daydream

Surprisingly, it was your cousin, Daeron, who offered you the most kindness. He was the only person you could yield to in the entire Hightower base. You could only pray he wasn’t relaying every conversation you’d had back to the Lord Ormund Hightower.

Everyone else treated you like you were common. Specifically Ser Gwayne Hightower.

He was rude—and vain—and arrogant. He was irritating. When he would try to make conversation, you would always end up in a fight. And it was just your luck for him to be the one instructed to take you on a multiple-week-long journey from the Reach and back to your rightful home in the Red Keep.

He was the one to tell you that your mother had taken King’s Landing back. You assume your mother saw it fit to have the Queen Dowager’s brother be the one to accompany you, because maybe she has something in store for him when you make it there. Perhaps a beheading? He could do without the ability to speak.

Then he was the one to tell you that you would join her in King’s Landing. That you were finally going home. It was the only thing to come from his mouth that made you joyful.

You overheard chatter that by you departing the Reach as soon as the letter was received, and by you making it back unharmed, House Hightower would be granted something close to immunity for their role in the war. You knew it was something a lie. Your mother and stepfather would never let the Green beasts live with what they had done—not only to you, but to her son too. To your mother herself.

The thought of what your mother might be doing to the Dowager Queen now gave you anxiety from being excluded. You should expect that they’ll be calling for Daeron’s capture too, though perhaps you will be able to put in a good word for him—get him sent to the Wall instead of hanged.

Speaking of Daeron, he was already somewhere distant when you had finished gathering your belongings, even though the things you owned in the encampment were scarce. You had said your goodbyes to each other not long ago—he claimed he had to prepare for something with Lord Ormund, and that he would not be available the next morning, for your departure.

You were, as expected, ready to leave. You had wanted to lie down and rest so that the next morning would come sooner, but Ser Gwayne had called you into his tent for one final word.

“There was something else written in the letter. Something I believe should have been saved for a calm moment, such as this,” he begun, and held up the refolded parchment which illustrated the clemency that would be provided to House Hightower upon your safe return to King’s Landing. “Would you prefer to read it, or shall I?”

The glint in his eye was one of compassion. You did not like it.

You shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. “Proceed.”

He raised his brows, pressing his lips together before giving a heavy sigh and opening the parchment back again. The fingers that gripped either side of it seemed to waver. His eyes quickly found the line he had so desperately wanted to read.

He inhaled a heavy breath. “The Prince of Dragonstone and heir to the Iron Throne Jacaerys Velaryon was slain in battle against the Triarchy Fleet. He was struck down by crossbow fire alongside his dragon, Vermax, in the waters off the Gullet.”

Gwayne let his hands drop slowly, and he sealed the parchment back. He looked back up at you.

Your head was shaking back and forth. Denying his words, maybe. The movement had come naturally, and you could not stop it.

“Is this a jest?” you exhaled a small laugh, hoping it would work to quell the distress already coursing through your veins.

You knew it was not a jest.

You knew if the war did not end soon then he would die in some violent, gruesome way, but to hear it confirmed was something entirely different. To hear it confirmed by a Hightower was something worse. The primal need for the man before you dead, perhaps in such a way your own brother was killed, washed over you in an instant.

He remained silent at your question. "It pains me, though your brother's death does not alter our course,” he said instead. “We shall depart at first light.”

It pains him?

You will show him something that pains him.

There was a lengthy distance between the two of you already, but you quickly closed it as you rushed across to smack him across his cheek.

Your hand stung, yet you did not wait for his reaction. Instead, you turned on your heel and left the tent.

Jace did not hit you until the fresh air did, and you let yourself shed the tears that you had pushed back into your sockets. The tears that you could not—would not—let fall in front of the enemy.

day one

You never liked Gwayne. He was arrogant, and he would treat you as if you weren’t the daughter of the Queen—or more importantly to them, the granddaughter of King Viserys, and the niece of their usurper.

The ride up the roseroad so far had been silent. He had tried, but you did not speak a word in response. It pains me, he had said, and then he practically told you to get over it and go home! He is moronic, and conceited. It pains you that you have to make this journey with him.

If need be, you could be doing this by yourself. You’re fierce enough to ride alone—gods, you’re essentially already riding alone, Gwayne’s useless self.

Your brothers taught you to be fierce, in spite of their age. Jace had always insisted on letting you spar with them in the yard of the Red Keep, and you learned quite well from it. You certainly couldn’t beat a knight with your skills, but it had helped you gain a certain confidence that princesses tend not to have.

Aegon had never liked you practicing with them. Neither did Ser Criston. You did beat the usurper once—caught him off guard and swept him out from under his feet—which must have bruised his ego in the process, as he felt it just to push you to the ground when your back was turned right after. That earned him a clout in the ear from Ser Harwin.

You chuckle to yourself recalling the memory—specifically Aegon’s stupid face when he realized who had hit him, and more specifically when Ser Harwin did not get in trouble for it—and you notice Gwayne looking at you in your peripheral. The smile is wiped clean off of your face.

“Does something amuse you?” he mutters.

When you look over to see him, he is glowering at you, his upper lip lifted with judgment.

“I understand you may not have many fond memories to look back on when times are tiresome, but I do.” You look forward at the road ahead.

He scoffs out a laugh. “I have many fond memories.”

“Tell me one,” you counter.

All you can hear is the wind blowing through the trees. Ser Gwayne Hightower, the parentless knight, no recollections to look back on fondly.

Gwayne sucks in a breath. “I do not have to.”

“That is what I thought.” You smirk to yourself, and lightly kick the side of your horse, forcing it forward and ahead of him.

day two

You were unsure if you should speak the words you did, but they had just slipped out at a certain point.

“I take it you did not care much for Jace.” Your gaze had already been trained on the head of your horse. It seemed hard to look anywhere else.

You and Gwayne had been mindlessly trekking forward all morning, both of your eyes still heavy with the slumber that you had lacked, sleeping in an inn on top of stiff beds.

“What makes you say that, princess?” he asks.

“You are a Hightower. Your sister is the Dowager Queen. Your nephew is the usurper. You kill for them—” you look over to him. He has been staring at you the whole time, and he looks quite furious.

“I believe you will find I do not have much of a choice in the matter,” he interjects sharply.

Your head shakes. “Everyone has a choice.”

He huffs. “What do you reckon I do? Desert my army? Get caught and hanged for treason?”

“I would.” You look back at the road ahead. “I should.”

Gwayne sighs, and returns his attention to the road as well. “We both have duties, my princess. Duties one cannot simply run from once they get to be too demanding.”

“Essos is said to be nice this time of year.”

A short laugh escapes him. “Essos is said to be nice all times of the year.”

You let out a heavy, deflated sigh. “Would it not be nice? I’m sure they don’t care about who we are there. We could be free. You could be a sellsword, and I…” your thought trails off. You cannot think of what you would be somewhere like Essos.

“You could be a scribe,” Gwayne says sincerely.

You nod. “I could.”

The idea of a life in Essos, perhaps with Gwayne, seems appealing at the very moment. The lack of sleep much be getting to you.

It does seem nice. Abandoning your name, as much as you are loyal to it, could be the best decision that you have made. He seems to want the same, if you convince yourself his words weren’t just tactical, some way to earn your empathy so that you will convince your mother to spare him once you reach the Red Keep.

If the war would not come to an end with her taking of the throne, you would have to escape there yourself. And if Gwayne wanted to come with you, if he was still alive by the time you left, you might just be willing to take him with you. Silverwing—who had surely made it back to Dragonstone—was large enough to saddle two.

day three

The inn you would stay in tonight would be much worse than the last. Not only because of the stiff beds, but because of the lack of them too.

Gwayne knew of the ones that would not ask any questions while not costing all the coins in his possession. So far they had been shit, but they had been true to their history of keeping quiet with matters that did not concern them, as far as you both knew.

You would remain outside with your cloak hood pulled tight over your head and your body facing a wall until Gwayne would come fetch you to take you to the room.

He would refer to you as his squire to the innkeepers and guests who questioned your presence. If they had questioned your demeanor, he would call you reserved and paranoid. Nobody had asked anything past that, but if they did, he was prepared to tell them that you had been tormented by some childhood event.

When Gwayne had taken you to your room that night, you had not expected to be faced with a singular bed.

“Have you gotten your own room?” you had asked, not realizing until you had drawn off the cloak from your head that there was only one mattress before you.

Gwayne only shrugged. “It was all that remained. The innkeeper told me that puppeteers are traveling in town, and all seem to be staying here.”

You could not contain your fury at the thought of sharing a bed with him. Or making him sleep on the floor. “How many fucking puppeteers are there?” you demanded, body tense with unreasonable anger.

He scoffed out a laugh. “My princess, it isn’t exactly the largest inn.” He had already begun shucking off his armor, as well as ridding himself of his gambeson and chausses. “You will live. I will sleep on the floor.”

“Are you sure? Can’t you speak with the innkeeper?”

“There is no need to draw any more attention to us. And what, princess, will you be sleeping on the floor in place of me?” he mocked, already in knowledge of the answer. “Do not fret over it. I have slept in worse places.”

You were silenced at that, and had called him for help with undoing your dress. The whole ordeal was strangely impersonal. He had done it the night before, and you felt nothing. Perhaps it be the exhaustion both of you had carried.

The two of you had retired to your respective sleeping areas shortly afterward, both clad in just your smallclothes.

Later that night, you found yourself wide awake, shivering in the relentless cold that seemed to break in past the shut windows.

Gwayne had been sleeping on the floor furthest from where you were lying on the bed. You assumed he was sleeping as well, but it was strangely silent. You had expected to hear the soft breathing of someone consumed by their slumber, though all you heard was the whistling of wind outside.

And your heart still held unpleasant sympathy for where he had been forced to rest. If your thoughts were true, he was not sleeping at all.

“Ser?” you whisper.

“Is something wrong?” you hear from below.

You smile at his voice. No, at being right. You do not smile at his presence, you smile because you like being right. You rolled over then, the mattress groaning beneath you, to stare at the dim expanse of the side where he lay.

“Are you comfortable there, on the floor?” you question, smile piercing through your words.

He scoffs. “You jest, princess, but I have no doubt that this floor is just as soft as the mattress you lay on.”

You were hit with a flurry of breathless laughter at his words. It must be your lack of sleep. You could hear him chuckle too after some point, but both of you had been slowly silenced as the seconds passed until you could only hear the commotion outside again.

Perhaps you should invite him to sleep alongside you. You are not without mercy. Of course, it would be strictly unromantic, not like how a wife and her husband might find one another on restless nights such as this one.

“Would you like to put that to the test?” you say without a second thought.

Gwayne clears his throat. “I would not want to invade on your solace, princess.”

“There is plenty of room for you.” You crawl across the bed to see him.

Your eyes find him as he thoughtlessly fiddles with the edge of his chemise, and as he freezes once he meets your gaze.

You beam down at him again. “And it would bring me solace, knowing you were sleeping the slightest bit easier.”

“Are you sure of it?”

“I am.” You think it is the sleep deprivation deluding you. You would never act like this normally. He can sense it too.

He slowly rises from his position on the ground, and multiple bones crackle once he stands.

You roll back over to your side of the bed, watching as he joins you. He seems tense, especially as you join him under the covers.

The two of you lie in bridled silence, neither one of you able to fall asleep. A chill runs through you from the temperature, and Gwayne’s head swivels to look at you.

You turn over on your side to meet his gaze, expecting him to say something. He does not, and looks back up at the ceiling instead.

Your brain, clouded by the fact that you are simultaneously freezing cold and devastatingly fatigued, opens, then pauses as you search for the words.

“Are you cold as well?” you mumble.

Gwayne shrugs nonchalantly. “Slightly.”

You chuckle mirthlessly. “I am.” The sheets suddenly feel rough against your skin. “More than slightly.”

“I can ask the innkeeper for another quilt.”

His earlier words flash back to you. “There is no need to draw any more attention to us,” you repeat.

You see the corner of his lip turn upward. “What do you reckon I do, then, princess?” he asks, and you reach out to touch his arm.

The muscle quickly tightens under your hold.

“You’re warm.” You move closer to him. “If we lie close together, we might just make it through the night.”

That is how you ended up huddled next to Ser Gwayne Hightower for the rest of the night.

You were unaware of the fact that he was lying frozen next to you, and that he did not get a wink of sleep, especially as you mindlessly slung an arm around his middle in your slumber. And as your nipples, solid from the cool breeze that had seeped in through the windows, brushed up against him as you shifted throughout the night.

day four

Gwayne had stopped to relieve himself when you heard them.

The myriad of chirps from some kind of birds had caught your attention, and you had jumped from your horse in an instant, following the sound.

You found yourself on the edge of an open field, behind some bushes, as you looked down to some small yellow birds that weren’t flying away. You deduce that they must like your presence.

It wasn’t long before Gwayne anxious voice interrupted your calm, calling your name just moments before stumbling upon you.

“What are they?” you whisper.

“Chicks,” he responds, in a normal tone. At your silence, he continues, “baby chickens.”

“Truly?” you question, head cocked to the side, watching them.

Gwayne stares at you. “Have you… never seen chicks before?”

“No, only…” you turn your head to him, “chickens.” You shrug.

He shakes his head with a theatrical sort of despair. It would have seemed real if the corners of his lips were not upturned.

“You truly are a princess,” he mutters, and crouches down to the ground.

You stoop down alongside him, watching as the chicks run past one another, chirping quietly.

“Can I touch one?” you mumble.

He gestures with a chin toward the chirping bunch. “Go on, then.”

You reach down to one of the animals, but you can’t quite seem to get a good grip on it. You don’t really try to grip it. You do not find the chance to. Instead, your hand just lingers hesitantly above the crowd of them.

Gwayne’s hands come down to meet yours. He grabs one of them, effortlessly and gently, cradling it in his hands.

Your hand is still lingering beside his, still in a motion as if you were going to grab one, as he did, so he brings the chicken in his hands to yours. You bring your free hand to join the other and cup them together.

He lets one hand release the chick into yours, and it comes down below the two of your hands as if to hold it steady. The other covers the chick to prevent it from jumping out of your hold.

The hand that is under yours touches it, and urges it to close. “Gently,” he murmurs, and you’re holding the chick on your own now, gently and effortlessly, just like he was.

His hands withdraw from yours. He watches as your lips curl up, a pure joy that he had yet to ever witness fill your face, do exactly that. His own mouth mirrors something similar.

You shudder nervously as the chick twitches around in your grip. It comes out half in the form of small chuckles and half in struggled exhales.

Your brows draw together. It seems impossible to relax them, and you feel a panic settle in at nothing in particular. Perhaps it be that your brothers are dead, maybe because you are with a man that you have such complicated and mind-boggling feelings for, or that you were just held as a prisoner for the Greens, and that man is a Green, he is the Green, the Hightower Green you have been conditioned to hate—

Gwayne has stopped smiling. You feel tears running down your face. The chick flies out of your grip once you try to see it closer, and you try your hardest to catch onto your breath, to catch it as it runs from you, but you cannot. You are sobbing before you get any sense to stop it.

“My princess?” he leans closer to you, a wavering hand inching dangerously close, and you push yourself from off the ground. He follows.

“I’m sorry,” you manage through heaving breaths, smoothing down your now wrinkled dress. Why are you apologizing? You do not know why you are apologizing. He is a Green. He should be apologizing to you, for being on the side of the war that killed your brothers—oh, gods, your sweet brothers. Your sweet, young, desperate, dead brothers.

“It’s all right,” he mumbles. His hands, still, are reaching toward your arms, yet not touching. Never touching. Just hovering near yours, always, like he wants to touch you, but he doesn’t.

You wipe your eyes, but the tears keep falling. You mutter something again. Sorry, you hear yourself say again, and then your body moves for you. You wrap your arms around his neck in an embrace so tight you might be strangling him.

He stumbles back slightly, arms still hesitating beside you, and then finally you feel it. He folds them gently around your waist. As gentle as he held the chick.

“Don’t cry,” he comforts.

You do not obey. You would if you could, but for now, you remain in his hold. You, regrettably, enjoy it.

day five

Gwayne did not like to see you cry.

He had first seen it the moment you realized you were captured by the Hightowers. You hadn’t been conscious enough when they found you to care about where you were being taken. He hadn’t enjoyed the sight then, not as his belligerents did, and he does not like to see it now.

He was the one to convince his fellow commanders to spare your life and to instead take you as a hostage. He was the one to have you held in a tent next to his own in the encampments with his two most upstanding soldiers posted outside, and not in those grimy cages fit for animals. He was the one to have you ride your horse directly next to his when on the road with the rest of the army—much to your dismay—as to prevent any dishonorable conduct from occurring. He would never tell you these things, of course, but they live with him.

Gwayne would tell himself that he did all of these things because it was right, that he would do it to any other female prisoner-of-war, given the shocking lack of honor among his knights who vowed to defend it. He had done a good job separating the wheat from the chaff when he became a commander, but there were only few he truly trusted to never harm the young, an innocent—and those who cannot protect themselves. Like you.

You liked to put on a front. And it somewhat worked with others, but not with him. He wishes it would, for some odd reason. Maybe he would not see you the way he does, if it did. He would still treat you with mercy, but it would not be to the level it is. He would never have accepted your hug. He thinks he would have pushed you away.

He wouldn’t have, but he believes he would have.

Since he had finally felt your touch the afternoon previous, the road to the Red Keep had been as quiet as the first day of your journey together. He suspected you had been embarrassed after letting him see your emotions, as you had been combative toward him every day since you had woken up from your comatose state.

He had expected it to come at some point, the unveiling of your feelings, but not in that way. He had expected to hear you sniffle from beside him while on your horses. He would have stayed silent, and he would have let you cry. He believes he would have let you cry on your own if you hadn’t come to him for comfort first.

The fact that you did had brought him joy. It made him hopeful, in some strange way he did not feel himself familiar with.

“You are betrothed to Lord Samwell Blackwood, are you not?”

You look at him, puzzled. “He has been with the Stranger since the war begun.”

Gwayne nods curtly. “So I’ve heard.”

“Then why have you asked?”

He inhales a heavy breath. “I feel it my duty to tell you of this.” He clears his throat. “Before your mother took the throne, there was word among our commanders to betroth you to your cousin, Prince Aemond.”

“You jest.”

“I do not.”

You cock your head to the side, wetting your lips. “And what did you have to say in the matter?”

“That is unneeded for you to know.”

“Why? Because you encouraged them to?”

His voice picks up immediately where you left off. “No, because I fought against it.” He scoffs a laugh. “The One-Eyed Prince is… he is mad.” At your gawking laugh, he turns his head to you. “You must know it too. He is simply and utterly mad.”

“You are his uncle.” You would never tell of his treasonous words to any other, but you feel you must remind him.

“Are you going to betray me and inform my army of the fact?”

“I do not have loyalty to you, though I will not speak of the words to another.”

“Good. Now you tell me something in confidence,” he presses.

You shake your head at the sheer audacity of him. “Why would I do that, ser?”

“What else will we converse about? It is a long and arduous road ahead of us.” His eyes peer into yours, and you feel a sudden urge to tell him everything you have ever kept from him.

“Alright then,” you look to the sky in mock ponder. “When I was young, I would pray to the gods each and every night for a gallant and true knight to take me away from the Red Keep and off to some distant land. There was this one knight, he had belonged to our Kingsguard, who I absolutely adored.” You sigh on the memory, oblivious to the fact that a true and gallant knight was riding right alongside you. “I was just a girl then. It was a silly dream. And the gods do not always play in my favor.”

Were you jesting? Or were you truly so oblivious?

“Do you remember his name?” he asks.

“It has lost me. But I remember his face. He was gorgeous, that one, and very gentle, too. Back then he was the same age as my brother is now.”

He does not let you sit with the fact that you mentioned your brother as if he were alive. “That’s quite young, isn’t it?”

You nod. “Indeed. He was the youngest of every knight in the Keep. Perhaps the youngest in history.”

“What happened to him?”

You exhale a breath, and look down to your horse’s head. “He was in the fire that killed Ser Harwin. I do not know why he had been called to Harrenhal, and I suppose I shall never know. Are you yourself betrothed, or married, ser?”

He huffs. “Gods, no. I was, and remain, of little use as a political pawn for House Hightower, my father being the second son.”

“Therefore if you were to wed, you would do so for love,” you state.

“I suppose so.”

day six

The hood of your cloak was pulled tightly over the upper half of your face, seemingly ritual for whenever you made it to inns, and you felt a tap on your shoulder.

You turn, expecting to see Gwayne, but in his place stood a knight in armor, donning a Hightower sigil on his gambeson.

It is your luck to see Gwayne rushing up from behind him to fetch you.

“Squire, let us retire to our room, yes?” he says, and you nod eagerly, pulling the hood further over your face. The two of you attempt to move forward, and you make it past the knight—

“That is no squire,” the man interjects, grabbing onto your wrist, stopping you. “That is a girl.”

Gwayne steps in between you and the knight, forcing him to release your joint from his hold. His gaze flicks down to the man’s gambeson.

He takes a step closer to him and lowers his voice. “If it pleases you, she’s my distraction for the night, ser. Not worth your notice.”

The knight clears his throat, and Gwayne steps back.

“Blessings upon King Aegon.” He smiles, turning back to the inn entrance.

His hand guides you forward, lingering on the small of your back, surely for the sight of the knight behind you. And then it trails down, over the curve of your back end, and you feel the slightest grip onto it before the door behind you closes, and his hand immediately falls away.

The walk to your room is silent.

Gwayne swallows painfully once you make it to your room.

“I’m sorry—” he begins.

“How may I distract you tonight, ser?” you interrupt, smiling stupidly at his lie, and he sighs one of relief at your lack of offense.

He breathes out a laugh, and swiftly moves to shed himself of his armor. He has been struggling on his own each time he has done so. You only noticed it the last night, and offered help, but had been rejected.

You would not ask this time, you would simply do. Your fingers were desperate and untrained in their efforts, but they did the trick in time for him not to deny you, and he was rid of the metal captivity.

You turn as he does, ridding yourself of your heavy cloak and pushing your hair out of the way of the laces of your dress. He pulls them loose without a word, and the warmth of his body behind yours would surely prove the most effective thing of the night, you decide as you gaze at the thin quilt on your bed.

As your gown slides down your body, you can hear the shuffling of Gwayne removing all but his linens behind you. If you took just a step backward, you would be touching him.

“It is a terrible coincidence, the Hightower army resting here,” you mumble, your hands fiddling with the light cloth around the your wrists.

“It is,” he agrees solemnly.

You retreat from his warmth and sit on the edge of your bed, your back up straight and your fingers clasped together in your lap. You weren’t particularly tired this night. Maybe it be from the surge of adrenaline at the knight outside, and it had already raged through your limbs, rendering them restless the moment the door to the inn had shut behind you.

Gwayne’s hand was close to you then, to an area you regarded as most private among you, a maiden. The memory of it twinged deep in your stomach. It was an unfamiliar feeling.

He had joined you in sitting on the edge of a bed, albeit his own. His own stature had mirrored yours. All tense and surged with the possibility of a fight.

“It is rather cold this night,” you mutter.

Gwayne nods curtly. “It is.”

Your gaze lowers to watch your fingers be relentlessly picked on by those of the other hand. “I fear one of those knights will bust through the doorway, and take me away with little fight, you being so far from me,” you whisper. The night was silent enough for him to hear it.

“I fear the same.”

You look up at him. “If he were to do so, it would certainly raise suspicion if your whore was sleeping in a bed adjacent to yours.”

He takes a turn to meet your eyes. “If you wish to sleep in the same bed as I, you need only ask.”

Your tongue darts out to wet your lips. “May I sleep in your bed tonight, Gwayne?” you muster.

“As you wish, my princess.”

day seven

Your horse stops before you instruct it to.

In the distance lies a field of flowers, pink and purple, some yellow, and all illuminated by sunlight. It was nearly time for it to set.

You cannot still be in the Reach, you think. It has been much too long, but thank the gods if you are. What a sight to see.

You want to see it closer. Gwayne will be okay with it, you declare, and you hop off of your horse and begin walking in the direction of the field.

“No, princess,” he says, exasperated. “We cannot go off trail again.”

“The flowers,” you breathe. “It is beautiful.”

The scent in the air is intoxicating. It is rather pungent, the closer you get to it, and the air seems more sultry than just moments before.

You remove your cloak from your shoulders, letting it drop behind you as you continue forward. It is the slightest bit relieving from the heat, but your body quickly acclimates to it again, and the sweat begins beading. It is no wonder. The sleeves under your dress are long. It makes you question why you decided to wear such a stupid thing, in this climate.

Once you make it to the field, it envelopes you. The fever. It starts in your lower abdomen in a heavy thrum and travels up the rest of your body.

Where is Gwayne?

You turn around. He is just a few steps behind. He has been trailing behind you the entire time. It was hard to notice, with the pull of the meadow, but now that you are here, he is all you can think about. All you can focus on. You do not like that.

His hair illuminates in the sunlight, much like the flowers. Your skin tingles.

He froze in his movements the moment you did. You continue further into the field. His feet fall in step with yours, and you think you can hear his breathing, all shaky and uncertain.

You make it to an empty patch of the meadow, and stop once again.

“Ser?” you turn back to face him. The scorch of the sun worsens with each passing second. Sweat gathers on your brow. “My dress... please… help me get it off.” You raise a timid arm to your back, accepting defeat once you find yourself unable to reach the laces.

Gwayne’s thumb twitches toward you. His forehead glistens. He must be burning too.

You spot the clench of his jaw, and take a wary step toward him.

“Stop—” he holds a hand out, body turning away from you. “Do not move. Please. Just stay there.” He avoids your gaze.

“What is it?” you ask. You know what it is.

You know what he is feeling, because you feel it too. It presses hard and deep in your abdomen, and it just wants to be relieved. You want to be relieved. And Ser Gwayne Hightower looks rather handsome in this light, surrounded by the pink and purple—and was it red?—flowers. He seems close to pouncing on you like a wild dog. Gods, may he?

He had always been alluring. May it be your frustration that you could never have him in the way you wanted that made you so combative, or the fact that he is a Green—it is probably both, but neither seem so important now. Not when you feel the heat of a thousand suns burn through you, all the way to your core, and then all over again.

The man himself looks close to releasing in his braies just by looking at your face. It brings you some ease, yet also further discomfort, to know that he feels the same as you. You had blocked out the idea, seeing yourself as delusional and unrealistic for thinking he would ever show any form of attraction toward you.

“Gwayne—” you exhale, though it releases itself in the form of a groan. “It is sweltering.” You bend over to clutch the end of your dress, and you are close to pulling it off yourself, if fate was willing. Something halts you.

“Please, don’t.” His voice sounds pitiful. It is all low and whiny. “I do not know if I can handle that. Not now. Not when… fuck.”

You want to keel over and die.

You release the cloth from your grip and let the dress fall back down. You rise back up, slowly, and flatten down the wrinkled fabric of your middle with your hands.

Your lips tremble. “What do you want to do?”

“I am unsure.” He still cannot look you in the eye. “It is impure, and unchivalrous for me to be thinking of you this way.”

“I am all right with it.” It is then that you realize how you sound. Desperate for a Green, as if you were a common whore, which is probably what he thinks of you as. At least he tries to fight it. You should fight it too. You are fierce enough to fight whatever it is that is welling up inside of you.

Your eyes are squeezed shut, and the shame tries to conquer the hunger—but the hunger wins in the blink of an eye. The blink of your eye, in fact, as you look back at Gwayne.

“We cannot,” you mumble. “We should not. I am a maiden. You are the opposition. We cannot.” You repeat the words to yourself, over and over, like a mantra. If the shame did not prevail, perhaps distraction will. Your eyes shut tight again, and you repeat the words. We cannot. We should not. You are a maiden. He is the opposition.

We cannot, we should not, you are a maiden, Ser Gwayne Hightower is hard by simply standing in your presence—

Your eyes snap open, and you find that you are standing directly in front of him. You must have been inching closer to him with each sentence you repeated.

Your gaze flicks down to his crotch. Sure enough, your thoughts did not lie to you. Perhaps your dragon blood has given you the gift of prophecy.

He finds it appropriate to look at you, finally, and you realize how close you are to one another.

In specific—how close your lips are to one another. So, so close, yet so far. You almost want to give in, and you lean just a little closer. He stays still, though when you stop moving, his head moves closer too, close enough that you can almost feel his breath fanning into your own mouth.

Your noses are touching, that is how close you are. You could just slot your lips right onto his. It would be so easy, so incredibly simple, if you would just move forward, just a little—

His hands reach up to cradle your face in his hands, thumbs on either side grazing your cheekbones. They move down your face, down to your lips, and one of the thumbs strokes over the bottom lip. And he closes the gap.

You feel his lips envelope yours first, and then you feel his tongue inch into your mouth. Your lips close over one another’s, and he moans. Ser Gwayne Hightower is moaning into your mouth, and it feels like you have been sent to each of the seven heavens and back again. Your head is pushed backwards with the force of his kiss.

Your hand reaches around to brush over his nape. His hands travel further down your body, one finding itself wrapped around your waist, the other petting your breast over your dress. It seems that the true touch of it pacifies him, as it allows you to push deeper into the kiss, letting your tongue slide into his mouth.

You only break away to lower yourself to the ground. He follows, as though the answers to every challenge in his life were held on your lips. He hikes your dress up your legs, your smallclothes with it, until they both pool at your waist.

He lifts two fingers to his mouth, coating them in spit before reaching down to your bare cunt and thrusting them inside. You let out a shrieking moan, letting your head press into the dirt below you and thrashing back and forth in pleasure.

“Look at me,” Gwayne instructs. You let your eyes lock onto his, you try, but the deep press of his fingers inside of you makes it hard to focus. His lips, hanging open, hover just above yours, and he moves forward to bring you and he together again.

It is breathing moans into each other’s mouths and pathetic, desperate mashing before you finally get the hold onto his lips, or perhaps him onto yours. His fingers cease, and slip out swift enough for it to go unnoticed for a single moment.

He breaks apart from your mouth, and wastes no time in sliding himself down your body. The disappointment at the loss of his fingers does not last long, as his lips lock onto your cunt.

Gwayne snakes his arms under your legs and he yanks your body closer to him. Your fingers curl in his hair, and he only laps harder at you.

“Y—yes, ser—” you cry, your thighs squeezing his head, clit pulsating under the assault of his tongue.

He breaks away for just a moment, big blue eyes locking onto your weak ones. “Not ser. Gwayne. My name is Gwayne.”

And he dives back into you, gathering your wetness on his tongue in a torturous swipe from bottom to top, one that earns a sweet little whine from the depths of your throat. It reminds him, in that moment, of the sounds you would make when you did not get your way back in Oldtown—the sounds he would shamefully think of as he fucked his fist late at night, the sounds that he would repent about for thinking and acting on with such humiliating vitality, and more importantly, for not regretting any of it in the slightest.

The sheer relief you get from his mouth onto yours is unlike anything you have felt before, because you have not felt it before. You had heard word of the act in song, and in gossip spread around by your ladies-in-waiting, but to experience it was the greatest decision you ever made. A true, gallant knight between your legs, satiating the hunger that spread in your loins and his alike, yet he is only focused on your release now, latching his tongue on your clit and sucking hard.

His fingers graze your folds and glide around the edges, already slick with your wet. One finger probes, just the slightest bit, and you shudder at the contact.

You let out a loud cry as it presses itself fully inside, without warning. Perfection, you think you hear him say. The words vibrate on your clit, agonizingly so.

His finger pumps in and out of you, and his mouth works on your cunt all the same. The fire in your veins only grows stronger as your climax approaches.

Your fingers tug and pull on his hair, and somewhere in the middle of your gratification a second slim finger of his joins the first, pressing deep into your cunt as they allow him.

The sounds coming from your mouth you do not think you have ever made before. They approach from deep in your lungs and are hoarsely ripped from your throat.

It creeps closer, that unfamiliar thing called release, and your walls tighten around his fingers. Gwayne only sucks harder, and pushes his fingers further into your cunt, his knuckles pressing into your folds.

The feeling floods your body in an instant. It feels prickly, for some odd reason, and it nips your limbs, but blissfully so. Your brain feels fuzzy, and you cannot think of anything but him. It is a way that makes you crave for it immediately once it ebbs.

You let out a little sob once his fingers slip out from inside you. You didn’t know you were crying, and a few stray tears fall from your eyes before you realize.

Gwayne licks a stripe up your cunt, collecting whatever fluids he procured down there into his mouth and swallowing them with the gulp of a man who might just be dying of thirst.

He is up your body and has his wet lips on yours by the time you tear yourself away from the sight. It is then that you feel how truly hard he is under his linens. His cock presses against your spent core, and he nearly jerks back at the contact.

“Gwayne,” you breathe, and his head shoots up to look at you.

“What is it, sweet girl?” he mumbles, suddenly winded by the sweet sound of his name on your tongue.

“I want you to fuck me.”

He is frozen solid at your ask. Your arousal on his mouth glistens with each slight twitch upward. “You’re sure of it?”

You nod, but it is not enough.

“Tell me,” he commands.

“I want you to fuck me, Gwayne, how else must I tell you?” you reply impatiently, and grind your hips up to feel his hardened cock brush against you once more.

Both of your hands come up and intertwine themselves behind his neck, preventing him from straying any further—pulling him down to you, in fact, so you can grind up on him some more.

You lift your head from the ground to try and capture his lips into a somewhat calculating kiss, but his strength prevails, and his head softly twitches back before your mouth can get hold on his.

You fall back, defeated, but his hand comes to hold your wrist, and he comes down to close the gap. He chuckles into your mouth at your desperation, and you only kiss him harder, as if you were trying to become one with him.

His hand rubs up and down your wrist for a moment, before he reaches down to release his lower half from his linens.

You take a hand from off his neck and reach down to meet his own, searching around for his cock. You get a firm grip on it, stroking it up once. He lets out a shuddery moan, and his hand finds your wrist once again—not stopping you, but guiding you, perhaps.

He pumps himself with your hand, and you let him for only a moment, before overpowering his gentleness and guiding his length to your cunt. The tip of it glides on your folds. You could die right here, and it would be okay.

Gwayne pushes into you with a wounded groan, his jaw hanging wide open. You, on the other hand, nearly shriek.

He rocks himself out of you slowly, then back into you almost sluggishly.

“Is this all right?” he manages through strangled breaths, and you nod fervently, using the hand still on his neck to push his head closer to yours.

You mean to kiss him, but his forehead lies on yours instead. You’ll take what you can get.

He presses swift pecks on your cheeks, on your nose, and on your lips as he gains momentum. Your eyes flutter shut, but his hand comes up to press a few light smacks to your cheek.

“I said to look at me,” he grunts. “I want to see your eyes—“

You open them back up at that. They’re glossed over again, with tears, and you’re glad that Gwayne does not take it as pain. There was pain, but it is long gone. He kisses the droplets as they fall from the corners of your eyes.

It is utterly intoxicating, the drag of his hips. He seems to lose himself in the feeling too. Wave after wave of constant pleasure washes over you with the somehow gentle slam of him into you.

You babble incomprehensible speech, just as lost as he is as he, slack-jawed as he fucks you. His eyes are focused on your face, your face saturated with sweat, for a single twitch of anything at all, yet he finds nothing. Nothing but rapture, as he believes it should be. He brings his hand back down to your clit and strokes it so delicately, but it brings you sweet relief all the more.

You feel it cresting again. Up your spine, down your legs, dumbing your brain into mush, prickling at the back of your neck. “Gods, Gwayne—Oh, gods, I’m gonna—“

You don’t finish the sentence. It hits you, you cum again, so hard around his cock, and it isn’t long into your perfect bliss before he is pulls out, spilling his seed onto the bunched-up cotton of your dress.

You feel as though you are one with him. It is like your flesh melts into his. Your sweat certainly does, especially as he joins his forehead with yours again, all sticky and damp.

“I am deeply sorry—” he says in between quick kisses, “to have taken your maidenhood.”

You shake your head softly. “If it shames you so, I can raise a proposition of marriage to my mother once we get back to the Keep.” He laughs at that, unknowing you were not telling a joke.

Still, you breathe out a chuckle.

day nine

The communal bath that you had found yourself in was satisfyingly empty. Since Gwayne had taken your maidenhood two moons previous, you had been desperate for it to happen again, and again, and perhaps a thousand times more, though you resisted the urge to ask outright while in the inns.

Now, though, seemed like the perfect moment to do so. You could clean yourself properly for the first time in weeks, and then dirty yourself all over again with the satisfaction of your mutual sin.

He had already undone the laces of your dress for you, and you stepped out of the gown that dropped to your feet, eager to feel the warmth of the water envelop your skin. And for him to join you. So that you could see—and feel—his bare body, properly. You had already shed your linens by the time you made it to the water.

You had retreated to the further side of the bath, so that you could watch as Gwayne undressed himself. It was nicer like this, being able to take in his body for the first time, as he stripped off his gambeson, then his chausses, and then, finally, his smallclothes.

His figure was very unsurprisingly robust. The light of the countless candles surrounding the baths set for quite the intimate atmosphere.

You bit back a smile as he inched closer to the bath, stepping inside with a heavy sigh of relief. The Hightowers did seem to prioritize cleanliness. Perhaps they place it next to godliness. Gwayne certainly does not seem to mind, given how keen he was to eat your cunt until you came undone on his tongue.

He threw his head back with a shuddering sigh once he finally sunk into the water. You watch as the grime expels from the surface of his body in one fell swoop, becoming one with the rest of the stream.

“Have you something to say?” he questions, a brow darted upward at your uncharacteristically blissful expression.

Your cheeks flushed, a harder, content smile crossing over your face. “Just observing.”

“Must you observe so far?” he mutters.

“I must,” you sneer, giving a firm nod.

His eyes flick down to your bare breasts, sat warped on your chest under the soft wave of the water.

He quickly averts his gaze to the center of the bath once you perk them forward with your arms.

“I am truly apologetic,” he starts. “For taking your maidenhood. ‘specially in such an unclean place, where anyone could have seen us if they had simply come to probe into the noise.”

You scoff. “Would you have preferred it happen inside the walls of some dull inn?”

“I’d have preferred you comfortable.”

“I was comfortable. I am comfortable.”

At his silence, you push yourself off of the wall and glide over to him. He sits frozen as your chest brushes against his arm.

“Are you a maid, ser? Well—were you a maid?” you question, feigning a look of innocence.

“I haven’t been a maid for a long time, princess.” His head hangs low.

He lets you grip his arm and guide it between your legs. “Are you ashamed of the fact?”

“I am ashamed that I am not,” he mutters, seemingly unfazed as you grind your cunt against his wrist. You let out a low moan, your breath wavering before you realize his lament.

So you release his arm from your hold and straddle his hips, placing your hands on each of his shoulders. Your chest is eye level with his face. It seems to be the only thing that can bring his head back up.

You can feel his cock hardening below you as you rock back and forth against him. He watches your face that stares down back at him—both of your jaws are slack, and you breathe heavy pants into each others mouths, gaining some semblance of pleasure from the act.

But it is not enough, no. It is never enough.

You take a hand from his shoulder and reach down to grip his length, guiding it into your walls at once. You push down unto him with a sweet little cry, one quickly silenced by his lips on your own.

