.☘︎ ݁˖ erina .☘︎ ݁˖

Dex went still. The principal kept talking beside him. Something about lockdown protocols, fire exits, parent pick-up procedures, and perhaps thanking him for the visit. Dex didn’t hear any of it. He watched the little boy rub his face with his sleeve, watched you reach into your cardigan pocket and produce a tissue because of course you had one ready, because of course you had walked through life expecting the world to hurt these precious little things and had prepared yourself to help.

“Reading slowly just means you get to spend more time with the words,” you told the boy. “That’s not a bad thing.”

The boy sniffled, and you smiled at him.

Dex felt that smile land in his cold heart, somewhere it had no business being.

It would have been easier if you were only beautiful. That would have been manageable. Uncomfortable, maybe, but manageable. Beauty was a fact. Beauty could be observed, catalogued, eventually put away. You were beautiful in a way that seemed unaware of itself, unpolished and terribly human. The cardigan sleeves falling too far over your hands, the loose strand of hair stuck to your cheek, the worn soles of your cheap flats, you smiling so easily for children who probably forgot to thank you for it.

Dex thought you were gorgeous with an alarmed resentment, as if his own body had betrayed him by noticing before his mind had given permission. Then you looked up at him.

Your eyes met his across the library, and for half a second, Dex forgot what face he was supposed to be wearing. You smiled politely, like he was just another adult in the building, not a man with a gun under his jacket teaching staff how to react in case of a school shooting.

“Hi,” you said. “Sorry, do you need the library?”

The principal brightened. “This is our librarian.”

You gave Dex your name. He repeated it silently once. Then again. Then a third time, because it felt like something he should store somewhere safe, somewhere no one else could touch.

“Special Agent Poindexter,” he said, holding out his hand.

You shook it, and your hand was warm. Dex noticed that there was a tiny paper cut near your thumb. 

You were still smiling at him. Not because he was FBI, and not because he was handsome, though he was. You smiled because you were kind.

Fuck. That’s inconvenient.

Pretty made him look, but good made him stay.

That first visit should have been the last. Dex knew that. There was no operational reason for him to return personally. The school’s safety review was a basic one. The principal had his notes, but the follow-up could have been handled by email. A junior agent could have dropped off the printed materials. Anyone could have gone.

But Dex went. That second time, he poked his head to the library, and said hi. You said hi back, right after you told two boys that no, the beanbags were not for wrestling, and yes, you were very impressed by the creativity of the attempt.

Dex couldn’t stop thinking about it for a week.

The third time, he told himself it was because the library’s rear exit needed another assessment. It was technically true. The lock was old, the corridor outside had basically no surveillance, and the staff entrance was too far from the main office. He made it seem like a legitimate concern, when really, it was a neat little justification. Dex was excellent at finding those.

You were reshelving books when he appeared in the doorway, balanced on the tips of your toes as you reached for the top shelf. The hem of your blouse lifted slightly at your waist. It was nothing indecent. Barely anything at all.

Still, his mind went briefly blank. 

He cleared his throat.

You startled, turned, and smiled. “Agent Poindexter.”

Dex liked the sound of it from you. That was inconvenient too.

“Sorry,” you added, stepping down. “Am I in the way?”

“No.”

“Good. Because if you were about to tell me my fiction section is a security risk, I might cry.”

His mouth twitched before he decided to let it. “I’ll leave fiction alone.”

“Very generous of the DOJ.” That’s when he realised you were teasing him. 

Dex looked at you and thought, you have no idea what a dangerous thing that was.

After that, the visits became a pattern.

Not obvious, because Dex was never sloppy when he could help it. He didn’t go every day. He didn’t stand outside the library staring like some lovesick idiot with no self-control. He knew how to make repeated contact look procedural. 

His supervisor barely looked up from the file the fourth time it happened. “Poindexter, you handled the school outreach last week, right?”

“Yes.”

“They’ve got some updated compliance questions. I can send Nadeem.”

Dex immediately shook his head. “I’ll take it.”

His supervisor paused, but Dex kept his face still. “I’m already familiar with the layout,” he said, and what a good excuse that was. 

The whole truth was that he had thought about you every day since the first visit. You came to him through triggers. When he saw children’s drawings in a hallway. A cardigan on a mannequin The smell of old paper. A mug with painted stars on it in a café window, because you had one on your desk.

You were good, and you were pretty, and that combination felt less like attraction and more like orientation. As if Dex had spent his whole life moving without a fixed point and then walked into a school library and found one.

So, yes, he came back to the school. And, yes, eventually, he followed you home.

The first time, he told himself it was because you were the last staff member to leave again and the car park lighting was poor, so he had to make sure you were safe. It had rained earlier, leaving the pavement slick and black. You walked out with a tote bag over one shoulder and an armful of books pressed to your chest, juggling your keys between your fingers. 

Dex sat in his car and watched until you pulled out of the lot. Then he followed. He learned the route to your apartment in fourteen minutes. He cleared that you lived in a building with a front door that did not latch unless pulled hard, that the hallway light on your floor flickered, that your window faced the street and your curtains were thin enough to turn your silhouette suggestive when you moved past them with nothing on.

He hated your building immediately. The lock was bad. The street was worse. Your neighbours were careless. The man in 2B smoked on the front steps and watched women walk past like a fucking creep. The laundry room was in the basement. The side gate did not close properly.

Dex catalogued every vulnerability, then sat in his car for twenty-three minutes after your lights went out and told himself this was a reasonable concern.

He was trained to notice risk, and you just had so much of it. You were too open, too trusting, too underpaid to live somewhere safe enough. 

He found out about the money without needing to try very hard.

He figured out your exact job title, your district, and salary ranges within twenty minutes. He knew what you could afford, what you probably couldn’t, what your grocery budget looked like if your car needed work or if the school asked you to buy supplies out of pocket again. And you did, apparently. He saw the receipts in your hand one afternoon when you came out of a discount store with construction paper, glue sticks, tissues, and children’s stickers paid for with your own money.

That bothered him more than it should have. It enraged him. Not because you were helpless. Dex didn’t think that. You were competent in the way good people often were, holding ten pieces of a room together while everyone else assumed the room simply stayed whole on its own. But you were tired and stretched thin. You loved your job, the children, the library with its peeling posters and overhandled paperbacks, but love didn’t pay rent.

I could, he thought. Dex could pay your rent without noticing. He could buy groceries without checking his account. He could fix the lock. Replace the car. Put you somewhere safe and close. That’s… a good reason to ask you out, right?

If he ever had the courage. 

By the fifth visit, you laughed when you saw him. “Again?”

Dex stopped in the library doorway, because he insisted to the bureau that some of the teachers were security risks. “Again.”

“Should I be worried about the state of our emergency preparedness?”

“No.”

“Should I be worried about you?” That caught him off-guard.  Your tone was teasing, but your eyes were warm and curious.

Should I be worried about you?

Yes, he thought. Probably.

Instead, he said, “No.”

You narrowed your eyes in mock suspicion. “I don’t know. Five visits to the school. Either we are extremely unsafe, or you really like laminated evacuation maps.”

Dex looked at the map beside your door. “It’s a good map.”

You burst out laughing.

Dex loved the sound immediately and started to memorise it so he could copy it when you made a joke. More than that, he wanted to be responsible for it. He wanted to know what your laugh sounded like in his car. In his kitchen. Against his mouth.

The thought came so suddenly that his teeth clenched.

You noticed. Your smile softened, and Dex had the devastating impression that you thought you had embarrassed him. “I’m sorry,” you said. “I didn’t mean to make fun of you.”

“You didn’t.”

“Okay.” You tilted your head. “Good.”

Good. The word followed him home.

So did you, though not physically. Not yet. But your image, your voice, the way you said his name after he told you to call him Dex, the way you remembered he took tea plain after seeing him drink it once in the staff room. The way you handed him a paper cup and said, “I made too much,” as if generosity was just something that spilled out of you naturally.

And then there were the guys around you.

He had watched a math teacher who lingered at your desk too long after school, making you laugh over some stupid story about a parent email. A divorced father at pick-up who asked whether you ever took private tutoring work and then smiled in a way Dex didn’t like. A man you met for coffee one Friday evening, two neighbourhoods over, at a café with steamed windows and terrible parking.

Dex hadn’t meant to follow you there. That was a lie.

He had followed you there because you had worn lipstick, the kind you probably put on in your rearview mirror after work, thinking no one would notice.

The date was unremarkable. The man was unremarkable. He wore a blue shirt, laughed too loudly, and checked his phone while you were talking. Dex watched from across the street with his hands still on the steering wheel and felt jealousy move through him.

The man was wrong for you.

He was careless, dull, and too impressed with himself. He made you pay for your own tea. That alone felt like a crime.

You left to do some off-the-clock work, and your date stayed. Dex waited until the man left to use the bathroom, then walked into the café and passed close enough to his table to see the phone he had left face-up beside his plate. He saw a message from someone named Laura lit the screen with a heart attached.

Dex smiled. That was useful.

The next morning, he sent an anonymous message to Laura. The following week, you didn’t see blue-shirt again.

You looked a little sad about it on Monday. Dex hated that. Then he hated the man more for making you sad. Then he told himself it was better this way.

It became easier to scare off your dates after that. All it took was an inconvenient scheduling conflict, a resurfaced truth, a gentle nudge. One man had an outstanding warrant for unpaid fines. One was married. One was simply easy to scare with the right look from the right federal agent in a parking lot.

By the sixth visit to the school, there was no reason good enough to fool anyone but himself.

A “Penultimate walkthrough,” he called it, before the final walkthrough next week. 

The principal seemed pleased, though you looked amused. “Penultimate?” you asked when Dex appeared outside the library.

“Yes.”

“Should I be honoured?”

“You should feel secure.”

“I do. The biography section has never been safer.”

He looked at you, and you smiled like you were proud of yourself. Dex couldn’t help but copy that smile back. Your expression changed when you saw it, going still for one second, like you liked him, too.

That day, he walked through the library with you while you pointed out doors and windows and places the children liked to hide during reading hour. This corner was where the overwhelmed ones went. That shelf had the books no one returned on time because they loved them too much. The lamp near the beanbag was too warm if left on all day, but you kept it anyway because the kids said it made the corner feel cozy.

“This is where they go when they need silence,” you said, gesturing toward a little space tucked behind a low shelf. A lamp. A basket of soft toys. Books with soft edges. A handmade sign that read: take a breath.

Dex looked at it.

You had made a place for children to be afraid safely. Of course you had.

“You did this?” he asked.

You shrugged, suddenly shy. “It’s not much.”

Dex looked at you. “It is.”

You met his eyes, and for a moment, the library noise faded behind you.

After that, he wanted to give you things. He wanted to give you better shoes. Better locks. A safer car. A warmer apartment. Groceries you did not buy with mental arithmetic running behind your eyes. A kitchen where your tea sat beside his coffee because it belonged there. A bed you didn’t have to assemble yourself. A life where you did not walk to your car alone. He wanted your life folded into his so completely that you never again had to stand unprotected in the world.

It was raining the day he finally asked.

The sky had turned the school windows grey, and the car park outside shone black under the streetlights. Most of the staff had already left. The corridors had emptied, and you were the last one in the library again.

Dex had lingered through a conversation with the principal he barely needed to have after the final walkthrough. He had checked the same exit twice. He had waited near the lobby until your light was the only one still glowing down the hall.

Then you came out with a tote bag sliding down your shoulder and a cardboard box of donated books pressed against your hip. Your umbrella refused to open, and you stared at it like it had stabbed you.

“Need help?”

You startled, then relaxed when you saw him. “Dex.” You laughed, breathless and embarrassed. “Do you just appear whenever I’m losing a fight?”

“Your umbrella is inside out,” he pointed out, before taking the box from you.

You tried to hold on. “I can carry that.”

“I know.”

“Then why did you take it?”

“Because it’s raining.”

You looked at him for a second, then smiled, soft and helpless and too fond for his sanity.

“Okay,” you said, as if letting him carry a box was nothing. As if it didn’t make a dark and pleased thought settle low in his chest.

He walked you to your car and put the books in the back seat. He noted the old jumper on the passenger side, the stack of overdue returns, the half-empty water bottle, the evidence of your life that was still not his.

You stood beside him under the broken umbrella, rain misting your hair.

You were gorgeous, he thought.

It struck him then in the stupidest way. No analysis or clinical separation. Just so pretty it made him feel young and strange and almost angry with himself.

“What?” you asked, smiling like you could tell he was staring.

Dex could’ve said nothing. He could have smiled, stepped back, wished you a good night, returned to his car, and come up with another reason to see you next week.

Instead, he looked at you and thought of your whole life together. Then he said it. “Have dinner with me.”

Your smile faded into surprise. The rain tapped against the broken umbrella between you. You blinked once. It wasn’t really a question, was it?  “With you?”

“Yes.”

“As in…”

“A date.”

Your cheeks warmed. Dex watched the colour rise and tilted his head.

“Oh,” you said softly. Then, after a second, you smiled. “Okay.”

Just like that, he got what he wanted. 

—

The first date was dinner at your favourite restaurant, though you couldn’t recall ever telling Dex that.

You paused outside the little place with the handwritten menu in the window, your hand tucked into the crook of his arm. “Oh,” you said, surprised. “I love this place.”

Dex looked down at you, calm as anything. “Do you?”

You laughed. “I come here all the time.”

“I didn’t know that.”

The lie was smooth, but Dex said it with such calm that you accepted it because you wanted to. So you smiled up at him and said, “Then we have similar taste.”

His eyes held on your face. “Maybe we do.”

“Maybe we belong together then,” you joked.

Dex’s brain went to a catastrophic halt.

You didn’t see it from the outside, not really. His face barely changed. Maybe his eyes went a little too still. Maybe his fingers pressed once, carefully, against your hand where it rested on his sleeve.

But inside him, his heart lit up white-hot. Belong together.

You had said it so lightly. Dex heard it like a verdict. Like the universe had leaned down and put a hand on his shoulder and said, yes, that one.

He opened the restaurant door for you and followed you inside with your words still burning through him.

You had no idea he had chosen this restaurant because he had followed you there three weeks before, parked across the street while you sat by the window with two friends and laughed over a bowl of pasta. You had no idea he had watched you order the same thing twice. You had no idea he knew which seat you liked, which dessert you split with your friend and pretended not to want more of, which route you took home afterward, how tightly you held your coat closed when the wind picked up.

