stitches."

A faint smile, soft enough to pull your heartstrings, looks up at you as if you have given him an order he would follow through fire. "Yes, doctor."

Your fingers tighten in the sheet beside his hip at his words. His thumb keeps moving on the bare strip of your stomach like he has found a place warm enough to keep him, palm heavy with feverish want and restraint that looks painful on him. 

When you reach for your shirt, his hand tightens at your thigh. "Slow… let me see."

You almost laugh at the nerve of him. When the shirt drags up your ribs, his eyes follow every inch as if the fabric itself has offended him by hiding you this long. You pull it over your head and toss it to your back. Your bra is plain, worn from too many overnight shifts, and the fact that he looks at it like lace from some altar makes heat crawl over your cheeks. "Say something," you murmur, fingers hovering near the clasp.

Dex's mouth parts, then closes again. The split along the lower one shines where he has worried it open with every kiss. "I'm trying to think like a man with blood left in his head."

"That bad?"

His thumb brushes under the curve of your breast, barely grazing the band of your bra. "Worse."

You unhook it before the embarrassment can make you hesitate. The straps slip down your arms, and Dex goes still. Your breasts fall free, nipples already tight from his earlier touch, and the look on his face makes you feel naked in a deeper place than skin. He reaches up with both hands, then winces at the pull across his ribs. His frustration flashes sharp in his jaw.

"Let me come to you," you offer.

He gives a tiny shake of his head, annoyed at himself. "I hate this."

"You hate being cared for."

"I hate having hands and not able to use them."

That almost makes you smile. You shift closer, one hand cupping the back of his head, other hand cupping your breast and guiding him towards it. "Then use your mouth."

Dex groans like that instruction broke him. His lips close around your nipple, careful for all of two seconds before the pull turns needy. His tongue works over you, slow at first, then firmer when your hips shift against his. He makes a sound into your skin, less like hunger, more comfort, like he has found some impossible warmth in you and intends to live there now. 

One of his hands finds your waist. The other slides around to your ass, fingers digging into the soft flesh he can reach. He cannot pull you hard without hurting himself, so he holds you in place and sucks like he needs the taste of you to steady him.

"Dex," you breathe, your hand tightening in his hair. His eye lifts without his mouth leaving you. "That's... yeah. Keep doing that."

He answers by drawing you deeper into his mouth, cheeks hollowing with a careful pull that sends a wet, aching spark down between your legs. The sound you make embarrasses you, and he hears it. Feels it. His hand slides lower, greedy over the curve of your ass. When you rock against him, his cock presses thick and hard under the loose pants you put on him hours earlier.

He releases your nipple with a soft sound, mouth shining. "Take these off me."

"Demanding, are we?"

His gaze drags up to meet yours. "Please. I need you closer, and these are in my way."

That is worse than anything filthy he could have said. Your fingers go to his waistband, tugging carefully, your focus split between wanting him and watching the tight pinch around his mouth whenever his ribs object. He helps as much as he can, lifting his hips an inch, hissing through his teeth. His cock slips free against his stomach, hard, already wet at the tip.

You stare for half a second too long. Even when he's injured, Dex notices everything. "Still want to scold me?"

"Constantly," you say, hating the softness in it, and wrap your hand around him.

His laugh turns into a groan, head dropping back against the wall while your thumb spreads the wetness at his tip down his shaft. He is warm in your hand, heavy, alive. The thought makes your throat ache, so you lean in and kiss him instead, messy and careful at once, your bare chest pressed near his bandages, your fingers stroking him until his hips twitch. "Stop moving," you whisper against his mouth.

"I barely moved."

"You moved enough." Your fingers don't stop their graze on his cock. 

"I missed you." His voice comes apart on the last word. "Grant me a little mercy."

You rise onto your knees instead of answering the smarter way, tugging at your pants with one impatient hand while the other stays braced near his shoulder. The fabric catches at your knees, and for one stupid second you almost laugh. This is so ungraceful, far from the kind of fantasy you would have let yourself have about him. Dex does not laugh. His gaze follows the slow drag of your pants down your thighs like he is watching something holy and obscene at once. By the time you kick them off near the foot of the cot, your underwear is damp enough to cling, and his fingers flex against your hips like he is fighting the urge to help. "Those too."

"You're very annoying for a man who can barely sit upright, you know?"

"Please." There's just desperation. 

You push your underwear down just enough at first, suddenly shy under his gaze, then give up and pull them off completely. Your slick coats your fingers when you touch yourself, and Dex's mouth parts like the sight has taken the last good thought from his head.

He watches entranced while you drag that wetness over his cock, making the slide easier, making a filthy shine of both of you. His hands flex against your hips, then still when you lower yourself over him.

The first stretch steals the words from both of you. You sink slowly, one hand braced on the wall over his shoulder, the other gripping his upper arm where the muscle tenses under your palm. Dex looks wrecked before you are even halfway down. His mouth hangs open, eyes fixed on your face, then dropping to where his cock disappears into you, then come back up as if he needs to see you take him more than he needs air. "Too much?" he asks.

Lowering anothet inch, you shake your head, thighs already trembling from the angle. "Just — just let me take my time."

"I'm yours," he says. "Take all of it."

The words do terrible things to you. You sink the rest of the way, cunt closing around him in hot, slick pulses. 

Dex's hands clamp down on your ass with a force that almost breaks through his weakness. His forehead falls against your sternum. He breathes there, mouth brushing your skin, then he turns his face and sucks one breast back between his lips while you start to ride him.

The cot creaks under. Your thighs burn almost immediately, cramped from sleep in the chair and the span of his hips beneath yours. Still, you lift and sink, taking him deeper each time. 

Dex tries to stay still. You feel the fight in him. His palms keep sliding under your ass, helping you rise, helping you drop, giving you just enough strength to keep moving without letting his ribs tear at him.

Then he thrusts up like he can't stop himself. A sharp little cry leaves you, pleasure striking so deep your knees almost give. Dex makes a pained sound in the same second, and your hand flies to his shoulder "Do that again and I swear I'll chain you back to the bed."

His face is tight, sweat shining at his temple. "I can take this."

"You are actively proving the opposite."

"Please." He says it into your breast, lips brushing the skin as he speaks, hands still cupping your ass. "Let me help. Sitting still while you do everything hurts worse."

Your scolding dies half-formed. If there's a tease, you could've gone through with it. But there's only need. Nodding your head against him, you let his hands guide you again. 

He lifts as much as he can with his arms, careful of his side, and you ride the motion, cunt sliding down his cock with a wet sound that makes both of you shudder. His mouth finds your nipple again, sucking harder, and you feel him everywhere, under your skin, in your thighs, between your ribs. "I'm close," you tell him.

His hand leaves your ass, searching between your bodies. But when he twists wrong, pain catches him. You grab his wrist and press it back to your hip. "No. I'll do it."

"I want to make you cum."

"You are." You touch your clit with slick fingers and circle it the way you need, riding him in short, deep rolls. "Just stay with me. That's what I need."

His head drops back against the wall, watching your hand move, watching his cock fill you, then watches your face break open around pleasure. "Look at me. P-please. Let me see you."

When your eyes find his, your orgasm hits you you hard enough to turn your thighs useless, cunt clenching around him in tight, wet pulls. 

Dex curses softly, hands locking on your ass as he spills inside you, hot and endless, body going rigid beneath yours while he tries to keep from thrusting. You keep your mouth against his, breathing into him until the shaking eases.

He says something too low for you to catch.

"What?"

His eye opens, glassy and spent. "Mine."

Your fingers slide along his jaw, careful around the bruising. "You don't get to say that unless you stay alive."

"I'll stay alive." The answer comes fast, hoarse, almost angry with how badly he means it.

Before you can respond, he catches the wrist of the hand you used on your clit and brings your fingers to his mouth. His lips close around them, sucking you off your own skin with a slow hunger that makes you clench again around his softening cock. 

Like he cannot bear another second apart, he pulls you down and kisses you, your taste on his tongue, his hand weak but certain at the back of your neck. His pulse slams under your palm where it's holding onto his neck. Alive. Alive. Alive.

Getting off him is slow and messy. His cum slides down your thigh while you stand naked beside the cot. 

Dex watches with a dazed, almost helpless look that follows you even when you grab a warm cloth. You sit beside him and clean his cock first, gentle around oversensitive skin, and he inhales like this care is harder to take than the sex. "I can do that," he mutters.

"You are injured. Shut up." You continue your path down his thighs. 

"You like telling me what to do."

"I like keeping you alive." You check the bandage at his side next, still naked, still dripping, fingers clinical even while his gaze keeps dropping to the mess he left between your thighs. "Looks okay. Nothing opened."

When you clean yourself, he watches your hand move between your thighs with a frown that is almost offended. "That should be me."

"You can do that when you aren't fighting for your life."

His eye lifts to yours, begging, exhausted. "Next time?"

"Next time." Next time means he's planning on staying. 

Your phone buzzes, the sound cutting through the moment. One small vibration against the metal cabinet, and Dex already knows. His eye shifts before yours does, tired and sharp at the same time, like the rest of him is sinking under but that sharp little blade in him still knows how to lift its head. "Matt," he says.

Offering him a bottle of water, you pick up your phone. Sure enough it is Matt.

"Tell him I didn't vanish." The bottle is unopened at his hands.

Sighing, you grab it from him, uncap and press it to his lips. Dex looks at you stunned, almost offended that you're holding a bottle to his mouth. "Drink."

Whatever response that was about to spill from his lips is interrupted by another buzz of your phone, currently on the cot beside him.

Dex's eyes drop to the screen. Bruised, naked under the too-thin blanket, barely keeping himself awake, and still he finds the one thing in the room pulling your attention away from him. "Persistent," he rasps.

"You're one to talk." The bottle stays at his mouth until he takes one grudging swallow, then another. His throat works, lashes lowering for a second.

The phone buzzes again.

Dex's mouth leaves the bottle. "Just — just reply him."

You pick up the phone with a sigh, and type back a response. 

Still here. Stable. 

Dex's eye tracks every letter. "That's all?"

"You want a performance review?"

His almost-smile tugs at the torn corner of his mouth. "Five stars. Charming. Didn't vanish."

You set the phone facedown beside his hip and lift the bottle again. "One more sip."

He groans, but drinks. This time he doesn't look offended. When a drop slips from the corner of his mouth, you wipe it with your thumb before thinking better of it. Dex catches your wrist before you can pull back. His grip has almost no strength left, but he holds you like letting go is the worst thing that could happen. "I behaved." 

Just two words, like that wounded dog setting its head down because it has run out of places, but has finally found home. Your eyes sting so fast it's embarrassing. You settle your palm against his cheek. "Yes, you did."

Matt's reply comes through, unseen and ignored.

Dex's eyes close as he nuzzles deeper into your palm, your wrist still trapped in his loose hold. And all you can think is, stay.

MY MASTERLIST

EXTRAS. you can tell i almost gave up in the end. also… my man is so puppy dog. prove me wrong…

She really wasn’t, you were just cooking with Sukuna when she came into the kitchen after waking up at noon, hair a mess and yawning. Satoru took a look at what you were making and, still half-asleep, she told you that she didn’t like what you were cooking and that she’d order take out for herself. So this is Sukuna’s punishment for Satoru.

“I already apologize!” Satoru tried to rest her forehead on your calf, but Sukuna quickly took the leash in her hand, pulling it so she was as far as possible from you. “Baby, please ngh- say something.”

She was looking into your eyes, her big blue orbs making you a little dizzy. Her naked body was gorgeous, with her pretty rosy nipples hard and too appetising. You try to tell her something, that she can have you later (Sukuna and you know that’s a lie) but Suki takes the opportunity to graze your clit at that exact moment. 

“Ah-” you whine, thighs trying to close but Sukuna’s strong legs and tail keep you open for her and for Satoru to see. “Suki, fuck- I’m so-”

“You’re soaked,” she says, mockingly. Now toying with your clit more freely, flicking it and pressing it down, but never rubbing it with enough pressure. 

Sukuna’s fingers kept moving in a torturously slow rhythm, two thick digits sliding through your slick folds without giving you any real relief. The wet sounds were so loud in the quiet room, every little squelch making your face burn hotter. You could feel how drenched you were, your arousal coating her hand and dripping down toward your thighs. Her breath was hot against the shell of your ear as she chuckled low.

“Listen to that,” she whispers, voice rough with satisfaction. “Your pretty pussy is crying for more already. Such a greedy little thing.”

You whimper, hips twitching forward instinctively, but her strong arm around your waist holds you firmly against her chest. The heavy strap-on pressed right between your ass cheeks, a reminder of what she could give you later if you behaved. Her free hand kept playing with your breast, rolling your nipple between her fingers until it ached in the best way.

“Please, Suki… I need it harder,” you beg. 

Your fingers tighten around Satoru’s leash, giving it another tight without realizing. Satoru lets out a broken moan, her ears flattening against her head as she strains forward on her knees. Satoru’s eyes are glassy, fixed between your spread legs while she was starving. “Sukuna, come on… let me taste her. I’ll be good, I swear!”

Sukuna laughed, she finally pushed her fingers a little deeper, curling them just enough to brush that sensitive spot inside you before pulling back again. The drag was so slow you felt every ridge, every inch. Your walls clenched hard around nothing when she withdrew, a fresh gush of wetness slipped out.

“You hear that, mutt? She’s clenching so desperately and you think you deserve a taste?” Sukuna pressed her palm flat against your stomach, holding you still while she dragged her fingertips up to circle your clit again. Light, feather-soft touches that made your legs shake. “Think twice before acting like a spoiled brat to our girl. Now you only get to watch while I play with her.

Satoru whined loudly, leaning as far as the leash allowed. She looked you in the eyes again. “Baby, please tell her… tell Sukuna I can lick you so good. I’ll suck on that cute clit until you’re screaming my name.”

You tried to answer, but Sukuna chose that moment to slide her fingers back inside you, pumping them in and out in long strokes. You moaned, head falling back against Sukuna’s shoulder, she took the chance to bite down gently on your neck, sucking a mark into your skin.

“Fuck… Suki- nghh please, more,” you gasped, trying to grind down on her hand. Her tail wrapped tighter around your thigh, keeping you open and exposed for Satoru’s hungry gaze.

“See how polite she is?” Sukuna cooed, voice dripping with mock sweetness as she looked down at Satoru. “Begging so nicely while you’re over there drooling like a pathetic dog in heat.”

Satoru’s cheeks burned red, but she didn’t look away. If anything, the degradation made her press her thighs together, a soft desperate sound escaping her throat. “Suki please, let me have her pussy. I’ll do anything. I’ll lick your strap clean after, I’ll kiss your feet, just please…” 

Her head drops in the bed, kneeling between your legs like she was ready to pray. Sukuna’s fingers sped up for a few glorious seconds, fucking into you with filthy noises that filled the air. You cried out, pleasure sparking up your spine, but she slowed right back down before you could get close. The denial made tears prick at the corners of your eyes.

“You like that, don’t you?” Sukuna whispered hotly against your ear, pinching your nipple hard enough to make you jolt. “Being fucked slow while this desperate whore watches. Your cunt is fluttering around my fingers like it wants to suck them in deeper.”

“Yes… hah god, yes,” you breathed, trembling. The heat of her body against your back was overwhelming, her hard nipples brushing your skin every time she moved. You could smell her arousal too, mixing with yours in the air.

Satoru tugged on the leash herself this time, eyes wide and pleading. “D-don’t make her suffer too much, Suki…”

Sukuna snorted, pulling her fingers out completely. You whined at the loss, pussy clenching around empty air, but she quickly brought her slick fingers to your mouth. “Open.”

You obeyed, tasting yourself on her skin as she pushed them past your lips, the salty-sweet flavor made you moan around them.

“See that? She’s such a good sucker,” Sukuna said to Satoru, voice sharp. 

Satoru moved forward on her hands and knees, leash pulling tight. Her breath was coming fast, chest heaving. “Yes, god. She is, she’s the best girl ever, right? She-she deserves to be fingered and eaten out at the same time, don’t you think?”

Sukuna hummed in approval and slid her fingers back between your legs, this time rubbing your clit with firmer strokes but still not letting you tip over the edge. “Not by you, tho, mutt.”

“Suki!” Satoru groans, rolling her eyes and pouting. She taps your calf as she speaks. “I’ll eat her out so so good, I know how she likes it. Listen, baby, I’d suck your clit hard and lick your pretty pussy like that one time, remember? I’d make you feel amazing, tell Sukuna how much you want me.”

You moaned loudly around Sukuna’s fingers, hips rolling. The picture of Satoru eating you out mixed with Sukuna’s relentless slow torture was driving you insane. Sukuna laughed softly, finally pulling her fingers from your mouth so she could grip your hip instead, holding you down while she worked your clit in tight circles.

“That’s cute,” Sukuna said, the degrading tone never fading. “You talk a big game for someone who’s not even allowed to touch yet. So pathetic.”

“I’m not pathetic,” Satoru protested weakly, but her tail was wagging even faster, betraying her.

You reached down, trying to press Sukuna’s hand harder against you, but she caught your wrist and pinned it to your side. “No rushing, baby. You take what I give you.”

The words sent another rush of heat through you, Sukuna rewarded you by pushing two fingers back inside, fucking you with deep thrusts while her thumb kept teasing your clit. Every stroke dragged against that perfect spot, building the pleasure higher and higher. Your moans grew louder, body arching against her.

“Mmmh, Suki… I’m so close, please don’t stop,” you begged.

She kissed the side of your neck, teeth grazing your skin. “Not yet. I want to hear you cry for it first. And I want this stupid puppy to keep begging while she watches you fall apart.”

Satoru’s blue eyes were locked on where Sukuna’s fingers disappeared inside you, her own thighs shiny with her arousal. “Please let her cum, Sukuna. She sounds so pretty when she does.”

The tension kept climbing deliciously, every sense overwhelmed. Sukuna’s low laughs, Satoru’s desperate whimpers, the wet heat between your legs, the press of that thick strap against your ass. You knew Sukuna would drag this out until you were a sobbing, begging mess, and you loved every second of it. Your breaths were coming in short little gasps, thighs shaking hard against her hold. Just when the heat started to crest, she pulled her hand away completely.

You let out a frustrated cry, body arching. “No, Suki, please, I was so close-”

Before you could finish begging, Sukuna flipped you over onto your back in one smooth, strong motion. The world spun for a second, then you were staring up at her, chest heaving. The thick strap bobbed heavily between her legs, glistening a little from how wet you’d made everything.

“Can you take it, baby?” she asked, one of her hands stroked down your stomach, fingertips brushing your soaked pussy teasingly. “All of it?”

You nodded fast, hair sticking to your damp forehead. “Yes, please. I can take it. I need you.”

Sukuna’s grin widened, she was feral. “Good girl. Keep the leash tight, yeah, baby? Don’t let her get too close.”

“Wait, Sukuna, that’s not fair! I’ve been waiting so long.”

Sukuna didn’t even look at her right away, she grabbed your hips, pulling you down the bed a little so your ass was lifted, completely ignoring Satoru. 

Satoru whined loud, ears drooping. “It’s not fair, I can treat her so good. Please, just let me lick her once before you–”

Sukuna practically kicked her off the bed with one firm shove of her foot against Satoru’s shoulder. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough to send her tumbling back onto the floor with a surprised yelp. 

“Grab a chair and sit your ass down,” Sukuna ordered, not even sparing her another glance. “You can watch from there if you behave.”

Satoru scrambled up, face flushed dark red, but she did what she was told. She dragged the wooden chair from the corner closer to the bed, sitting down with her legs spread, one hand already trailing down her own body. “This is so mean… I just wanna make her feel good.”

You didn’t have time to feel bad for her, Sukuna lined up the thick head of her strap right against your entrance, rubbing it up and down through your folds to coat it in your slick. The pressure was insane already and she hadn’t even pushed in yet. You whimpered, hands fisting the sheets.

“Suki… it’s so big,” you mumbled, voice breathy.

She leaned down, capturing your lips in a rough kiss before she started pressing forward. The stretch burned so good as the thick strap sank into you inch by inch. You gasped sharply, back bowing off the bed. “Ah- fuck, fuck, it’s filling me up…”

“That’s riiiight,” Sukuna growled, voice thick with lust. She bottomed out with a wet slap of skin on skin, hips flush against yours. The fullness made your head spin, every nerve lighting up. “Take it all like the good girl you are.”

She pulled back and slammed in hard, setting a brutal pace that had the bed creaking under you. Each thrust punched the air out of your lungs, making you whine and gasp loudly. The wet sounds of her fucking into your soaked pussy echoed through the room, filthy and loud.

“Oh god- S-Suki, it’s so- too deep,” you moaned, legs wrapping around her waist without thinking. Your nails dug into her shoulders as she pounded you, breasts bouncing with every rough snap of her hips. “Feels so good… don’t stop, please don’t stop.”

Satoru’s voice came from the chair, all desperate and shaky. “Baby, tell her you want my mouth too. It’s not fair I’m stuck over here watching…”

“Quiet,” Sukuna snapped at her without breaking rhythm. She grabbed one of your legs, hiking it higher over her shoulder so she could drive even deeper. The new angle made you cry out, eyes rolling back a little.

You were mumbling nonsense between moans, head turning side to side on the pillow. “Suki… ahh, yes, right there- mmmm harder, please nghh!”

Sukuna laughed breathlessly, sweat starting to shine on her skin as she railed you. Her hands gripped your hips tight enough to leave marks, pulling you back onto her strap with every thrust. “Such a pretty girl taking my strap, oh look at that, am I hitting all the right spots?”

Satoru whimpered, shifting in her seat. Her tail was thumping against the wood, eyes glued to where you two were joined. 

“Yes!” you screamed, eyes rolling back. “It’s so hah deep, so so good, Suki.” You gasped as Sukuna hit that perfect spot again and again, pleasure crashing through you in hot waves. “Satoru… ngh Suki’s fucking me so good. I’m so full… g-gonna cum soon if she keeps going like this.”

Sukuna leaned down, biting at your neck while her hips kept slamming forward. The slap of skin, your wet moans and Satoru’s soft begging all mixed together into something dizzyingly intense. She reached between you, thumb finding your clit and rubbing fast circles that made your vision blur.

“Cum for me then,” she demanded, voice right in your ear. “Let that desperate dog watch you fall apart on my strap.”

Your body tensed hard, thighs quivering around her as the orgasm built fast and overwhelming. “Suki fuck! I’m- I’m cumming, please, don’t stop ah-ahh!”

The pleasure hit you like a wave, ripping a loud cry from your throat. Your pussy clenched tight around the thick strap, pulsing as you came hard. Sukuna kept pounding through it, drawing it out until you were a whining, trembling mess underneath her, mumbling soft little praises and begs between shaky breaths.

“That’s it, baby, you did so good. I’m gonna pull out now, yeah?” she warned you before slipping the strap out of you, making you whine at the emptiness. 

You stayed down while Sukuna stared at the shiny and wet strap, she looked at Satoru, playing with her own clit while seeing you two and she rolled her eyes at the sight. 

“Wh-What?” Satoru whined, crawling out of the chair and getting closer to the bed.

“Nothing,” Sukuna huffed. “I was gonna let you suck the strap clean but you can’t even control yourself, so…”

Satoru gasped loudly, grabbing Sukuna’s strong arm, ready to beg. 

“C’mon, baby, I’ll run you a bath,” Suki said, ignoring Gojo once again. “You deserve a good and long one.”

a/n: terrible ending i apologize. anyway this is all thanks to @kamislop who gave me this idea and my mind went insane, thank you so much bb this is for you<3 tags: @irisgrrl

"What do you mean?"

As calm as he sounded, you knew he was seething deep down, as if you had betrayed him. You appreciated all his kind gestures. The gifts, the sweet good mornings, the little surprises. The deal-breaker though? It came when you found him stalking you more and more, your tolerance wearing thin.

"Huh? We're not breaking up."

It didn't take long for him to burst out into a fit of laughter like you had just told him the funniest joke. His large hand that once held your smaller ones with gentle warmth now seemed so cold as he slicked his bangs back, palm covering his eyes for a moment like he needed to process your words.

"I'm being serious," you tried standing your ground. You really wanted to be mature with this but your tone faltered just a bit, making your words come out like you were also doubting this yourself.

Immediately, he paused. That silence and his silhouette now stilled was enough to get your heart racing some more. Not out of love this time. Out of fear from knowing—or rather not knowing what he'll do next.

You didn't want to take your chances, speed walking towards the door of his apartment only to be yanked back harshly by your hoodie. What came after felt like some surreal dream. Struggles and arguments growing louder and louder until—

You ran off. Barely managing to do so in fact. Your only focus then was to get away from that psycho, shoes getting damp as you rushed across the growing puddles from the drizzle of rain. You mentally thanked the universe for the weather, safe enough for you to run off without getting caught in some storm or ending up sick. All you knew was that your ex just stood there emotionless in the rain, getting damp as he watched you leave.

That was it. At least, you thought so. You hoped so.

The last thing you expected though was for him to continue his obsessive stalking. In fact, it only seemed to grow worse after you broke up with him. You swore you caught him at the corner of your eyes but whenever you turned to check, there was no one. That was the first hint out of many others that came.

The final one? The one where he snatched you into some suspicious alleyway when you were just walking, his larger, brawny frame easily pinning you by the wall. Adrenaline kicked in but you remembered his words like it had just happened. All the desperate begging, the crazed expression, his panting like he had been chasing you, the "I'll stop, I swear!" And the "I'll forgive you if you come back."

As if he had any rights to say he's the one who'll be forgiving you.

And that only led to the temporary solution you had now. A restraining order.

The glass office window fogs with the cold November rain outside. You're the only one left in the building, fingers tapping at your keyboard. Down by the lobby elevators, the lights flicker once, then go still, and you don't notice the shadow through the crack in the door.

SAVING FILE...

The office computer setup whirs quietly in the dark of the room as you finally decided it was time to leave, stretching your arms out with a soft whine that squeaked out while doing so.

"You know you work better by me."

Your head flipped over to the source of the voice, flinching at the sudden break in silence. Immediately, you stood up in instincts. You could barely see the man's face, but your body knew better.

No fucking way.

"Get out. I have a restraining order," you cursed yourself for sounding so meek than you had intended to, but you couldn't blame yourself. In this situation, your adrenaline was shouting at you to do something. To move. To get away.

A low chuckle erupted from your ex, a little too quiet, hollow, like he's hidden some surprise. In one swift motion, he got off the doorframe he was leaning on, slowly walking towards you. Like a predator circling its prey.

"You think a piece of paper can keep you away from me?" Closer now, you could see that wide grin like he was trying not to laugh. As if this shit is funny. Behind that hollow smile, his eyes held a subtle craze in them. Instinctively, you moved backwards away from your computer, stumbling just a moment to grab a hold on something. Anything. The only thing keeping you two apart were the office desks as you refused to take your eyes off of this man.

Clack...

Clack...

Clack...

Slowly. Surely. Closer. The sound of his shoes echoed throughout the office, making it more noticeable how alone you are. He walked just as casually, circling past the desks to get to you. Just as he did, you moved away in a parallel mirror to him.

"You know I became like this because of you," he scoffed, running his hand across his face with an amused chuckle, almost like he was giggling. One that you used to find endearing.

"Don't..." Your voice came out far quieter than you wanted. "Don't come closer or I'll call the cops."

His smile twitched.

"You smiled at me."

Clack...

Another step.

"You held my hand."

Clack...

"You told me you loved me."

Another.

"And now suddenly I'm the crazy one?"

The distance between you shrank with every word. Not because he was walking any faster, but because there were only so many desks left to weave around. Your fingers blindly searched behind you. A stapler, a mug, a stack of files.

Nothing that would stop a man nearly twice your size.

"You need help," the words escaped before you could stop them, then, his expression froze. Silence settled over the office as he stood there like he needed to process those three words.

Your computer continued to hum away while the distant patter of rain against the windows. Even your own breathing sounded unbearably loud.

Then—

He laughed. Not loudly. Not manically either. Just one quiet breath of laughter through his nose before shaking his head.

"You still don't get it," his eyes softened for only a second, gaze on your smaller form as if just seeing you was enough to run a shiver up his spine.

"I don't need help. I need you."

Your stomach dropped.

There it was again, that certainty. The same certainty he had when he'd laughed at the breakup. The same certainty he'd shown in the alleyway. The same certainty that had walked straight past a restraining order and into your office.

To him, nothing had changed. You were still his and you remembered what he said that time. "Honey, a breakup is a mutual agreement between two people, and I don't agree with it. So, we're still together."

Another slow step.

Your back suddenly met something solid. The edge of the window. To him you had nowhere else to go and fuck he noticed. Of course he noticed. His smile widened ever so slightly, not a triumphant one, and not relieved.

Simply... pleased.

Like he'd finally caught up after an inconvenient game of hide-and-seek.

Fuck!!

Your body moved before you could think, rushing to the nearest safe spot before this freak could even lay a hand on you but fuck was he faster. What was once his slow walking now turned to a charge with a loud grunt, one of annoyance as he reached for you and pushed aside any obstacles, completely ignoring the mess.

CLICK

Panting, you backed away from the locked door with your ex on the other side, banging and kicking the thing. He wasn't just desperate—he was delusional.

"Open the FUCKING door."

.

.

.

The banging stopped.

Knock, knock, knock.

"Come on... Please baby I'm so sorry. I swear, I fucking swear I'll be better. Just—fuck, please."

You could hardly even stabilise your breathing, hands clasped on your mouth, nearly hyperventilating at this situation. This is the shit you would've seen on the news or some book but it's actually happening to you. You reached for your phone to call the cops but—

Shit. Shit, shit, shit!! You left your damn phone on your desk outside with that psychopath. Before your mind could continue racing, a clenched fist slammed against the door again, yelling like he didn't just try to sway you out with that sweet voice earlier.

"I SWEAR to God if you don't come out now I'm going to rip the jaw out of ANYBODY who even talks to you."

BANG.

The door hinges weakened.

BANG.

The doorknob came loose.

BANG—

"LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE."

You felt like sobbing now as you yelled with all your might, crouching down in a fetal position against the corner of a desk in this storage room. Your hands covered your eyes, refusing to acknowledge that this is even real. Too caught up on your current state, you never even realised that it went silent on the other side of the door.

"Hey, hey, look at me. Y/N? It's okay, it's just me."

You flinched at the sound of a woman, your teary eyes making it bleary to see as you backed away as far as you could. Your reaction gave enough information to the detective you had been acquainted with ever since the restraining order, and the last thing she wanted to do now was to interrogate your shaking self, panting as the tears that pricked the corner of your eyes finally fell.

Rubbing your face dry with your sleeve and blinking a few times, you got to see the commotion going in front of the storage room door.

"Ngh—"

Your ex struggling on the ground with several police officers detaining him, yet, he wasn't even looking at them. He was looking at you.

As he stopped trying to fight back, he just smiled. He smiled at you, a small chuckle bursting out into a fit of laughter, maniacal and high-pitched despite the bruises around him from being tackled by a group of authorities. The detective remained by your side, one arm instinctively covering your body in a protective manner.

...

"Attention passengers. The train is now preparing to depart. Please stand clear of the closing doors."

It had been four days since that occured. You sat on the bench of the subway station, sighing to yourself from the buildup stress. Your hands fidgeted absentmindedly at the corner of your sleeves when your phone rang.

INCOMING CALL

Detective Kang Min-ji

"Hello?"

"Ms. Y/N? Good afternoon. I'd like you to keep an eye out for your ex please. I'm sorry but he's gone missing. We found his ankle bracelet on the road but please be sure that we're on a lookout for him. If anything happens, call us immediately."

The man with a black cap and hoodie. The man whose back is turned to you. The man wearing a mask. Is he here?

Suddenly, the subway station felt so much more hostile than when you got here. So many hidden faces, leaving you with just silhouettes to be paranoid of.

"Hello? Ms. Y/N?"

“Fine,” Suguru hissed, hesitantly pulling out of you but not before throwing Satoru a heated glare. 

“I can keep your concubine company,” she smiled, blue eyes sparkling with satisfaction as Suguru unceremoniously shoved his cock back inside his pants, storming past her to go off and search for an advisor who was likely already tucked into his bed. 

He would just come back for you once he figured it out. 

But by then, Satoru was sure she could kill the mood enough that he wouldn’t get to have you tonight. 

Not without her in the room. 

“I’m sorry,” you softly apologized once he was gone, hastily pulling your dress down, embarrassed that she’d seen you so exposed. 

As if it wasn’t the first time. 

She was well aware of her husband’s preference for you to not wear any undergarments when he was planning on seeing you. Had walked in on the two of you in their marital bed more times than she could count. 

At first, she thought it was better you than her. 

Held no interest in having sex with him herself or making any heirs, no matter how much the court tried to convince her that it was necessary. 

Why would she ruin her body for a man she could barely stand? Who she was forced into a political marriage with? 

Lately? 

She was growing tempted to just take her clothes off and offer herself up if it meant Suguru would go a single day without insisting on having sex with you. Even if she’d be resisting the urge to gag and roll her eyes at every one of his groans.

“I’ll return to my chambers, Your Majesty,” you respectfully murmured, averting your gaze with faint shame creeping into your fair features. You were trying to not make this strange or strained, smoothing out your dress as you pushed your palms off the blanket. 

“How many times must I ask you to call me Toru, hm?” She teased, breaking the tension with an easy laugh. 

It used to be breezy to be around you. 

Before he snatched you from her grip. 

Back when you were both girls growing up together, as a princess and her maid. Your delicate hands brushing her hair and working all the knots out with nimble fingers at the end of every day, chatting about the scullery gossip before Satoru would pull you into the blankets and demand that you sleep next to her. 

To keep the nightmares away. 

Everyone always let Satoru do what she wanted. 

Except for having you. 

Sure, she could drag you around, take you everywhere she went, but instead of simply being hers, you were more of an accessory. 

The most you could be was a maid. A servant. 

Not a lover. 

Satoru tried to be content with that. Truly. 

Accepted it from an early age that you weren’t going to be hers when she was destined for a political relationship and your stare often lingered a little too long on knights instead of ladies.

She told herself that at least she got to bring you along to this palace to be by her side for this marriage, but the moment Suguru saw you standing next to her, he stole you. 

Made you his concubine within the week, put you in your own room and dolled you up in gowns and gems. Satoru had been sneaking blue dresses in your new closet, replacing the jewel tones and purples with the shades of the sky, of the ocean rather than the rich hues he had such a proclivity for. 

But it didn’t make much of a difference when you were tending to him now instead of her. 

“Toru,” you said her name so sweetly, chewing the inside of your cheek now as you reluctantly met her stare. “I’m sorry you had to see that.” 

“You are not the one who should apologize,” she exhaled, shrugging her shoulders as she walked over to where you were sheepishly staring at the blooming flowers. 

Skimming a delicate hand over your arm, appreciating the warmth of your skin as she stopped just shy of your shoulder, tracing a little heart with the edge of her thumb as she soothed you. 

“Come with me,” she murmured. 

Your head snapped up, your eyes wavering and wide. Unsure. “Where?” 

“My room,” Satoru hummed. “Like old times.” 

Back when the only hands that ever had the fortune to brush over your body were hers. When you belonged solely to Satoru. 

Funnily enough, you were still sleeping in her bed. Just with her husband. 

What would she have to do to keep his calloused palms off her prize? 

“Are you sure Suguru will be-” 

“No man would complain about two beautiful women in his sheets,” she rolled her eyes, interlocking arms with you and pulling you forward. 

It wasn’t exactly true. 

Suguru would have plenty to grit his teeth and groan about when he wouldn’t get the chance to put his dick inside of you. 

But you were naive enough to not realize that, smiling back at Satoru the way you used to, leaning against her arm and sighing with relief, relaxing once it struck you that she wasn’t upset with you. 

“I’m not nearly as beautiful as you,” you wistfully mumbled under your breath, and Satoru’s heart soared. Pale cheeks heating up at your compliment, squeezing you reflexively as she laughed. 

She knew she was beautiful. Blessed by the gods in nearly every aspect from the moment she was born. 

But even when they had given her a face any male would love, they had cursed her with a heart that could only belong to a female. 

To you. 

Had been stamped with your name and sealed to be yours from the first day she found you. 

It wasn’t fucking fair that Suguru got to just reap everything she sowed. 

Got to be the one inside you, on top of you, beside you. Who could just openly want you with no repercussions. 

If his smug smirks and sly remarks weren’t enough for her to loathe him, Satoru still would have hated him for that fact alone. 

“I think you are far lovelier than any of these lousy flowers,” Satoru spoke softly, tilting her head around the garden she’d grown to only feel disgust for too. 

It had been beautiful at first. A work of art she’d taken to walking the winding paths through in the evenings to calm her chaotic mind when the two of you first came here. 

But all it had taken was to walk in on Suguru mounting you on a patio table the third week in for every last petal and blossom of this place to become tainted.  

He was making a fucking fool of her. 

Freely flaunting how much he adored fucking you wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted. 

No doubt she wasn’t the first to catch the two of you. 

“You flatter me,” you blushed, turning away from her as you picked up the pace. 

You already knew the way back to her marital room.

Even if she wasn’t the one you usually came there for. 