His kiss is just as tender as you remember it being, amorous flowers aside, and you hum into him. A hand cups your cheek and he tilts his head, his tongue breaching the plush of your lips, just exploring.

Your fingers curl around his nape as you thrust, up and down, up and down, and he concurrently rolls his hips back and forth.

“Fuck—sweet princess—” he moans once he breaks apart from your mouth.

You gasp and shudder, and he reaches his head up to kiss all over your face. Your eye, the brow bone above it, down to the highest point of your cheek on the side of your face, then to the corner of your lip, and then he cranes his head down to kiss you on your neck. You throw your head back to allow him access.

Once he reaches your sternum, he darts his tongue out first when attaching his lips to it. “Oh, gods,” you whimper into his hair.

“Ser? Gwayne—” you can't quite speak, the words near dying on your tongue. “Are you mine, Gwayne? Tell me—” your hips slow, and his only speed up. He begins fucking up into you, and another moan rips through your throat.

He nods fervently against your neck, lifting his head back up to see you. “I am yours, princess. Fuck—” his hips stutter, though he relents.

It does not give you solace. If he is yours, how long shall he remain so? Until the gods rip him from your grasp—which would be soon now, with each tread of your horses closer to the Red Keep.

His hand slides up to your ribs as if to stabilize you, and he wraps it around your middle. His forehead drops to your shoulder, raising with each jolt of your body upward, the constant slam of his cock up into your cunt and then out again.

You know few things now, except for him. Your walls clench around him, and he nearly ceases at that. You continue in his ministrations, rocking back and forth onto him, savoring in the way his length hits you in the spot that makes you feel near the brink of climax.

“I love you.” You think you hear yourself say. And he just watches you, as you chase your peak, so blissfully unaware of the words that just came from your mouth. Your sweet mouth.

Gwayne reaches a hand to cradle your head, and push it closer to his, so that he can take your sweet mouth into his. It is less of a kiss and more of two mouths pressing against each other, but you accept it either way. The two of you pant raggedly against each other, and you feel your core tighten with each deep press of his cock inside of you.

He can feel it too. It is more of threat than satisfying, the idea of spilling his seed inside of you, but you seem to not care. You might just not know. If you were true to your word of your maidenhood—he does not care if you were or not—you must be pitifully unknowledgeable on the subject.

He remembers word of you being betrothed to some high lord widow who had died on the frontlines of battle when the war first broke out, fighting for the side of your mother. Then, once you were captured, there was word of you marrying one of his two younger Targaryen nephews. The thought of you being kept as a prisoner for Aemond sends a shudder through his body, and he rids himself free of the idea as his orgasm approaches closer.

“My princess—” he tries. You do not notice. You persist in your pursuit of release, and he grips your jaw gently, catching your attention. “Look at me.”

You nod at nothing in particular, mouth hanging open and mewling needy whimpers as you oscillate on his cock.

“I cannot—I cannot cum inside.” He lets out a strangled moan as you begin grinding faster than just moments before, as if encouraging him to do so.

“Why not?” you breathe.

His head nearly lulls back as he staves off his own release. “You could get with child.”

You grip his hand and lead it to your breast, and he lets himself fall for your entrancement, kneading it between his fingers. Your nipple is caught between two of them, and he presses them together just the slightest bit too hard, earning a wince from above him. It makes him realize he has been regrettably neglecting them this entire time.

“My breasts are sore.” You inhale sharply. “I shall bleed soon.”

Ah. In that case—

Gwayne dips his hands back into the water, finding your hips to guide them, delighting in the way your moans grow more and more fervent as his cock drags against your walls.

It approaches swift, and you do not have any time nor stamina to warn him of it. You wonder if he can sense it.

Just as quick as it came, it washes over you in an instant. Your muscles clamp down around him, and he moans loud into your shoulder—you soon feel a warmth deep in your womb, the warmth of his seed. A minuscule part of you hopes it will take.

Shortly afterward, he lifts your bodies from the water, carrying you with your legs wrapped around him. His cock has slipped out of you, but the kiss he places on your lips distracts you from the loss.

You push his chest, separating your mouths, and wrap your arms around his neck. “Let us leave together, Gwayne. Silverwing is large enough to saddle two. You could be a sellsword, and I a scribe—I your wife. I shall give you children, if it is what you desire. We can spend our days in rest and tranquility, like this.” Your breath still hasn’t caught.

It is a moment of silence before Gwayne finds the words. The dubious words, though the ones that provide enough hope to settle you. “Perhaps, my princess. Do not worry yourself with eventuality.” And he sets you down on the marble just above the bath. Your calves dip back into the water, and it is then you realize that they are aching.

He kneels down into the water and takes your legs over his shoulders. You feel the stretch in your thighs, equal parts from their growing soreness and the length of his shoulders. His release begins seeping out of your cunt from the pressure of it all.

He presses a kiss to the inside of your knee, then to the inside of your thigh, and then finally to your clit. His head dips down to your opening, and he sucks.

It becomes more like he is kissing, or eating you, at some point. You cannot tell. The pleasure has already gotten to be too much, and you are writhing under him.

His arms wrap around your thighs and he pulls you closer to his mouth, and you loudly and embarrassingly moan, your fingers rake through his hair, gripping it tight when his nose brushes against your clit.

You haven’t discovered his objective, but thank the gods for him. It is somewhat relaxing and simultaneously frustrating for him to be lapping away mindlessly at your cunt.

“Please, Gwayne, let me cum—” you beg, all breathless and crestfallen, and his eyes flick up to you. He finds you are the most spoiled thing he has ever met, yet also the most beautiful. He thinks, in that moment, that he truly should consider being taken as your husband.

He nods once. “As you wish.”

And his mouth is replaced by his fingers. He pumps them into you, a relentless pace, and his lips find themselves back onto you, but now on your clit.

He laps at you and rocks his fingers further inside, getting your folds all slick and glossy with both your own and his own arousal, as well as his own saliva.

He curls his fingers deep in your cunt, in that spongy spot that once sheathed his cock, and it is enough to bring you to climax before you realize it.

You swear your vision goes black for a moment as you cum, and the bliss fills your body over the irritation. It was embarrassingly fast how quickly he brought you to absolution, but you did not have enough might to let it wash over you the way your orgasm had.

Gwayne looks up at you with those big blue eyes of his, now glossed over. The lower half of his face is sheen with your cum—his cum—and he pants and lifts himself up to join you on the marble, his strong body glistening with the damp of the bath.

You think you might faint.

day fourteen

Tonight’s inn had been the nicest of all fourteen. You and Gwayne had jointly decided for it to be the last of your stops, and that you would make the journey the rest of the way there without sleeping.

It was not long to King’s Landing. As much as you had longed to see your mother, and to be home again, the thought of what would happen to Gwayne in the coming days was a thought too harrowing to bear.

But it had lingered in your mind since the field. Certainly he could not leave you, having taken your maidenhood. Your mother would find a way. She knows what it is like to be infatuated with someone you should not be infatuated with. She knows Gwayne. As a soldier for the opposition, yes, but she knows him all the more.

If she has held mercy for his sister, she would certainly hold mercy for him, especially given the situation at hand. The situation of you being in love with a Hightower, and him having bedded you—well, fucked you in a field, then in a bath, a few scattered moments along the road of him lapping at your cunt, or sticking his fingers there to cull your nerves the nights you were too tense to sleep. Your mother coddled you enough before you were taken hostage, and she would certainly do more once you are back with her.

Gwayne seems to sense your restlessness. You have resorted to single bed rooms in the inns, given the underestimated lack of coin he decided to bring with him. He has been able to pick up on your behavior for the last few days—noting to himself how much you lack sleep the closer you get to King’s Landing—and he has always been able to get you to talk about it. Tonight, you seem not wanting of his perception.

He turns over to face you. “Are you feeling well?” he asks.

You look to him for a moment. “I feel fine.”

Propping himself up on one arm, he maneuvers himself closer until he is hovering above you, as he stares down at where you lie. “You mustn’t need to lie.” His voice is soft.

Your lungs expand with a heavy breath of air. “I do not wish for you to leave when we return to the Red Keep. You told me that we would talk about it, and we never have.”

He brushes your hair behind your ear with his free hand. “What would you like to talk about?”

“I want us to wed.”

Gwayne stares into you. And then hangs his head low with laughter.

“I am serious, Gwayne. If you swore fealty to my mother, the rightful queen, she would show you mercy. I have no doubt she has shown it to your sister, and to your niece and her daughter too.” His smile was wiped from his face sometime as you spoke.

“You cannot be certain of that, though, can you princess?” he mumbles, raising his head back up to cock it to the side.

“I cannot.” You begin picking at the skin around your fingernails.

Gwayne places a hand over them, stopping you. “The agreement was for me to bring you, unharmed, to the Red Keep. And then I would leave, or they would have my head.” His hand envelops one of yours.

“My mother would not let them have it, if I simply tell her.”

“You speak lightly of a heavy thing, my princess.” He squeezes your hand a bit tighter. “If you so much as suggest that the Hightowers are anything less than treasonous vipers, your mother’s council will smell a captive who has learned to love her cage. You are her only daughter, yes, and she adores you. Therefore, if she discovers how thoroughly I have failed to keep my distance, amnesty will be the last thing she grants my house. It will be fire and blood, starting with my head on a pike.”

“She knows what it is like to love someone forbidden to her.”

Gwayne grins at your words. “She also knows she must satisfy her council,” he says softly.

As much as it pains you, you realize he is right. Yet he still remains as handsome as ever in the dark, and his lips are glossed over, looking so plump and lonely.

“Will you kiss me?” you mutter, and kiss you he does. His mouth is just as soft as you had imagined, and he is still so tender and hesitant in his ministrations you almost feel a want to take over.

Your lips are pliable, though, and part for him almost instantly. The hand that held yours comes up to cradle your cheek, and your legs open up a spot for him to slot himself into.

You are grateful for the loss of layers in spite of the outdoor elements—which have been terribly cold nearly the entire journey—as they give you easy access to the growing length in Gwayne’s linens.

He breathes a low groan into your mouth when you reach a hand under the fabric cuff of his waist to grip his cock. You pump him in a slow rhythm, and he nearly falters completely, the arm propping him up above you buckling and lowering him to his elbow.

The hand cradling your face moves to your own core, and he hastily hikes your shift up your thighs. His fingers find your cunt, pressing his thumb to your clit and stroking it.

The two of you breath and pant into one another’s mouth, the speed of both of your caresses increasing as your moans do.

“Would you—” Gwayne pants, “like me inside?”

You nod eagerly, and pull your hand from his cock. His own hand ceases motion on you, and he uses both arms to gather your body and flip you onto your stomach. The featherbed mattress bounces with the movement, and you reach your hands behind you to pull your shift up entirely to your middle, perking your ass up toward him.

Gwayne has already rid himself of his smallclothes in the meantime. He places a hand right above your backend, stabilizing both you and himself, and lines himself up with your cunt.

He leans his body over yours and presses soft kisses along your spine, pushing himself inside of you with a long groan. You let out a needy one all the same.

“Keep moving—” you beg, letting the top of your head fall to the pillow below you. He hums in response, and begins thrusting slowly, still hesitant.

It is a stretch, but a welcome one nonetheless. It is easy to lose trail of your thoughts with the drag of his cock in and out and the press of his chest to your back, the song of his pretty little grunts and groans singing in your ear.

He wraps his arms around your middle, one hand gripping a breast through the soft cotton of your shift. You flick your hair away from your neck, and his lips quickly find the spot, tipping you into absolute bliss.

One of his arms, the one not clutching your chest, sneaks down to your core, and he begins rubbing your clit with a seemingly endless vitality.

The other pushes the two of you up so that you are both standing on your knees. Your hands extend to his head behind you, pushing it closer as you awkwardly crane your neck so that you can join your lips with his in what may be the sloppiest way they have ever met each other.

His fingers continue their assault on your pearl, and his hips rock into you, and it all feels so much. So good, yet so much. Your chest rises and falls rapidly with each slam of his cock into your cunt, the strength of which also makes his head bob slightly into your kiss, coating the area above and below and beside your lips with his own spit.

There is little surprisingly little build-up to your release. It comes quick, like the tide coming in to take away a shell from the shore. It seems to tear through you, lighting up every nerve in your body, pulled straight from your breathless lungs and your racing heart and illuminating your frenzied brain with nothing other than euphoria.

He is still pumping in and out of you, seemingly chasing his own release. You feel a warmth deep in your overwhelmed cunt, and you know he has come, his body slowing entirely. He breaks away from your lips with a soft little cry, and you simply look at each other for a moment as your breath returns to the both of you.

In this moment, you think Ser Gwayne Hightower is the most beautiful creature in the world.

“You are more than a beauty,” he says in turn. You grin at him, still breathless, and join your lips together once more.

day sixteen

When you arrive at the gates of the Red Keep, Syrax and Caraxes are posted on the battlements.

You look over, and Gwayne seems as if he might just curl up and die. You scoff out a laugh at the sight, and he immediately straightens his back.

Open the gates, yells some guard from behind the wall, and the gate begins to part, grinding against the gravel below.

You will see your mother today. For the first time in months, you will see your mother. Will she be different? Is she a different person now that she is on the throne? More importantly, will she be a different person now that her eldest son is dead? You wonder if they have burned the body yet, or perhaps even set it out to sea. He could not become a Targaryen, as he would never become King—the gods would not allow it, so history will remember him as a Velaryon. It would only be fitting for his body to be released into the water.

You should tell her about this. She must be so overwhelmed with all of her recent duties, she may have forgotten about the fact. Is little Joffrey still in the Vale? Surely, mother must have sent for his return by now. He is too vulnerable there on his own, no matter who he is with.

When you blink hard in an attempt to settle yourself, you realize your horse has been guided inside the walls of the Keep, and Gwayne is helping you off of your horse. His hands are on your waist, and you jump down with a grip on his wrists to stabilize you. Yet your eyes are not on him—they are on any entrance, every door where your mother could come out of.

He sighs, and you finally glance at him. His hands hesitate to leave their spot on your middle. “You are home, and you are safe, my princess.” And then his arms drop back to his side, as if ashamed he let them linger for a moment too long.

“Must you go?” you breathe out a chuckle, trying to lighten the mood that seems to deepen with each passing moment.

His hand reaches for yours, and his voice is lower now. “It is the deal.”

For some reason, your heart seems to shatter. It feels odd and disheartening, knowing that he in this moment has a harsher effect on you than anything before.

Your expression has dropped, and Gwayne must be able to see it. His hand grips yours tighter, and he sucks in a breath, his head dropping to avoid your gaze. Your gaze, which quickly wells with tears. You are confused as to how this would have been the outcome of your journey together—and you are unsure if you are glad of it, or instead disappointed in yourself for not realizing that this is what would always happen.

You lower your voice too. “I do not want you to go,” you say, and your hand finally reciprocates Gwayne’s affection. You clutch it, tight, hoping it may get through to him.

It does not. His head does not lift, not even a single bit. You think you can see his brows furrow.

“I have done my duty, my princess,” he mumbles.

Hundreds of solutions flow through your mind in an instant. He could stay, swear fealty to your mother, and he could be yours. He could be your sworn shield and protector. He could be yours, if he would only say yes.

You open your mouth to say it, but nothing comes out. The words die on your tongue.

“Stay,” is what you can manage. “Please, Gwayne.”

His head tilts up, but he still averts his gaze from yours. Something else, something in the distance, catches his attention. It catches yours too. Two heads of familiar lengthy silver hair—your mother and her husband—inch closer to you and Gwayne.

The hand that held onto his was already back at your side. You must have done it without thought.

“Mummy,” you mumble. And she smiles.

She inches closer to you, seemingly dumbfounded that the sight before her is real. “Sweet girl,” she says, and you feel close to crumbling.

You want to step closer, to close the gap between the two of you, but you cannot bring yourself to leave his side.

But Gwayne is by your side one moment, and gone the next. He is pulled away by the gold cloaks, and it is with little struggle. He lets himself be pulled away. He lets himself be pushed out of the walls of the Keep, and he watches as you stand and stammer all bewildered and reaching to plead his forgiveness to the queen.

The gate closes on him once his horse is by his side.

day thirty five

You have not found much use for yourself since you have returned to the Red Keep. Neither has anyone else.

The war still rages on. It reminds you of the promise you had made to yourself, to leave if it did not end, to leave with Gwayne to Essos. He would be a sellsword, and you a scribe, under the protection of Silverwing.

It seemed a better life, a freer life, you and he on the road together. Being locked away in your chambers of your own volition, anything seemed better.

But Gwayne had abandoned you that day. He had let himself be carried away, and your mother had ignored your pleas of his fealty. It seemed nobody was on your side.

You had only wished for peace. Whatever had grown in place of it had taken your brothers away from you, and Gwayne, too, in some way.

If the war had not gone on, perhaps you could have met him another way. Perhaps he would have been your betrothed. And you could love him the way you wanted to, the way you should have since you woke up in the encampment with him by your side.

He had protected you all those months ago, you had come to realize. The violence of the men who fought under his command would have harmed you more than the words that came from his mouth when defending himself in your stupid fights, the ones you would feed into when he forced you to ride alongside him as the soldiers would march further into the Reach. The words that you replied with when he would anger you, when he would attempt to get close to you.

You should have let him get close to you when he tried. Your need for survival had prevailed then and you took every attempt as some sort of tactic to manipulate you to his side.

But Gwayne had no side, as you swiftly figured out. He wanted out of his cage seemingly as badly as you did, but he did the intelligent thing—the thing he warned you he would always do—and returned to his people, to those he swore loyalty to.

These days, it feels you have no people. Your mother is always off attending to her royal duties, your stepfather and cousins assisting her. And you have no brothers left to bond to. Joffrey is still too little, and too shy, to converse with. The others, your half-siblings, are just a few years young.

If the Hightowers had left you for dead that day, you think you would be more comfortable in the arms of the Stranger than you do in this seemingly haunted home. Your maidenhood would be untainted, and your memory would live on as tragic and loyal. You had left to fight for your mother’s cause after all and you would have died for it then, gods willing.

A piece of you wants to hurl yourself from a window for the treasonous thoughts you have had, but you just want peace. You want peace and freedom. Most of all, though, you want Gwayne.

You can only hope he wants you too, wherever he is. You will wait, and you will bide your time until the war is over—if you live until then. And you will take Silverwing and fly to him, and you will be with him, and you will exile yourselves to Essos. You will dream of that outcome until it happens.

Something deep inside you says it will.

The storm had burned itself out sometime before dawn.

Now all that remained was the steady drip of rain from Dragonstone's black stone walls and the distant crash of waves below the cliffs. Pale morning light slipped through the narrow windows in soft ribbons, washing the chamber in silver.

You wake slowly.

Not necessarily because you're rested, but because you're warm. Far warmer than you ought to be beneath a blanket that had long since been kicked to the foot of the bed.

Jace is wrapped around you as though sometime during the night he'd decided that simply sleeping beside you wasn't close enough. One arm is draped securely across your waist, his face buried against the back of your shoulder, his breathing slow and even. His dark curls are a complete mess, and one bare leg has somehow become tangled with yours beneath the sheets.

You smile to yourself.

"You'll complain about your shoulder later," you murmur.

A sleepy sound, somewhere between a hum and a groan, vibrates against your skin.

"I'll survive." His voice is thick with sleep and his grip tightens just enough to pull you impossibly closer. There's something almost boyish about the way he says it, as though it's a victory in itself.

You turn carefully within the circle of his arms until you're facing him. The movement earns another sleepy complaint, though he makes no effort to let go.

Up close, you can still see the faint flush lingering across his cheeks from the warmth of the room. A thin scratch is visible beneath his collarbone, your own fault no doubt.

You remeber is so clearly, how the rain had battered against the windows, how the candles had guttered low, how his forehead was resting against yours while the storm rolled over Dragonstone. But inside your bed chamber, you'd barely noticed.

"You look terribly pleased with yourself," you say.

One eye opens. "Well, I married you, didn't I?"

"Your point being?"

"It happens to be something I am very pleased about." He studies you for a long moment. "I was thinking..." He continues, thumb brushing lazily over your bare waist. "That I should arrange for more storms."

"Oh?"

"They appear to encourage you to stay in bed."

Outside, somewhere beyond the window, comes the deep, familiar rumble of a dragon.

Jace sighs dramatically without lifting his head. "He's awake."

He presses a kiss to your forehead before finally, reluctantly, releasing you. "If Vermax has flown all the way here simply to interrupt my morning," he declares, "I shall have to remind him who hatched him."

You grin as you reach for the discarded shift lying somewhere beside the bed.

By the time you're both dressed the castle has begun to wake around you.

You trail a step behind Jace, fingers loosely hooked around his sleeve more out of habit than necessity. To be honest, it is a habit you've only recently allowed yourself.

When you first arrived as his wife, you had been painfully conscious of every eye that followed you through the castle.

The princess, the prince's bride. Too young, some had whispered when they thought you were out of earshot. Too sheltered or too soft for Dragonstone.

You had smiled through every greeting, learned every name you could remember, and prayed no one noticed how often you got lost in the twisting corridors of black stone.

Jace had noticed.

Three days after your wedding, he'd quietly taken your hand before supper and walked every hallway, pointing out hidden staircases, quicker routes, which doors stuck in damp weather and which windows gave the best view of Blackwater Bay.

"I cannot believe you've spent an entire afternoon making sure I know my way around the castle." You'd said that evening in your chambers.

"Why can't you believe it?"

"You drew me a map."

"It was an excellent map."

"It had little dragons."

"So you wouldn't get bored."

You laugh. "You named one after Lord Celtigar."

"That one looked particularly grumpy." He grins, a quick flash of satisfaction that softens his usually princely composure, and reaches for your hand.

In your mind, the heir to the Iron Throne ought to be careful, composed, forever aware of watching eyes. But Jace rarely seems to remember, or perhaps he simply doesn't care.

A pair of servants step into the corridor ahead.

The moment they see the two of you, they bow hurriedly. "My prince. Princess."

You smile in greeting, Jace nods once, polite but distracted.

Only after they've passed do you realize he never let go of your hand.

Not even for a moment.

"You know," you tease quietly, "there are people who might think you're terribly devoted."

"They'd be right." He looks at you then with a familiar softness, so unguarded it almost steals your breath.

His thumb brushes absentmindedly across your knuckles. "And I'm not inclined to stop simply because people are looking."

Before you can answer, a deep, resonant rumble rolls across the courtyard outside.

Jace exhales through his nose.

"There he is."

You cross toward one of the narrow windows overlooking the inner yard. Far below, Vermax has landed.

The young dragon stands with his wings half-folded, emerald scales still glistening from the night's rain. A pair of dragonkeepers are speaking to him from what they clearly believe is a safe distance.

Vermax is paying them absolutely no attention. Instead, his great head is tilted upward.

Toward this very window.

You laugh. "I think he's looking for you Jace."

Jace joins you at the window. "No."

He follows the dragon's gaze for a moment before the corners of his mouth twitch. "I think," he says with theatrical resignation, "he's looking for you."

As though to prove his point, Vermax lets out another low, expectant chirr, quieter than his earlier call.

You blink. "Surely not."

Down in the courtyard, Vermax chirrs again.

It becomes impossible to deny by the end of the week. Vermax has decided you belong to him.

"No," Jace says flatly one afternoon, watching the dragon nudge your shoulder with surprising delicacy. "Absolutely not."

You laugh, scratching beneath the smooth ridge of emerald scales where you've discovered he likes it best. "What has he done now?"

"He is stealing my wife."

As if personally offended by the accusation, Vermax lowers his head another inch until the broad curve of his snout is pressed insistently against your side.

Jace stares. "You see?"

"He wants attention."

"I gave him an entire sheep this morning."

You can't help the laugh that escapes you, and it echoes across the training yard, bright enough that even a pair of dragonkeepers glance over with amused smiles.

You and Jace turn to go back inside, but only make it perhaps ten paces before heavy footsteps thud softly behind you.

The dragon has stood and started following.

"Vermax."

He stops, tilting his head.

"You can't come into the castle."

It doesn't stop there.

If you choose to read beneath the old weirwood overlooking the sea, Vermax appears within the hour.

If you wander the beach collecting shells after supper, a shadow passes lazily overhead before circling back toward shore. When you look up, the dragon is gliding against the afternoon sky.

The dragon dips lower, just enough that the rush of displaced air sends your skirts fluttering.

You laugh and wave. High above, Vermax answers with a delighted trill.

One morning you step into the gardens alone, intending only to cut fresh lavender for your chambers. You have barely even filled half the basket when a familiar shadow rolls across the flowers.

Then comes the gentle, unmistakable whuff of warm dragon breath.

You don't even look up.

"Good morning, Vermax." The dragon answers with a contented rumble.

He settles himself just beyond the garden wall, folding his forelegs neatly beneath him.

And there he remains.

When Jace finds you nearly an hour later, basket overflowing with lavender, he stops dead.

"You've got to be joking."

"What?"

He points.

Vermax, his great head rests on crossed forelegs, one eye lazily cracked open just enough to keep you in sight.

You walk over, unable to resist stroking the smooth scales along Vermax's jaw.

Jace follows, and you shake your head, laughing, and slip your free hand into his. Immediately, Vermax opens both eyes.

He watches the joined hands for a long, silent moment. Then, with another deep, satisfied rumble, he closes them again.

A couple weeks later, Dragonstone is hosting a small gathering of sworn lords from the Crownlands. Nothing particularly grand, just an awful lot of petitions, trade disputes, and endless discussions that leave Jace rubbing his temples by supper.

You escape the hall as politely as you can.

"I shall only be a moment," you promise him.

His hand lingers around yours before he lets go. "I know."

"You'll survive without me, Jace, I promise."

The sea air is cooler outside. Rain still clings to the black stone, leaving everything smelling of salt and earth. You breathe deeply, grateful for the quiet after hours of smiling at strangers.

You don't notice the shadow until it passes overhead.

A heartbeat later, Vermax lands beyond the outer wall with enough force to make loose gravel dance across the ground.

"You again?" you laugh.

His answer is a soft chirr as he lowers his head, inviting the familiar scratch beneath his jaw.

You indulge him. "You know," you murmur, "your rider insists you're abandoning him."

You continue scratching him anyway.

The interruption comes quietly. "My princess."

You turn. One of the visiting lords, a pleasant enough man whose name escapes you, has stepped into the courtyard. He offers a courteous bow.

"I hoped I might thank you for your kindness at supper."

"You are very kind, my lord."

He smiles. "I confess Dragonstone is rather less… welcoming than I imagined."

You glance at the dragon. "I imagine it has nothing to do with the fire-breathing beats circling at all times."

The lord laughs and takes a step closer.

Vermax's head lifts. The movement is slow enough that, for a moment, no one notices. Until the rumbling begins. It vibrates through the stone beneath your feet and the lord stops mid-sentence.

His smile falters.

Vermax does not bare his teeth, he does not spread his wings, he simply fixes the man with one unblinking emerald eye.

The rumble deepens.

"My lady," the lord corrects takes an instinctive step backward.

The sound stops.

You blink.

"…That was odd."

The lord laughs a little too loudly. "I believe… I shall return inside."

You think little of it.

Until it happens again, and again, and again. Not only with strangers, but with servants and guards. Even dragonkeepers he has known since hatching.

If someone approaches you too quickly, Vermax appears.

If voices grow heated nearby, he materialises as though summoned by instinct alone. He has become a living wall of green scales between you and the rest of the world.

A fortnight passes.

The castle settles into its familiar rhythm, though Vermax never quite returns to his old habits.

If anything, he grows bolder.

By now, even the servants have stopped remarking upon it.

"Your shadow awaits you, Princess," one maid says one morning with a knowing smile.

You peer from the window. Sure enough, a pair of emerald eyes are already fixed expectantly on the tower.

You laugh. "I do believe I've been adopted."

That afternoon, the weather is fair.

Jace has escaped the council chambers looking thoroughly exhausted, finding you exactly where he expected, beneath the old windswept tree overlooking the cliffs, a book forgotten in your lap while Vermax dozes nearby.

Or appears to.

His eyes are closed.

One wing lies stretched lazily across the grass, shimmering green beneath the sun.

Jace watches while walking towards you, finally bending to kiss the top of your head. Then, without thinking, he reaches a hand toward you.

Vermax's eyes snap open.

The dragon rises in one smooth motion, slipping between you and Jace with astonishing precision. His great neck curves across the narrow space, not striking, not threatening, but blocking.

Jace freezes.

For one suspended heartbeat, neither moves.

The dragon's head turns slightly, one brilliant green eye fixed on his rider, Jace stares back.

"...Vermax."

The dragon lets out a low sound, as though asking something only he understands. Then, just as suddenly, he steps aside.

You blink. "What on earth was that?"

Jace doesn't answer, he is still looking at Vermax.

"I've never..." he murmurs.

"What?"

"He has never stood between us."

By evening, Jace has sought out the dragonkeepers; he wants an explanation.

The oldest among them is already waiting when Jace reaches the caverns.

He bows deeply.

"My prince."

"You've noticed." It is not a question.

The old man is silent for a long moment. "...Yes."

"Then tell me."

Another pause.

"There are tales." The dragonkeeper folds weathered hands before him. "And the tales are all I have."

Jace says nothing, but his jaw tightens.

The old man continues carefully. "Dragons know certain things before men do, sometimes."

"What things?"

"Danger." Jace nods once. "Weather." Another nod. "And..." The man hesitates. "Life."

Jace blinks. "...What do you mean?"

"There are old records. Rare ones. A dragon becoming unusually protective of a rider's wife. Of a queen. Of a princess."

"Protective?"

"They guard." The dragonkeeper's gaze drifts toward the mouth of the cavern, where Vermax sleeps beyond the fading light.

Jace remembers every strange moment of the past weeks and his heartbeat quickens.

"No."

"It is only a possibility."

"No."

"Has the princess been unwell?"

"...No."

"Has she been unusually tired?"

Jace opens his mouth. Closes it again.

"And..." the dragonkeeper says gently, "when did the dragon's behavior begin?"

Jace's mind races backwards until he finally remembers the storm. How Vermax had refused to leave the castle, had hovered outside their chambers, nudging him toward the tower when he'd intended to return to his studies.

He'd laughed. "Apparently, he has plans for us."

Three months, almost exactly.

The dragonkeeper watches the realisation settle over his prince's face. Quietly, he says, "I believe... it may be time to send for the maester."

Jace finds you in your solar not five minutes later. You look up from the embroidery in your lap, smiling the moment he steps through the door, but the smile falters almost immediately.

"Jace?"

His hair is windblown from crossing the castle at nearly a run, his expression unreadable in a way you've never quite seen before. He closes the door behind him without a word and simply looks at you, searching your face as though expecting to find something different.

"What is it?"

He crosses the room in three long strides and kneels before your chair, taking both your hands in his. "Have you felt unwell?"

You blink. "...No."

"Not at all?"

"A little tired, perhaps, but you've been working me through every feast and council dinner on Dragonstone." You smile faintly. "I assumed being a princess was simply quite exhausting."

His thumb traces absent circles across your knuckles. "And nothing else?"

"I've slept later than usual."

"You've always liked sleeping late."

You grin, leaning forward to whisper, "I do when my husband keeps me awake half the night."

The corner of his mouth twitches despite himself, though the smile never quite reaches his eyes. "When was your last moon's blood?"

You stare at him. "What?"

He doesn't repeat himself, and slowly, your own amusement fades. You set the embroidery aside. "I..." You pause, thinking. "I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"I've never had reason to count the days so carefully, Jace."

Silence settles between you. You begin counting backwards in your head, tracing feasts, journeys, the passing weeks. Your brows knit together. "A couple of weeks, maybe," you murmur. "I'm not sure."

His expression answers before he speaks. "The dragonkeepers believe Vermax sensed it."

You let out a disbelieving laugh. "Jace."

"They've seen it before."

"Surely they haven't."

"They swear they have."

You shake your head, trying to make sense of it. "So... because Vermax has decided to follow me everywhere..."

"And because he stood between us."

"...he thinks I'm carrying a child?"

"Yes."

You both fall quiet.

"Oh."

It is the only word you can manage, and Jace squeezes your hands.

"I've sent for the maester."

"You've... already?"

"He'll be here shortly."

The maester, when he finally arrives, is kind and discreet, far too accustomed to royal nerves to comment on the tension hanging in the room. He asks a handful of careful questions, his expression growing steadily more thoughtful with each answer.

When he rises from his examination, he folds his hands inside his sleeves and smiles.

"My prince."

Jace has been standing by the window the entire time.

"So?"

The old man inclines his head. "My congratulations."

The room falls completely still. You look at Jace. He looks at you. Neither of you speaks.

The maester continues, almost gently. "If my calculations are correct, Her Grace is nearing the end of her third month."

He leaves you with instructions about rest, diet, and avoiding undue strain, but you hear almost none of it, too focused on the way the room seems to have shrunk around you.

The door clicks shut.

Then Jace crosses the room so quickly that you barely have time to stand before his arms are around you. He buries his face against your hair, holding you so tightly it almost hurts.

You laugh through the tears threatening your eyes.

"I think..." Your voice catches. "I think we're going to have a baby."

He nods once against your shoulder, voice barely a whisper. "I know."

Jace's spiral into overprotectiveness begins with the reasonable things.

"No more riding."

You open your mouth to argue, but are stopped before any sound escapes by a single raised eyebrow.

The maester, entirely unhelpfully, agrees with him.

Then come the stairs.

"If no one is with you."

"Jace."

"They're uneven."

"They have been uneven for a hundred years."

He insists on taking your arm every time you descend them after that.

By the time your gowns no longer sit quite as they used to, he has become impossible.

Servants carry anything heavier than a book. Meals appear in your chambers if the Great Hall is too crowded. Councils are moved rather than asking you to cross the castle, and if you so much as mention feeling tired, Jace is already leading you back toward your rooms before you've finished the sentence.

"You know women have been having children since the beginning of time?"

"I am aware, yes."

"They don't all require an escort to the library."

"I don't care, because you will have one.

Once, you disappear for nearly an hour.

Jace finds you asleep in the late afternoon sun, curled against the warm curve of Vermax's foreleg with a book lying open across your lap.

The dragon is awake. His head rests protectively around you, just close enough to shelter you from the wind without touching.

At Jace's approach, one emerald eye opens. For a long moment, dragon and rider simply look at one another. Then Vermax lowers his head again.

You stir at the sound of footsteps, blinking sleepily up at your husband.

"There you are."

"I've been looking everywhere."

"I was comfortable."

"I can see that."

By the eighth month, you start to begrudingly appreciate Jace's over-the-top efforts.

"I cannot reach my boots."

Jace looks up from the letter he'd been pretending to read. "You reached them yesterday."

"I was smaller yesterday."

He watches you glare down at the impossible curve of your stomach as though sheer determination might convince it to move. After another unsuccessful attempt, you huff dramatically and fold your arms.

"This child is already causing problems."

"Our child," Jace corrects.

"Our child," you sigh, "has stolen my feet."

A smile threatens at the corners of his mouth. With the patience of a man who has accepted this as his fate, he sets the letter aside and kneels in front of you.

"Oh, don't you dare."

"You said you couldn't reach."

"I did not ask you to-"

"You were about to."

He lifts one foot gently onto his knee and makes quick work of the laces.

"Jace, you don't have to do everything you know."

"I know."

"So why do you?"

He finishes tying the second boot before looking up at you. "Because I like taking care of my wife."

A number of weeks later the castle wakes before dawn to the sound of a dragon.

Not roaring; pacing.

The heavy scrape of claws against stone echoes through the courtyard, followed by a low, restless rumble that seems to vibrate through the walls of Dragonstone itself.

You stir beneath the blankets, still half asleep. "...He's at it again."

Beside you, Jace groans into his pillow. "If he has frightened another stableboy, I swear on all that is holy-"

Another rumble.

Closer this time. Longer, almost a whine in nature.

Jace sits up. "...That's odd."

For the past several months Vermax has scarcely left the courtyard beneath your chambers, but he has always been quiet. Content simply to stand and watch.

The windows rattle faintly as his tail sweeps across the stone.

Jace is already pulling on a tunic. "I'll see what's wrong."

You nod, pushing yourself upright with considerably more effort than dignity. He smiles over his shoulder as he ducks out of the room, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes.

The courtyard is in chaos.

Dragonkeepers stand well back from Vermax, speaking to him in soothing High Valyrian that goes utterly ignored. The dragon paces in tight circles, wings half-spread, head swinging constantly toward the tower above.

One keeper catches sight of Jace.

"My prince."

"What happened?"

"We don't know."

Vermax notices his rider. Instead of calming, the dragon lets out another deep, agitated rumble and immediately turns toward the tower again, toward your chambers. Then, he stamps a forefoot. Hard enough that dust shakes from the walls.

Up in the tower, you're sitting and waiting for Jace when pain tightens unexpectedly across your abdomen.

You stop halfway across the chamber, one hand finding the edge of the table. "...Hm."

The feeling passes as quickly as it came.

Outside, Vermax lets out the loudest cry you've ever heard him make. It rolls across the cliffs and back again.

You freeze before calling out. "...Jace?"

He is already taking the stairs two at a time. He bursts through the chamber doors moments later, slightly out of breath.

Before he can speak, another wave rolls through you. Your hand flies instinctively to your stomach.

Jace's face drains of colour. "What is it?"

"I..." You breathe carefully. "I think..."

Another pause. Then, despite yourself, you laugh. "I think Vermax has solved another mystery."

For one heartbeat Jace simply stares.

Then his eyes widen.

"No."

"I think so."

As if the universe itself objects to his denial, another wave steals your breath. You grip the bedpost but Jace is at your side before you can blink, one arm already around your waist.

"The maester."

His voice comes out far calmer than his expression.

"Someone fetch the maester!"

Outside, Vermax finally stops pacing.

He lowers himself heavily onto the black stone directly beneath your windows, refusing every attempt by the dragonkeepers to coax him away.

His head remains lifted toward the tower.

After hours of pain and effort the world slowly comes back into focus in pieces.

Sound first; soft voices, the distant rush of the sea, the occasional crackle of the hearth. Then warmth pressed against your side. You blink against the haze of exhaustion and find yourself surrounded by dim candlelight and movement that feels almost too gentle for how loud everything had just been.

Jace is here.

He’s sitting half on the edge of the bed, hair dishevelled, sleeves rolled up wrong, a smear of something dark on his cuff that you vaguely decide not to think about too hard. His eyes are fixed on you with a kind of stunned intensity, as if he’s afraid that if he looks away for even a second, this will all vanish.

“You’re shaking,” you murmur, though your own voice barely holds together.

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

A beat of silence passes between you before he exhales and finally lets himself lean forward, pressing a careful kiss against your forehead.

“And him?” he asks, like he’s been holding the question in his teeth for hours.

You don’t even need to answer. The little bundle in your arms shifts slightly, a tiny sound breaking through the quiet and Jace goes utterly still. His gaze drops to the child as though he’s afraid it might disappear if he stares too hard.

“He's beautiful,” he says finally.

You adjust the blanket slightly, and the baby nestles closer, face scrunching briefly before settling again. Jace makes a sound that is halfway between a laugh and something dangerously close to breaking.