But yeah, dinner was great. 

The second date was coffee because you were trying to take things slower.

He was already there when you arrived, sitting by the window with your drink waiting in front of the empty chair. Your exact order, right size, right syrup.  He claimed similar taste innocently again. 

You should have been alarmed. Instead, you chuckled and sat down.

Coffee turned into a walk. The walk turned into him standing beside your car, close enough that your shoulder brushed his sleeve. He looked at your mouth once, then back at your eyes. “Can I kiss you?”

You didn’t even answer. You just stood on your tip toes and kissed him, carefully at first. But his hand came to cup your face, so you made a hum into his mouth and felt him unravel. 

When he pulled back, his eyes were dark. You smiled, dazed. 

The third date was dinner at his apartment.

He cooked for you, because apparently Dex did everything like it was a mission and feeding you was no exception. His apartment was neat  and perfectly arranged, but then you were there with your jacket on the back of his chair and your laugh in his kitchen, and he kept looking at those little disruptions were worth you being here.

The food was good, so you smiled and pushed a little harder. “You’re very good at taking care of me.”

Dex went still, and you could’ve sworn his ears went pink. 

After dinner, you kissed him on the couch. That was all it was supposed to be: A kiss.

Yes, maybe Dex made it feel a little too deep. Maybe it was too hungry. Maybe it was a little reckless, considering this was only the third date and you weren't the kind of woman who did things like this. You didn’t tumble into a man’s bed after three dates and let your body make decisions your brain would have to defend in the morning.

Your brain was trying, to be fair. The little voices there had formed a whole committee meeting about it.

This is too fast. This is insane. You have work tomorrow. You barely know him.

Unfortunately, Dex was kissing you, open-mouthed and desperate, his hands tight on your waist, breathing against you like every second of restraint physically hurt him, and your body didn’t seem particularly interested in attending the discussion.

You climbed into his lap because there was nowhere else you wanted to be.

Dex let out a breathy moan when you settled over him,  his head tipping back against the couch. His shirt was still on, but you had already pulled half the buttons open, enough to get your hands on skin, enough to feel his chest rise under your palms every time your mouth found his again.

Your skirt was hiked high around your thighs, his fingers trembling at the hem of it.

Dex, who could easily take what he wanted, sat beneath you with his hands on your thighs and waited for you to tell him he was allowed.

You kissed him harder for it.

His mouth opened under yours immediately, wet and so eager that you felt your stomach twist. You threaded your fingers into his hair and tugged once, just to steady yourself, just to feel him closer.

Dex sighed into your mouth.

“Oh,” you whispered, breathless.

His eyes opened, fixed on you. You smiled because you understood then that Benjamin Poindexter liked being told what to do.

He wanted to be good for you. He wanted to earn every sound you made.

You shifted in his lap, and his whole body reacted. His fingers slid higher under your skirt, then stopped again.

“Dex,” you breathed.

His throat worked. “Tell me.”

You leaned down, your lips brushing his as you spoke. “Touch me.”

He obeyed so fast it made you gasp.

Your panties were pulled to the side with clumsy, shaking urgency, his pants shoved down just enough because neither of you had the patience anymore. It was filthy how desperate it was. There was no time for the bedroom, no careful undressing, no pretending this was slower than it was. It was you in his lap, his open shirt under your hands, your skirt bunched around your waist, both of you panting into each other’s mouths like you had been struck by fucking lightning.

He was so intense you expected him to take over. Because he could’ve flipped you under him. He could have pinned you to the couch and made you forget every thought you had ever had. He had the body, he had muscles, he had the skills. 

Instead, he looked at you like he needed permission to breathe. “Like that?” he breathed.

You nodded, nails dragging over his chest nodding frantically. “Don’t stop.”

He didn’t.

Dex listened like obedience was devotion, like your pleasure was a commandment, like the only thing in the world that mattered was keeping you exactly like this: skirt up, mouth open, shaking in his lap while he looked up at you like you were holy.

You knew this was too quick. You never had one night stands. Even three dates was way too quick, by your standards. 

But his hands were on your waist, his shirt was open, his breathing was breaking, and when you whispered, “Fuck, baby,” he shuddered so hard beneath you that all your remaining common sense died on the couch.

Afterward, you stayed folded against him, both of you warm and breathless, your face tucked into his neck.

Dex’s hand moved slowly up your back, careful now. 

You lifted your head enough to look at him. His hair was wrecked. His mouth was red. His eyes were softer than you had ever seen them, though there was still a frightening stillness underneath, satisfied and hungry and already too attached.

You touched his cheek. “I should probably go home.”

Dex went still.

He looked at you from beneath those dark lashes, still flushed, still breathing hard, still beautiful enough to make bad decisions feel like fate. “Stay the night,” he said, trying not to say please.

You swallowed. “I have work tomorrow.”

“I’ll drive you.”

“My things are at home.”

“You can wear something of mine.”

“I need my toothbrush.”

“I have a spare.”

A laugh slipped out of you, helpless and fond. Of course he did. 

Dex’s mouth barely moved, and it was always a smile.

He looked at you like he needed you to say yes and hated that you could tell. Like letting you leave after this would physically hurt. Like you had crawled into his lap and accidentally turned yourself into the centre of his orbit.

You should go home. Your sensible little inner committee was banging on the table now.

But Dex looked at you like he was unaware he had puppy dog eyes, and you couldn’t say no to that, right? 

So you kissed him once. “M’kay, baby,” you said.

Dex held you tighter then, giving an upbeat little whine as he peppered kisses on your collarbone.

Little did you know, there was no going back now. 

—

The next day, Dex picked you up from work, even though you hadn’t asked him to.

He had driven you that morning as promised, his hands on your waist while he kissed you goodbye like he was trying not to follow you into the school library.

You had spent the whole day after that with his shirt on, but it was terribly oversized on you. Still, you managed to make it look intentional under your blazer, tucked and adjusted just enough that no one could tell. You had pinned your hair neatly, put your librarian face on, and acted very normal. Very professional of you, honestly.

Then the final bell rang, the library emptied, and by the time you stepped out of the front entrance with your bag over your shoulder, Dex was already there, waiting by his car with a suit jacket on and badge hidden. 

You stopped mid-step. “Oh,” you said, lighting up.  Beside you, Jonathan stopped too.

Jonathan, the music teacher. Nice Jonathan. Harmless Jonathan. Jonathan who lived two streets away from you and always carried a canvas tote bag with an embarrassing number of reusable water bottles inside it. He had been walking with you because you didn’t have your car with you and he offered to drive you home because you were both headed in the same direction. 

Dex’s grip tightened around his keys.

You were still wearing his shirt, and this man wanted to take you home? Cute.

“Dex?” you called, surprised.

Dex barely spared Johnathan a glance. He came to you instead, handsome in that frightening l way, his attention fixed you that it made the other man feel like background noise.

“What are you doing here?” you asked.

“Picking you up.”

You blinked, then laughed softly. “Why?”

Because you were wearing my shirt. Because I spent all day knowing you were out of sight. Because I don’t like it when you’re not with me.

“Your car’s not here,” he said, and that was reasonable enough, right?

“Oh.” You glanced back. “Jonathan was going to offer me a ride. He lives a few blocks away, so—”

“No.” The word came out flat.

You tilted your head, confused. You tried to recover, sweet thing that you were, turning half toward the man beside you. “Dex, this is Jonathan. He’s the music teacher. Jonathan, this is—”

Dex opened the passenger door. “You’re coming with me.”

Jonathan stopped with his polite smile halfway formed.

You looked at Dex for a second, and your sensible little inner voice probably tried to say something about how this was strange. 

Then Dex looked at you, and you melted, because fuck! Some foolish, lovesick part of you found that endearing. He came all this way for me? 

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Jonathan,” you said gently.

Dex shut the passenger door after you climbed in and stood there for one extra second, hand still on the handle, the word burning through him. What did that mean?

He got into the car.

The drive started silent. You settled beside him, and Dex saw you cozy up one the corner of his eye and had to tighten both hands on the wheel.

“Tomorrow?” he asked finally.

You looked over. “Hm?”

“You said you’d see him tomorrow.”

A little smile pulled at your mouth. You leaned across the console and kissed his cheek, like you thought jealousy was cute when it came from him.

“We work together, Dex.”

Oh. Okay. Okay. That’s fine, right?

Normal boyfriends were fine with that, right?

Still.

Then, asked if you wanted to come over to his place again because he couldn’t help himself. Because having you in the passenger seat made it feel obscene to let you leave again. Because you were already dressed in his things and smelled faintly like his apartment and he couldn’t understand why the day had to end anywhere else.

You looked down at yourself and laughed. “Dex, I am literally wearing your clothes. I need to go to mine.”

He kept his expression calm, but his fingers went still on the wheel.

You noticed enough to furrow your brows. “I’ve got work stuff to do,” you said. “I’ll call soon, okay?”

He nodded. He could do that. He could be normal. He could drive you to your car and let you go back to your apartment with its bad lock and pathetic hallway light and no trace of him except the marks he had left under your clothes. He could.

He pulled up beside your car outside your building and watched you unbuckle your seatbelt. You said your goodbyes and were halfway out when he blurted out, “I love you.”

You stopped.

Fuck. Fuck! 

He had not planned it like that. Not in the car, and definitely not with you leaving. But there it was.

You turned back to him slowly.

For a second, you bit your lip in shock. 

It was quick. Too quick to say that. You’ve been going on dates for what? Two weeks? 

You supposed he’d been around the school for two months now with the outreach program. But even that didn’t really make sense, right?

So now, your inner committee was no longer holding a meeting. It was pounding on the table, screaming that this was insane, that love wasn’t supposed to arrive between a third date and a school pick-up, that normal people didn’t do this.

But Dex was looking at you like you hung the stars for him. 

So leaned back into the car and kissed him. Gently first, then deeper, because his hand found your jaw like he had been waiting for permission to touch you again since the school gates.

“I love you, too,” you whispered.

Oh. Oh.

You left before you could take it back.

Dex watched you wave from your door, hands resting on the wheel, mouth curved in a small, helpless smile he couldn’t seem to stop.

She loves me.

The thought repeated all the way home.

She loves me. She loves me. She loves me.

By the time he reached his apartment, he was still smiling.

Then he opened the door, and the smile vanished immediately because you were not there.

The apartment was exactly the same as it had been that morning, clean and perfectly ordered, but suddenly none of that mattered. The couch was empty. The kitchen was empty. The bed was empty. All those neat, controlled rooms had become useless because you weren’t inside them.

Dex stood in the doorway with his keys in his hand and felt his stomach in him turn over.

You loved him, so why were you not here?

The question sat in his head with terrible simplicity. 

You loved him. He loved you. He could take care of you. He had the space, the money, the locks, the discipline. Your apartment was unsafe. Your building was bad. Your neighbours were careless. Jonathan from music lived too close. The world kept touching you and taking from you and making you tired.

Here was safer. Here, it made sense. Here, he could see you.

The thought came fully formed before he knew to stop it.

He could go get you.

He could get in the car. Drive to your apartment. Knock. Tell you that you should change your mind. Tell you the city was unsafe. Tell you your lock was bad. Tell you to pack a bag. Tell you you belonged in his apartment. Tell you until you believed him.

If you said no, he could still bring you back.

He was stronger than you. Faster than you. He was trained. He knew exactly how to move you without hurting too badly. He could overpower you, get you inside his apartment, lock the door, hide the keys, take your phone just for a while. He’d you keep warm. Feed you. Talk to you until the panic passed. He’d do that just until you understood. Because you would understand.

You loved him, so eventually you would understand that this was not cruelty, right?  This was not punishment. This was him seeing the truth faster than you did. This was him making the hard decision because someone had to. This was him saving you from all the places that were not him.

It took him an embarrassingly long time to realise that was kidnapping.

Actually, legally, literally kidnapping.

Kidnapping. False imprisonment. Coercion. Felony. It was bad.

“Oh,” he whispered. Then, after a beat, “Shit.”

His breath went wrong. The heat in him snapped into panic so quickly he nearly staggered. He saw himself then, not as a man in love, not as someone protecting his girlfriend, but as exactly the kind of thing you would need protecting from.

No.

No, no, no.

He backed away from the door like it had opened onto a cliff.

He loved you. He loved you. He wasn’t going to make you afraid of him. He wasn’t going to put his hands on you. He wasn’t going to lock you inside his life and pretend that was the same thing as being chosen.

Even if some awful part of him wanted to. Especially because some awful part of him wanted to.

Dex went to the drawer with shaking hands and pulled out the tapes.

Dr. Eileen Mercer’s voice filled the apartment through a soft crackle of static. “Your internal compass isn’t broken, Dex. It just works better with a North Star to guide you.”

Dex sank onto the couch.

North Star.

That was what you were.

Of course you were. You, with your kind heart and your gentle voice and your stupidly good heart. You, making safe corners for children. 

He had simply made the catastrophic mistake of falling in love with the star.  Which complicated things.

Because you were supposed to guide him, not belong to him. You were supposed to be fixed above him, untouchable enough to follow. Not in his apartment. Not in his bed. Not wearing his shirt and saying I love you in his car like you had any idea what those words would do to a man like him.

Dex pressed the heels of his hands over his eyes and forced himself to breathe while the tape kept playing through the static.

The apartment was still wrong without you. His hands still shook. The need to leave and get you didn’t disappear just because he had named it correctly. The desire sat there, dark and patient, waiting for him to mistake it for devotion again. But he stayed where he was.

He stayed on the couch with his teeth clenched so hard it ached, listening to the tape like it was the only thing holding him in place.

He loved you. That had to mean something better than possession. It had to.

So Dex sat in the empty apartment and tried, breath by breath, to become the kind of man who could love his North Star without building a sky small enough to trap her.

—

Dex barely made it through the week by hearing your voice through the phone.

You were busy with the school, chaperoning a trip, dealing with children and permission slips and packed lunches and museum gift shops, so he did the good thing, the normal thing. He didn’t show up. He didn’t follow the bus route. He didn’t appear outside your apartment just because he knew you would be exhausted.

Well. Maybe he just did it once, but he didn’t even stop! He just took a quick peek around the block to make sure you got home safe. 

After that, he took it one day at a time.

At night, he lay in bed with the phone pressed to his ear and listened to you talk when you called. You told him about the children, the chaos, the little girl who tried to correct the tour guide, the boy who cried because his sandwich got crushed in his bag.