Satoru had separate chambers, of course, ones that were made solely for her, but she knew that Suguru would retaliate in some petty fashion if she brought you there instead. 

“I am merely being honest,” Satoru hummed, lips curling up in an easy smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. 

She knew you well enough to know you were too embarrassed to respond. That you weren’t truly taking her seriously. 

Shouldn’t you know by now that the only person she saved her sincerity for was you? 

“I find myself missing you more and more,” Satoru slowly added, heart thumping so hard she was sure it would somehow end up lodged in her throat as you looked back at her with those big, apologetic eyes. 

Guilt-ridden. 

Weighed down by the obvious worry you carried for fucking her husband. 

“I miss you too,” you murmured quietly, lip curling up in your best attempt at a smile before it immediately fell again. 

“You seem tired,” Satoru observed, reaching over with her free hand to brush the hair away from your face. Treasuring the few seconds her fingertips skimmed across your soft cheeks. “Let’s get some rest.” 

“But Suguru-” 

“Do me a favor,” she purred, offering her most reassuring grin. “Do not worry about him.” 

She could deal with it. 

It was worth whatever trouble would come to watch you trade your dress for one of her silky blue nightslips, staring at the bare expanse of your exposed back as you bent over to shimmy it on, holding her breath as you turned around, looking absolutely delectable. 

The sweetest dessert she could ever dream of. 

And the only one she wasn’t allowed to taste. 

“Do you want me to do your hair?” You asked, fiddling with your fingers as you nervously looked around the room. 

Satoru wished she could wipe your anxieties away. 

“I would never say no to that,” she said instead, putting up a far more carefree front than she truly felt. 

Perching on the edge of the stool of her vanity, passing you her hairbrush as you slowly pulled all of her long, silky white strands back over her shoulder. You took your time brushing it out, carefully separating it as you went and making sure there were no tangles before you slowly began to braid it, nimble fingers working to twist the parted hair. 

She could see your reflection in the mirror, the way you bit your kiss-swollen bottom lip, brows pinched together tightly in focus as your practiced hands made an easy job of it. 

“There you go,” you hummed once you finished, tying a white ribbon at the end as you looked in the mirror back at her. “Do you like it?” 

“I like everything you do,” Satoru replied on instinct. 

Except for Suguru. 

Your face flushed, smiling as you stepped back away from her, glancing over to the bed. 

“Good night then,” you muttered. 

“Good night,” Satoru replied, shoving down the lump in her throat as she tried to discreetly dry her clammy palms on her own nightdress as she stood up. Snuffing out a few of the candles so that the only light was from the flickering fire, crawling into bed after you, pretending to be unaffected by your proximity as she got under the sheets next to your body.

But she wasn’t quite as good at it as she used to be. 

Unable to slow her breathing, chest rising and falling far too fast as you tossed and turned, the short hem of the slip riding up on your thighs under the covers as Satoru desperately stared at the ceiling of her four-poster bed and ignored the heat ignited in her core. 

A steady pulse, an irritating throb straight to the center of her, speeding up each time your leg brushed against hers, or your hand accidentally grazed along her arm. 

“Sweet dreams,” she belatedly whispered, but you had already fallen asleep, soon snoring on one of her pillows like you once did so long ago, hair sprawling out that Satoru couldn’t stop herself from softly stroking. 

Her pretty maid, right where she belonged once more. 

But for how long? 

When would Suguru do something that would fully free you of her? 

God, what the fuck was she going to do if he knocked you up? Forced you to bear his heir? Make you raise a whole brood of miniature hims? 

That asshole would surely move you to a separate palace, maybe claim that Satoru made threats or something equally absurd to justify giving you a title or some security. 

Satoru refused to let any of that happen. 

You were more than just a breeding mare. 

More than just a pawn to be played with – no matter what her husband attempted to turn you into. 

Like she summoned a demon, the door swung open, and Satoru immediately removed her hand from by your head, sitting up in bed to stare at the intruder.

The real interloper here. 

Suguru scowled at the sight of her next to you, his lips pressing in a thin line as he peeled off his expensive robe. 

“Return to your private chambers,” he dismissed, irritation heavy in his voice. 

“This marital bed is mine too,” Satoru retorted, patting the spot next to her to gesture for him to join. 

She’d prefer not to spend the night suffering the masculine scent of his cologne, but she supposed she could just roll closer to you to inhale your much sweeter smell. It was always light, flowery, like some intoxicating summer bloom she wanted to pluck and preserve.

He laughed at the idea of sleeping together too, a low and cruel one. 

Satoru wanted to snarl back that if she were a man, if they were both vying for your hand, you would have chosen her without a blink. 

But she just had to bite her tongue and stare at the one person who had everything she wanted. 

“Funny that I only find you in here when it’s with her,” he knowingly scoffed. 

“Is it?” Satoru feigned ignorance. “I was the one who brought her here.”

Her husband didn’t care though. 

No, he just walked over as if she had no place in this room, no right to her spot in the bed beside you, stripping his shirt off before removing his pants, as if a little bit of nudity would scare Satoru off. 

“What do you think our love would do if she knew you lusted after her even more than I do?” Suguru mocked, barely making an effort to disguise his thinly-veiled threat. One corner of that irritating mouth of his curling up in a crude smirk, casually dismissing the weight of her affection for you to a simple sin. 

His love? 

Satoru almost laughed back at him. 

You were hers. Had always been. 

And would be once again. 

“Shall I tell her?” He asked, tilting his head towards your sleeping figure as he pulled back the blankets to get in too.

“She would think it’s just a jest,” Satoru rolled her eyes, her nose scrunching up as he actually got in next to her. 

It didn’t matter how obvious she made it to you. 

You were blissfully unaware. 

Clueless to the hunger she harbored in her heart to chain you to her. 

“I suppose we’ll find out soon,” he muttered under his breath, and despite the shield she’d prepared, it splintered with sheer panic at the thought of you taking his word. 

At the risk of you being repulsed by the realization, rejecting her and refusing to exist in the same space for the rest of her life. 

That wouldn’t do. 

Suguru was already a persistent problem. 

But now it appeared she had no choice but to solve it before he could screw her over. Before he could wreck what she’d spent so long building. 

She’d prefer to prepare a guillotine for his cock, to punish him for the crime of being inside you, but she refused to be the one put in prison for it. 

No, Satoru needed a plan. A foolproof way for this to end with you in her arms. 

Perhaps some poison to put His Royal Majesty in a grave while she was at it.  

ε✿з

“Morning, beautiful.” 

You wondered who your king’s groggy morning voice was meant for. You? 

Or his wife? 

Your true master. 

“Good morning, husband,” Satoru replied, her usually sweet voice cold and clipped. 

Of course.

You weren’t exactly surprised. 

But what did throw you off was the two very different arms strewn across your waist, one thick and muscled slung low towards your hips while the other far daintier one was delicately tangled just below your breasts. 

Somehow, you had ended up in between them. 

Rather fitting, wasn’t it? 

“I wasn’t speaking to you,” Suguru scolded her, and your stomach just curdled at the annoyance in his tone. 

The weight on your midsection disappeared, and you tried to roll on your side, to pretend you were still asleep, but then he was pulling you against him, and you could only bite the inside of your cheek and focus on the taste of blood on your tongue to hold it together as something hefty and hard pressed into your spine. 

It was just wrong to do this in front of Satoru. 

You didn’t understand what Suguru saw in you anyway. 

It wasn’t like you truly were stunning. Not compared to her. 

You weren’t blind. 

You’d always been rather plain put next to Satoru’s perfect face.

She was the one people stopped to stare at when she walked in a room, the subject of whispers and wishes and fools willing fate to just give them a single chance for the pleasure of one conversation in her presence. 

And beneath her beauty was the sort of one-of-a-kind soul someone could spend the rest of their life searching for. 

Even now, when you were sleeping with her husband, she was still being sweet to you. 

Swearing that she knew you couldn’t do anything about being his concubine, bringing you back to her bed for a sleepover like she hadn’t caught you having sex with him. 

You didn’t deserve her. And you really couldn’t comprehend why Suguru wouldn’t want her. 

Yet, she always tried to spare your feelings. 

Sent away any maid who mocked you and scolded any staff member that attempted to tease you ever since you were children. 

Going from dismissing any knight that tried to flirt or feel you up as teenagers to stripping some lower noble of her rank simply for speaking ill of you two weeks ago over suggesting that she should punish you for trying to steal her husband. 

You hadn’t asked for any of it. 

All you wanted was to watch her fall in love. To stand by her side and see her find her happily ever after. 

Instead, you were embroiled in an affair with the man she married. 

And now the guilt was gnawing through your bones, shame shattering you every time she saw you with him. 

You sort of felt like your life could be divided in two groups. 

Before Satoru. After Satoru. 

She saved you. You were born into servitude, to parents who worked in the worst kind of noble homes. The ones where the money was passed down with generations, belonging to spoiled gamblers and drunks who didn’t know how to do anything other than spend it — and couldn’t care less about their staff members. 

You learned how to scrub baseboards and sweep instead of how to read and write. To never speak unless spoken to. To make yourself smaller than a speck of dust just to survive. 

It didn’t matter. 

They had a son a year older than you. 

One that was particularly fond of pulling your hair and ripping up your uniforms every time you hung them out to dry. 

Who found a passion in pushing you down and pretending to his family that you had committed every variety of petty crimes against him. 

Your life was a living hell. 

Until your angel showed up. 

In a pretty white dress that matched her soft hair, the sun shining on her pale face as she blinked down at you with big, blue eyes. She was visiting with her parents, supposed to be attending a play date with your personal tormentor, only to walk in on him attempting to cut off a chunk of your hair with a knife he’d stolen from the chef. 

He had accidentally cut you with it, a thin streak of blood trickling down your throat as you sobbed hysterically, unable to stop yourself as you curled up against the tree he cornered you against. 

“Drop that,” she commanded, an air of authority to her even when she was still a child. 

He did, even though his obedience seemed to surprise him. 

“You’re not the boss of-”

She was already stepping forward though, kicking the knife away before graciously approaching you, unbothered by the sniffing mess you’d become, just squatting down and drying your tears with her sleeve. 

“You’re coming home with me.”

And you did. 

She had half-dragged you inside, forcing herself to fake tears of her own before crying to her parents that he had attacked her, and that you’d gotten hurt defending her. 

They believed her lie. 

And she bought you from the hellhole you were born into. 

You would probably be dead without her. 

Starved or beaten for not performing your duties well enough, discarded like some cheap possession instead of a person. 

The boy was punished, his family’s status revoked — although you never learned what happened to them after that. 

At least with Satoru, you could be her doll. 

Someone she dressed up and dragged around to tea parties and meals, forcing everyone to have a chair for you like it was normal for a mere maid to dine with royalty. 

She grew out of it when she got a little older, when people began to look down on you for her behavior instead of her. 

But when they announced her marriage, she still refused to go unless she brought you with her, insisting that she wouldn’t adapt without a familiar face before whispering to you in private that she’d never leave her favorite friend behind. 

Did she regret that now? Wish she never took you in to begin with?

You felt like a nuisance.

It was impossible to ignore the whispers of the court here, the constant discussion of the heir that didn’t currently exist. All of it felt like your fault.

Surely, if you weren’t here, if you weren’t imposing, then Satoru might have already gotten pregnant, or perhaps have even had a child already. 

As far as you knew, they had yet to even consummate their marriage. 

You used to whisper about what it would be like to have sex. So sure that she would be the one to experience it first. Giggling under the covers about how the whole thing seemed sorta gross. To let a guy stick it inside of you and listen to him grunt and groan?

Honestly, you never thought it would be you giving up your virtue before her. 

Sugugu hadn’t been shy about the fact you were the only one he was intimate with. 

Turning his nose up and scoffing when you inquired about the status of their relationship, the same way Satoru did, as if it was simply absurd that they could ever have a baby together. 

And now his royal advisors had started whispering suggestions that he should plant his seed in you instead, murmuring that if Satoru was too stubborn, he must secure his line another way as if you weren’t in the same room when they said it. 

As if your loyalty hadn’t always lied with her. 

But she wouldn’t listen to your warnings. 

How were you supposed to convince two people who acted like they couldn’t stand each other to not only have sex, but create a child? 

You knew you were a fool. Naive to still presume that there must be some way to make this work without making Satoru suffer. But you couldn’t stop trying. 

“I would like you to leave,” Suguru snapped at her, and years of experience had engrained the instant impulse to protect her in you. 

To interrupt and insist that she had every right to be here too. 

Even if Satoru had never once needed you to defend her. Not the same way you needed her. 

“Will you drag me out if I do not?” She cheekily returned, and you finally forced yourself to start to stir, to stop the argument already in progress as they both immediately fell silent. Satoru’s soft hand skimmed over your forearm, delicately dragging her fingertips up to your shoulder before yawning, “Good morning, sleepyhead.” 

“Morning,” you muttered, slowly cracking your eyes open and beginning to sit up just for a second hand to shift to the small of your back. 

“Did she bother you with all her tossing and turning?” Your king asked, concern veiling his contempt for his wife as he peered down at you with those dark purple eyes. Devoid of the light you were used to seeking, swirling with something you weren’t quite comfortable enough to name. 

Sometimes, you wondered how much he wanted you, and how much he wanted to piss her off. Equally unhappy at the situation he’d been thrusted in, forced to marry a stranger he didn’t know or want and finding refuge in pissing off the one person that was also innocent in this. Taking it out on her instead when he had no way to punish the system he was stuck in. 

“Satoru never bothers me,” you answered honestly, still doing your best to mend the bridge between them as you peered up at him with an expression you hoped would earn some empathy from him. 

Or at the very least, get him to not toss her out before she even stepped foot out of the bed. 

“You’re too sweet,” he muttered, sitting up straighter to let the blankets fall down around his bare waist. Tenderly caressing your cheek as you stilled, thinking of what he seemed to leave unsaid. Too sweet for whom? Him? Or her? 

You supposed you were just overthinking it, blinking nervously before he leaned down to kiss you on the lips right there in front of her, pushing his tongue in as you tried not to scrunch your nose up at the thought that he had yet to brush his teeth before slipping his tongue in your mouth. 

But you returned it, accustomed to going with the tides instead of swimming against them, allowing him to possessively splay his fingers across your back as if Satoru’s fingers weren’t still sinking into your shoulder. 

And by the time he pulled away, you had collected yourself enough to smile sincerely back at him when he rested his forehead against yours. 

It wasn’t that you disliked him, or harbored any hatred for him. 

The feeling swirling in your stomach was closer to pity. You felt bad for him. 

He felt like a flip side to Satoru. Reminded you of her in his own strange way when he spoke to you like you were more than just a maid. Even if he only saw you as his own accessory instead of hers.

“Meet me in the gardens at noon,” he instructed, slipping out of his bed as you both stared. His back muscles flexed as he bent over, only throwing a look back to wink at you while Satoru made a quiet gagging noise next to you. 

You nearly giggled, only holding it in when his dark brows pinched together in a glare back at her. 

“Of course, Your Majesty,” you murmured, nodding dutifully as his chest puffed back out with pride. Finishing redressing quickly, his mouth twitching down at the two of you in his bed, but he didn’t say anything to disprove Satoru’s theory about men and beautiful women. 

“Alone,” Suguru added, starting towards the door before Satoru could add something snarky. 

The moment he was out the door, you could hear his voice calling through it for a servant, and you already pictured the way a few were likely stationed at the end of the hall, ready to accompany him and do whatever he wanted.

“Meet me in the gardens,” Satoru mimicked him, rolling her bright blue eyes as her long lashes fluttered dramatically as she twisted you back around to face her. “He’s so insufferable.” 

“Satoru,” you said her name, face heating up at the way the syllables felt rolling off your tongue, still strange to address her so intimately when she was so far above you. “It worries me-” 

“No,” she interrupted you sternly, your shoulders slumping at her unexpected scolding. “There is nothing for you to worry about.” 

“But the two of you-” 

“I know,” she sympathized, knowing what you were about to protest before you had to say it. Seeing through all of you the way no one else ever did, or probably ever would. “But you should just keep doing what he asks.” 

Like you couldn’t see how much it hurt her to even suggest that. 

Satoru was more sensitive than she’d ever show. Feelings hidden under her carefully crafted shield, always pretending to be the perfect princess on her towering pedestal, protected by some impenetrable glass that never let you touch her. 

She could say she couldn’t stand Suguru. But who wouldn’t be hurt at the man they married so blatantly disrespecting them?

“I just want you to be happy,” you softly said. 

“I will be. Eventually,” Satoru stiffly said, dragging her thumb over your bottom lip like she was wiping off his kiss. “We just have to grin and bear it for now.” 

“And things will get better?” You hopefully asked, reaching up to clasp her hand. Feeling a little bit like a child again, looking up to her with blind trust, faith that she could fix problems that seemed far too big for you. Imagining all three of you a few months from now, getting along and grinning over lunch in the garden, sitting underneath the shade of an umbrella and snacking with Satoru on one side and Suguru on the other. 

“I promise they will.” 

There was nothing you craved more than for her to be correct.

But your blind belief in her started to fizzle and fade when the days refused to stop dragging on while you rarely got to see her. Only catching glimpses of her from across the room, usually when one of you was being flaunted on Suguru’s arm and the other was left to stand on the side and stare. Barely getting a chance to speak to her when the king you were both supposed to obey had decided you were better kept in your bed chambers or his private office, away from the wife he pretended didn’t exist around you. 

You tried to tell yourself what she had. 

To just bear it. 

Comforting yourself with the handful of smiles she snuck you, reassuring yourself that you didn’t have to be wracked with guilt every second you spent with Suguru. That you shouldn’t hate yourself for the moments with him where you found yourself actually enjoying his company, or genuinely giggling at a joke he made. 

It didn’t make it easier to stop loathing the parts of you that liked the attention. Being doted on and deemed deserving of more than just the monotony of being a maid. 

Underneath it all, you still knew what was coming. 

A girl like you was only measured by what uses she was good for. 

Could taste his expectation in the air long before Suguru delivered the curdling news over tea, sitting there like a brainless doll as he informed you that he had the maids brew the kind that helped fertility. 

Casually suggesting that you make a fine mother as you feigned agreement, running off to a bush to throw it up the moment he left to attend to other business. 

You couldn’t do that to her. 

No, you wouldn’t. 

You refused. 

It wasn’t like you had any idea how you would refuse, not when you were sure he would be back in your bedroom tonight. Stripping off his robes with that easy smirk of his, placing his crown on your head as he buried his cock in you, probably already planning on no longer pulling out but plunging himself deep enough to make sure the seed he planted was sowed. 

That it would sprout into an heir he could use as an excuse to remove any power his wife politically held. 

You puked again. 

Bile rising that you couldn’t push down, getting sick until you finally managed to suck in enough deep breaths to pull yourself together, wiping the corner of your mouth and standing back up on trembling legs, looking around to make sure no one had seen you. 

But a few maids were standing nearby, wide-eyed and whispering to each other before scampering off in a hurry once your stare caught theirs, surely off to spread rumors about what they’d seen. 

You were stumbling away too, walking back inside the cobbled halls and hurrying through the twists and turns, ignoring the pointed looks you received from staff members and guards passing by. You weren’t sure where you were going until you were there, nervously tapping your knuckles against the door to Satoru’s office, hardly able to keep your breathing steady until you heard her call out in an annoyed tone, “Come in.”

You pushed it open, holding your breath as you peeked inside to see her head hanging down behind her desk. Her cheek resting on her hand, silky hair falling around her shoulders as she sighed and scribbled something into a thick book. 

“What is it-” 

“I’m sorry,” you half-whispered, your voice coming out as a croak from your sore throat. 

She immediately stopped what she was writing as her head snapped up at the realization it was you, shutting the book and placing her palm over it. Her blue eyes were razor sharp, freezing over in a flash under furrowed brows. 

“What happened?” She demanded to know without a pause. Ready to go to war with just two words. 

“He wants me to have his heir,” you blurted out, still panicking as you looked to her like there was something she could do about it. 

In all the years you’d known her, the only other time you’d seen the expression that was on her face now was the day you first met her. 

Focused and flat at the same time, not betraying anything as she just blinked at you once more. 

“Tell me you don’t want it,” she requested, completely serious as you struggled to tear your stare away. 

“Of course I don’t,” you answered, shaking your head as your fingers nervously clutched at the skirt of your dress, fiddling with some of the fine embroidery as you struggled to catch your breath, the taste of vomit lingering in your mouth as you thought about what your life would look like a year from now if you did. A black-haired baby on your hip and a hole punctured straight through your heart. 

You almost added that you had only come here for her, but you couldn’t bring yourself to when all that had resulted in was you warming her husband’s bed. 

What would her life have been like had you stayed behind? Would you have been kicked out of the palace you’d spent years by her side in? Left to start over in some quaint village, maybe starting a small farm or working in a local shop instead? 

You would choose any of it over being the reason she was suffering. Even if it meant struggling and scraping by all alone. 

“I will take care of it,” she stiffly said, her nose upturned in the air as she pushed a plate of cookies someone had left on her desk away from her. “You should go now.” 

A piece of you shattered. 

Some deep internal wound ripping open at her quick dismissal, despite your instinct to believe that her words were more binding than any oath. 

“But-”

“Trust me, princess,” she softened her tone, smiling now, like you couldn’t see how tight of a line her mouth made. Using a nickname she hadn’t called you in years, back when she tried to make you feel better about the difference in your status, late night promises that you could be her princess and she could be yours. 

“Toru,” you murmured back, watching her eyes crinkle for a second before she shook her hair and pointed a delicate finger towards the door. 

“Please leave,” she asked, and you had never been good at disobeying her. 

Feeling like a mutt that had been thrown out in the rain, tail tucked between your legs as you walked all the way across the palace to your own chambers. Pacing the floor there in a panic, wringing your hands and wearing out the carpet as you tried to think of some solution. 

Stupid nobles and their moronic obsession with bloodlines. 

Why couldn’t they just adopt a child and raise it correctly? 

You would have his child if Satoru asked you to. If she said she didn’t want to do it herself. 

But you were scared for her. Terrified that she would somehow end up thrown out if you had an heir and she refused to. 

Maybe it would be easier if one of them were less stubborn. If Satoru was less prideful and Suguru more agreeable. 

Was that asking for the impossible? 

Just an idiot jammed between a rock and a hard place and wondering why you couldn’t squeeze out? 

You prepared yourself that evening anyway, going through the motions of putting on the thin style nightdress Suguru preferred, but picking one in a soft shade of blue that reminded you more of Satoru. Carefully applying a thin layer of makeup, exhaling at your reflection as you wondered to yourself where the girl from a few years ago had gone. 

She probably would have strangled you for suggesting sleeping with Satoru’s king, no matter the circumstance. 

And right now, you would give just about anything to go back to those days. Where the most important thing you had to worry about was how to style Satoru’s hair the next day, or what would be served for breakfast in the morning. 

“You’re wearing blue.” 

Your head turned to find Suguru standing there in the doorway, his lips turned down as his hazy stare slid over your body. You hurried to stand, forgoing spritzing the fancy perfume he gifted you across your skin as he strode over to you. Ready to fake moans and feign devotion. 

“Is this not one you gave me?” You innocently asked, tilting your head to the side. 

It wasn’t like you could purchase your own dresses. 

Truthfully, you had no idea what even happened to the funds you saved up before Satoru brought you here. She had said she would take care of the transfer, but within days of coming here, you were being whisked off your feet and away from her by the man in front of you now.

“I guess it doesn’t matter,” he muttered, his fingers plucking one of the straps off your shoulder and pulling it down with a sigh as he ignored your inquiry. “I’m taking it off of you anyway.” 

His hands shook while he removed it, his fingers unsteady for once as he tried to shimmy your panties down your thighs next. He kissed you, but the sour taste of wine was still on his lips, and you ached to pull away. 

To ask him to reconsider what he wanted from you. 

Even if you knew that wasn’t your place. 

To your surprise though, he retreated first, your mouth still hanging open as he let out a low groan. You knew something was wrong at the sound of it. How guttural it came out when you hadn’t even touched his cock yet. 

You blinked up at him only to see red. 

Blood dripped down his lips as he stared at you without really seeing you, fear glittering his dark eyes empty in the candlelight as your own fingers reached out to wipe it away. Had you bitten him without realizing it? Was he hurt? 

Before you could even touch it, he coughed hard, and your face was suddenly wet.

Your hand was still outstretching towards him the moment he collapsed. 

Someone screamed, but it wasn’t until servants began running into the room that you realized the horrible sound was coming from you, ripped from the back of your throat as the scene immediately morphed into a mess. Maids shouting for doctors and rushing around to try and stop the bleeding that was still pouring from his mouth, propping him up. But even if his eyes were open, they weren’t blinking. 

Had his soul already separated from the still shell he left behind? 

Something damp hit your palm, your fuzzy vision struggling to focus as it belatedly struck you that you were still dripping with the red, your palms shaking, refusing to stop twitching at the unnerving sight of it. 

Steady drops begging to drop down to your bare breasts, staining your skin as you stumbled back, running from the inevitable as your shattered gasps wouldn’t allow enough air into your lungs. 

This wasn’t happening.

It couldn’t be.

This must be a nightmare. Some awful dream you’d gotten dragged into as you tried to wake yourself back up, desperately wiping your face as you struggled to get it clean, but nothing was working. Nothing was changing. 

Hyperventilating as a maid shouted, calling in guards while your back hit the wall, your fingers trembling as you buried your face in your hands, as if you could hide from what was happening. 

“Is he still alive?” 

No. No no no. 

If he was gone, what the hell would happen to you? 

There were too many people in the room, too much going on for you to focus on what was happening in front of you. Your ears filling you in no matter how much you desperately wanted to shut it all out. 

To rewind the clock, even if it was just for a few minutes. Bring it back to where everything was still normal. 

The palace doctor arrived out of breath as you peeked back up at your world unraveling only to find him shaking his head as he checked the limp body on the floor’s pulse. 

You knew it before he said it though. Had from the moment he coughed and collapsed. 

“The king is dead.” 

The only person in power now was his wife. 

Someone was probably on their way to get Satoru now, to shake her awake from her bed and notify her that her husband was no longer among the living. 

Even if you didn’t want to have his baby, you still never would have chosen this. 

Curling up with your bare knees to your chest, staring at your blood-splattered blue nightdress left in a crumpled pile on the floor, eyes wild as you watched people rush in and out. 

Guards filing in, one of them ripping you up from off the ground with a rough grip on your arm, barking some question you didn’t understand as you tried to shake your head, dragging you out of the room as you got one last glimpse at Suguru’s still form staring up at the ceiling. 

“Did you do this?” 

“What?” You blinked, turning back with disgust as you rebuffed it. “I-I wouldn’t-” 

The guard wasn’t listening, pulling you out only for you to nearly run into someone else. 

Your pounding heart stopped the second you realized it was Satoru. 

Her pretty face pinched up with disdain, long hair loose and cascading down her back, an intricate amethyst-colored gown draping over the cobbled hall as she looked down at you, her mouth twitching as her gaze drifted across your exposed skin. 

You were about to beg her to tell them that it couldn’t have been you, bottom lip trembling as you tried to get the words out, but she cut you off, looking to the knight by her side as she solemnly shook her head. 

“Lock her up.” 

She couldn’t mean it. 

It honestly felt more far-fetched than Suguru’s sudden death. Unable to understand those three sharp words that left her lips until another man was yanking you away, pulling you down corridors. 

Humiliation burned through you as the initial shock started to fade and the reality of your situation began to sit in. Being dragged naked across the palace until you were led up a long spiralling staircase to a tower you’d never stepped foot inside before. 

Spared the cruelty of the cold dungeons only to be shoved inside a tiny room at the top, a heavy door slammed shut as your eyes struggled to adjust to the darkness surrounding you. A barren space with only a small bed pushed against the wall, a small window that was only big enough for you to peek out of, the bitter night breeze blowing in through it as you stood there, waiting for, well, you weren’t sure what. 

Satoru to show up and swear this was all some awful joke? To tell you that she didn’t mean to scare you and that everything was fine? That this was all a part of some plan of hers? 

Wishful thinking, wasn’t it? 

If they thought you were responsible, that you somehow killed him, you would be executed within a month. 

Maybe not even offered a trial, just dragged out to be hanged or beheaded without a chance to defend yourself. 

Who would have sympathy for a traitor? 

A poor maid masquerading as a concubine, one who truly should have never had a place beneath the king to begin with. 

All you were was an ignorant idiot that was born to take the blame. No matter your innocence. 

And yet, when you finally heard footsteps approaching your lonely room, you were still rushing towards it, ready to plead your case to whoever showed up. 

When you heard Satoru’s voice, you nearly sobbed. 

She must be coming to let you out. To explain everything away and bring you back to her room the way she once had. Whisk you away and remind you with that charming smile that she had told you not to worry. 

Satoru wasn’t your knight in shining armor. She was better. 

A hero with her white-haired halo, your blue-eyed angel in a gossamer gown. 

“Toru, please,” you called out, peeking up to discover a rectangle carved out of the thick wood of the door, wide enough for you to look back out into the barely-lit hallway. 

“Make sure no one comes up here,” Satoru coldly instructed the knights outside, your heart stalling as you stared at her through that thin slat. The heavy click of several additional locks followed while her sharp eyes watched you back, your heart shattering into even tinier bits with each one. 

And then Satoru did something that stomped on all the remaining shards of it. 

She left. 

You broke down, sobbing on the floor until there wasn’t anything left in you to cry out. Curling up on the frigid ground instead of the bed, unable to even summon the strength to get up and crawl towards it. 

At some point, you supposed you fell asleep like that, because when you woke up to a fraction of the sun slipping in through your tiny window, there were clothes and food delivered, along with a cold bucket of water and a washrag. 

Too numb to feel thankful, as if someone had scooped every part of you out as you ignored the food in front of you, about to cup a handful of water and drink it before you looked down at your hands and saw all the dried blood still staining them, your stomach shifting once again as the memory of Suguru’s face before he died floated up in your brain. 

You scrubbed your skin, washing Suguru off of you until the bucket had run red, staring at the liquid sloshing around. Refusing to stop until you were certain there were no traces of him left, your hands raw and trembling when you dropped the rag back down. 

Putting clothes back on didn’t make you feel any better. 

Not when you had traded the fancy dresses you had just begun to get used to for a plain one, the material scratching your skin as you finally managed to get yourself up into the bed. 

But even just trying to go back to sleep didn’t work when a knight came barging in to conduct an interrogation. 

Which essentially just meant hours of him asking the same questions and getting angry when you kept giving him the same answers? 

“Did you conspire to kill the king?” No. 

“Did you poison him?” No. 

“Did you have any reason to want him dead?” Yes. No. 

It didn’t matter what you said though. 

As long as it didn’t align with what he was hoping to hear, he wouldn’t give any of your words credence. 

And by the end of it, you were being dragged back to your cell, waiting for a fate far worse than simply being the mother of the future heir to the kingdom. 

Even if you used to think there was nothing worse than betraying Satoru. 

Being abandoned by her was the cruelest sentence of all. 

A raw throbbing ache taking up residence in your chest, reminding you of her absence with every short breath you sucked in, no blankets to curl up and hide under as you waited for the inevitable. 

You knew what the cold felt like. How brittle it could be when it settled into your bones. Knew how starvation felt when your body started to break down bits of yourself for sustenance. 

But knowing her warmth, how full she could make you feel, only ate at you more. Shoved off the pretty pedestal she placed you on, no longer sparkling or polished as you stared at your bitten-down nails and numbly craved pieces of her you knew would never be yours. 

Perhaps this was punishment for dreaming too big. 

For ever thinking that you could have her while you were still catering to Suguru. 

A day passed. 

And another. 

The hours slipping past you in a dull daze, food delivered that you refused to take a bite of. A little voice in your head that was quickly growing delirious suggested that it could be poisoned, and it was the only thing that tempted you into taking a small bite. 

But then you thought of the fear in Suguru’s eyes when he died, and you dropped it again, returning to your uncomfortable bed, curling up to stare at the same wall you’d been studying the cracks in since you first crawled into it. 

You were losing it. 

About to start speaking to yourself just to stop the silence from driving you crazy, only your thoughts to keep you company as you tossed and turned, no energy left in your exhausted limbs as you tried to think of all the ways this could end. 

Unable to come up with a way out of this when the only person you ever found worth living for had decided you weren’t worth it anymore. 

Satoru had told you to trust her. 

But you never had anything to offer her other than loyalty. 

And what good was that when you would’ve had her husband’s baby if he hadn’t died? 

She must hate you. 

“Oh, princess.” 

Great. 

You had lost it. 

Were you hearing things now? Sanity slipping away with every day you decided not to eat? 

“Won’t you at least look at me?” Satoru’s sweet voice called out to you. 

You weren't going to, stubbornly keeping your head forward until you heard the locks actually unlatching. Sitting up on the thin mattress and turning just in time to see the door opening, and your angel returning to you. 

An easy smile curling up on her glossy lips, her ethereal eyes sparkling in the fading light of the day drifting in from outside, a white dress softly fluttering around her frame as she leaned against the wall like she was waiting for you to get down on your knees and thank her. 

“I didn’t do it,” you breathed, almost automatically. 

You needed her to believe-

“Sweetheart,” she softly shook her head as she sighed. “I know.” 

Then why did she throw you in a tower and lock you up like this? Leave you a broken mess, laid bare and bloody? 

“I just had to take care of a few things,” Satoru cooed. 

You didn’t move. Couldn’t. 

Unable to speak when you stared at her, feeling like a stranger in your own skin as you studied her back. 

“Did you think I would just let you rot?” She teased, as if you weren’t still a prisoner while she tilted her head to the side, appraising you like you were some fruit she had finally decided to pluck. 

It hurt. 

A small wound ripping open beneath the surface, one you were quick to bandage up and come up with excuses for. 

Almost immediately telling yourself that surely, she came to you as soon as she could, relief washing over the fresh sting at the realization she truly didn’t think you were behind Suguru’s death. That she hadn’t abandoned you after all. 

“Don’t just sit there and stare at me,” she huffed, sick of your silence, folding her arms across her chest and frowning at you. 

“Toru?” You croaked out her name, wanting to trust that it still had a place on your lips as you waited for her to disappear. Standing up on unsteady legs, muscles sore from how little you’d used them lately as you took unsure steps forward. A piece of you still convinced that you might be imagining this, or drifted off to some pretty dream where she played the same role she always did. 

Your savior. 

But when you got to her, hesitantly reaching out to touch her face, your fingertips trembling as you touched her cheek to discover it was solid. 

Soft. 

“I missed you too,” she murmured affectionately, reaching up to hold your hand there. Relaxing into your touch as you felt something inside you instantly crumble at the tiniest show of regard. 

And before you could stop yourself, you threw your arms around her neck, tears welling up as you inhaled the sweet scent of her perfume, burying your face in her throat as a rough sob escaped you. 

She let you. 

Didn’t push you off or give you that look like you had overstepped some boundary. 

No, she just slid a hand over your back, holding you closer and letting you cry into her collarbone. Stroking your hair, slowly picking out the tangles and knots in it as your body shuddered with the force of your tears. 

You didn’t think you had anything left in you to cry. 

But apparently there you weren’t dried out yet, and she held you through all of it. Murmuring soft words into your ear, coaxing you to calm down as you struggled to piece yourself back together after you let it all fall apart. 

“I swear, I would never do anything that could put you at risk,” you added, anxiety still swirling around your thoughts as you shook your head. 

“Don’t worry,” Satoru purred, squeezing you as another shudder wracked through your body. “The right person will be imprisoned soon.” 

As terrible as it sounded, you couldn’t find it in yourself to care who had done it, or even why, as long as it meant you and Satoru would be safe. 

The rest was just noise. 

You could go back to being her maid. Waiting on her hand and foot if it meant you wouldn’t have to be away from her side again. 

And if the court tried to take her crown, or shipped her back to her own palace after the rightful king had been killed, well, you both could get through it together, couldn’t you? 

“I thought you left me,” you mumbled, your voice cracking as she tenderly hummed your name.

“I would never,” she swore, petting your head as she pulled you into her chest, your shoulders slumping at how tightly she held you.  

“Promise?” You hopefully asked, needing to know. Needing her to say she wasn’t going anywhere. 

Simply needing her. 

“I promise.” 

You believed her with just two words. 

Under her spell in a handful of moments, your heart pounding in your chest when she eventually pulled away, cupping your face and wiping away your tears like it hurt for her to see you crying. 

“Come with me,” she spoke slowly, her thumb skimming lightly over your cheekbone.

You would follow her anywhere. 

Across the kingdom. To another, or even over the sea to some small countryside village. Any place was fine. 

As long as she wanted you there. 

Skipping down the long stairs after her, your pulse thrumming in your eardrums as you waited to get stopped by some guard, for a knight to pop up and point a sword at you for absconding with their queen. 

No one else was around however, the halls barren and silent as her soft fingers interlaced through yours, tugging you ahead as she navigated through them with ease.

“Were you starving yourself for my attention?” She half-whispered, her voice hushed and husky as she threw you a look you didn’t understand. 

Was she disappointed in you? 

“I haven’t been hungry,” you mumbled, shaking your head. You never thought she’d come check on you. Or even be keeping tabs through whoever came to drop off the food for you. 