“I don’t-” he starts, then stops, swallowing. “I didn’t think it would feel like this.”

“You thought it would feel like what?”

He doesn’t answer immediately. His hand hovers near the bundle, stops short, then retreats again like he’s not sure he’s allowed.

“Louder,” he admits.

You huff a weak laugh. “I'm not sure it'll stay this quiet, so we should probably try to enjoy it while it lasts.”

He finally looks at you again, and there’s something undone in his expression that you’ve never seen before. “I need to see him,” he says.

You tilt your head slightly. “You’ve been staring at him for an hour.”

“Alright, I need to hold him.”

You carefully shift the baby into his arms. It’s awkward at first, Jace holding himself too rigid, like he’s afraid of doing it wrong, like one wrong breath might undo everything, but then the child settles against him and something in his shoulders breaks open.

He exhales, slow and unsteady. There’s a long silence where he doesn’t say anything at all.

Then, barely audible, “I can't believe he’s mine.”

You smile faintly. “Yes.”

Jace looks down again, thumb brushing so lightly over the baby’s cheek it’s almost not there. “He looks…” He pauses, helpless. “He looks like he knows things already.”

“That’s probably just you projecting.”

Outside the window, a deep sound rolls through the cliffs. Jace’s head lifts instantly.

“Oh.”

Jace carefully adjusts his grip on the baby, like he’s handling something far more fragile than steel and fire could ever be.

“I should-” he starts.

You raise an eyebrow. “You should what?”

He’s already standing. “I should show him.”

You blink at him. “Jace.”

But he’s not really listening anymore. Not in the way he used to, at least. This is something else, instinctive and almost urgent.

“Jace, it’s freezing outside.”

“I’ll be quick.”

So you watch him wrap a cloak around himself and the baby like it’s the most natural thing in the world, then walk out of the room.

By the time he reaches the courtyard, Vermax is already there.

The dragon is enormous against the grey morning sky, wings folded, tail curled tightly around the stone like he’s been rooted there for hours. When he sees Jace, he doesn’t move at first.

Then Jace steps into the open.

Vermax’s head lowers immediately.

Jace stops a few paces away, breathing uneven, then lifts the bundle higher against his chest.

“This is my son.”

Vermax steps forward, so carefully. The ground still trembles slightly beneath the weight of him, but he is impossibly gentle as he lowers his head until he’s level with Jace’s arms. One massive eye focuses on the tiny face within the blanket.

For a long moment, he does nothing.

Then he exhales. Warm air, slow and careful, brushes over the child like a blessing.

The baby stirs, and Vermax freezes instantly.

Jace laughs under his breath, disbelieving and wrecked all at once. “It’s alright,” he murmurs. “He’s yours too, apparently.”

The dragon makes a soft, almost questioning sound, then lowers himself further until his forehead rests against the stone directly in front of them, as if offering something wordless and absolute.

Jace finally looks up at him properly, smiling.

“Say hello,” he whispers.

Vermax answers with a quiet, reverent rumble that rolls out across Dragonstone.

Exhausted, you make your way through your empty home. You trudge past Kay and Tyler’s doors, slowly walking to your room. You pause when you hear groaning.

Silently, you turn the doorknob and cautiously peer through the narrow opening. Your heart leaps as you recognize the figure standing in the dimly lit room.

His back is facing you, but his frame is unmistakable. Bjorn.

As if sensing your presence, he turns to face you and you let out a gasp of shock.

A pair of your dirty panties are stuffed in his mouth, saliva dripping down his chin. His blue eyes are rolled back in ecstasy, lost in his own pleasure.

One hand is pushing his shirt up, revealing the smooth skin of his stomach. Your gaze travels down the trail of hair that leads to an alluring sight - his hand wrapped around his swollen cock.

He holds another pair of your panties, tightly wound around his throbbing member. Each thrust causes the fabric to slide down, revealing the flushed head peeking out and glistening in the light with his arousal. The sight sends shivers down your spine and ignites an intense desire within you.

Your panties flood at the sight of him and you freeze. You’re torn between interrupting him and letting him finish. Not to watch, but because this is wrong.

You try to convince yourself that it’s not because you want to know what it looks like when your cousin cums. What would look like for his cock to spread cum through your panties.

Ignoring the insistent throbbing in your core, you quietly shut the door behind you. Heart pounding, you rush to the front door and pause, hand hovering over the doorknob before throwing it open and slamming it shut again.

With cautious steps, you make your way to your room, trying to steady your voice. “Hello? Anybody home?”

You hear frantic shuffling behind the door of your room and you put on an innocent facade.

Opening the door, your curious expression gives way to a cheery smile. “Bjorn! Hey! What yah doin’ here? Looking for somethin’?”

He stands there, surrounded by old photographs of the two of you together. Family pictures, group pictures, and memories frozen in time. His gaze drifts over each one before finally settling on you with his usual boyish smile. "Was lookin' for you," he says.

You take a moment to observe him. If you didn’t know any better he seems normal. As if a few seconds before, he hadn’t been fucking himself to the thought of you.

The flush of his skin has receded and his clothes aren’t particularly ruffled. If you allow your eyes to linger, you can make out the outline of his cock in his sweats. But your eyes flicker away as he tries to subtly adjust himself with a hand in his pocket.

Glimpsing at his other hand, the one that stroked his cock, you notice a slight sheen.

Feeling saliva gather in your mouth, you flash him a smile and you move to hug him. He tenses slightly as you press yourself to him. Your pebbled nipples rub deliciously along his chest and you bite your lip to suppress a shiver. You’re tempted to rub your core against the bulge you know is there, but you resist the urge.

Pulling back slightly, you grab his hand and press it to your cheek. The smell of him surrounds you and you can feel a slight stickiness against your skin.

You watch as his eyes darken. “What’d yah need me for?” You tilt your head innocently at him, and he clenches his jaw.

Bjorn flashes you a sharp smile, licking his dry lips. "Jus’ wanted to catch up," he says, voice slightly hoarse. "Been a while since we'd got some time alone together."

You feel a thrill run through you at his words. Keeping your expression innocent, you reply. "Of course. I've missed you."

You lead him over to sit on the edge of your bed, hyper-aware of his presence next to you. The air feels thick with tension.

"So," you begin casually, "what have you been up to lately?" you ask, looking up at him through your lashes.

Bjorn's eyes roam over you as he answers. "Oh, uhh.” He scratches at the scruff on his face. “The usual. Work. Hanging out." His gaze lingers on your lips. You can see the internal struggle playing out behind his pretty eyes - desire warring with guilt and hesitation. Harshly wiping at his nose, he looks away.

You try to distract yourself from the taboo tension between you. "Oh, uh... I’m sorry about my room," you manage to get out. "It’s kinda messy. Didn’t get a chance to clean yet."

Swallowing, your eyes roam around your room before straying to him again, “I haven’t even had time to do laundry yet.” Releasing a nervous giggle, you shrug, “It’s kinda gross but I’ve had to reuse panties.”

Bjorn coughs out a choking sound and he pounds on his chest in an attempt to clear it. Worried, you slide closer and rub a hand along his back. “Are you ok?”

He sputters out a quick reply, head nodding. “Yeah, yeah. ‘M fine.”

You can feel the heat radiating off Bjorn's body as you rub his back. His muscles are tense under your touch. You let your hand linger, tracing small circles.

"You sure you're okay?" you ask softly, leaning in closer. "You seem a little... flustered."

Bjorn turns to look at you, his blue eyes dark with barely concealed desire. "I'm fine," he says gruffly. But you can see the way his gaze keeps dropping to your lips.

You bite your lip, considering. Part of you wants to push further, to see how far you can take this dangerous game. But another part hesitates, aware of the line you're teetering on the edge of.

Feeling the adrenaline rush through you, you boldly slide your hand up to the nape of his neck, playing with the soft hair there. "If you say so," you murmur. "If there's anything you need… anything at all, I'm here for you. We're family after all."

At the word "family” he meets your eyes and neither of you move. The air feels charged, electric.

"Bjorn," you murmur, your voice barely above a whisper. "We…"

Before you can finish your thought, he surges forward and presses you back onto the bed. Gasping in surprise, your hands grasp his shoulders. His chain sways over you as his weight settles on you. Bjorn’s hips nestle between your thighs and you can feel how hard he is.

Bjorn moves to press his lips to yours, but you turn your head, flinching away. Panting, you curl your fingers into his shoulders. “We shouldn’t…”

He scrutinizes your face for a brief moment and nods, pressing his tongue against your throat. You gasp as he grinds into your core. "We shouldn't," he repeats, even as his hands roam your body hungrily. The cold metal of his rings contrasting against the heat of his skin.

His tongue probes at the skin between your shoulder and neck. Your body responds instinctively, melting into his touch and eagerly opening for him.

Gasping in a breath, your voice is loud and interrupts the moans and noises. “I saw you!”

Bjorn freezes on top of you. You continue. “I saw you with… with my…”

Intense blue eyes meet yours and you ashamedly look away. He forces your eyes to his and he huskily speaks. “Say it... Say it.”

Swallowing an audible gulp, you speak through shaky breaths. “You were…” Glancing between his hungry eyes, you speak more clearly. “You were using my dirty panties to stroke your cock like a nasty pervert.”

Groaning, he runs his nose up your cheek. “Such dirty words for a girl who thinks herself above it… N’ what bout you? How long did you watch for?”

Gripping you harder, he rolls his hips into you. “How wet di’ you get watchin’ your cousin use your panties to get off?”

Raising a hand to your mouth, you force your moans down and shake your head. “I didn’t-”

“No? You didn’t watch?” He interrupts, taunting you. “Or no, you’re no’ wet?”

With a gentle touch, his fingers glide over the button of your pants. He leans in and sinks his teeth into your breast, the fabric of your shirt providing a barrier between his mouth and your skin. A shiver runs through you, intensified by the sensation of his sharp teeth through the thin material. “If I were to check, your pussy won’t be drooling for me?”

You gasp as Bjorn's fingers ghost over your soaked underwear. A smirk plays on his lips as he feels just how wet you are.

"Looks like someone's just as nasty as I am," he murmurs, his voice low and husky. His fingers press more firmly against you, drawing a strangled moan from your throat.

"Bjorn, we can't-" you try to protest weakly, even as your hips jolt into his touch.

"We shouldn't," he agrees, echoing your earlier words. "But we both want to, don't we?" His lips brush against your ear as he speaks, sending shivers down your spine.

He chuckles darkly. His fingers push your panties aside, lightly sliding a tip of his finger through your slick folds. "Your pussy’s tellin’ a different story than your lying whore mouth."

The words sting like a slap across the face, leaving a bitter taste in your mouth. Your heart races as arousal mixes with shame, your body betraying you. With trembling hands, you allow him to peel away the layers of clothing, exposing your bare skin to his hungry gaze.

You close your eyes and try to steady your breathing, willing yourself to calm down and not give into the forbidden desires coursing through your veins. But the heat between your legs intensifies as he undresses. You bite down on your lip and look up at the ceiling, trying to hold onto some sense of control.

Ashamed tears gather in the corners of your eyes and you lick your dry lips. “I- You can’t be inside me. If we do this, there’s- Don’t put your cock in me.”

With a nod, Bjorn slowly pushes his pants down, revealing the smooth expanse of his thighs. Your gaze follows the movement, anticipation building as you watch his cock spring free. It bounces against his stomach before settling heavily on his thigh.

The sight of it up close leaves you breathless and entranced. Your throat tightens as you speak, your voice almost absentmindedly drifting out as you take in every detail of his beautiful cock. “How long had you been coming in here?”

He smirks with arrogant satisfaction seeing the dazed look on your face. “Dunno. A while I reckon. If I were to look through your panty drawer, I could probably tell you I’ve probably cum in most of em.”

Your eyes shoot to his and seeing his nonchalant sincerity, your core clenches. Rolling your neck, you speak breathlessly. “I wasn’t lying. I’d had to reuse some underwear. And- you… Knowing I was walking around with your dried cum on my panties…”

Bjorn’s eyes darken at your words and his cock jumps with arousal. He moves atop you with a raw, primal grace. Grinding his cock into you, he grips your hair and hovers his mouth over yours in a teasing threat of a kiss.

With each rock of his hips, his erection slides along the bare skin of your stomach, setting off waves of pleasure that make you pant and moan into each other's mouths.

Groaning, he adjusts his position and slides a hand between your legs. Your panties cling desperately to your moistened lips, allowing him easy access as he slides a finger against you. Bjorn spreads your arousal over every inch of your panties, accentuating every curve and dip of your puffy lips.

Moving down your body with feverish hunger, he leaves a trail of wet, sloppy kisses. Biting down on your thigh, he gazes up at you with intense blue eyes, glowing with desire.

Sniffing deeply, he gathers saliva in his mouth before dropping his gaze back to your core. With deliberate precision, he spits onto your panties, watching as his saliva slowly drips down and coats your panty-clad pussy. Using his thumb to spread it around, he revels in the sight and scent of your arousal.

Chest heaving, you bring your hands to massage and tease at your breasts. Your fingers tug and pinch at your nipples as you watch him press rough kisses to your puffy pussy lips.

His pink tongue darts out from between his lips and licks up the length of your slick slit. Pushing his face closer to you, he closes his eyes as the vibrations of his deep groans course through him. Nuzzling into your clit, he sucks eagerly on the fabric-covered bud, desperate to suck the delicious taste of you from your panties.

He is completely consumed by you. He has been living, surviving, on the mere remnants of your pussy. The feel, the smell, the taste. Now, he revels in the real thing. It feels otherworldly to have you like this, and he struggles to hold back his own climax as he continues to feast on your pussy.

Bjorn gently presses a soft kiss to your clit before withdrawing and pressing his forehead against your thigh. You can feel his hot breath on your skin as he murmurs, “Fuck. You’ve no idea how long I’ve dreamt of this.”

Taking a deep, calming breath, he rises up onto his knees and leans over you again. With one hand supporting himself, he rubs the tip of his hard cock against your wet folds. He positions himself between your legs, slowly sliding his bare length through your slickness, grinding against you with each movement. His flushed tip grazes over your sensitive clit with each thrust.

His blue eyes are glossy with desire as he presses his tongue against the corner of your lips, barely tasting you before releasing a muffled moan. "Tell me," he whispers hoarsely. “Tell me wha’ you want an’ I’ll give it to yah. Tell me you want your cousin’s cock. to fill the aching hole in you.”

Huffing a breath, you glance down at where your bodies are pressed together, watching as a bead of precum forms at the tip of his pretty pink cock. It disappears as it soaks into your panties when he grinds against you. You can see the faint mark it leaves above your throbbing clit.

Your face slickens with his saliva and desperate tears. Tongue roaming around your face, but ignoring your tingling lips. You know you’ve both crossed so many lines, but something so “innocent” as a kiss feels too far.

Apparently not a line he’s unwilling to cross, because his tongue bravely flicks your bottom lip. “Promise I’ll give you my cock if you just ask for it. All you have to do is ask. Just ask,” he pleads.

Whimpering into your neck, his back arches. “Please, it can be jus’ the tip. I don’t- promise it’ll jus’ be the tip. Tha’s all.”

You swallow a guilt-laden breath, hesitating as you gather the courage to speak. You know that if you let him in you, even just the tip. You won’t stop there. He must sense a complaint or denial on the tip of your tongue because he forcefully presses his swollen, red lips against yours.

You return the rough kiss softly with trembling lips. What’s one more line crossed?

Tentatively, you flick your tongue out to taste him. His frantic lips slow down as you shyly slide your tongue against his. Parting, you leave a trail of saliva lingering between you as you gasp for air. His blue eyes are dilated, burning with desire as he moves to devour your mouth.

Your tongues clash, his mouth tasting like lust and want. You can taste his desperation, mingled with the lingering taste of sweat and you.

Bjorn’s lips make a wet, smacking sound as they move against yours, his heavy breathing and low grunts filling the air. His lips move with force, almost bruising as he kisses you relentlessly. They grip and pull at your bottom lip, nipping and sucking until it throbs. The sound of your uneven breaths and moans are muffled against his ravenous mouth.

Bjorn consumes every noise you make, every desperate cry and pathetic moan.

Incapable of speaking passed his relentless mouth, you move your panties to the side and rub the tip of him against your aching core. His body shudders above yours, emitting primal grunts and growls as he finally breaks away from your lips. You avoid looking at him and nod. “Just the tip. Just- just the tip.”

With a nod against your cheek, he echoes your words as his hands slide down to remove your wet panties, exposing the delicate skin beneath. You hold him in your hand, anticipation and desire building in the space between you. Together, you both watch as he pushes inside of you. A shudder runs through his body as the engorged tip of him disappears between your folds.

Breathless and lost in the moment, he throws his head back and his cock twitches with need. His fingers dig into the sheets by your head as he leans over you, his body shaking with desire.

His hips begin to shallowly thrust into you and he grits out. “How do you like that? The tip of your cousin’s cock in your desperate pussy.” Your walls tense around him and his hips falter, driving into you with an extra bit of force. “Yeah? You like that? I know she’s not full. I know she wants more of me.”

You reach up and cup his face in your hands, pulling him towards you with a desperate force. Your lips find his, hungry and insistent, as if seeking to devour every word that might escape from his mouth. You need him to stop talking. If he keeps talking, you’ll ask him to fuck into you deeper.

You try to distract him, messily exploring every crevice of his mouth with your tongue, mapping out every curve and line with an urgent hunger. As he responds with an eager urgency, his body arches towards you and he presses deeper into you. A shuddering gasp escapes your lips as your body eagerly accepts him every inch he gives.

"Fuck," Bjorn groans, his forehead pressed to yours. His hips rock gently, working more of his length into you with each shallow thrust. You whimper and clutch at his shoulders, lifting your legs.

Bjorn’s voice is strained. “I can't stop. Need you so bad." His hips twitch, fighting the urge to thrust fully into you. "Tell me to stop. If you really want me to stop, say it now."

As he whines, you grasp his head and bring it closer to your neck, feeling the warmth of his breath against your skin. You squeeze your eyes shut tightly, overwhelmed with emotion as you pull him closer to you with your legs, pressing every inch of him into your body. Your heels dig into the flesh of his ass, urging him further inside until he finally bottoms out and fills you completely. The sensation leaves both of you moaning in pure ecstasy at the feeling of being completely joined.

Bjorn's cock is fully sheathed inside you. Your walls clench around him involuntarily and he lets out a strangled groan against your neck.

Bjorn starts to move, slowly at first. He pulls out almost completely before sliding back in, savoring every inch. His thrusts gradually pick up speed and force as his control slips away.

"God, I've wanted to put my cock in you for so long," he pants, his voice rough with desire. "Dreamt about being inside you like this. Of cumming in you."

You rake your nails down his back, pleasure building with each thrust. The wrongness of it all only seems to heighten the pleasure, manifesting in overwhelming sensitivity. You almost don’t hear his words as he peppers kisses on your clammy skin. “I’m gonna cum in you. Fill you up… Wanna watch as I drip from your pussy.”

Your core pulses with need and he continues. “Fuck! Want you to walk around with my cum in you. We can go the quarry and you can talk to other guys with my cum dripping down the inside of your thighs. Would you-”

There’s a knock at the door and someone calls your name.

Your glossy eyes widen with fear, but he doesn’t stop. Instead he shoves a hand over your mouth. His fingers dig into your cheek as he leans over you, his chain swaying and hitting your chin with each thrust. His voice is a low whisper. “You can be quiet, can’t you? Don’t want anyone to find you getting fucked by your asshole cousin would you?”

Unwillingly, your core tightens at his words. Bjorn narrows his eyes at you with a taunting smirk. “Or would you? Do you like the thought of that? Someone walking in on us while you’re being pumped full of your cousin’s cum.”

There’s another knock and call of your name. The door rattles as they try to enter the locked room.

The squelching of his cock smacking into your sloppy pussy is loud and you hope it can’t be heard through the door. You also hope they go the fuck away because you can’t talk. Not with Bjorn’s cock bullying into your pussy so deeply.

Your eyes dart frantically between Bjorn and the door. His thrusts don't falter, if anything they grow faster, more feral and primal. His hand flattens on your navel and his thumb flicks at your clit.

The friction against your neglected and oversensitive clit makes your toes curl. Your walls stutter around him as waves of ecstasy wash over you. Black dots cloud your vision and the veins in your neck strain as your suppress your cries. The wet, fleshy sound of his cock splitting you open is deafening.

"Shh," Bjorn whispers harshly, his hand still clamped over your mouth. "Don't make a sound."

You nod desperately, tears leaking from the corners of your eyes. Whether from fear or pleasure, you're not sure anymore.

The knocking grows more insistent. "Are you in there? Is everything okay?"

Bjorn's hips stutter and you feel him twitching inside you. His eyes lock onto yours, dark with lust. "I'm gonna cum," he breathes. "Gonna fill you up."

You shake your head frantically, trying to protest through his hand, but his blue eyes roll and the weight of his body presses down into you. You can feel each twitch and pulse as hot ropes of cum fill you. His teeth find your neck and he bites down into your skin muffling his noises of euphoria.

Bjorn's eyes lock with yours, dark with lust and mischief. He removes his hand from your mouth, replacing it with his lips in a searing kiss.

"Answer," he whispers against your lips. Searching his expression, you hesitantly nod, turning to the door, as there’s another knock.

Clearing your throat, you call out. “I’m okay. Just not feeling well.” The roughness of your voice must be convincing because they don’t question you further.

“Alright, um let me know if you need anything… Have you seen Bjorn? I can’t find him anywhere and nobody knows where he is.”

His spent cock twitches in you, but you ignore him.

Yeah, you know where he is. Deep inside of your pussy. But you don’t say that.

Licking your burning lips, you yell. "No. No idea, sorry. If it’s that important, maybe try checking the mines? Maybe he took another shift."

"Okay, thanks. Hope you feel better," comes the muffled reply. You hear footsteps retreating down the hallway.

Bjorn chuckles softly against your neck. "Good girl," he murmurs, pressing a kiss to your pulse point.

You shiver at the praise, your body still hyper-sensitive. Bjorn's softening cock is still inside you. Shame starts to creep in now that the haze of lust is fading.

He slowly pulls out of you and you feel his cum starting to leak out, warm and sticky between your thighs.

"Fuck, that's hot," Bjorn breathes out.

"We shouldn't have done that," you whisper, averting your eyes.

Bjorn lifts his head to look at you, his blue eyes searching your face. "Do you regret it?" he asks quietly.

You bite your lip and guiltily shake your head.

The low rumble of the metal grate beneath your feet as the Corbelan ascends leaves you feeling momentarily weightless, like you're floating before gravity pulls you down, feeling heavier than usual.

You’re strapped in, anchored by a sturdy crossed seatbelt that comes down over your shoulders and buckles in next to the opposite hip, white knuckling the lip of the seat on either side of your thighs, eyes closed tight as you hold your breath.

It feels surreal, your heart thumping hard against your rib cage, knowing you all just pulled off the biggest heist in Jackson Star’s history, stealing highly-regulated equipment to leave behind a shitty life of indentured servitude.

It's something you've all discussed at length for months, Tyler being the one to initially suggest the idea while you were all drinking late one night, mapping out an escape route in yours and Bjorn's shared trailer, sitting on his lap with his legs spread wide, arms loosely circled around your waist.

Still—you can't believe it actually worked, breaking into the hauler and getting it up off the ground without any hiccups, half expecting sirens to soon blare throughout the endlessly dark sky or for the engine to stall, it just feels easy. Too easy.

You feel Bjorn’s hand on your leg then, taking notice of your growing anxiety, always able to pick up on any shifts in your mood, no matter how subtle, not when it comes to you.

Running his thumb along the inseam of your dark-washed jeans, he squeezes your thigh afterwards out of reassurance. It helps, even if only just a little, your palm finding its way into his, weaving your fingers together between you, a fair bit calmer now that you're holding your boyfriend's hand, roughed up and calloused from mining.

He's always been able to read you, ever since you were little, knowing exactly what you needed when you needed it, sometimes even before you did, causing your progressively growing affection for him to flourish into something else entirely, something beautiful, until you were crushing hard and just couldn't bury it anymore, no matter how hard you tried.

Luckily the feeling was mutual because after your drunk little confession, the only two still awake and drinking, sitting in the cramped living room of his trailer away from where the others were passed out, you hooked up on his futon, sweating out years of romantic and sexual tension that had built and built and built between you until it finally came to a head.

Everyone was happy for you both as soon as they woke the next morning to you wearing Bjorn's loose tee from the night before and a pair of clean boxers, arms linked and swinging down between your bodies, going shy when Navarro sighed, “fuck—finally,” and Tyler coming up to squeeze Bjorn’s shoulders from behind, telling him, “see? Told ya’ she wuz’ just as inta ya,’ mate.”

That was three years ago and you've been dating ever since, completely mad for each other as Bjorn liked to put it, which you think sums it up quite nicely.

You complimented one another, able to make up for whatever deficiency the other was lacking in. You were the only one that could truly calm him, talk him down from the proverbial edge when his anger started to boil over in response to whatever bullshit life threw at him. Reminding him that you were in this together for the long haul, which always did the trick, watching the way he'd soften in your hold and silently nod, looking just as vulnerable on the outside as he felt on the inside.

And he was the only one that could truly get you to relax when you were stressed out, like a hydraulic press trying to crush you under the weight of your own problems. Reminding you not be so serious all the time, to enjoy the little things, like right at that moment, when he'd be spooning you in bed at the end of every night, drawing miscellaneous patterns over your midriff with one hand while he combs his fingers on the other through your hair, still damp with sweat after a passionate round or two.

It wasn't perfect but it was yours, and that was enough for both of you.

The hauler Navarro’s piloting hits a rough patch of turbulence as it cuts up through the polluted cloud cover, Bjorn withdrawing his hand from yours to unbuckle himself and stand, unsteady on his feet, forcing him to hold onto one of the steel bars to ground himself there.

He plucks a rolled up joint from the front pocket of his dark gray drop shoulder hoodie and lights it with one of his shitty zippo's, the confined oxygen combined with the freighter's acceleration causing the flame to shoot up high and wide, nearly singeing his eyebrows off. The others laugh at his accidental little joint trick, including you, watching him proudly nod his head around at everyone when he manages to keep all his hair.

It smokes fast, faster than he was expecting, his eyes rounding in surprise as the paper burns all the way down to the roach in just seconds, cheeks swollen with a sudden mouthful of smoke, thin milky tendrils slipping past the seam of his lips.

Then Bjorn leans down and cradles your face between his hands before capturing your lips with his without hesitation, not that you mind, permission never requested and approval never needed anytime it comes to kissing between you two, parting your mouth when he parts his, letting him exhale smoke into it.

It inflates your lungs almost instantly, like two blistering hot air balloons butting up against your ribcage, getting you super stoned off the rip. You feel the muscles in your body relax all at once, tangling your fingers in his hair to pull him in impossibly closer, working your tongue into his mouth.

There’s just something about shotgunning with Bjorn that gets you so worked up every time you partake in it, maybe it’s the intimacy of it, so close you can see Bjorn’s pupils dilate from the drugs and the desire, but you always find it ridiculously sexy whenever he does it.

You hear the quiet click of your seatbelt as Bjorn unbuckles it for you, pulling it up and off you before tugging on your wrist to get you to stand with him, pulling you into him, one arm circling your upper back to spread his fingers over your shoulder blades while the other grabs a handful of your ass, not once breaking the kiss.

It’s hot and heavy from the outset, it always is with Bjorn, likes to skip the teasing and jump head first into the deep end with you in tow. The slick sound of your tongues meeting is mostly drowned out by the pulsing engine and Navarro announcing the position of the gearshift when she changes direction, everyone pointedly ignoring the free show you’re giving them, already used to it by now, Bjorn never one to shy away from PDA.

However unlike him it took you awhile to warm up to it, always going a little pink-cheeked and embarrassed whenever he'd lick into your mouth or pinch your ass in front of everyone, but you learned to like it, love it even, looking forward to it every time he does it, which is all the time.

He places one knee between your legs and grinds his hard on up against your thigh, a low buzz humming between your ears like static from a television, swallowing the noises the other is making, grinding back against his thigh, your underwear getting increasingly wet as a result.

The friction between you is delicious—downright addicting, whining every time the denim of his jeans roughly catches your clit, dry humping his thigh that much harder, feeling pleasure quickly mounting inside of you, spurring on the frenetic roll of your hips. God does Bjorn know how to get you going, until you're needy and pliant and begging for him to fuck you.

“Such a naughty little minx ya’ are,” Bjorn exhales into your ear, a breathy groan that has you shuddering in his hold, “gonna make ya' come all over ma’ face while I go down on ya,’ would ya’ like tha’ princess? Me splittin’ ya’ wide open with jus’ ma’ tongue?”

Before you have a chance to respond, the others collectively groan in disgust, Tyler cutting in to voice everyone else's thoughts, “christ, can ya' take this somewhere else? Cousins really shouldn't hafta’ hear their cousins say shit like tha’ yanno!”

Bjorn smirks, lazily rolling his head in the direction of his cousin, running his tongue flat over the curve of his top teeth, “awe, jealous you ain't gettin' any action cuz?”

Tyler glares, no actual malice in his eyes, always willing to put up with Bjorn's ridiculous antics even when he clearly doesn't want to, “no, not at all, I jus’ feel like I need a shower now s’all. Ma’ brain hates ma’ ears fo’ even havin’ ta’ hear tha.’”

“Yeah, a cold one amirite?” Bjorn cracks as he walks away, leading you with his arm around your shoulders down the Corbelan’s corridor towards the back where the bunks are, tucked into his side while he playfully squeezes your bicep. He leans in close to nip at your throat just above the worn scoop neck collar, prone to leave marks, both of you liking the visual reminder that you belong to him.

There are two bunk rooms, the one Kay is lying in to help combat some of her morning sickness during takeoff, and the room adjacent to it, the empty one, is the one Bjorn pulls you into, crowding you up against the ladder as soon as you're through the open doorway, feeling metal rungs bite into your back through the loose fitting t-shirt you're wearing—Bjorn's shirt.

“Less get these rags off ya’ sweetheart, wanna taste tha’ pretty pussy of urs before we get inta’ space,” he rasps, grabbing the hem of the ratty fabric to pull it up and off your head, his hand easily finding the clasp on your bra to unhook it.

He licks his thumb and index finger to gently roll your nipple between them, eliciting a moan, high and needy in pitch, your head falling back against the platform the uppermost mattress is sitting on with a quiet ‘thunk’ because of it.

Bjorn chuckles watching your reaction, an arrogant smile on his face, always so smug with how quickly he's able to get you falling apart, always so receptive in his hands, more than familiar with every sensitive spot and erogenous zone located on your body, replacing his fingers with the wet suction of his mouth.

He doesn't take his time like he normally does, loves toying with your chest until they're red and raw and littered with purpling hickeys of various sizes until you're a whimpering, quivering puddle beneath him but tonight he's on a mission, having thought it out long before he filled you in back in the cockpit.

“I'd love ta’ suckle on ‘em titties a little longa’ but I got a betta' way ta’ use ma’ mouth, don'tcha agree princess?” He whispers, warm breath ghosting over your face, tickling your heated skin, causing the hairs there to stand at attention.

“Mmmmm,” you hum, short on breath, whining in response to him pinching the side of your heaving tit, knowing what he wants before he even voices it.

“Words babe, use ‘em,” he orders, circling his thumbs counterclockwise over your hard nipples like the joysticks on the console he plays when he's not playing with you. Your back arches into his heated touch, moaning, “I—yes. Please Bjorn—baby, want you to eat me out, want you to split me wide open with your tongue and come on your face like you promised you would. Please.”

“Well, since ya’ asked so nicely,” he grins, satisfied with your answer, getting you to lie down on the bottom bunk sideways so your legs are dangling off the edge of the thin bed.

It's a tight fit, definitely not big enough for him to crawl in after and fuck you in, regardless of the position you'd attempt to do it, but that's not his endgame right now anyway so it doesn't really matter to either of at you the moment. You'll figure that out later, when you're officially on course for the nine year journey to Yvaga III. The others are all gonna fucking hate you both by the end of it.

Kneeling on the ground between your legs he grips either knee and spreads them wide open, instructing you to lift your hips a little so he can shed your jeans, leaving you in nothing but your damp cotton panties.

You watch as he licks over his lips, slow and deliberate, like he’s eying his favorite meal, a new wave of wetness gushing out of you, reflexively trying to close your legs so you don't soak through the mattress but Bjorn's hands stop you from doing so.

“Don't get all shy on me now princess,” Bjorn smirks, thumbs brushing over the crease of your pelvis, flirting along the edge of your underwear, “s'not like I haven't seen it all before or nothing.”

Then he’s closing the distance, taking a big whiff between your thighs, the rapid flutter of his lashes and the growl that rumbles through his chest inciting a needy whine out of you, “always smells so fuckin’ good, so wet ‘n ready fo’ me like tha’ naughty little slut ya’ are. Gonna fuckin’ devour ya.’”

He blows cool air over your warm, wet core, causing you to shiver, trying to grind down on his face, his hands on your hips stopping you, punctuating the air between you, “patience sweetheart, we’ll get there, probably don't’ have much time left ‘nyway.”

Bjorn finally, finally rips your underwear down and off, throwing the bend of your knees over his shoulders before burying his face in between your thighs, licking between your dripping folds from the base of your throbbing core up to your clit, tongue circling around the sensitive bundle of nerves.

“Oh fuck, Bjorn,” you whimper, electricity circulating through you like your veins are made of live wires, feeling high off the weed and arousal and adrenaline as your boyfriend eats you out, ankles locking behind the scruff of his neck to keep him there.

“Thas’ right baby, say ma’ name, is tha’ only one ur eva’ gonna moan cuz this pussy belongs ta’ me n’ me only,” he growls, giving your thigh a possessive little squeeze as he spells the letters of his name out on your clit to really drive the point home.

And the thing is—Bjorn's absolutely right, his name is the only one you're ever gonna moan, the only one you ever want to, because Bjorn doesn't just own what's between your legs he owns what's inside your chest too.

It’s the crude way Bjorn spits on your entrance that has you closing your legs around his head, moaning his name like a prayer, like you aren’t already wet enough, distantly aware it's just another way for him to stake his claim over you.

He probes the tip of his tongue against your opening, throbbing in anticipation, clamping down on the warm wet muscle as soon as he wiggles it inside, first an inch, then two, groaning as the taste spreads over his tongue.

It always drives you absolutely crazy how vocal Bjorn is when he's going down on you, like he's getting off on it more than you are, the noises he's making causing tremors of pleasure to undulate through you, blindly fucking back onto his tongue as a result.

He increases his persistence, steadily fucking his tongue in and out of you, one of the arms he has loosely circled around your thighs letting go to rub circles into your clit instead, applying just the right amount of pace and pressure to have you trembling in his grasp.

You continue to roll your hips down, growing frenetic with your rapidly approaching climax, cervical muscles contracting like wires being wound up tight, clenching around your boyfriend’s thick tongue while you grind up into his thumb, wet from his spit and your fluids.

Moans are freely spilling out of you know, oscillating between breathy little whimpers and needy whines of Bjorn’s name and phrases like, “baby—fuck,” and, “I love you, I love you, I love you,” orgasming just as the quiet boom of the Corbelan breaks through the surface tension of the exosphere and enters orbit, sunlight pouring through the window of the hauler and bathing you both.

Bjorn’s face is wet with your release, licking up your thighs and between your folds to clean you up, licking you into hypersensitivity, pulling your hips away when it starts to hurt. He kisses down your leg, gentle as he helps swing your legs in so you’re lying on the mattress correctly, crawling in to join you.

While it might not be big enough for you to fuck in its just right for cuddling, his arm going around your waist to reel you in close, groaning when you lean your head back against his shoulder to lick some of your juices off of him. He’s still fully clothed, hips pressed up to your naked ass, tracing over the dice tattoo on the back of his hand.

“Want me to return the favor?” You ask, fucked out and spent in his arms, feeling your eyelids grow heavy with sleep. Still, you’d power through the exhaustion if he wanted you to, just for him.

“No need princess,” Bjorn smiles, soft and affectionate, kissing behind your ear, “already gone limp. Gonna hafta’ change my boxers when I got tha’ energy. Tha’ pretty little sounds ya’ make really gets me goin.’”

You feel heat pool low in your core at the idea of Bjorn getting off on just your moans alone, meeting his eyes over your shoulder, dazzling in the sun. He kisses you then, full of love and passion, cradling your jaw to keep it turned towards him, thumb sweeping across your cheekbone, from the bridge of your nose back to your ear.

“Jus’ as breathtaking in tha’ light princess,” he whispers, eyes roving over your face, the same look he always gives you when he’s being incredibly sweet, like he’s been staring at the sun long before he saw the real thing.

Matt had stood there in front of God, Fisk, Karen, the cameras, all of New York, basically, and said it. He had torn the last piece of himself open with his own hands.

He was Daredevil.

There was no putting that back.

Fisk took the plea, and he was finally out of office. Fucking finally. The city had helped, and for better or for worse, the streets had bled because of it. Riots broke out, and sirens were everywhere. The whole city sounded like it was trying to crawl out of its own skin.

And Matt knew his days of moving freely were numbered.

It would not take long for the paperwork to be in order. It would not take long for the police to get their arrest warrant.

His name would spread through every system he had spent years trying to evade. Matthew Michael Murdock, Daredevil.

Whatever he was to people; Catholic boy, blind lawyer, vigilante, hero, hypocrite, all of it? That meant nothing. He was just a criminal who had to pay for breaking the law now. 

So, fine.

But before all of that happened. He needed to tie up loose ends.

That was what he told himself as he put on a hoodie the morning after the courthouse, at 2 AM. 

He crossed rooftops and fire escapes, ribs aching, lungs burning, sweat cold beneath his hoodie.

He was gonna check on him, that’s all. Make sure Dex was not out there killing people for the love of the game. Make sure the city didn’t have one more monster loose before he was taken away.

This better be quick, because would really rather spend his time with Karen before getting locked up.

By the time Matt reached Dex’s apartment building, the riot noise had thinned, like thunder moving farther away without ever really leaving.

Outside, New York still burned in fragments. Inside the building creaked. Old pipes ticked in the walls. Someone two floors down whispered angrily behind a locked door. A television murmured emergency coverage through cheap speakers. The exhaust fans gave a faint metallic complaint above him.

Matt climbed the stairs, knowing Dex’s apartment was ahead.

And then… Matt heard sobbing.

He stopped at the door.

It wasn’t theatrical, not the kind of crying meant to pull attention from the other side of a wall.

It was smaller than that. It almost made it… worse.

It came through Dex’s door in little broken pieces, like your body had run out of strength before it had run out of panic. One shaky breath, then another, then a thin, wet sound you tried to swallow and failed. You were trying to be quiet, Matt could tell. You were trying not to make noise and still the hurt kept leaking out of you anyway.

Matt stopped dead and assessed the situation.

There was a woman crying inside Benjamin Poindexter’s apartment.

For one second, Matt thought about every horrible thing he already knew about him.

Foggy, Father Lantom, all the other bodies he left in his wake.

All of them were there in his head at once, not as memories, but as evidence. As proof against Dex. As a case already built and closed in his mind.