He hated that he couldn't tell if you were warm enough. Hated that you sounded exhausted and he wasn’t there to put a blanket over your shoulders or press his mouth to your temple or make the world stop asking things of you for five minutes. But he behaved.

When you said, “I’m so tired, baby,” he closed his eyes like the world wrapped a hand around his throat.

When you said, “I miss you,” he pressed his fist against his mouth until the feeling passed enough for him to answer normally.

“I miss you too.” An understatement so violent it almost made him laugh.

Then you came back to regular life, and started spending more time with him. 

And naturally, you started spending more nights at his place.

It was easy. His apartment was closer to the school. His shower was better. His fridge always had food you liked. Your tea was already in his cupboard. Your toothbrush was still in his bathroom from that first night, and the spare charger by his bed somehow became yours without either of you discussing it.

One night a week became two. Two nights a week became most of the week.

Your laundry ended up in his machine. Your favourite cardigan stayed folded in his bedroom. Your substitute teaching papers got graded at his kitchen table while he made dinner. Your commute became easier because he drove you when he could, and when he couldn’t, he made sure your car had petrol, the tyres were checked, and the weird noise under the hood had been fixed before it became a problem.

It was dangerous, how much easier he made your life.

Dangerous because you were a school librarian on a school librarian salary, and Dex had big boy FBI paychecks and paid for groceries without mentally rearranging the rest of the month around it.

You tried to argue about that once. He looked genuinely offended.

“I should help,” you said.

“You do.”

“I mean with bills.”

“You buy supplies for children who are not yours because no one else will. Let me pay for dinner.”

That shut you up, not because it was fair. But because it was kind. Or because it sounded kind. Or because, with Dex, the difference had started to blur.

Your car made a noise; he had it checked. Your shoes wore thin; a new pair appeared by the door. You mentioned once that you were out of your favourite cereal, and the next morning there were two boxes in his cupboard.

By five months, you were barely at your own apartment.

You still paid rent. You still had mail there. Technically, you still lived there. But most nights, you went home to Dex.

Then one night, while you sat at his kitchen table grading reading logs and wearing one of his shirts under your cardigan, Dex said, “You should move in.”

You looked up. “What?”

“You should move in here.”

He said it so calmly. Like he was pointing out the weather. Like he had not been waiting weeks to say it. Like he had not already measured the space in his closet, looked up your lease date, and made sure there was room for your books.

You felt your inner committee rise from the dead.

Babe. What the fuck. Five months. Are you actually considering this? What’s wrong with you? Huh?

So you pushed back, but not very well.

“Dex,” you said, looking around his apartment. “We’ve been dating for five months.”

“I know.”

“Moving in would be very quick.”

“I know.”

But would it? You were at his kitchen table in one of his shirts, your papers stacked on his coffee table, your mug in his sink, your shoes by his door. Half your life was already there.

Suddenly, Dex leaned down and kissed you before you could keep arguing.

He did it because he had seen men do it in movies when they wanted to calm the woman they loved. 

That was how affection started with him, really.  He imitated touch. He put a hand on your waist because that was what boyfriends did. He rubbed circles over your hip because that was what loving partners did.

But then you melted under his hands and sighed into his mouth. Your fingers curled lightly into the front of his shirt.

And Dex thought, oh. So that was what it was supposed to feel like.

So after the first time, it no longer felt like pretending. It was no longer fake, no longer a costume he wore to convince you he could be normal.

He liked this. He liked the warmth beneath his palms. Liked the trusting weight of you leaning into him. Liked that touching you made him feel whole.  His thumbs kept moving in slow circles at your hips, more because he wanted to than because he remembered he was supposed to.

“I love you,” he murmured.

You closed your eyes like the words had done exactly what he hoped they would. “Dex…”

“You love me too.”

You laughed softly. “That is a terrible argument.”

“It’s my best one.”

Unfortunately, it was.

You hummed, but you were smiling now, and Dex felt his whole chest go warm.

He kissed you again, a little braver this time, still rubbing those gentle circles into your hips like he had finally found a love language that made sense in his hands.

You sighed, and he smiled against your mouth. It surprised him, even after five months, how much he wanted to be good at this. 

“Okay,” you whispered.

Dex went very still.

You opened your eyes and looked up at him, soft and doomed and already half his. “Okay, baby. I’ll move in.”

—

People got weird when you told them you had moved in with Dex.

Your friends did that careful-smile thing. Your mother went quiet on the phone before saying, “Already?” like the word had three question marks and a police report attached. One coworker just blinked at you over her mug and said, “Wow. That’s… fast.”

You kept giving the same answers. My lease was ending. His place is closer. It makes sense financially. He takes care of me.

Jonathan was the most obvious about it.

You told him in the staff room, after he was complaining about one of his classes committing recorder-based psychological warfare. “I moved in with Dex,” you said, trying to sound casual.

Slowly, he turned around. “Your fed boyfriend?”

“He has a name.”

“Agent Intense?”

“Dex.”

“Right. Your fed boyfriend.” He stared at you. “That’s so fast.”

You sighed. Here we go again. “My lease was ending.”

“You’ve known him for six months.”

“If you count his school outreach, seven actually.”

“That’s not better.”

You crossed your arms, already defensive. “He’s not bad.”

“I didn’t say bad,” he shrugged, “I think more like…  creepy.”

“Jonathan.”

“What? He once looked at me like I was trying to steal you because I offered you a ride home.”

“He’s just protective, that’s all,” you huffed.

“I’m gay.”

“I know that.”

“Does he?”

“He does now,” you said.

“Does he care?”

You opened your mouth and closed it. Because no, Dex didn’t care when you told him. Johnathan was still just another person standing between you and him, platonic or romantic or whatever. Jonathan could have been gay, married, celibate, and allergic to women, and Dex still would have watched him with that flat suspicion the second he stood too close to you.

Jonathan pointed his teaspoon at you. “Exactly.”

Your phone buzzed before you could answer.

Dex: Did you eat lunch?

You smiled and held up the phone like evidence. “See? He’s sweet.”

Jonathan looked at the message, then at you. “Sure,” he said carefully. “Sweet.”

You texted back yes, baby, and when Dex replied within seconds, Jonathan sighed. You ignored him.

After all, Dex cared. That was all.

—

The people who thought the move-in was quick were in for a treat, because one month after you moved into Dex’s apartment, he asked you to marry him in the back seat of his car.

See, you had shown up because summer holidays had made you stupid with missing him. You were bored. You had no school, no library chaos, no children asking where the glitter glue went. Just too much free time and the embarrassing realization that you had become the kind of woman who missed her boyfriend at eleven-thirty in the morning like an addict running out of nicotine patches.

So you brought him lunch and went to his workplace. That was a normal girlfriend thing, right? Except the lunch did not get opened.

Dex had barely gotten the car door shut before you were kissing him, and he had barely made it through the first breath of your mouth before his hand slid under your thigh and dragged you into his lap in the back seat.

“Dex,” you laughed into his mouth.

He made a low and lewd sound into his mouth. Then his hands were on you again, pushing your skirt up around your hips with a little too much force, a little too much need, until the seam gave with an unmistakable rip of fabric.

Dex stared at the torn fabric in his hand with the horrified focus of a man who had committed a federal offence against cotton blend. “I’ll buy you another one.”

“That is not the point,” you chuckled.

“I’ll buy you five.”

You should have been annoyed. But his eyes were black with want, and there was something so obscenely flattering about Benjamin Poindexter accidentally ruining your clothes because he needed you too badly to be careful. So you tightened your fist in his tie and pulled. “Later,” you whispered.

Dex obeyed, because liked it when you pulled him by it. He liked the pressure, the direction, the filthy little reminder that he was still half-dressed for work while you were undoing him in the back of his own car. His mouth opened under yours, hands clamped on your hips like he was trying not to lose the last piece of his mind.

Your inner committee, exhausted from the moving-in situation and still technically on unpaid leave, attempted to return to service.

Babe. This is his workplace. This is a federal garage.

Babe, your skirt is ripped.

Babe, we cannot keep replacing clothes every time this man gets horny and emotional.

Then Dex kissed down your throat and the committee immediately lost quorum.

By the time you were done and either of you remembered he had to go back inside, the windows were fogged at the edges. His hair was ruined from your hands. His tie was loose and crooked. His shirt was open at the collar, your lipstick low enough on his skin that he would need to button all the way up and pray no one noticed. His mouth was swollen. 

You sat in his lap, skirt torn and shoved badly back into place, one hand still looped lazily around his tie. “You have to go back in,” you whispered.

His forehead rested against yours. “I know.”

“You look…”

His eyes lifted to yours.

You smiled. “Compromised.”

Dex’s mouth twitched. His thumbs moved on your thighs, circling through the thin fabric of your ruined skirt.

You tugged his tie gently. “I should let you go.”

His hands tightened, only barely.

“Marry me,” he said suddenly, as if he would die if he let you leave without saying it first.

For a second, you just stared at him. Somewhere inside your head, your inner committee walked back into the room, saw the situation, and immediately considered retiring.

Babe, no. Babe, absolutely not. Babe, stand up for yourself!

“What?” you managed to choke out.

“Marry me,” Dex calmly, like the idea had been sitting in him for weeks, waiting for the right opening, and apparently the right opening was you flushed and breathless in his back seat. 

“Dex.”

“I love you.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Your inner committee sighed so hard the lights flickered.

“I love you,” he said again, quieter. “You love me. We already live together. It gives you legal protection. If something happens to me, you’re taken care of. If something happens to you, they call me first.”

“You are making a case,” you realised, though you shouldn't have been surprised.

He just shrugged. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t get married.”

There it was, the simple Dex logic of it: I love you. You love me. Why wouldn’t we?

It was reasonable if you ignored the fact that he was clearly halfway to losing his mind and had probably been planning this long before he said it out loud. Because sure, the practical reasons were true. But underneath all that, there was the darker, sweeter logic he kept tucked behind his teeth: If you were only his girlfriend, you could change your mind. You could wake up one morning, decide he was too much, pack a bag, and walk out before he had time to kiss you and remind you how gentle he could be when he was trying. A girlfriend could leave in one terrible conversation. A wife had to take steps.

And Dex loved steps. You’d have to go through lawyers, papers, and waiting periods. A marriage would buy him time, and time meant he could come to you, he could hold your face, and remind you that you loved him as much as he loved you. He would never hurt. But if the law could slow you down long enough for him to convince you that leaving was a mistake, Dex couldn’t help loving that, too.

He didn’t say that, though. He only looked at you with his hair mussed and his mouth ruined and said, “It makes sense.”

Your inner committee made one last brave attempt: Babe. Please. We JUST moved in.

But you banged the gavel at the head of your imaginary table and pouted. But look at him! He’s so hot! 

In the real world, Dex was looking at you like you were already his wife, like the ring was only a formality. Then he kissed you, tenderly this time.

“I love you,” he murmured against your mouth.

The committee dropped their clipboard. Fine, you win, they seemed to say, Whatever you say, handsome.

You laughed weakly into the kiss, and Dex pulled back just enough to look at you.

“What?”

You touched his face, thumb brushing over his cheekbone, and felt him lean into it like affection was still new enough to surprise him.

“Yes,” you whispered, hand tightening in his tie. “Yes, baby. I’ll marry you.”

For a second, he looked almost scared by how happy it made him. Then his arms locked around your waist and pulled you close, his face turning into your neck, breath hot and uneven against your skin.

“But you really do have to go back inside,” you whispered with a chuckle.

Dex lifted his head. He looked ruined, happy, and possessive in a way that should have made you run but somehow only made you kiss him again. “I have ten more minutes.”

You giggled and pulled him in by the tie.

Your inner committee walked directly into the sea, never to be seen again.

—

Dex let you pick the rings.

The engagement ring first, because he said you were the one wearing it, so you should love it. Then the wedding bands, including his, even though he tried to act like he didn’t care what his looked like. That lasted until you slid a simple band onto his finger in the shop and watched his whole face go still, almost overwhelmed.

A month later, you married him at the courthouse.

It was too soon for anyone around you to feel truly comfortable about it. Your family came anyway. Your friends came anyway. Even Jonathan, looking like he had accepted his role as the last remaining voice of reason, and still failing anyway. On Dex’s side, there was a couple of coworkers standing near the back in neat suits, polite and reserved, present more like witnesses than family.

Dex had no parents, no siblings, no cousins, no childhood friends with embarrassing stories. No one who could say they had known him when he was young. No one who could reassure your parents he was a good person through and through. Just coworkers, Ray congratulating him as the rest of his coworkers stood on the courthouse hallway while your side filled the room with nervous affection and badly hidden concern.

You saw the way your mother looked at him. The way your friends glanced at one another when they realised there was no one on his side who really belonged to him. It made them uneasy, and because you loved him, you rushed to explain it in your head before anyone even asked. His parents were dead. He grew up alone. It was complicated. He didn't have people the way other people had people.

You said little pieces of that aloud, as if it explained half of it away. Maybe to you, it did. Maybe that was a teeny part of the reason you kept choosing him. Dex had no one, and then he had you. But it was also tender, in its own damaged way. He stood across the room in his suit, eyes finding you every few seconds as if checking that you were still real, still walking toward him eventually. He looked alone until he looked at you.

The problem was not that Dex didn't love you. Anyone with eyes could see that he clearly did. That was half the horror, really. 

He loved you devoutly, too much for such a small courthouse. His attention followed you like a sniper scope. When someone hugged you, his eyes moved there. When Jonathan made you laugh, his face soured. When you looked at him, though, everything in him relaxed so completely that even your worried friends had to see it.

The ceremony itself was almost absurdly short, just a few legal words. A few signatures. Then came the ring that he slid on to your finger with a reverence that made your throat ache. His thumb lingered over the band once it was in place, brushing the metal like proof, like possession he was trying very hard to make gentle.

Your family saw it. Your friends saw it. Ray probably saw it too. But no one said anything anymore. They had tried to warn you. They had tried to tell you it was fast, intense, worrying. They had tried to point out all the red flags. But standing there, with Dex looking at your ring like the world had finally given him permission to keep the one good thing he had found, you knew why none of their warnings had worked.

Because you knew they were not entirely wrong. You just loved him anyway.

When Dex kissed you, it was gentle enough to make your mother cry. His hand came to your cheek, and his mouth touched yours like he was afraid of doing it wrong in front of everyone. But you felt the restraint beneath it, the hunger and devotion. The way he kissed you softly because that was what you deserved, even when every dark part of him wanted to hold on harder and bruise and mark his territory.