“That’s no excuse,” she softly scolded you. 

“I’m sorry,” you automatically apologized, hanging your head lower as she opened a door and ushered you into a room you’d never been in before. 

It looked like it was actually fit for a princess. 

Ornately designed and filled with expensive furniture you couldn’t fathom the cost of, your body freezing just two short steps inside as she shut the door behind you. Quickly making herself comfortable, slipping off her short heels and walking over to the massive bed against one wall, looking back at you with barely concealed excitement, searching your face to see if you shared

“You can stay here for now,” she whispered, winking at you as she ran her palm over the soft fabric of the blankets adorning the bed. “It’ll be our secret.” 

Your secret. 

The words echoed in your head, unable to shut your open mouth as you struggled to take your eyes off of her. 

“Much better than that dingy tower, hm?” Satoru goaded, pride glittering in her brilliant stare. 

“What is this?” You asked, looking around at the intricate tapestries hung on the walls, the plush carpets laid over the floor, the carvings into the wooden dressers and the canopy of the bed. 

“Your room,” she happily hummed. 

“My-” You couldn’t even say it out loud. 

It had to be a joke. 

“There’s a warm bath waiting for you,” she murmured, nodding towards an adjoining door you’d been too overwhelmed to notice before. “And some fresh fruit on a platter by the tub. Your favorites.” 

What were you meant to make of this? 

Her belated apology for locking you up for days? For leaving you behind to handle affairs far bigger than you? 

Something itched at the back of your conscience, telling you to second guess this gift. 

But how were you supposed to listen to your better judgement when everything left of your sensibility had been broken? 

“Please eat something,” she added, and all you could do was nod your head like a moron. 

“I will,” you dutifully answered. 

Who were you to disobey your queen? 

“Do you need help getting out of that?” She asked, glancing towards your dress, nose wrinkling at the dirt on it before she dusted herself off like perhaps you’d gotten her filthy too. 

“No, I can do it,” you insisted, slipping into the bathroom before you could somehow end up even more self-conscious. 

But your muscles were already aching for relief, a throbbing pain beginning in your shoulder when you lifted your dress up and over your head. 

One that was thankfully soothed by the still warm water in the tub, a welcome relief to the frigid water buckets you’d been sticking using the last few days. Flower petals floating on the surface, bath salts mixed in as you sank yourself in neck-deep. 

True to her word, there was a platter of food set up by the tub, and you forced yourself to take a few bites, nibbling on just enough to satisfy her request. 

Satoru was trying to take care of you. 

Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Offering your shoulder for her to cry or cling to after her husband died horrifically? Of course, you knew she didn’t like him. Or well, more accurately, she loathed him. But his passing put her in a precarious position, her own life most likely hanging in the balance when she had no heir to guarantee her safety or status here. 

You didn’t know what she was going to do. 

Which also meant you had no idea what you were going to do. 

A piece of you wished you were born a man. That you’d been given the chance or opportunity to learn swordsmanship, or got to train with the knights. That you would be able to protect Satoru, shield her from these petty and cruel court politics instead of getting caught in the crossfire. 

Washing yourself of the last few days did not help quell your feelings of inadequacy, or solve a single one of your problems, no matter how soothing it was to soak and scrub yourself clean properly this time. 

You didn’t linger in the tub. 

No matter how much you might have liked to, a far greater part of you longed to be around Satoru. Craving her company after you’d been deprived of her presence for so long. You wanted to curl up in her lap like you used to, back when you were children and she’d be the one to comfort you over every skinned knee and scraped elbow. 

Stepping out of the tub with a heavy sigh, squinting when you discovered something wasn’t quite right. 

“Toru?” You called out, glancing around the small room searching for something that was evidently forgotten. “There’s no towel.” 

Or change of clothes. 

Nothing but your discarded dress from before to cover up, although you weren’t exactly inclined to pick it back up. 

You thought she’d just open the door and toss something to put on. 

Not just swing the door open and saunter in a second later, not even blinking as her eyes swept over your bare form. Lingering on the swell of your breasts and the way the water droplets were still rolling down between them. 

“The maid must have forgotten,” she hummed, dragging her stare off of you to do a courtesy sweep of the room. “Give me a moment.” 

You were overthinking it. 

Nodding obediently as you glanced down at your legs, shuffling on your feet as heat rose to your cheeks, thankful for the soft thud of the door shutting. She returned a couple minutes later, a towel in one arm and a white gown that looked an awful lot like a short version of her own in the other, passing both to you with that practiced smile of hers she usually saved for when she was up to something. 

“There you go,” Satoru chirped. “I’ll wait for you.” 

It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen you naked before. 

But this felt decidedly different.  

And you didn’t know what to do about the strange fluttering in your stomach at the idea of her watching you dress, at the way her eyes had drifted so dangerously slowly over the shape of you. 

Was this a dream? 

Were you still asleep? Still stuck in that tower? 

Wishing for something you had never once been able to admit to yourself that you wanted? 

You took an extra few minutes to dry off, adjusting the way the dress hung over you five times too many before you paused to brush your teeth in the mirror, avoiding your reflection as you spit in the sink, watching the tinged pink drool disappear with a soft exhale. 

Satoru was pristine. Pure. 

And what were you? 

You opened the door, fiddling with the hem of the dress she’d given you as you nearly ran straight into where she was waiting right outside of it. 

“I was getting worried,” she lightly joked, and you were brushing past her, a painful surge of panic bubbling back up. 

“Why are you doing this for me?” You asked, hyper aware of how undeserving you were as you padded barefoot back into the overwhelmingly lovely room. “It’s too much, I-” 

“You should know by now that nothing is too much for me when it comes to you,” Satoru chided with a soft chuckle. Refusing to let you step away from her, grabbing your wrist before you could slip away. 

She was so close. 

That familiar scent of her lulling you back in, daring you to breathe her in again. 

And god, you wanted to. 

Satoru said your name, and before you knew what you were doing, you were leaning up on your tip toes and pressing your lips to hers, impulsively planting a kiss to her strawberry-flavored mouth. 

You knew within half a second that you shouldn’t have done it, but you couldn’t stop yourself, deepening it as your fingertips tenderly grazed her impossibly perfect skin. It took every ounce of self restraint for you to pull away from her, shaking your head as you tried not to cry at the thought you would never get to do that again. 

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, immediately wishing you could take it back, sure that she would throw you back in the tower for the crime of presuming you could possibly deserve anything as sweet as her lips. “I shouldn’t have-” 

But before you could so much as finish your sentence, Satoru was cupping your face and pulling you back in, her nose nestling against yours as her blue eyes sparkled with something you’d never seen in them before. 

“Do it again.” 

ε✿з

You were kissing her. 

For a moment, Satoru was sure she had died and this was heaven. 

How often had she scrawled into diaries her deepest dreams of getting to experience the taste of you on her tongue? 

Your gentle hands on her face and your heaving chest pressed against hers, lips slipping between her own with desperate affection. 

You. Desperate. For her. 

Her brain only conjuring her small words and short sentences, too overwhelmed by the sensation of your soft mouth to think straight. 

God, you tasted so good. 

Fruity and sweet at the same time, your delicate fingers sifting through her hair as you let out the quietest squeak Satoru immediately wanted to hear over and over, sure she’d never get sick of the sound. 

And behind the lovestruck haze, a jealous voice scoffed that she should’ve killed Suguru far sooner for getting to taste you like this first. 

Slipped the poison in his cup the moment he set his sights on you and made his intent to steal you clear. 

Of course, cleaning it up would’ve been much messier, but red hot jealousy coiled and cut through all her cold logic when she thought of his massive mitts manhandling you instead of treating you like the rare flower you really were. 

Satoru was the one who spent her life watering you, taking care to tend to the soil and fertilize it, making sure you’d bloom so beautifully for her, and he tried to rip your roots out like you wouldn’t just wither away without her. 

“Satoru,” you whispered her name, sucking in a sharp breath as you pulled back, eyes shining with surprise. 

“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for you,” she swallowed hard, spit pooling in the back of her mouth. 

From the day you looked up at her like some wounded lamb, you had been hers. 

Perhaps it had just taken a little separation for you to see that too. 

“You were waiting for me?” You repeated, that dazed, dreamy look in your eyes as you looked up at her, as if you thought she was going to change her mind. 

“My heart has always been yours,” she proclaimed, although the confession she used to imagine came out far more shaky than it had in her head. Not nearly as cool or collected or calm as she pictured when your cheek was so warm beneath her palm. 

Praying that you wouldn’t change your mind now that she had no way to take back the words. 

“But I’m-” You were about to put yourself down. To diminish the light inside you that she loved so much. 

“You’re mine.” 

And no one else’s now. 

Before you could protest, claim something silly about the difference in your status, she was pulling you back onto the bed, your form landing on top of hers as the feathered mattress cushioned the fall. You tried to wiggle back, but Satoru simply gripped your waist, refusing to let you budge as she pushed her bottom lip out in a pout you immediately softened for. 

“Say it for me,” she requested. 

“I have always belonged to you,” you acquiesced, and Satoru wanted to bury herself inside of your heart to make sure there really was no space for anyone else inside of it. 

That it was wholly hers the way you already occupied every nook and crevice of her body and brain. 

She was craning her neck up to kiss you again, your mouth meeting hers a little slower, more hesitation creeping in as your body began to melt against her. A possessive hand sliding up your spine, already annoyed at the fabric separating your skin from hers. 

Needing to feel you properly, for your soft flesh to dimple beneath her fingers, to leave lovebites scattered across every inch of you that you offered. 

“It killed me to see you with him,” she muttered, chest seizing at how vulnerable the confession came out. 

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, shaking your head before she abruptly flipped you over, pinning you beneath her and pushing your dress up to expose-

Oh fuck. 

Was every part of you so pretty? 

Your pussy glistening as she nudged your thighs further apart, her pulse pounding in her ears as she finally got to see all of you up close. Presented perfectly for her, your nose scrunched up like you might be scared she could possibly find something wrong with you instead of being awestruck by the simple sight of you splayed out for her. 

She might not have a cock, but Satoru was sure she could make you cum hard enough to forget about any petty insecurities that might be plaguing you. 

“Take your gown off,” Satoru instructed, only realizing how stern it came out when you faltered, hesitating as you bit your bottom lip. “Please.” 

Before she had to break down and beg for you to strip. 

Satoru sat up and started lifting off her own dress as well, watching the way your eyes hung onto the heave of her breasts, how they kept shyly flickering back up to her face as your fingers slowly moved to remove the fabric. 

You weren’t girls anymore. 

Not kids playing husband and wife, or king and queen. 

Exploring each other for keeps, hands tepidly traveling across hips and thighs and breasts at first, although it didn’t take much time for the touches to turn needy. 

Hungry for something you’d both been starving yourselves of for years. 

Could you really blame Satoru for not being able to stop herself? 

For hooking one of those soft thighs of yours over her shoulder and dragging her tongue along the inside of it before the last little tendril of self-control she possessed snapped? 

She had to have you. 

Slipping two fingers inside you slowly, feeling the way you squeezed around her digits, your mouth forming a delicious little ‘o’ she wanted to kiss again. Already shaking before she even began to swirl her fingers around inside of you, barely able to contain the heat rolling through her core just watching your reactions as she pushed in deeper. 

You whimpered, and every single thing that led up to this in Satoru’s life was suddenly worth it. 

The mocking, the marriage, every mistake she made on this meandering path, she’d do all of it again if you were waiting for her at the end of it. 

Your lips swollen and kiss-bruised as you let out soft sounds of pleasure that were because of her. Your naked form shivering in the same bed as you reached down to run your fingers through her hair, holding it back as she found herself half-delirious with lust she couldn’t hold back. 

Slotting in a third finger the second she thought you could take it, watching your eyes widen and start to water as they rolled back, your hips bucking up to drive her fingers as deep as possible. 

“My princess can take more,” she purred, spreading you further apart, greedy eyes gazing on your stripped bare body, the thin sheen of sweat sticking to your skin as you moaned her name. 

“S-S’toru,” you cried out, and she was a little tempted to just do this for hours and count how many times she could make you say it precisely like that. 

Satoru must have imagined this moment a million times. What your face would look like all scrunched up, how you would shiver and shake as she swirled her fingers in, feeling for all those sensitive spots that had you immediately trying to squirm and wiggle away. 

Pushing and pressing into them while she pleaded for you to stay put in her sultriest voice. 

“Be a good girl for me,” she hummed, and you nodded, loyal as ever. Itching to please her as badly as she wanted to please you. “Let me love you.” 

Let her hold you. 

Fuck you. 

Make you cum as many times as you could in a single night and then give her the rest of them. All your nights. All your days. Everything. 

Satoru had always been greedy. 

And you satiated her sweet tooth more than anything else ever did. 

Sinking her teeth into the inside of your thighs just because she could, feeling your muscles twitch and spasm as you gasped, caught off guard. 

You didn’t stop her. 

No, you let her bite and lick and kiss, her mouth latching onto your swollen clit, swirling the tip of her tongue over it as you let out a raw noise. As if someone had just ripped it from your stomach, pulled it out of you too fast for you to soften it. 

Her fingers continued to thrust in while she nipped at your clit, just for your body to confirm what she suspected by clenching around her hand like you wanted to trap it in there. You were cumming for her already. 

She’d seen you do it with Suguru. 

But this one was so much more visceral, no dramatic or drawn-out moan, just your body melting into a puddle for her to mold as you fell apart for her. 

You were shuddering, limbs trembling, as you tried to pull her back by her hair. 

But you had never been good at telling her no. 

Even when she was driving you right to the brink of overstimulation, and then pushing you well past it, greedily sucking on that sensitive bud, pressing her tongue flat against it as she pumped her fingers in-and-out, finding a steady rhythm to ruin you too. 

Satoru had never had sex before. Her purity protected well into the marriage she was supposed to save it for. No experience of her own to truly compare this too. But she’d touched herself and pretended it was you enough times to have an idea of what would make you unravel just right. 

Operating on instinct, on need, peering up at you from her position between your thighs as pretty tears welled up in your eyes. Satoru wanted to soothe your ache, to kiss them away and drag her tongue over the streaks they left on your cheeks. 

Perhaps she should’ve planned a little better, found something bigger to stick in you, to make you moan and murmur for mercy with, watching you fall apart while she teased and toyed with your body now that you had finally given yourself fully to her. 

You were so beautiful like this. 

Being brought to the heights of pleasure, worshipped the way you should’ve been from the start, her tongue and fingers working together as she clumsily made out with you, only pulling off to drag the thick muscle over your slick folds for a better taste.

“I-I-” You hiccuped, your voice half an octave too high as your thighs clamped down around her head, your own thrown back as you wiggled your hips, chasing a second climax. “I c-can’t-” 

“You can,” Satoru hummed, rubbing her own thighs together to soothe the aching need between them. “Want you to cum for me again, princess.” 

You wouldn’t deny her. 

You never did. 

Desperately groaning as you gave in, sweat making both your bodies sticky as you tried to not to tug too hard at her hair, still holding back to not hurt her as you crumbled into a crying mess. Tears slipping out that she was quick to climb back on top of you and wipe away, kissing your lips to swallow your whines, enjoying the way you fit so nicely beneath her until you started to come back down. “You look so pretty like this,” she softly complimented, tracing her thumb over your lip, already missing your kiss the moment your mouths were apart. 

“Toru,” you whispered her name, and she was sure that she would never get sick of hearing it. Far fucking better than the way you used to say Suguru. 

“Mhm?” She hummed, chewing on the inside of her cheek as you stared straight through her. That fuzzy look in your eyes fading as understanding replaced the daze. 

Like you’d suddenly gained some clarity.

“It was you, was it?” You asked, and you didn’t need to say what when you were both well aware of what you were accusing her of. 

Were you really just now considering it? 

Was your judgement clouded from your unconditional love? So devoted that you were deluding yourself into ignoring the obvious? 

“No,” Satoru lied, still in the habit of hiding the truth if it meant sparing your feelings. Refusing to lose you after she just got you. “It wasn’t me.” 

ε✿з

You were flying far too close to the sun. 

You knew that somewhere deep inside of you as Satoru snuggled against your collarbone, her warmth wrapped around you as she burned you up. Her scorching touch seared into your skin as she refused to let even an inch separate the two of you. 

Sooner or later, your wings were going to fail you, and send you tumbling out of the sky back to the ground. 

Would she catch you when you crashed?

Or would you be left to stare up at her until she was just a beautiful bird flying high out of your reach? 

All you were doing was damning yourself by dreaming of a happy ending with her. 

You guessed you should just be grateful for what you had while you had it. 

That she hadn’t cut your tongue out for daring to slip it between her lips.

It hadn’t been the first time you had thought about it. 

But even entertaining the idea of her choosing you had always been so preposterous you pushed your budding feelings down deep, refusing to let them devour you no matter how often she occupied your dreams. 

Your life had been built around the pristine pedestal you placed her on.  

Your world revolved around her smile, her laugh, hearing your twinkling voice in your ear and feeling her soft fingers brushing over your skin. 

Everything you’d ever done had been for her. 

So why did it feel like you’d just gone from warming one ruler’s sheets to another? 

As if you were just in her bed for the comfort she brought, the security of her position. 

You hoped she wouldn’t think that. That she understood that if she asked you to run away with her today, you would accept without hesitation. 

Next to her now, her sleepy eyes fluttering open as she hummed your name, it just made you think of how stupid you were not to have been doing this all along. For not seeing this for what it was sooner. 

“You’ll be safe here,” Satoru murmured, snuggling against you as you rolled onto your side. Keeping herself glued to you, her lips lingering on your skin with a content sigh. 

“What happens next?” You murmured, watching the morning sun beginning to rise through the stained glass window, slowly chasing the dark away as your personal sunshine faltered for a moment. 

“They’re still investigating his passing,” she mumbled, refusing to say Suguru’s name. Or call it for what it must have been. An assassination someone wanted to make you the scapegoat for. “You haven’t been officially cleared yet.” 

And still, she’d showed up for you, hadn’t she? “But I will be?” You hopefully asked, your heart thrumming at the thought of this being ripped from you too. 

“Nothing will happen to you,” she swore. 

You had given her your heart. Your soul. Your body. 

Those were all you really had to offer. 

But handing her your trust? 

That was…tricky. 

Especially when she wouldn’t offer any more details about your detainment as the minutes melted into hours and the hours twisted into days that just kept passing. 

In the dark moments, a cold voice suggested that you should at least consider the chance she could have done it. Orchestrated it from the shadows. But she had told you she hadn’t. 

She would’ve confessed it if she had. 

Suguru had his fair share of enemies. Disgruntled rulers from other kingdoms, angry nobles and dukes who wanted more power than he allowed. 

It wasn’t like it was outrageous that one of them had grown sick of his antics and took matters into their own hands.  

So you tried to be content too, Satoru trading your tower for more comfortable quarters, her trusted knights stationed outside the room you caught glimpses at when she slipped in-and-out, leaving you to attend to her duties most days. 

She brought you meals, insisting on hand feeding you half the time, murmuring under her breath that you couldn’t be trusted to do it yourself before she had you for dessert. Hands spreading your thighs apart as she lapped and licked you up, refusing to pull off until you had cum on her tongue or come undone with her fingers, falling apart for her to mend back together. 

Still, it had started to feel like you were becoming more a part of her schedule than like her partner. 

Perhaps that was wishing too much though. 

Wanting more than you had any right to ask for. 

At the end of the day, you would still always be a maid in everyone’s eyes. 

Her pet. 

Her people wouldn’t exactly be pleased to know that their queen was more interested in women than securing another king or providing them an heir? 

Were you a price she was willing to pay for political control? Would there come a day where she would remarry another man? 

Was it already being arranged while you wasted weeks lounging around in her bed and longing for her to join you, smelling her scent on the pillow and aching for her return? 

The worst part was how Satoru was so hesitant to let you hold her, doing everything on her terms as she came up with excuse after excuse to keep your hands either bound behind your back or tethered in her hair instead of tracing over her soft skin. 

Did she think you were too dirty? 

That you would stain her supple flesh if you so much as squeezed her close? 

No matter how much it stung, you still shoved down your discomfort. Told yourself that you should be grateful for what she was giving you and ignore how much she withheld. 

You had to plead with her just to be allowed to visit her office during the days to keep yourself from going insane. A trusted knight always had to accompany you there, a shawl hiding your face as they carefully took you there when no one else would be around. She stocked extra books for you, a basket left next to one of the armchairs with embroidery supplies, sometimes making you write letters for her that she couldn’t care to do herself to foreign kingdoms and nobles to settle their unrest. 

And after a month, you began to settle. 

Setting aside old foolish hopes and accepting your new routine. 

Waiting for her to join you in her office, curling up in one of the other chairs as you tried to tell yourself that she’d come back soon. She had run off to attend some important meeting, patting your head and telling you that it was nothing when you tried to ask what it was about.  

So what if it made you feel a little pathetic for waiting around like a poor puppy dog abandoned by her owner? 

Satoru would return to you. 

And she made all of it worth it. 

Your body was beginning to fall asleep though, pins and needles pricking your limbs when you stood to shake it off, walking around in a circle and wondering if you were just destined to be on her leash before you decided to slump yourself in her chair instead. 

It smelled like her. 

Your body relaxing at the scent, already trained as your eyes skimmed over her cluttered desk space, papers strewn around from the hurry she left in before. 

Curiosity pricking at you as you found yourself slowly opening up drawers and peeking inside to see if there was anything interesting hiding from you. And slipped underneath thick ledgers and blank papers was a plain black leather-bound notebook you’d seen her writing in before. 

You pulled it out, a not-at-all small piece of you hoping that maybe it was a secret diary as you started flipping through it, that you’d find your own name scribbled down with hearts drawn next to it. 

It turned out your name was there. 

But it was the words that were with it that sent your stomach through the floor. 

The contents of it were cold. 

Sharp. Each word punctuated so deeply that the ink bled between the pages. 

The confirmation that she loved you was there. Just sandwiched between white hot anger that someone else had gotten to touch you first. To fuck you in the bed you belonged in with her. 

Queasiness slowly building in your core, something thick and slimy coiling around your heart as you skipped from the earlier entries to the more recent ones, knowing what was coming before you found the entry for the day Suguru died. 

And there in between the lines, the truth stared back at you. 

She had dinner with Suguru. 

Shared a meal together right before he went to join you that she never once mentioned to you. 

No.

This couldn’t be right. 

Satoru couldn’t have-

Or well, if she did, she wouldn’t have framed you for it. 

She loved you.

Swore that you were hers and that she’d never let anything awful happen to you again. The idea that she’d put you through hell just to have you all to herself was crippling. 

Maybe she didn’t outright admit that she’d done it, maybe you still didn’t know precisely how, but you knew it was her with a scary sort of certainty. 

Your body freezing as you read and reread the five short lines in front of you detailing her evening, forcing yourself to turn the page and read ahead, to see her absolutely unaffected as she offered just a single line about Suguru dying. Images of his face, that awful look in his eyes before he collapsed floating back up as you choked on the stomach-churning memory of him. 

An awful thought crept in that she left it here for you to find. That some part of her hoped you’d be nosey enough to snoop and come across it. 

For you to see all of her. 

Was it a test? 

Her attempt to see if your devotion to her was strong enough to stay despite what she’d done. 

You closed the book, shoving it back where you found it and standing up as the knowledge started to sink in, to seep through and cast a darker shade on your days together as you rushed to return to your chair. 

What if it had all been designed to keep you firmly in your place beneath her? Confined to her chambers and chained to her heart? 

Didn’t she already know she didn’t need to do any of it for you to stay? 

The door opened with a creak, and you were reopening the forgotten book you’d been reading before you found the forbidden one. 

“Hi, beautiful,” Satoru greeted as she walked over, bending over to press a soft kiss on your cheek before breezing past to her desk. 

“Hi, Toru,” you echoed, pretending to be absorbed in the book in your hands, hoping she wouldn’t notice you were holding it upside down. 

You closed it, placing it in your lap as you looked up at her with easy obedience, praying she wouldn’t pay any mind to the suspicion now lingering underneath it. 

“Was I gone long?” She earnestly asked as she slid into her seat, scooting it up close to her desk and leaning across it as her blue eyes focused solely on your face. 

“It felt like it,” you confessed, swallowing hard. 

“I must make it up to you tonight then,” your Toru teased, her perfectly cruel mouth curling up as she delivered a cute wink. 

She did make it up to you. 

But it didn’t make you forget what you found. 

What were you meant to do about it? 

Pretend you hadn’t? Pray that no one else would ever discover what you had? 

You wished she would abandon this. Abdicate the throne and take you away somewhere warm. 

But it was Satoru. 

Hadn’t you learned already she refused to give up anything once it was hers? 

The privilege, the power, the promise of a gold gilded future with you waiting on her. 

She would never let it go. 

It was you that didn’t know how to move forward. That could figure out where to go from here when she didn’t seem to notice your indiscretion. 

You spent two days torn over it. Treading softly with her, feigning that you were fine overnight until she left you again and you unraveled in her absence. 

Opening the bedroom door an hour after she left, already knowing who’d you find on the other side. A brute of a man standing guard, his back to the opposite wall as his ruby red eyes narrowed at you with pure annoyance. 

“No.”

You hadn’t even spoken yet. 

Eying him with the same irritation he showed for you, nose scrunching up as you stopped yourself from huffing. 

Most of the guards she had stationed outside your room changed, unaware of who they were even protecting, a rotating roster of men ready to keep you from breaking free. But not him. 

He was always the one posted directly by your door.

Dark pink hair falling down in his face, scarred and marked skin always creased in a stern scowl when he caught you staring at him, one foot about to fall forward before he shook his head.

“Stop,” he grunted as you peeked out of the door, and you feigned innocence, shrugging your shoulders. 

“I just want to go to her office,” you pleaded, and he glared at you, refusing to even entertain your request.

“No,” he deadpanned. 

But there was something underneath his rude facade that you didn’t like. Your brows pinching together as you tried to pout at him, to come up with something persuasive enough to change his answer. 

Before you could, there was the click of heels, and you glanced back to see Satoru returning, a platter prepared with desserts. Her pretty face was pinched up with obvious displeasure though, her mouth twitching down as you hurried to step back inside your room. 

She was slamming the door shut after you a few seconds later, half-shoving the tray into your hands as she turned to you with a disgruntled hiss. 

“Why were you speaking to him?” Satoru snapped, and the only thing you could properly think about was how pretty she looked when she was jealous. 

The downturn of her lips, the way her blue eyes glinted with unfettered annoyance, blowing air out of her nose as she tilted her head to the side all dramatically. 

“I wanted to see you,” you murmured, cupping her face just for her jaw to clench. 

Torn between taking you at your word and questioning it. 

“You know I would be here with you all the time if I could,” she softly said, despite how cold her stare still was. Her hands still held warmth for you though. Delicately picking up a slice of a cake she must’ve requested the chef make, bringing it up to your lips. 

You opened up for her. Holding her stare as she pushed it through, taking a small bite as she watched you swallow it. 

“I worry about you,” you confessed as she wiped the icing from the corner of your mouth. 

“Don’t.” 

You never thought Satoru could possibly ask too much of you. 

But that was simply impossible. 

And the longer you went without any answers, the more you found yourself starting to spiral. To unravel as you waited and waited for something to change. 

What could you do? 

It wasn’t like the court you’d never found any friends in would support what the two of you shared. Satoru had kept you completely clueless to what was happening outside of the two rooms you could be in, ignorant to how much trouble she might be in with no husband to wear the crown. 

Truthfully, you had no plan. 

No magical solution that struck you in the middle of the night. 

But you wanted to help. 

Peeking back out into the hallway a week after you first found her book, ready to prod and press her knight for more information on what you’d been missing, but to your surprise, the hallway was empty. 

No sign of anyone as you slipped out, your heart thrumming loudly in your chest as you started down the familiar path to her office. 

It was a short walk, but every step made your chest constrict, pulse pounding so loud you were sure someone had to hear until you were finally there, her office door cracked open just enough for you to steal a glimpse inside. 

The knight was there, his brows knitted together tight as he looked through all the books lining the shelves, walking over to her desk and carefully looking through the documents on it with that permanent scowl of his. 

Searching for something.

Oh no. 

You had a feeling you knew exactly what he was hoping to find. 

He was going to betray her, wasn’t he? Looking for proof of what she’d done 

His hand reached for the drawer her notebook was in, and you were pushing the door open before he could discover it. 

Your suspicions were confirmed with how straight he abruptly stood, acting as if he hadn’t just been snooping. 

“What are you doing out of your room?” He snarled at you, his voice hoarse and harsh as you refused to tremble or back down. 

“What are you doing in here?” You returned the question, throat constricting at the intensity of his glare.

You weren’t brave. Not nearly as strong or stubborn as Satoru.  

It wasn’t like anyone would ever be intimidated by you. 

But you would try for her.

He didn’t answer your question, just grinding his back molars as he stepped out from around the desk, starting to stomp over as if he planned to drag you out and toss you back into your room. 

If he did that though, he might just come back and find precisely what he was looking for. 

So while he started towards you, you walked the opposite way around to where he’d been, a lie slipping off your tongue like you were used to telling them, “I just wanted to grab some books I left in here.” 

“Hurry up then,” he scoffed, biting his tongue, probably not pushing it so you wouldn’t go and tattle to Toru about him being in here. 

He thought you were stupid. 

Just a brainless fool who was only good for getting fingered and fucked. 

Not batting an eye when you grabbed a couple books you’d set aside on Satoru’s desk before pulling open the drawer and grabbing her diary, sliding it in the middle of the pile as her knight impatiently looked outside the door. 

She would notice it was gone. 

And you would have to fess up, admit that you’d read it enough to know to take it. 

You’d rather her be mad at you than to get caught for her crime. 

Stoking the flames in the fireplace the second your guard half-pushed you back into the room you were supposed to be in, ripping out the incriminating pages first and using them for tender before tossing the rest of the book in. Watching it go up in flames, ashes sputtering out as it turned to dust in front of your eyes while you paced the floor and planned out the speech you would give her. 

Or would have given her had she actually returned for dinner.

The sun setting and the moon replacing it through your window as you waited and waited for her to come for you. Debating and drowning in your anxieties over what could be taking her so long, your eyes compelled back to the burning papers, using the fire poker to keep the flames going before you were finally forced to face the reality that Satoru might not be showing up tonight. 

Climbing back under the freezing covers, the bed so much bigger without her there to curl up against. 

It didn’t matter how silky the sheets were or how comfortable the mattress was. 

You couldn’t sleep anymore when there wasn’t the scent of her perfume and the softness of her skin to comfort you.

Was she upset with you?

Had something awful happened to her? 

To make everything worse, you started to hear a…commotion on the floor below you. Voices and the sound of things moving around, shouts and scuffles that only served to heighten your nerves. 

You almost opened the door to go find out what was going on. Sneak out again to search for the truth, but every time your hand settled on the knob, you couldn’t bring yourself to turn it. 

Ignorance could be bliss. 

But the truth would come out sooner or later. 

Curled up on the edge of your bed, hands clasped together as your eyes stuck to the door, shadows dancing across the floor as the sun rose once again. 

When it opened again, you were immediately standing, wiping sweaty palms on your nightdress as your breath got stuck in your throat, a hot lump forming the moment Satoru actually walked through. 

“Hi, sweetheart,” she softly greeted, exhaustion obvious in the dark circles betraying her beautiful face. 

“What happened?” You asked, studying her features for some clue, heart slamming into your chest as you tried to figure out what the chaos beneath you could possibly be. What could’ve taken her so long to come to you. 

“They discovered who killed our dearly departed king,” she said, a faint hint of amusement shimmering before she turned away to lock the door behind her. 

“What?” Your throat closed up, the word coming out as a stunned squeak as your brain tried to add together everything you knew. 

The person who killed Suguru was standing in front of you. 

If they knew that, she would be on her way to the gallows. 

Not turning around so you could undo her corset. 

You automatically stepped forward, fingers trembling as you undid her dress out of habit. 

“One of the knights slipped poison into his wine,” Satoru apathetically huffed, as if it was a waste of time to even talk about it. 

“One of the knights?” You echoed, reaching for something you didn’t know if you were confident enough to confront her about right as you unlaced the final part. Satoru stepped out of it with ease, her perfect body on display as she twisted back around to look over her shoulder at you. “Which one?” 

“Does it matter?” She scoffed, arching up an eyebrow, clearly unhappy with your question. 

But you still had one more left. 

“Why?” 

Her hesitation to answer gave you a different one. 

“You know as well as I do what he was like,” she said, a little too snappy as she squinted at you. 

But the moment the words were out there, you could see she regretted her response, her fingers skimming over your waist and squeezing you tenderly. “It’s all over now.” 

You stared at her. 

Satoru was lying to you. 

You didn’t know why it surprised you. Couldn’t explain why it left you so shocked, staring at her in silence as you struggled to find something to say that wouldn’t give away what you knew. 

“The knight was executed over night,” she added, your heart stilling as you realized the toll had risen to two. 

But could you be upset when the other option was one, or maybe both of you taking their place? 

“How did-” 

“He stole something of mine,” Satoru muttered, and you knew what must’ve happened without her offering anything else. 

She must have returned to her office first and realized her journal was gone.

And there were only two people she trusted enough to have access to the office it was kept in. 

So she pinned the blame on her knight and beheaded him before he could speak about any of its contents or piece together what she’d done for you. 

“He didn’t,” you breathed, your lungs shrinking as you struggled to get any more air in. 

One of you had to be honest here.

She blinked at you, not comprehending what you were saying. 

“What?” “It was me,” you admitted, stiffly shrugging your shoulders. “I saw him searching your office. And, I, um, took it and threw it in the hearth.” 

“You burned my-?” 

“I read it,” you swallowed hard, that hard lump still there, still choking you up as you avoided her stare. “Before. I know-” 

“No,” she cut you off, grabbing your chin and forcing you to tilt your face up to meet hers. “You, you were supposed to stay out of this.” 

You knew in an instant all she wanted was to protect you. To shield you from the nasty politics and petty games these awful people liked to play. 

But you couldn’t stand the idea of her doing anything at the expense of herself. 

“You should have told me from the start,” you insisted. “I-I would’ve-” 

“Your hands were supposed to be clean.” And your head empty. 

Did she think you wouldn’t have loved her if you knew what she had done? 

And now you had helped her conceal it. 

“We could have-” You started, about to tell her that as long as you were together, you could work out the rest. 

“If I told you before, you would have said there was another way,” Satoru solemnly said, her eyes narrowing as her fingers tightened around your wrist. 

You couldn’t really argue that. You would have said precisely that. Told her it was too risky. Tried to dissuade her from taking drastic measures and attempting to convince her to run away with you. 

You used to wish that the two of them would find a way to work it out. That you could find a happily ever after where everyone would get along. 

What would your reaction have been if she touched your face and told you that she was going to murder her husband? 

“Isn’t this what you wanted?” She pressed when you took too long to reply, her fingers pinching your chin to draw your attention back to right now. “I was not about to let you carry his child.” 

It wasn’t like you could have hers. 

Even if you’d do that in a heartbeat.

“He would have just kept putting babies in you and pushing me away from you” Satoru hissed, jealousy and anger rolling into her raw voice. “I couldn’t-” 

“I know,” you interrupted her this time, softening as you leaned into her.

“Now it’s just us again,” she whispered conspiratorially, pressing a clipped-short nail against the tip of your nose. 

How were you supposed to be mad about that? 

You held your breath though, still searching for anything that could stand in the way.

“These people, they are not going to just let you rule forever,” you whispered, thinking about what could befall both of you if her treason was ever discovered. Sure, she’d found someone to blame, but there must be other loose ends. Whoever she obtained the poison from. The subjects who never supported her as queen to start with. “If they find out or-” 

Satoru pressed her finger against your mouth, stopping you while you spiralled. 

“Princess,” she murmured, clicking her tongue as her initial emotions swirled into that cocky confidence of hers. Pride returning as she realized that you weren’t going to condemn or curse her, but that you were concerned for her. “Don’t you know me?” 

You hoped that meant she had already considered every side of your fear and took care of every conceivable problem. 

“I love you,” you offered instead, your voice trembling as you put your trust in her hands. 

“His throne is mine,” she smiled softly. And his concubine. 

“What if someone else challenges it?” You pressed. 

“There’s going to be a baby born with dark hair and purple eyes in a few months. His child. The mother doesn’t want the child, so I made a deal. She gets her own estate. We will get our heir,” She explained, speaking in short sentences like it would make the revelation easier to swallow. 

“Someone else was pregnant with his child?” You breathed, taken aback. 

When the fuck did he have the time to plow someone else’s field when he pretended to be so preoccupied with you? 

It was wrong, especially when it wasn’t like your heart had ever wanted him, but it wounded your own pride a little bit at the idea you hadn’t been enough for him.

You supposed you should’ve suspected it, if Satoru wasn’t enough for him either. 

“You weren’t his only-”

“Whore,” you finished for her, the word coming out a little strangled as you saw the situation for what it was. 

All you’d been was a warm body to Suguru. 

You were both disposable, to be used and discarded when his interests drifted. 

“We’ll tell everyone the baby is yours,” she added, as if she had already planned every last detail out. “And until the child is old enough, I can still rule as a regent.” 