Dex had never been someone Matt could afford to give the benefit of the doubt, not after what he had done. Not after who he had taken. Not even after all that bullshit about one good deed, about evening out the scales, as if taking another life could balance out the lives he had destroyed.

So Matt listened.

And then Dex spoke. “Baby, breathe. Come on. I’m here.”

Matt’s stomach tightened.

Baby?

From anyone else, maybe it would have sounded the way it was meant to: a soft comfort, words meant to soothe.  

But coming from Dex, the words twisted in Matt’s ears.

Still, Matt knew it sounded… sincere. 

Soft, but not fake-soft. Not mocking. Not cruel. Not even controlling.

It sounded… exhausted and careful. It frayed apart at the edges, like he had been kneeling there for hours, saying the same few words over and over because he was terrified you would disappear somewhere he couldn’t pull you back from.

“I’m right here,” Dex murmured. “You’re okay. You’re with me.”

You made a small, broken sound.

It was this heartbreakingly helpless, breathless little noise that caught in your throat and dragged itself out anyway. It was as if your body was trying to keep crying after you had already run out of strength for it.

Your breathing was too fast; Matt could hear every jagged inhale scraping up short in your chest, every failed attempt to steady yourself. Your heartbeat fluttered, frantic and uneven, skipping over itself like it was trapped.

You were on the floor. He could tell by the way your sobs hit the wood first, the way it sounded low and folded down. You were curled into yourself, maybe. 

And Dex was too close. He was close enough that his voice barely had to rise. He was close enough that Matt could hear the shift of his body beside yours, the drag of fabric against the floor, the way he moved like he knew exactly which sounds would hurt you and which ones would not.

Everything Matt heard told him Dex was not hurting you.

The care was there. The patience was there. The way he kept his voice quiet enough not to startle. The way he didn’t grab at you, didn’t bark orders, didn’t crowd too fast. He seemed to be making himself smaller just to keep from adding to whatever was tearing through you.

Benjamin Poindexter sounded…. kind.

Matt hated that. his senses were giving him one answer and his memory was giving him another.

His senses said Dex was helping you. His memory said Dex hurt people.

His senses said Dex was gentle with you. His memory said Dex had killed Foggy.

His senses said there was love in the room. His memory said Benjamin Poindexter didn’t know how to love correctly.

His mind immediately assumed the worst.

Had he held you here? Kidnapped you? Had he convinced himself he loved you, and was he trying to convince you to love him, too? 

Your sob hitched again.

“I can’t,” you whispered, voice shredded thin. “I can’t, Dex, I can’t—”

“I know,” Dex said immediately, and Matt could hear his skin on yours, rubbing gentle circles on your arm. You weren’t pulling away. “I know. Stay with me.”

There it was, the softness again.

That was an almost desperate patience in his voice, and still, Matt couldn’t make himself trust it.

Not with Dex crouched close enough for his voice to brush your skin. Not with you breathing like the room itself was killing you. Not with the door locked and the city screaming outside and no one else coming.

Then your breath snagged hard “Dex.”

“I’m here.”

“No.” Your voice thinned, almost terrified. “Someone else is h-here.”

Matt went completely still.

Behind the door, the apartment changed.

It was just a shift in the air. Dex went quiet all of a sudden. Matt understood, somehow, that you knew he was there.

For one suspended second, no one moved.

Your breathing trembled in the silence. Then Dex’s heartbeat slowed as he turned.

That was what made Matt decide. The sudden stillness of a killer turning his attention toward the door.

Whatever comfort Matt had heard before, whatever gentleness had almost confused him, it collapsed under the weight of everything else he knew:

A woman was crying in Dex’s apartment. Dex was too close to you. Ergo, Dex was hurting you and Matt had to get you out.

So Matt stepped back once he kicked the door down, and it broke inward. The sound tore through the apartment, wood splitting against the wall.

Matt stepped, expecting you to recoil.

He expected you to scramble backward on the floor, away from Dex. He expected fear to pull you toward the farthest corner, toward the broken doorway, toward him.

Anything but what actually happened.

You moved toward Dex.

It was a clumsy, desperate little scramble, knees dragging over the floorboards, one hand slipping against the wood as you tried to push yourself up and failed. Your breath came in miserable pieces, your whole body folded around the panic like it hurt to exist inside your own skin.

“Dex,” you choked.

Dex was already moving. He closed the distance before you could reach him properly, like he couldn’t stand the sight of you having to cross even that little distance alone. His hands came out, open, and you clambered into him.

There was no other word for it.

You climbed into his arms like you were trying to get beneath his ribs. As if you pressed close enough, hid deep enough, the rest of the world might lose track of you. Your fingers caught the front of his shirt and twisted there, tight and frantic, pulling yourself higher until your face was buried against his chest.

Dex caught you with his whole body. One of his arms was wrapped around your back. The other came up over your head, shielding your face, tucking you under his chin. He bent around you so gently it was almost painful to process, all that deadly mass turned into cover, into shelter.

Matt froze.

You… were not trapped.

Your cheek was pressed to his chest, hands fisted in his shirt. Your body shook against his, but the second he held you, your heartbeat changed. It was still too fast, still terrified, still broken up with panic, but it reached for his rhythm like a drowning man reaching for shore.

Dex lowered his mouth to your temple.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured. “I’ve got you, baby.”

You made a devastated sound and curled tighter.

Your knees drew up against his thigh. One of your hands slipped from his shirt to his shoulder, then to the back of his neck, gripping there like you were afraid Matt might pull him away from you.

“He’s loud,” you managed.

Dex’s eyes stayed on Matt, who still hadn’t said anything. “I know.”

“He’s loud, Dex, he’s so loud.”

“I know, sweetheart.”

You shook your head against him, hiding your face harder in the hollow of his throat. “Baby,” you whispered, voice barely there. “He thinks you’re hurting me.”

Dex went still. 

“I’m not,” he said.

“I know.” Your voice cracked on it. “I know. But he thinks it and I can hear it and it hurts.”

Matt’s throat tightened. What did that even mean?

He heard it then, not just the panic and sobs. He heard the trust.

Your fear was everywhere, all over the room, spilling out of you in ragged breaths, but it was not aimed at the man holding you. Dex was the only place in the apartment your body seemed to recognize as safe.

You kept trying to disappear into him.

Every time Matt shifted, even slightly, your fingers tightened. Every time the broken door creaked behind him, your breath snagged and Dex’s palm moved slowly over the back of your head, as if smoothing you back into yourself.

“Don’t listen to him,” Dex murmured against your hair. “Listen to me.”

“I’m trying.”

“I know.”

“It’s too much.”

“I know, baby. I know.”

Matt took half a step forward. Dex’s head snapped up. “Don’t.”

The word was quiet to not startle you, and that was enough to stop Matt anyway.

Dex shifted on the floor, turning his body more fully between you and the doorway. You followed without thinking, clinging to him as he moved, your face still hidden against his chest. He kept you tucked there, one arm firm around your back, the other curved protectively around your head like he could keep Matt’s thoughts from touching you if he just covered enough of you.

“Poindexter,” Matt started, and it was smaller now.

Dex’s expression did not change. “Get out.”

“I thought—”

“I don’t give a shit what you thought.”

You trembled harder at the anger in his voice. Dex felt it instantly. His eyes flicked down, and when he spoke again, it wasn’t to Matt.

“Not you,” he whispered, pressing his mouth briefly to your hair. 

You made another broken little noise and pushed closer, like the words had gone straight through your heart.

Dex held you tighter, not possessively in a way that trapped, but just enough to tell your body there was he was around it. 

Matt stood there in the wreckage of the door, listening to your heartbeat try to steady itself against Dex’s chest, and for one awful second he didn’t know what to do with what his senses were telling him.

Because Benjamin Poindexter was still the reason too many people Matt loved were dead. But you were curled into him like he was the last quiet place in New York.

“He’s still here,” you whispered.

Dex’s eyes lifted. “I know.”

Dex’s face changed, but not by much. Matt doubted anyone else would have noticed, but he did. He heard it in Dex’s breathing, in the shift of his weight, in the sudden burst of restraint. The city outside was loud. The riots were loud. Matt was loud. His suspicion was loud. His righteousness was loud. His judgment was loud.

And somehow, you could hear all of it.

“I don’t want him here,” you said.

That was it. Whatever patience Dex had left for Matt died right there on the floor.

His hand stayed gentle on your back, but his voice didn’t. “Get the fuck out.”

For once, he did what Dex told him to do.

Matt stepped back into the hallway and got out.

The ruined door dragged crookedly against the floor when he pulled it mostly shut behind him. The lock was useless now, broken out from the frame, hanging loose in splintered wood, but Matt still closed it as much as he could.

He stood there in the hall, one hand still near the broken door, breathing quietly through the dust and old paint and the faint metallic tang inside the apartment.

He should have left. He knew that.

You had wanted him gone. Matt had seen enough, heard enough, to know he had been wrong about at least the first thing: Dex hadn’t been hurting you.

But Matt still could not make himself walk away.

Because Matt has convinced himself that love, in the hands of someone like Benjamin Poindexter, could become a locked room so easily.

Matt stayed.

Not close enough to push the door open again, but not far enough to pretend he wasn’t listening.

Inside, your breathing was still ragged.

Dex was still on the floor with you.

Matt could hear the tiny, frantic movements of your hands in Dex’s shirt. The tremor in your inhale. The way you kept trying to tuck yourself into him like the world might stop finding you if there was enough of his body between you and everything else.

“He’s still out there,” you whispered.

Dex’s answer came after a second of consideration. “Is he, now?”

Your breath hitched. “He didn’t leave.”

Fuck.

Matt stood very still in the hall.

“I’ll take care of him,” Dex murmured.

Your breath snagged. “Don’t hurt him.”

There was a pause. It wasn’t long, but long enough.

Then Dex said, “I won’t kill him.”

“Dex.” You didn't sound convinced.

“I won’t kill him,” he repeated, softer this time. “Promise.”

“You’re mad.”

“I know.”

“It’s sharp,” you winced.

“I know, baby. I’m sorry.” Inside the apartment, Dex went quiet in a way that felt less like guilt and more like being seen too clearly. “I won’t hurt him unless I have to.”

“Dex.”

“I won’t hurt him,” he said, and this time there was no loophole in it. There was only surrender, because it was you asking. “Okay? I won’t.”

Your breathing shuddered as Dex shifted on the floor.

“I’m going to move you, okay?” he said. “Just to the bed. I’ve got you.”

You made a small sound, and Matt could picture it too clearly now. You curled in on yourself, face hidden, body shaking from too much of whatever it is you could sense. 

Dex crouched slowly, though he was already close. Like even now, even with you clutching at him, he was careful not to startle you.  He slid one arm under your knees and the other behind your back.

You clutched at his shirt with shaking fingers. “I’m sorry,” you whispered.

“No.” His voice went firm immediately. “No, don’t say things like that.”

“I ruined your night.”

“You didn’t ruin anything.”

“I came here and I—”

“You came to me.” Dex pressed his mouth to your temple, quick and fierce. “That’s all. You came to me.”

You made a broken little noise against him.

Matt stood in the hallway, just outside the ruined door, listening to Dex lift you from the floor.

He heard the way your breath caught when your body left the ground. He heard your hands grip for a better hold. He heard Dex adjust instantly, pulling you closer.

“I’ve got you,” Dex murmured. “I’ve got you. I know.”

“You’re going to leave.”

“No.”

You sounded so small when you said, “You are.”

Dex carried you to the bed like every step had been chosen before he took it. Like he knew which floorboards made noise and which ones didn’t. Like he had learned how to move through this apartment in a way that made the least amount of noise for you.

“I’ll take care of him, okay?” Dex murmured. “I’ll make him go away.”

Your breathing hitched as you started to say something, but Dex shushed you gently.

“Yes, I know,” he said, softer. “I know you don’t like it when people see you like this. I know. It’s just gonna be me and you, okay? Just me and you.”

The mattress dipped down under your weight.

“I’ll close the door,” Dex continued. “I’ll turn the lights off. I’ll come right back.”

Your fingers caught the fabric of his shirt again. “Don’t leave.”

“I’m not leaving.” Dex let out a slow breath. “I’m right here.”

“You’re thinking about going.”

“I’m thinking about making him leave.”

“I can’t tell the difference.”

Dex went quiet.

Matt heard him sit beside you instead of standing right away. The mattress shifted again as the room settled around the two of you.

You cried a little, more exhausted now, as if the panic had torn through you and left you hollowed out behind it.

Dex’s hand moved over fabric in a slow, repetitive pass. Matt realised he was making the sheets smooth for you as he laid you down.

His hand slid up from your back to the side of your face, thumb hovering near your cheek, not quite wiping the tears away until you leaned into it first. “Look into my mind, baby.”

Matt’s head tilted from the hallway.

What?

Inside the studio, everything went still except for your breathing.

The room was not large enough for privacy. Not really. The bed sat pushed into the far corner. The broken front door was too close. Matt was too close. The whole world was too close.

But Dex bent over you like he could make distance with his body alone.

“Go on,” he murmured. “Look at me.”

You stared up at him through wet lashes, face blotched from crying, lips parted around breaths that still would not come right. Your fingers trembled against his shirt, twisted in the fabric so tightly the seams strained.

For a second, nothing happened.

Then your grip loosened by a fraction.

Your eyes fluttered.

A shaky breath left you, not calm, not even close, but relieved enough that Dex’s shoulders almost caved in with it.

“You’re coming back,” you whispered.

Dex nodded once, forehead nearly touching yours. “Yeah.”

“You’re not leaving forever.”

“No.”

The answer was immediate. No room for doubt. No space for the thought to grow teeth.

But then your expression crumpled again.

“You’re mad.”

Dex closed his eyes for half a second.

He didn’t deny it. He couldn't, even if he wanted to. Not to you. “I am.”

Your breath caught so suddenly it sounded like it hurt.

Dex’s whole face changed. The anger was still there, Matt could hear it in him, running hot under the skin. But with you looking at him like that, terrified because his fury had no color, no label, no clear direction once it got inside your head, Dex felt almost sick with it.

“I’m not mad at you,” he said, urgent in a way that made the words rough. “Never at you.”

Your mouth trembled and repeated yourself. “You know I can’t tell the difference sometimes.” It came out so pained Matt felt it in his own chest.

You said it like an apology, like you hated needing him to explain the direction of his anger because you could feel it anyway, and feeling it didn’t mean understanding it.

Dex swallowed. His hand curved more fully around your cheek now, warm and steady, thumb finally catching one tear before it slid down to your jaw.

“I know,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

You looked at him for another second, searching his face like your own mind wasn't enough tonight. Like even seeing inside him had not made your body believe it yet.

Then he lowered his voice. “I have to make him leave.”

Your fingers tightened again, not as badly this time.

Dex did not pull away. He leaned in instead, pressing a short kiss to your forehead, then another to the corner of your temple, like he could nail the promise into place with his mouth.

“I’m going to turn off the lights, okay?” 

You nodded, barely, as breathing scraped in and out through your nose.

Dex shifted only when you let him. He eased you back against the pillows in the bed, not putting you down so much as arranging the room around your collapse. One hand stayed on you the whole time, a constant point of contact while the other reached for everything else.

He crossed the few steps to it and slid the window shut with painstaking care, catching the frame before it could knock. Street noise dulled at once.

Then he pulled the curtains together until the thin spill of city light vanished from the wall and your face disappeared into darkness.

As promised, he clicked the lamp off.

The studio fell dimmer, warmer, reduced to the weak strip of hallway light bleeding through the ruined front door.

The phone was next. He picked it up from the small table beside the bed and silenced it without looking, thumb moving from memory. He put it back, screen turned down.

A radio sat near the kitchenette, cheap and old, still plugged into the wall. Dex crossed to it barefoot and pulled the cord free. The plastic scraped faintly against the outlet, and even that made your breathing tremble.

Then, he opened a drawer near the bed.

Something rattled softly as he picked it up. A pill bottle, maybe? No, it could be earplugs in a little tin. 

He came back with them in his palm.

You must have watched him through the dark because your breathing changed when he got close again, sounding less lost than before.

Dex sat on the edge of the mattress.

He tucked the blanket around you, drawing it up over your shoulder, smoothing the edge down like he was sealing the world out inch by inch. His hand lingered there after, broad against the blanket, feeling the shake of you through the fabric.

The apartment had become smaller. Every sound had been answered. Every light had been put down. Every little edge of the room had been softened, covered, turned away from you by hands that knew the ritual too well.

He had done this before. Like he had learned, piece by piece, how to make the world survivable for you.

At some point, you must have reached for him again, because Dex’s voice dropped inaudibly. “Hey,” he whispered. “I know.”

The bed creaked as he leaned closer.

A kiss touched your skin. Your forehead, maybe. Then another, lower. Your temple. The damp line of your cheek.

“I’ll be right back,” Dex breathed.

You made a small sound.

He stayed another second, maybe two. Long enough for your fingers to loosen.

Then he stood.

Dex walked to the other side of the apartment without turning on a single light. He made no wasted movement, not a single sound he didn’t mean to make.

At the broken front door, he paused and looked back once.

Matt could hear the small turn of his head. The habit of making sure you were still under the blanket, still breathing, still there.

Then Dex slipped into the hall and pulled the ruined door mostly shut behind him.

It couldn’t latch. But he cracked it closed as carefully as if it still mattered, leaving only a narrow gap of darkness between the apartment and the hallway.

He was keeping the light out. He was keeping Matt out.

When Dex turned, he stood half-shadowed in the corridor, eyes red-rimmed and flat with exhaustion. His face was calm in the way loaded weapons were calm. His voice stayed quiet, almost gentle, but not for Matt.

He did it for yous

“I told you,” Dex said, “to get the fuck out.”

For a while, Matt didn’t say anything.

The hallway held them in the aftermath of what Matt had done. The door hung crooked in its frame, pulled mostly shut even though the lock was split and useless, the wood around it cracked open where Matt’s boot had forced its way through. It couldn’t protect you anymore. It could barely pretend to be a door. Still, Dex stood in front of it as if his body could replace what Matt had broken, as if he could become the lock, the wall, the whole goddamn building if he had to.

Matt could hear the anger in him as clearly as he could hear traffic below: hot, contained, and viciously focused. Dex wanted to do something with it. Matt knew that, but he kept it buried beneath his ribs because you were behind that broken door, and if he let the rage rise any higher, you would feel it.

That was what Matt could not stop noticing. Not the anger. The restraint.

Inside the apartment, you shifted under the blanket. It was only a movement of fabric, barely anything, followed by the small uneven catch of your breath as you tried to settle yourself in the dark corner Dex had made for you. Dex turned his head at once. Not fully, not enough to take his attention off Matt, but enough that Matt realised that some part of Dex had never left the room with you. Some part of him was still sitting beside the bed, counting your breaths, waiting for the slightest sign that you needed him again.

For one moment, Matt didn't feel like he was looking at Bullseye. He was looking at a man furious enough to kill and still aching to go back inside because the woman he loved was trying to remember how to breathe without him there.

Matt swallowed. “I didn’t know you had a girlfriend.”

Dex looked back at him and the answer was obvious. Matt had no right to know. No right to ask. He had no right to stand there in the hallway after frightening you and pretend the question was harmless.

“I didn’t tell you.”

His voice was flat and guarded, the words set down like a barrier. Matt’s mouth tightened. 

Behind the door, your breathing hitched again, smaller this time, like the sound of voices through wood was still enough to scrape against you. Dex heard it too. The anger in him shifted immediately, folding smaller, tightening down.

“What’s wrong with her?” he asked.

He knew it was wrong the second it left his mouth. The words were too blunt, too harsh, too clinical. He had meant, What happened? He had meant, Is she going to be okay? He had meant, What did I just walk into, and how badly did I make it worse? But none of that came out. What came out sounded like you were a problem. 

“Nothing is wrong with her,” Dex said, and Matt could tell he was trying his hardest not to snap.

Matt didn’t move. Dex stepped closer by the smallest amount, and the entire hallway seemed to narrow with him. His face had gone hard, but not empty.

“Nothing,” Dex repeated, each syllable harsh enough to cut. “She’s perfect.”

Matt exhaled slowly through his nose. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Yes, you did.”

Dex didn’t have to snarl. He didn’t have to raise his voice. The accusation sat there between them, plain and ugly, and Matt couldn’t defend himself from it because part of it was true.

Inside, you were quiet now. Not calm, but silent in the way people became when they were trying very hard not to take up too much space with their hurt. Matt listened to the small tremor and felt the pieces beginning to arrange themselves in his head.

You had known he was outside before Dex opened the door. You had reacted to him even before he even stepped inside. You had known Dex was mad but couldn’t tell where that anger was aimed. Dex had told you to look into his mind with the ease of someone offering proof, not metaphor, not comfort dressed up as poetry, but a real thing he knew you could do.

Oh.

Matt looked back at Dex and stated the painfully obvious explanation. “She can read minds.”

Dex’s expression changed only a little, but Matt heard the rest. The brief tightening of his mouth. The instinct to protect you by lying took over, followed almost immediately by the realization that lying to Matt Murdock was pointless.

Dex looked away, and said, “Yes.” 

His voice had changed, still rough around the edges, but the explanation seemed to cost him a part of his soul. Every word about you had to be handled carefully because it belonged to you first. He kept his eyes on the door as he spoke, as if even describing your pain required him to make sure it had not worsened.

“She hears thoughts, feelings. Most days she can keep it out, or keep it separate, or read one mind at a time. She knows how to get through the day.” His teeth clenched, and he looked down for half a second before forcing himself to continue. “But when there are too many people, when emotions run too high, it stops being individual thoughts and turns into noise.”

Oh.

Oh shit, Matt thought as he realized that last night hadn’t only been bad for you. It had been a disaster built exactly out of the things that hurt you most. 

Last night, protests clashed with Fisk’s Task Force. Bodies were pressed shoulder to shoulder in the streets, voices raised, officers behind their shields, civilians furious and terrified and righteous all at once. Fisk’s fall had moved through the city like a shockwave. Matt Murdock’s confession that he was a Daredevil had made a home on every screen, in every mouth, in every disbelieving mind.

His confession had not stayed in the courtroom. It had spilled outward, turning into rumor and revelation and riot, and you had walked straight into all of it because you thought Dex was hurt. Because you missed him.

Matt felt his stomach sink.

He thought of you moving through that crowd, not just hearing the sirens and shouting like everyone else, but taking in the thoughts beneath them. Panic layered over rage layered over grief. Thousands of minds all pushing against yours with no space between them. A whole city losing control at once, and you were caught in the middle of it, trying to find one person.

Dex’s face tightened as if he could see the same picture and hated it more because he had already lived the end of it. He hated that he had found you like that. 

Matt understood that without being told. Dex had found you shaking apart in this same apartment, or near it, or on the street outside, too overwhelmed by everyone else to find yourself. He had found you and brought you here and spent the night closing windows, killing lights, silencing phones, making the world smaller with hands that had done unspeakable things.

“She came looking for me,” Dex said.

The words were almost stripped of anger now. Dex looked at the door again, and his body softened before he could stop it. But Matt heard it in the way Dex’s breath caught around your existence on the other side of the wall.

Benjamin Poindexter loved you.

Matt didn’t want to know that. He didn’t want to have to make room for it inside the shape of the man he hated. He wanted Dex to stay simple. A killer. Someone with a label simple enough to condemn without complication. But love was written through him now in ways Matt couldn’t ignore. 

Matt’s voice came quieter when he asked, “Does she need a doctor?”

Dex scoffed. “Doctors are what made her like this.”

Matt went still.

Dex didn’t explain. Maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe Matt hadn’t earned that part of the story. But still, he was opening just enough of a door for Matt to picture the white rooms, fluorescent lights and people calling pain research, behind him.

Dex looked back at the broken door, and for half a second, the rage in him gave way. “She has good days and bad days,” Dex said. His mouth tightened, and when he spoke again, the grief in it was almost unbearable. “And she was having a good week.”

That mattered.

Matt couldn’t possibly understand the full weight of that sentence, but Dex did. A good week meant sleep. It meant you could eat without feeling nauseous. It meant you had mornings where you didn’t wake up already bracing against other people’s thoughts. 

You’ve had several really good weeks, actually. 

It mattered because Dex had met you on a bad day.

—

Twelve months ago… 

OXE hired him to kill you.

A freelance gig, really. 

The file was from the private medical trial branch of the corporation. It said that you were a failed participant. You were a liability. You were just a woman whose condition had become unpredictable.

They sent Dex a name, a photograph, an address, and a warning not to engage longer than necessary.

The house they had sent him to had no security. It was an old, empty place with drawn curtains and stale air and dust gathered thick in the corners.

You hated it.

Dex found you in the attic under the slanted roof, sitting in the weak orange spill of late afternoon light, one wrist was handcuffed to an exposed pipe. Your knees were drawn up close to your chest. Your hair stuck damply to your face, and your lips were bitten raw, like you had spent hours trying to keep something inside your mouth by force.

The key was across the room.

It was kicked. Dex could tell from the scrape in the dust where it had skidded away from you, just far enough that your fingers couldn’t reach it unless you pulled hard enough to tear the skin around your wrist. The cuff had already bruised a dark, ugly ring on your skin. 

You looked at him once.

A small, breathless laugh left you. It wasn’t happy, not even close. It was more like your body had mistaken despair for humor because it had run out of other ways to hold it.

“You’re…” Your voice cracked. “You’re here to kill me.”

Dex didn’t answer.

He didn’t need to.

Your eyes moved over his face, and something strange passed through them. 

Then you laughed again, barely. “You think I’m pretty, Dex.”

The attic went still as dust drifted in the light between you.

Dex’s finger rested near the trigger.

“How do you know my name?”

You looked at him like the question itself was tired. “Mind reader,” you said. “Obviously.”

Dex stared at you for a long moment.

You didn’t look like what OXE had described.

Dangerous, yes, maybe. But not in the way they meant. You looked exhausted, cornered, and afraid of yourself than of him. Your whole body was tense against the cuff, but you weren’t trying to get free anymore.

Dex’s eyes flicked to the key, then back to you.

“Why lock yourself up here?”

For the first time, you looked ashamed. “Because it’s loud.”

Dex glanced around the empty attic.

You heard the thought before he could speak.

“Not here,” you said, swallowing, then pointing to your head with your free hand, “but here.”

Your hand then curled briefly around your own throat, not pressing, just remembering. 

“I kicked the key away,” you whispered. “So I’d have time to stop myself.”

“From what?”

You closed your eyes. Your voice came out small. “Strangling someone.”

Dex didn’t move.

You opened your eyes, wet and miserable, and looked past him because looking right at him was suddenly too hard.

“He was loud. He wouldn’t stop. He kept thinking and thinking and thinking, and I kept hearing it. I told him to stop to shut up, but they couldn’t, because people can’t just stop thinking, and I knew that, see, I knew that, but I—

Your breath broke as you looked down at your cuffed wrist. “So I locked myself up here. Before I kill someone again.”

Dex should have killed you. That was the job.

OXE had paid him to remove a problem, and there you were, handcuffed beneath a slanted roof, bruised and filthy and shaking because the world had made you into something you were terrified of becoming.

He should have pulled the trigger. Instead, he lowered the gun.

Your face fell immediately, like mercy was its own kind of threat.

“Don’t,” you whispered.

Dex paused.

“If you’re going to kill me, just do it,” you said, voice cracking. 

Dex’s mind went quiet.

He had no idea what to do with that. No idea what to do with you.

So he did the only practical thing he could.

He walked across the room and picked up the key.

You cried then, silently at first, tears spilling over without sound as he came back and crouched in front of you. Dex moved slowly. He set the gun down beside him, close enough to reach, far enough that you could see both his hands.

“I’m going to unlock it,” he said.

You stared at him.

“You can read my mind,” he added, awkward and blunt because gentleness was not a language he spoke well yet. “So you know I’m not lying.”

Your breath shook.

You looked at him, really looked, and you squinted your eyes in the smallest, most painful disbelief.

Dex unlocked the cuff.

The metal fell away from your wrist. 

You didn’t move.

You only stared at your freed hand like it belonged to someone else. The skin beneath the cuff was swollen and angry, the bruise already darkening. Dex looked at it for too long.

Then he took off his jacket.

He draped it over your shoulders.

You were shaking so hard the leather fabric around you.

Dex did not ask if you could walk. He already knew the answer. He saw the way your legs failed when you tried to gather them beneath you, saw the way your hand went out blindly toward the pipe, toward the wall, toward anything that would keep the room from tilting.

So he picked you up slowly, one arm under your knees, one behind your back, no grip tighter than necessary.

You went rigid in his arms for half a second, then sagged, exhausted past the point of fear.

“Why are you doing this?” you whispered.

Dex looked down at you.

He didn’t know how to answer out loud.

Because I know what it means to be made wrong for the world, too.

Maybe, now that we’ve found each other, we don’t have to be alone anymore. 

He said none of that. But you said, “okay.”

He carried you down from the attic and took you back to his apartment because he didn’t know where else to take you. 

You sat on the edge of his tub in his jacket while he ran the water warm.

Dex kept looking away, not because he was embarrassed, but because he understood, somehow, that being looked at was another kind of noise. He handed you a towel, found some soaps and put a clean shirt on the sink. 

When you could not lift your hands without trembling, he helped.

He helped you into warm water and rinsed dust from your hair, cleaning blood from your bruised wrist. His hand was steady on your skin when you started crying again.

He didn't ask you to stop.

He only said, once, very quietly, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

And because you could read his mind, you knew he meant it.

Benjamin Poindexter had been hired to kill you.

Instead, he took you out of the attic and bathed you.

—

Over the next couple of days, you were mostly good.

Mostly.

Because Dex learned quickly that good didn’t mean cured. It meant you slept more than you usually did. It meant you could sit by the window without pressing your palms to your ears. It meant you could make tea in his kitchen and smile at some thought he hadn’t meant to give you.

Within the first week, his apartment changed because of you. He installed wall panelling first, because the building was old and thin and the neighbors came through the walls too easily when everything felt hollow. Then, he gave you thicker curtains, then rugs. Then a new refrigerator because the old one hummed at a frequency that made you bare your teeth and say it tasted wrong.

Dex didn’t ask what that meant.

He just replaced it.

After all, your mind was already susceptible to being invaded by foreign thoughts, he didn't want you to be overstimulated by your senses, too.

That was how it started with him, really. Not with declarations. Dex loved in corrections, adjustments, and threat assessments. He noticed what hurt you, and then he removed it. He learned the signs of your bad days and built around them, one practical act at a time.

You fell in love with him so fast it should have scared you.

It didn’t, but mostly because you knew he had already fallen too.

You could hear it.

He thought he was being subtle, which was almost funny. Dex, who could control his breathing to take a shot, couldn’t hide wanting you to kiss him for more than a week.

You could hear his thoughts every time you came too close.

Not words, exactly. More like flashes of your mouth, your hands in his mind. The curve of your shoulder when you wore one of his shirts. The split-second image of him leaning in, followed by a disciplined thought-wall of don’t, don’t, don’t, because Dex could kill a man without blinking but apparently touching you first was too much.

You let him suffer with it for six days, mostly because you were giving him time to change his mind. 

He didn’t.

On the seventh, he was fixing one of the new panels in the kitchen, teeth clenched because the wood refused to sit straight. You were sitting on the counter with one of his old FBI academy shirts that had since gotten too small for his bulk now, bare legs swinging, watching him pretend he was not acutely aware of your knees on either side of his ribs when he stepped between them to reach the wall.

You had laughed from where you sat.

He looked over at you. “You think that’s funny?”

You tilted your head. “You’re thinking about shooting the wall.”

Dex stared at you, setting the screwdriver down too carefully.

“You shouldn’t go digging around in my head.”

“I didn’t dig,” you said. “You’re loud when you’re annoyed.”

That should have bothered him. It did, maybe a little.

But then you smiled at him like his mind was not a terrible place to be. Like you could look at all the terrible things in there and still find him underneath. Like understanding him did not disgust you.

Fuck, he thought, don’t do things that make me want to—

“You want to kiss me,” you interrupted his train of thoughts.

Dex went so still it was almost sweet. Then he turned his head. “You shouldn’t listen to that.”

“You know I don’t mean to.” You hooked two fingers in the front of his shirt and tugged him closer. 

His eyes dropped to your mouth, and that was answer enough.

So you kissed him.

Gently at first, just to see what he would do with it. Dex froze under your hands like his body had forgotten every instruction except stay. Then he made this small, ruined sound against your mouth and touched your waist like you were a fragile crystal he had been warned not to break.

After that, neither of you stood a chance.

Neither of you did anything halfway. Dex didn’t know how to want normally, and you didn’t know how to be wanted normally. Kissing turned into touching, touching turned to stumbling into his bed, and being in his bed turned into Dex curling into you afterward like he had found heaven and was furious nobody had warned him it would feel like this.

Sex with a mind reader should have terrified him.

But after the first time he understood what it meant with you. There was no pretending or hiding behind control. He couldn’t pretend to be calmer than he was. He couldn’t hide how badly he wanted to kiss you again, how much he liked your hands on him, how ruined he got when you said his name in that breathless sigh. You knew when he was overwhelmed and you adjusted. You knew when he needed to slow down. You knew when he was thinking too much and when he needed you to pull him out of his own head.

You kissed him through it. You talked him through it. You touched him like his wants were not shameful just because they were intense, like the inside of him was not too much for you.

And you loved him for it.

You loved the strange, violent tenderness of him. The way he checked your face before his hands moved. The way he liked when you told him what he wanted. 

“You love me,” you whispered after the second month, half asleep against his chest, your fingers tracing lazy shapes over his ribs.

Dex went still beneath you.

You smiled into his skin. “Don’t panic. I love you too.”

He didn’t say it back then because he didn’t have to.

But his arms tightened around you like the thought of you leaving had become physically unbearable. His mouth pressed to the top of your head, then your temple, then the corner of your mouth, almost desperate.

He loved you with every ruined, desperate, loyal part of himself. He loved you like gravity, like a fixation, like a religion he had invented alone in the dark and then accidentally found living in your body.

You smiled up at him, eyes wet.

“I know,” you whispered. “I can hear you.”

Dex’s hand came up to the back of your neck and kissed you.

You heard it in him constantly after that, and not  like a normal man thinking I love you in a normal way. 

Still, there were rules.

You didn’t care that he killed AVTF agents and assassination jobs. You had heard enough of their minds to know duty didn’t make most men good. You didn’t hate him for coming home with blood on his hands. 

If anything, Dex loved that about you. Because for once, he didn’t have to explain himself.

He didn’t have to come home and build a careful human-sounding justification for the violence. He didn’t have to say he had no choice, or they were a threat. You already knew. You reached into his mind, found his reasoning, and understood it before he even greeted you.

And you would look at him and say, “That’s fine.”

Not because you were naïve. But you knew exactly what he was.

You knew the terrible things he had done. You knew the sound of his mind when he decided someone had to die. You knew how quickly he could make peace with blood if the reason made sense to him. And somehow, you accepted it.

But proximity to killing was a different thing altogether. A hurt mind was a loud mind and a dying mind was worse. 

You explained it after an agent got too close to the apartment. 

Dex knew that he couldn’t risk a search. He knew he couldn’t risk him writing down the address. He couldn’t risk OXE finding you again.

So he killed him outside, close enough for you to feel the pain. 

By the time Dex came back in, you were on the floor beside the bed, hands pressed to your ears even though that never helped. Your face was pale, eyes unfocused, like you were still hearing dead thoughts long after the body had gone limp.

“A hurt mind tastes like TV static,” you whispered.

Dex stopped with blood drying on his sleeve.

You tried to explain because he needed to understand, and with you, Dex always listened like the answer might save your life later.

“I don’t hear words when they’re hurt. Pain turns everything white and icky. It buzzes behind my eyes.” You swallowed hard, breathing through it. “And dying is worse. A dying mind clings to anything it can. A face, a  smell, a prayer. Some room they were in when they were little. Anything to stay. It’s so loud, Dex. I can’t filter it, I can’t, I-I… can’t.”

Dex didn’t look sorry for the dead agent, that was not how he worked. But he looked… hurt. He was hurt because you were.

“I know why you did it,” you said, eyes wet. “I know he got too close. I’m not mad.”

That was worse, because he could’ve handled anger. He didn’t know what to do with forgiveness. “I just can’t be near it,” you whispered. “Please.”

It had never been easy for him to change rules, but just like that, because you were hurt, he changed it. 

He promised no killing within half a mile of the apartment. He promised there would be no bodies in the building. If danger came near and you were close enough to feel it, Dex would send you away first. 

And if he had no choice, if someone had to die and had to die fast, Dex dragged the body away before the mind finished breaking.

He’d drag them down alleys, around corners, behind dumpsters, far enough that their minds could get loud somewhere it wouldn’t reach you.

For a while, that was enough.

Then one day, Dex came home and you weren’t in the apartment.

The door was locked. The curtains were drawn. The lights were low the way you liked them. The kettle sat cold on the stove, even though it was time you usually had tea. Your blanket was half-folded on the chair, one sleeve of one of his shirts hanging off the armrest where you had left it that morning.

But you weren’t there.

Dex stood in the middle of the studio and listened.

He couldn’t hear bare feet shifting against the floor of the bathroom. He could hear breathing from the corner beyond the bed, where you usually were when you were overwhelmed. 

Nothing.

His body reacted before his mind did.

A bloom of panic opened behind his ribs.

“Sweetheart?”

No answer.

He checked the bathroom, the closet, the fire escape. The bed, even though he could see you weren’t  in it. Then again, because panic didn’t care about logic once it got its hands around his throat.

No.

No, no, no.

For one sick second, all he could think was OXE.

Someone had found you. Someone had gotten in while he was away. Someone had taken you from the little box he had built to keep the world out, and he hadn’t been there to stop it.

Then he heard you.

You were… down the hall?

You let out a sob muffled through someone else’s door.

Dex turned toward it so fast the room seemed to tilt.

He knew that sound. He knew every version of your crying by then. The small ones you tried to hide, the sharp ones that meant you were hurt, the breathless ones that meant too many minds had gotten in and you couldn’t find your way back out.

This one was worse.

This one sounded like shock and the beginning of self-hatred.

Dex was already moving.

The neighbors’ apartment door was unlocked.

He pushed it open and found you on the floor.

You were curled up near the kitchen tiles, knees drawn tight, hands pressed over your mouth as if you were trying to hold the sobs in with your fingers. Your whole body shook.  

You were barefoot. Your hair was a mess. One side of your face was wet with tears.

Then Dex saw the bodies around you, and it belonged to the couple who lived there.

The ones who screamed through the walls so often their voices had become part of the building. The ones whose arguments rotted into your apartment at night. The ones whose thoughts were worse than their mouths, according to you. They were bitter and poisoned all the way through.

He knew pieces of them because you knew pieces of them.

You told them they had a son who didn’t live there anymore. The grandparents had taken him in because the father’s anger had become too physical and the mother’s neglect had become too easy to pretend not to see. The child’s room was now turned into storage. 

They had been horrible people.

That did not change the fact that you had killed them.

You looked up at Dex. “I’m sorry.”

Your hands fell from your mouth to your throat, fingers hovering there like you could still feel what you had done.

“They were so loud,” you whispered.