—

Two years later, Dex was in prison.

Jonathan tried not to say I told you so. To his credit, he really did try. He stood in your apartment after everything went public, arms folded too tightly, mouth pressed into a line while the news tore the FBI corruption apart in digestible pieces. Even family and friends looked at you like this was the ending they had feared from the start.

But you knew better.

Not because Dex was innocent. He wasn’t. You loved him too much to lie about that. He had done terrible things. There were parts of him that had always been hungry for direction, always been too easy for the wrong man to use.

And Fisk had used him perfectly.He had found every fracture in Dex and pressed his thumb into it. The instability, the need to be useful. The desperate, obsessive love Dex had for you. 

Fisk kept you in a basement beneath one of his shell properties and let the world mourn you.

That was the cruelty of it: Fisk did not need you dead. Dead was final. Dead meant there was nothing left to use. But alive, hidden in a cold and windowless place? That made you useful. That made you leverage. Fisk could keep your body locked away while giving Dex a grief designed to break him.

So Fisk staged your death. He built the lie piece by piece. He staged an accident, a fire. The reports say that the body burned beyond recognition was yours, and even had an urn with someone else’s ashes in it with your paperwork attached just in case people started asking questions.

Dex believed it, because why wouldn’t he? Fisk made sure every piece fit. Even Matt believed it for a while. Everyone did.

So when Dex found it, he carried the urn like it was alive. He thought he figured out that Fisk was manipulating him, which was correct. He thought that Fisk had killed you, which was false.

He put the ashes in the passenger seat. He drove to the hotel with one hand on the wheel and the other reaching over sometimes, hovering near the metal like it might feel lonely. He talked to it in that broken voice of his, the one he would have been humiliated for anyone living to hear. He told the urn things. He apologised. He told you he loved you.

Then Dex’s spine broke.

And you were found by the cops shortly after, alive. Bruised, starved, shaking under a blanket in the basement Fisk had buried you in, still asking for Dex before your voice had fully come back.

So when they told you he went into surgery under guard, he had fought your way into that hospital room on the only ground no one could deny: you were his wife, his next of kin, his legal family. You should be allowed in, and you eventually got what you wanted. 

During recovery, he looked wrong under hospital lights. The tubes and monitors and bandages made him look less like the terrifying thing the news kept replaying. Guards stood by the door. His wrists were shackled to the bed rails, his ankles too. You scoffed at that but couldn’t do anything about it, really. 

When his eyes opened, he came back fighting. His hands jerked against the restraints, chains snapping taut with a hard metal sound that made one of the guards shift forward.

“Don’t,” you said quickly. “Dex, don’t.”

His head turned and saw you. Suddenly, thoughts halted to a stop.

You had seen Dex angry. Jealous. Focused. You had seen him desperate in your bed and gentle in your kitchen. You had seen him worshipful, frightening, almost boyish with love.

You had never seen him look like that. Like he was staring at a ghost and trying to decide whether believing in it would kill him.

His mouth parted, but sound came out.

You stepped closer, hands trembling. “Hi, baby.”

Dex’s breath broke. “You’re alive.”

Your chest caved in. “yeah.”

“No.” His voice cracked in disbelief. “No, I saw— Fisk said—”

“I know.”

“You’re alive,” he said again, louder now, almost frantic. “You’re alive. You’re alive.”

“I’m here.”

The chains snapped tight again when he tried to reach for you. Pain tore across his nerves, but he barely seemed to feel it. His eyes stayed locked on yours,wild and terrified, like if he looked away, you would vanish and the whole nightmare would become true again.

“I thought you were dead,” he whispered.

“I know, baby.”

You moved to him before anyone could stop you. Your fingers found his hand where the shackle allowed, careful around the bruised skin. His grip closed around yours instantly, weak but desperate, like even broken he could not help trying to hold on.

Your wedding ring caught the light. It was a reminder that he was still yours, you were still his, and whatever was left of him seemed to collapse under the proof.

“You’re alive.”

—

Dex was incarcerated after he healed enough to be moved.

Not rehabilitated. Not treated. Incarcerated.

They put him in solitary confinement like that could contain him. Like isolation would ever make him better. Like locking him away from voices and faces and human contact would somehow fix a man whose worst injuries had always come from being left alone too long with his own head.

You hated it. So for three years, you fought to get your husband moved somewhere that might actually help him.

Three years of forms, lawyers, psychiatric evaluations, and rejected petitions. Three years of people looking at Benjamin Poindexter and seeing only what he had done, three years of people looking at you, Mrs. Poindexter, as if you were insane because you still loved him. Three years of explaining, again and again, that solitary confinement was not treatment. And Dex had always been dangerous when he was quiet.

Your old school library job no longer paid enough to carry the life Fisk had torn apart, so you took a better job at a public library. It's a better salary, but longer hours. More responsibility. You now had to think about staff rotas, community programmes, council meetings, difficult patrons, funding cuts, late nights under fluorescent lights while you built displays and answered emails with your wedding ring flashing every time your hands crossed the keyboard.

Every other day, you went to the prison.

Sometimes straight from work, your blazer wrinkled, your tote bag full of library paperwork, your lipstick faded from too many cups of coffee. Sometimes on your days off, when you could pretend the visit was the centre of the day instead of an activity squeezed between legal calls and grocery shopping and a life you had never wanted to live without him in it.

Dex always noticed when you were tired before you said it. He noticed when your shoes were new. He noticed when you had cut your hair, even slightly. He noticed when you had skipped lunch and lied about it. Even in prison uniform, even under the dead light of the visiting room, Dex was still your husband in all the ways that made people uncomfortable and all the ways that kept you coming back.

You told him about your days. You told him about the elderly man who came into the library every Wednesday to read the newspaper and complain about the chairs. The little girl who asked for “a book with a dragon but not a mean dragon because mean dragons have bad vibes.” The teenager who pretended not to care about poetry and then checked out three collections when his friends were not looking. You told him about staff meetings, leaky ceilings, broken printers, new shelving systems.

There were visits where he barely spoke. But even then, his eyes stayed on you. Even then, his fingers moved toward yours. Even then, when you said, “Baby,” parts of him came back to the surface.

You kept fighting because he needed help.

Then one afternoon, after three years of pushing against walls that did not move, one finally gave. The blip, after all, freed some space up. Though you really shouldn't celebrate such a tragedy, it was hard to ignore the fact that this time, it worked in your favor. That day, you carried the news into the visiting room.

His eyes moved over your face, your hands, the folder tucked beneath your arm. “What’s that?” he asked.

You smiled, biting your lip, “I have good news.”

You reached across the table. This time, they let you hold his hand. It was a small mercy. His fingers closed around yours immediately, like he could feel the tremor in you and wanted to steady it without frightening it away.

“A facility we applied to reviewed your case,” you said. “It’s looking good. The transfer is pending final approval.”

Dex didn’t move. You kept going before fear could steal the words from you.

“It’s a secure psychiatric institution. It’s not freedom, I know that. But it’s not solitary. You’d have doctors, actual treatment, scheduled therapy, medication reviews. You wouldn’t be in shackles.”

His face remained controlled, but you knew him too well. You saw the tiny shift in his breathing. 

“It’s going to be better,” you whispered. “Okay? Not perfect. Not easy. But better. You won’t be alone in a box, and we get longer visitation hours, okay?”

Dex was quiet for a long moment. Then he nodded once. “That’s good.”

Your laugh came out broken, because part of you still found that endearing. “That’s good? That’s all you have?”

His mouth almost softened, guilty at the thought of offending you. “It’s very good,” he amended.

You squeezed his hand, and for one rare second, the visiting room didn’t feel quite so much like a cage. It felt like a door opening somewhere far away.Then Dex looked up again. “But I hope my request gets approved before I get moved.”

“Request?” You blinked. “For what?”

He held your gaze with the seriousness of a man discussing nothing more important than bills. “A conjugal visit.”

For a moment, your mind simply stopped. “What?”

“A conjugal visit,” he repeated, as if you might not have heard him the first time.

You stared at him. Of course he had thought of that.

In three years of legal petitions, medical reviews, prison visits, and fighting to have him treated like a person instead of a weapon, you had somehow not allowed yourself to think about that part. About being his wife in that way still. About how long it had been since he had touched you without guards and tables and rules between you. Dex had, though.

“Dex,” you said softly, rubbing slow circles on his hand.

“What?”

“You are in solitary confinement.”

“I know.”

“You’re probably not getting approved for a conjugal visit.”

“Probably not.”

His expression didn't change, but he squeezed your hand and your stomach turned over despite yourself. You leaned forward as much as the table allowed. The guard near the door shifted, but you ignored him. You kissed the edge of Dex’s mouth, brief and soft, but still enough to make his breath catch.

“Let’s focus on this, yeah?” you whispered.

His eyes stayed on yours. For a second, the hunger in him quieted, almost obedient. He nodded once. “Okay.”

Your hand stayed in his until the guard told you time was up. Dex didn’t let go until he had to.

—

He got approved. Somehow, Benjamin Poindexter got approved for a conjugal visit.

You read the notice three times in your kitchen, work bag sliding off your shoulder, lanyard still around your neck, your shoes aching from a long day on your feet. The letter was painfully plain and administrative. But it was approved nonetheless.

You stared at it until the paper blurred. “What the fuck?” you whispered.

Because there was no way. There was no reasonable, lawful way that your husband, a convicted killer, a high-risk prisoner, had been granted that kind of access.

You knew then that Dex had done something. Nothing obvious enough to get the request pulled. He might have threatened a guard. Maybe Dex had mentioned a name, a detail, some small piece of information he shouldn’t have known and let them do the rest.

You should have been horrified. Mostly, though, you pressed the paper to your mouth and laughed once, breathless and disbelieving, because all you could think was: That’s how badly he wanted me. That’s how much he loves me.

—

When the day came, you waited in the room alone.

You had done the paperwork, gone through twenty locked doors to get here. You came knowing you had a couple of hours with your husband. And for the first time in three years, there would be no table between you, no visitor chair bolted too far from his. No guards close enough to hear every word. No one telling you not to lean too far across the table when all you wanted was to touch his face.

A couple of hours was not enough. 

You smoothed your hands over your blouse, then over your skirt, then clasped them together in your lap to make yourself stop fidgeting. You had dressed too carefully without really thinking about it. You had a white blouse, a nice skirt, because Dex liked seeing you in skirts. You were wearing the cardigan you were wearing when you met him.

You stared at your wedding ring until Dex stepped inside. For a second, neither of you moved.

He looked different. That was your first thought, blunt and stupid and immediate. He looked different, because of course he did. Years had happened. Prison had happened. Surgery had happened. His hair was shorter. His jaw looked sharper. But he was also bigger.

You noticed from your previous visits, of course, but seeing him a bit closer now, it was evident. His shoulders filled out the plain prison shirt. His arms looked stronger than they had in the hospital, muscle sitting heavy under institutional fabric, like all the recovery and physical therapy and whatever routines they let him have had made him sturdier.

You blinked before you could stop yourself. What were they feeding him?

Dex’s eyes found your face first, gaze locked onto you. For one fragile second he did not look like a prisoner at all.

He looked like Dex. Your Dex. Your husband, seeing you after being forced to miss you for too long.

“Hi,” you whispered.

His mouth parted slightly. When the door closed behind him, the lock turned, and whatever restraint he had used to walk in there like a normal person vanished.

You barely got to stand before his hands were on your face and yours were on his chest, and the first kiss was so clumsy it almost made you laugh. Your noses bumped. His mouth missed yours by half an inch and caught the corner instead. You made a tiny sound, half sob and half laugh, and Dex froze like he had done something wrong.

“No,” you said quickly, already smiling through the sting in your eyes. “No, come here.”

You took his face in both hands and kissed him properly, softly at first. Then again. And again.

These were little, ridiculous kisses. The kind you had imagined giving him in every prison visit where a guard stood too close. You kissed his mouth, the corner of it, his cheek. You kissed the line beside his nose, the skin under his eye, the edge of his mouth again.

Dex stood there and let you love him, as if he couldn’t believe you still did at all.

His hands stayed at your waist, almost uncertain, like after all this time he still didn’t fully trust that he was allowed to hold you without someone telling him to stop. But the longer you kissed him, the more his fingers settled. The more his body leaned into yours. The more the tension in his shoulders slowly started to melt.

“I missed you,” you said between kisses.

Dex’s eyes closed. “I missed you, too.”

“I missed you so much.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t.” You kissed his cheek again, because apparently now that you had started you couldn't stop. “I missed you in the kitchen. I missed you in our bed. I missed you when I had to fix the shelf myself because you would have been so annoying about doing it better.”

His mouth twitched. “You fixed a shelf?” he asked.

“I tried to.”

His eyes opened with attentive focus you had missed so badly. “What happened?”

“It’s currently leaning.”

Dex stared at you, then he laughed. It wasn’t loudly, or freely. It was small, rough, and almost startled, like his body had forgotten how to make the sound and needed you to remind it. 

You broke a little. “Oh,” you whispered, smiling like an idiot. “There you are.”

His expression changed before he leaned in and kissed you again, not clumsy this time. A kiss that said yes, here, I’m here, I came back up when you called.

His arms moved around you properly then, and fuck, he was solid.

You had expected him to feel fragile, because part of you still remembered the hospital bed, the shackles, the bruised skin around his wrists after surgery. But this Dex was heavy and strong under your hands. When your palms slid over his shoulders, you felt muscle there making your stomach drop and go hot at the same time.

Still, he stayed sweet for a little while.

You had both expected the hunger. But before that, there was Dex touching your hair like he had thought about the texture of it more than once. There was you smoothing your thumb over his cheekbone, relearning him up close. There was him pressing his face into the side of your neck and breathing in once like he had been living on memory for years and memory had never been enough.

“I missed how you smell,” he said, voice muffled against your skin.

You laughed. “That’s creepy,” you said, but smiled into his hair anyway.

Your fingers drifted to the back of his neck, then lower, over the ridge of his shoulder. You felt him shiver when your touch found the edge of the scar beneath his shirt. You paused, but he shook his head against you. “It’s okay.”

So you kept touching him gently. Through the fabric first, then at the collar where your fingers could slip just beneath. The scar was there, and Dex’s breathing changed when you traced it. Not with pain, exactly. It felt more… intimate.

“My baby,” you whispered before you could stop yourself.