Was that why she’d been hiding you away? 

Faking a pregnancy instead of keeping you prisoner? 

“Do you think they’ll accept a child they think is a bastard?” You asked, needing her to say yes. 

To assure you that your fears were unfounded. 

That she’d take care of you the same way she always had. 

“I will give them no other option.” 

When she spoke like that, that cold look icing over her eyes as she steeled her resolve, you knew she would. That she would do anything necessary to make sure of it.

“And what? We live happily ever after?” 

Say yes.

You needed it. Craved her confirmation. 

Looking up at her as your trembling fingers reached out to trace her waist, holding your breath as she nodded slowly. 

“Forever.” 

Your angel was standing in front of you promising you everything you ever wanted.

How were you ever meant to say no? 

Even if she would lead you straight to Hell. 

“You can be my queen,” Satoru murmured, giving you that pretty puppy dog pout you always fell for, placated as she leaned down to leave a soft kiss to your forehead like it was all settled.

Regret still lingering in your body as you ached to actually be that for her. Wishing your circumstances had been different from the beginning. 

That you were never cursed to be so far below her, and in the body of a woman that could never wear a matching ring or recite wedding vows to her. 

“I wish I was a-”  

“Do not,” she scoffed, shaking her head. “You are perfect precisely the way you are.” 

“Then why don’t you let me love you like you love me?” You asked, almost immediately annoyed at yourself for sounding a little whiney. 

But you wanted to be inside of her. 

To feel her squeeze and squirm around you, to hear her dissolve into messy whimpers and whines because of you. 

“W-what do you mean?” She stuttered, her white brows arching up high as her lips got stuck in the sort of ‘o’ that made you itch to slip your tongue inside of her. 

“I want to make you feel good,” you simply said, cheeks heating up as you swallowed the spit pooling in your mouth. 

You had never seen Satoru nervous before. 

Her mouth opened and clamped shut a few times before she started trying to ramble off reasons that she was better at giving, but you were sick of them. Sick of all the stupid things that had kept you apart. 

All the years you could’ve spent in her warmth that you missed out on. Mourning what both of your lives could’ve been if you were born as other people. 

But she had sworn you were enough for her. 

Was it wrong to want to show her how she was far more than enough for you? 

“I-I just like the way you taste and-” 

You kissed her mid-sentence, shutting her up before she could stall this any longer. 

Grabbing her this time, guiding her back to the bed one step at a time, tangling your fingers in her soft, silky hair as your tongue slipped past her lips, tracing the sharp tips of her canines until her back hit the mattress. 

And god, the moment you climbed on top of her, straddling her soft waist and pausing to peel your nightdress over your head, you hated yourself for not doing it sooner. 

For missing out on the view you were currently taking in, eyes slowly drifting over the swell of her breasts, the pink peaked buds of her nipples as she sucked in uneven breaths, staring up at you with those dazzling blue eyes. 

“You’re so beautiful,” you whispered, the words ripped from you as you struggled to keep yourself steady. 

It felt like you were defiling something holy. 

Her sacred body below you, your fingertips skimming over her pale stomach, swirling slowly across her nipple as you bit your bottom lip. 

If she was an altar, a god, you’d pray to her every day. 

Swear your faith and undying devotion, shower her with offerings and pray for just a sliver of her favor. 

You couldn't believe she was yours. 

“I’m a virgin,” Satoru suddenly blurted out, your fingers freezing as you drifted them back down below her belly button. 

“Oh,” you blinked. 

You suppose it should’ve been obvious. 

But you had never really thought too hard about it. 

You never exactly prized your virtue. But hers was different. 

Special. 

“Do you want me to stop?” You tentatively asked, about to climb back off of her before her hand gripped onto your hip to hold you there. 

“No,” she answered a little too quickly. 

So you came up with another solution to, ah, quell her nerves. 

The ribbons you used to tie her hair with now strewn all over the bed, a long one in your hands as you adjusted her head forward. 

“I’ll be gentle,” you promised. 

Even though she practically jumped at every tiny touch you delivered to her skin, shivering at just a brush of your thumb over her nipple and when you leaned close enough for your breath to ghost across her throat. 

You wrapped the ribbon around her eyes, excitement tingling between your fingers as you fixed the silk ribbon into its proper place, tying a pretty bow around the back, careful not to get her hair caught in it. 

“Can you see?” You asked, humming softly with satisfaction as you lifted her wrists up next, positioning them above her hair as she writhed in the sheets. 

“No,” she echoed, her voice shaking a little no matter how cocky she still tried to sound. 

“Good.” 

You tied her wrists next, watching the way she tested how strong the knot was by flexing them as you smiled to yourself. 

“You know, you’re so mean,” you murmured, tracing your fingertip across her sharp features, brushing your thumb over her defined cheekbones before drifting down to her soft lips. “It’s only fair I get to play with you too.” 

“I’m never mean to you,” Satoru huffed, and you were a little tempted to grab another ribbon and gag her with it for playing dumb. 

“I hate it when you hide things from me,” you muttered, shaking your head with a soft tut of your tongue. 

“I do it because-” 

“You love me?” You asked, slowly shuffling down her body, pressing kiss after kiss across her heaving breasts down her slender abdomen.

Hoisting one of her thighs over your shoulder, sucking in a breath before you leaned in to leave on the most sensitive spot on her body. 

“S-so much,” her cute voice cracked, nearly crumbling at the soft contact.

All her strength quickly melted into a puddle of pure need, her hips bucking up when you shifted down to start sucking on it, a gorgeous whimper escaping her – and immediately making you greedy for more. 

You never thought Satoru would be at your mercy. 

Her pretty pale body shivering, perfect skin glistening with sweat as she shuddered for you, her soft thighs trying to close around your head as you dragged your tongue down across her soaked cunt. 

You didn’t think anything could ever taste so goddamn good. 

No better than a man, wiggling your own hips down into the mattress to chase friction you couldn’t find, pushing your tongue in-and-out as her muscles twitched and tensed beneath your fingertips. 

Suguru had never gotten you half as wet as her. 

Never worked you up like this, left you soaked and squirming without even being touched. Your thighs pressing together to push down the heat stirring in your core, your pulse pounding so hard you nearly couldn’t hear her whining over it. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, I-I-” 

You knew Satoru loved to chatter. 

But once you were inside her it was like she physically couldn’t shut up, stammering and stuttering out curses, straining against the binds on her wrists and whining about not being able to see you. 

“P-please, wanna see you, want to, oh god,” she begged, the beautiful arch of her back nearly breaking your resolve as heat soared straight up to cloud your head. 

And before you could stop yourself, you were twisting around, angling your hips down to put your own pussy perfectly above her mouth, shutting her up by giving her something to lick and suck instead. 

“Oh, fuck, ngh-”

Her words traded in for another heated moan as she shoved her tongue inside you, swirling it in with a desperation you found yourself quick to succumb to. 

It really wasn’t fair that she was so good at everything you tried. 

But you still refused to completely lose yourself, working harder to make her cum first, slipping your thumb up to her clit, only pulling off to start cooing and condescendingly coaxing her into coming undone, copying the same methods she so expertly pulled on you. 

“C-come on,” you murmured, dragging your thumb in a slow circle as she shifted to suck on your clit just right, driving you right to the brink with her eagerness to give you everything she had. “Show me how much you love me.” 

Preferably by falling to pieces on your tongue. 

Sweat practically dripping off her, her moans reverberating through you as her body began to shake. On the very brink of breaking, pushed closer and closer as she started to cry out your name. 

Her soft voice was music to your ears, a soft purr that made all the knots in your stomach pull tight instead of making them curdle like Suguru’s sometimes had. 

You slipped your fingers inside her, feeling the way her walls squeezed down on them, trying to keep you in as you worked her oversensitive bud. She made a cute little squeak, her tongue lolling out as she began to babble again, “S’too much, I-I-” 

“Shhh,” you murmured, pressing your tongue down as she spasmed and whimpered desperately at the sensation. “Can’t you cum for me?” 

You glanced back over your shoulder to see the sight of her nodding hard and fast, the blindfold slightly crooked and her hands clawing at the pillow as she chased her climax. 

“Put that pretty tongue of yours to better use,” you softly suggested, ignoring the initial discomfort at your reversed roles as you grinded your hips down on her face. 

Apparently, your Toru could be a good listener too when she tried. 

Doing her best to devote her tongue to you right up until the moment she couldn’t hold herself together anymore, cumming with a cry into your clit as your fingers found a sweet spot right below her cervix, pressing on it as you teased her swollen bud with the tip of your own pink muscle.  

She was trembling, her legs twitching and toes curling as she let out devastated little whines that it wasn’t fair, squirming as you cleaned her up, enjoying the way she whimpered every single time your tongue dragged over her skin. 

You could spend eternity buried between her thighs. 

Or with hers between yours. 

So what if it might be too much to ask?

She would make the universe give it to you anyway. 

ε✿з

“My pretty princess.” 

And her not terribly ugly son. 

Satoru traced your face with her fingers, sighing to herself as the morning sun kissed your face, bathed you in beautiful warmth – oh, and the baby in your arms. Both of you snoozing softly, drool leaking out on your nightdress as you slept on your side, blissfully unaware of the outside world. 

You made a pretty mother. Loved the little bastard Satoru did her best to tolerate. 

Cradling an infant that neither of you had to carry, kissing his forehead and proudly showing him off to the other members of the court after he was born. 

He’d never know he wasn’t yours. No one would. 

Satoru would make sure of it. 

His mother had been more than happy to take the estate. Especially when she knew the alternative would be Satoru taking her tongue to ensure she’d never talk. 

She was still keeping tabs though. Just to be safe. 

To make sure that this happy little family of hers would stay that way. 

The nobles had protested. Insisted that she had no place as queen with Suguru dead. But his son, with his soft purple eyes and dark hair, well, that was enough to buy her eighteen more years. 

Of course, there were still whispers. 

Rumors swirled that she quickly snuffed out, either with quiet compensation or cold force. So what if a few more people had to be poisoned to protect your life together?

Rewriting history hadn’t been that hard. 

No one needed to remember how much she hated Suguru. Or how rocky the marriage had been. 

She got to be the mourning widow. The gracious wife still honoring her deceased husband by letting his bastard child be the heir. Raising him with a concubine instead of throwing both of them out. 

That was how she’d be remembered.

“Good morning,” you yawned, slowly cracking your eyes open as you smiled at her. 

“Sleep well?” She inquired, tempted to pick up the baby and place him back in his cradle so she could be cuddled instead. 

You still had nightmares sometimes. Ones where you’d thrash around and she’d have to scoop him up and call for a wet nurse to take him until morning. 

Waking you up to soothe you, stroking your hair and pretending not to know she was the reason for them. 

And yet, you looked at her like she hung the sun in the sky and shined bright enough to chase away all the shadows. To bury the skeletons somewhere you’d never see them. 

“Mhm,” you hummed, affectionately glancing between his chubby cheeks up to Satoru’s persistent pout as she puffed air into them. 

“Have any attention left for me?” She pleaded, craning her neck over them to dramatically wait for you to press a gentle kiss to her nose. 

“Always.” 

“I really needed this pick me up,” she confessed, her voice dipping into something more vulnerable as the cacophony of the carnival seemed to recede into a muffled hum around them, creating a small, private bubble where honesty didn’t feel so expensive.

“Don’t worry about it, really,” Dex replied, his tone carrying that effortless, dry warmth that always managed to chip away at her defenses without her noticing. He adjusted the precarious tower of neon plushies threatening to spill from his arms, bouncing his hip upward to recapture a slipping, cross-eyed panda bear that had been trying to make a break for the pavement. “In all honesty, I needed it too. It was starting to get downright sad without any sunshine bleeding through the walls from the apartment next to me.” The joke was light, but the implication underneath it was heavier, a quiet admission that he’d felt the void her self-isolation had carved in. 

As they ambled towards the parking lot, Y/N found herself glancing at the spoils of his strange, unerring accuracy. He had insisted—stubbornly, almost boyishly—on trying his hand at every single rigged game the moment he caught her gaze lingering on a prize for a beat too long. The softball toss, the water gun race against a plastic clown, the impossible ring-on-bottle scam—Dex approached them with a placid, almost detached focus. And somehow, infuriatingly, he hadn’t missed. Not once. The darts landed with a satisfying thwack, the baseballs dropped perfectly into the slanted milk cans and the carny running the balloon board had just stared, slack-jawed, handing over stuffed creatures with the resigned air of a man watching a natural disaster. 

Y/N didn’t know the specifics of his job—he was cagey about the details, only ever letting slip how brutal the hours were or how the paperwork seemed designed to suffocate a man’s soul—but she had been inside his apartment enough times to notice the signs. The edge of a badge peeking from a drawer, the particular way his shoes were lined up with military precision by the door, the heavy-duty flashlight on the kitchen counter. It pointed to law enforcement, to a discipline and a dangerous edge that most people didn’t have. And perversely, that was part of why she felt so safe standing next to him right now, even as the rest of her world felt like it was held together with fraying twine.

Y/N let her gaze drop to the plush nestled in the crook of her own arm, the one he’d handed to her personally rather than piling it onto the heap he was carrying. It was a fluffy, somewhat lopsided bunny with ears that were absurdly long and soft as dandelion fluff. He had pointed at it wordlessly, a faint smirk tugging at his lip and muttered, “Looks like you.” She didn’t have the heart to argue that she felt nothing like soft cotton and innocence these days. 

“Yes, I—I’m sorry,” she stammered, her fingers tightening around the bunny’s plush middle as if anchoring herself to the single good thing in the immediate vicinity. “It’s just this past month hasn’t really been easy on me.” The understatement of the year. With Wilson Fisk out—the name alone felt like a shard of ice sliding down her spine—everything her brother had sacrificed, every sleepless night and bloody knuckle he’d invested in trying to shine a light into the city’s darkest corners, was unspooling with terrifying speed. The fragile architecture of justice he’d helped build was being kicked over like a sandcastle by a tyrant’s boot.

And then, separate from the city-wide nightmare of Fisk’s resurgence, there was him. The other shadow. The one who had left a mark so deep she sometimes felt like she was still bleeding internally from the wound. A tremor threatened to travel up her spine, a cold, familiar dread that belonged to the quiet of 3 a.m. Y/N shook her head sharply, a physical, violent motion meant to rattle the unwanted thoughts loose and send them scattering back into the dark recesses of her mind where they belonged. She fixed her eyes on the steady, broad line of Dex’s back ahead of her and forced herself to breathe in the smell of gunpowder and cotton candy, clinging to the present moment like it was the last life raft on a very dark sea.

“Hey, hey—it’s okay. I get it. I truly do.” Dex’s voice dropped into something softer, more deliberate, as if he were carefully choosing each word to build a small bridge across the chasm of her unspoken grief. He turned toward his car, fishing the keys from his pocket with one hand while balancing the chaotic menagerie of stuffed animals against his chest with the other. The electronic chirp of the locks disengaging cut through the quiet of the parking lot and he swung the rear door open, depositing the plushies into the backseat with a gentleness that seemed almost comical given his size and the sheer volume of synthetic fur he was handling. 

They tumbled onto the upholstery in a soft avalanche of bright colours—a neon green frog with bulging plastic eyes, a tie-dyed unicorn missing half its glitter, a penguin wearing a tiny sombrero that he’d won purely because she’d laughed at its absurdity. “Things aren’t always easy,” he continued, straightening up and leaning one forearm against the roof of the car, his gaze meeting hers across the span of metal and glass. There was no pity in his eyes, just a kind of steady, unflinching recognition, “And if being with family makes you feel better—even just a little bit—then what’s better than that? Nothing. That’s the stuff that actually matters. The rest of it is just noise.”

“Yeah,” Y/N breathed out, her voice small but steadier now, anchored by the warmth in his words. “Foggy’s like my brother. He really is. Him and my brother Matt—they were friends since college, you know? And when things got hard, when I was just a kid trying to figure out which way was up, Foggy just... stepped in. He basically helped raise me after everything fell apart.” She paused. She hadn’t meant to say so much, but the words kept spilling out as if Dex’s quiet patience had loosened some valve she usually kept screwed tight. 

“Him and a couple of Matt’s other closest friends—Karen, mostly—they’re the only ones I really had left after my brother passed. The only ones who knew him the way I did. The only ones who understood that the world lost something irreplaceable when he... when he was gone.” She pulled the bunny up higher, pressing its plush face against her collarbone as if it could absorb some of the ache radiating from her chest.

Dex was quiet for a long moment, processing the shape of her loss with the same careful attention he gave to everything else that was hers. Then, slowly, a small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth—not the broad, performative grin he sometimes deployed as armour, but something smaller, more honest, a sliver of light through a crack in his own carefully maintained walls. “Well, I’m glad at least you have someone to help you through it,” he said, his voice carrying an undercurrent of something that might have been envy if it weren’t so tinged with genuine relief. “Everyone needs a harbour. Someone to remind them that the storm doesn’t last forever, even when it feels like it’s going to swallow you whole.”

A wave of guilt crested unexpectedly in Y/N’s chest, cutting through the warmth of the moment. Dex had mentioned it once—just once, late at night when they’d both been sitting on the floor of his apartment, backs against the wall, sharing a bottle of cheap whiskey and the kind of silences that felt more like conversations. He’d lost his parents young. The details had been sparse, offered up like pebbles dropped into still water before he quickly changed the subject and she had never pried. She understood the sanctity of closed doors better than most. But standing here now, watching him extend such effortless grace toward her own grief while carrying his own invisible burdens, the imbalance felt suddenly, achingly unfair.

“But Dex,” she said, her voice firming with a sudden resolve, “you know you have me too, right? I mean it. You’re not just some guy who lives next door and wins me an obscene amount of carnival prizes. You’re part of this now. Part of my harbour.” She smiled then, a genuine, unguarded thing that softened the sharp edges of her face and raised the bunny’s limp, floppy arm to wave at him in a ridiculous greeting. “And Lord Snuggleton of Hugsville too, obviously. He’s very loyal. Once you’re in his inner circle, you’re in for life.”

Dex cracked a smile at that—a real one, the kind that crinkled the corners of his eyes and made him look younger, less like the guarded, capable man she knew and more like the boy he must have been before the world had asked so much of him. “I’m honoured,” he said, dipping his head in a mock-serious bow. “Truly. I don’t take titles like that lightly. Lord Snuggleton’s esteem is not easily earned.” Y/N laughed, a short, bright sound that surprised even her, rising up from some place she’d thought had been buried under weeks of exhaustion and fear. But before either of them could say anything more, the sharp, insistent trill of his phone sliced through the moment like a blade.

Dex’s expression flickered—a brief, almost imperceptible apology flashed across his features as his gaze darted to her face—before he pulled the device from his pocket and brought it to his ear. “Hello?” His voice shifted instantly, shedding its warmth for something clipped, professional, the tone of a man accustomed to receiving orders he couldn’t refuse. “Poindexter.” The name came out flat, almost clinical, a designation rather than an identity. Y/N watched the transformation with a quiet, sinking feeling in her stomach. Whatever was being said on the other end of the line, it was dismantling the evening they’d just shared, brick by careful brick. 

His jaw tightened. His free hand came up to rake through his hair in a gesture she recognized now as a tell—a nervous habit that surfaced only when he was bracing himself against something he didn’t want to face. His eyes, which had been warm and present just seconds ago, grew distant, clouded over with something she couldn’t name. “Yes, I—I’ll be there,” he said, the stammer a rare crack in his otherwise composed facade. “I know. I know.” The repetition was almost a whisper, as if he were trying to convince himself as much as the person on the phone. He ended the call and stood there for a long, suspended moment, the phone still pressed to his ear, his gaze fixed on some point far beyond the dimly lit parking lot, far beyond her.

“Is everything okay, Dex?” Y/N asked, her voice carefully measured, deliberately light. She could read the shift in his posture—the way his shoulders had drawn up just slightly toward his ears, the rigid line of his jaw, the way his thumb was still hovering over the screen of his phone as if expecting it to ring again with even worse news. The easy, warm presence that had been walking beside her just moments ago had retreated somewhere deep behind his eyes, replaced by something taut and coiled, a wire pulled just shy of snapping.

Dex turned back to face her and she watched him visibly assemble a mask of calm the way someone might hastily straighten a painting knocked askew. It was a valiant effort, but she could see the cracks where the urgency underneath was bleeding through—a slight tremor in his hand as he pocketed the phone, the way his gaze kept darting toward the driver’s side door as if already calculating how many minutes it would take him to reach wherever he needed to be.

“Yes, yes, it’s, uh—” He stumbled over the words, uncharacteristically clumsy, his usual measured cadence fracturing under the weight of whatever he’d just been told. “It’s a work emergency. Something that can’t wait, apparently. They need me there now. Like, now.” He exhaled sharply through his nose, a frustrated sound that seemed directed more at himself than at the situation. “I know I said I would drive you back. I promised. And I am so, so sorry, Y/N, but I—”

Y/N cut him off, raising a hand in a gentle but firm stop signal. She’d spent enough time around people who carried the weight of urgent responsibilities—Matt had been the same way, always torn between the life he wanted to live and the life that demanded him at the most inconvenient moments. She recognized the guilt flickering behind Dex’s eyes, the specific agony of someone who prided themselves on reliability being forced to break a promise. 

“Dex, it’s okay,” she said and she meant it, pouring as much reassurance into the words as she could muster. “I get it. Duty calls. That’s just how it works sometimes and I’m not going to hold it against you.” She gestured broadly at the carnival still glittering and churning in the near distance, the Ferris wheel turning in its slow, luminous circle against the darkening sky. “I’m a big girl, remember? I’ll probably wander around a bit more, maybe watch the carousel lights for a while and then I’ll call myself a cab. You don’t have to worry about it. Seriously.”

“Are you sure?” The question came out tight, strained and he was trying so hard to mask his guilt that it was almost painful to witness. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, a rare display of restlessness from a man who usually moved with such deliberate, controlled economy. “I could wait. Just until a cab shows up. It wouldn’t take long, I could—I could make the time. They can wait five more minutes. Ten, even. It’s not—” He was bargaining now, with himself more than with her, trying to find some arrangement that wouldn’t leave him feeling like he was abandoning her in a parking lot after dark.

“No, no, Dex.” Y/N shook her head firmly, her voice softening but leaving no room for argument. “I swear I’m fine. I’ll get myself some more of that ridiculous cotton candy we saw earlier and I’ll be perfectly content.” She waved her hand dismissively, a small, deliberate gesture meant to physically brush away his concerns. And the strangest part was, she realized with a small jolt of surprise, she actually believed her own words. In recent months, after the incident—she couldn’t bring herself to name it directly, even in the privacy of her own thoughts—she had felt fundamentally unsafe stepping outside her apartment alone. Every shadow had seemed to hold a threat, every stranger’s glance a potential prelude to danger. The world had shrunk to the size of her living room and leaving it had required Herculean effort and often a companion to anchor her. 

But tonight, after hours spent walking beside Dex’s steady presence, she could feel something shifting inside her. The confidence he exuded had seeped into her bones like warmth from a fire, pushing back the cold tendrils of anxiety that had taken up residence there. She wasn’t cured—she knew better than to think it worked that way—but she was better. Stronger. More herself.

Before she could overthink it, she stepped forward into his space and wrapped her arms around him in a small, brief hug. It wasn’t much—just a quick press of warmth, the soft squash of Lord Snuggleton caught between them—but it was an offering. A thank you. A promise that she would be okay. She stepped back just as quickly, her cheeks warming slightly and fixed him with a look that was part stern older sister and part something else she wasn’t ready to examine. “Drive safely and stay safe, hmm? Whatever it is, I want you coming back in one piece. Lord Snuggleton would be devastated otherwise.”

Dex smiled at her then and despite the urgency still thrumming visibly beneath his skin, the expression reached his eyes. “Always, sunshine,” he said, the nickname falling from his lips like it belonged there, like it had always been hers. And then he was sliding into the driver’s seat, the engine growling to life and pulling out of the parking lot with a controlled, efficient speed that spoke of someone accustomed to navigating emergencies. Y/N watched the red glow of his taillights shrink until they were swallowed by the darkness beyond the carnival’s halo of light and for a long moment, she simply stood there, alone in the half-empty lot, clutching her rabbit and feeling the unfamiliar but not unwelcome sensation of being okay.

Back at the carnival, Y/N made a beeline for the chocolate fountain with the singular determination of a missile locking onto its target. The smell hit her before she even reached the counter: rich, warm and decadent, laced with the subtle bitterness of good cocoa and the sweet promise of immediate gratification. She had already indulged plenty tonight—more than plenty, if she was being completely honest with herself, which she was decidedly not in the mood to do—so what was a little bit more? 

She stepped up to the counter and ordered the large cup without hesitation, watching as the vendor skewered plump, ruby-red strawberries and dense squares of fudge brownie onto wooden sticks before plunging them beneath the chocolate’s glossy surface. The coating hardened almost instantly into a thin, crisp shell that crackled satisfyingly when she bit into the first strawberry, the tartness of the fruit cutting through the sweetness in perfect, harmonious balance.

She had only ordered the medium cup earlier when Dex had been standing beside her, hyperaware of his presence and the quiet, observant way he seemed to take note of everything without passing judgment. She hadn’t wanted him to think she was completely unhinged, that her relationship with sugar had crossed some invisible line from “treat yourself” into “concerning coping mechanism.” Especially considering the culinary carnage that had preceded this final indulgence: she had methodically worked her way through every single flavour of gourmet popcorn at the stall near the entrance—caramel sea salt, white cheddar, buffalo ranch, dill pickle, birthday cake and a truly unhinged sriracha honey variety that had made her eyes water but she’d finished anyway. 

That had been followed by a triple-decker ice cream cone the size of her forearm, a precarious tower of belgian chocolate, strawberry cheesecake and cookie dough that had required strategic licking and rapid consumption to prevent a catastrophic structural failure. And then, of course, there had been the cotton candy—not one but two entire clouds of spun sugar, both of which had dissolved on her tongue like sweet, fleeting dreams and left her fingers sticky and her conscience only mildly bruised. Dex had watched her consume all of this with an expression somewhere between amusement and genuine scientific curiosity but he hadn’t said a word. That was one of the things she appreciated most about him—he let her be, without commentary, without the gentle, well-meaning lectures she’d grown so accustomed to deflecting.

“Miss, please—feel free to pick a prize from here.” The vendor’s voice pulled her from her chocolate-induced reverie and she looked up to find him gesturing toward a board mounted on the side of the stall. It was covered in styrofoam cups arranged in neat rows, each one with a tissue stuffed into its mouth. The whole display had a distinctly homemade, slightly melancholic charm, the kind of prize system that existed more for the vendor’s entertainment than any real value to the customer.

Y/N blinked, a smear of chocolate still clinging to the corner of her lip. “What for?” she asked, genuinely bewildered. She glanced down at the large cup in her hand, then back up at the board, trying to piece together the logic. “I didn’t think a large cup warranted a prize. Is this a new promotion or something?”

The vendor chuckled softly and shook his head. “Yes, miss, but two medium cups of strawberries back then—” He paused for effect, his eyebrows lifting meaningfully, “—and now two large cups of strawberries and brownies?” He spread his hands as if presenting irrefutable evidence to a jury. “That’s four cups total. In one evening. From my stall alone.” He said it without judgment, more like a man acknowledging a worthy adversary, but the implication landed with all the subtlety of a brick through a window.

A deep, mortifying blush crept up Y/N’s neck and flooded her cheeks, spreading like wildfire across her face until even the tips of her ears felt hot. She suddenly became intensely aware of the chocolate cup in her hand, which now felt less like a treat and more like Exhibit A in the case against her self-control. Perhaps she shouldn’t have indulged quite so much after all. Perhaps there had been a reasonable limit somewhere back around the first cup of strawberries, a line she had gleefully vaulted over without a backward glance. 

Matt would have known. Matt always knew. Her brother had possessed an almost supernatural ability to detect her dietary transgressions—he could quite literally smell the sugar on her breath, the artificial fruit flavouring of Skittles clinging to her fingers, the scent of processed chocolate that no amount of hand-washing could fully erase. He would fix her with that look, the one that was equal parts exasperation and affection and launch into his familiar litany: “Y/N, you know that stuff is poison, right? Your body is a temple, not a candy disposal unit. Come on, let’s go for a run. Just a few miles. You’ll feel better, I promise.” 

And she would groan and protest and drag her feet, but ultimately, she would go, because it was Matt asking and because he was right and because watching him—blind, yet moving through the world with the grace and precision of a predator, fighting criminals on rooftops while she wheezed on a treadmill—was both deeply inspiring and profoundly humbling. He had been Daredevil, a vigilante with seemingly infinite stamina and an unbreakable moral code, while she struggled to maintain a light jog for more than fifteen minutes without questioning every life choice that had led her to that moment. It had been embarrassing, yes, but it had also been love. His nagging, his gentle scolding, his relentless insistence that she take care of herself—it had all been love, wrapped in the rough packaging of older-brother concern.

But after his death, the silence had been deafening. There was no one to nag her anymore. No one to wrinkle their nose at the scent of contraband candy and demand she put on her running shoes. No one to care, in that specific, irritating, irreplaceable way, whether she ate a vegetable or went for a walk or took care of the body she inhabited. The absence of that nagging felt infinitely worse than the nagging itself ever had. It was a void, a negative space where his voice used to live and, in its emptiness, she had fallen back into old, comfortable patterns. 

She knew—intellectually, rationally—that consuming these many sweets wasn’t good for her. She knew about blood sugar spikes and empty calories and the long, slow creep of habits that became harder to break with each passing day. But knowing and doing were two different countries and she hadn’t yet found the bridge between them. Having dinners and cook nights with Dex had helped. His quiet, unassuming presence in her life had motivated her to eat healthier, to plan meals that contained actual nutrients, to slowly pull herself back onto some semblance of a track. 

He never lectured, never judged—he just showed up with vegetables and a recipe and an expectation that she would participate and somehow that gentle, wordless accountability was more effective than any of Matt’s well-intentioned scolding had ever been. But standing here now, clutching her fourth cup of chocolate-drenched indulgence, she felt the familiar ache of missing her brother’s voice. She missed the exasperated sigh. She missed the way he would shake his head and call her a menace to her own pancreas. She missed being known that completely, being seen that clearly, even when—especially when—she was doing something she shouldn’t.

She looked up at the vendor, still blushing and gave him a small, sheepish smile. “I’ll take whatever prize is behind cup number seven,” she said softly, pointing at a random styrofoam cup on the board. It seemed appropriate—lucky number seven, the number of completion, of rest. Maybe it was a sign. Or maybe it was just a cup with a tissue stuffed in it. Either way, she would take it.

The vendor’s face broke into a wide, practiced smile as he reached beneath the counter and produced a slim, silver ticket that caught the carnival lights and shimmered like a promise. “A ticket to the mirror maze! Congratulations, miss.” He slid it across the counter toward her with a small flourish, clearly pleased to be delivering something more substantial than the usual plastic trinkets and temporary tattoos that most prizes consisted of.

Y/N accepted the ticket, turning it over in her fingers to examine it. Mirror maze, huh? The thought settled into her mind and unfurled slowly, like a flower opening to the sun. That actually sounded... fun. Genuinely, unexpectedly fun. She had spotted the attraction earlier in the evening, toward the far end of the carnival grounds. The exterior had been impossible to miss—a massive, warehouse-sized structure wrapped in panels of reflective material that caught the surrounding neon glow. A sign above the entrance had proclaimed it “The Labyrinth of a Thousand Faces—Find Yourself, If You Can,” in curling, carnivalesque script. She had paused when she’d seen it, her footsteps slowing unconsciously, her gaze lingering on the entrance with a familiar pang of childhood nostalgia. She’d wanted to go in. Badly. 

But she hadn’t said anything. She had swallowed the desire and kept walking, because making Dex navigate an endless maze of mirrors while balancing that absurd, precarious mountain of stuffed animals in his arms just didn’t seem appropriate. It would have been selfish, she’d told herself. Unfair. The man had already gone out of his way—truly, genuinely out of his way—to invite her out tonight. He had shown up at her door with that quiet, determined look on his face, the one that brooked no argument and had essentially dragged her out of what he affectionately referred to as her “depression hole.” Dex had pulled her out of that. 

He had driven to Foggy’s building where Y/N was staying temporarily, waited in the hallway while she threw on something other than sweatpants for the first time in days and then spent his entire evening winning her stuffed animals and pretending not to notice when she stress-ate her body weight in carnival concessions. Asking him to also stumble through a mirror maze with an armful of plushies would have been too much. It would have tipped the scales of his generosity into territory she wasn’t comfortable occupying. And besides, moving past it had been easy enough. The mirror maze was one of the carnival’s biggest attractions in terms of sheer physical size—it dominated that entire corner of the grounds, a sprawling labyrinth that promised to consume time and attention in equal measure and she had convinced herself it wasn’t worth the hassle.

But now, holding this unexpected silver ticket in her chocolate-sticky fingers, the universe seemed to be offering her a second chance. A small, glittering do-over.

“But miss, you should hurry.”  He gestured toward the maze with a tilt of his chin, his expression shifting into something more urgent. “The carnival closes in fifteen minutes and that ticket’s only good for today. After that—” He made a small, apologetic gesture, the universal sign for “it becomes worthless paper.”

Y/N nodded quickly, the motion jerky and determined, even as she stuffed another chocolate-coated strawberry into her mouth with the single-minded focus of someone preparing for battle. Lord Snuggleton remained tucked securely in the crook of her arm, his floppy ears bouncing with each hurried step she took away from the chocolate fountain and toward the distant, glimmering silhouette of the mirror maze. Pushing through the remaining crowd was tough—the carnival had thinned out considerably as closing time approached, but those who remained were concentrated in the main thoroughfares. She muttered apologies as she slipped past, her shoulders twisting to avoid collisions, Lord Snuggleton pressed protectively against her chest.

Thankfully, when she finally reached the entrance to the mirror maze, the wait line was almost non-existent—just a handful of stragglers like herself, drawn by the same last-minute impulse to squeeze one more experience out of the dying night. She took her place and used the brief pause to scarf down the remaining contents of her cup with an efficiency that would have impressed even her judgmental brother. The strawberries disappeared in quick succession, their tart sweetness cutting through the rich chocolate coating. The brownies followed, dense and fudgy and almost obscenely decadent, leaving a pleasant warmth in her stomach that bordered on uncomfortable. 

She checked beneath the crumpled paper cups, searching for napkins and realized with a small pang of regret that she had completely forgotten to ask for tissues. The chocolate residue on her fingers was one thing, she could wipe that surreptitiously on the inside of her jacket and deal with the consequences later, but the sticky, sweet film she could feel clinging to the corners of her mouth and probably smeared across her chin was another matter entirely. With no better options presenting themselves and the line inching forward, she resorted to the undignified but effective method of running her tongue around her lips in a broad, sweeping circle, hoping the impromptu self-cleaning would suffice. It probably didn’t. She probably looked like a toddler who had been left unsupervised with a jar of Nutella. But the carnival was closing, the maze was waiting and dignity was a luxury she couldn’t afford at this particular moment.

The mirror maze swallowed her whole. It was vast and well-lit in a strange, disorienting way—not bright, exactly, but saturated with light that bounced and refracted and multiplied, creating an atmosphere that felt simultaneously infinite and claustrophobic. Every surface gleamed. Floor-to-ceiling mirrors lined every wall, their edges so seamlessly joined that it was impossible to tell where one reflection ended and another began. Soft, coloured LED strips ran along the baseboards, casting everything in a dreamlike glow that shifted subtly between cool blues, warm pinks and ethereal purples. 

Y/N found herself surrounded on all sides by versions of herself—dozens of them, hundreds maybe, stretching away into what looked like impossible, endless corridors. Some reflections stood close, their details sharp and intimate; others receded into the distance, growing smaller and smaller until they were just specks of colour and movement. She turned slowly in place, mesmerized, watching as every version of Y/N Murdock turned with her, a synchronized army of herself moving in perfect unison. It had been a long, long time since she had been in a mirror maze. The last time must have been years ago, back when Matt was still alive and dragging her to every strange corner of New York City he could find, insisting that she needed to “experience” things rather than just read about them or watch them on a screen. He had always been like that—relentlessly experiential, convinced that life was meant to be lived in three dimensions, with all the mess and discomfort that entailed.

But Matt had also possessed a singular, almost supernatural talent for ruining mazes. It wasn’t intentional, which somehow made it worse. His senses—those impossible, heightened senses that allowed him to navigate the world in ways she could barely comprehend—meant that he could perceive the maze not as a disorienting puzzle but as a clear, three-dimensional map. He could feel the subtle differences in air currents that indicated a dead end versus an open passage. He could hear the faint echo of sound bouncing off glass versus empty space. He could smell the difference between a corridor that led somewhere and one that circled back on itself.

While she blundered around like a confused, sighted mole, walking face-first into mirrors with a resounding thwack that echoed through the entire structure, Matt would stand there with his head tilted slightly, that infuriating half-smile playing at the corner of his mouth and simply know which way to go. He would listen to her collide with yet another reflective surface, sigh with the long-suffering patience of an older brother who had seen it all before and then calmly guide her toward the exit while she nursed her bruised forehead and bruised pride in equal measure. 