Dex stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

Your eyes darted to the bodies, then back to him, wild and wet and ruined.

“I knew it would hurt,” you said, words coming faster now, tumbling out of you before you could stop them. “I knew. I knew dying minds hurt me. I knew it would be loud when they died, I knew it would get in, but they were already so loud, Dex. They were already in my head I couldn’t think.”

Your breath hitched hard.

“They were fighting again. Not just out loud outside, but inside. Inside was worse. He was thinking about what he wanted to do to her, and she was thinking about what she should have done to him years ago, and then they were thinking about the boy, and neither of them even missed him right. They just—”

You choked on it.

Dex took one slow step closer. You shook your head, frantic. “No. Don’t. I’m awful right now. I’m so loud.”

“You’re not too loud for me.”

That made you sob harder. You curled forward, forehead nearly touching your knees.

“I tried to go back,” you whispered. “I tried to go back to our apartment. I tried to shut it out, but they kept going and going and going, and I couldn’t tell what was mine anymore. I couldn’t tell if I hated them or if they hated each other or if the whole hallway hated them, and then I was here.”

Your hands twisted in your lap.

“I was just here.”

Dex understood, because it was you.

Because your mind had been filled past the point of reason by two people who had made a life out of being loud, and by the time you understood what your hands were doing, they were already dying. 

“I made it quick,” you said.

Your voice was so small it barely reached him.

Dex’s teeth tightened. You looked at him like you needed him to believe that one thing, if nothing else.

“I did. I promise. I didn’t want them to hurt. I didn’t want to hear that part for long. I just needed it to stop, and they were going to hurt each other anyway, and they were horrible, Dex, but I—” Your face fell. “I killed them.”

There was no justification, no defence. 

“I killed them,” you said again, and it sounded like you were trying to make yourself understand it.

Dex crouched in front of you, and your eyes flicked to his hands.

Dex knew too much about violence to be shocked by it. But seeing you like this, seeing the toll of it hollow you out from the inside, he understood one thing: The city was killing you.

It was simply too loud, too full for your mind. 

“Look at me,” he said.

You shook your head. “I can’t.”

“Look at me.”

Your eyes lifted.

Dex reached for you then, slow enough that you could stop him.

You didn’t.

The second his hand closed gently around your wrist, you collapsed forward into him with a sound so broken it made his throat tighten. He caught you against his chest, one hand to the back of your head, the other arm locked around you while you sobbed into his shirt.

“I’m sorry,” you gasped.

Dex held you tighter.

“I know.”

“I don’t want to be like this.”

“I know, baby.”

“They were so loud.”

“I know.”

And he didn’t mean it the way you meant it. He couldn’t. He would never know what it was like to have a dying mind claw through yours, to feel someone’s last panic splinter behind your eyes. But he knew enough. He knew you. He knew what this had cost you.

He looked over your shoulder at the dead neighbors, and there was no pity in him for them.

Only calculation. He was going to clean up this mess, maybe make it look like a murder-suicide, and make sure the investigation didn’t even look your way. 

You were crying so hard you could barely breathe.

Dex pressed his mouth to your hair.

“You’re okay,” he whispered, more to himself than to you. “You’re okay.”

That night, after he cleaned what needed cleaning and got you back behind your own door, after he tucked you into the bed and sat with you until exhaustion finally dragged you under, Dex stayed awake beside you and stared at the ceiling.

The panelling he put there was not enough. The blackout curtains he installed were not enough.

The quiet refrigerator, the rugs, the rules about killing, the way he had tried to make one studio apartment survivable — none of it was enough if the city could still get to you through the walls.

By morning, Dex had made up his mind.

He started taking bigger jobs after that, better paying ones. 

All with one thing in mind: relocate you from the city.

—

After that, every job had one purpose.

You.

And Dex had always been better when he had a purpose.

Every payment, every account number, every envelope, every favor owed became a way out of the city, a way to buy air your mind could survive.

But money was never quite enough. Money could buy a place, maybe, but money left a paper trail. Dex needed a cleaner solution. 

He got what he wanted when the property mogul came to him.

The man owned half a skyline and wanted another man dead over a development dispute he kept calling “a complication.” He met Dex in the private lounge of a building with marble floors and windows too high above the street for anyone inside to remember people lived below them.

He offered a number first.

Two hundred thousand dollars. 

Dex did not react.

The mogul smiled like he thought he had accepted the offer.

Then Dex gave him his price. “Two hundred thousand dollars,” he said, “and land.”

The mogul blinked. Dex leaned back in his chair.

“Upstate, and no close neighbors within half a mile radius. I want twenty acres at least. I want an existing cabin if you’ve got one. If not, build one.”

The man stared at him for a second too long, like money had made him forget people could ask for things that weren’t numbers. Dex’s expression didn’t change.

“You want him gone by Friday?” he tilted his head. “That’s my payment.”

The mogul laughed uncertainly.

Dex didn’t.

By the end of the week, the man was dead, the dispute was gone, and a plot of land upstate had quietly changed hands through three shell companies and a fake name. 

There was a cabin on it already.

It was small and slightly weathered, far enough from the nearest road that the city couldn’t reach it easily. It was enough from the nearest neighbor that even your mind would have to stretch to find another person.

Dex stood on the porch the first time he saw it and listened.

Nothing but birds and wind through the trees.

Perfect. 

Dex wanted to surprise you, which was adorable, because he had been thinking about the cabin constantly.

Not just the cabin itself, either. He had been fixing and sanding and checking the locks. He had managed to put extra shelves in the kitchen and fixed the creaky steps. He was planning to replace the bedroom window before you ever saw it because the old one rattled when the wind hit wrong and you’d hate it almost as much as he did. 

He wanted it perfect before he brought you there.

So you pretended not to know.

You let him come home with sawdust on his sleeve and plans tucked behind his eyes, let him sit beside you on the bed while thinking very loudly about the porch and curtain rods and whether the trees were far enough from the house to make you feel safe instead of watched.

“You’re in a good mood,” you said.

Dex glanced at you too quickly. “No.”

You smiled into your book. “Okay.”

Then, flatter, he realised, “You know.”

You looked up, trying so hard not to smile because he looked genuinely upset. “I know.”

Dex sighed through his nose. “I wanted to surprise you.”

“You did,” you said, reaching for the front of his shirt. “I’m surprised you thought you could surprise me.”

And poor Dex, murderous, meticulous, hopelessly in love Dex, let you pull him down into a kiss anyway. 

Of course, when he took you there the week after for the first time with your duffel bags in tow, you loved it.

You loved the curtains. You loved the little fire pit he built after you told him fire felt like the good kind of white noise in your head. You loved watching him chop wood with unnecessary precision. You loved sitting on the porch with a blanket around your shoulders while he checked the perimeter for the third time that day, because Dex couldn’t love normally. He loved like a security system with attachment issues.

And Dex loved that you knew.

He didn’t have to explain the strange shape of his obsession. You could reach into his mind and find the answer before he ever opened his mouth.

Why did he reinforce the back door?

Because if someone comes through it, I want three extra seconds.

Why did he move the bed away from the window?

Because glass breaks inward.

Why did he buy six bags of birdseed?

Because you smiled at the cardinals.

That one made him glare at you.

“You’re not supposed to listen all the time,” he said.

You sat on the porch railing, grinning into your mug. “You’re not supposed to think so loudly.”

“I don’t.”

You shrugged. “You do sometimes.”

Your favorite part, though, was watching him practice.

He set up a target in the clearing behind the cabin, a clean round board nailed to a tree stump far enough away that any normal person would have missed half the time.

Dex never missed.

He would stand there in the cold morning air, sleeves pushed up, knife balanced between his fingers with that beautiful focus he had. Then his hand would flick, quick as a blink, and the blade would bury itself dead center.

Again.

And Again.

You sat on a log nearby, chin in your hand, trying very hard not to smile. “You’re showing off.”

Dex did not look at you. “I’m practicing.”

“You’re showing off because you know I’m watching,” you said, “You’re thinking, She likes when I do this.”

The knife hit the target with a sharp thunk.

Dead center.

Dex turned then, eyes narrowing.

You smiled sweetly.

Poor thing. He was terrifying to everyone else. To you, he was just your murderous little cabin boyfriend who would rather die than admit to liking your sweet little praises.

“You know,” you said, “you don’t have to impress me.”

Dex pulled the knife from the target. 

That one got him.

Dex walked across the clearing toward you, knife still loose in his hand, expression flat in that way that would have scared anyone who didn’t already know his mind was doing the emotional equivalent of tripping over furniture.

“You think you’re funny,” he said.

“You love me.”

Dex stopped in front of you.

The woods were quiet around him. Birds were shifting in the trees. Firewood was stacked by the shed. Morning light caught in his hair and across the sharp line of his cheek. His mind softened before his eyes did, and you felt it bloom warm in your chest before he ever touched you.

I do, he thought. More than anything in the whole goddamn world. 

You smiled up at him. “I know.”

Dex bent downs, caught your chin carefully between his fingers, and kissed you. It was ridiculously gentle for a man called Bullseye. 

When he pulled back, your eyes were still closed.

“You’re going to do it again,” you murmured.

“The knife throwing?”

“No.” You opened your eyes and smiled. “Kiss me.”

Dex managed a smile. And because he never missed, he did.

—

Dex still went back to the city sometimes.

He had scales to level, as he put it. Important vigilante work, in his head. It was the kind of work that involved blood and ledgers and moral math only Benjamin Poindexter could make sound reasonable. You never argued with him about that part. You could read his mind. You knew his reasons. 

Still, leaving you at the cabin always hurt him.

Not because the cabin was unsafe. It was practically a fortress by then, even with enough stored food to survive whatever apocalypse Dex had apparently been personally expecting.

But he still checked everything twice.

“You’ll call if anything feels wrong,” he said.

“I’ll call.”

“If someone comes up the road—”

“I go to the back room.”

“If the radio cuts out—”

“I use the satellite phone.”

“If you hear something near the woods—”

“I don’t go investigate like a stupid horror movie girl.”

Still, he never left for more than three or four days.

Never.

By the second night, his thoughts would start turning back toward you. By the third, they got restless. He’d think about whether you remembered to eat. Whether the firewood was dry. Whether the road was clear. Whether you were wearing his sweater because you missed him or because the house was cold.

Both, usually.

When he came back, it was almost always late.

You never waited inside.

You would be on the porch before he reached the steps, blanket around your shoulders, eyes bright from missing him too much. Sometimes he didn’t even get the Bullseye mask off before you had both hands on him.

“Missed you,” you whispered, then you’d kiss the mask, right over where his mouth should be.

And his brain would go completely, embarrassingly haywire with love, relief, home, you, you, you.

You laughed softly against the fabric surface of it. “You’re loud.”

Dex’s gloved hands found your waist. “I missed you too.”

“Mmm,” you hummed, “I know.”

He would pull the mask off properly after that, just to kiss you properly. And when his mouth finally found yours, you could feel the city fall away from him.

—

This time, Dex was gone for seven days.

He didn’t tell you why, and not because he wanted to scare you. Because in Dex’s mind, silence was kinder than worry. If he told you that he had played a part in killing the mayor's wife and had been injured, and now needed to do one last assassination before signing a contract with a government agency so he could start providing better for you, you would panic before he could get back to you.

So he kept quiet.

And that was worse.

By day five, the cabin stopped feeling peaceful and started feeling empty. By day six, you were sleeping in his sweater, radio in your lap, listening for a voice that never came. That’s when you realised his lines were non-active. By day seven, every crackle of static sounded like him dying.

He had never been gone that long.

So you left.

It took you hours to walk to the nearest train station, but you managed to do it. 

The train, once you got on, was too crowded, and you suddenly were reminded why Dex had moved you away.  There were too many shoulders, too many minds packed into one metal tube, all of them thinking too loudly at once. Fear about Fisk, about Daredevil. Anger at the Task Force. A woman was praying under her breath. A boy was trying not to cry. Someone was watching the footage of the protests on their phone.

You focused.

You filtered.

You had gotten good at that, hadn’t you? Dex had helped you get good at that. One mind at a time. One thought at a time. Find the edge of yourself. Stay there. Don’t let the fear become yours just because you can hear it.

And for a while, you managed.

Even with New York getting louder the closer you came. Even with every station spilling more panic into the train. Even as you got out, as the protests moved through the city like a fever, anger and terror and hope all tangled together until nobody’s thoughts came out clean anymore.

You pressed your nails into your palm and breathed.

In.

Out.

Find Dex.

That was all you needed to do. 

Find Dex and everything would be okay.

You could be overstimulated. You could be shaking. You could have the whole city scraping against the inside of your skull and still make it to him, because you had done hard things before. You had survived OXE. You had survived bad days. You had survived yourself.

You could survive a train ride and a trip to the city.

You were managing.

Barely, but managing.

Until…

Somewhere in the city, a Task Force Agent shot a man.

You felt it.

You didn’t even see it. 

But you felt the impact, the shock, the guttural animal panic of a mind realizing too late that the body was failing. His last thoughts clawed outward, grabbing at anything. He thought about a mother, a kitchen light, the taste of coffee, please, please, please — and it slammed through you so hard you thought you were the one dying. 

Too much.

Too much, too much, too much.

By the time you reached Dex’s apartment, you could barely separate yourself from the city.

You stumbled up the stairs with his sweater twisted in your fists and let yourself in with shaking hands and a spare key he kept in the cabin. The old apartment still smelled like him. The wall panelling he had installed for you was still there. The bed you loved was still there.

So you crawled into it.

You curled up small in the old place where he used to hold you through bad nights, pressing your face into his pillow because it was the only thing close enough to a hug you could get.

And when Dex finally found you, you were shaking in the bed, sobbing like the city had followed you all the way in.

—

Present day…

For a while, neither of them said anything.

The hallway held the two of them in the weak yellow light, close enough to fight, close enough for Matt to hear Dex's slight chatter behind his teeth.

The anger was there.

It moved through Dex like a live wire, and viciously restrained. Matt could hear through his heartbeat how badly he wanted to do something with it. He could hear it in the slight shift of Dex’s weight, in the way his fingers flexed once at his side, in the careful control of his breathing.

But Dex didn’t move.

He stood in front of the broken door like his body could make up for the lock Matt had destroyed. 

Behind him, inside the apartment, you made a small sound.

Dex’s head turned at once, not enough to take his eyes off Matt. But enough for Matt to understand that half of him had never left the room.

It was awful, seeing that.

It was awful because Matt struggled to see past his sins. He didn’t want to see past his sins. 

But the man in front of him was standing outside a bedroom he clearly wanted to return to, choosing not to kill because you had asked him not to.

Matt swallowed. “Does she need help?”

Dex looked at him. His face went cold enough that Matt knew, instantly, he had said it wrong. “She has help.”

Matt’s mouth tightened. “You?”

Dex stepped closer by half an inch. Not a threat, but rather a correction. “Yes.”

Matt let out a slow breath. “I—”

“No.” Dex cut him off. “You don’t get to stand there after kicking my door in, after scaring her half to death, and think you’re the reasonable one here.”

Matt’s jaw flexed. “I heard someone crying in your apartment.”

“And what?” Dex crossed his hand over his chest. “You decided she needed saving from me?”

“You’ve given me plenty of reasons to think that.”

Dex almost smiled. It was a terrible thing. It was humorless, dead before it reached his eyes.

“Yeah,” he said. “I have.”

Matt went still.

Dex didn’t deny it. He didn’t reach for innocence he had no right to hold.

“I know what I am,” Dex said, voice low now. “You don’t have to remind me.”

“I don’t think you do.”

Dex’s eyes sharpened.

Matt took one step forward, careful, measured. “You think because you think you love her, that makes this different.”

Dex’s face changed. Matt heard the hit land.

Dex didn’t hide his agitation well, because in his mind he was thinking how dare you even fucking insinuate that I think I love her. I know I love her. How dare you?

Inside, you must’ve felt the frustration flare, because shifted again, sheets whispering under your trembling body, and Dex turned his head immediately, rage folding down so fast it almost hurt to witness.

His voice dropped toward the door, not Matt. “Sweetheart, I’m okay.”

You didn’t answer, but your breathing slowed.

Matt listened until it settled by a fraction.

“You hear that?” Dex asked with a sigh.

Matt said nothing.

“You hear how she breathes when I’m here?”

Matt’s throat tightened.

Dex leaned in slightly, voice still controlled. “You heard her when you came in. You heard what happened when you kicked the door down. She didn’t run from me. She ran to me.”

Fuck. He had a point.

Matt’s mouth pressed into a hard line. “I’m not trying to hurt her.”

“You already did.”

The words landed flat in his chest and Matt flinched despite himself.

Dex saw it. 

“You came in here loud,” Dex said. “You brought in your thoughts, your judgment, your anger. You dragged all of it into the room with you and dumped it on her while she was already drowning.”

“I—“ Matt shook his head, turning it slightly down, “I didn’t know.”

“No,” Dex said. “You didn’t.”

The accusation wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be.

Behind the door, you gave another small, broken breath.

Dex’s hand twitched once at his side, like every instinct in him wanted to turn around and go back to you.

“You should go,” Dex said through gritted teeth.

Matt didn’t, at least not right away.

You were quiet now.

Not calm, Matt could hear that much. Your breathing still came unevenly from somewhere beneath the blanket, frayed at the edges, worn thin from crying. But you were quieter than before, and every time Dex shifted even slightly away from the door, your heartbeat changed.

Matt wanted to believe he was looking at Bullseye. At the man who had turned a courthouse into a warzone. At the man whose name belonged on a tip line, in a police report, on every alert system New York still had running after the riots.

Benjamin Poindexter was standing right in front of him.

Matt let him go only a couple of days ago, yes, but hasn’t he been pushing for transparency over the last twenty four hours?

He should believe in the law. Especially now. Especially after what he had said in front of the whole city. He had torn his own mask off for accountability. He had asked New York to believe there was still a line between justice and vengeance and was prepared to pay the price anyway.

So why was he standing here, letting a murderer guard a broken door?

Dex watched him think it.

His mouth barely moved.

“You want to hate me?” Dex said. “Fine. Hate me downstairs.”

Matt’s jaw clenched.

Dex stepped closer. His voice stayed low, but there was nothing soft in it now. “Just don’t do it near her.”

Matt shook his head and Dex shifted towards the door, like keeping Matt’s attention off you was as natural as breathing.

“She isn’t yours to protect,” Matt said quietly.

Dex’s eyes went flat. “No,” he said. “She’s mine to take care of.”

The words should have sounded wrong. Maybe they were wrong. But behind him, your breath hitched at the sound of his voice, and some tiny broken part of it steadied after.

A year ago, Matt would have heard that and called it delusion.

But tonight, he heard the window shut. Dex silenced the phone. Dex killed the lights and unplugged the radio. Dex tucked the blanket over you. He heard love in all the small, practiced mercies Dex had done without needing to be told.

Matt’s hands curled slowly at his sides.

He could still do it.

He could leave the building and call in an anonymous tip. That Bullseye was here, and they could go non-lethal because you were here and there was no way in hell Dex would kill near you. Matt could tell Brent this address, this floor, this door.

He could do it because it would be right.

Because Dex was dangerous.

Because the law had to mean something.

Because Foggy—

Matt’s throat tightened so sharply he almost moved.

But Matt understood, with a sick twist in his stomach, that if he took Dex away tonight, he didn’t know who would be left to tend to you. Who would know how to keep you from drowning in a city full of minds.

Because Matt had heard what one broken door did to you.

If cops came into that apartment with radios crackling, boots pounding, fear and adrenaline spiking out of every mind, you would fall apart. And if they took Dex away, then you would be well and truly fucked. 

He didn’t know what doctors would want their hands on you. He didn’t know who would look at you and see a woman before they saw a weapon.

Dex was dangerous.

But maybe that was exactly why he knew how to keep danger away from you. 

“She asked you to leave,” Dex said again, quieter this time. “So leave.”

Matt stood there a moment longer. Long enough to feel every reason not to. Long enough to know he might regret it. Long enough to know he would think about this hallway again, maybe for the rest of his life.

Then he stepped back.

Dex didn’t relax.

Matt took another step. Then another, until he reached the stairwell and stopped with one hand near the railing. His face angled slightly toward the apartment again, toward the woman he could still hear crying in the dark.

For a second, Dex thought he might come back.

Then Matt said, very quietly, “If she ever asks for help from someone else, don’t stand in her way.”

Dex’s fingers flexed.

The answer came immediately. “If she asks, I’ll listen.”

Matt could hear that he was telling the truth.  His fingers tightened once around the railing.

Still, he stayed there for one more second.

Dex waited him out, because if Matt needed to drag his reluctance down the stairs one breath at a time, fine. He could do that. Dex could stand there all night if he had to. He could become the door until morning if he had to.

Finally, Matt lowered his head and made his way down. 

Dex stayed in the hallway until Matt’s footsteps disappeared down the stairs.

Only when the last sound disappeared down the stairs did Dex turn back toward the apartment. The door was ruined, the lock hanging uselessly from splintered wood, the frame cracked where Matt’s boot had forced it inward.

For one second, Dex stared at it.

His anger flared, then he swallowed it down.

Not now.

Not near you.

He stepped inside and pulled the door closed as much as it would go. It dragged wrong against the floor, crooked and broken, but he eased it shut anyway. Then he picked up the kitchen chair instead of dragging it, because the first scrape of wood had made your breathing catch from the bed.

Everything had to be quiet.

He wedged the chair beneath what was left of the handle and pushed once, testing it.

The door held, only barely. It hurt him that it was imperfect, but it had to be good enough for tonight.

Then he turned back to you.

You were still crying, but not like before. Not the full panic that had torn through you until you couldn’t breathe. This was smaller, yet more exhausted. Like your body had run out of strength but your heart hadn’t figured out how to stop breaking yet.

You were curled on his bed under the blanket, face wet, shoulders shaking in little miserable tremors.

Dex  crouched beside you so carefully, like one wrong sound might split you open again.

“Hey,” he whispered.

Your mouth trembled. “I wanted to hurt him.”

Dex went still as your eyes squeezed shut, fresh tears slipping down your cheeks.

“I wanted to,” you whispered, horrified by yourself. “After he scared me, after he thought those things about you, after he came in so loud, when he was outside with you and he upset you, I wanted to hurt him, Dex. I did. I did, I—”

“Shh.” Dex’s hand came up slowly, waiting.

You leaned into it before he touched you, and only then did his palm settle against your cheek.

“Shh, baby.”

“I wanted to make him stop.” You shook your head, crying harder now, broken open by the confession.

Dex leaned closer until his forehead almost touched yours. “So did I, baby,” he whispered, rough and aching, “so did I.”

You opened your eyes.

Dex looked at you like it cost him to be that honest and he would pay it anyway if it calmed you. “But we didn’t.”

Your breath caught.

“We didn’t,” he said again, softer. “You stayed with me. I stayed with you. He left. It’s over.”

Your face fell, and Dex shifted up onto the bed then, slow enough not to startle you, and gathered you carefully against him. You folded into his chest with a broken little sound, fingers twisting weakly in his shirt.

He held you like he was trying to put your body back around your soul.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered into your hair. “I’ve got you. I know. I know, sweetheart.”

You sobbed once, small and ruined.

Dex pressed his mouth to your temple. “We’re going back to the cabin first thing tomorrow.”

Your fingers tightened. “Tomorrow?”

“Yeah.” His hand moved over your back, slow and steady. “You can sleep the whole way if you want.”

Your breathing shook against him.

“And my new work doesn’t start for two weeks,” he said, like he was offering you the only miracle he had. “So that’s two weeks, okay? Two weeks of nothing.”

You pulled back just enough to look at him.

Dex’s thumb brushed beneath your eye.

“Just me and you,” he whispered. “No one else. No noise. No city. Just us.”

Your mouth trembled and he kissed your forehead.

“I’ll chop wood. You can sit on the porch. We’ll keep the fire on. You can wear my clothes and sleep all day if you want.”

Another tear slipped down your cheek before you could help it, and he caught it.

“And I won’t leave,” he said. “Not for two weeks. Not for anything.”

You stared at him through wet lashes, searching his face first. Then, his mind.

He was thinking about…

The cabin.

You sleeping in the passenger seat.

You on the porch.

You wrapped in his sweater.

You, safe.

And underneath it all, over and over, so constant it almost broke you…

I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.

Your breath hitched.

His face softened. “There you are,” he whispered.

You made a tiny sound and tucked your face back into him. “Okay,” you breathed.

Dex’s shoulders nearly gave out with relief. “Okay?”

You nodded against his chest. “Okay.”

He closed his eyes and held you tighter for one second, just one, like he needed to feel the word inside his own body. Then he kissed your temple again. “That’s my girl.”

Your crying slowed after that.

It didn’t stop, but it gentled into little exhausted shudders against his shirt while Dex kept his hand moving over your back, the way he knew helped. He stayed until your fingers loosened. Until your breathing stopped tripping over itself. Until your mind, still bruised and raw, found the steady line of his thoughts again.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

You could focus on it now.

Not the city. Not Matt. Not the broken door.

Just Dex and his thoughts, warm and obsessive and constant, wrapped around you from the inside out.

Finally, Dex pulled back enough to look at your face.

“I’m gonna clean up,” he whispered.

Your eyes opened again, instantly afraid. He shook his head before the fear could grow.

“I’m just going to the bathroom,” he said. “That’s all.”

You swallowed.

“I’ll be back in a bit,” he promised. “You should go to sleep, okay?”

You didn’t answer.

Dex kissed your temple. Then your cheek. Then your lips, so gently you almost started crying again.

“Try,” he whispered, because he knew you were so, so tired. “Just try for me.”

You nodded, barely.

Dex eventually eased himself away, slowly and careful, leaving the blanket tucked around your shoulders and the chair braced beneath the broken door.

The bathroom light stayed off, and the door stayed open.

Water ran low in the sink. 

You appreciated it more than you could say. The sound filled the little apartment gently, not enough to crowd your head, not enough to become another thing pressing at the inside of your skull. Just enough to give your mind somewhere simple to latch on to.

Dex didn’t need to read minds to know that running water settled you the same way fire did. It had the same white-noise hush. It had the same clear, constant sound that didn’t want anything from you. Fire and water didn’t think. It didn’t feel. It didn’t ask to be understood.

It just moved.

And Dex knew that. He knew you.

So you laid there in the dark, still hurting, still broken in places you could not name, but now, you were present.

You took a shaky breath.

For a while, there was only the water running low in the bathroom sink and Dex moving quietly through the dark.

You could hear him in pieces.

You heard the careful pass of his hands under the faucet, the soft drag of fabric as he wiped his face. The small, practical thoughts he kept lining up for tomorrow.

Cabin first thing.

Full tank of gas.

No tunnel.

Back roads.

Blanket in the passenger seat.

Radio off unless she asks.

Two weeks.

Just me and her.

You focused on him. On the shape of his mind. On the tenderness he had no idea how to say without turning it into a plan, a route, a locked door, a fixed window. Even now, Dex was thinking about firewood and the bedroom window and whether the car heater would be too loud for you in the morning.

It made you smile.

Then… oh.

Something else reached you. Someone else.

It wasn’t Dex; this thought came from outside.

It was a thought that came from out the street, clear and heavy through the thin glass:

I hope I’m doing the right thing.

Your eyes opened. For one second, you lay very still beneath the blanket.

Dex was still in the bathroom. But outside, across the street, Matt Murdock had not gone far.

You got up slowly and turned your head toward the window.

The curtain hadn’t been pulled perfectly shut. There was a narrow gap where city light slipped through, pale and dirty against the floor. You shifted, leaning just enough to see past it.

There he was, across the street, half-shadowed beneath a streetlamp, hood pulled up, face tilted toward the building like he was still listening to the apartments.

Matt Murdock stood there with one foot turned away and the rest of him refusing to follow.

He was hesitating.

His thoughts were still loud, but not loud like before.

It was no longer crashing through you with suspicion and anger and judgment. This was different. His thoughts now were coherent, almost. They came to you in pieces, clear enough to understand.

Benjamin Poindexter is still a dangerous man.

I shouldn’t leave him with her.

But she asked me to leave.

But she’s calmer when he’s near.

Your throat tightened.

Matt’s thoughts vibrated around the shape of Dex, for lack of a better word. There was still blood there, grief there, a wound so deep it had a name you didn’t touch because it hurt even from a distance.

But there was something else in his thoughts now, too.

You.

Because you could read minds, you knew he had heightened senses, and you knew you didn’t have to speak loudly to reach him. You only had to speak clearly.

So you turned your face toward the narrow gap in the curtain, toward the street where Matt Murdock stood beneath the weak glow of a lamp, and whispered into the dark, “I know what he is.”

Across the street, Matt went completely still.

You saw the subtle lift of his head, the tightening through his shoulders. His attention snapping back to your window because he could feel where you were.

He heard you. You knew he did.

You curled your fingers into the blanket.

“But he’s not that to me.”

Matt didn’t move.

You could feel his mind presently listening now. Not as Daredevil. Not as the man who had kicked down the door. Not as someone trying to decide what kind of danger you were.

“He loves me,” you whispered.

Matt’s thoughts shifted.

He does. Even a blind man could see that. 

The thought came so clearly it almost hurt.

You blinked, tears slipping sideways into your hair. “He’s good to me.”

You remembered him now, when it was Dex’s hand that unlocked the cuff, how he put his jacket over your shoulders. You thought about the cabin and the chair beneath the broken door. That man was in the bathroom, washing up with the door open because he promised he wouldn’t leave you alone.

You breathed in, shaky but steadier. “He’s a good man for me.”

Across the street, Matt’s face changed.

It was a small, tiny furrow of the brow. But then you heard the thought that followed.

I believe you.

Your breath hitched

Above all the doubt, above all the grief, above all the things Matt Murdock would never be able to forgive, that one thought came through clean.

I believe you.

Not Dex.

You.

He believed you knew what you were saying. He believed you were not trapped. He believed you understood the man beside you better than anyone else in the city possibly could.

And maybe that was the most Matt could give.

You, behind the glass, exhausted and half-broken in Dex’s bed.

Matt, across the street, carrying a truth he didn’t want and yet couldn’t put down.

Because maybe Benjamin Poindexter was not only defined by violence. Maybe there was something else buried deep under him, warped and wounded and difficult to look at, but human anyway.

A person.

Someone capable of loving. Someone, somehow, worthy of being loved.

Matt didn’t forgive him. But for the first time, he saw him differently.

Then he lowered his head and gave you a small nod.

Then Matt Murdock turned away.

This time, he truly left.

You watched until the dark took him, until his thoughts faded into the rest of New York and you could no longer separate him from the city.

But you knew.

You knew that Matt was starting to look at the man you loved differently.

— end.

Extra Note : Like the reader in this story, we all have good days and bad days. Please remember that needing help doesn’t make you weak, broken, or too much. It just makes you human. If you are struggling, please reach out to someone you trust or contact a crisis/support service in your area. You deserve care, patience, and support on your bad days too, lovelies! 🫶💕❤️

buy me a ko-fi here!

Dex taglist : @itsdynotdaddy @diabolicallydownbad @doesanyonereadthis @meicore @pixie2k5 @bibiishin @starlitflora @pearlstiare @glorybeat @stardustworlds @castawaybarnes @supervampireflame @not-the-teen-witch @billybonesxx @ultimatewolverine @treetrees-world-of-imagiation @bitch-spaghetti-o @lostinthes4uce @cotton-eee @weallhaveadestiny @awesome-badass-cafeteria-sauce @moonbug333 @yujyujj @mattdexx @lostfallenangelsblog @bloomsberryfairy @flimsysquid @abbotfan @leonetta2014 @ficcharsimpsblog

extras:

҉　- main story canon compliant piece.

Ꮺ୧ making out w/ better bobby. Ꮺ୧ better you! ҉　 Ꮺ୧ "baby." ҉　 Ꮺ୧ "open your mouth." Ꮺ୧ pillow fort. Ꮺ୧ in the beginning. ҉　 Ꮺ୧ my, what long tongue you have. Ꮺ୧ sunlight. ҉　 Ꮺ୧ slow dancing. ҉　 Ꮺ୧ rib time. Ꮺ୧ conceiving w/ bb. Ꮺ୧ bb watching you w/ bobby. ҉　 Ꮺ୧ intimacy hdcs w/ BB. Ꮺ୧ memories. ҉　 Ꮺ୧ cuteness aggression. Ꮺ୧ twins au. Ꮺ୧ mr. kitty. ҉　

⎋ M.E.G. ENTITY 0 — RESEARCH FILE INDEX:

↹ MEG-ENT-0000-ADDM-██ — Restricted Addendum: Reproductive Capability Assessment (Filed Under Protest)

You sat on your fire escape, your phone held up to your ear in one hand while the other rolled the filter of the cigarette you were smoking between your fingers. You put the extinguished cigarette in the ashtray you had seated on the windowsill next to you and begin to reach for the pack for another, just to realize it’s empty. You curse to yourself, then climb through the window back into your apartment.

A smile creeps onto Dex’s face watching you grab a hoodie off your bedpost before jumping into a pair of sweatpants. You leave your apartment, and Dex loses sight of you momentarily.

In this time, Dex exits his own commandeered unit, but stays to the shadows once he’s out on the street, keeping out of your eyesight as you leave your building.

Dex waits until you enter the deli on the corner before he crosses the street and hoists himself up onto your fire escape with a practiced ease.

He finds the window to your apartment left wide open and climbs through it himself. Dex looks around your bedroom, seeing the familiar grey sheets hazardously thrown across the bed from when you overslept this morning, leaving it unmade. Carefully making his way around your room, he stops at your vanity, examining the new pictures you have stuck to the mirror alongside the old ones Dex has already seen before.

As he reaches for the closet doors, he stops in his tracks when a piece of blue fabric lying on the floor catches his eye. He bunches the soft lace-lined cotton material between his fingers as he brings it to his nose, deeply inhaling your scent. Dex clenches his jaw and balls up his fists even tighter, feeling the primal urges stirring deep within him.

He hears your voice from the other side of the front door, still talking on the phone as you shove your key into the lock. Dex stuffs your panties into his pocket before he leaves the same way he came in.

Thursday

Dex has been staring into the dark window of your apartment for an hour now.

With a few errands of his own to run earlier, Dex couldn’t follow you to work or even drop by your office building to watch you have lunch at your desk today. But having your work schedule memorized, he knows you should be home by now.

Your bedroom window was wide open yet again, and it beckoned Dex across the street like a siren’s song.

He ignores every rational thought that screams at him not to as he crosses the short distance from his side of the street to yours.

Climbing through your window, Dex’s eyes quickly adjust to the darkness of the room, looking around to see no one in sight. He instead finds a trail of clothes leading out of the room like breadcrumbs down the hallway, where he sees a sliver of light peaking through the bathroom door.

You are home.

Instead of turning around like he told himself he should’ve, Dex continues to follow the sound of the shower running, carefully making his way down the hall. Right outside the bathroom lies another pair of discarded panties. It’s nearly instinctual now for him to bend down and pick them up to add to his growing collection in his bedside drawer back at his apartment.

With the bathroom door left slightly ajar, Dex nudges it gently, further opening it for him to look inside.

You were obstructed behind the glass from the condensation clinging to the shower door, but he’s still able to make out the suds of soap cascading down your body as you bathe yourself. Standing under the stream of warm water, he can visibly see the tension dissipating from your shoulders. Your body wash clings to the humidity of the small space, enticing Dex further into the bathroom. His hands itch to touch you, wishing they were running all over you instead of your own.

Dex nearly reaches for the shower door handle when he hears the sound of your phone ringing from your bedroom, breaking him out of his trance.

He retreats back to your room to find your phone charging on your dresser, lit up with a call from your father. You must be speaking to him again. Dex watches the call go to voicemail before he picks up your phone and unlocks it. He smiles to himself. Of course, your passcode remains the same even after all this time.

After looking through your messages and finding nothing exciting among the threads with your coworkers, Dex swipes open your camera roll to see the recent food you’ve been eating, the bars you’ve been frequenting, and the friends you’ve been hanging out with.

“You could’ve used the door, you know.”

Too distracted catching himself up on your life, Dex didn’t hear the shower shut off. Nor did he hear your footsteps enter the room.

“You know where I usually leave the key,” you say.

This was an issue Dex kept having with you—he let his guard down.

Dex looks to see you illuminated by the moonlight coming in through the window. You’re only clad in a towel with your arms crossed over your chest, looking at him like he were a child caught with his hand in the candy jar. He feels the blood draining from his face and remains frozen in the shadows.

“I should go,” is all he says as he begins to back away toward the window.

“Why even come at all then?” You stop him before he can leave again.

A beat of silence passes before Dex admits, “I needed to.”

You reach over to flip on the light switch.

“Don’t.” Dex switches the lamp off before you could get a good look at his face. But you ignore his warning and turn the light back on.

Dex can’t tear his eyes away from yours as you approach, worried about what they might tell him once you see him up close. But all they hold is sorrow; the sight of the fully healed scar across his cheek breaks your heart all over again.

“Oh, Ben.” You caress his face gently, and he immediately leans into your touch.

Dex caves in, pulling you into his arms and locking you into a tight hug like someone would come and rip you away from him. “I needed to see you,” he mumbles into your hair.

“Seems like you’ve been seeing me just fine,” you say, nodding toward the open window that faces his apartment.

He opens his mouth to question how you could’ve known, but you beat him to it.

“After hearing about an inmate escaping from Riker’s merely hours before an attempt is made on the mayor’s life by a sniper, it was pretty easy to figure out whose prying eyes have been watching from across the street.” You know him all too well—it kinda scares him. “I missed you, too,” you peck his lips.

One kiss was all it took for his entire resolve to break.

Dex flattens his hands against your spine to pull you in for a kiss again. Your lips meet in a hungry, needy clash of tongues, making your knees nearly buckle.

You only pull away when you feel your towel loosen around your body, threatening to unravel.

“Wanna let me get some clothes on?” you ask between giggles, attempting to pull away from Dex as you readjust.

“Why would I wanna do that?” he barely budges, firmly keeping you flush against his chest.

“I’m still very much naked under this.” you raise a brow.

“And you’re still wearing too much if you ask me,” he lowers his head to your neck, letting the faint scent of shea butter lingering on your skin flood his senses. But then Dex feels the uneven skitter of your pulse when he softly presses his lips to your jugular.

“What is it?” Dex asks, searching for an answer in your eyes. He can read you as well as his favorite book; there’s not much you could hide from him if you really tried.

“A lot can change in a year,” is all you say.

He certainly did.

Dex was fit before, but he’s practically doubled in size. The thin material of his shirt stretches across his broad chest, the sleeves contouring his bulging biceps, while his sweatpants hang low on his hips, hugging his deliciously thick thighs.

“I can see,” Dex grins, sliding his hand down to your lower back, “You somehow got more beautiful,” he tells you, planting a kiss on your cheek.

You involuntarily roll your eyes, “you’re just saying that,” you mutter.

“Oh am I now?” Dex’s brows stitch together incredulously, “I kinda find that hard to believe when that new coworker of yours tries to find every excuse under the sun just to come and talk to you. He spends more time leaning in the doorway of your office than he does at his own desk.”

You laugh. How long has he been watching?