His hand flexed at your hip. This time, when his mouth opened under yours, the sweetness warmed.His body crowded yours a little more. His hands moved from your waist to your back, then down again.

“You got…” You swallowed, then laughed softly because there was no graceful way to say it. “You got big.”

Dex blinked. For half a second, he looked genuinely confused. Then his eyes dropped to where your hands were spread over his chest. “Big?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I had physical therapy.”

“That is a criminal understatement.”

His mouth twitched again as you dragged your palms over his shoulders, shameless now, because you had earned this. You had earned the right to be stupid about your husband’s arms after three years of prison visits and legal calls and sleeping alone.

“You’re very…” You squeezed his bicep lightly. “Recovered.”

Dex looked at you. “You’re flirting with me.”

You shrugged, but didn’t deny it.

The sound he made was almost an arrogant chuckle.

He kissed you again, and this time there was no mistaking the heat under it. Then, his hands settled on your blouse.

Not grabbing yet, but touching the fabric at your waist, thumbs moving slowly over the buttons as if he had only just realised there was something between his hands and your skin.

You were still smiling when his eyes dropped.

Suddenly, his eyes were fixed on the small gap where one button had loosened, where the fabric had shifted just enough to reveal a flash of black lace underneath.

Dex recognised it at the same time you remembered. “Is that…”

Your face burned hot as you nodded.

It was the black teddy he had bought you for your first wedding anniversary.It was sheer lace at the cups, delicate straps, a low satin-trimmed neckline. Dex remembered the first time you tried it on. You stood at the foot of your bed, pretending not to be shy, while he sat there ruined, looking at you like his brain had briefly stopped receiving oxygen. And now, you had worn it here.

Dex’s thumb brushed the edge of your blouse, right where black lace disappeared beneath it. His eyes darkened. “You wore my anniversary gift under your blouse,” he said.

Your stomach flipped. “When you say it like that—”

“How should I say it?” He demanded, and it was a little mean. But that always did turn you on.

“I don’t know,” you whispered. “Less like you’re about to lose your mind.”

Dex looked back up at you, too focused, too hungry. “I am.”

Oh.

Your hands tightened in his shirt.

The room felt smaller after that, less like a prison facility and more like the bedroom he remembered, the one with your knees pressed into the mattress and his hands shaking at your waist because he hadn’t known a piece of lace could make wanting feel that violent.

His grip settled firmer on your hips. “You have no idea,” he murmured, mouth brushing your ear. “What you do to me.”

Your eyes fluttered shut. There he was. Your husband, touch-starved, breathing against your neck like he had waited years to find out if he could still make you tremble.

You smiled, kind and doomed all the same. “Show me.”

Oh, he had a list.

Dex was undressed before you could blink, all broad shoulders and blown pupils, moving with a focused urgency that made the sterile little room feel suddenly too small to hold him. The white walls, the bolted table, the narrow bed, the chemical-clean smell of the sheets, and none of it stood a chance against the way he looked at you.

He had been counting down to this for years. Every prison visit, every supervised touch, every night alone in a cell had led into this exact moment.

His hands were already on your blouse, quick but not careless, tearing through buttons, ripping them off with a precision that would have been funny if his breathing had not been so rough. The black teddy appeared inch by inch beneath the fabric, lace and satin and memory, and Dex looked ruined. 

First on the list: his mouth between your legs.

You understood that the second he dropped to his knees. Dex had barely gotten the teddy off before his hands were already under your skirt, gripping your thighs.

Then his mouth was on you, and every thought in your head broke apart.

“Oh,” you gasped, one hand flying to his hair, the other twisting in the clean white sheet beneath you.

Dex made a sound against you that was almost a groan, almost a laugh. His hands tightened on your thighs, holding you open for him, keeping you there like he was afraid you might disappear if he let go. He was not gentle, like he used to be. He was focused, hungry, and touch-starved enough that every reaction you gave him seemed to make him worse.

“Fuck,” he breathed against you, voice rough and ruined. “You taste so fucking sweet.”

Your whole body went hot. “Dex—”

He didn’t let you finish. His mouth returned to you, and the room became nothing but the wet heat of him, the harsh sound of his breathing, the narrow bed creaking under the way your hips moved despite yourself. The sterile little room had no right to hold something this filthy. 

He was still so good, it was unfair.

Dex had always been terrifying when he focused. When he learned something, he learned it completely. And you realised, breathless and shaking, that he remembered everything. Every place that made you gasp. Every rhythm that made your hand tighten in his hair. Every tiny, helpless sound you tried to swallow and failed.

You tried to move back once, overwhelmed, but his hands slid under you and dragged you closer with a low, possessive sound that made your stomach twist.

“No,” he murmured. “Stay.”

So you stayed while he buried himself there like he could spend hours between your thighs if time were not an issue. You stayed while his fingers dug into your skin, while his mouth made you forget the guards outside, the transfer, the years, the ugly world that had kept him from you. You stayed while he took you apart with the kind of devotion that felt less like softness and more like obsession given a mouth.

At some point, you said his name too loudly, and Dex groaned like that was the point.

Of course he wanted them to hear. Of course he wanted the men outside that locked door to know that whatever they thought they had taken from him was still his. You were still his. 

When you finally broke, Dex did not stop right away.

He held you through it palms spread over your thighs, breathing you in like the end of the world had tasted sweet and he couldn’t make himself pull away.

Only when you tugged weakly at his hair did he lift his head.

Dex looked up at you like he had just crossed the first thing off a list and still had every intention of finishing the rest.

Number two on the list should have been obvious when he suddenly looked shy. 

“Can I ask you something?” he murmured.

Your breath was still uneven. “Dex.”

His mouth pressed briefly to the inside of your knee, like he needed one more second to gather himself. “I want your mouth.”

Oh.

Your stomach flipped so hard you almost laughed. Who were you to deny this man anything? 

You slid off the bed and onto your knees in front of him, and Dex went very still.

His hand came to your cheek, careful at first, thumb brushing your skin like he needed to touch you gently before letting himself want. His breathing changed when you looked up at him. His pupils were blown wide enough to make him look almost feverish.

“Baby,” he said, voice rough.

You smiled before giving him what he asked for.

Dex’s hand stayed in your hair, not forcing, not taking. His head tipped back. His throat worked. His eyes squeezed shut and opened again because he seemed to hate missing even one second of you.

He was big in every way you remembered and worse because you had missed him.

Too much, almost. Overwhelming enough to make your eyes water, enough to make your hands press at his thighs when you needed a second, and Dex stopped immediately each time.

His hand softened in your hair. “Too much?” he rasped.

You shook your head, breathless, stubborn, and a little ruined yourself.

Dex looked like that might kill him. Then you kept going, and he fell apart beautifully.

He moaned your name like a warning, like a plea. His hand stayed on your cheek against your cheek, his thumb brushing away the wetness at the corner of your eye with such tenderness that the gesture felt obscene in context.

“You’re perfect,” he whispered, voice breaking. “Fuck, you’re perfect.”

You felt him getting close, and you wanted nothing more than feeling him down your throat, but he pulled back, stopping himself so abruptly you almost protested.

Dex stared down at you, chest heaving, eyes wild, mouth parted like he had just survived something.

You blinked up at him.

He gave a rough little laugh, almost pained. “No,” he said, voice hoarse. “Not yet.”

You smiled slowly. “Not yet?”

His gaze darkened again. He reached down, thumb brushing your lower lip, still shaking from the effort of denying himself.

“I have two more things on the list,” he reminded you, making your thighs pressed together.

Dex helped you back onto your feet with hands that weren’t quite steady, then kissed you so deeply you tasted the restraint he had forced himself to keep.

“Bed,” he murmured against your mouth.

Number three on the list was taking you from behind, of course. 

He turned you toward the bed with hands that were still shaking his mouth at your shoulder, your neck, the back of your ear. 

He moved slowly at first, because even like this, rough and ruined and half-mad with missing you, Dex was still Dex. He still listened to every breath, every shift of your body, every little sound that told him whether you were overwhelmed or wanting more. The stretch of him made your hands fist in the sheet, your body tensing around the sheer shock of having him again after so long without. His mouth pressed to your shoulder. “Breathe,” he rasped. “I’ve got you.”

He took his time even though you could feel restraint burning through him. The way he cursed softly against your skin when you finally relaxed into him, when your body remembered him properly and pulled him closer.

“Fuck,” he breathed, voice breaking. “You’re so—”

He cut himself off with his mouth against your shoulder, like the words were too much, like saying them would make him less controlled than he already was.

Then he started moving. God, he hadn’t forgotten you, so of course you were loud almost immediately.

The first sound broke out of you before you could stop it, your whole face burning. Dex’s hand tightened at your hip, and the next lewd mewl came worse. He made a low sound behind you, smug and satisfied in a way that made heat crawl up your spine.

You bit down on your own wrist, trying to muffle yourself.

His hand slid up your body and gently pulled your arm away. “No,” he said, voice rough. “I waited three years to hear you.”

Your whole body went hot. “Dex—”

“Let me hear you.”

And then he made sure you did.

He got rougher, hungrier. His body covered yours, his mouth dragging over your neck while his hands held you exactly where he wanted you. The bed creaked under you. The sheet twisted beneath your fists. Your voice filled the room because he kept pulling it out of you, again and again.

At some point, there was a knock on the door, but unfortunately Dex didn’t have enough self control to stop.

You looked over your shoulder, cheek pressed flush into the sheets.

The little window opened and a guard looked in. They were worried, you realised. You had been so fucking loud.

The humiliation should have swallowed you whole. Instead, your stomach flipped.

“You okay?” the guard called. 

You could barely speak. “Hmmph, Y-yes!” you managed.

Dex’s hand slid over your stomach, keeping you pressed back against him.

The guard moved away when he realised what he was seeing, face red.

The second the shadow disappeared, Dex’s mouth was at your ear. “You liked that.”

You shivered.

“You liked him checking,” he murmured, darker now. “Liked him hearing what I do to you.”

You should have denied it, but you could not bring yourself to lie, Dex made a rough, broken sound against your neck and moved again, deeper into the heat, rougher now because he was jealous, because some stranger had seen even a glimpse of your face like that and Dex couldn’t stand it. He kissed your shoulder hard and held you like he could erase the guard’s eyes from the room by making you forget anything existed except him.

“Mine,” he breathed. 

You answered with his name, exactly how he wanted it.

Number four on the list started with him denying you an orgasm.

That was how you knew prison had changed him.The old Dex, the one who melted when you praised him, the one who went doe-eyed and obedient under your hands, had been buried under three of whatever this was.

Dex flipped you over before you could come undone.

Your gasp broke against his mouth as your back hit the narrow mattress, the white sheet twisted beneath you, your body sore in the best, most aching way. You were already too close and he knew it. Of course he knew it. He knew your body like he had studied it for a test he refused to fail.

“Not yet,” he murmured.

You made a helpless little sound, half protest, half plea. Dex’s hand slid up your waist, and he was inside you again in no time. 

Oh. you realised, he wanted to look at you when you came. That was all. So sweet. So cute. 

But then you felt him twitch, and you realised that he was close before he did. Or maybe he knew, and he was just too far gone to care about anything else.

“Dex—” Your voice caught. “Dex, I’m not— fuck, I’m not on birth control.”

He didn’t stop completely. His whole body stuttered above yours, rhythm faltering, breath punching out of him like you had hit him in the chest.

“Hmph—fuck.” His forehead dropped against yours. “I know.”

Your eyes snapped open. “You know?”

His hand slid over your stomach, possessive, and the sound that left him was almost pained.

“I know,” he said again, rougher. “I know, baby.”

The words should have sobered you, but you loved him, and you loved that he was still above you, still shaking, still so close you could feel every tremor of restraint tearing through him.

“Dex,” you gasped.

“I thought about it,” he said, voice low and wrecked. “Every night.”

Your body went hot. His hand pressed a little firmer over your stomach, not forcing, just holding there like the thought had been living in him for years.

“You in our apartment,” he murmured, words breaking between breathless little sounds. “My wife, wearing my old shirts. Sleeping alone. Fighting for me. Sitting across from lawyers and doctors while I sit in a– hmmphh— a fuckin’ box.”

“Baby—”

“And all I could think was… fuck—all I could think was I should have left you something.”

Your breath caught so hard it almost hurt.

A baby, he meant.

A living tether. Something that would tie you to him in a way no prison door, no court order, no transfer file could undo. And sure, if you were going to leave him, you would have done it already. No court in the world would blame you for divorcing a killer. No friend, no family member, no sane person would call you cruel for walking away.

But you stayed. And fuck, somehow, staying was still not enough for Dex. He needed proof that some part of him could still belong to you permanently. 

In his mind, twisted and tender as it was, this was not a trap. It was a gift.

His eyes locked on yours, blown dark and terrifyingly attentive even through the haze.

His mouth was against yours, then your jaw, then your throat, never settling anywhere long enough to be gentle. He kept touching you like he could not decide what he needed more: your face, your waist, your hips, the heat of your body. 

“You feel that?” he rasped, voice wrecked as you squeezed him a little. “How bad you want it?”

You did want it, but you could barely answer. Every breath came out wrong, caught somewhere between a moan and his name. Your thoughts had gone useless, scattered apart by the obscene tenderness of his palm resting low and possessive like he was already imagining the seed taking root there.

“Dex—” you sighed, trying to bury your face in his ned

“No, baby.” His mouth brushed your ear, rough and hot, as he pulled your hair back gently to look into your eyes. “Don’t get… shit— shy now. Not after that. N-not after the sounds you’ve been making ‘f me.”

Your face burned, but your hands only tightened on him.

His voice dropped lower, filthier, the words breaking between harsh breaths. “My pretty girl wants something from me, huh?”

Your whole body went hot.

Dex’s palm pressed a little firmer over your stomach. “S-she wants me to leave her with something.” His breath hitched, and for a second his voice almost failed him. “Wants to walk out of here carrying more than m-my… hmm— fingerprints.”

You made a helpless sound.

“There it is,” he murmured. “You like that, fuck! You like thinking about it.”

“Dex-please—”

“Yeah?” His mouth found yours, messy and desperate, before he pulled back just enough to look at you. His pupils were blown wide, his face flushed, his control hanging by a thread he was clearly ready to let snap. “My pretty girl wants my baby, huh?”

Your breath caught so hard it hurt.

Dex saw it the way your body answered before your mouth could.