And then, for the next week—minimum—he would bring it up at every opportunity. “Remember when you walked into that mirror so hard I thought you’d cracked it?” he’d say, his voice warm with barely suppressed laughter. “The carnival people probably still have your face print on file.” She would whine and protest and throw things at him, but secretly, secretly, she had loved it. The teasing. The attention. The way he noticed and remembered and cared enough to make fun of her.

Now, standing alone in this cathedral of reflections, she found herself almost wishing for the thwack of forehead against glass, if only because it would mean he was there to hear it.

Y/N shook off the creeping melancholy and focused on the task at hand: navigating. She extended one hand in front of her, palm flat, fingers spread—the universal posture of someone trying very hard not to walk into something solid. Her other arm remained curled protectively around Lord Snuggleton, the bunny’s soft body pressed against her ribs like a fuzzy, inanimate anchor. The maze was quiet, unnervingly so. The carnival’s ambient noise seemed to be absorbed by all the glass. She took a tentative step forward, then another, her outstretched fingers brushing against cool, smooth glass. She adjusted her angle, stepped again, found open space and allowed herself a small, private smile of victory.

The smile faded approximately two minutes later when she realized, with a slow, dawning horror, that she had absolutely no idea where she was.

The corridors of mirrors stretched in every direction, identical and infinite. She turned left, encountered her own startled reflection blocking the path, turned right, found another version of herself looking equally confused, turned back the way she came and couldn’t tell if she was retracing her steps or venturing deeper into the labyrinth. The glowing arrows on the floor that the attendant had mentioned were there, yes—faint, luminescent strips that pulsed softly in the dim light—but they seemed to point in contradictory directions, or maybe she was just reading them wrong or maybe she was walking over the same patch of floor again and again, trapped in a loop of her own making. 

Lord Snuggleton’s reflection stared back at her from every angle, his big, black, beady plastic eyes catching the coloured lights and gleaming with what she could only interpret as silent, fluffy accusation. You did this to us, those eyes seemed to say. You and your impulsive, last-minute decisions. We could have been in a warm cab by now. We could have been home, watching Netflix, eating something that wasn’t our fourth chocolate cup of the evening. But no. You had to be adventurous. She pulled the bunny closer, tucking his soft head under her chin in a gesture that was half comfort, half apology.

It was safe to say, Y/N reflected grimly as she stared down a corridor that looked exactly like the three corridors, she had just tried and failed to navigate, that Y/N Murdock did not always make the best decisions. In fact, if there was a Hall of Fame for Questionable Life Choices, she would probably have her own wing. Coming to a mirror maze alone, fifteen minutes before the carnival closed, with a sugar crash looming on the horizon and no clear exit strategy—this was going on the highlight reel, right alongside “ignoring Matt’s advice about literally everything” and “thinking four cups of chocolate-covered fruit was a reasonable dinner.” She pressed her palm against another mirror, felt the cool glass resist her touch and sighed deeply, her breath fogging the surface in a small, temporary cloud. Somewhere in the distance, she thought she heard the faint, mechanical groan of a ride powering down. The carnival was closing. And she was lost in a hall of mirrors with a stuffed rabbit and a rapidly fading sense of direction.

Perfect. Just perfect.

Five more minutes bled into an eternity of glass and confusion, each passing second stretching like taffy as Y/N stumbled through the endless corridors of her own fractured image. She had lost count of how many times she’d pressed her palm against what she thought was an opening, only to feel the unyielding smoothness of a mirror meeting her skin. Her forehead was tender from at least three separate collisions and Lord Snuggleton’s fur was damp where she’d been clutching him too tightly, her anxiety seeping out through her palms like an invisible sweat. But finally—finally—she rounded a corner and found herself stepping into what was unmistakably the final section of the maze.

The red section.

The transition was immediate and jarring. Where the previous corridors had been bathed in soft, shifting pastels and cool blues, this part of the maze was saturated in crimson. The effect was disorienting in a way that went beyond simple navigation—it felt primal, almost visceral, as if she had stepped into the chambers of some great beast’s still-beating heart. And more than that, the red made her see things. Or think she saw things. Fleeting movements in her peripheral vision—a dark shape slipping behind a mirror, a figure standing where no figure should be, gone the moment she whipped her head around to confront it. Her exhausted, sugar-crashing brain was playing tricks on her, populating the crimson gloom with phantoms born of fatigue and old, unhealed fears.

A familiar anxiety began to rise in her chest, unbidden and unwelcome, like floodwater seeping through cracks she’d thought she’d patched. It started as a tightness in her throat, a constriction that made each breath feel shallow and insufficient. The walls—those endless, gleaming walls—suddenly seemed closer than they had a moment ago. It wasn’t real, she knew it wasn’t real, she knew that—but knowing and feeling were two separate countries and right now she was stranded in the wrong one without a passport. 

And then she saw it. A flash. Over her shoulder, reflected in the mirror just behind her left side. A shape. A figure. There and gone so quickly she couldn’t be sure it had ever existed at all, just a dark silhouette against the red glow. A sudden, bone-deep chill climbed her spine like a spider ascending a web, one vertebra at a time, leaving goosebumps in its wake. Her breath caught, hitching in her throat and she stood frozen for a long, terrible moment, every instinct screaming at her to turn around and look while every other instinct screamed equally loudly to not turn around, to pretend she hadn’t seen anything, to keep moving forward and never look back.

Panic—true, undiluted panic—began to rise in her bloodstream like a tide of ice water. She started walking again, faster now, her outstretched hand forgotten as she moved without checking, without the careful, probing caution that had saved her from countless collisions earlier. The consequence was immediate and painful: her forehead connected with a mirror with a loud, resonant THWAK that echoed through the red-drenched corridor like a gunshot. The impact sent a sharp spike of pain radiating through her skull and she stumbled backward. “Ow,” she rubbed at the tender spot, feeling the beginning of what would undoubtedly be an impressive bruise and tried to blink the stars from her vision.

Then she heard it. A chuckle. Low, warm and horrifyingly, hauntingly familiar. It floated through the red-tinted air like smoke, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at once, bouncing off the countless mirrors until its source was impossible to pinpoint. Her blood ran cold. Every hair on her arms stood at attention. That chuckle—she knew that chuckle. She had heard it before, in a context so terrible that her mind had tried to wall it off, to bury it deep in the unmarked graves of her subconscious where she wouldn’t have to look at it. 

Maybe it was her brain imagining it. Maybe the stress and the sugar and the exhaustion and the claustrophobic red maze had finally conspired to break something loose in her psyche, conjuring auditory hallucinations from the raw material of her trauma. Maybe. Possibly. But she couldn’t take that risk. She couldn’t. Not here, not now, not trapped in this labyrinth of glass with no clear exit and no one to hear her if she screamed.

Her pace hastened from hurried to desperate. She tried to weave through the maze faster, her movements jerky and uncoordinated, but speed in a mirror maze was its own punishment. She collided with mirror after mirror—her shoulder glancing off one, her hip smacking painfully into another, her outstretched hand slapping against glass where she’d been certain there was an opening. Each impact sent a fresh jolt of pain through her body and a fresh spike of terror through her heart. The red light seemed to pulse now, throbbing in time with her racing heartbeat, transforming the maze into something organic and alive and hungry.

“Running from me, doll?” The voice floated through the air, silky and mocking, curling around her like poisonous vapor. It seemed to come from everywhere, from the walls themselves, from the red light, from inside her own skull. And then she saw him. In the mirror near her right shoulder, his reflection materialized like a ghost taking form. The helmet. The red horns curving up from the brow like devilish crowns. The black and red kevlar, sculpted to a body she knew was powerful and cruel in equal measure. It was him. Daredevil. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. 

But it wasn’t the Daredevil she had known and loved, the one who had once piggybacked her up a rusted fire escape in the dead of night because they were fleeing from armed thugs and she had twisted her ankle on a loose piece of concrete. That Daredevil had been gruff and exasperated and endlessly patient, grumbling under his breath about her “terrible survival instincts” even as he carried her to safety, his grip secure and his warmth seeping through the kevlar into her chilled skin. That Daredevil had been her brother, her protector, her annoying, overbearing, fiercely loving Matt. And Matt Murdock was dead. Daredevil—the real Daredevil—had died with him.

This person—this thing stalking her through the crimson labyrinth—was nothing but a vile impersonator. A parasite wearing her brother’s skin or at least a suit identical to his. He had stolen the symbol, corrupted it, twisted it into something unrecognizable and profane. He had taken everything Matt had stood for—justice, protection, the defense of the innocent—and perverted it into a tool for terror and cruelty and his own sick gratification.

And if that wasn’t bad enough—if the desecration of her brother’s memory wasn’t already an unforgivable sin—this man was the cause of the incident. The one that had stolen the light from her eyes for weeks and left her in complete, utter desolation. The one she couldn’t name, couldn’t speak aloud, could barely allow herself to remember in the safety of daylight. How he had cornered her in that narrow, garbage-strewn alleyway on a night that should have been ordinary. How he had pressed her against the wet brick wall, the smell of rot and rain filling her nostrils as he leaned in close, the horns of his helmet catching the distant streetlight. How he had done horrible, unspeakable things to her for his own perverse pleasure, things that still visited her in dreams that left her waking up gasping and drenched in cold sweat. How he had laughed—that same chuckle—as she cried and begged and tried to fight back with hands that felt like they belonged to someone else. How he had left her there afterward, crumpled among the garbage bags like something discarded, her body a map of violations and her mind a shattered mirror she was still trying to piece back together.

Y/N tried to run. What else could she do? Tears stung at the corners of her eyes, hot and traitorous, blurring the already disorienting reflections into smears of red and black and her own terrified face multiplied into infinity. But a mirror maze—she realized with a sick, sinking certainty—was quite possibly the worst place in the entire world to be trapped with someone like him. Every surface was a weapon he could use against her. Every reflection showed him where she was, where she was going, where she was trying to hide. And every reflection showed her exactly how close he was getting, a countdown to capture displayed on every gleaming wall.

He stalked closer, his movements unhurried and predatory, a wolf who knew his prey had nowhere to run. His reflections grew larger in the mirrors surrounding her, multiplying as he approached, until it seemed like there were a dozen of him closing in from every angle. His helmeted head tilted slightly, a mockery of curiosity, as if he were savouring her fear, drinking it in like fine wine. The glowing arrows on the floor pointed insistently in one direction, their soft luminescence cutting through the red gloom like a lifeline. She had to follow them. She had to get out. She had to move.

His reflection grew closer still, swelling until it filled the mirror directly in front of her, life-sized and terrifyingly present. She could see the texture of the kevlar, the slight scuffs on the horns, the way his chest rose and fell with calm, measured breaths. Panic seized her—total, overwhelming, animal panic that bypassed thought and went straight to instinct. She turned and ran, her feet pounding against the floor, following the arrows with blind, desperate faith. The corridor opened before her, a clear path, an escape, she was going to make it, she was going to get out—

And then she collided with something solid. Not glass this time. Something warm and unyielding and very much alive. A chest. His chest. The impact knocked the breath from her lungs and sent Lord Snuggleton tumbling from her grasp, the stuffed rabbit hitting the floor with a soft, pathetic fwump that seemed to echo in the sudden, terrible silence. She looked up, her vision swimming with tears and terror and found herself staring at the blank, expressionless face of the Daredevil helmet. The horns curved upward like a devil’s crown. The red light painted him in shades of blood and shadow. And beneath the helmet, she knew—she knew—there was a smile. That horrible, familiar, haunting smile.

He had her.

Before Y/N could even process the collision, before the impact of her body against his chest had fully registered in her overwhelmed nervous system, he was already moving. His hands found her shoulders—strong, gloved, implacable—and he pivoted, using his weight and momentum to spin her around and slam her backward against the mirror she had just been fleeing from. The impact drove the air from her lungs in a sharp, involuntary gasp. The glass behind her was unforgiving, cold even through the fabric of her jacket and it vibrated with the force of her body hitting it, sending a low, resonant hum through the crimson-drenched corridor. His body pressed against hers immediately, eliminating any space between them, his hips pinning her lower half to the mirror while his chest crowded her upper body, leaving her no room to twist, to squirm, to do anything but exist in the narrow prison of his proximity. The pressure of his legs against hers was immovable, a cage of muscle and kevlar and malevolent intent.

The tears came then, hot and humiliating, spilling over her lower lashes and carving glistening tracks down her cheeks. They caught the red light and shimmered like tiny rivers of blood, a detail she was sure he noticed and enjoyed. She couldn’t stop them. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry but her body had betrayed her completely, surrendering to the terror that had seized control of her autonomic nervous system. She cranked her neck away from him, twisting her head to the side with such desperate force that the tendons in her throat stood out like cables. She couldn’t look at him. She wouldn’t look at him. Not at the reflection of herself—pinned, terrified, small—that she could see multiplied in the mirrors surrounding them, an infinite gallery of her own violation playing out in every direction. If she looked at him, if she met those empty eye-slits in the mask, she would shatter completely. She would break into pieces too small to ever be reassembled.

“Did you miss me, doll?” His voice was a low, rumbling purr, intimate and mocking, the kind of tone a lover might use in a dark bedroom. The pet name—doll—landed on her skin like a brand, a proprietary claim that made her stomach turn over with nausea. He raised one gloved hand and traced a slow, deliberate line along the curve of her jaw, the leather of his fingertips dragging across her skin with horrible, clinical precision. The touch made her flinch violently, her whole body jerking as if she’d been shocked and she squirmed against his immovable weight, trying to press herself further into the mirror as if she could phase through the glass and escape into her own reflection. “Because I sure missed you.” The words were followed by that chuckle—that terrible, familiar, haunted chuckle that had been echoing in her nightmares for weeks now, the sound that meant pain and violation and a darkness so complete she still hadn’t found her way back to the light.

He leaned in closer, his helmeted face filling her peripheral vision despite her efforts to look away. She could smell him now—leather and sweat and something metallic, something that might have been old blood or might have been her imagination filling in the gaps with the worst possible details. And then she felt it: the wet, warm drag of his tongue against the corner of her mouth. He licked her slowly, deliberately, as if savoring a delicacy and followed it with a low, satisfied hum that vibrated against her skin. The sound was almost pornographic in its pleasure, a noise of genuine enjoyment that made her skin crawl and her stomach heave.

“You taste so fucking sweet every time,” he murmured, his voice thick with a satisfaction that bordered on reverent. He smiled against her skin—she could feel the curve of it through the opening in the helmet, the stretch of his lips pressing against the sensitive flesh near her mouth—and lapped at the skin around her lips again, collecting the residual chocolate and sugar and the salt of her terror. Y/N squirmed helplessly, her body bucking against his in a futile attempt to dislodge him and a small, pathetic whimper of pure disgust escaped her throat. 

“When I kiss you,” he continued, his tone almost conversational, as if they were lovers sharing an intimate secret rather than predator and prey in a hall of mirrors, “I wonder if I’m kissing the woman of my dreams...” He paused, pulling back just enough to look at her face, to drink in the tears and the fear and the revulsion. “...or a fucking candy bar.” The profanity was delivered with a kind of affectionate amusement, as if her terror were a charming quirk rather than a genuine trauma response.

Y/N clamped her mouth shut with every ounce of strength she possessed, pressing her lips together so tightly they went bloodless and white. She knew this game. She remembered it from the alleyway, from the last time he had cornered her and taken what he wanted. If she opened her mouth—to scream, to beg, to say anything at all—he would use it as an opening. He would force his tongue inside, would taste her from the inside out, would violate yet another boundary she had no power to defend. The sweetness of the chocolate still lingering in her mouth mingled with the salt of her tears on her lips and she knew—with sick, horrifying certainty—that for him, it was a truly delectable combination

“Now open up for me,” he crooned, his voice dropping into something almost gentle, almost coaxing. “Say aah.” He pressed two gloved fingers against her sealed lips, the leather cool and slightly rough and began to push, trying to pry her mouth open by force. The pressure was insistent, invasive, a precursor to everything else he intended to take from her. Y/N didn’t budge. She didn’t open her mouth, didn’t give him the satisfaction of entry. And when his fingers continued to press, continued to demand entry, she opened her jaw just enough to catch the leather-clad digits between her teeth and bit down on those with every ounce of desperate, terrified strength she could summon.

The man—she refused to acknowledge him as Daredevil, refused to let that name, her brother’s name, be contaminated by this monster, even in thought—withdrew his hand with a sharp, almost surprised laugh. It wasn’t a laugh of pain; she hadn’t hurt him, not really, not through the reinforced gloves he wore. It was a laugh of genuine amusement, of delighted surprise, as if she were a pet who had performed an unexpected and entertaining trick. “Feisty,” he said and the word was dripping with approval. “I like that. I really do.”

Y/N looked at him then—she couldn’t help it, the laugh had startled her into breaking her own rule—and in that moment of eye contact, of her tear-blurred gaze meeting the empty black slits of his helmet, he moved. Without thought, without warning, without giving her a single second to prepare. He smashed his lips onto hers with brutal, consuming force. The kiss was not tender; it was not romantic; it was an act of violence committed with mouths instead of fists. And at the same moment, his hand—the one she had bitten, the one still wet with her saliva—curled around her throat. His fingers found the delicate column of her neck and squeezed. Not hard enough to crush her windpipe, not yet, but with enough steady, inexorable pressure to restrict blood flow, to make the edges of her vision begin to darken and sparkle with warning lights.

The pressure around her neck grew and grew and the world began to swim. The red light of the maze seemed to pulse in time with her faltering heartbeat. Dizziness washed over her in waves, her thoughts scattering like startled birds. Her mouth, which she had fought so hard to keep sealed, fell open involuntarily—a biological imperative, a body’s desperate attempt to pull in oxygen by any available channel. And he was waiting. The moment her lips parted, his tongue pushed inside, filling her mouth with the taste of him—coffee, something metallic and a wrongness that had no name. He explored her mouth with slow, savoring thoroughness, mapping the territory he had claimed, tasting the chocolate and the salt of her tears all mingled together.

“Please,” she gasped, the word muffled and deformed by his tongue still occupying her mouth. Her voice was barely audible over the roaring in her ears. “Please, don’t—” The plea dissolved into a choked whimper as his grip on her throat tightened fractionally, a silent warning that her begging was not welcome, that her words were not part of this particular script. She struggled to breathe, her chest heaving against his, her fingers scrabbling uselessly at the kevlar covering his shoulders. The mirrors around them reflected the scene from every angle—her pinned body, his dominating form, the intimate horror of his mouth on hers—creating an infinite gallery of her own violation. And somewhere in the crimson gloom, Lord Snuggleton lay on the cold floor, his beady black eyes staring at nothing, a silent witness to the nightmare unfolding above him.

“I-I’ll do anything,” she hiccuped, the words tumbling out between ragged, oxygen-starved gasps, her voice cracking and splintering like thin ice under too much weight. “Please, just don’t—please just don’t—” She couldn’t finish the sentence. She couldn’t give voice to the specific horror she was pleading to avoid, because naming it would make it real, would solidify it from a lurking possibility into an impending certainty. Instead, she poured everything she had into her eyes—wide, tear-glazed, desperate—looking up at that blank, demonic helmet with a silent entreaty that she hoped, prayed, begged would reach whatever remained of the human being beneath the mask. Please. Please remember that I’m a person. Please don’t do this again.

The man broke the kiss, pulling back just far enough to regard her with those empty, unreadable eye-slits. The sudden absence of his mouth on hers was almost disorienting, like a pressure she’d grown accustomed to had been abruptly removed. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking—the helmet revealed nothing, gave away no flicker of emotion, no telltale shift in expression. It was like staring into a void, a blank canvas onto which she could project nothing but her own terror. But he paused. He actually paused. For one suspended moment, he simply looked at her, his head tilted slightly to the side in a posture that might have been curiosity or contemplation or simple cruel amusement. 

“Don’t what?” he asked finally, his voice deceptively casual, almost conversational. And then, with deliberate, brutal clarity: “Fuck you?” The word landed like a slap, crude and vulgar and stripped of any pretense. It was the ugliest word for the ugliest act and hearing it spoken aloud in his familiar, almost affectionate tone made Y/N cringe so hard her shoulders hunched inward, as if she could physically retreat into herself and disappear. Her stomach lurched, bile rising in the back of her throat. But she forced herself to nod—a small, jerky, humiliating movement—her gaze falling from his helmet to the floor, unable to maintain eye contact through the shame of what she was agreeing to. She was bargaining with a monster, negotiating the terms of her own violation and the degradation of it burned like acid in her chest.

The man hummed, a low, considering sound that vibrated in the narrow space between their bodies. He seemed to be contemplating her request, weighing it with the same casual deliberation one might give to choosing between two equally appealing desserts. “I’m in a good mood today,” he said and the words were almost playful, as if he were granting her a generous favor rather than withholding an unspeakable cruelty. “So I’ll let you off easy. Plus—” He leaned in closer, his helmet brushing against her hair, his breath warm against the shell of her ear. “—I want to take my time with you, sweetheart. I won’t fuck you just yet.”

The qualifier—just yet—hung in the air like a guillotine blade suspended by the thinnest of threads. It wasn’t mercy. It was a postponement. A promise that the reprieve was temporary, that the clock was still ticking, that eventually—whenever he decided the time was right—he would collect on the debt she was accruing simply by existing in his presence. But even knowing that, even understanding that this was merely a stay of execution rather than a pardon, Y/N felt a shuddering sigh of relief escape her lungs. Her body sagged slightly against the mirror, the tension in her muscles releasing a fraction of its death grip. She would take what she could get. She would cling to whatever scraps of dignity and safety he deigned to leave her, because the alternative was too horrible to contemplate.

But her relief was premature. She should have known better. She did know better. Men like him didn’t give without taking. Every apparent kindness was merely the setup for a crueler demand, a way to make her complicit in her own degradation.

“But you gotta make up for it somehow, yes?” He cooed the words, his voice dripping with false sweetness. His gloved hand came up to stroke her cheek, the pad of his thumb dragging slowly across her tear-dampened skin in a grotesque parody of tenderness. The leather was smooth and cool and utterly dehumanizing—it erased the warmth of human touch, reduced contact to something clinical and threatening. Y/N’s blood froze in her veins. Of course. Of course. Someone as vile as him, someone who had already proven capable of such monstrous cruelty, wouldn’t simply let her go. That wasn’t how this worked. That wasn’t how he worked. Every interaction was a transaction and he always, always extracted his price.

“Wh-what do you want?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper, reedy and trembling. The question felt like walking off a cliff, like voluntarily stepping into a trap she could see but couldn’t avoid. She was scared—terrified, really, down to the marrow of her bones—and every syllable was laced with that fear. Whatever it was, she told herself, clinging to the thought like a lifeline, it would be better than the alternative. Retaining even scraps of her dignity, even shreds of her autonomy, still felt infinitely preferable to having none at all. At least this way, she could pretend she had some agency, some small measure of control over her own destruction.

“Take your clothes off.”

The command was delivered with casual, almost bored simplicity, as if he were asking her to pass the salt at a dinner table. Three words. Just three small, ordinary words arranged in a sequence that stripped away everything she was and reduced her to nothing but a body to be displayed and consumed. Y/N’s eyes widened, the whites showing all around her irises and she squirmed instinctively in his grip, her body revolting against the demand before her mind had even fully processed it. She pushed against his chest, tried to twist away, tried to find some angle of escape—but he was immovable, a wall of muscle and kevlar and implacable intent. Her struggles accomplished nothing except to amuse him, a faint chuckle rumbling through his chest where it pressed against hers.

“But you said—” she started, her voice cracking, the protest rising automatically to her lips.

“I said I wouldn’t fuck you.” He cut her off, his tone shifting subtly—still controlled, but with an edge of frustration creeping in around the seams, like a temper being held in check by a fraying leash. “I never said I couldn’t do other things.” The words were precise and clinical. He had promised her one specific mercy and he was honouring that promise to the letter while violating its spirit completely. It was a game to him. It had always been a game. And she was losing, had been losing from the moment she stepped into this maze.

Then, without warning, he moved. His fist lashed out and connected with the mirror directly behind her head. The impact was explosive—a sharp, crystalline CRACK that shattered the silence and the glass in equal measure. Y/N squealed in fear, the sound high and animalistic, torn from her throat by pure reflex. The mirror fractured into a spiderweb of silver lines and then pieces began to fall, tinkling to the floor like deadly rain. A small shard, no bigger than her thumbnail, spun through the air and caught her cheek, opening a thin, stinging line across her skin. She felt the warm trickle of blood begin to well up and slide down toward her jaw, a single crimson tear tracking the path of its saltier predecessors.

He plucked a larger shard from the ruined mirror—long and wicked and glittering with sharp edges—and brought it to her neck with deliberate, terrifying slowness. The point of the glass pressed against the delicate skin just below her jaw, not quite hard enough to break the surface, but with enough pressure to make the threat unmistakable. The cold of it was shocking, a sharp contrast to the warmth of her terror-flushed skin. Y/N stilled completely. Every muscle in her body locked into perfect, rigid immobility. She didn’t breathe. She didn’t blink. The only motion in her entire being was the wild, frantic thumping of her heart, pounding against her ribs like a caged animal throwing itself against the bars. It was so loud she was certain he could hear it, certain he could feel it through the point of contact where the glass met her pulse.

The shard began to move. Slowly, so slowly, he trailed it down the column of her neck, following the path of her carotid artery, tracing the vulnerable architecture of her throat. Then lower, over her collarbone, dipping into the hollow at the base of her neck. Lower still, down her sternum, until the glittering point came to rest in the valley of her cleavage, pressing just firmly enough against the fabric of her shirt to dimple the skin beneath. Not enough to cut—not yet—but enough to be a constant, undeniable threat. A promise written in glass and malice.

He leaned down, his helmeted face descending toward her bleeding cheek and she felt the wet, warm drag of his tongue as he licked the blood from the fresh cut. The sensation was obscene—intimate and violating and utterly dehumanizing. He savoured it, drawing out the contact and when he spoke again, his voice was a whisper against her skin, intimate and terrifying. “Are you going to take it off,” he asked, the words soft as a lover’s endearment, “or should I cut it off?”

The question hung in the red-drenched air between them. The glass shard pressed a fraction harder against her chest. And Y/N, trembling and bleeding and utterly trapped, understood that she had only two choices and both of them led to her degradation. The only question was how much pain would accompany it.

“I-I’ll do it.” The words scraped past her teeth like shards of the same glass he’d been holding to her throat, each syllable a surrender, each consonant a small death of pride.The admission of compliance tasted like ash and bile on her tongue, but what choice did she have? 

He took a step back. Not far—never far enough to give her any real sense of space or safety—but enough to change the dynamic from predator pinning prey to spectator observing a performance. That was what this was to him, she realized with sickening clarity. A performance. A show. She was the entertainment and he was the audience and the mirrors around them were reflecting her degradation from every possible angle, creating an infinite gallery of her humiliation for his viewing pleasure. The single step backward wasn’t a gesture of mercy, it was an adjustment for optimal viewing.

Y/N’s hands moved to the zipper of her jacket, her fingers clumsy and numb, as if they belonged to someone else. The sound of the zipper descending was obscenely loud in the quiet of the maze, a long, drawn-out zip that seemed to announce her surrender to every corner of the crimson labyrinth. She shrugged the jacket off her shoulders, feeling the fabric slide down her arms like a second skin being shed and let it fall to the floor with a soft, defeated thump. 

The chill of the maze immediately assaulted her newly exposed skin, raising goosebumps along her arms and across her shoulders. The temperature seemed to drop by several degrees the moment the jacket was gone, or maybe that was just the cold radiating from inside her own chest, the frost of despair crystallizing around her heart. There were no more tears in her eyes now. The well had run dry, leaving behind only a hollow, aching emptiness. 

Next was her top. She clutched the hem of the fabric in both hands, her knuckles whitening with the force of her grip, as if holding onto this thin barrier of cotton could somehow change his mind, could somehow rewind the last few minutes and return her to the safety she’d felt walking beside Dex with an armful of stuffed animals and a stomach full of chocolate. But she knew it wouldn’t. She knew nothing would. He was still standing there, still watching, still twirling that wicked shard of glass between his gloved fingers with casual, almost hypnotic dexterity. The glass caught the red light and scattered it in bloody sparkles across the walls, a deadly kaleidoscope in his hand. His gaze—those empty black eye-slits—was fixed on her with unwavering attention, drinking in every tremble, every hesitation, every small surrender.

She pulled the top over her head in one swift, desperate motion, as if speed could somehow lessen the violation. She aimed deliberately, letting it fall over Lord Snuggleton where he lay abandoned near her feet. The soft cotton draped over the stuffed rabbit like a shroud, covering his beady black eyes, hiding him from the scene unfolding above him. It was a small, pathetic act of mercy—for herself more than for the inanimate toy—but it was all she had. At least this way, she’d be spared the misery of an audience. 

Her jeans came next. Her fingers found the button, worked it free and then she was sliding the zipper down, the sound somehow even more obscene than the jacket had been. She hooked her thumbs into the waistband and pushed the denim down over her hips, down her thighs, past her knees. She stepped out of them awkwardly, one foot at a time, nearly losing her balance in the process. The jeans joined the growing pile of discarded clothing on the floor and suddenly she was standing before him in nothing but her underwear—a simple, practical set in pale lavender, chosen that morning with no thought beyond comfort and now transformed into the last fragile barrier between her body and his gaze. The chill of the maze raised fresh goosebumps across her stomach, her thighs, the exposed curve of her hips. She wrapped her arms around herself instinctively, crossing them over her chest, trying to cover what little she could.

He took a step closer. The glass shard fell from his fingers, landing on the floor with a delicate, musical tink that seemed impossibly loud in the silence. The sound made her flinch and she instinctively backed away—one step, then another—until her bare shoulders and the knobs of her spine pressed against the cold, unyielding surface of the mirror behind her. The glass was freezing against her exposed skin, sending a violent shiver racing down her entire body. She was trapped again, cornered again, the cold at her back and the monster at her front and nowhere left to run.

His gloved fingers rose and traced along the edge of her bra strap, following the line of pale lavender fabric where it curved over her shoulder. His touch was almost featherlight, a whisper of leather against skin and somehow that gentleness was worse than brutality would have been. Brutality she could hate purely, could resist with every fiber of her being. But this—this horrible parody of tenderness, this mockery of a lover’s caress—it confused her instincts, left her without a clear enemy to fight. “Cute,” he said and the word was a dismissal, a judgment, an appraisal. He fingered the strap, rubbing the fabric between his thumb and forefinger as if testing its quality. “But this has gotta go.” His voice dropped into something softer, something almost coaxing, the tone of a man training a reluctant pet. “Now be a good girl for me and take it off, yes?”

Her hands moved on their own accord, as if they had made a separate peace with the enemy while her mind was still screaming in protest. She reached behind her back, her fingers finding the clasp of her bra with practiced ease—a motion she’d performed thousands of times before, always in the privacy of her own bedroom, always with the door locked and the curtains drawn. Never like this. Never as a performance for a monster’s entertainment. The clasp released with a soft click and the straps went slack on her shoulders. For one suspended moment, she held the cups in place with her crossed arms, clinging to this final shred of modesty. Then, slowly, she let her arms fall to her sides and the bra went with them, sliding down her arms and joining the rest of her clothes on the cold floor.

He didn’t wait. He didn’t give her a single second to adjust to her own exposure, to process the vulnerability of standing half-naked before her tormentor. His hands—those gloved, leather-clad hands—rose immediately and cupped her breasts, filling his palms with her flesh. The rough texture of the leather against her sensitive skin was jarring, alien, wrong in a way that went beyond physical sensation. And the cold—the cold of the maze, the cold of his gloves, the cold of her own terror—made her nipples tighten and harden against his palms, a physiological response that had nothing to do with desire and everything to do with temperature and fear. She hated her body in that moment. Hated it for responding, for betraying her, for giving him any reaction at all.

“God, you’re so pretty for me,” he breathed and there was a strange, unsettling glee in his voice—a genuine, almost boyish enthusiasm that made her skin crawl more than outright cruelty would have. He was enjoying this. Not just the power, not just the control, but her. Her body. Her fear. Her humiliation. “Look at you.” He squeezed gently, kneading her breasts with a familiarity, as if they belonged to him. As if she belonged to him. And in this moment, trapped against a mirror in a maze of red light, stripped and shivering and utterly powerless, she wasn’t sure she could argue otherwise.

He shifted his weight and suddenly his knee was wedging between her legs, pushing her thighs apart with insistent pressure. The hard shell of his knee pad—kevlar, probably, or some reinforced composite—brushed against her core through the thin cotton of her underwear. The contact sent an involuntary jolt through her body, a spark of sensation that traveled up her spine and lodged somewhere behind her eyes. He continued to knead her breasts, his thumbs circling her nipples with deliberate, practiced attention, while his lips ghosted over her cheek—not quite kissing, not quite touching, just the warm suggestion of his mouth hovering a millimeter from her tear-stained, blood-streaked skin. His breath was hot and damp, carrying the faint metallic scent she’d noticed before.

Y/N tried her hardest to be silent. She clamped her jaw shut, ground her teeth together until her molars ached, focused every ounce of her willpower on containing any sound that might try to escape. She would not give him that satisfaction. She would not let him hear how his touch affected her, how her body was betraying her mind’s desperate resistance. But then he pushed his knee further up, intentionally grinding the hard surface of his knee pad against the apex of her thighs, applying pressure exactly where she least wanted it. And despite everything—despite the terror and the violation and the soul-deep revulsion—a small, strangled whimper escaped her lips. It was barely audible, a thin sound of unwanted sensation, but in the silence of the maze it might as well have been a scream. Heat bloomed in her core, unwanted and undeniable, her body’s autonomic response to stimulation that had nothing to do with consent.

“You like that, huh?” His voice was thick with satisfaction, with triumph. He had heard her. Of course he had heard her. He was attuned to every reaction, cataloging each flinch and whimper and tremor like a collector admiring his acquisitions. He pushed his knee up higher, grinding it deliberately against the damp cotton of her underwear, letting her feel the hard ridge of the knee pad pressing against her most intimate flesh. The pressure was insistent, rhythmic, a grotesque pantomime of intimacy that made her stomach turn even as her hips twitched involuntarily against him.

Y/N closed her eyes. She threw her head back against the cold mirror, the glass pressing against her skull like a second, harder reality and she focused every fiber of her being on swallowing the sounds that were building in her throat. She would not moan. She would not whimper. She would not give him the satisfaction of hearing her come apart. The red light played against her closed eyelids, painting the inside of her vision in shades of blood and fire. 

“On your knees, doll.” The command came with pressure—his hands on her shoulders, firm and insistent, pushing downward with an authority that brooked no argument. Her body folded beneath the weight of his demand, her knees buckling as she sank toward the cold floor. They landed on the discarded pile of her jeans and in the midst of her degradation, she found one small, pathetic mercy: the thick denim provided a meager cushion against the hard ground, sparing her kneecaps from the worst of the chill and the bruising pressure. She knelt there, half-naked and trembling, her bare skin pebbled with goosebumps in the red-tinged cold of the maze. Above her, he loomed like a monument to her powerlessness, his silhouette framed by the fractured mirrors that reflected this moment from every conceivable angle—an infinite gallery of her submission.

She heard it before she understood it: the metallic clink of a belt buckle being worked loose, the whisper of leather sliding through loops, the unmistakable sound of a zipper descending tooth by tooth. The realization hit her like a wave of ice water, crashing over her head and flooding her lungs until she couldn’t breathe. Oh God. Oh God, no. Her eyes, which had been fixed on the floor in an attempt to dissociate from her surroundings, flickered upward involuntarily—and immediately wished they hadn’t. He was freeing himself from the confines of his pants, his movements unhurried and almost casual, as if this were the most natural thing in the world. As if her kneeling before him was simply the correct order of things.

The tears that had dried up earlier returned with a vengeance, but they were different now. Before, they had been tears of fear and desperation, a silent plea for mercy. These were tears of utter, soul-deep brokenness—hot and heavy and accompanied by small, shattered sobs that escaped her throat before she could swallow them down. And what made it so utterly, cosmically perverse was the context. Daredevil. The name she used to whisper in public just to watch her brother’s shoulders stiffen beneath his suit jacket, to see the barely concealed panic flicker across his face. ”Y/N, I swear to God, if you call me that in front of the barista one more time—” And she would laugh and loop her arm through his and tell him he was being dramatic, that no one would ever connect the blind lawyer Matt Murdock to the vigilante who haunted Hell’s Kitchen’s rooftops. The name had been a joke between them, a shared secret, a term of endearment wrapped in sibling mockery. Daredevil. How goofy it sounded when you said it out loud. How ridiculous that a grown man in devil horns was the hero of this city.

And the suit. God, the suit. She had spent countless late nights stitching it back together, the red and black kevlar spread across her lap as she worked by the dim light of her apartment, waiting for him to return from patrol. He would stumble through the window—her window, because he knew she’d be awake, knew she wouldn’t sleep until she heard him come home—and collapse onto her couch, too exhausted to even remove the armor himself. She would unclip the cowl for him, revealing his sweat-matted hair and the dark circles under his sightless eyes. She would help him peel off the gloves, the boots, the heavy chest piece. And then she would carry the damaged pieces to her sewing corner and begin the work of mending what the night had torn apart. Stitch by stitch, she had poured her love and her worry and her fierce, protective hope into that suit. Every repaired seam was a prayer that he would come home again tomorrow. Every reinforced panel was a wish that he would be safe.