“Brian’s just a friend.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that I’ve seen how he looks at you. I mean, he was practically drooling when you came in yesterday wearing that baby blue dress.” It’s not like Dex could forget, even if he wanted to—it took everything in him not to put a bullet between Brian’s eyes as he walked to his car after clocking out.

“A lot can change in a year but what I feel about you hasn’t.” Dex says, “Unless it’s how you feel about me that’s changed,” you can visibly see the worry weighing on his shoulders.

“I wouldn’t have left the window open for you all these nights if it had,” you smile.

Dex kisses you again, but this time softer—slower. He gently cups your face, deepening the kiss as you crane your neck. Dex runs his tongue across your bottom lip, tasting the minty mouthwash you had rinsed with before you found him in your room.

Your hands travel up his chest, and it intimidates you a bit, feeling the difference in his size from the last time you saw him—felt him. Dex lowers himself to grab the back of your thighs and hoists you off the ground in one swift motion. You gasp into his mouth, feeling your feet leave the ground, and grab onto Dex’s shoulders. He takes the opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth, and you grab his face eagerly accepting.

Dex takes his time walking over to your bed like he wanted you to savor every moment just as he was.

He sits down at the edge of your bed with you straddling his lap without breaking the kiss. You only part from his lips to catch your breath. Dex chases after your lips, desperate for more, forgetting he needed to breathe himself. He opens his eyes to find you looking at him.

You run a hand through his hair, slightly tugging his head back. Dex’s low-lidded lashes flutter as he grips the soft plush on your thighs, trying to fight those primal urges yet again. He’s waited this long to have you in his arms again; he didn’t want to rush this moment with you.

“My beautiful, beautiful angel,” Dex mutters as he drags you by your thighs higher up on his lap, seating you right on top of the bulge tenting his pants.

He begins littering kisses across your chest, and you arch into his touch.

“Dex,” you sigh, carding your fingers through the short hairs at the nape of his neck.

“Yeah?” he lowly draws out.

“Touch me.”

“I am,” he laughs.

“Don’t be such fucking tease. Not now, been too long,” the second half of that sentence came out as a whine.

Dex slides his hand under your towel, carefully dragging his hand across the skin of your inner thigh, inching closer to your core.

“Like this you mean?” he spreads your folds, softly petting your clit.

Dex slips two of his fingers inside of you, musing as he watches your face contort with pleasure. He languidly curled his fingers inside of you, moving at a slow come-hither motion as your hips begin to rock against his hand.

He croons, feeling your warm, wet walls open up for him. Dex keeps his eyes locked on you as you desperately grind against his hands, wishing he’d move his fingers. But Dex knows that’d be too easy. He knows your body too well; he could definitely make you cum with his hands tied behind his back.

“That’s it, pretty girl, get yourself off for me.” his arm flexes with each gentle stroke of his digits against your gummy walls.

“Dex, please,” You desperately whine as he pulls his fingers away just enough to stay gloved by your pussy but just missing that sweet spot inside of you.

He finally gave in to your pleas and sank his fingers the rest of the way until his middle and ring fingers were knuckle deep inside of you.

You buried your head into Dex’s shoulder as you gush onto his hand. Dex slowly pumps his fingers, hitting that soft spongy spot inside of you every time. You grab onto his arm, gently digging your nails into his skin as you feel yourself get closer to coming.

He presses his thumb to your clit, rubbing tight, calculated circles, and you cling to Dex’s shoulders tighter. He flips you onto the bed, lying you down while keeping his fingers buried inside of you.

His eyes stay trained on your face as he hovers over you.

“Come on, sweetheart,” Dex whispers in your ear, “Wanna feel your pretty pussy cum for me.” You feel him smile against your skin as your hips rise from the bed, chasing after that high. Your back arches and your thighs tremble. Your walls spasm around Dex’s fingers as they ferociously fuck you through your orgasm. The harmony of your whiny moans and obscene, slick squelching from between your legs filled Dex’s ears euphoniously. He basks in your beautiful sounds.

Your fingers wrapping around his wrist gets Dex to slow down before he slips his wet fingers out of your heat. Dex examines his glistening fingers as they catch the moonlight, coated with your arousal, before bringing them to his mouth and licking your juices clean off his hand.

“God, I’ve missed the taste of you,” he says before lowering his head to your neck, softly licking and nipping your skin between his teeth. Dex presses open-mouthed kisses along the column of your throat as he inches a hand up your thigh, pushing your towel open further. His hand continues the rest of the way up your body, until the rest of the towel unravels.

Dex sits back on his haunches, taking in your bare figure laid out before him like a gift he just unwrapped, and runs a hand through his hair.

As Dex’s eyes slowly drink you in, you were suddenly hyper aware of how exposed you feel while he was still fully clothed. You attempt to re-cover yourself, but Dex stops you by pinning your arms to the mattress beside your head.

“Oh, darling, don’t go trying to hide from me now,” he darkly smiles. Dex begins to make his way down your body, alternating between soft kisses and love bites.

He releases your arms to let his hands roam all over you, groping and kneading every part of your body. His calloused hands cupped your breasts, humming in delight as he welcomed the weight of them in his hands.

Dex buries his face between the valley of your breasts, licking and sucking your skin to leave red splotches that would blossom into purple bruises. Dex was careful of where he placed them, making sure you’d just barely be able to hide them; only visible to those staring hard at your cleavage—like a certain coworker of yours.

He rolls his thumbs over your pearled nipples, tweaking them between his deft fingers. You yelp, nearly grinding your hips against his clothed thigh.

Dex settles between your legs, shouldering them wider apart to make room for his broad frame. He kisses each of your thighs, directing them over his shoulders. Without hesitation, he laps at your folds, tasting the remnants of your previous orgasm. Dex hooks his arms under your thighs and pulls you closer to his face, burying his head deeper into your pussy. Your legs threaten to close around his head, the skin of your inner thighs scratching the stubble on his cheeks. But Dex’s arms barely budged, keeping you right where he wanted you.

Dex closed his eyes, losing himself in the taste of you on his tongue, gushing into his mouth like a never-ending fountain.

You could feel the growing wetness sticking to your thighs as Dex’s drool mixes with your slick, making a mess of the sheets below you. Dex brings his free hand between your legs, spreading your lips to tongue your labia.

His tongue weasels inside of you, and his nose bumps your clit, making you buck your hips against his mouth. Dex flattens one of his arms across your stomach, pinning you back to the bed. You tried to wriggle out of his hold, not because you wanted him to let go but to get him to exert more of his strength. You mewl, your head spinning as he keeps you locked in this position.

“Fuck, baby—you’re gonna make me cum again,” you moan. Your fingers comb through his hair, letting your nails gently scratch his scalp as you grip onto his dirty blonde locks.

Dex growls back in response, hungrily sucking on your clit. His tongue worked relentlessly, languidly swirling the bundle of nerves in his mouth. You cried out Dex’s name and roughly pulled on his hair, making him groan into your mound. The vibrations from his mouth send jolts of electricity up your spine, and your toes curl.

Your upper body flailed and jerked as your lower half was kept pressed against the mattresses. Dex lapped up your cum, gladly drinking down your release until he felt the tense quiver of your thighs around his ears.

Dex sits up, and you look at him through your lashes, the lower half of his face wet with your juices. You watch as he licks his lips and wipes his mouth of your essence before he grabs the back of his shirt and tears it off over his head.

Your eyes run down the expanse of his chest to his defined abdomen, flexing with every slow breath he takes. You watch the muscles in his arms ripple under his skin as he begins to push his sweatpants down his hips.

Fuck me.

Dex looks up at you and laughs, “I’m getting there, sweetheart. Mind a little patience?”

Fuck, you said that out loud. No backing down now.

You slide off the bed and stand in front of him, “I’ve been patient enough, Poindexter, don’t you think?” You grab the waistband of his boxers and pull him close.

Dex brings his lips to yours, and your hands push his boxers down his thighs, freeing his dick from its confines. You take him into your hand, making him moan into your mouth. You run your thumb over the leaky slit, smearing his precum over his shaft. You twist and jerk your wrist as Dex throws his head back, giving you access to his neck. You lick a stripe up the side of his throat before tugging his earlobe between your teeth. You softly litter kisses across his neck before you return the favor and suck a bruise above his Adam’s apple.

“Fuck,” Dex sighs as he rocks his hips into your hand. He picks you up once again, guiding your legs around his waist. “I need to be inside of you,” Dex mutters against your neck, “need to feel you,” he says as he climbs onto your bed with you still clinging onto him like a sloth hanging on a tree branch. Dex sits with you in his lap, resting his cock between your wet folds. You reach between your bodies to take his cock into your hand again, rising out of his lap to guide his tip to your sopping core.

You bite your bottom lip as you feel the blunt head of his cock pushing into you. Dex roughly grunts, taking hold of your hips in both hands, trying to keep himself from slamming you down onto his lap in one go.

“Attagirl,” Dex deeply sighs, “just take it easy,” he soothingly rubs your back. His eyes fall to where your bodies connect, watching the way your pussy slowly sucks his cock the rest of the way in.

Your eyes screw shut as you drop your forehead to rest against his, feeling him fully sheathed inside of your warm cunt.

Dex wraps his arm around you, wanting to feel impossibly close to you. But even balls deep inside of you wasn’t enough for him—he wanted more. More of you.

“Holy shit, you fit around me just so perfectly,” his voice reverberates in your ear, “It’s like you were made for me,” he rasps.

You hum in agreement, moving your legs from beneath you to flatten your feet on the bed and grab onto his neck.

“Just for you,” you tell him as you roll your hips.

Dex drops his hand to your lower back, letting you set the pace. You lean back, resting a hand on his thigh behind you to steady yourself as you rock your hips.

“That’s it, angel, take what you need," he rasps. "I'm all yours to use," he tells you. You moan at his words, throwing your head back with a lustful smile. You bring your lips back to Dex’s, and he swallows your sensual whimpers and cries.

You push him back onto the mattress, and his hands on your waist move south to cup your ass as Dex angles his hips up into yours. The tip of his cock easily finds your sweet spot, and you cling onto him once more. You let Dex take control, thrusting up into you at a faster—more desperate rhythm.

“Oh god, Ben, please,” you pant.

A deep growl rumbles in his chest. He slides his hands up your back, locking you into a bear hug as his thighs flex beneath you with every thrust of his hips. Your breathy whines and broken moans fill Dex’s ears while his cock repeatedly bullies your g-spot.

A smile spreads across Dex’s face as he watches you completely lose yourself on his cock. He pushes you back onto the bed, never slipping out of you as he fucks you into the mattress. He hooks an arm beneath your hips, spearing into you while using his other hand to press his thumb to your clit.

“God, you’re so wet. I can feel how close you are from the way you’re soaking me,” he says, reveling in the way your pussy pulses around him.

“M’so close…fill me up so good—feels so fucking good,” you slur.

A guttural moan rips from your throat, and your hips desperately buck into Dex’s. Your walls clamp around him as you cum. Dex nearly cums himself and quickly pulls out of you, making you whine from the sudden loss of contact.

He doesn’t leave you untouched for long, however, with his hand finding its way between your thighs once again, slipping his fingers back inside of you. You shoot upright and grab onto Dex’s arm, closing your legs around his hand.

“Dex, it’s too much please. I can’t-” tears pricked your eyes, feeling overstimulated.

“Oh but I know you can, darling. Need you to stay wet and ready for me.” Dex says like it takes much for you when it comes to him anyway.

Dex stands before you can process the emptiness his hand leaves you with. He wraps an arm around your middle, manhandling you onto your knees at the edge of the bed. Your head spins from having him toss you around like a ragdoll.

Dex brings his cock back to your slit, gently tapping your clit with his cockhead, and you fall back against his chest. Dex pushes inside of you, enrapturing you once again. He grunts deeply, letting his breath fan over your shoulder, feeling the way your warm, wet walls open up just for him. His lips press languid kisses up the back of your neck as he holds you there, not moving—just leaving his cock buried deep inside of you. You try to move your hips with his tip curving deliciously into your sweet spot, but Dex tightens his hold on you, restricting your movements.

“Just look at yourself,” he gently grabbed your face and directed your eyes to the mirror across from your bed by the window. The same mirror Dex would watch you stand in front of for half an hour, contemplating your outfits. Looking at your reflection, your lower stomach pools with arousal, seeing the scene before you. Dex slowly draws his hips back, just barely leaving his tip inside of you before filling you up again, making you shudder. “My precious angel, so needy, all fucked out. All just for me,” he says lowly in your ear.

Dex hugs your shoulders, and you feel his bicep nearly close around your neck every time his arm flexes as he thrusts into you. You weren’t worried he’d hurt you, though he was fully capable of doing so in this position. Your hands rest on his forearm, but you don’t stop him, and just roll your head back onto his shoulder.

“I’m so close, baby, please don’t stop,” you reach behind you, tangling your fingers in his hair, “Wanna cum again—wanna cum with you.”

His eyes were glued to your reflection in the mirror, intensely watching you as you lost yourself. Dex’s arm around your waist pulls you back onto his cock, hitting that sweet spot inside you with such precision every time he bottoms out.

“Need me to fill you up?” he asks, and you slowly nod. “Gonna stuff you so full of my cum you’re gonna be dripping for days afterwards. Brian won’t have a doubt in his mind who you belong to then,” your velvety walls flutter around Dex, and he laughs. “Oh, you like the sound of that, huh? What a fucking tease you are.”

Dex’s hand reaches down to your puffy clit, pinching the sensitive bud between his fingers. Your orgasm crashes into you like a freight train, and you see stars. Dex continues to pump his cock into you, his hips stuttering as he feels the damn begin to break inside of him. Dex sharply pounded into you, the skin of your ass roughly slapping against his lower stomach.

If Dex still wasn’t holding you, you would’ve fallen forward face first onto the mattress, your legs unable to hold you up as you cum for the fourth time tonight. Warm ropes of Dex’s cum coat your inner walls in white. You quietly chanted his name, your mind growing hazy, only able to think of the man wrapped around you. Dex’s arm kisses your shoulder as his dick begins to soften, and he slowly eases out of you.

Dex hooks an arm beneath your thighs, effortlessly scooping you up bridal style. You settle in his arms, circling your own around his neck as you kiss him.

“Ben-”

He interrupts you because he doesn’t need to hear you say it. “I know,” and he passionately kisses you.

Not wanting to let you go, Dex carries you out of your bedroom to the bathroom. He sits you on the bathroom counter, starting up the shower before opening the door to step inside. He holds his hand out for you, which you quickly accept, allowing him to pull you into the shower with him.

After your second shower of the night, you were finally able to dress yourself in one of Dex’s old Quantico shirts and now lay with your head on his chest.

The sounds of the city coming in through the window were drowned out by the sounds of Dex’s heartbeat in your ears. You feel him trace spiraling shapes on your skin with the tip of his fingers.

He breaks the comfortable silence to ask, “When did you start smoking again?”

“Few weeks after you were indicted. It’s a good distraction,” you answer, gently stroking the blonde hairs on his chest.

“It’s not good for you,” Dex says, but you can hear the hint of amusement in his tone.

You lift your head to look at him, “When has that stopped me?”

your eyes were slightly fluttering, the tiredness from the day rushing over you. your head dropped gently on dex.. he smelt of sea salt and oak, and a tad of musk. you closed your eyes just momentarily, soaking in the hum of the television and dex’s chilling body temperature. 

dex looked down at his body, gazing at your figure. he brought his trembling hand up to your face, stroking a stray hair from your forehead. dex then rested his hand on your cheek, thumb moving in small circles. you were so precious. what did he do to deserve you?

your eyes blinked awake, feeling a large, calloused hand on your cheek. dex stopped his movements for a moment, moving to retract his hand. before he could, though, you set your hand over his. the small, manicured one compared to his rough one. 

you removed your hand now, trailing it up dex’s muscular arm to his broad shoulder. “you're so beautiful,” you mumbled out between your sweet lips.

dex hadn’t replied with words, but instead lifted you to sit in his lap. god, he was so big. he was capable of so much, and you weren’t afraid a single bit. your body shifted around, finally settling on his strong thighs. his large arms came around you, hands settling at your lower back. dex peered back up at you with the deepest fucking eyes, looking at you like you were the sweetest girl ever. 

“my sweet girl,” he hummed, his grip tightening. it was firm, but not enough to bruise. never enough to bruise. dex would never hurt his girl, and he would never allow her to be hurt. 

you pawed at his shirt, begging to get the soft cotton off. “dexy, m’begging you, please.” 

“anything for you,” he rasped out, pulling the fitted navy shirt over him. his sculpted body was covered in scars, raised and red. you didn’t care, though. dex earned them. proof he was superhuman. 

now, clawing off your own tee, dex pulled you somehow closer. you were wearing the bra he liked. navy, fabric smooth like butter, and cupped your chest perfectly. it was his favorite because it wasn’t like the others that dug into your skin and left marks that you would silently rub before you stepped into the shower. 

you snaked your arms around dex, his eyes locked onto you like a target. his eyes were now rimmed with hazel and filled with a deep void of desire. you peered down at his pink lips, laying a warm kiss. it was short, but sweet. dex loved how soft and pliant you were. you would melt in his hands, like strawberry ice cream on a balmy day.

dex wasn’t much different. anytime you would cuddle, ass plush against him, he too would melt. anything you would do had him chasing the high over and over again. 

he now chased your lips, pressing back against your smooth ones. they tasted like your banana cream lip gloss and whipped cream. he licked them once before he went in again, tasting all of you. you giggled at his sweet action, a hand snaking to his sandy blonde tufts. you gripped it gently, bringing it towards you. he hummed in satisfaction, the slightest sting of pain thrilling him. “fuck.”

you ran a hand down his chest, down to his abdomen. your pointer finger drew hearts over his abs as you looked back up at him. “can i, baby?” you asked, eyelashes batting. you shifted your hips right over his growing bulge, a wet patch already forming in his grey sweatpants.

he nodded, “yes, f-fuck, love.” your gaze never broke, because that was the real intimate part. dex never took you fully from behind, unless there was a mirror in front of you two, or if he held you against him. he loved looking at your fucked-out face as you took all of him.

your finger trailed down, right above his length. you let it linger there, licking your lips. his hands engulfed your ass as you pulled at the band, letting it snap against his waist. his hips twitched at the action, restraining from bucking up into you. 

you pulled him out and cupped your warm hand around him. you could hear dex’s breath hitch, the airflow becoming heavier. after a few jerks, you swiped over the tip, a bead of his sweetness sticking to your thumb. dex whined out, mouth agape. you drew forward, taking advantage of the opening. you kissed the side of his mouth, your spit drowning his shaved skin. he tilted his head to the side to take control of your mouth now, his tongue immediately invading it.

you pulled your underwear to the side, already wet, waiting for him. every time you and dex made love, he knew at this point it was his turn to take the reins. dex dragged his hands up and down your thighs, feeling the soft skin. you hovered over him, not wanting to sink down until he gave the green light, even though you knew you always had it. when it came to dex, anything was plausible. 

“my girl needs me now, hm? need me to fuck her good?” he asked with a smooth tone, cupping the curve of your waist. 

you nodded with teary eyes, the ache in your cunt worsening by the second. a tear slipped, and dex wiped it away with his thumb, licking the wet streak. the salty trickle now replaced by his damped love that you would go to war for. 

dex brought you down slowly, easing into you. no matter how many times you had taken him, it was still far too much. maybe he needed to mold you more, he thought.

you whined pathetically, hands planted right on dex’s chest. he threw his head back in ecstasy, never getting tired of your gummy walls. “move please, please, dex, i need you,” you begged. 

he brought you back up before slamming down. a moan etched from you, the noise coming straight from the back of your throat. dex winced with pleasure, getting his fix. he brought his lips to your artery, leaving open-mouthed kisses on the pressure point. 

once he saw you catch your breath, he continued his movements, pulling your body back up and down with no effort whatsoever. he’s throbbing inside, tip kissing that sweet spongey spot inside you. you're babbling now, whispering sweet nothings against him. dex glanced at your tummy and the slight bulge in it. he was obsessed with the fact that he could see himself leaving and entering you.

dex closes his eyes, replaying the image over and over. his lips trailed down to your chest, licking and nipping gently at the smooth skin. dex was so proud whenever you took him, falling apart so easily. the fact that you let him every single time, treating him like he hung the moon. 

“i-i’m gonna cum, dexy..” you whimpered against his lips, closing your eyes. the tightness in your tummy was ready to snap. “i know, babygirl, let it out,” he moaned back, his jaw unlocked. 

you tightened around him, listening to dex’s instructions. you would never disobey him. you were so loyal, like a dog. 

“not much longer, baby,” you cried out, eyes tearing up once more. “now, c’mon, sweet girl,” he grunted. 

you threw your head back, letting go. you saw stars transform into white, chest heaving. 

dex wasn’t far behind, bucking up and his pace increasing. though, he was getting messy. he pushed your hair back before bringing your face back to his. dex smothered you in spit-soaked lips as you were still coming down from your high. 

“yeah, that’s it, baby. take fucking all of it,” he groaned. and you did. like his good fucking girl.

you could feel dex’s movements faltering as he gripped harder. “fuck, all mine. where, sweetheart?”

his hand trailed up to your throat, wrapping around it like he could cut off your airway at any given moment. “inside, dex,” a mewl comes from you. “inside me, please!”

dex sobbed at your words, thrusting fully into you. you both came instantaneously. he was still fucking up into you, his cum filling you to the brim. the creamy ring around him made you drool buckets. you whined at dex, laying a lasting sloppy kiss on him. “i love you, dex,” you mumbled.

“i love you too, doll, so fucking much. you’ll never know,” he whispered out, palm back to cradling the back of your head on his chest.

ᡕᠵデᡁ᠊╾━ ⁠𖣠

You, Foggy, and Karen had just left Josie’s Bar to check on Cafaro when the loud crack of a gunshot filled the air and pain hits you from behind. It rips through your right shoulder, taking your breath away before you fully understand what’s happened, as the force of it sends you stumbling forward.

But what made you stiffen was the blood splatter on Karen’s face as you realised that the bullet had exited your shoulder and hit Foggy, who had collapsed onto the ground as people around you screamed in horror, and for a few seconds you froze in pain and panic before adrenaline kicked in and you were moving before your mind caught up.

Yelling for someone to call an ambulance, you press your hands firmly against Foggy’s wound, willing your powers to stop healing you and to heal Foggy.

To keep him breathing, and to keep him stable. To keep him with you.

You were so lost in your panic that you didn’t even notice when Karen put her hands against your shoulder until she pressed down hard enough to make you gasp in pain as she tried to keep as much of your blood where it should be.

“Stay with me.” Her voice broke as each word filled with more panic. “Both of you, please.”

But you don’t answer. You can’t.

Not when you're forcing everything you have into Foggy. Not when you can hear your brother fighting on the roof of Josie’s Bar, knowing that he’s listening to Foggy’s heartbeat, to your blood dripping onto the street.

With your body begging to heal the hole in your shoulder, your vision blurs as you push through the pain, putting everything you have into Foggy. You hadn’t even realised that you'd been repeating the same things over and over.

“Keep breathing. Just keep breathing. Stay with me.”

But the strain keeps building, becoming sharper with each passing moment, when a heavy impact lands behind you three. Your breath catches as your powers flicker for just a moment as you silently pray that you won’t lose them both tonight. Not Foggy and Matt.

Not your brothers.

Breathing deeply, you steady your hands, channel your powers, and check that Foggy is still breathing as the paramedics that have just arrived rush to help before you turn your head and let out a sigh of relief.

Not Matt.

You slouch into Karen's waiting arms, your pain finally catching up with you as you fully turn to look at Benjamin Poindexter on the ground, barely conscious, and as you make eye contact, it happens.

The pleasant burning feeling on your left collarbone. The sign you've been waiting nearly your whole life for.

The sign that you have met your soulmate.

And yours has just shot you.

Breathing deeply, you push the memory out of your mind, reminding yourself that you’re in your apartment tucked away in your warm bed and not bleeding in the arms of your friend.

But the ache is still there, still pinching, and you realise that no amount of gentle rubbing is going to relieve it tonight. Sighing you toss your covers back, slide your feet into your soft slippers to make your way to your kitchen, where you last put the pain relief balm.

Slowly you push yourself to stand, your aching shoulder throbbing in protest as you put on your fluffy robe, fingers brushing against the scar, and take a deep breath.

Checking your clock that reads 1:44 AM, you tighten the robe and step into the hallway.

The apartment is pitch black except as you make your way towards the kitchen, you don’t bother turning on any lights, using the moonlight to help lead you to the balm left on the center island.

Opening it, you gently massage the soothing gel onto your scar, letting out a sigh of relief as you feel it take effect. Placing the lid back on the tin and tucking it into your robe's pocket, you turn back towards the bedroom when the sound of fabrics moving against each other comes from the darkness of the living room.

Slowly you grab a knife from the wooden block and move carefully towards the sound, slippers gently slapping against the wooden floors. Keeping your breathing as quiet as possible, you slowly crept around the corner and quickly flicked the lamp on, flinching at the brightness and nearly dropping the knife when you saw who was sitting on the sofa.

Benjamin Poindexter was supposed to be imprisoned and serving multiple life sentences. Not casually sitting on your new sofa.

Blood darkening the side of his shirt as one of his hands pressed tightly against it, though a slow trickle of blood slips through his fingers. His head lifts the second the light turns on, and for a moment he doesn’t move; he just stares at you with a look in his eyes that you can’t quite place.

For a few seconds, neither of you speak. You just look at him, cataloguing everything that has changed since you last saw him. He’s bigger and bulkier than before, as if he had nothing to do in prison except gain more muscles. You ignore how it makes your heart stutter.

Dex’s eyes flicker briefly towards the knife clutched in your hand, and a smirk appears on his face as he looks you in the eyes. “Are you going to use that?” he asks quietly.

“Why are you here?” Your voice comes out stronger than you expected. “What do you want?”

Soulmate or not, this is still the man who shot you.

Dex’s eyes lower briefly to the blood staining his side. His hand still tightly clutching the wound. “I needed help.”

Then his eyes lift back to yours. “And I wanted to see you.”

Something tightens in your chest because part of you understands exactly what he means.

For a moment you stay where you are, knife still low at your side, eyes flickering once again towards the blood dripping from his hand and staining your sofa.

“You’re staining my sofa,” you say, placing the knife on the shelf, hands more steady than you feel.

Dex tilts his head, eyebrows twitching in confusion. “What?”

“My sofa is brand new, and you’re ruining it.”

“Oh,” he says, finally noticing his blood soaking the cushions. “So I am.”

You exhale slowly, feeling the last bit of adrenaline leave your body. When your brother told you this morning he was going to see Dex in prison, this wasn’t how you expected your night to go.

“Let me see it,” you say.

Dex stills at your words, his hand moving to his ribs, his eyes slightly hopeful.

“Your injury,” you sharply say, face flushing red. “Not that.”

His eyes stay on you for a second before he slowly moves his hands away from his body. Blood immediately gushes through the tear in his shirt, a stab wound from what you could see and probably a few hours old.

You swear softly under your breath. “You should be at a hospital, especially with those face wounds as well.”

“No.” His answer was quick but certain. “Just you, only you.”

You don’t bother arguing as you step closer, removing your robe and setting it below you on the coffee table. He looks worse up close, pale even in the light of your warm lightbulb, and the left side of his face was bruised.

But his eyes never left you, slowly roaming up and down, taking in your light blue PJs, and smirking at your fluffy cow slippers.

“What?” you ask, reaching for the box of medical supplies you kept in the ottoman. Usually you would have used your powers, but tonight you were too tired and drained from helping out at the back-alley clinic your boss ran.

“Fluffy cow slippers?” His amusement was clear in his voice.

“Shut up,” you say, putting all your supplies on the table beside you. “They were a gift from Karen, and they’re very comfortable.”

Dex snorted. “Sure.”

“Are you armed?” you ask, pulling on gloves and sliding to your knees.

“Yes.” He said, spreading his legs to give you more room.

“… Are you planning on using it?” You ask, facing your supplies.

“No.” His answer was quick and certain again. “Not on you, never on you.”

Again. You couldn’t help but think.

“You’re nervous,” Dex says quietly, still watching you, and you begin to wonder if he’s even blinked.

You snort at that. “You broke into my apartment in the middle of the night and are now bleeding all over my sofa.”

“You’re still helping me.” He says like this means something.

You refuse to answer that as you reach for his shirt because deep down it does.

“Lean forwards.” You say quietly.

Dex obeys immediately and you lift his shirt. The movement exposing his defined muscles, and a few inches above the wound in black letters was your name. Unblemished, like he had done everything to protect it.

You freeze slightly at the sight of it, feeling the rush of emotions that happened every time you thought about him. Shaking the feelings away, you grabbed the disinfectant and soaked a gauze.

Silence settled between you as you dabbed at the wound, soaking up as much blood as you could before grabbing a fresh gauze.

“You didn’t come to see me,” he whispered breaking the silence, his eyes leaving you and going towards his blood-soaked hand.

“Don’t,” you say quietly, pressing the alcohol-soaked gauze harder against the wound than intended.

Dex barely reacts as his eyes move back to you. “Don’t what?”

“Talk like this changes anything.” You whisper, grabbing a new gauze to wipe away the remaining blood.

And for the first time since you walked into the living room, something shifts in his expression. Not anger, not hatred, but something you didn’t expect to see on him.

Hurt.

“I was in prison,” Dex continues quietly. “You knew, but you never came.”

You still at his words because what was there to say? For months you’ve refused to talk about what happened that night, focusing on your family and pushing every thought or feeling about him away.

For months you’ve kept your bond with him to yourself despite how much you wanted to cry and rant to someone about it without being judged or scorned.

You force yourself to keep working, fingers steady despite the sudden tightness in your chest. “Yes,” you say evenly. “I knew.”

The quiet is heavy as it fills the room before you clear your throat, reaching for the needle and thread in the kit. “You need stitches.”

“Sit up properly if you can,” you instruct, pulling all the necessary items closer to you.

Dex watches you for a second longer before pushing himself upright from the cushions, his jaw as he straightens himself up.

“Take the shirt off.” You say, preparing everything that you needed to stitch him up.

Dex drops the blood-soaked fabric onto the table behind you, exposing the full extent of the wound. The weapon grazed more than it pierced, but it still tore enough flesh to make a mess of his side.

Wiping the surrounding area with a fresh gauze, you gently rubbed some numbing cream around the wound and threaded the needle while waiting for it to dry.

“This is going to hurt.” You say, leaning closer towards him.

Dex goes still at your words, his attention once again focused fully on you.

You try to ignore his eyes on you, focusing completely on stitching the wound perfectly and not on how close he was now that you’re kneeling between his legs and leaning against him to get better access to the wound.

“You should’ve had this cleaned hours ago,” you mutter nearly halfway done.

“I was busy.” He answers as his hand gently brushes against your shoulder.

“With?” You ask, eyes still not leaving the wound but not shrugging his hand away.

His eyes scan your face. “Finding you.”

Your hand slips slightly. Not enough to hurt him, but enough for him to notice.

“You already knew where I lived.”

“I wanted to see you.”

There’s that sentence again. So honest, like there was nothing else more important.

Silence settles between you again, broken only by the quiet rattle of paper as you open fresh gauzes and the sound of rain against the windows. Focusing once again on your task, you quickly lose yourself in what is familiar.

Then Dex quietly says, “I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

You tie off the last stitch before grabbing more gauze and soaking it in antiseptic alcohol. “Most prisoners send a letter.”

“I didn't think you’d like letters from me.”

You couldn’t stop your quiet snort.

“Did you think about me?” he says quietly after a while. Hand tightening on your shoulder like the answer to this question could hurt him more than his wound.

You press the gauze against the stitches, cleaning them and the surrounding area. “You were all over the news, quite hard to miss.”

“That’s not what I meant.” He says cupping your face and forcing you to look at him.

His face is blank, but his eyes are looking at you like he’s already decided you belong in his life.

And maybe you did. But it causes that familiar complicated feeling to twist in your chest.

“You shot me,” you say softly before you can stop yourself. “I waited years for you, and you shot me.”

Your confession settles heavily between you, and for the second time that night, Dex looks away.

“I know.” He says his face filled with something you couldn’t place—guilt, maybe.

The apartment smells faintly of antiseptic, rain, and blood. Outside the storm gets stronger.

Inside the living room, neither of you move.

“You’ll live,” you say, taking off your gloves.

Dex looks down at the neat line of stitches crossing his side before his gaze drifts back to you. “I know.”

Standing up, you move all the soiled items aside so that you can toss them in the kitchen bin. “You should go before the numbing wears off.”

Moving back to the table, you pack up the remaining medical items, making a mental note to restock and place them back in the ottoman.

Leaning down to grab your robe, your breath catches as Dex reaches out his hand, gently grabbing your wrist, his thumb gently pressing against your pulse.

“You’re shaking,” he says quietly.

“I’m tired.” You say, making no move to pull away.

“You’re drained.” He states.

You almost deny it. But what would be the point? He noticed everything else about you tonight.

“I’ve had a long night,” you remind him.

“And you still helped me.” He states like this means something.

Before you could reply, Dex’s gaze drops to your shoulder. To the scar barely hidden by your shirt. His expression shifts into the same look as earlier.

“I didn’t mean to hit you,” he says honestly. “You moved in front of him so quickly I didn’t have time to stop.”

You look away at his admission, part of you wanting to believe him while the other part wants to shoot him to make it even.

Rain hits the windows harder as you begin to feel it again, that persistent and wanting pull between you becoming tighter the longer he stays.

“You need to leave,” you say quietly.

Dex looks at you for a long second. “Why didn’t you come to see me?”

The question hit you like a punch to the gut. Months of knowing exactly who he was to you, and you’d done nothing.

No visits. No letters. Nothing except pretend the name on your skin didn’t exist.

“I was in prison,” Dex continues quietly. “You knew where I was.”

You couldn’t force yourself to hold his gaze. Not when you knew what he was really asking. Why didn’t you come? Why didn’t you choose me?

But you can’t answer that. Not honestly. Not when the truth was that every day you wanted to see him, to betray your friends and your family just to get a day with him.

“You need to leave.” You say, instead of spilling the truth, pulling your wrist out of his grip.

For a second, you think he might argue. His stare fixed so intensely on you that you almost cave and spill the truth.

Then he stands, pulling his shirt back over his head, and makes his way towards the window. Pushing it open wider, as storm blows cold air and rain into the living room as he tosses one leg out before he pauses and turns to look back at you again.

“I’m going to see you again.” He states.

Then he disappears into the night, and you’re left standing alone in your living room.

Your fingers slowly brush his name on your skin, and you can’t stop the feeling of wanting to see him again.

A/N: This is my first one-shot written so feedback is welcome!

⛧⃝

When you were hired on to serve the Danforth family—or the Danforth Clan as many liked to call them—you knew that you were stepping foot into the devil’s lair the moment a huge stack of papers were placed before you to read and sign. You knew there’d no doubt be things you’d witness and be privy to that you’d be legally barred from ever speaking about. You hadn’t known then just how depraved and differently the top 1% of the world behaved, but you’d known that you were signing a piece of your soul away in a sense. 

…but when you impressively scrawled your name in cursive on that dotted line, you hadn't known you’d be signing your body away too.

Titus Danforth was a gentle brute, if such a thing ever existed. He was one half of the Danforth legacy, a title and inheritance he shared with his twin sister Ursula. He was gruff and crass and possessed a child’s demanding nature despite not having been one for decades. With all of the money in the world in his pocket—and an army of people ready to answer his every beck and call and request at the drop of a hat—he could behave however he pleased without fear of consequence. 

An unfortunate fact he took great advantage of.

“This one’s new.”

That was how you were formally introduced, the older man eyeing you in a way that felt extremely distrusting. It didn’t necessarily offend you, understanding the protective nature of some rich asshole to guard his assets and livelihood. Still, the screening process to get hired onto the Danforth estate was a tedious and rigorous one, hardly a walk in the park, so he should’ve known that no one passed through these doors without the utmost confidence they could be trusted.

Your superior, Pernilla, had taken on the task of showing you the ropes, and she’d stopped any and all focus on anything else to give the grey-haired man her undivided attention. It was your first example as to how to act around the immediate family members, and you’d followed her lead, straightening and focusing on nothing else but him.

Such a small act had his full attention.

“Yes, Mr. Danforth,” the other woman confirmed despite the fact that it wasn’t a question. “She’s one of two new editions to the staff, fully screened and hired on only a week ago.”

You hadn’t moved a muscle as he eyed you, looking down his nose at you in a way that had you reminding yourself what you’d signed up for. The money you were getting just to wait on some privileged jerks had you ignoring the glint that passed through his gaze as he ran his eyes over you, slowly as if not to miss a thing.

Mr. Danforth only hummed, a low and deep sound from within his chest.

“Let’s hope you last.”

He was gone without another word, completely dismissive of your presence, and that was the last time you saw him for a while. Two months, in fact. The job didn’t require much more out of you than you expected, and that wasn’t to say that it was easy, but you’d been prepared for the demanding nature of your new employers. Two months. That's how long the wool stayed over your eyes, how long you’d been under the impression you were working for normal rich assholes.

…but then Ursula announced her engagement and then the wedding seemed to happen only a month later and then the wedding night changed everything.

The screams that rang throughout the estate gave you nightmares for months, assaulted by the visions and memories of mopping up fresh blood off of the hard wood floors. You hadn’t been able to stop shaking, a heavy weight settling in your chest as the reality of your new employer crept in. The mountain of papers you’d been forced to sign made more sense than ever in that moment, and you’d only been able to ask yourself one question.

What had you gotten yourself into?

You’d had no way to guess that cleaning up crime scenes would be the least of your problems. Your bloodstained hands took up all of your attention as you slowly and dazedly walked back to the servants’ quarters, cheeks damp from your tears and wondering if there was any way to get out of this. The contract was legally binding, legally preventing you from saying a thing, so surely you could just…leave, right?

So distracted by the physical evidence of your part in all this, you almost ran into one of the few people who could decide your fate in this household. You hadn’t been able to stop yourself from gasping in shock, stopping in your tracks and lifting your gaze to his face. The first time you ever met him felt like a whole other life ago, the events of Ursula’s wedding night serving as some paradigm shift.

There was only before and after, now.

Titus Danforth stood before you in all of his intimidating glory, made doubly so by the bloodstained shirt he was still wearing, and you forced yourself not to linger your gaze on it. He seemed to notice your discomfort—your fear—and if you hadn’t known better, you’d say he relished in it. When he took a step towards you, it took everything in you not to take one back.

“What’s your name?”

You forced your mind to work, blinking as you started to mumble the throw away name you’d been told to choose. However, before you could fully get it out, the older man was interrupting you with a bark of a tone. He sounded upset.

“Your real name.”

At that, you frowned, uncertainty tainting your chest. You furiously wracked your brain, accepting that you had never been trained on such a situation before. No one in the family was supposed to even care to know your real name and anything pertaining to your personhood outside of your role as their staff, let alone go out of their way to ask for it.

You nervously swallowed.

“Pernilla said…”

Your quiet words died in the air as Titus Danforth slowly shook his head, stepping towards you with an unyieldingly stern look on his features. You tried and failed to ignore the way your heart raced, keenly aware of the blood on his person and the confirmation of a violent disposition. The terrifying man before you clasped his hands behind his back, and you were forced to stare into his eyes as he held you hostage in this dimly lit corridor.