His face changed, hunger folding into something sickly sweet, almost tender in the worst possible way. “Fuck,” he whispered. “You do.”

Your eyes stung.

You hated and loved how well he knew you all the same.

“Wants something of mine when they t-take me back,” he breathed, mouth dragging along your cheek. “Something they c-can’t put in a cell. Something that— hnghhh — still has me in it.”

You were shaking now, overwhelmed and aching and so far gone that language felt like a thing happening on another planet. Dex was talking to you like he knew exactly where every dark little want lived under your skin, like he had spent three years locked away with nothing but the memory of you and all the ways he wanted to make himself permanent.

“Say it,” he murmured.

You couldn’t, not properly. Dex’s eyes darkened further.

“C-can’t even talk,” he whispered. “That’s okay. I know you.” His thumb moved slowly over your skin. “I know what my wife wants.”

Your breath broke.

His forehead pressed to yours, and for one second, under all that hunger, he was shaking with the effort to hold himself back.

“But you gotta tell me,” he said, voice raw. “Tell me no and I’ll stop.”

The restraint from him was phenomenal. Your hands slid up to his face, holding him there, forcing him to look at you while you gave him the answer.

“D-don’t you fucking dare stop,” you whispered.

“Yeah?” he asked, like he needed it again, like one yes was not enough to survive on.

“Yes–Fuck! Yes, baby.”

His mouth crashed back to yours, swallowing the rest of your answer, and the room disappeared into heat and the terrible intimacy of choosing this with him. His hand stayed over your stomach the whole time, almost reverent, like the fantasy had become real the second you let him have it.

He kept talking against your mouth, the words coming apart as badly as he was.

How good you were. How much he had missed you. How he had thought about you every night. How he wanted to leave something behind. How you would be going home with him in a way no guard could take from you.

You clung to him through it, nails catching on his shoulders, then his back, then the scar along his spine. Dex shuddered when you touched it, a broken sound leaving him before he buried his face against your neck and held you closer, closer, closer, like he could press three lost years into the space between your bodies and make them disappear.

When he finally came with you, he did it with your name on his mouth and his eyes fixed on yours, like he needed you to see every second of what he was giving you.

His forehead dropped to yours afterward, both of you breathing too hard.

For a while, neither of you spoke. The guards outside were silent. The room was wrecked in small damning ways: twisted sheets, scattered clothes, your blouse half on the floor, the black lace halfway off the bed.  

Dex kissed your cheek. Then your jaw. Then the corner of your mouth.“I missed you,” he whispered, and this time it sounded almost broken.

You closed your eyes and held him there. “I missed you, too.”

—

The knock came fifteen minutes later, and you hated it. “Poindexter,” a guard called, “Time.”

Dex was still against you, face buried in your neck, one arm locked around your waist like pretending not to hear it might make the door stay shut. For a second, neither of you moved. His breathing was still uneven against your skin, and your fingers were still in his hair, and the narrow bed beneath you looked absolutely ruined.

Another knock. You touched the back of his neck. “Baby.”

“I know.”

He didn’t sound like he knew. He sounded like leaving you there might kill him.

You both moved in a rush after that, half-dressed and breathless, trying to put yourselves back together before the guards came in. The sheet was twisted. Your skirt was crooked. Your blouse was missing buttons because Dex had been too impatient, so you had to clutch the fabric closed with both hands while smiling like an idiot anyway.

Then the guards stepped in. One of them looked at the bed, then at you, then at Dex. His face went carefully blank.

“Hands,” he said.

You stepped forward before Dex could turn around.

The guard sighed. “Ma’am—”

“One second,” you said.

Dex bent instantly, like he had been waiting for permission. You kissed him once. Then again. Then to his nose, because one kiss was not enough and never would be.

“I love you,” you whispered.

He looked like he might cry. “I love you, too”

Then they cuffed him.

You hated the sound of metal around his wrists. It meant the world taking him back. At the door, Dex looked over his shoulder, and you stood there still holding your blouse together, still smiling, still ruined.

The guard muttered, “Filthy animals,” as they disappeared into the hall.

Then you heard Dex chuckle, low and rough and proud. Like being filthy with you was the best thing anyone had ever called him.

You stood there for a second, and then you laughed under your breath, too.

Because you loved it. You loved being disgusting with him. Loved that the room looked wrecked. Loved that the guards knew. Loved that Dex would carry that insult back to his cell like a compliment, and that you would go home with the same stupid, shameless pride in your chest.

Filthy animals.

Yeah. You smiled to yourself, still holding your blouse together. Maybe you were.

—

You were pregnant.

You found out before the transfer, while Dex was still in prison, still waiting to be moved to the secure psychiatric facility you had spent three years fighting for. For three days, you carried the secret around yourself like a forcefield. You went to work, answered emails, helped patrons at the public library. You smiled politely at everyone while your whole body felt like it had become a locked room with a miracle inside.

When you told Dex, he knew something was different before you even sat down. His eyes went to your face, then your hands, then the way you kept pressing your palm nervously against your stomach. “What happened?”

You laughed once, shaky and soft. “Nothing bad.”

Dex didn’t relax, so you reached across the table and took his hand as much as the cuffs allowed. His fingers closed around yours immediately. “I’m pregnant.” For a second, it was like the whole visiting room lost sound. Then his eyes dropped to your stomach. “What?”

You smiled through the tears already coming. “I’m pregnant, baby.”

The chair scraped back before the guard could stop him.

Dex moved toward you on instinct, cuffed hands reaching for your face, not violent, not thinking, just desperate to touch. The chain between his wrists caught on the edge of the table, but he barely seemed to feel it. His palms found your cheeks, and then he was kissing you across the table like the whole room had disappeared.

“Poindexter,” the guard snapped.

Dex didn't hear him. Or he did, and for one dangerous second, he didn’t care.

You kissed him back, crying into his mouth, fingers gripping the front of his prison shirt because this was your husband, your baby’s father, and he was making this broken sound against your lips.

Another guard came over. “Back. Now.”

They had to pull you apart. Actually pull you apart.

They had one hand on Dex’s shoulder, another on his arm, dragging him back while his cuffed hands strained toward you and yours reached for him across the table. His eyes stayed locked on your face the whole time amazed and almost frightened by the size of what he felt.

The transfer happened not long after.

The institution was better than solitary. You reminded yourself of that every day. He had doctors now. Treatments, structure. He was not locked alone in a box anymore.

But he still was not free. He wasn’t there when your stomach first started to show, but the institution had better visitation rules than the prison, and the first time you came in visibly pregnant, Dex was allowed to touch you. His hand settled over the curve of your stomach so carefully it made your throat ache, like he was afraid the smallest wrong movement might cost him the privilege.

He wasn’t there when the baby kicked for the first time either, but later, during one of those visits, the baby kicked beneath Dex’s palm. Dex went completely still, eyes dropping to your stomach.

Still, he wasn’t there for the smaller, lonelier things. He wasn’t beside you in the maternity shop when you cried because nothing fit right and you wanted him there so badly it hurt. He should have been there making some too-serious comment about proper shoes, back support, and whether the changing room bench was structurally safe enough for you to sit on.

But even then, you told him everything. Every appointment. Every craving. Every scan. Every tiny development you could turn into words and carry to him.

Then Leonard was born. Leo, for short, named for his father.

Dex wasn’t allowed to be there.

That hurt him in a way he didn’t know how to hide. You didn’t know this, but one of the nurses told you he had become erratic after the call came through that you were in labour. Not violent, but frantic, pacing, asking the same questions over and over, trying to negotiate with people who had no authority to give him what he wanted. By the end of it, they had to force a couple pills down his throat so he could just calm down.

So when you finally called, exhausted and crying, with your son against your chest, the silence on the other end felt too careful.

“He’s here,” you whispered. “He’s here, baby.”

Dex didn’t answer right away. For a moment, all you could hear was his breathing, thin and controlled, like he was holding himself together by force. Then, very carefully, he asked, "Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

“Is he okay?”

“Yes.”

You could almost picture him sitting there, hand curled too tightly around the phone, trying to make himself calm enough to deserve hearing this.

“Tell me,” he said.

You told him Leo had blonde hair. You looked down at the baby curled against you, tiny and furious, with pale hair against his head and features that already made your chest ache because there was no denying whose child he was.

“He looks like you,” you whispered.

Dex didn’t answer right away. When he did, his voice sounded stripped bare.

“He does?”

“Yeah, baby.” You smiled through tears, touching Leo’s tiny cheek. “He looks like his father.”

Still, after weeks, then months, then years of hearing about Leo through you, Dex began to know him in fragments.

Children were not allowed inside the institution, so Leo had never met his father. Dex knew him through the stories you told him in visitation rooms, through the photographs you were allowed to bring, through the change in your voice whenever you said his name. You gave him a picture of Leo asleep with one fist tucked under his cheek. Leo with blond hair and your eyes. Leo scowling at the camera in a way that looked so much like Dex it made him go silent the first time he saw it.

But he didn’t love Leo properly yet. How could he? He had never held him. Never felt the weight of him against his chest. Never smelled his skin, never rocked him through a cry, never watched him fall asleep in his arms. Leo was still partly an idea to him, a child made real through your love before Dex could reach him with his own.

But he loved Leo, in a way, because you loved him.

That was easier. You loved that baby, so Leo mattered. Your face relaxed when you spoke about him, so Dex learned to relax around the sound of his name too. And somewhere in the darkest, neediest part of him, he thought he owed Leo his life because he made you stay.

Leo was Dex’s gift to you, because he didn’t want you to be alone. 

So Dex loved Leo in the only way he knew how at first: because Leo was yours, because Leo was his, because Leo looked like him, and because Leo kept a piece of him in your life while the rest of him was locked away. He loved him for your sake, before he knew how to love him for his own.

—

Leo was three years old when Vanessa Fisk made Dex kill Foggy Nelson.

He was three, serious-eyed, stubborn in the exact way that made your mother sigh and say, “That’s probably his father,” under her breath. Leo had Dex’s watchful stare, Dex’s unnerving ability to go quiet when he was thinking too hard. But he was still a toddler, so the quiet never lasted long. One minute he would be silently studying the wheels of a toy truck like he was investigating a crime scene, and the next he would be shrieking because his banana had “broken wrong.”

He loved dinosaurs, but only “scary ones.” He refused to wear socks that had seams in the wrong place. He called the moon “the night light” and cried once because you explained he couldn’t take it home. He had Dex’s face in miniature and your habit of talking to himself while concentrating, which meant you spent most mornings watching your tiny blond child line up toy animals on the floor and whisper, “No, no, you go there. No, you not listening.”

You were a good mother. You packed snacks. You remembered nursery forms. You cut grapes in half. You kept emergency wipes in every bag you owned. You sang the same bedtime song three times if Leo asked, even when your throat hurt and your body felt hollow from work and worry and loving a man the world had never stopped punishing.

Dex knew all of that through you. Leo liked peas this week. Leo hated peas this week. Leo asked why cats had no eyebrows. Leo threw a shoe at the wall because bedtime was, apparently, “a bad idea.” Leo had asked about Daddy again.

You and Leo had become the one fragile architecture that kept Dex going. Vanessa understood that because Vanessa Fisk understood devotion, even when it was ugly. 

So when she found out about you and Leo, it was over.

She came to Dex with ammo in her metaphorical gun.

This was no way to live, she told him, taking away the meds. Was this what he wanted? To hear about his son in secondhand stories? To let you raise a child alone while other men opened doors for you, helped carry groceries, taught Leo to kick a ball, to ride a bike, to be brave? Raising a child was hard, wasn’t it? You were young. Lonely. Exhausted. Beautiful. How long before someone else started looking less like help and more like a replacement?

Didn’t he want to be a husband? A father? Didn’t he want to come home?

Then, she gave him a photo of you at home, hair tied back, Leo on your hip. How… did she get this photo?

Then she gave him structure: Kill Foggy first. Then he could go to you and Leo.

That was the order of how it went. It was a task, a reward, a way back to the only life he still cared about. And Dex had always been most dangerous when someone took his pain and turned it into a sequence.

So he killed Foggy Nelson. And afterward, when they dragged him back into court, you wanted to see him.

Not because you excused murder. Not because Foggy didn’t matter. But because you were his wife, and you knew that Dex didn’t kill like that out of nowhere.

He wouldn’t simply go on a rampage. He didn’t wake up one day and decide he would burn every bridge that led to you. He loved you too much for that. So you came to the conclusion that someone must've reached into the most frightened part of him, and aimed him again.

You knew that, but the court didn’t care. This time, the court issued an order. It was for your son’s sake, they said. An injunction, no contact. You and Leo were not to be in the same room as Benjamin Poindexter. Not in court, not in visitation, not anywhere a judge could prevent it.

You stood very still when they told you this.

Leo was at home with your mother, probably refusing lunch because the sandwich had been cut into triangles instead of squares.

You didn’t cry. Not when the injunction was read. Not even when Dex was sentenced for the second time. You just listened. Then you got to work.

Because crying would come later, probably in the shower, probably with one hand over your mouth so Leo wouldn’t hear. But right then, there were lawyers to call, motions to file, and records to request. You knew your husband. You knew what manipulation looked like when he was the one pointed like a weapon.

And after court, you went back to Leo. He was sitting on the living room floor in dinosaur pyjamas even though it was the afternoon, blond hair sticking up at the back, one sock on and one sock missing for reasons nobody could explain. He looked up when you came in, toy stegosaurus clutched in one hand.

“Mama,” he said seriously, “Nana said no more crackers.”

You knelt in front of him, your knees cracking with the exhaustion of the day. “Your grandma is probably right.”

Leo frowned like you had betrayed him on a legal level. “I need snacks.”

“You had a snack.”

“I need more snacks.”

“You need dinner.”

He considered that, then lifted the stegosaurus. “Dino needs crackers.”

“Dino can have pretend crackers.”

Leo stared at you with Dex’s eyes. For one awful second, you almost laughed and almost cried at the same time. Instead, you reached out and smoothed his hair down. It sprang back up immediately.

“Daddy has that face too,” you whispered.

Leo blinked. “Daddy?”

You had never lied to him. You told him Daddy was away. Daddy loved him. Daddy couldn’t come home yet. All true, and yet, none of it was enough.

“Yeah,” you said softly. “Daddy.”

Leo looked down at his dinosaur, then back at you. “Daddy like dinos?”

You smiled even though your throat hurt. “I think Daddy would like whatever you like.”