And now she was being forced to look at that same suit—or its identical, corrupted twin—while being made to commit acts so vile, so degrading, that she couldn’t reconcile them with the memory of her brother’s tired, grateful smile when she handed him his repaired armor. The dissonance was a knife twisting in her chest, cutting deeper than any physical blade could reach.

“Aw, are you scared?” His voice dripped with false sympathy, the mockery of comfort from a mouth that knew only how to wound. He cupped her cheek with one gloved hand, his thumb brushing away a tear even as new ones replaced it. The gesture was almost tender and that was a reminder that he could choose to be gentle and was choosing not to be. “It’s okay, doll. I’ll guide you, hmm?” As he spoke, he finished freeing himself from his pants, his length emerging into the cold red light. Her stomach lurched. She tried to look away, but his hand on her cheek held her face steady, forcing her to confront what was coming.

His other hand joined the first, one gripping her jaw while the other squeezed her cheeks, applying pressure until her lips puckered involuntarily, parting just slightly. She felt something wet and warm smear across her lower lip—precum, her mind supplied with clinical horror—before he pushed forward, forcing himself past the barrier of her lips and into the warm, unwilling cavern of her mouth. The invasion was immediate and complete. He let out a sharp hiss of satisfaction, the sound vibrating through his body and into hers, a serpent’s exhalation of pleasure. His free hand moved to tilt her chin upward, angling her face so that she was forced to look up at him through the blur of her tears, her mouth stretched obscenely around his length. The red light of the maze painted his helmet in shades of blood and shadow, the devil horns curving upward like a crown of thorns made monstrous.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” he breathed, his voice gone thick and rough with pleasure. His grip on her chin tightened fractionally, a warning disguised as guidance. “And don’t even think about trying anything funny with your teeth, got it?” The threat was implicit, unnecessary—she knew exactly what he was capable of, knew the violence that lurked beneath his controlled exterior. The only response she could manage was more broken sobs, muffled and deformed by the obstruction in her mouth. He patted her cheek lightly, condescendingly, the gesture of a master acknowledging a pet. Get to work.

Y/N closed her eyes. She couldn’t look at him anymore—not at the helmet, not at the suit, not at the reflection of what was happening playing out in the mirrors surrounding them. The darkness behind her eyelids was the only escape available to her, the only privacy she could claim. The salty, bitter taste of him coated her tongue, flooded her senses, made her gag reflex spasm uselessly around his intrusion. He was too big—his length and girth stretched her jaw uncomfortably, filling her mouth to capacity and then some, leaving no room for her to breathe, to swallow, to do anything but exist as a vessel for his pleasure. She tried to slack her jaw, to create more space, but it wasn’t easy between the sobs that still wracked her chest and the relentless onslaught her mouth was enduring. Each thrust pushed deeper, hitting the back of her throat and triggering another involuntary gag, which only seemed to please him more.

His hand gathered her hair into a makeshift ponytail, twisting the strands around his gloved fist with ease. And then he began to move her—not letting her find her own rhythm, not allowing her even the illusion of participation, but simply using her. Pushing her head forward, pulling it back, setting a pace that suited him, that pleasured him, that reduced her to nothing more than a warm, wet opening to be fucked. She was a toy in his hands, an object to be manipulated and he made no pretense otherwise. There was really no point in resisting. Her hands hung limp at her sides, her body swayed with each thrust and she tried—desperately, furiously—to shake away how disgusting it made her feel. She tried to retreat to some deep, interior space where this wasn’t happening, where her mouth wasn’t being violated, where her brother’s stolen identity wasn’t being weaponized against her.

Daredevil was her brother. The thought kept circling back, a wounded bird trapped in the cage of her skull. Daredevil was Matt and Matt was good and Matt would never—Matt would die before he—Matt was dead. Matt was dead and this thing wearing his face was using her and she couldn’t stop it, couldn’t fight it, couldn’t do anything but kneel here and take it.

She tried to think of anyone, anything, that could pull her mind away from the horror of the present. Away from Matt. Away from the suit. Away from the taste of salt and skin and degradation on her tongue. She cast about desperately in the darkness of her closed eyes, searching for a lifeline, a memory, a face that wasn’t contaminated by this nightmare.

And the only face that came to her was Dex.

Her sweet, kind neighbor. The man who lived in the apartment next door, separated from her by nothing more than a thin wall and a world of unspoken possibilities. Dex, who wordlessly helped her carry groceries up the three flights of stairs when he saw her struggling with too many bags. Dex, who showed up at her door with a casserole dish and a quiet smile, claiming he’d “made too much” and would she mind helping him finish it? Dex, who sat through terrible movies on her lumpy couch without complaint, his shoulder warm and solid beside hers, his laughter genuine when she made snarky comments about the plot holes. Dex, who had appeared with a wrench and a determined expression when her kitchen sink started leaking, spending an hour on his back under the pipes and emerging dusty but triumphant, refusing any payment beyond a glass of lemonade and her company.

He was good to her. Too good. So much so that she sometimes felt a twist of guilt in her chest, a nagging sense that she was taking advantage of his kindness. That she was a burden, a charity case, a wounded bird he felt obligated to nurse back to health. But whenever she tried to voice these insecurities, to apologize for being “too much” or “not enough,” he would just shake his head with that quiet, steady patience of his and tell her she was being ridiculous. He never seemed to mind. He never seemed to want anything from her except her presence.

Dex was a little older than Matt had been—thirty-one to her twenty-two, a gap that sometimes felt insignificant and sometimes felt like a chasm. He was handsome in an understated, rugged way that snuck up on you: strong jaw, kind eyes, a smile that transformed his whole face when he let it out fully. And his arms—God, his arms—she had caught herself staring more times than she cared to admit. The way his biceps strained against the sleeves of his plain cotton shirts when he reached for something on a high shelf. The corded muscles of his forearms when he rolled up his sleeves to wash dishes after one of their shared dinners. The solid, reassuring weight of him when they sat close on her couch, watching the television flicker in the dark. It was a hopeless crush, really. She knew that. He was older, more established, probably saw her as a kid sister at best, a neighborly obligation at worst. She was a mess of grief and trauma and bad coping mechanisms and he was... steady. Stable. Safe.

But right now, kneeling on the cold floor of a mirror maze with a monster’s length shoved down her throat and tears streaming down her cheeks, Dex was the only lifeline she had. She clung to the memory of his quiet smile, his warm laugh, the way he called her “sunshine” like it was her name. She imagined his hands—not the gloved, violating hands currently fisted in her hair, but Dex’s hands, bare and warm and calloused from whatever work he did. She imagined those hands cupping her face gently, tilting her chin up not to force her but to see her, to ask if she was okay. She imagined his voice saying her name—not “doll” or “sweetheart” in that mocking tone, but Y/N, said with warmth and respect and something that might have been the beginning of more.

She held onto that image like a drowning woman clutching a piece of driftwood. She let Dex’s face fill her mind, pushing out the horror of the helmet, the devil horns, the suit that should have meant safety and instead meant violation. She remembered the way he’d looked at her when he called her “sunshine”—not like she was broken, not like she was prey, but like she was something precious. Something worth protecting.

The monster’s pace quickened, his grip on her hair tightening, his thrusts becoming more erratic. She could tell he was close. And through it all, she kept her eyes squeezed shut and her mind fixed on Dex—on the impossible, beautiful, hopeless fantasy of a man who was kind without condition, who was strong without cruelty, who might someday, somehow, see her as more than just the broken girl next door. It was the only thing keeping her sane. The only thing keeping her from shattering completely. In the red-drenched darkness behind her eyelids, she held onto Dex like a prayer and she waited for this nightmare to end.

But just then, as she was finally beginning to achieve the fragile, desperate escape of dissociation—as the edges of her consciousness started to blur and soften, as she managed to tune him out, to retreat into that small, dark, quiet room at the very back of her mind where his touch couldn’t quite reach—he stopped. Everything stopped. The rhythm of his hips, the pressure of his hands, the relentless, violating presence of him inside her mouth. He withdrew his length from between her lips with a wet, obscene sound that echoed off the countless mirrors surrounding them and the sudden absence of him was almost as disorienting as his presence had been. Y/N’s eyes fluttered open, unfocused and glassy and she looked up at him from where she was kneeling on the cold, hard floor. 

“Hmm.” The sound he made was contemplative, almost playful, as if a thought had just occurred to him—a delightful little notion that he wanted to share. He looked down at her, that blank, horned helmet tilting to one side in a gesture that might have been curiosity or mockery or something else entirely. “It’s not fair that I have all the fun, right?” The question hung in the red-tinged air between them, rhetorical and cruel. Y/N stared up at him from her knees, her expression slack and dazed, her mind struggling to process the words through the thick fog of dissociation. He was cruel enough—vicious enough, monstrous enough—that he wouldn’t even allow her the small mercy of retreating into her own head to avoid him. He wanted her present. He wanted her aware. He wanted her to experience every moment of her own degradation with full, terrible clarity, because her suffering was the point, her awareness was the prize and he would not be cheated of a single second of it.

He adjusted his stance, shifting his weight with deliberate precision and suddenly his foot was positioned directly beneath her core. The hard, reinforced toe of his boot pressed up against the damp cotton of her underwear, creating a ridge of unyielding pressure right where she was most sensitive. The friction was immediate and electric—a bolt of sensation that lit her nerves on fire despite every desperate attempt her mind made to reject it. Y/N’s fingers dug into her own thighs, her nails barely leaving crescent-shaped indentations in the material of his tactical pants, as her body lurched forward involuntarily, her hips grinding down against his boot before she could stop them. The movement was instinctive, animal, completely beyond her conscious control and she hated herself for it even as a small, traitorous part of her welcomed the distraction of physical sensation.

“Move those pretty hips for me, will you?” The command was delivered with casual authority, the tone of a man who knew he would be obeyed. And he was right. Y/N obliged without so much as a thought, without even a flicker of resistance. What was the point anymore? What was the point of fighting, of clinging to scraps of dignity, of pretending she had any agency left to protect? She had already surrendered her clothes, her body, her mouth. What was one more degradation? What was one more act of compliance in an endless litany of them? The fight had drained out of her completely, leaving behind only a hollow, mechanical obedience. Her hips began to move, rocking against the hard surface of his boot with a slow, grinding rhythm that sent sparks of unwanted pleasure shooting up her spine.

He guided himself back between her lips, the weight and heat of him filling her mouth once more and she accepted it with the same numb compliance. But something was shifting inside her, some desperate survival mechanism kicking in to protect what remained of her fractured psyche. As her hips continued to buck against the leather of his boot, as the friction built and built and sent waves of sensation crashing through her nervous system, her mind began to grow blessedly, mercifully numb. The pleasure—unwanted, undeniable, shameful—acted like a drug, smoothing the jagged edges of her terror, blurring the sharp lines of her violation. Shivers ran up her spine, one after another, as her clit dragged against the textured surface of his boot through the increasingly damp cotton of her underwear. The sensation was good. She hated that it was good. She hated herself for feeling it, for responding to it, for allowing her body to find any pleasure at all in this nightmare. But the alternative—remaining fully present, fully aware of what was happening to her—was worse. So much worse.

He used her mouth as he had before, setting a rhythm that she followed without thought, her head bobbing along his length while her hips ground down against his boot. But it didn’t feel as difficult anymore. The soul-deep wrongness of it—it all seemed to recede, muffled and distant, like sounds heard through a thick wall. In the red-drenched darkness behind her closed eyelids, she forced herself to imagine something else. Someone else. She conjured an image of Dex—his warm, steady presence, his quiet smile, the way he’d looked at her with such gentle fondness when he’d handed her Lord Snuggleton. She imagined it was Dex’s hands touching her, Dex’s body pressed against hers, Dex’s voice murmuring encouragement. It was a lie, a desperate, pathetic fiction constructed from equal parts longing and self-preservation, but it was the only lifeline she had. She clung to it with everything she had left.

Soft whimpers began to fall from her lips, muffled and distorted by his cock filling her mouth. The sounds were small, almost animal—the helpless noises of a creature caught in a trap. They vibrated against him, sending ripples of sensation up his shaft and she felt his grip tighten in her hair, his fingers twisting and pulling with renewed urgency. A string of curses fell from his lips, harsh and breathless and there was something almost reverent in the way he said them, as if she had surprised him, as if she had exceeded whatever twisted expectations he’d held.

“You sound like a fucking puppy,” he chuckled, the words laced with genuine amusement. His free hand came down and patted her head—a condescending, almost affectionate gesture, the way one might pet a well-behaved dog. The touch was degrading, dehumanizing, reducing her to nothing more than a trained animal performing for her master’s entertainment. And yet, in her dissociated state, it barely registered. She looked up at him from beneath her lashes, her lips still stretched and wrapped around him, her jaw aching, her throat raw and there was nothing in her eyes but a distant, unfocused daze. She was present in body, but her mind was somewhere else entirely—somewhere with Dex, somewhere safe, somewhere this nightmare couldn’t quite reach.

But then something strange began to happen. The red light—that pervasive, bloody glow that saturated every corner of the maze—seemed to flicker and shift, playing tricks on her exhausted, traumatized perception. As she looked up at the monster using her mouth, the sharp lines of his jaw, the curve of his lips, the shape of his chin visible beneath the edge of the helmet... they started to look more and more like Dex. It was impossible, of course. A hallucination born of wishful thinking and psychological desperation. Dex was kind and gentle and safe. Dex had driven away to handle a work emergency, had promised to come back in one piece, had called her sunshine like it was the most natural thing in the world. Dex would never do this to her. Dex would never hurt her. And yet, the resemblance was there, hovering at the edges of her vision, a mirage conjured by her starving, traumatized mind.

His hand left her hair and came to rest against her cheek, the leather of his glove cool and smooth against her flushed skin. And before she could stop herself, before her conscious mind could intervene, she found herself leaning into the touch. She almost nuzzled into his palm, her cheek pressing against the leather as if it were Dex’s hand, as if this were a gesture of affection rather than ownership. The movement was instinctive, automatic, the response of a creature so starved for gentleness that she would accept even its cruelest imitation. He seemed surprised by her sudden change in temperament—she could feel it in the brief hesitation of his hand, the subtle shift in his posture. The dazed, terrified victim who had been mechanically complying with his demands had been replaced by something else, something softer, something almost willing. And he liked it. She could tell he liked it.

“Fuck, you’re perfect, baby,” he breathed, his voice dropping into something almost tender, almost genuine. The praise washed over her like warm water, seeping into the cracks of her shattered self-worth. “You’re taking me so well. Just a little more.” Her body seemed to react to the encouragement independent of her will, responding to the positive reinforcement like a flower turning toward the sun. She increased her pace, her head bobbing along his length with strange renewed enthusiasm while maintaining eye contact—looking up at him through her lashes. Her tongue swirled around his tip, tracing circles and patterns and she was rewarded with a deep, guttural groan that seemed to vibrate through his entire body.

He threw his head back, the horns of his helmet catching the red light and casting demonic shadows on the mirrored walls. “Baby, you’re gonna be the death of me,” he groaned, the words thick with pleasure and something that almost sounded like genuine affection. His hands found the sides of her head, fingers threading through her hair and he took control—pushing his length all the way down, past her gag reflex, until she could feel him in her throat, a thick, intrusive presence that made her eyes water and her vision swim. 

A visible bulge formed in the column of her throat, the outline of him pressing against her skin from the inside and he stared at it with something approaching awe. He could swear it was the most erotic thing he had ever seen—her lips stretched around him, her throat distended by him, her eyes watering and dazed and looking up at him with that strange, surrendered softness. And being able to look at her from all angles, thanks to the infinite mirrors surrounding them, was just beautiful. Everywhere he looked, there she was—on her knees, servicing him, her body reflected into eternity. A study of her and he was the sole, appreciative audience.

Y/N closed her eyes, surrendering to the darkness behind her lids because the alternative—watching her own reflection in the endless mirrors, seeing herself reduced to this—was more than she could bear. She could feel her climax building, coiling low and tight in her belly like a spring being wound past its breaking point. It was a terrible, unwanted thing, this pleasure that her body was manufacturing against her will. She hated it. She hated herself for feeling it. And yet she couldn’t stop chasing it, couldn’t stop the frantic, desperate bucking of her hips against his boot, grinding herself against the hard leather with an urgency that bordered on madness. 

Her body had betrayed her completely, had signed a separate peace treaty with the enemy while her mind was still at war. The friction of her soaked cotton underwear against the textured surface of his boot was maddening—not quite enough, never quite enough, but all she had. She rutted against him like an animal in heat, her movements jerky and uncoordinated, driven by a need that was purely physiological and utterly divorced from desire.

His thrusts into her mouth had changed. Where before they had been rapid and punishing, a brutal rhythm designed to overwhelm and dominate, now they had slowed into something longer, deeper, more deliberate. Each thrust pushed the full length of him past her lips and into the tight, constricted channel of her throat, forcing her jaw wide, filling her mouth completely until there was no room for anything but him—no air, no protest, no thought. He held himself there at the deepest point, buried to the hilt and she choked around him, her throat spasming and contracting in involuntary resistance. Her eyes watered, tears spilling over her lashes not from emotion now but from pure physical reflex, her body’s desperate attempt to clear an obstruction that wouldn’t move. Her skin reddened with the effort of not breathing, flushed from her cheeks down her neck to the tops of her breasts, a visible map of her struggle. When he finally pulled back, allowing her a gasping, desperate inhale through her nose, the relief was almost as overwhelming as the violation.

Moans fell relentlessly from her lips—or rather, from the small spaces around him where sound could still escape. They were muffled, distorted, transformed into something barely human by the obstruction filling her mouth. But they were unmistakably sounds of pleasure and she couldn’t stop them any more than she could stop her hips from rolling against his boot. The two rhythms—his deep, measured thrusts into her throat and her frantic grinding against his foot—had synchronized somehow, creating a terrible harmony of violation and unwanted arousal. She matched his grunts with her own muffled vocalizations, a call and response of degradation. The cotton of her underwear was utterly drenched now, saturated beyond any pretense of dryness. Her wetness had soaked through the thin fabric completely and was drooling onto the leather of his boot, leaving a glistening, obscene trail that caught the red light and shimmered like evidence of her betrayal. She could feel it—the slick, warm slide of her own arousal against his boot, the way it eased her movements even as it marked her shame. And still she chased her climax, hips rolling and bucking with single-minded desperation. Just a little more. Just a little more. The words became a mantra in her head, drowning out everything else—the wrongness, the violation, the hatred, the fear. All that existed was the approaching edge and her body’s primal need to tumble over it.

“You wanna cum for me, baby?” His voice was rough, strained with his own approaching release, but still laced with that horrible, proprietary tenderness. The question was rhetorical—he could feel her racing toward the edge, could read it in every desperate undulation of her hips, every muffled moan vibrating around his length. He didn’t need her answer. But he wanted it. He wanted her complicity, her verbal surrender, one more small piece of her autonomy to add to his collection.

“Uh huh.” The affirmation came out garbled and barely intelligible but unmistakable in its desperate agreement. It was the only answer she could give—not because she wanted to give it, but because her body had taken over completely and her body wanted to come. Her mind had been relegated to a distant observer, watching from very far away as this stranger wearing her skin debased herself for a monster’s entertainment.

“Then cum for me, sweetheart.” His words acted as a trigger, a key turning in a lock she hadn’t known existed. The permission—or the command, they were the same thing from him—unleashed something inside her that had been straining at its leash. A wave of senseless, devastating pleasure crashed over her, drowning her in sensation so intense it bordered on pain. Her vision, already darkened by her closed eyelids, exploded with spots of color—red and gold and white, a private fireworks display behind her eyes. 

Her body convulsed, her inner muscles clenching and releasing in rhythmic spasms around nothing, the empty ache of it somehow making the orgasm sharper, more acute. She reached out blindly and grabbed onto the material of his tactical pants, her fingers twisting in the heavy fabric, anchoring herself to the only solid thing in a world that had dissolved into pure sensation. The rough texture of the pants against her palms was the only tether keeping her from spinning away into the red-tinged void.

He, too, was reaching his end. She felt it in the way his rhythm faltered, the deep, measured thrusts becoming erratic, more urgent. His grip on her hair tightened, holding her in place as he doled out his final few thrusts with a roughness that bordered on violence. And then he was there, buried to the hilt in her throat and she felt the hot, pulsing flood of his release. It spewed down her throat in thick, salty ropes—almost bitter, carrying the sharp, alkaline taste of him. There was so much of it, more than she could comfortably swallow and she gagged around him, her throat working desperately to accommodate the volume. He groaned, a low, guttural sound of pure male satisfaction and held her face in both hands, keeping her impaled on his entire length while the last pulses of his orgasm emptied into her. The pressure was overwhelming, her throat stretched and filled, her nose pressed against the coarse fabric of his suit, her entire world reduced to the taste and smell and feel of him.

“Swallow,” he commanded, his voice rough but still controlled, still the voice of a man accustomed to being obeyed. He patted her cheek—a gesture that might have been affectionate if it weren’t so patronizing. A pat for a good pet. Then, slowly, he pulled out. The withdrawal was almost as overwhelming as the intrusion had been. She felt every inch of him sliding free of her throat, leaving behind a raw, aching emptiness. A thick, glistening string of saliva connected her swollen lips to the tip of him for one suspended moment before breaking, drool and the remnants of his release dribbling down her chin in warm, viscous trails. The fluid dripped onto her bare breasts, landing on her flushed skin in small, obscene droplets that caught the red light and gleamed.

He had told her to swallow and she had. She stuck out her tongue—pink and swollen and utterly empty—to show him her compliance, to prove that she had done as she was told. The gesture was automatic, born of some deep, survival-oriented part of her brain that understood the rules of this particular game: obey, perform, survive. He grinned at the sight and there was a strange, unsettling pride on what she could see of his face beneath the helmet. Not lust, not cruelty, but pride. As if she were a prized possession that had performed beautifully, a well-trained animal that had executed its tricks flawlessly. The expression made her stomach turn more than the taste of him still coating her tongue.

He grabbed her hand—his grip firm, commanding, leaving no room for resistance—and pulled her up from her kneeling position. Her legs screamed in protest, aching deeply from being folded beneath her for so long. The muscles in her thighs and calves had gone stiff and cramped and she stumbled as she rose, her jelly-like legs barely supporting her weight. The recent orgasm had left her boneless, wrung out, her body a collection of pleasant aches and deep, soul-sick bruises. He didn’t let her fall. He pinned her lower body against his, using his hips and thighs to force her upright, to keep her standing when all she wanted to do was collapse onto the cold floor and disappear. The pressure of his body against hers was immovable, a wall of muscle and intent that held her in place like a butterfly pinned to a board.

He cupped her face in both hands—those gloved hands that had touched her everywhere, that had violated every inch of her—and kissed her. It was not a gentle kiss. It was thorough, invasive, his tongue pushing past her swollen lips to explore the mouth he had just used. She didn’t kiss him back. She couldn’t. Her lips were numb, her jaw ached and her mind had retreated to some distant, foggy place where sensations arrived muffled and distant, as if happening to someone else. Her head was too cloudy from everything that had happened—the fear, the violation, the unwanted orgasm, the degradation of swallowing him down. It all swirled together into a gray, formless fog that obscured everything but the most immediate physical sensations: the cold glass at her back, the warm body at her front, the taste of him still lingering on her tongue.

“God, you’re such a good girl for me,” he murmured against her lips, the words vibrating through the kiss. It was praise. It was ownership. It was the final stamp on her degradation, the verbal acknowledgment that she had performed exactly as he wanted, that she had been everything he demanded her to be. She didn’t respond. She couldn’t. She stood there, held upright by his body and his grip, her bare skin pressed against his kevlar-clad chest and stared at nothing through the red-tinged fog of her own dissociation.

“Now let’s get you dressed up.” His voice had shifted into something almost gentle, almost caring. He bent down and gathered her discarded clothes from the cold floor, collecting each piece with the same casual efficiency he might use to pick up after himself. The jacket, the top, the bra—he shook them out briefly, smoothing wrinkles with his gloved hands, treating her garments with a care that seemed utterly incongruous with everything that had just transpired. And then he began to dress her, guiding her arms into sleeves and settling fabric over her shoulders as if she were a doll, an inanimate object to be posed and arranged according to his whims. She cooperated because her mind was too muddled to do anything else. It was easier to simply comply, to let him move her limbs and adjust her clothing, to surrender to the strange, dissociative calm that had settled over her in the aftermath. Resistance required energy, required presence, required a self that felt worth defending. She had none of those things right now.

She stepped back into her jeans when he held them open for her, balancing unsteadily on legs that still felt like they belonged to someone else. The denim slid up her calves, over her knees and he pulled them the rest of the way, settling the waistband at her hips. But he paused before fastening them, his hands stilling on the open fly. “Hmm,” he hummed, a considering sound that made her stomach clench with fresh dread. “I think I wanna keep this.” Before she could process what he meant, his fingers hooked into the side of her underwear—the pale lavender cotton, still soaked through with the evidence of her unwanted orgasm and he pulled. The fabric tore with a sharp, ripping sound, the thin cotton giving way easily under his strength. 

He pulled the ruined panties free from between her legs, the damp fabric dragging against her sensitive flesh one final time and her breath hitched audibly as the cold air of the maze rushed in to fill the absence. Her bare, swollen cunt was exposed to the chill, still tender and oversensitive from everything that had been done to it and she shivered involuntarily at the sensation. He stuffed the drenched fabric into his back pocket with casual satisfaction—a trophy, a souvenir, a claim staked and collected. Then he pulled her jeans up fully, settling the rough denim directly against her bare, sensitive flesh and buttoned them closed. The seam of the jeans pressed against her in ways that would remind her, with every step she took, of what she no longer wore beneath them.

Once she was fully dressed—or as fully dressed as she could be without the underwear he had stolen—he turned his attention to her appearance. He patted her hair with surprising gentleness, smoothing down the tangles and flyaways. His gloved fingers combed through the strands, working out the worst of the dishevelment, arranging her hair so that she looked less like a woman who had just been violated in a hall of mirrors and more like someone who had simply had a long, exhausting night at the carnival.  

His fingers found her chin, tilting her face up and he swiped his thumb across her skin, collecting the remaining saliva and the residue of his release that still clung to her chin. The pad of his glove came away glistening. He brought it to her lips, pressing gently against the swollen, tender flesh. “Clean it up,” he said, though the words were less a command and more an expectation, a continuation of the ritual they had established. Y/N parted her lips without thought, without resistance and took his gloved finger into her mouth. She licked it clean, her tongue dragging across the leather, collecting the bitter, salty taste of him mixed with her own saliva. The act was intimate and degrading and utterly automatic. When she had finished, he withdrew his finger and gave her a satisfied smile—that same strange pride she had seen before, the expression of an owner admiring a well-trained possession.

His gaze dropped to the floor and he spotted Lord Snuggleton where the stuffed rabbit still lay abandoned and forgotten in the chaos of what had transpired. He bent down and picked up the bunny with surprising care, holding it by its floppy ears for a moment before dusting it off with a few brisk pats. His gloved hands smoothed the rabbit’s fur, straightened its lopsided expression, restored it to some semblance of its former cheerfulness. Then he stepped closer and tucked the stuffed animal securely into the crook of Y/N’s arm, pressing it against her side with a gentle, almost tender insistence. “Wouldn’t wanna leave Snuggleton behind, now would we?” His voice was light, almost teasing, as if they were sharing a private joke.

The name hit her like a physical blow. Snuggleton. Lord Snuggleton of Hugsville. The silly, affectionate nickname she had invented just hours ago, standing in a parking lot with Dex, feeling safe and seen and almost happy. She had waved the bunny’s little arm at him, had made him laugh with the ridiculous title, had created a small, private world of warmth and humor in the middle of her otherwise bleak existence. And now this monster—this vile impersonator, this predator who had violated her in every possible way—was using that name. He knew the bunny’s name. The only people who knew that name were her and Dex. She had invented it on the spot, had spoken it aloud exactly once, in a moment of genuine connection with the man who lived next door. There was no other way he could have known. No other explanation.

Her mind reeled, spinning through the implications with dizzying speed. Had he been watching her since before the parking lot? Had he been lurking somewhere in the shadows of the carnival, observing her and Dex together, listening to their conversation with some kind of surveillance equipment? Had he been waiting—patiently, predatorily—for Dex to leave so he could make his move? The thought sent ice water through her veins. It meant this wasn’t random. It wasn’t a chance encounter, a terrible coincidence of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This had been planned. Orchestrated. He had watched her laugh and eat cotton candy and accept stuffed animals from Dex, had watched her feel safe and happy and almost normal and he had waited. He had let her have those moments of peace specifically so he could destroy them, so he could prove that nowhere and no one was safe, that he could reach her whenever he wanted, that her happiness was merely a loan he could call due at any moment.

His arm hooked around her waist, solid and unyielding and he began to walk her through the maze. But not back the way she had come, not toward the main entrance where she had presented her silver ticket with such foolish, hopeful excitement. He guided her instead toward a back exit she hadn’t known existed—a plain, unmarked door set into a mirrored wall, virtually invisible unless you knew exactly where to look. He pushed it open and the cool night air rushed in, carrying the distant sounds of the city beyond the carnival grounds. The carnival itself had powered down completely now. The rides were silent, their lights extinguished. The game booths were shuttered and dark. The crowds had dispersed, leaving behind only scattered trash and the ghostly echoes of the evening’s revelry. 

She wondered, as he steered her through the door and into the empty service area behind the maze, if there had been anyone else in the maze when he had caught her. Had there been other visitors, laughing and bumping into mirrors and enjoying the simple fun of getting lost? Or had he, just like with Dex, carefully orchestrated her isolation? Had he waited until the maze was empty, until the carnival was closing, until every possible witness or protector had been systematically removed from the equation? The precision of it—the patience, the planning, the intimate knowledge of her movements and her company—suggested a predator who had been hunting her for a long, long time. And the worst part, the part that made her blood run cold and her stomach drop into some bottomless void, was the realization that he would do it again. That this was not an ending but merely another chapter in an ongoing nightmare. That he knew her routines, her relationships, her small moments of joy. And he would use all of it against her, whenever he chose.

He at least had the decency—if such a word could even be applied to a monster—to call her a cab. He had pulled out a phone, not his personal device she suspected but something disposable, a burner purchased with cash and destined for the bottom of a trash can within the hour. He had spoken to the dispatcher in a clipped, efficient tone, rattling off the carnival’s address and requesting a pickup at the service entrance where they stood. And then, before the cab’s headlights could sweep around the corner and illuminate them both, he had melted back into the shadows. One moment he was there, a solid, oppressive presence at her side, his arm still hooked possessively around her waist. The next moment he was simply… gone. Swallowed by the darkness behind the mirror maze as if he had never existed at all, as if he were nothing more than another phantom conjured by her exhausted, traumatized mind.

The cab arrived. A beat-up sedan with a flickering interior light and an air freshener shaped like a pine tree dangling from the rearview mirror, its artificial evergreen scent doing little to mask the underlying odors of stale cigarette smoke and too many strangers’ lives. She climbed into the backseat, clutching Lord Snuggleton to her chest like a lifeline and gave the driver her address in a voice so small and hollow she barely recognized it as her own. The cabbie—a middle-aged man with tired eyes and the weathered patience of someone who had spent decades driving through the city’s darkest hours—glanced at her in the rearview mirror. 

She saw his gaze linger on her dishevelled hair, her swollen lips, the vacant, thousand-yard stare she couldn’t seem to shake. He noticed. Of course he noticed. A woman getting into a cab alone, late at night, from a closed carnival, looking like she had been through something unspeakable—it was a story as old as the city itself. But he didn’t comment. He didn’t ask if she was okay, didn’t offer to call anyone, didn’t press for details she couldn’t have given even if she’d wanted to. Maybe he had learned, over years of driving these streets, that some silences were kinder than questions. Maybe he simply didn’t want to get involved. Either way, she was grateful. 

The drive passed in a blur of streetlights and darkened storefronts, the city sliding past her window like a movie she was watching from very far away. She couldn’t possibly return to Foggy’s place like this. The thought crystallized with sudden, painful clarity. Foggy, who was like a brother to her in every way that mattered, who had stepped in after Matt’s death and tried so desperately to fill a void that could never truly be filled. Foggy, who already worried about her constantly, who called to check in with a frequency that should have been annoying but was instead deeply, achingly touching. If he saw her like this—bruised, hollow-eyed, wearing clothes that had been put back on her body by the man who had just violated her, walking with the careful, pained gait of someone hiding fresh injuries—he would crumble. 

He would demand answers. He would want to call the police, to hunt down whoever had done this, to wrap her in protective layers of concern and investigation and well-meaning interference. And she couldn’t deal with that. She didn’t have the strength. Every ounce of energy she possessed had been drained from her, siphoned away by the horror of what had happened in that mirror maze. She had nothing left—no words, no explanations, no ability to manage someone else’s emotional response to her trauma. She could barely manage her own.

Besides, she didn’t want him to see her like this. The thought was simpler, rawer, more honest. What brother—even a brother by choice rather than blood—would want to see his sister in this condition? What good could possibly come from forcing Foggy to witness this, to see the evidence of what had been done to her written across her face and body? He had enough problems to deal with already. The weight of Matt’s death, the ongoing chaos of Wilson Fisk’s return, the endless, grinding work of trying to hold together some semblance of justice in a city that seemed determined to tear itself apart— Foggy carried all of that on his shoulders every single day. 

Adding her brokenness to that burden felt cruel, felt selfish, felt like asking a drowning man to save someone else. So, she gave the cabbie the address of her old apartment building instead. The cab pulled up to the curb outside her building and she paid the fare with trembling fingers, fumbling bills from her jacket pocket. She didn’t wait for change. She just wanted out. The building loomed before her, tired and familiar, its brick facade stained with decades of city grime. 

The lobby was dimly lit, the single fluorescent bulb flickering with the erratic pulse of something on the verge of dying completely. And of course—of course—the elevator was out of order. A handwritten sign taped to the metal doors announced this fact with cheery, passive-aggressive regret: ”Out of Service. Sorry for the inconvenience.” It had been out of service for three weeks now. She was starting to suspect it would never be fixed, that she would be climbing these stairs until she died or moved away, whichever came first.

She trudged up the steps, each one a small mountain. Her legs were tired—not just tired, but exhausted, the muscles in her thighs and calves screaming with every upward step. The bruises on her knees, earned from kneeling on the hard floor of the mirror maze while she serviced him with her mouth, throbbed with a deep, persistent ache that seemed to pulse in time with her heartbeat. Climbing three floors was hard on a normal day, when she was well-rested and whole and carrying nothing heavier than groceries. Now it felt Herculean. Impossible. A task designed by cruel gods to break her completely. 

She gripped the banister with white-knuckled desperation, pulling herself upward one painful step at a time. Halfway up the second flight, her legs gave out briefly and she had to catch herself on her knees—bad idea, terrible idea, the pain that shot through her was blinding—before forcing herself upright again. By the time she reached the final flight, she was almost crawling, using her hands on the steps above her to drag her body forward. Just a bit more, she told herself, the words a mantra in the fog of her exhaustion. Just a bit more. You can make it. You have to make it. There’s nowhere else to go.

She finally reached her floor—the third floor, the floor where her tiny studio waited like a cold, unwelcoming refuge—and let out a shuddering sigh of relief that was almost a sob. Her door was at the end of the hall. Just a few more steps. Just a few more—

Dex returned home earlier than he had expected. The work emergency had been urgent, yes, but ultimately straightforward—a situation that required his presence and his particular skills but not the hours of painstaking effort he had anticipated. He had handled it with the cold, efficient precision that had made him both valuable and feared within the organization and now he was back, earlier than planned, the adrenaline of the night’s work still humming beneath his skin like a low-grade electrical current. The exhaustion would hit later, he knew. It always did. For now, he was still running on the residual energy of crisis management, his senses sharp and his mind alert.

He walked down the hallway of his apartment building, his footsteps nearly silent on the worn carpet—a habit born of years of training, of learning to move without being heard, without leaving traces. His door was ahead, the familiar scuffed paint and brass numbers a small comfort after the chaos of the night. But as he drew closer, something tugged at the edge of his awareness. A detail out of place. His door was already unlocked. The slight gap between the door and the frame, the way it sat just a fraction of an inch ajar when it should have been flush and sealed—it was wrong. He had locked it when he left. He always locked it. It was a reflex, as automatic as breathing.

He slipped inside with light, careful steps, his body moving into a combat-ready stance without conscious thought. His hand found the gun he kept stashed under the kitchen counter and he drew it smoothly, the weight familiar and reassuring in his palm. The apartment was dim, lit only by the ambient glow of the city filtering through the windows, but his eyes adjusted quickly. There were soft sounds of movement coming from his bedroom. Faint, barely audible, but unmistakable. The rustle of fabric. The creak of a floorboard. Someone was in there.