“What’s my name?” he asked you, that gruff tone of his making the question sound like a growl.

“Titus Danforth,” you answered without hesitation.

“Exactly, and that means this is my estate you’re working on, my money that employs you, and my person that your boss answers to. Do you know what that makes me?”

He didn’t give you a chance to answer.

“That makes me your boss. That means that anything Pernilla or any one of these other disposable staff members ask of you is irrelevant as far as I’m concerned. If she tells you to go left and I tell you to go right, you fucking go right,” he said to you, and you nodded. “Do you understand? Say you understand.”

“I understand,” you forced out, finding it hard to breathe.

Your shaky breath was noticed, and you didn’t like the way he straightened, eyeing you differently now. There was the faintest twitch to his pink lips, and something resembling a faint yet cruel smile lingered.

“Now…what’s your name?” he repeated, his voice softer now.

You quietly told him without hesitation, and he mimicked it.

“Y/N,” he said again with a nod, voice louder now. “Go get yourself cleaned up, and bring a bottle of brandy and a fresh set of towels to my room.”

“Yes, Mr. Danforth.”

At that, he finally moved again, hand coming up between you and you weren’t able to stop yourself from flinching. He only held it there, and when he stepped towards you again, this was the closest he’d ever been. The silence was suffocating as he merely looked at you, a thoughtful look behind those hazel eyes.

“Sir. I want you to call me sir, Y/N.”

You really hated the way he said your name, and you regretted ever telling it to him.

“Yes, sir,” you whispered, and he slowly nodded, a satisfied look washing over his features.

With a simple nod, he dismissed you, and in a short time, you found yourself increasingly more worried about Titus Danforth than the bodies piling up on this estate. 

“What about this one?”

You hesitated for only a moment before answering.

“That one’s nice.”

Mr. Danforth threw you a look at that to which you glanced away, and his deep laugh had a shiver crawling up your back.

“You said that two shirts ago,” he distractedly replied, reaching behind his head to slide it off.

“They’re all very nice, sir,” you told him, an honest response. 

You avoided looking at him as he searched for another expensive shirt that looked like any other regular shirt, wondering if you would ever stop feeling so…afraid around him. 

You didn’t know how nor why, but some kind of way, Titus Danforth decided that it would be you who would see to his every beck and call no matter how small it seemed. It felt like so long since you were even able to fulfill any other kind of household duty, recalling that every time you had a broom or a duster or a load of laundry in your hand, you were being summoned by the older man.

He needed a drink or he wanted a caddie as he golfed or he needed someone to lay out an outfit for him while he showered. You were hired on to answer to the every whim and need of the Danforths, but somehow it was only Titus who consumed most of your time. It was a strange position to be in, having to constantly be around this man who frightened you, but in a way…sometimes you felt like his friend. Or something like it.

The man grew up with the shiniest of silver spoons in his mouth sure, but all of the money and expensive education and best nannies the world had to offer just couldn’t refine the man. They couldn’t make him…fit. The expensive clothes and the handsome face could not hide how rough he was around the edges, how much he seemed to struggle with…behaving.

You, a seemingly nameless staff member, barely counted as a person in their eyes, and so…Mr. Danforth talked. He talked about any and everything to you, some of it interesting and some of it disturbing, but forced to be his confidant regardless. You were a nobody with no one of consequence to repeat it to, and he treated you like your sole purpose was to amuse and humor him.

When you heard him approaching you again, his voice pulled you from your thoughts. 

“...and this one?”

He was just barely pulling it on when you looked up, and you ignored his watchful gaze as he moved closer. Sometimes Mr. Danforth watched you like he was looking for something from you—expecting something—and you really wish you knew what it was at times so that you could give it to him and end that observant little stare he liked to fix you with.

“That one’s my favorite,” you honestly told him, and he liked that.

You could tell by the way he tilted his head at you, a secretive smirk on his pink lips.

“Then I’ll wear this one.”

You nodded at that, just wanting this to be over. 

You were sure the other staff members thought you got it so easy being forced to spend so much of your time sucking up to and answering to Titus Danforth, but it was worse than scrubbing the kitchen floors to you. The man terrified you beyond belief, even more than Chester Danforth who you’d met only on occasion, the elderly man confined to a bed most days.

Mr. Danforth was quick to react—quick to anger—and in the time you were forced to spend with him, it became clear that the man couldn’t be controlled. Ursula tried, oh she tried, but even you knew that she only had as much control over her brother as he allowed her to. Her hold over him wasn’t real, very easily broken, and you tried not to linger on the things you’d seen in your time here.

“What will you do while I’m gone?”

His gravelly voice had you giving him your attention, and you wracked your brain.

“Your father wants the main garden replanted, and it’s something I’ve been assisting with in between other duties.”

Mr. Danforth had a look on his features like he didn’t like that, lips turned up ever so slightly as he turned his back to you, arms spread out. You rushed to grab his suit jacket from a nearby chair, helping him slide his arms through the sleeves. You didn’t like the low hum that reached your ears, and when he abruptly turned around to face you, you flinched. He was so close, and his gaze slowly dropped, and you took the silent hint.

It was scary how much you grew to know him.

“I want you to wait here…until I get back,” he slowly said as you buttoned the piece of clothing.

His words gave you pause, and he noticed.

“I don’t like these stupid gatherings, and I don’t want to have to hunt you down when I finally return.”

When his jacket was buttoned properly, you took a few steps back, forcing yourself to nod. You regretted it almost immediately, briefly squeezing your eyes shut.

“You know I hate that…”

“Sorry, sir.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

“I understand,” you said to him. “I’ll be here.”

He fixed you with a look that you couldn't name, and then he was gone, and you let out the breath you’d been holding.

It wasn’t the first time Mr. Danforth demanded you basically die of boredom in his bedroom while you waited for him to come back. Sometimes you had to when he was meeting with his father or having a drink with a friend in one of the studies or even when he went out for the night and brought some strange woman back to one of the many guest rooms. He’d offhandedly mentioned once that he didn’t like bringing women back to his bedroom.

You only guessed why when you had the unfortunate task of cleaning that previously occupied guest bedroom one day, disturbed by the alarming amount of blood on the sheets.

Too many times did you find yourself fetching him a fresh towel or something to drink or even eat in the middle of the night, doing your best to ignore his state of undress while some other staffer handled the task of escorting his woman of the night off the property. You felt like a mere object with the sole purpose of serving him in some way, like a letter opener patiently waiting in his desk drawer until it needed to be used.

You told yourself that you could be spending this time doing worse things, acknowledging that at least his bedroom was five times the size of every apartment you’d ever had. During moments like this you mostly sat around in a chair, occasionally poking around in something innocent. Even rarer, you sometimes nodded off, hard to fight sleep when Mr. Danforth had you waiting around like some dog.

…and it didn’t help that he required so much of you.

You sometimes thought that it was fortunate you didn’t get to accomplish many other household tasks because waiting after the older gentleman took so much out of you itself. It never sank in just how much you’d been running around until it was time for bed and your body felt weighed down by sand. This being one of those times.

Approaching his bookshelf, you pulled one at random and plopped yourself into a chair.

You were at the estate for a year when Mr. Danforth made you cry for the first time.

It was a miracle really that you lasted a year before he ‘broke’ you, but the circumstances didn’t call for any other reaction. A year of doting on him and validating his every choice and fetching him his every desire no matter how ridiculous ultimately amounted to nothing. Well…it wasn’t nothing, but more so the complete opposite of anything you’d ever expected.

Titus Danforth was a protective and selfish bastard when it came to anything he deemed as his. His fortune, his house, his car. Resource guarding is the term you often heard used for animals, and Mr. Danforth—not all that removed from an animal—was very guilty of such. You were a frequent witness to the way he snapped and growled and protectively curled over anything he thought someone was trying to take from him. That description didn’t seem like an exaggeration in your mind, thinking to yourself that that’s exactly how he came off.

It didn’t scare you until the thing he was viciously guarding was you.

A year of answering his every beck and call had certainly garnered you the unofficial title of Titus Danforth’s servant amongst your coworkers. His food was always handed to you, his rooms were left alone by anyone but you, and it was only you who handled his every need and request. So much so that when he needed to travel, he wouldn’t hear of taking anyone but you to accompany him.

You’d gotten sick once, and hearing that it wouldn’t be you fetching his towels, he hadn’t wanted assistance from anyone else. Of course, he’d made that known at the time in a way that was less than polite, but the message had gotten across loud and clear. You thought he just saw your labor and your time on the clock as his—his right, you supposed—but you hadn’t realized that he saw you the person, not the employee, the same way.

You made a mistake by getting distracted.

Mr. Danforth’s food wasn’t quite ready when you went to retrieve it, and so you’d occupied the wait time by exchanging silly bullshit with one of the cooks you saw often. He was younger than you, but still handsome nonetheless in that boyish charm sort of way. You two weren’t best friends or anything, but you were no strangers to each other. A soft laugh had been on your lips when the kitchen grew so silent so quickly, it couldn’t help but to be noticed. The young man in front of you had swallowed the rest of what he was saying, looking over your shoulder now with a back so straight that you knew who was back there before you even turned around. 

Titus Danforth wasn’t looking at anyone but you when you faced him, and you swallowed at a look in his eyes you weren’t used to being on the receiving end of. His hands were behind his back and his legs were spread just enough to firmly plant his feet, looking more like a strict military man than some spoiled heir. The relaxed slouch of your frame dissipated, and the older man before you took notice.

You could hear a pin drop.

“Is this how you choose to spend your time when you’re supposed to be waiting on me?” he slowly asked, a sarcastic lilt to his tone.

“No, sir,” you hurried to answer. “Your food isn’t ready yet–.”

“So you come back to me and tell me that,” he sternly interrupted with a nod. “...and then you come back down here and get it when it is ready.”

You swallowed, starting to nod before thinking better of it.

“Yes, sir.”

Those hazel eyes of his eyed you for what felt like a long time, and you’d gotten better at not squirming beneath his gaze. You couldn’t tell what he was thinking at this moment, but you knew that you didn’t like it, and you didn’t relax at all when he turned his attention to the man behind you instead.

“What’s your name?”

He accepted your friend’s response, slowly nodding.

“When my food is ready, you bring it to me,” Mr. Danforth pointed at him, and you fought to keep the frown off of your face.

The grey-haired man sharply cut his gaze back to you, jerking his head, and you moved quickly, not wanting to upset him further.

His footsteps were heavy behind you as you exited the kitchen, and the walk back to his room was silent. For the most part. You could hear his breathing, that's how close he was, and you could feel the heavy and heated weight of his gaze on you. You mentally scolded yourself, torn between wanting to call yourself all kinds of idiotic names and giving yourself grace for arguably the smallest fuck up you could make.

…and it was your first offense too.

“I want to apologize again, sir,” you said to him once the door was closed behind you both. “I didn’t think it would take more than a few minutes.”

He didn’t respond right away, merely looking at you as he moved about his room. 

“Ursula has taken it upon herself to be a gracious host to some friends tomorrow night,” he finally said, completely ignoring your apology. “Find me something…nice to wear.”

You felt somewhat relieved at the direction of the conversation, a soft ‘of course’ leaving you as you made your way to his closet. You knew what he liked and what colors suited him best, so you were completely immersed in your thoughts when he followed you. You hadn't even heard him approach, normally so careless about the sound of his footfalls.

“Do you like him?”

His voice surprised you, and you jumped slightly before turning to face him.

Mr. Danforth was staring at you with an expectant look on his face, brows furrowed just the slightest. He was closer than he normally stood, head tilting just a tad as you processed his words.

“I’m sorry?”

“Do you like him?” he repeated, saying your friend’s name.

Understanding washed over you, and you blinked.

“He’s my friend,” you answered with a shrug. “I see him a lot whenever I have to go down to the kitchen.”

Mr. Danforth’s only response was a low hum, seemingly satisfied with that answer, and he took a step back just as a knock sounded on his door. You had no doubt that was the food that he’d just made such a fuss over, proven right moments later, and as you tilted your head to gaze into the bedroom, you watched the way the older man eyed the younger one. Mr. Danforth stood close to him as he watched him set down his food, thick arms crossed over his chest, and when those hazel eyes rose to meet yours, you quickly looked away.

You found it odd that he both asked for your friend’s name and asked him to bring him his food. It was unlike him, and while Mr. Danforth could be unpredictable on occasion, he was a pretty consistent man who liked his routine. That’s why no one was more surprised than you to be woken out of your sleep by Pernilla, the other woman telling you that Mr. Danforth—your Mr. Danforth—was requesting the presence of you both.

“It’s probably some poor woman he’s brought back to the estate,” she’d mumbled as you both hurried through the corridors. “He must need a clean up.”

Her wording gave you pause, and you recalled the blood you saw on occasion after he spent a night in a guest room. You had naively assumed things got a little rough, perhaps a nose bleed or some kink gone wrong, but it hadn’t occurred to you that anyone in this family could be killing people outside of a wedding night gone wrong. Your stomach churned at the thought, but you frowned as you thought to yourself that you never knew Mr. Danforth to bring women back to his room.

Your uneasy feeling only increased when you made it through his threshold.

The older man stood there in a bloodstained shirt, reminiscent of that night of Ursula’s wedding, and his hands weren’t too much cleaner. He looked so calm, like he wasn’t standing before you as some bloody mess, and you found yourself shaking much like you had that night. As you moved closer, your vision was drawn to shiny black work shoes just barely peeking out past the foot of the bed.

“Pernilla, give that to Y/N so she can start wiping this up. Go bring us a mop too.”

He said the words so nonchalantly as you slowly moved further into the room, the frown on your face dropping completely.

The scream that left you sounded like something out of a horror movie, and you couldn't stop yourself from stumbling back against a nearby chair. Your hysteric reaction had Pernilla following you before listening to him, and you even heard her gasp. If she was just as shocked and horrified as you, she didn’t show it, and you could feel her eyes on you as you stared at the body—the familiar body—through tearful wide eyes.

“Pernilla,” Mr. Danforth snapped, and she didn’t hesitate any longer…leaving you alone with him.

He tossed the towel at you, and it bounced off of your chest and onto the floor.

“Clean this up,” he spat, but you couldn’t move.

The body of your friend was facing away from you, facedown but the way his head was turned on his cheek allowed your eyes to connect with his empty lifeless ones. There wasn’t much blood beneath him, most of it on Mr. Danforth’s shirt, and you couldn’t stop yourself from shaking. You could hear him speaking, but barely so, the sound muffled to your ears.

When he was in your line of sight again, you just stared at him in a mixture of horror and disbelief. Your body kept going back and forth from hot to cold, growing more lightheaded by the minute as the room started to sway. You hadn’t even realized that your legs had begun to shake until you reached out for the chair to steady yourself.

“Y/N,” he finally said your name, voice gruff and bordering on angry. “Clean. This. Up.”

You just stared at him, unable to move and asking yourself why, using your eyes to ask him why.

Pernilla returned before you could move, and you could feel her looking between you both. Logically you knew that you needed to listen to him unless you wanted to lose your job or worse, but you physically couldn’t move. He was giving you a demand, and you couldn’t bring yourself to obey. A sob climbed out of your throat, and you tried to blink the tears away.

“Mr. Danforth, I’d be more than happy to–.”

“No, Pernilla,” he barked, keeping his eyes on you. “She will clean this up.”

Your gaze turned pleading as you looked at him, slowly shaking your head.

“No?” Mr. Danforth wondered, leaning in. “Are you telling me no?”

Your breath was coming out in chops, now, and you were finding it so hard to breathe.

“Please…please,” you softly said. “I…”

You felt like you were going to be sick, but before you could be, Mr. Danforth lunged for you. The shriek you let out was loud, a pained whine escaping you at the harsh grip he had on your arms. He was sadly just as strong as he looked, and you couldn’t swallow down your cries as he all but threw you to the ground…right next to his body.

You were an inconsolable mess as you attempted to stand, but the older man was right there, harsh hands on your shoulders as he forced you back down to your knees. He forced the towel into your hands, his own hands wrapping around your wrists as he physically made you move yours back and forth along the bloody floor.

“Pernilla, get it out of here,” he told her, and your sobs grew louder as she did just that, dragging the body of your friend towards the door. “Y/N will clean up this mess.”

You could barely see through your tears, crying out every time more blood got on your hands. Mr. Danforth knelt over you the whole time, fingers harshly pressing into your skin and nose gently at your ear as he forced you to do what he demanded. When the towel had served its purpose, he repeated the actions with the mop, harshly yanking you to your feet.

Mopping up the rest of the blood felt like an out of body experience, his hands over yours and his chest at your back as he forced you to participate in the disposal of your friend. When the floor was spotless, Pernilla returned to retrieve the cleaning supplies, and again you could feel her eyes on you.

You knew what she was thinking.

What did you do? How had you offended Titus Danforth to deserve this? And how had you dragged your coworker into it? The man had so much as never laid a finger on you, and in one hour he’d yanked you around and threw you to the floor into a pool of blood. You were covered in it.

With her gone, and with the floor clean, Mr. Danforth kept a firm hold on you as he forced you into the bathroom. The bright lights had you blinking and squinting, looking down as you stumbled forward. His firm chest was still at your back, and you couldn’t even linger on the oddness of that, too distracted by the blood on your hands.

When he turned on the sink, it felt almost…romantic as he put both of your hands under the water. The hot liquid and soap broke up the bodily fluid, and you could only tearfully watch the pink water swirl down the drain. Mr. Danforth meticulously washed both of your hands together, his even breathing in your ear such a contrast from your own. You absentmindedly noted how warm he felt against you, the smell of cigar smoke and cologne filling your nose.

When he was satisfied, he turned off the water, and he took half a second to grab a towel and push it into your hands. He held it there, and you slowly lifted your tearful gaze to meet his evenly cold one, pink lips pressed together. The grey stubble around them moved slightly as they twitched, and he eyed you with a look that made your blood run cold.

“I hope that now nothing else will distract you from me.”

An unintelligible sound left your throat at his words, and for the first time ever, you shrank away from him in unbridled fear.

Mr. Danforth watched you keenly as you wiped down his desk, and you pretended not to notice.

You’d always been a little terrified of him, but it was different now. Seeing the aftermath of his brutality or watching him manhandle some other staffer hadn’t prepared you for being on the receiving end of it yourself. Especially not in the manner you had that night, and you swallowed at the thought.

The memory of blood and a body haunted you for months, plaguing your mind with nightmares night after night. It made it hard to find sleep, and many days you might as well have been dead on your feet. Your friend had been killed because of you, that much you knew whether Mr. Danforth came outright and said it or not. He never did even try to give some half assed excuse that explained how an employee ended up dead in his bedroom, but this was the Danforth Clan—a family that practically controlled the world—and what was one body of some insignificant employee?

Your friend’s fate often brought tears to your eyes.

Sometimes you wondered if you’d be next should you piss him off enough, but there was a part of you that vehemently denied that. Mr. Danforth seemed very…intent on you—intent to watch you, intent to have you near him, intent to keep you. Funnily enough, that knowledge scared you more than anything, keenly aware of the way he studied you any time he so much as told you to get him a drink.

Tonight, it was several drinks.

“I’ll be back late, but I want two glasses brought to my room,” he said to you.

“Yes, sir.”

The greying man simply eyed you at that, so close and so silent as he ran his hazel eyes over your face, drinking you in. That air of distrust he’d first expressed when you first met was long gone, the older man more than sure that he’d scared you into submission, scared you so much that you would never even dream of crossing him.

You hated that he was right.

When he was around, the hours seemed to drag on for ages, but when he was gone, time seemed to fly by. Between cleaning duties and fetching a thing or two for Ursula, the hours passed swiftly, and you were informed when he was back at the estate well into the night. You were alone as you fixed the drinks—always alone these days—and you tried not to linger on the aftermath of that night.

None of your coworkers wanted to get too close to you, the rumors spreading amongst the staff, a mix of speculation and the truth swirling around you. Pernilla often sent you a sympathetic look when no one was looking, she being the only other witness to that horrible night and Mr. Danforth’s treatment of you. Only she had witnessed the second defining night of your time here, and as you made your way upstairs, you were unaware that a third was in the making.

So focused on pleasing him and not wanting to be on the receiving end of some other traumatic treatment, you hadn’t realized what you’d walked into until you were right in front of it. You almost dropped the tray of drinks, a full bottle of some expensive Cognac in the other hand. You were quick to steady your grip, squeezing your eyes shut and turning your head away.

“I apologize, sir Danforth, I had not realized…”

Your words died in the air as you completely turned away from the scene before you.

You weren’t currently looking at them, but the sight of his taught form brutally pushing into the woman beneath him was at the forefront of your mind. You could still hear her soft moans and his heavy breathing, and you briefly looked towards the ceiling, wondering if this could get any worse.

“Set it down,” you heard him say, voice strained and tone thick with an unsatisfied appetite.

You did as he said, placing everything just as he liked it, fully prepared to leave.

“Did I say you could go?”

His question had you halting your steps, and your lips parted as you stared at the wall in front of you. The woman he was with made a slight noise filled with frustration and confusion, and you noted that you didn’t hear the soft movement of the bed anymore. A chill passed through you as you internally wondered if this was actually happening, and you felt you should’ve known this night was going to be off when he brought a woman back to his bedroom.

You knew Mr. Danforth was entirely serious, and your shoulders sank.

“Turn around.”

The huskiness of his tone has you shuddering, and you hesitated for half a second before doing just that.

You stared at the wall behind them, forcing yourself not to cry at the trajectory of your night. The room was filled with silence, and you could feel his gaze on you, watching you and watching your reaction. You didn’t understand why he was doing this, but then he told you to look at him, and your frown deepened.

When you did, he held your gaze for a few seconds before he started moving again. Your brows twitched as he fucked some woman you’d never seen before, her tan skin contrasting against his pale hue. She didn’t seem to mind, at all that you were an unwilling voyeur to this, and when the older man looked down at the woman beneath him, you looked away.

That lasted for all of four seconds.

You heard her gasp in shock and when you looked over he was up and coming towards you. You couldn’t stop your eyes from widening, keeping your gaze on his face as Mr. Danforth approached you in all of his naked glory. The muscles in his arms and chest moved with every step, and your employer didn’t stop until he was right in front of you.

His bare chest heaved as he stared you down, nostrils flaring.

“What did I say?”

Your face was on fire, but your eyes were anything but, looking at him pleadingly.

“Sir–.”

Your words were cut off as he roughly grabbed your chin, holding it in his hand as his gaze passed between your own. You glanced behind him briefly, noting the way the woman was propped on the bed, an impatient look resting on her face. When you looked at him again, his thumb brushed along your skin, and you were sickenly aware of his state of undress and his close proximity.

“You will look at me, and if I catch you looking away, I’m going to be very unhappy,” he gruffly told you.

When you gave him the response you wanted, a tear skipping down your cheek, he turned his back on you.

Forced to watch this, you couldn’t do anything but wring your hands together, flinching every time his palm sharply came down against her skin. She seemed to like it, and you wished you could disassociate on command, but alas you were acutely aware of everything. Every groan he made, every curse that fell from his lips, and every animalistic noise that climbed out of this throat. You were even aware of the way his tongue touched his lip as he watched himself disappear into her and the way his stomach tightened with every push of his hips.

You felt yourself shudder every time his gaze lifted to you, and you knew that Mr. Danforth had no doubt you wouldn’t disobey him. He just wanted to watch you watch him fuck this woman. Those hazel eyes of his wanted to watch you squirm with discomfort, wanted to look at you as you observed him in his most bestial—yet vulnerable—moments.

Your skin was warm and your head was spinning and to your great dismay, there was tightening that had begun in your lower stomach. You hated this, and you’d only been more miserable one other time in your life, but even still the sight before you had you squeezing your thighs together, wholly ashamed of what was happening.

…and when he came inside of her with a brutish grunt, pinning her beneath him and a thin layer of sweat coating his frame, you couldn't have run away faster, consequences be damned.

The trajectory of your relationship with Mr. Danforth—with Titus—shouldn’t have surprised you.

…and yet it did.

It seemed that he didn't want to deal with the hassle of a body every time he wanted to break you a little more, so his new favorite pastime was getting his rocks off with you as a witness. Nameless woman after nameless woman was brought onto the estate, and night after night, you were forced to stand there and watch as he fucked every single one. You wondered if this was your punishment after running out that first night, or if this was inevitable and staying put wouldn’t have changed a thing.

Every time he finished inside of them, he crudely sent them on their way, promising that someone would see to it that they get home. They would leave while still struggling to get their dress zipped up or their underwear completely on, and Mr. Danforth would stride around you as naked as the day he was born, telling you to turn his shower on while he nursed his drink.

This psychosexual torture he liked to engage in was messing with your head, and he knew it, and you often wondered what the end goal was. Maybe he took pleasure in just messing with the staff, with you, or maybe this was all part of some drawn out punishment for offending him months ago. You often wondered when it would end, when he would grow bored of tormenting you or bored of even just having you around.

It had never occurred to you that he was purposely fighting against something that was inevitable.

Titus Danforth wanted you, and not just in the way that a spoiled child wants his favorite toy all to himself. He wanted every part of you in his hands and beneath his lips. He wanted all of you in every way he could get you, and the countless women he fucked underneath your terrified gaze served a purpose of satisfying the twisted sexual craving he had for the very same woman he was forcing to be a witness to his depravity.

You didn’t know any of that though.

Not until he was gruffly telling you to sit on his bed one day.

You’d hesitated, glancing at the untouched dinner you brought him, and you could tell by the darkening look in his eye that he didn’t want to have to tell you twice. Your heart was in your stomach as you slowly walked towards the impressive piece of furniture, legs shaking with every step. You didn’t want to believe what your mind was lingering on, but something in the back of your mind scolded you, calling you a fool for never considering this is where you’d end up. 

Any man that could kill without so much as a blink or ounce of remorse was a deviant, and any man that could force you to watch him have sex with countless women with no care to how uncomfortable it made you was a sexual deviant. It made sense in the moment that he wouldn’t just stop there, and still you hoped. His eyes never strayed from you once, and giving him one last glance—looking for anything that might ease your worries—you leaned your hands and backside against the mattress.

You didn’t miss his slow exhale as you pressed down, sliding back.

“Right there is just fine,” he said, forcing you to stop, just seated on the edge.

The silence surrounding you was deafening, and Mr. Danforth only stared at you for a moment or two before slowly walking towards you. You couldn’t stop yourself from swallowing at his approach, and you had no doubt that he noticed. You didn’t take your eyes off of him as he stood this close to you—too afraid to—and you only had a few seconds to mentally prepare yourself for whatever was about to happen.

He was slow to kneel in front of you, and your fearful confusion morphed into just plain old fear when his hands found a home on your knees, slowly pushing. You couldn’t stop your lips from trembling as he parted them slightly, hands sliding up your thighs to meet at the button in the center.

“I don’t want you wearing these pants anymore,” he quietly said to you from in between your legs as he unbuttoned them. “A skirt. You’ll look nice in a skirt.”

Your gaze slowly lifted to the ceiling as he curled his fingers over the top of your slacks, yanking and jerking them until he was sliding them off of your legs. If he noticed the tears in your eyes, tears that eventually fell, he didn’t say anything. He likely didn’t care.

When he leaned in, you could feel his breath on your clothed skin, your legs trembling when he slowly parted your thighs further. His rough fingers gently brushed along your flesh, and you heard him deeply inhale the closer he got. His fingers were getting dangerously close to your underwear, and you could only close your eyes as he hooked a finger into them.

The tip of his tongue touched you as he held the fabric to the side, stretching it to give him access. It was a featherlight touch, and yet you jerked all the same. Your nails dug into his bed as a means to cope, wishing that you could just push him away and run off of this estate without fear of consequence, never looking back. As it were though, all you could think about was bloodstained shirts and dead bodies and a family with enough money to make you disappear a thousand times over.

Mr. Danforth gently touched you with his tongue again…and again, and when he did something unexpected, pressing an open mouthed kiss to your mound, you couldn’t hold in your gasp. It seemed to trigger something in him, a switch turning on as he practically growled against you before leaning back and roughly ripping the thin scrap of fabric past your thighs and off your ankles.

When the older man fully pressed his mouth to your cunt, you tried to control yourself. One of your hands slid to behind your back, struggling to remain sitting up as his stubble scratched against your thighs in a way that had you squirming. His hold was tight on you as he ate at you, tongue sliding between your folds so slowly and in a gentle way you didn’t expect. When he yanked you just a little more towards the edge, your arms faltered, and you desperately wanted to remain as unfazed as you could.

…but Titus Danforth was good at what he was doing.

When he sucked at your flesh in time with pressing his tongue to your walls, you let out a shuddering breath against your will. The longer he moved his tongue inside of you, the harder it was to remain sitting up, lashes fluttering as you desperately pressed a hand to his head. He didn’t budge, and you sank your teeth into your lip.

You wanted him off of you.

No such thing was going to happen though, you knew that, and you whined in frustration. When he spread your thighs further, your arms finally caved, failing you and you stared at the intricate designs on the ceiling when you fell back. Your thighs were trembling, and steady moans started to crawl out of your throat, each one louder than the last.

You could hear yourself pleading, sometimes pleading for more, sometimes pleading for him to stop. His fingers dug into your thighs painfully as he held you open for him, and your head slowly moved from side to side in time with the heaving of your chest. When you dared to look down, all you saw was a vision of silver in between your thighs, and you threw your head back once again.

When you came, it was with an embarrassing whimper, eyes squeezed shut and thighs pressing against his head. You came so hard it almost hurt, and Mr. Danforth didn’t pull away until he felt like it, mouth completely pressed to you as you fell apart onto his tongue. When you tried to crawl away, he just held you in place, lazily curling his tongue into you and making your toes flex.

When he finally pulled away, letting you go and allowing your legs to drop, the tears finally spilled over. You laid there on his bed with tears running past your ears as he stood over you, and you didn’t know where to go from here. You didn’t want to look at him, just waiting for him to dismiss you so you could be free to lose your mind in peace.

When he eventually did, you couldn’t get away from him fast enough, grabbing your underwear and your pants with a quickness that surprised you. Your speedy exit however was stopped by a harsh grip on your arm, and when that harsh grip became outright painful, you were forced to meet his gaze, shrinking away at his close proximity.

You didn’t know what he was thinking as he intensely eyed you, and you flinched when he jerked his head.

“My food is cold,” was all he said, making you deflate.

When he let you go, you took a few shaky steps away from him, struggling to organize your thoughts.

“Yes, sir,” you forced out with a nod. “I’ll get you a new plate, right away.”

You felt nauseous as you grabbed the tray, legs unsteady as you walked towards the door. He didn’t stop looking at you once, and you felt deeply uncomfortable with every step you took, cringing at the wet feeling between your thighs as you made your way back down to the kitchen.

Titus Danforth was an insatiable man.

That one evening in his bedroom triggered a chain reaction of events that weren’t surprising to you, just disappointing and terrifying. The number of women he brought back to the estate decreased until he eventually brought none back at all. Why would he now? That was what you were for—a ‘willing’ and bought body that couldn’t fight back or refuse him.

You didn’t know if you’d ever get used to the sound of his heavy breathing washing over you, a rough and tight grip in your hair as your lips covered his cock. That was mostly what you did at first, suck him off during just about every visit, and that seemed to be all he wanted for a time. That and spending the occasional afternoon with his face between your legs, making you fall apart again and again when you were supposed to be steaming his clothes or dusting his furniture. 

It almost seemed like he was holding himself back from crossing another line—the final line—but you knew that it would be crossed eventually. He was never going to be satisfied with just the feel of his cock in your mouth, inevitably giving into that hunger for more. It was an every day thing, his hands on or in you, curling his fingers into you and massaging your walls, whatever task you’d been in the middle of long forgotten.

It went unnoticed. After all, it wasn’t unusual for Titus Danforth to take up so much of your time, and it’s not like the sexual abuse was taking place anywhere outside of his bedroom. For the time being anyway. The toll it was taking on you, however, did go noticed, and Ursula merely pursed her lips at the third piece of china you broke this week.

“I’m so sorry, Ms. Danforth,” you hurried to say, looking for something to clean it up with. 

You didn’t even bother giving some excuse, only struggling to avoid her thoughtful gaze as she looked down at you. A soft hum left her throat, and her heels slowly clicked against the floor as she circled you.

“My brother isn’t working you too hard, is he?”

You almost laughed at the loaded question, schooling your features and looking up at her with a tight smile.

“No, Ms. Danfoth,” you lied. “I just haven’t been sleeping very well.”

That part wasn’t a lie, and the half truth seemed to satisfy her although it did nothing to lessen the frown on her face. Ursula was by no means a good woman, but you knew that she didn’t appreciate her brother’s brutal nature. Especially when it came to women, and she only watched you for a moment more before telling you to be swift in cleaning up the mess.

Ursula was smart, and you knew that she didn’t fully believe you, but clearly she didn’t feel unnerved or worried enough to press it further. Her brother’s attachment to you was no secret, and truthfully, she’d probably long seen where this would inevitably lead before you had. Even if you did tell her the truth, you knew that she couldn't stop him, Ursula having no real control over Titus.

She wouldn't have been able to stop him from killing your friend just to scare you into submission nor stop him from forcing you to be a witness to whatever depravity he was up to at night nor keep his hands off of you. She especially wouldn’t have been able to stop him from fucking you.

There was nothing special about the day he first pushed his cock into you.

The sun was shining and the food you brought him was only half eaten and he’d only taken a few sips of the brown drink you brought him before he was roughly reaching for your face. He’d never kissed you before, and the action took you by surprise, a noise of shock escaping you. His hands were tight on your face, holding you so fiercely that you couldn’t even think about getting away.

Your hands against his chest meant nothing as they became pinned between you, and as he pressed himself against you, you could feel him. You could feel his arousal, feel how hard he was, and you knew then that he had no intention of stopping. He had no intention of letting you walk out of that door without knowing what it felt like to be stretched around him—to be dominated in the way that mattered most.

You hadn’t been prepared for all the biting.

Titus liked to leave little nips along your neck and shoulder and even breasts, hands painfully tight on your skin as he drove himself into you again and again. The bands of muscle that were his arms rippled with every movement, and you hadn't been able to swallow down a single noise as he fucked you into his bed, his bare skin slapping against yours.

However brutish you thought he was during the day was nothing compared to what he was like when he had you wrapped around his cock. He was borderline feral, noises leaving his lips that sounded a lot like the growl of some predatory animal enjoying the taste of its prey. Every movement from you resulted in him tightening his hold on you like some constrictor, satisfied at the way you could barely move beneath him, serving your only purpose of taking the length of him with ease.

Titus fucked you well into the evening, coming into you with loud groans before catching his breath in the crook of your neck. You laid beneath him shaking like a leaf, chest heaving and skin glistening with sweat. When he eventually pulled out of you, any thoughts you had of leaving were shut down as he gruffly told you to get his shower going for him.

You hadn’t expected him to pull you inside with him, feeling wholly out of place as he showered with his back to you. You’d glanced at the exit through the glass shower door, turning back only to find his intense gaze on you. He said nothing—his eyes saying it all—and you’d swallowed as he moved closer, handing you a bar of soap and turning back around.

“My back,” was all he mumbled, and you listened to the unsaid request.

When you were done in the shower, you hadn’t been prepared for him to force you to your knees, a harsh grip in your hair as he pulled you closer.

Titus loved the sight of your lips wrapped around him, sometimes more than satisfied with just that, sending you on your way for the time being with the taste of him lingering on your tongue. But he didn’t love it more than being inside of you, looking the most at peace you’d ever seen him when he was watching his cock disappear into you.

Every chance he was presented with, he was fucking you with a vigor that always left you so worn out. When he summoned you to his room at night or when he bent you over his desk and even when he had you on his bathroom counter, your lips parted and head forced back as he yanked on the hair at the nape of your neck.

“Look at me, Y/N,” he breathed, thighs pressing against yours. “Look at me.”

There was an edge creeping into his voice when he repeated himself, and you obeyed him, tearful eyes on him as he pounded into you. Your uniform was haphazardly thrown somewhere, and one of your hands was pressed against the hard wood of his desk, the other pressing into his defined chest. Your breathing was choppy and your eyes were fluttering, the weight of unfinished tasks and all that came with Titus’ demanding appetite catching up to you.

“Keep them on me,” he told you. “I want you to look at me when I fuck you.”

The desk shook beneath the force of his thrusts.

“I want those pretty eyes on me when I take you apart.”

His nose brushed against yours with every movement, and you fought to hold his gaze, recalling the last time you disobeyed him. Your backside had been sore for days, shuddering at the memory of his hand coming down again and again onto the sensitive skin of your ass cheeks.

Titus always talked to you during like a normal couple—telling you what felt good, telling you what he wanted you to do, praising you. It was an interesting position to be in because hours later, he’d be treating you like the servant you were, but somewhere in his twisted mind, this whole arrangement was…nice. To him, this was wholesome.

So much so…that when Chester Danforth demanded a marriage and an heir under threat of revoking the fortune, Titus Danforth would not consider anyone but you.

…what…?” you breathed, frowning at Ursula, tears collecting in your eyes.

She looked just as distraught as you though she did a much better job of hiding it. 

When she requested your presence in her study one morning, you’d had no way of guessing what this could possibly be about. All sorts of possibilities ran through your mind, your unconventional dynamic  with her brother being at the top of the list. You’d been wracked with nerves the whole way there, and the words she said to you were the absolute last thing you'd ever expected.

“It’s…not going to happen,” she slowly told you, leaning against her desk and gazing down at you. “Titus is no better than a child with his favorite toy of the week.”

You took no offense to her analogy, often repeating something similar yourself.

“Although I shouldn’t be surprised at the true nature of your…rapport.”

She made a slight face at her choice of word, and you swallowed. The blonde woman didn't miss that, and she pursed her lips, something akin to a look of sympathy on her beautiful features.

“My brother has never had any qualms about getting what he wants, no matter how frowned upon or uncouth it may be. I can’t imagine what you’ve endured.”

You blinked back tears, looking away and shaking your head in disbelief.

“Father’s putting his foot down and giving us an ultimatum and Titus is lashing out,” she assured you. “That’s all this is.”

That's what she said, but somehow you still found yourself standing before Chester Danforth in all of his sickly glory, having a discussion with him you never thought you’d have.

“What is the nature of your relationship with my son?”

You said nothing to the ailing man, pressing your lips together as you fought the urge to tell him that his son was a depraved rapist, fully aware that the man in question was just outside of that door. When your lips quivered and you looked away, the older man made a noise.

“Ah.” he quietly said. “I feared that was the truth of it.”

You weren’t some gold digging whore after the Danforth fortune, and you weren’t some wanton maneater looking to get your claws into Titus Danforth. You were a woman who realized too late that she signed every single part of her away on that fateful day, and that was the gist of what you said to him.

“I’m sure you can find some other woman—any woman—willing to be his bride who he will be satisfied with.”

The other man coughed, an awful hacking sound, and you flinched.

“He demands no one but you,” he finally breathed. “He is entirely willing not to fight me on this…so long as it is you.”