Leo nodded, satisfied by that, and shoved the stegosaurus into your lap. “Then Daddy like this one. He bite.”

You held the toy carefully, like it was evidence. “Yeah,” you whispered. “He bite.”

Leo climbed into your lap after that, all knees and elbows, and you wrapped both arms around him. He smelled like shampoo and the strawberry yoghurt he had somehow gotten on his sleeve. He pressed his face into your shoulder for exactly four seconds before wriggling away again because three-year-olds loved affection on their own schedule.

You let him go. You watched him return to his line of dinosaurs, babbling to himself, head bent in concentration.

You opened your notes app and started another list: Lawyer. Injunction appeal. Facility records. Contact restrictions. Dex’s medication logs. Visitor records.

You could be heartbroken later. Right now, you were Leo’s mother. Dex’s wife. And someone had used your family to turn your husband into a weapon again.

And you were going to find out why.

—

A year later, you were watching the news while Leo played on the carpet.

Not watching, really. You were letting it sit on in the background while you moved through the living room with half your attention split into a dozen places at once. Leo’s sippy cup was on the coffee table. His toy dinosaurs were arranged in a careful little line near your foot. A postcard Johnathan had sent from the Bahamas with his boyfriend on the fridge. There was a basket of laundry on the chair you had been meaning to fold since yesterday, and your laptop sat open on the sofa beside you, full of documents, court filings, old visitor logs, psychiatric reports, and all the research you had been collecting like ammunition.

You had been working for weeks. You had names, dates, transfer notices, facility records, connections that were too neat to be coincidence. You had followed the clues until your stomach turned. Dex was going to be moved into general population, and it was not an administrative error. It was not random. It had the Fisks’ fingerprints all over it, even if she was careful enough never to leave them where a normal person could see.

After all, it hadn’t taken you long to find out about the Red Hook charter. That part had been almost laughably easy. Child’s play, really.

The public library had a stack of old municipal records tucked away in the back, half-forgotten beneath outdated notices and donation forms. Someone had slapped a label on the box years ago — NEEDS TO BE SHREDDED — and then, by some miracle of underfunded bureaucracy, no one ever had.

So you had done the one thing you could think of and sent Matt Murdock an anonymous tip. You didn't give a signature or explanation. It was just enough information to make him look where he needed to look. It was just enough to prove to him that Dex was not acting on his own.

Matt went to see him that morning. You knew because you still had someone inside the prison willing to tell you what the official channels never would. A friend, barely. A contact, more accurately. 

Then, that night, the news broke: Benjamin Poindexter had escaped from prison and attempted to assassinate the mayor.

Your husband’s name was on every channel again. Your husband’s face was dragged back into the world as a threat, a headline, a monster with a body count and no context anyone cared to say out loud.

You stood frozen in the middle of your living room, remote in hand, while the news anchor spoke over footage you could barely process. On the carpet, Leo lifted his plastic stegosaurus and made it bite the sofa cushion.

“Rawr,” he said seriously.

You looked down at him and how completely unaware he was that his father had just broken out of prison and tried to kill a man.

Leo was too busy frowning at the stegosaurus with Dex’s whole face in miniature, pale brows pulled together, mouth pressed into a stern little line. “No,” he told the dinosaur, pushing its plastic nose away from the triceratops. “No bully.”

The stegosaurus apparently disagreed, because Leo made it chomp again. Then he gasped, offended by his own storyline. “No. Bully bad.” He picked up the stegosaurus, turned it toward the triceratops, and shook it gently. “You say sorry.”

You stared at him.

Leo bumped the stegosaurus’s head carefully against the triceratops. “Sowwy,” he said in a deeper voice.

Then he made the triceratops pat the stegosaurus on the head. “Okay. Be kind now.”

Your chest tightened so hard you had to sit down.

Leo looked up. “Mama?”

“I’m okay,” you said too quickly.

He stared at you with Dex’s eyes, unconvinced.

You turned the volume down, but not off. You couldn’t make yourself turn it off. You sat there with Leo at your feet and the whole city falling apart on-screen, trying to understand the sequence. Matt’s visit. The transfer. The Fisks. Dex escaping. The mayor. None of it random. None of it was out of nowhere, and you probably were the one to set this into motion the second you gave the anonymous tip.

“Mama,” Leo said again, holding up a toy. “Dino hungry.”

“Dino is always hungry,” you whispered.

“Need snack.”

“Okay,” you said, because your voice was already too close to breaking and arguing with a four-year-old about a plastic dinosaur felt like the one thing you could actually survive. “Let me check what we have.”

You stood and crossed into the kitchen, still listening to the news. The fridge light came on cold and white across your face. You stared into it without really seeing anything: half a punnet of strawberries, Leo’s yoghurt, and Leftover pasta. A little container of cut grapes.

The news anchor said Dex’s name again. Your hand tightened around the fridge door.

You reached for Leo’s yoghurt, then stopped because he had asked for a snack for the dinosaur, not himself, and for one absurd second that distinction mattered enough to make you laugh under your breath.

Then you realised that Leo was… silent. He wasn’t babbling. He wasn’t talking to his toys. Is he okay?

Worried, you looked back into the living room.

Leo was standing in the middle of the carpet, one dinosaur clutched in his hand, his small body frozen in a way that made the back of your neck prickle.

He was waving at the window.

No. Not the window. The fire escape.

Beyond the glass, half-hidden in the dark metal lines of the fire escape, was his father.

Oh.

Little did you know, Dex had already been there for fifteen minutes.

Fifteen whole minutes of being half-hidden in the dark, one hand braced against the cold metal railing while he looked into the life he had only known through your stories. At first, he watched you, moving through the living room with the television flickering against your face, beautiful and alive, one hand absently touching your wedding ring while you tried to hold the world together through the sheer refusal to give up on him.

But when his eyes found Leo, Dex forgot how to breathe.

He knew what his son looked like from photographs. He knew he had blond hair, serious eyes, and that little frown you always said was his. But seeing Leo in person was different. It was jarring, how much he actually looked like him. Leo was now a real person to Dex, sitting cross-legged on the carpet in dinosaur pyjamas, scolding a plastic stegosaurus for biting another toy.

Dex watched Leo make the dinosaur apologise. He watched Leo say that bullying was bad. He watched his son choose kindness with no one guiding him toward it.

Oh. Leo looked like him, but he was good in a way Dex had never been able to be without help. Dex had always needed a North Star, someone outside him to point toward right when his own internal compass spun uselessly in the dark. He would always need you that way, always look to you when the world blurred at the edges and everything started to feel lost.

But Leo did not need a North Star. Leo had one inside him. Leo had a functioning moral compass in a tiny body with Dex’s face and your kindness. Dex’s focus, but not his emptiness. Dex’s intensity, but not his fracture. Dex, if someone had loved him correctly from the start.

And that was when Dex understood that he loved him. And not in the distant, complicated love he had forced himself to. Not just because Leo was yours, or because Leo was his, or because Leo had kept you tethered to him while the rest of the world tried to take him away.

Now, he loved Leo because Leo was a good version of him. Because protecting Leo suddenly felt a lot like self-preservation. Like if Dex could keep this child safe, if he could make sure the world never reached into Leo and broke the compass before it had a chance to grow, then maybe some part of himself could be saved too.

Then Leo noticed him.

Dex saw the exact second it happened. Leo’s head turned, eyes lifting past the kitchen table, past the window, to the dark shape crouched on the fire escape.

For one breathless second, Dex couldn't move. He had been caught. Not by the police. Not by guards. Not by Daredevil. By a four-year-old boy. 

Leo didn’t scream. He didn’t cry. Of course not. He was your son, too. He was brave, like you. 

He only blinked, then lifted one small hand and waved.

Because Dex didn't want to scare him, because he did not know how fathers were supposed to wave at sons they had never held, Dex lifted his hand and waved back.

That was when you noticed.

And fuck, he couldn’t wait to be in your arms again.

The second you got the window open, Dex came through it, one hand catching the frame, the other already reaching for you. The sniper rifle was still strapped across his back, cold against the warmth of your apartment.

You barely had time to say his name before his hands were on you.

He pulled you into him so quickly your feet left the floor, spinning you half across the living room with a strength that startled a laugh out of you before it broke into a sob. His arms locked around your waist, your hands flew to his shoulders, and then his mouth was on yours. The kiss was clumsy in the way only grief and longing could be clumsy. He kissed you like every locked door, every court order, every year stolen from you both had narrowed into this one second.

He tasted like blood and rain. His lip was split. One of his teeth was missing. There were stitches along his forehead and dirt at the edge of his chin, but he was here. Your husband was in your living room with his body against yours and his hands on your back like he was trying to convince himself you were not another trick his mind played against him.

“I missed you,” you breathed against his mouth.

Dex made a broken sound and kissed you again. “I missed you.”

“No, baby,” you whispered, laughing and crying at the same time as you pressed kisses to his mouth, his cheek, the corner of his cheekbones, the scar you’ve yet to trace there. “I missed you. I missed you so much.”

His forehead dropped to yours. For a second, he just held you there, eyes closed, breathing you in like he had forgotten the world. His fingers moved at your waist, not quite gripping, not quite letting go, that old helpless need in him trying so hard to be gentle and failing only because there was too much feeling in one body.

Then a small voice behind you said, “Mama?”

It went through him all at once, the way a person remembered fire after touching a flame. His hands stayed on you, but his whole body locked up, breath caught, eyes opening with a kind of fear you had never seen in him. 

Because no, Benjamin Poindexter had no defence against a four-year-old boy in dinosaur pyjamas.

Slowly, you turned in his arms to see Leo stood in the middle of the carpet with one sock missing and his stegosaurus tucked under one arm. His round little face was serious, sleepy, and curious. He looked much like Dex, it made your chest hurt, but he was smaller, untouched by every cruel thing that had made his father into a weapon.

“Mama,” Leo asked, pointing the dinosaur toward Dex, “who’s this?”

Dex’s breath hitched, you felt it under your palm.

For a moment, you couldn’t answer. You had imagined this introduction a hundred different ways over the years. Maybe in a supervised visitation room. Or through a phone call. Maybe one day in some future where paperwork finally gave way and Leo was old enough to understand more than he should have to. You had not imagined Dex standing in your apartment with a rifle on his back, blood at his mouth, wanted by half the city, looking down at his son like the universe had placed his missing pieces in a boy that looked like a mirror.

You swallowed.“Leo,” you said softly, voice shaking. “This is Daddy.”

Dex inhaled like the word had gone straight through him.

Leo blinked up at him. “Hi daddy,” he repeated, testing the shape of it.

Dex was still trying to keep himself held together with force and habit and whatever discipline had survived. But a foreign emotion moved across him as you felt your own eyes fill again.

“Hi, Leo,” he whispered. His voice was wrecked.

Leo studied him with the grave suspicion of a child encountering an adult who looked both interesting and badly assembled. His eyes moved over Dex’s face. Then his little brows pulled together.

“Your teeth is missing,” Leo said.

You made a small sound, half laugh, half sob.

Dex blinked at him. “What?”

Leo took one step closer, stegosaurus still tucked under his arm like backup. “Your teeth is missing. Are you okay?”

And that was what broke him.

Not the years he had lost. Not even the word Daddy, though that had nearly taken his knees out. It was the concern in his son’s voice, the immediate, unprompted softness. The way Leo saw something wrong and, instead of flinching from him, asked if he was okay.

Dex lowered himself slowly to one knee, as if sudden movement might shatter the moment.

The rifle shifted against his back, so violently out of place beside your son’s little bare foot on the carpet. Dex seemed to realise it too. His hand moved as if to take it off, then stopped, uncertain, afraid to do anything too fast with Leo so close.

“I’m okay,” Dex said carefully.

Leo looked unconvinced. “Mama has plasters.”

Dex looked up at you.Your hand went to your mouth, and you cried properly then, because Leo had no idea what he was offering. No idea that his father had come through the window carrying a weapon and a history no child should have to understand. No idea that asking about a missing tooth and suggesting a plaster was the kindest thing anyone had said to Dex all year.

Dex looked back at him, and saw a person. A tiny person with Dex’s hair and Dex’s nose and Dex’s mouth, but he was human, in the way he never was. He was kind.

Leo was everything Dex had wanted to be and never knew how. Leo was a good version of him.

For the first time in Dex’s life, he looked at someone smaller than him and thought, with stunned humility, that he might have something to learn.

From his son, his better self.

Leo tilted his head. “You want Dino?”

Dex looked at the stegosaurus like it was sacred.

Then he held out both hands, slowly, carefully, letting Leo decide.

Leo stepped closer and placed the dinosaur into his palms.

Dex took it as if it weighed more than the rifle on his back. As if this battered little plastic toy had more power to undo him than any weapon ever made.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

Leo nodded, satisfied by the manners, then moved closer. His small hand lifted and patted Dex’s cheek, not quite where the scar was, gentle in the imprecise way of toddlers trying their best.

Dex’s eyes snapped to yours. There was panic there. Wonder. A silent, helpless question: What do I do?

You sank down beside them, one hand on Leo’s back, the other reaching for Dex’s face.  “You’re doing okay,” you whispered.

Leo patted him again, then leaned forward and, with the sudden trust only children could offer, pressed himself into Dex’s chest.

Dex stopped breathing. Then, slowly, so slowly it made your heart ache, his arms came around your son.

Leo fit against him like he had always belonged there, his same-colored hair tucked beneath Dex’s chin. Dex held him as if the whole room might punish him for wanting it too much, as if any wrong movement would prove he didn;t deserve this.

You watched his hand spread carefully over Leo’s back. The same hand that had hurt people. The same hand that had held weapons. That same hand that now shook from the effort of touching his son gently enough.

Leo looked up from Dex’s chest. “Are you cold?”

Dex swallowed. “A little.”

Leo considered that, then turned to you. “Mama, Daddy need blanket.”

You laughed through tears. “Yeah,” you whispered. “Maybe he does.”

Dex closed his eyes.

His face bent toward Leo’s hair, and for a second he didn’t quite kiss him, He only breathed there, close enough to smell the child he had made and never held. Shampoo. Crackers. Life. His son smelled like life.

When Dex opened his eyes again, they were wet. He looked at you over Leo’s head, and the room seemed to fold around the three of you. 

“I missed everything,” he whispered.

You moved closer, pressing your forehead to his shoulder, one hand covering his where it rested on Leo’s back. “You’re here now.”

It was not enough, you both knew that. It was nowhere near enough.