He moved cautiously, every sense on high alert, his training taking over completely. Who could it be? His mind raced through possibilities even as his body flowed through the familiar space of his apartment. With his time at the bureau, he had made enemies—that was inevitable, a natural consequence of the work he did and the way he did it. There were people who would love to see him dead, who had the resources and the motivation to send someone after him. Or could it be someone Wilson Fisk sent? Finally deciding that he didn’t want him. 

The door of his bathroom was open, the light still spilling out into the bedroom beyond. That was wrong too. He hadn’t left the bathroom light on. He was certain of it. He stood at the edge of his bedroom door, his back pressed against the wall beside the frame, his gun held in a two-handed grip, pointed toward the ceiling but ready to snap down and fire at a moment’s notice. He took a slow, controlled breath, centering himself, preparing for whatever threat waited on the other side of that threshold. Then, in one fluid motion, he whipped around the corner and into the bedroom, his gun coming down with deadly precision, aimed directly at—

He froze.

“Dex?” The voice that called his name was so small, so fractured, that for a moment he didn’t recognize it. It was barely more than a whisper, a broken thread of sound that seemed to come from somewhere deep and wounded, the kind of voice that belonged to small animals caught in traps or children waking from nightmares they couldn’t articulate. It was the smallest, most shattered sound he had ever heard and it stopped him cold.

“Y/N?” His gun lowered immediately, the tension in his arms releasing as recognition flooded through him. The bedroom was dark—the only illumination came from the bathroom light spilling through the open door, casting a pale golden rectangle across the floor and catching the edges of her silhouette. But even in the dimness, he could see that it was her. The shape of her, the way she stood, the familiar curve of her shoulders now hunched inward as if she were trying to make herself smaller, less visible, less there. The room was humid, the air thick and warm with residual steam that clung to his skin and fogged the edges of the bathroom mirror.

She had just showered, he realized. Her hair was wet, dark with water and plastered against her skull and neck in dripping tendrils. And she was wearing his clothes—one of his old t-shirts, soft and faded from years of washing, hanging loose on her smaller frame and a pair of his sweatpants rolled multiple times at the waistband and cuffs to keep them from swallowing her whole. On any other night, in any other context, the sight of Y/N wrapped in his clothing would have made his heart stutter and swell, would have filled him with a warm, possessive tenderness he barely knew how to name. But this wasn’t any other night. Something was terribly, fundamentally wrong.

“Dex—I—I’m so sorry for breaking in.” The words tumbled out of her in a frantic, rambling rush, as if she could outrun whatever accusation she imagined was coming by filling the silence with explanation. “I mean—I didn’t break in. I didn’t. I just used the spare key. The one you keep by the radiator. You know the one? I remembered you showed me where it was, in case of emergencies and I couldn’t find my apartment keys, I looked everywhere, in my jacket and my jeans and they just weren’t there and you told me—you told me I could let myself in if I ever needed to. You said that. Remember? You said, ‘If you ever need a place, my door’s always open. Spare key’s by the radiator.’ So I just—I just—” She rambled on, her words tripping over each other in their desperate haste, trying to explain away the situation, to make it seem normal, to prevent him from seeing what was actually written across her face and body and posture. She was building a wall of words, hoping he wouldn’t look too closely at what lay behind it.

He crossed the room in three long strides, closing the distance between them with the same focused intensity he brought to everything that mattered. His hands came up to cup her face, his palms warm against her chilled, damp skin. The contrast was stark—she was cold despite the humid warmth of the room, cold in a way that came from inside, from shock and trauma and something he didn’t yet understand but could feel radiating off her like a physical force. “Hey, hey,” he said, his voice dropping into something soft and steady, the tone he used when talking someone down from a ledge or calming a frightened witness. “It’s okay. What happened?”

Her hair was wet, plastered to her forehead and cheeks in dark, dripping strands. Droplets of water slid down her temples like tears she wasn’t shedding. And if this were any other day, any other circumstance, his heart would have burst out of his chest at the sight of her—his sweet, brave, wounded Y/N standing in his bedroom wearing his clothes, looking soft and vulnerable and impossibly dear. He would have allowed himself to feel the warmth of that image, the quiet domesticity of it, the unspoken promise it seemed to hold. But right now wasn’t the time for those feelings. Right now, something was broken in her and every instinct he possessed was screaming at him to fix it, to protect her, to love her.

Y/N shook her head, a small, jerky motion and looked away from him. She couldn’t meet his eyes. Couldn’t bear to see the concern there, the questions, the inevitable demand for an explanation she wasn’t ready to give. “I—I just spiraled after you left,” she said, her voice thin and distant, as if she were reporting events that had happened to someone else. “And I didn’t want to return to Foggy’s. I couldn’t. He would’ve—he would’ve asked too many questions and I didn’t have answers and I didn’t know where else to go.” Her voice cracked on the last words, splintering into something raw and wounded. “I’m so sorry, Dex. I shouldn’t have—I shouldn’t have just let myself in like this. I should’ve called. I should’ve—”

He pulled her into his arms before she could finish the apology, wrapping himself around her with a fierce, protective urgency. One hand pressed flat against her back, the other cradled the back of her wet head and he held her against his chest as if he could shield her from whatever had happened simply by being a barrier between her and the rest of the world. She melted right there in his embrace. The tension that had been holding her upright, that had carried her up three flights of stairs and through a shower and into his apartment, dissolved all at once. Her body sagged against his and then the sobs came. Small at first, barely more than hitches in her breathing. Then larger, deeper, racking through her frame in waves that shook them both. She gripped the front of his jacket with both hands, her fingers twisting in the fabric, anchoring herself to him as if he were the only solid thing in a world that had turned to water.

“It’s okay, sunshine,” he murmured against her hair, the nickname falling from his lips automatically, a talisman against the darkness. “I got you. I’m here. I’ve got you.” He repeated the words like a mantra, like a promise, like a spell that could somehow undo whatever had been done to her. She pressed her face into his chest, breathing him in, letting his warmth and his scent and his steady, unwavering presence wash over her. “Just missed you s’much,” she whispered, the words muffled against his jacket but unmistakable in their raw, simple honesty.

Ten minutes later, she was sitting on his couch, wrapped in the thickest blanket he owned—a soft, worn flannel thing that had seen him through countless cold nights and now served a more important purpose. She had burrowed into it, pulling it up to her chin, cocooning herself in its warmth. And it smelled like him. Like that woodsy, musky scent that clung to everything he owned—his clothes, his furniture, his very presence. It was the smell of safety, of comfort, of the one person in the world who made her feel like she might still be whole somewhere deep inside. She breathed it in like medicine, letting it settle into her lungs and her bloodstream, letting it push back against the cold, creeping tendrils of the mirror maze that still lingered at the edges of her consciousness.

He was in the kitchen, moving with quiet efficiency, making her something to eat. She seemed pretty shaken—more than shaken, shattered—and he didn’t want to overwhelm her with anything complicated. So he made French toast. Simple, warm, comforting. Her favourite. He had learned that about her during one of their cook nights, had filed the information away like he filed away everything important about her. The way her eyes lit up at the smell of cinnamon and vanilla. The way she liked hers with just a dusting of powdered sugar, no syrup. The way she would close her eyes and make a small, satisfied sound at the first bite, as if the simple pleasure of good food was something precious and rare.

He brought the plate out and set it on the table in front of the couch, the golden-brown slices of bread steaming gently in the dim light. Then he sat down next to her, close enough that she could feel his warmth through the blanket, close enough that she could reach out and touch him if she needed to. 

Y/N began digging into the French toast immediately, her movements mechanical but driven by a sudden, ravenous hunger she hadn’t realized she was carrying. The first bite was a revelation—the warm, eggy sweetness of the bread, the subtle kiss of cinnamon and vanilla, the way the powdered sugar melted on her tongue like the ghost of something good and pure. It flooded her senses, pushing back against the bitter, salty, alkaline taste that had consolidated itself on her tongue and refused to leave. That taste—his taste—had been clinging to her since the mirror maze, a phantom residue that no amount of showering or tooth-brushing or desperate tongue-scraping could fully erase. But the French toast helped. Dex’s French toast, made with careful hands in his small kitchen, served on a plain white plate with no expectation or demand attached. It tasted like safety. Like normalcy. Like the world she had inhabited before everything went wrong, when her biggest concern was whether she’d eaten too much cotton candy and not whether she’d survive the night with her sanity intact.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Dex’s voice was tentative, careful, the tone of someone approaching a wounded animal with open palms and slow movements. He wasn’t pushing—Dex never pushed, that was one of the things she appreciated most about him—but the question was there, hanging in the warm air between them, an offering she could accept or decline as she chose.

Y/N froze mid-chew, the bite of French toast suddenly thick and difficult to swallow. Her mind raced, spinning through possibilities, constructing and discarding explanations with frantic speed. What could she even tell him? The truth was impossible. It was a labyrinth of horrors with no clear entrance and no safe exit. Oh, you know, Dex, I just got assaulted by a vigilante who wears my dead brother’s costume. You know, the Daredevil suit? The one Matt used to wear when he was alive and fighting for justice? Well, there’s this imposter now, this monster who’s stolen his identity and his symbol and he cornered me in the mirror maze after you left and he— No. Absolutely not. She couldn’t say those words.

Couldn’t give voice to the specifics of what had been done to her. And even if she could somehow find the courage to speak the truth, there was another layer, a deeper, more shameful confession lurking beneath the surface. The way she had coped. The way she had survived. How, when he was touching her and violating her and forcing sounds from her throat she didn’t want to make, she had closed her eyes and imagined it was someone else. Imagined it was Dex. His hands instead of those leather gloves. His mouth instead of that terrible, grinning maw beneath the helmet. His voice calling her sweetheart, sunshine, good girl.

She had superimposed his image onto her tormentor like a protective filter, using her feelings for him as a shield against the full horror of what was happening. It was preposterous. It was pathetic. It was deeply, profoundly shameful in ways she couldn’t begin to articulate. And even though Dex wasn’t the kind of person who would ever victim-blame—she knew this about him with bone-deep certainty—she was still drowning in shame. She didn’t want him to look at her differently. Didn’t want him to see her as broken, as damaged, as someone who had been reduced to nothing and then rebuilt herself around a fantasy of him.

“I told you,” She muttered, her voice barely above a whisper, her eyes fixed on the remaining French toast rather than his face. “I just spiralled.”

“Spiralled hard enough that you had to break into my house, take a shower in my bathroom and wear my clothes?” His voice was light, teasing, an obvious attempt to cut through the heavy atmosphere with humour. A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth and he bumped his shoulder gently against hers.

Y/N smacked his arm with the back of her hand, a reflexive gesture of mock outrage that felt almost normal, almost like them. “I didn’t have my house keys on me, okay?” The protest came out stronger than she intended, a flicker of her usual fire showing through the ash. “And I was going to text you about it, but my phone died. So technically, this is your fault for not having a charger readily available for your guests.”

“My fault?” He raised an eyebrow, clearly delighted that she was engaging, that some colour had returned to her voice.

“Yes, your fault. Completely and entirely.” She set her plate down on the table with a deliberate clink and rose to her feet, wrapping the blanket more securely around her shoulders like a cape of righteous indignation. “And if you have such a big problem with me being here, I’ll just leave then.” She wasn’t going to leave—not really, not actually—but she wanted to see how he would react. Needed to see it. Needed confirmation that she was wanted here, that her presence in his space wasn’t a burden he was too polite to name.

Dex’s hand shot out and caught her wrist before she could take her first step. His grip was warm and firm and he pulled her back with a surprising strength that sent her off balance. She stumbled, her feet tangling in the trailing edge of the blanket and fell directly into his lap with a soft, startled gasp. His arms came around her immediately, steadying her, holding her in place against his chest. “You aren’t going anywhere, sunshine,” he said and there was a grin spreading across his face—wide and warm and possessive in a way that made her heart flutter despite everything.

For a single, suspended moment, her blood ran cold. That grin. That smile. It reminded her—with a jolt of visceral, gut-wrenching recognition—of his smile. The monster’s smile. The way he had looked at her in the mirror maze, like she was a possession he had successfully claimed. But then reason reasserted itself. It was her own fault, wasn’t it? She had been the one to superimpose Dex’s image onto her attacker, to use his face as a shield against the horror. Of course there would be echoes. Of course her traumatized brain would make connections that weren’t really there.

She couldn’t blame Dex for her own coping mechanisms, for the way her desperate mind had twisted and blurred the lines between protector and predator just to survive. She shook her head slightly, physically dismissing the thought and forced a smile onto her face. “I don’t plan to,” she said softly and slipped off his lap—though she didn’t go far. She settled back onto the couch beside him, close enough that their thighs pressed together through the blanket, close enough to feel his warmth and his solidity and his steady, reassuring presence.

It didn’t take long for Y/N to fall asleep. The exhaustion of the evening—the terror, the violation, the long climb up three flights of stairs, the hot shower that had scrubbed her skin raw but couldn’t reach the places where the real dirt lived—finally caught up with her. Her head grew heavy, drooping forward and then found a natural resting place against Dex’s shoulder. Her breathing slowed, deepened, softened into the gentle rhythm of unconsciousness. Her face, which had been tight with unspoken pain and hidden fear, relaxed into something peaceful, almost childlike. It had been a long and very tiring evening, after all. The longest of her life, perhaps. And here, in the warmth of Dex’s apartment, wrapped in his blanket and his scent and his quiet, undemanding presence, she finally felt safe enough to let go.

Dex looked down at her sleeping face, and his expression shifted—melted, really—into something that no one had ever truly seen. Not Y/N, not his colleagues at the bureau, not anyone who thought they knew him. His eyes traced the delicate curve of her cheek with a slow, possessive reverence, following the flutter of her lashes where they rested against her skin, lingering on the soft, unconscious parting of her lips as she breathed. “You really are a dumb little puppy, aren’t you?” His voice was a whisper, barely a disturbance in the quiet air, meant for no one but himself and the unconscious woman draped against his shoulder. “Running right back to me after the maze.” A sinister glint sparked in his eyes—a cold, predatory light that transformed his handsome features into something else entirely. Something hungry. Something patient. Something that had been waiting a very, very long time.

Carefully, with the practiced ease of a man accustomed to moving without waking, he pulled her fully into his lap. She needed to stay asleep. After all, she hadn't yet drunk the tea he always made her before he did anything. It was a ritual now, one she never suspected—every single time, she would accept the warm cup from his hands, drink it down without question and drift off into a deep, pliable slumber, leaving her completely unaware of the hours that followed in her bed. Dex did prefer her awake and responsive— he liked the fire in her, the way she squirmed and whimpered and reacted to every touch. But for now, he would take what he could get. At least for tonight.

His fingers rose and traced the line of her cheek, featherlight, barely grazing the surface of her skin. Then they drifted lower, following the elegant column of her neck and pausing at the hollow of her throat, where her pulse beat slow and steady beneath his fingertips. Lower still, until his hand found the soft swell of her breast through the thin fabric of his borrowed shirt. “So sweet,” he murmured, his fingers circling her nipple with a lazy, knowing touch. It pebbled instantly under his attention, the sensitive flesh tightening just as he had expected, just as it always did, “So trusting.” There was wonder in his voice and satisfaction and something darker—something that had no name in any language she would recognize.

His hand slipped a little lower, toying with the loose waistband of the sweatpants she wore. They hung large on her frame, the fabric gaping enough that he could have easily slipped his hand inside without resistance. But he abstained. She’d had enough for one day and he was a patient man. Instead, his palm glided over the fabric, hovering just above the warmth of her sweet cunt, separated by nothing more than a thin layer of cotton. His mind wandered, as it often did, to what awaited him there. If her mouth had felt so exquisite—so hot and tight and willing—how much better would her plush walls feel when he finally buried himself inside her? How sweet would she sound when he filled her completely? Y/N shifted in her sleep, a small, involuntary whine escaping her lips as if she could sense the weight of his thoughts. Dex smiled to himself. One of the things he loved most about her was just how responsive she was, even now. Nothing compared to feeling her squirm beneath him when she was fully conscious, but even under the heavy veil of the tea, her body remained warm and innately attuned to his touch.

He brought his hand back up to her face, his thumb coming to rest against her bottom lip. It was still swollen, still slightly reddened, bearing the marks of everything that had been done to her in the mirror maze. He caressed the tender flesh with a gentleness that was almost reverent, feeling its warmth, its softness, the slight roughness where she had bitten down to keep from crying out.  A fleeting thought crossed his mind—he still needed to retrieve the pair of panties he had torn from her body in the maze, the ones currently sitting in the pocket of his suit in the back of his car. A trophy for the collection.

His gaze lifted, moving across the room to where Lord Snuggleton sat on the armchair opposite the couch. The stuffed rabbit’s beady black eyes seemed to stare back at him, empty and unblinking, its floppy ears and stitched smile frozen in perpetual, helpless cheerfulness. Dex smirked at it—a slow, knowing curl of his lips—as if the rabbit recognized the horror of the truth but could do nothing to save its master. As if they shared a secret, him and this inanimate witness, a joke that only one of them could appreciate. 

He leaned in, closing the small distance between them and pressed the softest, most tender kiss to her sleeping lips. It was barely a brush of contact, a whisper of warmth, the kind of kiss a lover might give in the quiet hours of the night when they thought no one was watching. “You don’t need to worry your pretty little head anymore, doll,” he breathed against her mouth, the words a promise and a threat wrapped in the same silken tone. “I’ll take such good care of you.” His lips curved into a smile against hers and then he pulled back, settling more comfortably into the couch, letting her sleeping weight rest on him. His arm came up to wrap around her shoulders, holding her close, keeping her warm, keeping her his. The sinister glint in his eyes softened into something that might have been mistaken for affection by anyone who didn’t know better. And there, in the quiet of his apartment, with the city humming distantly beyond the windows and the woman he had been hunting sleeping peacefully against his chest, Dex allowed himself a moment of pure, uncomplicated satisfaction. Everything was going exactly according to plan.

╰ ┈➤ A/n: Part of a larger AU and maybe one day I’ll write the somno fic for this. Lemme know if you’d wanna read it. Update: posted here.

╰ ┈➤ Masterlist

╰ ┈➤ Tags: @joekitsu

© cheriecelestial - arabelle | 2026

The whole space is immersed in silence - or as silent as living in a city like New York can be, traffic sounds muffled down by the windows and the distant cry of a baby a few doors down the hall.

But the apartment itself is quiet. 

That’s a good sign, he thinks as he carefully sets his work bag in its respective place by the door and neatly sets the keys in the wall hook. That’s a good sign, he thinks as he makes his way to the bedroom and yet his skin prickles with anxiety. 

With a hand hovering just over the knob, Dex hesitates. 

His heart accelerates, thrumming against his ribcage as if attempting to escape. The buzzing in his head overwhelms him and Dex stumbles a step back, trying really hard to push away the thoughts that threaten to swallow him whole. 

Breathe in and breathe out.

Closing his eyes, Dex works on his breathing, focusing on the slow exhale of air, mimicking the breathing exercise doctor Mercer taught him. He can do this. He’s dealt with much worse. He can do this.

He can do this.

With a twist of the knob, Dex lets himself inside the bedroom. 

The small room is enveloped in absolute darkness, the curtains tightly closed just like he left them this morning before leaving for work - the last thing he needs right now is for curious neighbours from across the building to peep into his apartment.  

His knee bumps hard against the leg of the bed and Dex lets out a small curse, now moving with more careful steps in the darkness. It takes nearly ten seconds for him to finally get to the bedside table. He flickers open the small lamp and as soon as his eyes adapt to the yellow brightness of the light, Dex turns his attention towards the small figure curled upon the bed’s edge and just like that, everything gets better. It works like magic every time.

The moment his eyes land on you, his mind calms down, the buzzing dissolving away into a serene quietness. 

You’re deep into slumber, closed eyes and features softened by sleep. Dex watches you with something that borders admiration, watching you sleep as always has been precious to him. 

Despite the dampness that clings to your eyelashes, proof of the tears you must’ve shed a few hours or a few minutes ago, there’s a serene expression in your face. A gentle peace that has been lacking for the past few days.

Dex hesitates for a brief moment before he crouches down and brushes the hair away from your cheek.

His touch receives no reaction - no terrified flinch, no scared grimace - and Dex feels lighter, both in soul and body. With the back of his fingers, Dex gently strokes your cheek, feeling the soft skin under his stiff touch. A soft smile slowly creeps up to his lips and for a minuscule moment, his mind flees at how nice it would be if things were always like this, unrushed and peaceful.

Dex wants this moment to last forever. 

But of course, all good things must end - particularly soon when he is involved. So distracted marveling at the softness of your cheek, Dex is caught off guard when he realizes that your eyes are wide open, fear quickly pooling in them.

 Fuck!

He immediately snatches his hand away and stands up. 

“You were sleeping. I was just… the hair on your face.” he blurts out, as if whatever excuse is gonna magically erase the fact that you just woke up with his hands all over you. Great. Now in addition to kidnapper, you’re also gonna think he’s a pervert.

Just what he needed right now.

You look away from him mid-sentence and squirm, wincing a moment later when you’re pulled back by the cuffs latched onto your feet.

Right, he almost forgot about them. Dex takes that as his cue to remove the bindings keeping you in bed.

“Here, let me just- ” 

He reaches over, carefully as to avoid touching you too much, and begins to loosen up the cuffs keeping your feet chained to the bed and the belt from around your wrists. Your wrists are left indented and the skin irritated by the belt that was tightly clasped around them. 

You don’t move for a few moments, body too numb and weak from the countless hours you spend in bed with close to zero mobility, bound and chained to make sure you’re not running to the door the moment you get a chance.

Dex watches you wince before pulling at the cloth tied around your head, a weak substitute for a gag; just a precaution in case you remember to start hollering for help while he’s away at work. 

With a snail’s pace, you move to sit at the edge of the bed, breathing heavily as Dex expectantly stands to the side like a shadow. 

Dex opens his mouth to say something, maybe ask a stupid question ‘are you alright?’ but before he can even get a word out, you’re standing up with unsteady feet and limping your way to the en-suite bathroom without so much as glancing at him. 

His feet follow you on instinct, but the door that slams hard on its hinges stops him from going any further. The lock aggressively clicks into place, a repulsive sound that echoes in his head like a gunshot. 

Dex has to take a deep breath to ease up the impulse of putting his fist through the door. 

–

Your stomach growls as you eat the pizza slice.

It’s still warm, laced with extra cheese and tasting absolutely divine - although your opinion may be biased on the last part. Anything would taste delicious after a fast of nearly eight hours.

Dex - that’s what he called himself although you’re not too sure if you believe him - clearly isn’t prepared for the logistics that holding someone hostage involves because if he were, you wouldn’t be left to rot in bed the entire day without so much as a drop of water while he goes to work. For the past three days, you’ve been surviving solely on breakfast and dinner, without any snacks or lunch throughout the day.

The arrangement sucks, always leaving you with a mouth drier than the desert and with a stomach ache that doesn’t fully go away even after finally eating. 

Dex tries not to make it obvious that he’s looking at you, while chewing his own slice.

Seated right next to you on the small dinner table, he’s much closer than you'd prefer, his arm nearly touching yours every time he moves. The living room’s light shines on his face in a particular way, revealing the small patches of silver on the sides of his short brown hair, and the sharp angles of his face. There’s a small dimple in his chin and he’s clean shaved. Albeit tired, he looks… normal.

A normal-looking guy, living in a normal apartment with a normal life. But looks are often deceiving, aren’t they?

It’s not hard to understand that he has issues. Serious ones, the type that could easily secure him a place in a psychiatric facility - the assumption supported by the drawer full of meds you found in the bathroom cabinet the first night. 

In all honesty, you have a hard time understanding him. But so far Dex hasn’t done anything remotely weird to make you feel like you’re about to get jumped at and you’re grateful for that. He’s been polite enough to let you use the bathroom unsupervised and his eyes never linger towards where they shouldn’t. His hand hasn’t been raised against you and no explicit threats have been hissed your way. It’s almost like you’re roommates, of sorts. 

But the positive aspects don’t outweigh the negative ones nor do they alter the fact that he has kidnapped you and is currently holding you hostage.

He lies as well because you have serious doubts about him being an FBI agent, like he said that one time. The badge that is usually perched on his belt could very much be a fake and the gun on the holster an illegal one. 

You distractedly glance at him and for a moment, your eyes meet. 

You regret the eye contact as soon as it happens because Dex immediately takes that as a sign to strike a conversation. 

“How’s the pizza?” he eagerly asks, “It’s the same one you always ask for.” He’s right, it is the same pizza with the exact same ingredients you tend to order for yourself on a regular basis.

While this shouldn’t shock you, considering Dex has reluctantly admitted to following you around for weeks, you still can’t shake off how creepy it is for him to know the exact specifications of the food you find comfort in eating.

What else does he know about you that he shouldn’t know? What else has he seen about you that he shouldn’t have?

Your stomach answers for you, letting out an absurdly loud groan. 

“It’s fine.” your voice comes out hoarse and weird, not a surprise given this is the first time in the whole day you’re using it.

When you grab the glass of water in front of you, his hazel eyes flit over to your wrists and the marks engraved into the skin from how deep his belt dug in, the skin itchy and red. 

“I’m sorry ‘bout that.” Dex lowers his head, “Didn’t mean to tie them so hard. I’ll… I’m gonna find something better for your hands.” 

“Or maybe you could just not use them.” 

Your voice is low, barely above a whisper but Dex catches them anyways. He shifts in the seat, a wrinkle settling in between his brows. 

“Maybe one day. In the future.” he says.

“Why not now?” you press him. “You don’t trust me?”

“I do.” 

He doesn’t.

You know he doesn’t. Both of you know that. And he’s right not to because you’re bolting out of the door the moment you get a decent chance.

“I do. I trust you.” he repeats, this time with more conviction. He leans closer to you and you do your best not to push yourself off the chair and walk away. “I trust you more than you know.”

“But not enough to let me out of the bindings, right.”

He swallows hard, shaking his head. “It’s complicated.”

“Right.” you sigh, tearing your eyes away from him and back to the food. 

Dex sighs your name, slumping back on the chair. “I know this might be hard to believe in but this isn’t what I want either. It’s really not. I don’t want to keep you all cooped up like you’re a prisoner. You’re not one, anyways.”

He rubs his face with one hand, jaw set tightly. Your eyes notice the thickness of his arm, the subtle but defined muscle stretching underneath the shirt. An FBI agent, he said, a former army soldier too.   

“I just can’t take risks right now. Not until… we figure things out. I know this arrangement, if we can call it that, isn’t the most beneficial for you. But I need you. I need your help.”

You freeze, hand stopping mid-air with the remainder of the pizza slice. 

“My help?”

Dex nods, nudging his chair closer. His cheek ticks for a moment as he gathers his thoughts. 

“Yeah, I… how can I put this.” he breathes in deeply. One of his hands reaches forward, nervously fidgeting with the edge of the table. 

“I’ve seen the way you are around people. You feed the homeless. Help blind people cross the street. Bake cookies for your elderly neighbour.” his own lips curl into a smile at that, “You’re kind to people even if you don’t have to be. You listen to them and show them compassion. That’s… that’s something I really need in my life.” 

The confusion you feel has your thoughts scattering all over your mind. He thinks you’re kind. How is that enough reason to kidnap someone?

“I don’t understand…” you say, brows raised. 

Dex presses his lips together, rolling his shoulders tensely. “Being kind, compassionate like you are… it doesn’t come easy to me. Never has, not even back when I was a kid. So I do the second best thing and try to pretend it. It’s what I’ve been doing my whole life, pretend like I care about the good and the bad and hide who I really am.”

You hesitate, before asking. “And who is that? Who you really are.” 

His fingers still and when Dex answers, it’s with a shadow obscuring his face, his eyes focused on some distant point beyond the wall. 

“Someone who has killed before.” 

Your blood runs cold. Maybe you had a suspicion that there was something deeply wrong with him, but for him to admit it loudly is a whole new thing. 

“It’s part of why I joined the bureau and the army before that.” he reveals, with a cold voice and a hardness in his face. “I get to kill without feeling bad for it. It’s part of the job now, strictly professional and nothing personal about it but it fulfills more than what duty calls for. It scratches that itch that never really goes away.”

You swallow dryly, the knot in your throat refusing to go down. 

The fear and shock that flood you are hard to push down but you quickly mask them when Dex glances back at you. He visibly swallows, slightly shaking his head. 

“I’m sorry.” he apologizes, “I know this isn’t what you want to hear right now. But I promise that you’re safe. I’m not going to hurt you, I would never do that to you.”

Right. His words fail to reassure you after what he has just revealed, but you pretend otherwise. Maybe if Dex thinks you believe him then his guard will be lowered. 

“I’m aware that it’s wrong, I know that. But I just… I can’t help it, sometimes.” he swallows, fingers twitching. “I’m trying to do better. Trying to steer into the right path. That’s why I need you, I need your help.”

“Me?” you mumble, completely lost. 

Dex doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he stares, focusing on you with an intensity that makes your skin prickle. 

“I do better when there’s a North Star to guide me.” 

–

A small, muffled sniff comes from inside the room, bed gently creaking as you adjust yourself. With an arm half-bent beneath his head, Dex stares at the ceiling. It’s nearly midnight and he has an early day tomorrow but sleep evades him. 

The couch is stiff under him, much too short to comfortably accommodate all of him but Dex doesn’t complain, he’s slept in much worse places before.

Compared to sleeping on the hard floor, no pillow or blankets, stones and dirt digging into his back with the obnoxious snoring of fellow army soldiers ringing in his ears, this is far from unpleasant. Especially with you sleeping just around the corner. 

The apartment is small enough that the couch sits just outside the bedroom and with the door wide open, Dex can hear the sound of your breathing. You’re awake, he gets that from the way your breathing keeps changing every now and then, the soft clink of the metal cuff on your feet as you shift once in a while, trying to get comfortable. 

His mind is calm now, no incessant buzzing or relentless thoughts.

It keeps drifting towards you instead. Details cling to him such as the way you smelled like him when you came out of the shower, having used what he owns - his soap, his shampoo, his moisturizer, his lotion. Even his clothes. With wet hair and dressed in his clothes, you looked like a dream.

He tried to not ogle much at the freshly moisturized, shiny skin of your legs; tried not to let his hands wander too much when closing the cuff around your ankle and securing the other end to the bed’s metal structure.

The small scowl on your face didn’t go unnoticed by him and part of him gets it. Sleeping cuffed to the bed can’t be easy and you deserve to be treated like a princess, not like a prisoner but Dex’s hands are tied for the moment being.

Giving you too much freedom when things are still slowly building between you two can be dangerous. He wishes things weren’t this way but right now he can’t afford to give you that amount of leeway. 

In theory Dex knows that what he’s doing is bad. Really bad. 

He has full conscience that this is far from healthy .

That what he’s doing falls on the exact opposite side of the spectrum of what he and doctor Mercer agreed he should do to keep him in the straight, narrow path and that if she were alive today, she’d be horrified at what he’s done. Kidnapping his North Star.

That sure would make her reconsider everything about him. Holding onto a good person isn’t the same as making one hostage and definitely not what she had suggested, not even in the slightest, before passing away.

If doctor Mercer was here, she’d be disappointed beyond measure and she’d force Dex to release you, to let you return back into your life. 

He supposes it’s a good thing that she’s dead. Because Dex isn’t sure he could give you up without a fight. You mean so much to him, more than you could ever know and enough for him to refuse allowing you the chance to just walk away like he means nothing. 

Everyone in his life - every single person - has abandoned him. Left him to fend for himself in the dark solitude of his mind, of the buzzing thoughts that plague him day and night. Dex refuses to let you do the same.

You’re good, kind and sweet. You’re the missing piece of the puzzle, the solution to his problems. You’re gonna help him get back on the right track, even if you aren’t sure about him.

You didn’t lash out at him after everything he revealed during dinner. You didn’t scream or call him a monster or push him away. No, you just sat there and patiently listened to him. Tried to understand him. Told him that you’d try to help him. 

He smiles, hope fluttering in his chest. 

So long as he has you, everything will be alright. 

–

Your stomach lets out a soft growl. 

Judging from the bright sunlight filtered out by the closed curtains and from how badly the pit in your stomach is starting to feel, it’s around lunch time. Not that it matters, you won’t be getting any food even if you want to. Not in your current position. 

You let out a sigh and move your head around, trying to find a better position.

By the end of week, you’ll be surprised if the bed doesn’t show a permanent dent shaped to your body given it’s where the majority of your days and nights are spent. 

Dex did follow through with his word and found some handcuffs this morning to use around your wrists instead of the circulation-cutting belt. The cuffs are nicer, looser than the belt, but still offering little to no opportunity to evade them. 

The more you think about it, the more helpless you feel. You have no plan, debunking each and every one given their potential of failure but mostly due to fear. Every time you begin to craft an escape plan, hesitation has you faltering. 

So far Dex has been nothing less than an exemplary kidnapper… what happens if you get caught trying to escape? The words from the other night are still bouncing around in your head, unwilling to let you forget who he truly is. 

Will he hurt you, or do worse, if you get caught - maybe as a lesson, maybe as a punishment or maybe because he wants to. You don’t want to find out what Dex can do and with your life on the thin line, reckless actions are what you can’t afford to do. 

Every single night, after Dex removes the chains, your body aches to act on the most basic survival instinct. Run. To lunge forward and reach for the door, to run down the hall and scream as loudly as you can.

Every night you fight against that impulse, nails digging into the palm of your hands every time Dex turns his back on you and the opportunity presents itself right there for you to seize.

Every night you have to control yourself, eyes flickering towards the door and adrenaline running through your veins. 

Think positive, is what you tell yourself.

A little hopeful voice whispers into your ear that maybe luck will be on your side and maybe you won’t have to do anything at all and that before you know it, the police will break down the apartment’s door and rescue you.

That’s one of the nice, comforting fantasies that keeps you entertained for a good amount of your days; distracted from the miserable turn your life has taken. 

The exhaustion you feel on a mental level adds up to the physical one. The tension accumulating in your body is hard to shake off, shoulders burning up at the uncomfortable position that allows your wrists to stay chained to the bed’s headboard. And you absolutely despise the sharp needling that occurs in your legs when you finally get to stand up. Ugh. 

Dex thinks you’re his North Star, someone kind enough to help him get into the right path. You genuinely don’t believe in it.

How are you supposed to help him? How can you possibly help him be a good person? For all you know, he might be lying to you, using some half-baked lie to get you to lower your guard. Maybe it’s a side-effect from the medicine he takes.

You don’t know, you genuinely don’t know. 

Closing your eyes, you inhale deeply. The music reaches the end and the announcer takes over, something about good weather these days.

Another song begins shortly after, some energetic tune you don't recognize. 

It was a nice gesture from Dex to leave the radio on. To keep company, he had said. And indeed it does keep you company although the radio station he tuned in keeps repeating the exact same playlist of old songs over and over again. But beggars can’t be choosers and you’re glad to at least have something to dull the static silence of your days. 

*knock* 

The sound startles you. 

For a moment you freeze, heart accelerating in your chest.  

You try listening in despite the interference of the radio that is still going on, the song playing on a low volume making it hard to listen properly. For the next few seconds nothing happens and your brain nearly convinces you to believe the door knock to be a product of your imagination. 

And then it happens again. 

Subtle and hard to listen to, but it’s definitely there. 

Without wasting another second, you scream as loudly as you can with the gag cloth around your mouth. Despite being laced with desperation, your voice comes out muffled down, the gag absorbing much of the sound and tears of frustration begin to build in your eyes. 

The cuffs securing your hands and feet rattle when you tug at them as aggressively as you possibly can with the hope that the clanking of metal can attract the attention of whoever is outside the apartment. 

Despite your best efforts, nothing happens.

There’s no more knocking on the door, no booming voice asking ‘is everything alright?’. 

Nothing. 

After excruciatingly long minutes, exhaustion wins and you give up, teary eyed and devastated. 

–

“Can I help? I don’t mind washing them.” you offer, eyeing the plates and silverware pilling on the sink.

Dinner is over and now it’s that weird time window where Dex handles chores while you just lurk around the apartment without any real purpose. Back in your apartment, this would be the time for you to pick the next day’s outfit and prepare your work bag while listening to your favorite podcast.

Here you don’t have any chores or obligations. No dishes to wash, no clothes to iron, no meal prep.

There’s nothing for you to do other than walk around in circles around the apartment and pretend you’re not counting the minutes until it’s bedtime and the cuffs are back on. 

“It’s okay. I got this.” Dex turns you down, rolling the sleeves of his white shirt up to his elbows and turning the faucet on. 

Your shoulders slump in the slightest as you awkwardly stand by the counter, watching the meticulous way in which Dex scrubs and re-scrubs every piece.

You were half-hoping to take advantage of a distraction moment to sneak away a knife. Or a fork. Anything sharp enough to be used as a weapon although to use under what circumstances, you’re not yet sure. You’re not sure of anything. 

Your nerves are rattling you on the inside tonight, the memory of the door knocking still lingering in your mind. Dex hasn’t mentioned anything about neighbours and you’re not stupid enough to bring it up. 