You looked down at that.

“That is the only satisfaction he seeks.”

You wracked your brain, fully prepared to come up with some other argument when he spoke again, completely quieting your fears.

“It will not happen,” he said with so much conviction that it should’ve offended you, but you were only glad to be in agreement with the dying oligarch. “I will not give into his childish whims.”

The old man told you that, and you certainly believed it, but even he hadn’t been able to predict the ruthlessness Titus could possess when he felt like he was being controlled.

Chester Danforth died peacefully in his sleep, and for a long time, that's what mostly everyone believed, but only you and a few others had been privy to the screams that night. Only an unlucky few heard the sound of Ursula’s panicked voice bouncing throughout the corridor walls, asking Titus what he’d done. Only you had the luxury of stripping the old man’s former bed, shaky gaze locked onto the small spots of blood on his pillowcase.

It wasn’t long before Ursula was singing a different tune, and you didn’t know what Titus said to her, but she’d only watched in perfect silence and an unspoken disapproval as her brother presented you with a ring. You’d stared at it in horror, stomach churning to a painful degree, and you made the mistake of looking to the blonde woman for help.

“Don’t fucking look at her,” Titus snapped, and he forced your gaze back to him. “What are you looking at her for?” 

He tilted his head at you, that hazel stare of his so intense, and you could feel your legs shaking.

“Titus,” you breathed, a few tears finally spilling over. 

You could tell he was getting angry, his chest starting to heave, and when he pressed his chest to yours, all you could do was squeeze your eyes shut. The ring carried the weight of the world as he slid it onto your trembling finger.

The wedding was a small intimate affair, only close family in attendance, many of whom you’d met before but under completely different circumstances. On one hand, you felt like you should’ve counted yourself lucky to be marrying into the Danforth family, but you knew you held absolutely no power even though you carried the name.

The ring, the dress, the ceremony…none of it was proof of your transition from a nobody to someone with a hand in the biggest influence over the world. It was not a ceremony that propped you up as an equal, worthy of walking side by side with Titus Danforth as he controlled the seat in tandem with his sister.

You were official property now.

The ring may as well have been a collar, the dress a noose, and the name a brand placed upon your skin. You were not Titus Danforth’s wife now, but his property with nothing to your name that wasn’t acquired through him. He owned you with pride, and as you said ‘I do’ and allowed him to fiercely press his lips to yours, there was no escaping him.

Your only hope was the wedding night.

The fucked up tradition was no secret to you, and as the defining moment drew closer, you could only hope that you’d pull the one bad card. You practically prayed for it, knowing that you’d only escape your new husband through death, and some part of you wondered if he would have what it took to do it should fate have other plans for you that didn’t involve a married life with Titus.

You begged and begged and begged for it, desiring death over this. 

You considered it an act of mercy, one you hoped you were granted, and as you all sat around the table, no one was more nervous than you as that old intricate card dispenser was passed from hand to hand and then finally you. Your left hand felt weighed down by the ring you didn’t want, and as you turned the box in your grasp, you briefly glanced up at Ursula.

You knew if it came down to it, she’d have no trouble killing you.

The thought almost made you smile, but you didn’t, glancing over at Titus as he leaned back in his chair…waiting. You looked around at your other new in-laws too, your veil grazing your cheek as your heart raced. You could tell by the sound of him shifting that Titus was growing impatient—anxious to see how this night would progress—and you flinched a bit when the box clicked, the sound of your fate ringing in the quiet room.

You felt yourself go stiff when the card was finally in your hand.

You could hear a pin drop, that’s how quiet it was, and the longer you stared at the card, the more your heart started to race. Your lips trembled, and you couldn’t stop yourself from collecting tears in your eyes, wanting a hole to swallow you up. 

“What does it say?” Titus impatiently asked, and when you didn’t answer he took it from you.

The tears finally spilled over just as you looked up at Ursula, a familiar deep laugh reaching your ears.

“She got Old Maid,” he huskily said, flipping the card around to show everybody

Light laughs reached your ears, and you tried to hide just how upset you were, but when your gaze met that of your husband’s…he saw. He saw the sadness and fear and even disappointment, disappointment that you wouldn’t be killed tonight, and his jaw clenched.

You paid for it later when it was just the two of you, consummating your marriage in true traditional fashion. Your dress was a bundle of white on the floor, and Titus had your legs wrapped around his waist. His strokes were slow and torturous, his heavy breathing mixing in with yours—his excited and yours pained.

His hand was tightly curled around your throat, thick fingers harshly pressing into your skin as he leisurely fucked you. He didn’t take his eyes off of you once, wanting to witness every part of you tonight, basking in the spoils of his victory.

Titus had you, officially and legally and bloodbound and all. The heaviness of your vows still rang throughout your mind, and you’d wanted to faint as you agreed to ‘the possession of each other’. Maybe in some sick twisted way you’d never understand, Titus did belong to you, but all that mattered was that you belonged to him. The ring on your hand was proof of such.

His other hand pressed into the mattress as he curled his hips unto yours, basking in the feel of you clenching around the length of him, moving inside of you with ease. It still embarrassed you how wet you could get when he was fucking you, desperately wishing that your body could be as repulsed by him as your mind.

His facial hair gently grazed your skin, almost like a kiss, when he leaned closer. He didn’t look away from you once, and you winced when he tightened his hold on your neck.

“I know you wanted to die tonight,” he whispered to you, and you bit your lip. “I know you wanted to pull that card and just wait for one of us to kill you…to take you away from me.”

A particularly hard thrust had you gasping, and Titus hummed.

“...but Mr. Le Bail wouldn’t do that to me. I’ve always followed the rules, always played the game well, and you’re my reward.”

You sniffed at that, struggling to breathe under his grip.

He's close, broad chest puffed out against your shoulder blades, chubbed up cock nestling against your tailbone as if to wordlessly express how pent up he got during his workout. It was a common phenomenon, you noticed with him — how seemingly desperate he'd become when he returns home to you from the gym, all that excess testosterone and adrenaline and endorphins the cause for such a horned up state. 

From his placement behind you, he cranes his neck around slightly so he can reach for that patch of flesh at the base where his fingers resided a moment before. He presses his lips to it, contact sort of rough as kisses form. And while his mouth is momentarily occupied by that space of skin above your collarbone, his eyes continue to bore into yours in the mirror, gaze so intent you can't help but remain willing to the eye-fucking he's giving you. 

The hand he has on your cunt, firms and his fingers begin to paw and knead at you as pulse-like squeezes ensue. He's gaze remains keen as he watches your response in the mirror, studying the slight contorting of features on that face of yours he adores. Like your expression crumples: brows curling in the centre, eyes clamping closed and lips parting — all of it a direct cause of him.

Dex's foot slips between the two of yours planted firmly on the floor, and instead of keeping it there for closeness, he instead taps at the inside of your foot, silently directing you to step out; indirectly making you spread your legs. Almost like what he'd do with a perp at work.

With the gain of space between your thighs, his grip on your cunt adjusts also and the fingers that reside there, lower. His middle finger begins a slight circling around your entrance, touch controlled and strategic as it skims across the quivering centre of you that kisses at his touch. He doesn't dare dip it in, not yet at least. He simply keeps the pad of his finger pressed up against your opening, like he knew the anticipation to work you up faster.

Of course, it does. 

Your thick swallows of spit soon turn into breathy whine-like pants, each one sounding like a plea for his touch to continue. Lifting a hand from it's hanging placement at your side, you bring it to the back of his between your thighs, fingers latching on needily as you nudge him. Like a wordless directional guide, you hint for movement to resume. 

Call him sadistic, but it was all he needed. He wanted to see you devolve desperately, to watch the composure slip away so that you may possibly feel an ounce of what he feels — has felt since leaving his early morning gym session.

He nips at your throat, teeth skimming your skin a moment before he pulls away. But only slightly. "Bed," he murmurs, lips still pressed to your skin. "Get on it."

Grip retracts from your body and you make your way to the bed behind without thought or question. Sitting patiently at the edge of the mattress like the good thing you are, you watch him in the mirror, as he does you. His eyes meet yours in the reflection once more and he begins to undress from his sportswear, the lycra compression top the first thing to go.

"Take it off," he instructs, his back to you. 

You do as asked and slip yourself out from your robe, the soft fabric pooling on the bedding around your ass as you undress from it. Garment revealing your bare body beneath.

His heavy eyes rake over your naked display in the reflection, gaze scanning the entirety of your chest like it was the first time he had seen it. The top falls to the floor and it's then he rids his lower half of clothed restraint; gym shorts and boxers dropping down in the same, singular motion.

He catches sight of you, wanting eyes seemingly locked on his cock in the mirror. He notices you visually trail over his body, gaze slowly sauntering up him until you meet his eyes once again. 

Though it's short lived. He turns around, body now facing yours as he steps forward to meet you. His hands settle on either side of your throat, thumbs pressing carefully at the base of it as he tilts your head back, making you crane to focus on his face. He looks needy, you notice, something so desperate within his eyes. 

Dex lowers to meet you, mouth roughly capturing yours as a low, deep hum reverbs at the back of his throat. One hand from it's placement around the base of your neck slips upwards and he settles his grip on the lower of your face, holding you firmly in place as the kiss devolves into a somewhat deep, sloppy mess. And as you slip your tongue past his lips and into his mouth, you reach for his cock hanging most temptingly in front of you. You wrap your fingers around the middle of his swollen, and very obviously aching dick, but it can only be there for so long before he retracts his lips from yours and swats your hand away. 

Dark green eyes are blown huge as he stares down at you, face a few inches from yours. The tip of his nose skims yours as he slowly shakes his head, the motion almost daring, sort of like a warning. He clearly doesn't have it in him for that this morning. He surely won't last.

He adjusts the hold he has on your face slightly, thumb reaching to your bottom lip to swipe the little bit of spit collecting beneath. "On your front," he whispers against you, tone just shy of a taunt.

Once again, you respond without resistance and do as asked. You turn and lower yourself to the mattress beneath, resting on your front with your feet planted on the floor, ass unintentionally poised up. 

His hands settle notably on your hips, grip firm as he drags his palms to rest over the cheeks of you ass. Dex paws at each for a moment, fingers creating indents and divots with the fatty flesh that pools them.

One hand stays in place, while the other grows absent. The warmth of his skin on one side now gone. He lifts it to his mouth and spits in the centre of it, saliva briefly sitting in the palm of his hand before it's used to lube the length of him.

With the hand he still has on the cheek of your ass, it falls to your hip — grip growing firm on it as he angles you, repositioning you to be perfectly accessible to and for him. He directs himself between your ass cheeks and to your cunt between, though he refrains from easing in just yet. Instead, he pokes his head at it from behind, crown of his cock pushing through your lips so as to collect his most preferred kind of lube: your arousal.

And when he deems himself laboured enough from withholding his desperation, he sinks his dick into you — movement slow and calculated as he eases the entirety of his cock with that singular motion. That long groan he emits from the back of his throat ceases momentarily when your fluttering cunt accommodates him fully.

"Hands," he directs, voice sort of strained. "Give me them," his soft tone reserved for you and you alone is now callous and rough. A sign he's starting to lose it.

Like your body has avid response to his commands, your pussy unintentionally and needily latches onto his cock, grip of your walls enveloping him like you didn't want to let it up. And it's noted, noted by the way he chokes on a breath and retracts his dick from you. 

He wasn't going to last, and he was slowly starting to realise that. 

You put your arms behind your back, wrists crossing as you let them hang atop the top of your ass — each waiting patiently for what you're sure is to follow next. 

Sinking his cock back into you, he grabs a hold of your interlocked wrists. His much larger one keeps them each in place at the small of your back, the weight of his body above ensuring that. Dex is all about control, about feeling in control, so you have no problems giving that to him, no problem with being his compliant play thing for when he's as desperate as this. 

A sort of pattern ensues as he pushes in as much of his cock as he retracts, and a gradual system forms from that repeated motion before. And it's as he sinks back into you, taut balls pressed firm to your folds from behind, that all this pent up frustration and need of his is worth it; all that desperation coursing through his veins finally feels like it was worth the wait.

Dex didn’t really need much. That was one of the first things you had learned about him, and one of the saddest. 

He owned what he could carry, what he could hide, what he could use: clothes, weapons, toothbrush, a plain black jacket that had seen through more death than most people. He hadn’t moved into your life so much as folded himself carefully into the empty spaces of it, as if he was still waiting to be told he had taken up too much room.

You had filled the rest. Your desk sat in the corner under the window, always drowning in highlighters, case studies, printed articles, and half-dead pens. Your forensic psychology textbooks were stacked wherever they would fit. There was a mug full of rulers and pencils beside your laptop, a corkboard with notes and deadlines and a photobooth strip of the two of you in Coney Island that Dex pretended not to care about but always noticed when it tilted crooked.

Of course he cared. It was your first date. 

And though he didn’t tell you, he had made a copy of it and put it under his suit when he went out, right over his heart. It was a reminder that you wanted him home. 

But this space was enough. It was more than enough, somehow.

There was still room to dance in the kitchen if you were careful. Last Saturday, barefoot and half-asleep, with the radio turned on, you had twirled yourself into his arms to Tina’s Proud Mary. Dex had just stood there like he had no idea what to do until you took his hands and put them on your waist. There was still room for him to lift you onto the counter when you kissed him too sweetly for too long. There was still room for dinner eaten on a small table with two folding chairs, there was still room for your laundry tangled together in one basket, for his shoes beside yours by the door. 

There was still room, somehow, for Dex to crowd you back against the wall, hands firm on your hips, mouth hot against your throat while you laughed under your breath and told him the neighbors were going get tired of hearing how well he fucked you.

Room for him to murmur filthy and wrecked things, that he should “throw your pills away,” that he was going to “knock you up, huh? Want me to put a baby in you?”

You’d pull back with a wicked smile, nails hooked in his shirt, and you’d whisper, “That is not the threat you think it is, baby.”

You chalked it up to your boyfriend being a kinky little shit. You should have paid more attention to the way his eyes went black, the way his grip tightened on your skin. When he kissed you again, it was with the devoted certainty of a man who had just realized his most unhinged fantasy was not his alone.

Still, even in this small fantasy, there was still room to pretend, on the good nights, that you were normal.

Tonight was not one of the good nights.

Dex had come home after a day across the Supreme Court building with blood dried dark along his cheekbone, though you suspected none of it was his. 

Even if it was, you knew he wasn’t hurt at all, because Dex didn’t stagger or slump. He didn’t come through the door gasping or cursing or asking for help. He entered the apartment with rigid control in his body, like every step had been measured in advance. He came in like arriving home had been a decision, not an escape. Like whatever had happened in this room, with you, was sacred compared to the rest of the world.

He came home like he had not been part of the makeshift siege at court.

Like he had not shot the Mayor’s aide.

Like the whole city had not been tearing itself apart on the news for hours while you sat on the bed with your phone in your hand, refreshing headlines you didn’t want to read and listening for footsteps in the hallway.

When he looked at you, his pupils tracked your face. Before he let you touch him, before he let you ask questions, before he decided whether his own body was allowed to matter, his eyes went over you like a security sweep to make sure you were safe.

Then they landed on your arm and saw a bruise.

It was nothing, really. You had caught yourself badly against the fire escape earlier when you’d climbed out for air because the apartment had felt too small with sirens in the distance and Dex not answering his phone. It was a mean little scar, blue and purple, but shallow enough not to hurt you permanently. It was annoying, more than anything. You had almost forgotten about it.

But Dex looked at it like it was evidence.

So now you were sitting beside him on the bed with a towel, a bottle of peroxide, cotton pads, and the sad frozen bag of peas you had pulled from the freezer because neither of you owned a real ice pack. You were trying to clean blood from his face. He was trying to ice your bruise.

It would have been funny if it did not make you want to cry.

“Give me your arm,” he said.

“There’s literally blood on you,” you sighed.

“Not mine,” he said dismissively, confirming your suspicions, “give me your arm.”

“Benjamin.”

His hazel eyes flicked up, mostly because you only called him that when you were annoyed at him. 

You stared at each other for one stubborn second, but he didn’t seem like he was going to let up. 

Then you sighed and gave him your arm.

He took it carefully, his fingers gentle around your wrist despite the split skin across his knuckles. He pressed the frozen peas to the bruise like he was handling precious and breakable gemstones, his mouth set in a hard line, his focus absolute.

That was the thing about loving Dex: it wasn’t sensible. It had never been sensible.

You’d always had a practical head on your shoulders. You were getting your third degree in forensic psychology because you liked patterns, motive, broken systems, and the strange little hinges inside people that made them choose one door instead of another. You were both a student and a research assistant at the university, which sounded better on paper than it felt in your bank account. You were technically employed, technically building experience, technically lucky to have the position at all. In reality, you were paid in a way that felt insulting once, tuition costs, books, and subway fare had finished carving you hollow.

Still, you were smart. Academically, you understood obsession. You had annotated articles on attachment trauma, violent conditioning, hypervigilance, and maladaptive devotion. You had spent whole nights highlighting phrases that described people like Dex in clinical and sterile language. 

You knew the warning signs and studied the red flags. You knew the vocabulary you were supposed to use. You knew what you were supposed to do when someone like Bullseye looked at you like you were the last fixed point in the universe: run.

But when Dex saved your life during an Anti-Vigilante Task Force raid on the lab you were visiting, all that practical knowledge had become extremely inconvenient.

It had been chaos: glass breaking, alarm screaming. Your supervisor shouted for everyone to get down. The AVTF had come in hard, looking for records, samples, names, anything connected to vigilante research and enhanced activity. You had hidden beneath a workstation with one hand clamped over your mouth and your heartbeat so loud you thought it might give you away.

Then Dex had arrived.

He had been hunting that day. You later found out because he told you. 

He had moved through your lab with a purpose, turning the room itself into a weapon. A glass beaker found its way into a man’s throat. He had thrown a ruler with such perfect force, it split skin and cartilage. A metal clipboard managed to dislocate a man’s jaw, even through the helmet. Pens, scalpels, broken glass, a heavy ceramic mug from your professor’s desk were all used. Ordinary things became fatal in his hands, as if the universe had been waiting for him to point at something and decide what it was for.

He killed twelve men with office supplies and lab equipment, and then he crouched in front of you, breathing hard, blood on his cheek, and asked you if you were okay. 

You should have been horrified. You were horrified.

Part of you had been shaking with terror. Another part, the part you did like to examine too closely, had understood with awful clarity that some monsters were safer when they were loved than when they were not.

You should have run from him.

Instead, you had fallen in love.

Worse, he had fallen, too.

The love that grew between the two of you wasn't sweet, nor safe. Not in the way people with normal jobs and normal apartments and normal dinner plans fell in love. Dex loved wholly. He loved like if he took his eyes off you, the world would immediately try to take you from him. He loved like affection and violence had gotten tangled in him so early that he no longer knew how to separate protection from possession.

And you, for whatever reason, loved him right back.

You loved him in the studio apartment with the too-small kitchen and the desk in the corner. You loved him when he stood behind you while you brushed your teeth, chin resting against your shoulder, silent and half-asleep and watchful even then. You loved him when he checked the locks twice before bed. You loved him when he pretended not to care about your old Greek and Roman mythology books and then remembered every story you had ever told him. You loved him when he came home with blood under his nails, but looked at your scraped arm like the city owed him an explanation.

“Hold still,” he said, pressing the frozen peas more carefully against your skin.

You stared at him, at the slight bruise under his jaw and the split knuckles he was ignoring because your shallow scrape had somehow hurt him more.

“I should get a job,” you said, almost offhandedly.

His hand stopped.

You hadn’t meant for it to come out like that: flat and sudden. Not while he was sitting on your shared bed after a long day. But there it was anyway sitting between you and the ruined silence of the apartment.

Dex looked up slowly. “You have a job.”

“I have half a job.” You laughed without much humor. “I have a professor who thinks payment is optional because experience is apparently a currency. Because PhD students clearly don’t need to eat, right?”

He huffed. A few months ago, he did offer to dispose of your professor and you just waved him off, saying the person who would take his job would be worse. He offered to dispose of him, too, but stopped offering half-measured solutions when you kissed his forehead and said the department would probably just shut down because they can’t afford two murders. “But you’re in school,” he said.

“So?” You shrugged, “Lots of people are in school and have extra jobs.”

“You babysit Mrs. Smithers’ cat,” he frowned.

You snorted before you could stop yourself. “She pays us in lasagnas.”

“She makes good lasagna,” he insisted.

“That is not an income stream, Dex.”

“No,” he shook his head, knowing how hard you actually worked for your spot in the institution. “But you’re always busy anyway. I can take care of you”

“You’re wanted, baby,” you reminded him. 

That hurt. 

Dex’s eyes barely changed, but you knew him too well now. You saw the tiny shift in his eyes. His fingers adjusted around your wrist. He looked down at your arm again, focusing too intently on the ice pack, as if his obsession to keep you safe could be used to cover a wound in the conversation.

“I can provide,” he said.

You sighed immediately, because of course he would say it like that. Like a vow, like a reflex, like a wound of his own.

“I know.”

“I pay rent,” he reminded you, though he said it like it was a responsibility. He didn’t use it against you; it was just a fact. 

“I know.”

“I pay groceries,” he said.

“Yes, Dex,” you huffed, “I know.”

His teeth clenched, more disappointed in himself than at you. “Then what?”

You looked around the apartment because it was easier than looking at him.

Yes, Dex paid rent. Dex bought groceries. Dex came home with cash sometimes, folded tight and tucked away in envelopes. He made sure there was good coffee in the cabinet because you hated your mornings without it. He bought the brand of cereal you liked and pretended it was because it had been on sale. He fixed the loose leg on your desk chair. He remembered bills before you did.

He provided, but it was not stable.

Dex didn’t clock into shifts. Dex didn’t have a payroll department, a predictable deposit, a pension, or a neat little tax form with an employer’s name printed at the top. His work came in fragments and dangerous calls from powerful people who knew what he could do. 

Odd jobs, if you wanted to be generous. Assassination, if you wanted to be honest. 

He did it because he was good at it.

But mostly, lately, he did it because of you.

Because rent was due. Because the fridge needed filling. Because your textbooks cost you too much. Because he liked watching you eat takeout on the bed with your legs folded beneath you, he liked seeing you safe and warm and full in his room. Because every dollar he brought home became proof that he could keep you satisfied, that he could build a life, that he could be more than the worst thing he knew how to do.

And that terrified you almost as much as it touched you, because there was no stability in that kind of work.

Sometimes, Dex wished he had known you when he was still with the FBI.

Before prison. Before Fisk. Before his face was plastered on the news. Before every job application in the world became a joke. He imagined it sometimes in a way that felt masochistic. 

He imagined coming home to you in a suit and taking you to dinner with a paycheck that had his name on it. He imagined you flowers, buying you pretty things and whatever else you asked for. 

He could have been a man for you. As outdated as he knew that sounded, he still wished he could be that man again. 

“It’s not about whether you do,” you said carefully. “It’s just that… it’s not steady.”

His teeth tightened further.

“I’m not insulting you,” you reassured.

“You think I can’t take care of you.”

“No.” You leaned closer, your voice softening the impact. “I think you take care of me so much that you forget I should be allowed to take care of you, too.”

He didn’t answer.

Outside, a siren wailed below, then faded into traffic and distance. The studio felt very small around you, too warm and intimate.

Dex looked down at your arm again and pressed the melting bag of peas more gently against your skin.

“I’ll find something steady,” he said.

Your heart clenched. “Dex.”

“I will,” he promised. 

“Where?”

His eyes lifted to yours. You tried to smile, but it came out tired and fond and sad all the same. “You shot Buck Cashman in front of half the city. I’m not saying that like I’m mad. I’m saying maybe LinkedIn is not going to work out this month.”

“I’ll find something,” he said.

It came out too quickly, too flatly, like he was sealing a wound before you could see how deep it went.

You looked at him where he sat on the edge of the bed, one knee pressed against yours, the frozen bag of peas melting slowly in his hand. You saw the bruise smudged high beneath his cheekbone, the split in his lower lip that he kept worrying with his tongue like he had forgotten it was there. He looked awful. Beautiful, too. The world had tried, again and again, to make him unlovable, and your stupid heart had taken one look at him and said, mine.

“What, a desk job?” you asked.

Dex gave you a look.

He wasn’t offended exactly. More like you had asked him to picture himself, in his Bullseye suit that you loved so much, sitting under fluorescent lights, wearing a lanyard, filling out forms, and smiling politely at coworkers named Brad from HR.

The idea was so absurd that, despite everything, your mouth twitched upward.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” you said, leaning in a little. “Did I insult your very promising administrative career?”

He frowned unwillingly, and for a second you hated yourself for accidentally being a little too mean. 

Still, you couldn’t help yourself. You leaned closer and kissed the scar near his cheekbone so gently it was barely anything at all. Dex closed his eyes for half a second. When you pulled back, he still kept his eyes closed for one breath longer.

“Baby,” you whispered, voice gentler now, nearly breaking with fondness, “you cannot put ‘excellent with projectiles’ on a résumé.”

His eyes opened and found you immediately. “I could.”

You shook your head, “You really, really shouldn’t.”

“I have skills.” He pouted. It was cute.

“You have criminal charges.”

“Transferable skills,” he said, with such dry seriousness that you chuckled before you could stop yourself.

His posture changed, like he always did when you laughed. Not dramatically, though. He didn’t transform all at once. He softened by millimeters, as if your happiness had reached into some fortified part of him and loosened one bolt at a time. The hard line of his shoulders eased. His teeth unclenched. His thumb, which had been pressing the peas too carefully to your bruise, shifted a little.

For a moment, he looked less like a weapon that was left loaded in your apartment and more like a man who had come home to you because there was nowhere else in the world he could bear to be, because he was yours. Because he wanted so badly to be good for you that it almost broke your heart.

He adjusted the ice pack again. “You shouldn’t have to worry about money.”

“We live in New York, Dex.” You tried to sound light but it just came out tired. “Worrying about money is basically a civic duty.”

“You shouldn’t have to,” he said again.

He didn’t say it like a boyfriend trying to be useful. He said it like a soldier stating a mission objective. Like he had identified the enemy— rent, groceries, tuition, your professor underpaying you, the whole grinding machine of the city— and had decided that he would kill it if he could. “Not you,” he added, quieter.

And Dex didn’t feel this way for you because he had learned to be a sympathetic person. He wasn’t.

He didn’t suddenly feel tender toward the whole world because he learned how to love. He didn’t look at strangers and imagine their mothers. He didn’t hesitate before hurting people who had put themselves on the wrong side of his line. He could kill a room full of people and sleep like a baby afterward. He didn’t ask himself if the Anti-Vigilante Task Force agents had families who were waiting for them. Their blood did not weigh on his conscience in any meaningful way.

He hasn’t learned to be secretly good and noble under all the damage in some easy, redeemable way. He was only tender with you, and even that was not because you were an exception to his nature.

It was because somewhere along the way, Dex had thought of you and him as the same person.

You weren’t some separate innocent woman he loved from afar. You were not a moral compass he worshipped because you made him better. You were his life. His home. 

Your body was his body outside his body. Your exhaustion was his exhaustion. Your money was his money, and his money was yours, not because he felt entitled to it, but because the two of you had stopped existing as separate organisms somewhere around the first month he slept in your bed and woke up with your hand on his chest. You were one system now. One thing. One fused unit pretending to be two people for legal convenience.

So watching you work long hours in a lecture hall that barely paid felt like self-harm. That was the clearest way his mind could understand it. Like the two of you shared one nervous system, and every hour you worked yourself past exhaustion was pain traveling down the same wire until it reached him, too.

“Come on, Dex,” you frowned. “You think I want you running yourself into the ground because you decided you have to pay every bill?”

His eyes lifted to yours, and all you saw was terrible sincerity. It was desperate enough to frighten you because it didn’t know how to ask for love without offering blood in return.

“I should take care of you,” he said.

Not I want to. Not I’d like to. Not even let me.

I should.

You swallowed. “Dex…”

“I should.” His voice roughened, and it was absolute, like he had said this to himself before. Like maybe he had been saying it for months, in his head, every time he bought groceries, every time he counted cash, every time he watched you fall asleep over your notes with your cheek pressed to an open textbook. “You shouldn’t have to think about it. Rent, food, school, any of it. You should just—” He stopped, eyes darting away. “You should just sit there and be pretty.”

That ruined you a little.

There were things you could have said: Things about partnership, equality, how love was not supposed to turn into duty, how his need to provide came from some wounded place in him that still believed usefulness was the same as worth. You knew those things. You believed them, mostly.

But then he looked at you like taking care of you wasn’t a burden but a privilege. Like the idea of failing at it scared him more than the city hunting him. Like every terrible thing he had ever been made into could be balanced, somehow, if he could use it to keep you warm, fed, safe, untouched by the worst parts of the world.

He sat there, bruised and exhausted, dried blood at his temple, your scraped arm cradled in one hand as if it mattered more than every wound on his own body.

So you kissed him.

You didn’t mean to make it deep. You meant it to be reassurance, just a little press of your mouth to his, a way of telling him you were not leaving, not angry, not disappointed in how his love manifested even when it frightened you.

But Dex never received you halfway.

He leaned in, immediate and helpless, his free hamd coming to your waist with that familiar, possessive spread of his fingers. It was not rough, because he was never rough with you unless you asked him to be. But it was intense, as if the second your lips touched his, his body decided the only thing that made sense was pulling you closer.

You kissed him until the frozen peas slipped slightly against your arm and neither of you cared. Until his muscles relaxed under yours. Until he made a small sound in the back of his throat that made you hum, pleased with yourself.

When you pulled away, his eyes stayed on your lips, looking at your mouth like it had betrayed him by leaving.

You brushed your thumb over his chin. “You cannot just decide to provide by sheer force of will.”

Dex blinked, still dazed enough from the kiss that it took him half a second to find the conversation again.

Then his eyes sharpened in that almost boyish, almost hopeful way. “What if I got work?”

You exhaled through your nose. “Again. Where?”

His thumb moved once against your waist in small strokes that were barely there. 

“I heard that the CIA director is looking for someone to take over a contract,” he said.

You blinked.

It sounded clean on the surface and filthy underneath.

He said them carefully, like he was testing whether they could pass as normal if he used the right tone. 

“You mean black ops,” you said blankly.

“I mean work.”

“Benjamin,” you tilted your head.

“It’s steady enough.” His eyes did not leave yours. 

“That is not the same as safe.”

His eyes looked like guilt passing quickly through the devotion. “I can handle that.”

“I know you can.” You touched his cheek again, achingly gentle. “That’s what scares me.”

He looked at your face, taking inventory of every emotion there. His hand tightened at your waist.

“I’d come home,” he said.

Your heart ached. “You can’t promise that.”

“I’d make it true.”

“That’s not how promises work.”

“It is for me.”

And there he was. Your Dex. Your impossible, obsessive man, sitting in your too-small studio with blood on his face, telling you with complete sincerity that he could bend fate into obedience if the reward was coming home to you.

You wanted to argue, but he cut you off before you could even finish forming thoughts. 

“If I got a job,” he said carefully, “I could buy you a ring.”

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

For a second, you forgot how to breathe.

He had said it so quietly, so carefully, like the word itself was fragile. Like  if he had manifested it into the room too hard, it might shatter before you could touch it. 

A ring.

Dex watched you like he was waiting to see if he had ruined everything.

He didn’t look casual. He was never casual about you. He didn’t toss out precious things like the future just to see if they landed. He offered them like they had been a piece of his flesh cut out of him.

And you realized, in that second, that this had not been a stray thought.

Dex hadn’t just imagined it. Dex had been living with it.

You could see it now, in the way he held himself in the way his fingers had tightened just slightly at your waist, in the way his eyes kept flicking down to your mouth like he wanted to kiss the answer out of you and was forcing himself not to. 

He had carried this around. Maybe for weeks. Maybe for months. 

Maybe he had been thinking about marrying you while listening to your rant about your professor. He had been thinking about it while fixing the wobbly leg on your desk chair. He had been thinking about it while watching you laugh at Mrs. Smithers’ cat through the cracked door.

Maybe he had been thinking about it while buying groceries. Maybe he even stood in the pasta aisle with blood still under his sleeves, picking the brand you liked better because you once said the cheaper one tasted “dusty.” 

“Mm,” you managed.

It was barely a sound. Your throat had gone tight. You were trying very hard not to break apart, trying not to let the whole sweetness of it take you down completely, but your hand was already lifting to his face. Your thumb brushed the corner of his mouth, careful of the split in his lip.

“You sure you wanna marry me?” you asked.

Dex looked genuinely offended. “Yes.”

It came so fast you almost laughed. You did, a little, but it cracked around the edges. “Really?”

His brow furrowed, as if the question itself made no sense. “Yes.”

“You’ve thought about it?”

Dex stared at you, and the answer was so obvious then. 

He had probably thought about it too much. Dex didn’t daydream. He planned. He mapped. He calculated. Even his fantasies came with exit routes and contingency plans.

“Okay,” you whispered. “What would that life even look like?”

You saw this glint in his eyes, the way they widened by a fraction. You had asked the one question he had been dying to answer.

His hand stayed at your waist. His thumb moved once, almost unconsciously, a small stroking motion through the fabric of your shirt.

“I’d get us a house,” he said.

Your heart gave a helpless little kick.

His gaze drifted past you, not away in dismissal, but as if the apartment disappeared from his eyes. 

“Not in the city,” he said. “Close enough if you still wanted it, for work or whatever you wanted, not right in it. Not sirens under the window all night, not this building where you can hear every footstep in the hall and know which ones don’t belong.”

His thumb moved once against your waist, like even with his head in the clouds he needed one hand on you to make sure the dream had a center.

“We’d look at the suburbs,” he continued. “I’d want roads I could learn. I want neighbors so you can bake them pie, but I don’t want them too close. We need a neighborhood with space between houses. We need streetlights that work. A sidewalk, maybe, where you could walk in the morning if you wanted and I wouldn’t spend the whole time looking over your shoulder.”

You stayed quiet.

You didn’t want to interrupt him. There was something too precious about the way he was speaking, like he had cracked open a safe inside himself and all these impossibly domestic things were spilling out. 

“It would have a yard,” he said, smaller now. “Not huge. We don’t need huge, but we need enough. We would need a fence. A good one. Tall, but not ugly. I’d make sure it looked nice. You’d care about that.”

Your throat tightened.

“I’d make sure I have good sightlines in there,” he continued, “no blind spots.”

There he is. 

“And I’d plant flowers,” he added.

You blinked. Dex glanced at you, then looked down again as if the admission embarrassed him more than the blood on his face.

“You like flowers. The wild-looking ones. The ones outside delis in buckets, or growing through fences. You slow down when you see them.” His mouth twitched faintly, affectionate. “You pretend you don’t, but you do.”

He… noticed?

“I’d plant those,” he said. “I don’t know anything about gardening, but I could learn.”

He kept going before you could answer 

“There’d be a porch, or a back deck. I’d put a chair there for you.” A little warmth moved through his eyes, as if imagining it. “You’d probably bring a blanket out even if it wasn’t cold.”

You smiled, and it seemed to give him more courage.

“And you’d have an office,” he said. “A real one, not a desk shoved into a corner with your papers stacked on the floor.”

Your eyes stung.

“Built-in shelves if we could, for your research books,” he continued. “Your fiction books, all of them. You wouldn’t have to pile them on the windowsill or keep the heavy ones under the desk. Your desk would face a window, but no one should be able to see into it from the street.”

You let out the smallest laugh, but he kept drifting deeper now.

“There’d be a couch in there,” he said. “So I could sit with you while you worked. I’d be quiet.”

The confession was so completely him that something inside you melted. He said it without shame, without trying to make it sound less obsessive than it was. Of course he would watch you. Of course he had already imagined sitting in a room built for your mind, staring at you while you read and wrote and thought, content just to be near the machinery of you.

“I like when you’re focused,” he murmured. “You make that face.”

You did not ask what face. You wanted him to keep talking.

“The kitchen would be big,” he said next, and there was certainty in that, like he had stood in it a thousand times. “Big enough for that island you like.”

Your mouth parted.

“We’d have one with those ugly pendant lights,” he added, with the resigned tone of a man making a grave sacrifice. 

You smiled fully now. “They’re not ugly,” was all you could manage under your breath.

He heard it and very quickly added, “They are. But you like them, so we’d have it.”

That nearly did you in.

“There’d be storage,” he said. “Pans would be in the cabinets, not in the oven. I’d build you a spice drawer and I’ll organise them.”

You pressed your lips together, smiling harder.

“I’d make coffee before you woke up,” he continued. “Yours first. I’d make breakfast and I’d make more than eggs. Pancakes, maybe. You like pancakes when you’re sad.”

Your smile trembled.

“I’d make dinners, too,” he said. “You could sit at the counter and read to me while I cooked.” He looked almost shy at that. “Or talk. I don’t care. I just like your voice.”

The room felt too small for him then. Too small for the size of what he wanted. 

“And a dining table,” he said, his thumb stilled against you. “With more than two chairs.”

He swallowed once and kept going.

“The bathroom would have that shower,” he said. “Like the hotel you wouldn’t stop talking about.”

You almost laughed. “A rain shower?” You asked 

“Yes,” he said seriously. “With a glass door, a bench, and heated floors, because you hate cold tile.”

His eyes flicked to your face.

“I’d spoil you,” he said, like a vow. His eyesight  lowered to your hand, then back to your face.

You couldn’t speak, but he went on anyway, because now that he had started, the dream seemed to pull him forward by the heart.

“There’d be security,” he said. Of course there would be. But from Dex, even that sounded like love.

“I’ll get good locks with reinforced doors. I’d install cameras.” he said immediately, almost gently. “I’ll get motion lights and window sensors.”

He breathed out slowly.

“You wouldn’t have to check anything,” he said. “I’d do it.”

What he was saying was wouldn’t have to listen at night, or wonder, or brace, or be scared just because the world was dangerous. Dex would take the ritual of fear and make it his. He would check the doors, the windows, the shadows, so you could go upstairs and sleep.

“I’d check the locks before bed,” he said. “You could just go up and get in bed. Read or sleep with the light on if you want. I’d turn it off.”

He said it with such certainty that tears gathered before you could stop them.

He didn’t notice yet. He had gone too far into the house.

“There’d be a gun cabinet,” he continued, practical now. “Locked, of course, and separate from ammunition. I’ll get biometric locks and a backup key hidden somewhere only we knew.”

His focus sharpened slightly as he pictured it.

“And a weapons cabinet too, with knives, anything tactical, anything I wouldn’t want left out. It would be hidden or built into the wall somewhere no one would look. Not near the kitchen. Not near the bedrooms.” He said it like he had already rejected three possible locations. “Everything would be secured,” he continued. “No exceptions. Nothing lying around.”

Then, still looking into that future house, still seeing the walls and the locks and the rooms and all the dangerous love he wanted to put inside them, he added, almost absently, “at least until the kids are old enough.”

Oh.

“The kids?” you asked.

Dex blinked. For a second, he looked almost confused that you had stopped him there, like the kids had been so naturally integrated into the architecture of his fantasy that he had forgotten you were only just now seeing the floor plan. In his head, apparently, they already existed. 

“Yes,” he said, as if it were obvious. “Kids.”