You don’t know what to do. All the ideas your brain conjures feel… risky. You can’t stop feeling scared, like one wrong move and you’re gonna mess everything up. If you attempt to escape, only to fail… 

Dex has blood on his hands, more out of pleasure than for his alleged job. Despite his promise, what guarantee is there that his hands won’t ever become stained with your blood?  

You nearly wince when Dex speaks, pulling you out of your thoughts. 

“Are you okay?” he asks, shutting off the faucet and drying his hands before turning towards you. “You look a little… I don’t know. Is something wrong?” 

Yes. Everything. Everything is wrong and it’s all his fault. 

Dex considers you with a little wrinkle between his brows. “Is it your wrists? I saw you touching them earlier. I can get something for them, if they are bothering you.”

You shake your head slowly. And then speak without meaning to, the words just slipping out of your mouth before you have the good sense of keeping them to yourself. 

“I need my phone.” 

You can tell the words takes Dex by surprise from the way he tenses up, shoulders straightening up. 

“Why don’t you sit down on the couch?” he stiffly suggests and then turns his back on you, opening and closing the kitchen drawers practically without looking at them too much. “I’ll make some of that tea you like so much.”

“I need to call my parents, Dex. They must be worried about me.”

“They know you’re fine. I already texted them on your behalf." Dex says, bumping against an open drawer with a hiss. “Said you’d be cutting back on phone time.”

A small incredulous sound escapes from your throat. 

“They won’t believe that.” you argue, crossing your arms. “We talk over the phone every week, sometimes even videocall. Please, Dex, just one phone call. I promise I won’t say or do anything suspicious. Please?”

Dex closes a drawer with enough force to rattle its contents. 

“We can talk about that later.” 

“Dex, c’mon, one call. Five minutes, on speaker. Please, it’s all I ask for.”

“Later.”

“Dex, please, just one-”

The knock on the door interrupts your argument. 

Both of you snap your heads towards the door and something twists inside you at the sound of voices in the hallway. But before you can even consider getting a word out of your mouth Dex moves with a speed so impressive that it startles you, cornering you against the counter with his palm firmly pressed against your lips. 

“Not a word.” he whispers, brown eyes focused on you intently. “Please.”

It’s suffocating to have him so close, body nearly molded to yours and trapping you against the counter, his breath fawning over your face and you can see every short, light-brown hair from his five o’clock  shadow. 

It’s only when you give a small nod that Dex finally looks away and turns his face to the door when another knock resonates and a chirpy female voice speaks. “Hello, Jehovah witnesses here. If we could just have a moment of your time…”

“Yeah, thanks but I’m not interested.” 

You glance at the door, eyes drawn to it like a moth to flame and heart thrumming at the fact that there are people on the other side of the door. People that might call the police if a commotion is heard… 

Almost as if tuned in to your mind, Dex glances at you and his remaining hand reaches for you with fingers slithering around your forearm, holding onto you firmly. 

“Oh, but sir, if you could open the door it would only take-”

“Not interested.” Dex loudly repeats, losing the polite tone from just moments ago. “Now get lost before I call the cops on you.”

Seconds drag by but the hand clamped over your mouth only slackens when the disappointed voices dim down into distance, footsteps scampering away from the apartment. 

Only when the coast is clear does Dex fully remove his hands from you, fingers brushing against your lips one last time and you let out a shaky exhale.

“Thank you.” Dex blurts, stepping aside and finally putting some space between you and you can see that the tips of his ears are blazing red. “For not….y’know. Making a scene.”

You nod, but can’t shake the nagging feeling in your chest that maybe you wasted an opportunity that might not appear again. 

–

It’s late when Dex comes back home the next night. 

That alone is enough to set alarms ringing in your head as Dex is never late. Punctuality is a trait of his, always adhering to consistnt routines and schedules.

It gets worse when you notice the heavy expression Dex wears, lips pressed into a tense line as he greets you. Something is off in the way he moves, tense limbs and a stiff spine. He tries to hide it, but the recoil that runs down his body when he bends down to release your cuffs and then again when he slams the radio’s off button reveals it. 

You slowly sit on the bed, rubbing your sore wrists and watching him storm into the bathroom. The sound of water running travels through the ajar door, but it's the pained hiss that catches your attention.

After a moment of pulling yourself together, you stand up and take small steps to the bathroom, supporting yourself using the wall as your legs slowly recover from a whole day of inactivity. 

Another distressed sound reaches your ears and you hesitate only for a brief second before pushing the door open. 

“Dex.” you call him, “Are you okay?” 

He’s hunched over the bathroom sink,  palms pressed against the small vanity and face hanging low between his shoulders. 

You can’t avoid the concern that prickles you when he turns around, face pale and dewy, looking more like a ghost than a human. Is he sick? 

“I’m fine.” Dex grits out and palms a hand through his face with a rough motion, cheeks hollowing as he exhales sharply. “Just give me a second.”

His face twists as he holds back a wince and this time his hand flies to press against his torso. You gasp when you catch sight of his ruined white shirt, horrified at the way the left side of the material is soaked in bright crimson. 

“Dex, you’re bleeding!”

“I’m okay, it’s nothing.” Dex rushes to say, one hand trying to hide the shirt with his coat but you’re faster than him and pull it away to get a clear view. 

“It doesn’t look like that.” you remark. “Let me see it.”

“You don’t have to, I told I’m-”

“Yes, you keep saying that. Just let me see, please.”

Dex sighs at the stubbornness you show but thankfully relents under the pressure, removing his coat and shirt while you attempt to help him.

When the shirt comes off of his body you freeze. There’s an injury on the side of his stomach, the skin torn and raw, blood trickling out of the wound.

Dex curses when he looks down and then glances at you.

“It was work.” he explains, “FBI had a raid today and this guy had a gun. The bullet grazed me for a second. I’m fine, really, I’ll put some bandages on and  get dinner started.” Dex tries to step aside but you get in his way. 

“Forget dinner, what you need is to go to a hospital.”

His answer comes quickly as lightning. “No.”

“Dex.” you cross your arms, incredulous. 

“I’m fine.”

“You got shot at, you definitely aren’t fine. That looks like it needs stitches.”

“I’ll survive.”

You shake your head, biting your lip. Maybe later when you’re back to being cuffed to the bed and spending your days rooting in bed you’ll regret this, but right now the humanity inside you refuses to let this go. 

“Let me help you.” you propose, “You don’t wanna see a doctor, fine. Let me do it instead. I once did a first-aid workshop for work, I know the basics. I can help.”

Dex looks at you, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand and not looking entirely convinced with your suggestion. You sniff, glancing at the blood that now trails down to his waist, staining the top of his pants. God, you’ve never liked the sight of blood. 

“The other night you told me you watched me help people. You also said that I’m here because you need me and my help. My kindness, right?” you start, taking a step towards him with the back of your neck burning as Dex holds on to every word you say like it’s the gospel.

“Then don’t shut me out now, Dex. You’re not alone in this. Let me help you, okay? Let me show you kindness. Let me take care of that wound. Please.” 

You watch Dex gulp, Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows like it’s the hardest thing in the world. You know the words hit the right spot when at last he nods with a small, shaky movement of his head. “Okay…”

The next forty minutes are spent in mental agony of blood smearing and dripping everywhere - and you mean absolutely everywhere: your hands, your clothes, the counter, the floor - as you do your best cleaning the gunshot wound and then having to steady yourself while holding a sterilized needle in your trembling fingers to sew up the split skin back together as Dex guides you through it, with his medical training from back at Quantico.

He is surprisingly calm as you sew him up at the best of your abilities, gripping the counter so hard his knuckles become pale, exhaling through clenched teeth. 

It’s only when you’re patting down a bandage over the stitches that it dawns on you how close you are to Dex, on your knees with face nearly pressed up against his bare torso.

The realization of the position’s intimacy suddenly has your heart racing and when you glance up, you find yourself to be the center of Dex’s attention.

He doesn’t look away when your eyes meet and his intense stare is penetrating enough to have shivers run down your spine and you freeze when his hand reaches for your cheek, thumb gently rubbing against your cheekbone. 

“Thank you.”

–

You’re folding one of Dex’s shirts when he speaks. 

“I bought some brownies, the ones with the caramel filling. From that bakery you like so much.” 

Spinning your face around, you glance at Dex, hiding your confusion with a smile. “Oh, thanks, Dex. That’s… really sweet.” 

The corner of his lips curl into a smile as he looks at you, stirring the pot of pasta that is meant to be your lunch without breaking eye contact. “Yeah, I know how much you like those things.”

The silence hangs awkwardly in the air when you turn around, focusing back on the small mountain of warm clothes fresh from the dryer waiting for their turn.

It’s a nice distraction from the boredom of having nothing to do, simple enough for you to handle and harmless enough for Dex to trust you with. That’s part of why you like the weekends so much. With Dex around the apartment the entire day, except when he’s running errands, you get to stay free of the cuffs and the bed.

Even if he’s looming and hovering over you at all times, like he’s unable to let you out of his sight at the risk of losing you in the minuscule apartment. 

As the days morph into weeks, things have started to change and you’re not sure if you like the shift.

Something changed that night you patched up Dex, though you can’t exactly put your finger on it. Since then, you’ve lost count of how many occasions you’ve catched him staring at you, when you’re drying the dishes or helping him vacuum the apartment. His eyes often find you even while he’s doing chores around the house, fingers finding excuses to brush against you and it’s beginning to bother you.

The lingering touches, the fixated gaze, the nice gestures, it’s all starting to make you uneasy. Despite how much you attempt to brush it off, you can’t avoid feeling a romantic undertone in his demeanour.

You wonder how truthful were his words when he said he needed your guidance and how much of that was a lie. And while maybe Dex has forgotten the nature of your relationship, you haven’t. Not for one second.

You know all about Stockholm syndrome and you have zero intention of falling for that bullshit. 

It’s only after lunch is over, when Dex takes out the small paper bag of brownies from the fridge and brings them over to the table, that you remember them. 

He takes out one of the pieces, chocolate sprinkled on top, and offers it to you. “Wanna do the honors?”

You stare at it.

“Maybe later. I’m full right now.” you lie. 

“C’mon, one small bite.” Dex insists, but you shake your head. You really don’t feel like playing into whatever fantasy he has. 

“Really I’m-”

“One bite.”

Dex opts to ignore your excuses and the chocolate delicacy is insistently pressed against your mouth, leaving you no choice other than to part your lips and begrudgingly take a small bite from the brownie.

Only then does Dex pull his hand away, watching you chew on the food. A dimple appears in his cheek, his eyes dropping to follow the movements of your lips.

Before you can wipe your mouth clean, his fingers brush against your lips, pulling away a dark crumb left behind. A knot curls tighter in your stomach when he pops his fingers into his mouth, tasting your leftover crumb with a hum. 

“Tastes delicious.” he nods, shoving the rest of the brownie into his mouth. “Knew you had good taste.”

You force out a smile. “Thank you.”

“Maybe next time we can try making these at home.” he suggests and your hands clench at the word he uses. Home. This isn’t your home. “Homemade is always better and you’ve always been good at baking, I’d love to try something of yours.”

“Yeah, sure. Whenever you want.” Maybe by then you’ll find some laxatives to slip into the food. 

You grab your glass and gulp down the water. Dex folds the paper bag with the brownies inside and stops you from grabbing your plate, taking it in his hands. His fingers brush against yours.  

“s‘okay, I got this.” 

“Thanks.”

Dex smiles. “Anything for you.”

–

There’s a rotten feeling taking root in Dex’s mind. 

He sets the paper sheet on the table in front of you before claiming the seat next to you. Your fingers immediately hold onto the paper, lip pulled between your teeth as you consider the words that are probably memorized by now. He insisted on practicing for an entire hour before finally pulling your phone from his pocket but even with your insistent promises, insecurity still gnaws at his mind. 

“Just stick to the script.” Dex repeats for the fourth time in less than a minute, “Stay calm, don’t say anything you normally wouldn’t say. And if they ask-”

“I’m just taking a break from technology. Yes, I know. We’ve been over this.” there’s a slight edge in your voice and that has Dex jittering his leg in an anxious bounce. 

“Okay.” he nods, dragging the moment for as long as he can. “Let’s get this over with then.”

Dex unlocks your phone and goes through your contacts, absolutely despising the long list of friends and family he has to scroll through til he gets to your mom’s number. 

The tense grip Dex has on your phone grows tighter by the second as the call rings. 

He’s not happy about this.

If he could have it his way, your phone would be hammered down and its pieces scattered in the bottom of a garbage dumpster. But that would undoubtedly cause you distress and Dex doesn’t want to see you upset. Especially after everything you’ve done for him. Not just the fact that you patched him up that other night or that you haven’t tried to escape in all these days you’ve been a ‘guest’ in his home, but your presence alone is enough to give him a sense of peace that usually escapes him.

You keep him sane. You make him be better. With you around, he feels less… lonely. He’s not alone anymore, you said so the other day, didn’t you. He’s got you now and you fill the void inside him with your warmth and kindness. You’ve been so kind and good and sweet and no one’s ever been like that to him. 

So he supposes that after everything you’ve done for him, a short two-minute phone call with your parents following a pre-prepared script is a small gesture of gratitude he can give you.

But that doesn’t mean his nerves aren’t burning him on the inside, an intrusive thought telling him to just crush the phone with his bare hands, throw that piece of shit through the window before someone answers on the other side of the line and be done with all of this. You don’t need to talk to your parents, you don’t need to talk to anyone other than him-

He stops himself before he gets too worked up. He can’t do that. He can’t be cruel to you, not after giving you hope. You’d be beyond disappointed and upset and then you’d definitely hate him for giving you false hope.

Dex wants to do better for you and that starts with this. 

But that doesn’t stop a frown from twisting his features, something ugly threatens to come out of his chest as he watches the genuine smile growing on your face at the sound of your mother’s voice. 

“Mom! Yeah, I’m doing fine. Just busy and….” 

Dex tenses up, fingers picking at the material of his pants, listening intently to every word that you say.

You don’t steep out of line, don’t say anything remotely suspicious or let your voice waver. You’re a good actress and don’t crumble under the pressure, which comes handy for this moment. 

Dex trusts you, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be tempted into taking your chances. You’re only human, same as he is. 

The numbers on the screen keep on increasing and Dex impatiently waits until it marks exactly two minutes and then signals you. That’s your cue to finish up the call.

Your shoulders slump and annoyance fills your face but you oblige. 

“...tell dad I love him. I have to go now, mom. Love you too-”

Dex thumbs the red across the screen and finishes the call as soon as you’re done with your goodbyes. The chair scrapes the floor as you get up on your feet and storm off to the bedroom, the bathroom door slamming shut a second later. 

Dex waits exactly one minute before he retraces your steps, making a small detour to turn off your phone and place it inside the safe in his closet.

His knuckles rasp against the bathroom door and he doesn’t wait for an answer before pushing the door open. He freezes at the sight of you leaning against the counter with watery eyes and you sniff, quickly cleaning your cheeks. 

“Hey. Everything alright?”

“Uh uh. I just miss them, is all.” you justify your reaction with a weak smile that doesn’t reach your eyes. 

“I’m sorry. That sounds… hard. Really hard.” 

Dex reaches for you and you move away, the smile fainting away from your face. 

“I just need a minute alone, Dex.”

“If you wanna talk about this-”

“I said I need a minute.” your voice rises and Dex frowns at that. You’ve never used that tone with him before.

He slowly walks out of the bathroom, the door shutting behind him with a harsh sound. He walks back to the living room like he’s in a trance. Pulling out a chair, he stiffly sits on the table with his hands crossed in front of him. 

Two minutes.

Two fucking minutes.

That’s all it took for someone else to steal your attention away from him and that’s all because of him. It’s his fault. He allows you a taste of freedom, offers you a good deed and now you’re pulling away. You’re shutting him out. Like he’s nothing. Like he means nothing to you. His hands clench at the unbearable thought.  

Things were finally starting to work out between you two and now this happens. He tries to be good, for once, and this is what he gets.

It’s his fault. It’s all his fault. Isn’t it always?

He always messes up and maybe that’s why no one ever stays around him, because he’s never enough for anyone. Everything about him is broken, unfixable and fucked up beyond repair.

He’s a fuck up. 

Time passes. Seconds, minutes. Maybe hours, he’s not sure. 

It feels like an eternity later when he’s pulled out of the buzzing that had taken over his mind with a gentle tapping on his shoulder.

It’s you, standing with eyes dried up and an apologetic expression. Dex stands up so fast he nearly knocks into you and his hand flies to your forearm to keep you from tumbling. 

“Shit, sorry.”

“No, it’s… I’m the one who has to apologize.” you sigh, lips pressed together. “I’m sorry about earlier, I didn’t mean to sound… ungrateful or something like that.”

The pressure in Dex’s chest eases up, like a heavy weight has been lifted from him. “You don’t have to apologize.” he forgives you right away because how can he not when you’re looking up to him with those pretty eyes of yours, giving him all of your undivided attention. “I could never be mad at you, I mean you… you’ve done so much for me. You’re very special to me, I don’t think you realize just how much.”

He notices the way you squirm and how your eyes flit down to the grip Dex has yet to let go off, but he makes no move to remove his hand. If anything his fingers tighten around your arm, pulling you closer. 

“Dex…”

“You’re the most important person in my life.”

Your eyes widen when he brings his other hand up to your face, cupping your cheek in his hand.

You nervously gulp and he can’t help but glance at your parted lips, slightly glowy from the lip balm he bought you a few days before you could ask for it. Same brand, same flavor you always used. 

“All this time you’ve been so good to me, no one’s ever been this kind to me before. You make it all better and you don’t even have to try.” he leans closer, a heartfelt smile breaking through. “You make this apartment feel like the home I never had and you make me so damn happy. My whole life, there was something missing and now it finally feels like I found that missing piece.”

“You mean the world to me. And I…. I love you.” he abruptly confesses and your eyes start getting teary again. Happy tears. 

Dex captures your lips with his and suddenly everything clicks into place, everything makes sense. You belong together. You’re every thought that consumes his mind, you’re everything he can feel, everything he can touch.

Pretty and so damn delicate in his arms, you’re all he needs. 

Not just his North Star, but you also own his heart, his mind, his body, his everything. 

You’re his. 

–

“Sweetheart?”

The knock on the door startles you.

Not even five minutes in the bathroom and Dex is already acting like you’ve been apart for hours. God, he has given the word clingy a whole different meaning after everything that went down the other night.

He’s been breathing down your neck ever since he kissed you and now you’re stuck playing along with his fantasy, acting as though you share his feelings and love him back.

Your suspicions were right all along. Dex is a liar.

The whole moral compass dilemma, the North Star thing, the keeping him on the right track, it was all one big lie and you’re so stupid because you should’ve seen that from the beginning. 

It feels like one of those insane dreams that have you waking up in the morning, feeling more exhausted than rested, where logic doesn’t exist and nothing makes sense. How the hell did you even end up in this situation, playing house with your kidnapper?

It’s only been three days since that happened and you still can’t wrap your mind around Dex’s confession and everything it involves.

You need a way out. Immediately. How many days until his hormones dictate him to do more?

While his newly proclaimed affection has granted you some benefits - you don’t need your hands cuffed to the bed anymore, which has been a relief for your chaffed wrists and sore shoulders - it doesn’t go without a few sacrifices on your behalf. For now, Dex is settling with kisses that don’t go beyond pecking on the lips and clumsy hugs, but how long until he decides that’s not enough?

The way he hesitates every night around the bed, kissing you goodnight with eyes fleeting to the spot next to you. How his hands sweep the entire expanse of your back and then back up when he hugs  you. You’re not stupid, you know how men are and what they want and in the present moment, you are very much stuck with one.

Dex is a ticking bomb and you’re at risk of being collateral damage. 

The knob rattling has you holding back a sigh. Still, you take your sweet time in washing your hands and drying them. Why must you hurry when you have to be around Dex all day?

When you finally come out, Dex has his back to you while standing by the window, phone to his ear and speaking in hushes. 

“... I’m off duty today, I told you. No, I can’t-” he hisses, hand on his hip as he looks outside. “Damnit, Ray, fine. Just drop the files and I’ll take a look at them. You know my apartment block, I’ll meet you downstairs.”

You wait until he’s finished with the call before making a show out of closing the bathroom door with an audible click. Dex immediately swirls around, shoving his phone in the back pocket of his pants and away from your sight, irritation vanishing from his face.

You barely get one step in his direction before he beats you to it, rushing across the room to meet you and you have to physically hold back a wince when his hands reach for you and he leans forward to peck at your lips.

He’s getting a lot more comfortable around you than you are with him, touching and kissing you and frankly, you’re not certain if he genuinely enjoys the affection or if he’s just reminding you that you’re still stuck playing house with him.  

“You okay?” he asks, “You spent a lot of time in there. Was getting worried.” 

His comment brushes you in the wrong way.

Dex’s attention to details sometimes borders on obsessive vigilance and the way he notices every detail about you, no matter how small and insignificant, feels like a violation of your privacy. Sure, the apartment is small and crowded, but you get the feeling Dex specifically monitors every action you take and finds satisfaction in doing so. Maybe control issues.  

“My head is feeling a little heavy, actually.” you lie, figuring you can dodge Dex for the better part of the afternoon. “Think I might lay down for a while.” 

The price you pay for such a small lie involves enduring with tremendous patience as Dex fusses and hovers over you as he gets you in bed, arranging and rearranging the blanket several times and having to refuse his offer of painkillers at least six times.

His hand caresses your head and it’s only when you close your eyes and pretend to fall asleep that he finally leaves you be, with a soft ‘rest well’ and a kiss to your forehead before quietly slipping out of the bedroom. At least he doesn’t put the cuff around your feet, a small comfort. The door doesn’t close all the way and so, you listen to the quiet clinking of glasses and metal as he works around the kitchen, drying them off as he always does after lunch. 

Minutes are slow to pass and you nearly doze off until the chiming of a phone brings you back to consciousness. 

“... yeah, I’m coming downstairs. Wait up.” Dex irritatedly hisses. The apartment door opens and keys clank before the door slams shut. 

Your ears twitch at the complete silence that submerges the apartment and it takes you a solid moment to understand that Dex stepped outside the apartment.

With your heart pounding in your ribcage, you push yourself off the bed and hesitantly peek into the living room.

He’s not there or in the kitchen.

He actually left the apartment without cuffing you.

You can’t believe it. An incredulous chuckle escapes you, but it quickly dies down when you run for the door only to find it locked from the outside. That’s not good, you need to leave now. Time is running out because Dex surely won’t be gone for long, you heard him on the phone.

The emergency stairs are the only option left so you sprint towards them, knocking your elbow against the wall in your haste. 

You waste precious time fumbling with the complicated lock but eventually manage to figure out how to open the living room window and push it all the way up, wincing when scraping your knees in the sill while getting out. Ouch. You’re so rusty you can’t even move straight. 

The cold wind blowing strongly has you freezing the moment you find yourself outside for the first time in weeks, goosebumps erupting all over your body as your lungs fill out with fresh air and you nearly tear up at the freedom of the moment, after so long of being held up in the four walls of Dex’s grim apartment, it feels surreal to be outside. 

The sound of the door shutting has your head snapping backwards, heart sinking. No, no, no. 

Dex is back inside, keys dangling as he locks the door.

Shit. You didn’t even hear the door opening. He hasn’t noticed you yet so maybe you can still… Your attempt to sneak down the stairs fails massively when the metal plate sharply creaks under your weight as soon as your bare feet touch the step. 

The moment processes like a slow motion frame of a movie and you watch with horror as Dex’s head snaps to the side, alerted by the sound as he takes notice of the open window and realizes that you’re standing on the emergency stairs like a deer caught in the headlights, instead of laying down in the bed he tucked you in, recovering from a headache.

The files in his hand carelessly drop to the floor, same as his keys, and the change in his expression is immediate and terrifying and it makes your blood run cold. 

He holds out one hand, taking one cautiously slow step towards the window. 

“It’s chilly outside, sweetheart, gonna catch a cold if you stay there.” he says with a normalcy that both confuses and scares you. “Why don’t you come back inside? It’s warmer here. C’mon.”

You don’t reply nor take your eyes off him, your grip over the handrail being the only thing keeping you steady.

You don’t run just yet, not just because Dex will easily catch up to you the moment you make a break for it, more because you’re scared down to your core. This whole situation is a ticking bomb and you’re just stalling - for what, you have no idea. 

Dex repeats your name like a warning, eyes narrowing when you go down one step and then another.

“Please. Just come back inside. Trust me, you don’t wanna do this, alright?” he pleads with a deep exhale, features twisting when you ignore him and his words in favor of descending one more step. “Come back and I promise we can just forget about this, act like it never happened. I promise, okay?”

Dex mirrors your movements, stepping forward just as slowly to keep you from evading his vision.

You don’t dare turn your back on him, terrified, but there’s no way you can reach the street if you keep this slow, hesitant rhythm. 

“Dex, please.” you gulp, blinking away tears that insist on clogging your eyes. Your voice wavers and you sniff. “I just wanna go home.”

“You are home, damnit.” Dex snaps. “This is our home, you and me, we belong together. Can’t you see that?” his jaw tightens, same as his hands. “After everything we’ve been through and you’re still… you still wanna abandon me. Just like everyone else. Yeah, well, I’m not letting you.”

The steel determination in his voice, the dangerous glint in his eyes is enough for your hands to turn clammy and sticky and you warily take another step down, heart thrumming in your chest when your foot nearly skips down that step.  

“Sweetheart. Not another step.” he growls, “Think this through, okay? You’re not leaving, we both know that. So, you can make things easier for both of us and come back inside on your own or we can do this the hard way, which none of us is gonna like. It’s your choice.”

His words may appear honest, but you know the truth behind them.

None of this was ever your choice. You didn’t choose this, didn’t choose him, didn’t choose to be his North Star or play whatever farce he’s been throwing at your eyes the whole time and yet here you are, forced to confront a situation you never imagined yourself in.

You’ve never really had a choice when it comes to Dex. 

All you know is that you can’t go back in there, living a mad man’s fantasy, caged in an apartment especially now that you’ve broken his delusions. Before your mind can fully process it, your legs make the decision for you. 

You spin around and take off down the stairs, feet slapping against the metal stairs as the muscles in your legs strain to keep up with the adrenaline that curses through your veins.

There’s clamour behind you, heavy steps resonating through the metal structure at an impressive speed and Dex shouts something you can’t quite understand but you don’t dare glance behind. 

The ground floor street gets closer the faster you run and there’s a hint of hope flourishing in your chest at the possibility of actually being able to reach freedom-

Something small collides against your back, harshly and with such a strength that it sends you tumbling forward, pain exploding in your vision when your forehead slams against the metal railing.

You crash and cry out when your knees land on the metal, one of your kneecaps ruthlessly bumping against one of the steps. There’s an agonizing hammering in your head and you go limp. Darkness takes over your mind but not before the dizzy, distant realization of being scooped up by firm arms.

–

"Fuck!"

A frightened sob escapes you as the tears overflow from your eyes and you push your knees to your chest and hide your face in the small space, though you find little comfort in the motion especially with the awkward stretch of the only hand cuffed Dex apparently remembered to cuff.

The painkillers somewhat helped with the pain that is splitting your head in two and the sharp throb in your left knee, but they do little to numb the blood-curdling fear that Dex’s erratic behavior is provoking in you.

Ever since you woke up, a while ago, it's been like this. 

There’s a trail of destruction in the bedroom, the contents of the bedside table scattered through the floor, broken and mutilated and you try not to stare at the fist-shaped holes decorating the wall.

The deafening sound of plates and glasses shattering against the kitchen floor makes you flinch, an animalistic holler following soon.

You don’t think Dex is upset. More like absolutely furious and livid and right now, you just want the floor to swallow you whole and make you disappear. There’s nothing you can do except to hope and pray his focus doesn’t turn towards you, even if you are the reason behind his violent crash out. 

You listen to him ravish and destroy the apartment for for what it feels like an eternity, objects violently crashing on the floor and his shouting bouncing off the walls until it progressively dwindles down. And then it finally ends. 

The silence feels oppressively quiet, in contrast to the loud destruction from moments ago, but it doesn’t make you feel any safer. Not that you’ve ever felt safe in this place.

The quietness feels dangerous in its own way but your energy drains quickly, exhaustion settling in after the events of the day. You close your eyes, intending only to rest for a few minutes if the pain allows you to do so.  

When you groggily blink your eyes open, you’re disoriented to find the entire room swarmed by the darkness of the night.

Only the small bedside lamp casts a dim, yellow light to the room and you nearly jump with fright at the tall figure looming by the bed’s edge.

It’s Dex, looking beyond miserable, messy up hair and red-rimmed eyes. He’s staring directly at you, vintage-looking headphones covering his ears as his unsettling focus remains on you, dark eyes clinging to you obsessively.

He looks somewhat calmer, despite appearing as pale as a ghost and the heavy breathing that shakes his bare chest and you only now do you notice how he’s only wearing his black shorts, his skin dewy with sweat.

Your eyes meet and Dex pulls the headphones away, throwing them onto the table. Weariness begins to grow in you when he climbs to the bed and reaches for you, your cuffs jingling as you try to back away from him. 

“Dex, I’m so sorry, please-” 

His lips crash against your with a vigor that sends him toppling you and you cry out when his weight presses you down, crushing you against the bed and putting awful pressure over your aching knee as your left leg gets trapped between his legs. 

Your hand, the only one who isn’t cuffed to the bed, flies to his chest and pushes against the humid skin but to no avail, Dex has always been stronger than what he looks like. His hands cradle your head with a tight hold, strong fingers framing your face and it worsens the pain in your skull until it feels like your head is gonna implode.

His kiss is forceful, his mouth pressing painfully hard to the point you can’t breathe, muffling down every sob and wail of yours. 

Something hard pokes your thigh and you dig your nails into his arm when Dex groans and presses harder against your leg till you can’t even move it away. Bile rises in your throat when he begins to move, humping your thigh with a pace that quickly becomes frantic enough to have the bed creaking.

There’s little you can do except to just shut your eyes and let your hand limply fall to the bed, knowing in your conscience that you’ll never be able to wash off the humiliation and disgust of this moment. 

Dex breaks the kiss, hovering over you as his mouth sucks desperate kisses over every inch of your tear-streaked face.

“s’okay, sweetheart, I forgive you.” he breathlessly growls into your skin, teeth grazing your cheek.

Dampness soaks through the thin fabric of his shorts and onto your leg as he moves faster, your leg having gone numb at this point. “I forgive you. Cause I love you and I know you love me back. Need me just as much as I need you.”

you’d be lying if you said this wasn’t what you were hoping for. you barely saw him this past week due to endless work meetings, but when it carried over into the weekend you’d had enough.

deciding to get creative, you began teasing him in the only way you knew how; pretending there was another guy.

sylus sat at his desk in front of you, glasses perched on his crooked nose as he looked over documents. you played your ringtone before cheerily ‘answering’ the phone. “hey! no, i’m not doing anything, why?”

the scratch of pen against paper paused, his movements frozen as he ‘subtly’ eavesdropped. “dinner sounds great, i’m starving. jus’ gonna be me n’ you then?”

you hummed while casually examining your nails, the squeak of sylus’ chair turning in your direction alerting you that he was paying full attention now.

“okay, see you soon xavier!”

you moved to get up but were pushed down by a finger on your shoulder, sylus’ broad figure looming over you. “going out, kitten?”

you nodded, acting nonchalant even as heat began to curl in your gut. “i mean you’re busy so i’m just gonna see a friend for a bit”

he scoffed over you, clicking his tongue while he cocked his head to the side. “is that so?” he asked incredulously, glaring at your guilty features. “i don’t know, i think you just wanted my attention.”

sweat beaded at your hairline when you tried to deny the accusation, failing to fool him as he easily saw through you. “does my kitty-cat miss me? i’m so mean, aren’t i?” he pouted, lips jutting out in a mocking manner as your cheeks flushed. “don’t worry, you have my undivided attention now”

alarm bells should’ve gone off at the threat lacing his words, but for some reason you felt yourself getting wet. one thing led to another, and now you were bent over his knee, counting as he spanked you until he decided you’d learned your lesson.

“what’re we at now, kitten?”

you sniffled before mumbling ‘ten’, moans quickly replacing your whines as he began to circle your clit. “o-oh, sy feels good”

he chuckled at your comment, a quick slap landing on your pussy connecting trails of slick to his palm. “now now, sweetie. you know what you’re supposed to call me.”

you nodded as the rough pad of his middle finger began to nudge your sensitive nub once more, repeated small cries of ‘daddy’ leaving your lips making his finger increase its speed. your entrance clenched around nothing as he deprived it of any stimulation, choosing to rub your clit until you were writhing I n his lap.

“daddy, s-so close. please daddy can i cum?” your voice was unrecognizable as you begged for release, trembling when he finally gave you permission to cum.

you rode out your high while slick dripped down your thighs, his finger slowing down and pulling away once you were satisfied. you turned in his hold and watched as he sucked your cum off his digit, cock twitching underneath your tummy as he groaned.

“ready for more?” sylus wickedly grinned, relishing in the fear that filled your eyes before manhandling you to straddle his lap.

© all work belongs to @luvyizhou on tumblr, 2026. do NOT use, repost, or feed any of my work into AI or other websites.

You felt it before your sex stupid brain could process it- this thick, swelling pressure at your already stuffed hole. Stretching you wider. Wider. Too wide-

His knot.

It shoved inside with a wet POP and you shrieked, back bowing clean off the mattress, nails carving bleeding trenches down his spine. The sudden fullness -that fat bulge locking him in, plugging you up, pressing against every sensitive nerve- had your vision whiting out again. Your cunt spasmed around him, another orgasm cresting before the last one even finished, milking his knot in desperate fluttering clenches.

“Huh? What happened?” Total confusion. His ears shot up, head tilting, “You alright babe? Did I do something?”

“Your- your fucking knot- fuckfuckfuck-“ you choked out.

“What?” He blinked down at you, all golden puppy eyes while his monster sized knot split you in half, “What's wrong with it?”

“Ser -seriously? Sh’too- It's s’too big-“

“It is?” As he smirks he shifts his weight and you damn near passed out, “seems fine to me?”

You laughed -or sobbed, hard to tell- and it broke into a moan when he rolled his hips experimentally. You grabbed his hand and shoved it down between your bodies, pressing it against the bulge in your lower belly. Obscene. Fucking obscene.

“Valko.”

He looked down. Blinked. His tail started wagging. Actually wagging!

“Oh wow.” Like he'd found something mildly interesting, “That's pretty crazy.”

“YEAH.”

“Does it actually hurt?” He pressed against the bulge with genuine curiosity and your eyes nearly rolled back into your skull. Tail still going.

“Do you- hahh- do you seriously not know- how huge-“

“Dunno, never measured?” He dropped a casual kiss on your forehead, sweet as anything, while his fat fucking knot throbbed like it was trying to reshape your insides. “Always been like this. Annnnd those noises don’t really convince me you’re in pain.”

You were gonna fucking murder him. Right after you finished losing your mind on his cock.

He ground down into you and you came so hard you forgot your own name, pussy clenching around him like a goddamn vice.

“Oh- shit- shit-“ Finally cracking, his voice going high and whiney, “Squeezing me so tight, you’re gonna make me-“

He buried his face in your neck and came with a broken whine, and you felt it- pulse after pulse of hot cum pumping into you, filling you up til your belly rounded out even more. His arms caged you in, tail thumping against the mattress as he bred you full.

“S'good,” he slurred against your throat…

“Valko,” you whimpered, brain leaking out your ears., “M'so full-“

“Mm?” He sounded so pleased with himself.

Still absolutely clueless.

Way later -who even knows how long- he was still on top of you, weight braced on his elbows so he didn't crush you. His knot pulsed lazy and another warm gush filled you up.

“Hey,” he mumbled into your hair, and you could hear the grin in his voice.

“Mm.”

“So...” His fingers walked playfully up your side, making you squirm- which only made you clench around his knot and whimper, “You think my knot's big, huh?”

“Shut up.”

“Nah but like-“ He propped himself up to look at you, smirking, tail swishing, “You were really loud about it. Pretty sure the neighbors know now.”

“I hate you.”

“Mmhm.” He rolled his hips just slightly -enough to make you gasp- and his grin widened. “That why you're still milking my cock right now?”

Your face burned, “I- I can't- it's involuntary-“

“Sure it is.” He pressed a kiss to your cheek, nuzzling, “S'okay baby. I think it's cute how much you love my huge knot.”

“I never said-“

“‘S'so fucking big Valko,'”he mimicked in a breathy voice, and you smacked his chest while he snickered. “'Your knot Valko, oh my god-“

“I do NOT sound like that.”

“You kinda do.” Another lazy grind. Another gush of cum. His eyes glittered. “Wanna hear what else you said? Got real creative toward the end there.”

You shoved at his shoulder uselessly. He didn't budge, just laughed and buried his face in your neck, pressing smiling kisses to your skin.

“M'just teasing, babe” His tail curled around your thigh, “youre cute when you're embarrassed.” He nuzzled the tippy top of your head.

“I'm gonna kill you when your knot finally goes down.”

“Mm, that's fair.” He snuggled closer, entirely unbothered, “Gives me like twenty more minutes to annoy you though.”

His hips shifted again, lazy and deliberate, and the noise you made was mortifying.

His tail wagged harder.