But Leo wriggled in Dex’s arms and said, “Daddy, Dino hungry,” with the complete seriousness of a child who had accepted this new adult into his world and immediately assigned him responsibilities.

Dex looked down at him. Then at the dinosaur. Then back at you, for instruction. You tilted your chin like, go on.

“What does Dino eat?” he managed.

Leo gasped, scandalised that his own father didn’t know. “Crackers.”

Dex looked at you, and you nodded, so he also nodded, “Okay.”

Dex knew now that he was meant to love Leo because Leo was his second chance in miniature. 

And Leo had no idea his father would burn the world to keep him safe. Because in the end, that's what makes him a good man, right?

—end.

Extra note : I keep getting distracted from my Dex x reader / ex!Bucky fic, but I promise it’s on its way. In the meantime, my immediate thought after writing this is a sequel where Reader and Dex finds out Leo has powers (is a mutant) and that’s why Dex starts killing anti-vigilante task force. Because he wants to protect his son. (No promises, but let me know if anyone’s interested!)

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

To you, they were not lovers. Not even customers, really.

They were leverage.

You hunted men who had something to lose.

Not the lonely ones, or the broke ones. Not the ones who came in with empty pockets and honest eyes. Those were harmless. You adored them, actually. You loved giving those ones a private lap dance for half your usual rate. Most of them just wanted human connection, and you were lacking those these days so… they helped. 

But no. Instead, you went for the ones who carried entire worlds in their suit pockets. You went for men who signed paychecks that moved lives around like chess pieces. Men with wives who wore diamonds bought with lies. Men who spoke about integrity in boardrooms and forgot it in private booths.

Powerful men. Rich men. Married men.

Especially married men.

Because nothing made a man more generous than fear of their wives finding out. 

Their first mistake was that they always talked too much.

They thought you were simple. They thought you were just another pretty girl who didn’t understand contracts, NDAs, offshore accounts, or the architecture of reputation. They underestimated how often you’d heard the word “confidential” used as a joke before someone tried to touch you like it didn’t apply.

So they spoke freely of their business deals and insider information while you feigned your empathy for their oh-so-difficult lives. They’d start thinking you actually cared. Then they’d start pouring their heart out, telling you names of people they shouldn’t have named. They started confessing things they did when they thought no one important was watching.

And you listened. You always smiled, tilting your head like you were flattered to be trusted. Like you were weak enough to be safe.

Then you collected.

You’d snap a photo at the right angle. You’d send yourself a message thread left open on a borrowed phone. You’d record audio with a wire you planted in the private room. 

Blackmail wasn’t messy when done properly. It was arithmetic.

You never asked for much at first. Money, of course. You’d bat your pretty eyelashes and say that you’d keep your sweet mouth shut and continue being their favourite dance for some funds. You’d request small transfers that looked like indulgence, not extortion. Then favors. Then access. Information that opened doors you were never meant to walk through.

When you got enough information, you’d move on to bigger accounts. Ask for open credit cards to shop, to help some of the other girls pay off hospital bills of loved ones and student loans. Once, you even convinced an older gentleman to get an apartment in the city under your name. How else could you possibly afford to live mortgage-free in a midtown Manhattan apartment with rooftop access? 

And when they got greedy, when they started thinking money could buy you, when they thought they could touch you without consequence, you’d stopped being negotiable.

That’s when the wives learned the truth.

You’d send a carefully curated message. A screenshot of a text their husband sent, inquiring how much it would be to purchase your stage-worn lingerie. A recording of a call you had with their husbands saying things like “I can get you a villa in Italy, sweetheart. Is that when you’ll finally let me fuck you?” 

You didn’t enjoy the panic that followed, but you respected its efficiency.

Men told you many things because they saw you as disposable. They often forgot that being underestimated was its own kind of power.

By the time they realized you were using it, it was already too late.

—

The first time you saw him, it was a Monday.

It was always slow for business on weekdays. A few regulars were scattered around, a couple of half-drunk businessmen pretending they weren’t checking their phones every five seconds, and the girls rotating lazily through their sets.

You didn’t need to be there.

You’d had a good run lately, very good. You managed to hustle six figures from a man who was desperately trying to cover up the fact that he was going for women two years younger than his daughter. You could’ve taken the night off, and slept in your new silk sheets, ordered something expensive, ignored the world.

But you were bored. So you came to work. 

Now here you were, getting on stage for your set.

You climbed the pole like muscle memory, body moving in fluid motions, the kind that made men think they were witnessing intimacy when really it was just a repetition.

You didn’t bother scanning the room at the start, but halfway through a turn, when you dipped low and let your hair brush the stage, your eyes lifted and caught on him.

A man with a scar on his cheek, bathed the same blue lights as you, sitting by the bar. He was watching you, but not like the others. He had no self-absorbed smirk on his face, no lazy entitlement in his eyes. He didn’t have that arrogant hunger that made your skin itch. What he had for you was pure laser focus.

Pretty, you thought immediately.

He was your type. Clean-cut but not soft, hypervigilant posture, so probably ex-military. He was athletic and had a defined jawline, a determined look on his face. His hazel eyes didn’t even wander when another girl crossed his line of sight.

And he looked… out of place.

Like someone who had taken a wrong turn and ended up here by accident. Except, he wasn’t leaving.

You finished your set to polite applause and a few thrown bills you didn’t bother collecting right away.

Your attention stayed on him.

He hadn’t moved, hadn’t reached for a drink. He hadn’t even blinked much, from what you could tell.

Yeah. Definitely weird.

—

You slipped into a robe backstage, tying it loosely around your waist. One of the girls said something to you, and you laughed, but your mind was already elsewhere.

It was on the man at the bar. 

You didn’t chase men. They came to you. But curiosity was its own kind of itch, and you had never been good at ignoring those.

So you opened the stage access door and found him.

It was quiet enough that no one cared that you slid onto the stool beside him. The bartender gave you a knowing glance and went back to polishing glasses.

He didn’t turn immediately when you sat down, but you could tell that his awareness was shifting.

“First time?” you asked lightly, resting your elbow on the counter, chin in your hand. Your voice was playful. It was the same voice you used on every man who thought he might be special.

He turned a little. “Is it that obvious?” he asked. His tone was controlled. 

You smiled sweetly, but it wasn’t saccharine. “You’re not drinking. You’re not staring at everyone else like you’ve never seen a naked woman before. And you haven’t tried to touch anyone.”

He shrugged. “I didn’t think I was supposed to.”

That made you laugh. “Congratulations,” you said. “You’re already better than half the men in here.”

His expression didn’t change much, but his eyes darted pleasantly, like he was cataloguing the sound of your laugh.

“You were watching me,” you added, tilting your head.

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. 

“Why?” you asked.

You expected him to say something rehearsed. A compliment, maybe line.

Instead, he said, “You are the only thing that made sense.”

Your smile faltered, only for a second. That wasn’t a normal answer.

“You don’t seem like you belong here,” you said, steering to a safer topic but still trying to coax his motives out of him. 

“I don’t,” he agreed.

“So why come?”

His eyes flicked over your face, like he was memorizing it. “I wanted to see you.”

You were good with faces, especially the ones worth remembering. But you didn’t remember him.

“Have we met?” you asked.

He nodded hesitantly. 

You narrowed your eyes slightly, studying him again, more carefully this time. “Where?”

“The cafe down the street,” he said. “You go there in the mornings.”

Ah. That did narrow it down.

You had your places, and the cafe down the street, a modern coffee house called Third Space, did make a mean Americano.

And yet… you had nothing. No memory of him standing in line, no passing glance, no familiar face.

So it was either he was lying, or you had missed something.

“I think I’d remember you,” you said, a hint of amusement threading through your voice. “Trust me.”

He tilted his head curiously.

“You’re my type,” you explained, suddenly sheepish. You rarely tell potential clients that, and even then, it was never the truth. Well, until now. 

It was flirting. A hook, lightly cast. Most men would’ve lit up, leaned in, gotten bold with it.

He just… smiled shyly, almost uncertain, like he didn’t quite know what to do with the information, but liked it anyway.

“Maybe you just weren’t looking at me,” he said.

“Hm,” you hummed, unconvinced, but not dismissing the possibility entirely. “You’ve got a name?” you asked after a second.

“Dex,” he said.

“Dex,” you repeated. “You gonna buy me a drink, or are you just going to sit there and stare all night?”

He nodded, almost shy all of a sudden. You watched him signal the bartender, watched the way he moved, the way his attention kept slipping back to you like everything else in the room was just background noise.

—

You didn’t leave. That was the first sign something was off, because you always left after ten minutes. 

You always knew exactly when a conversation had run its course, when a man had given you everything he was going to give, when it was time to smile sweetly and slip away before anything real could take root. But tonight, you stayed on that barstool beside him like you had nowhere better to be, like the hum of the music and the dim lights and him were enough to hold your attention. That alone should have told you this wasn’t going to go the way things usually did.

“You’re thinking too hard,” you said, watching the way his fingers curled around his glass, like even something as simple as drinking had rules he needed to follow.

“I’m not,” he replied, but there was a hesitation before it, just long enough for you to smile simply because you caught it.

“You are,” you insisted, leaning in, close enough that he had to notice, close enough that most men would’ve taken it as an invitation. He didn’t. “It’s… kind of cute.”

His eyes flicked to yours, like he didn’t know what to do with that. “Cute isn’t usually what people call me.”

“Do I look like most people?” you shot back easily, letting your knee brush his, pretending it was accidental. You watched the way he froze for a second, not pulling away, not leaning in either.

Fuck, you liked him. You realized it in real time, and it felt inconvenient and unfamiliar. 

You didn’t usually do this, you didn’t sit and talk just to talk, didn’t linger unless there was something to gain. Yet, here you were, not even wondering what you could take from him. 

“So what do you do, Dex?” you asked, tilting your head, letting your robe slip just slightly off your shoulder. He noticed, but his eyes snapped back up like he was forcing them to.

“I work,” he said, and you laughed all the same.

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one I have.”

“Mm, mysterious,” you teased. “Or boring. Haven’t decided yet.”

He glanced at you again, and there was uncertainty, maybe, or disbelief. He still hadn’t figured out why you were sitting here. “You could be making money right now,” he said, almost like he was hyperaware for it.

“I could,” you agreed lightly. “But I don’t need to.”

That surprised him. You could tell by the way his brows pulled together, just slightly. “How much is ‘don’t need to’?”

You shrugged, taking a sip of your whiskey. “Enough.”

And that was all he was getting.

You were good at what you did. You didn’t waste time. Except, apparently, tonight. Except, apparently, on him.

“You know what’s funny?” You chuckled. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

His hazel eyes settled on you again, and still refused to say a word. 

“Hm,” you hummed, then tilted your head, a smirk tugging at your lips. “What, are you some kind of gun for hire?”

You meant it half as a joke, but the way he went still told you that you’d probably struck a nerve.

Oh. Your smile widened just a fraction.

“I didn’t say that,” he replied carefully.

“You didn’t say no either,” you countered, leaning in just enough to make it feel like a secret between the two of you.

He looked down. “Would it matter?”

You held his gaze for a second, actually considering it. Usually, it would, usually men like that came with complications you didn’t feel like dealing with, but you weren’t looking at him like a problem to solve, were you? 

“No,” you said dismissively. “Not really.”

And you meant that, too.

“I don’t know why you’re still talking to me,” he said as if his mouth didn’t have a filter to bypass his brain, like it didn’t fit into whatever understanding he had of how places like this worked.

You raised a brow. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No.” He said, a little too quickly.

“Then relax.” You smiled, pleased in a way you didn’t bother hiding. Slowly, you placed your hand over his arm, meant as a comfort, not a flirt. 

That shut him up. 

The second drink came easier, the space between you shrinking without either of you acknowledging it. Your body inched toward his, your voice smaller, more intimate, less like a performance the longer it went on, the more certain you became that this— that he— wasn’t someone you wanted to exploit. 

You could have. There was always something to take if you looked hard enough. But you didn’t want to look. If anything, he felt like a self-indulgence, an unnecessary risk that was entirely yours to enjoy for no reason other than you wanted to.

So you didn’t think about it too hard when you set your glass down and reached for his wrist, already sliding off the stool as you tugged him with you. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?” he asked, his brain trying to keep up with his feet.

“Private booth, and don’t worry about it. This one’s on the house.”

He looked like he hadn’t quite wrapped it around his head but didn’t want to fight it, like none of this made sense to him. He let you lead him like he trusted you already, like he didn’t need to understand it to accept it.

You tugged him again, gentler now, coaxing instead of pulling. 

His breath startled again, that small, involuntary reaction you were starting to recognize, starting to like a little too much.

—

The private room was quieter than the rest of the club, the bass reduced to a distant thrum that felt more like a heartbeat than music.

Dex stopped just inside the doorway.

You noticed that immediately.

Most men walked in like they owned the place, like this was the part they’d been waiting for all night. He looked like he’d stepped into an alien planet. 

You turned, still holding his wrist, and gave a small, amused smile. “You okay?”

“Yes,” he said quickly. “I think so.”

You let go of his wrist and gestured toward the seat. “Sit.”

He did, immediately, like he’d been given an order he didn’t question, perching on the edge rather than leaning back, like he didn’t know what to do with his body in a place like this.

You took your time.

That was part of it, always. The anticipation, the control of pace. You stepped closer slowly, letting your fingers drift to the edge of your robe, then paused, glancing at him through your lashes.

“Hey,” you said, just wanting to make sure. “You good with me actually… you know.” You gave a teasing tilt of your head. “Stripping?”

He blinked. “…uh,” he managed, clearly caught off guard by the question itself. “Yes?”

You smiled, a little wider this time. The uncertainty was almost endearing. “Yeah?”

“Yes,” he repeated, firmer now, even if his ears had gone just slightly red.

“Okay.” You nodded once, then added, “Just so you know, no touching unless I say so. Club rules.”

“I—” he started, then stopped himself, teeth clenching slightly. “Okay.”

He didn’t know where to look at first, which was ridiculous, because he had spent nights watching you from across the room without blinking, memorizing the way you moved, the way you smiled, the way you existed in a space like you owned it. But this… this was different. This was proximity. You were within reach.

Slowly, you let the robe slip from your shoulders inch by inch, and tonight it felt… different. Less like you were putting on a show, more like you were letting him see something he hadn’t earned and you weren’t trying to sell.

You let the silk robe slide from your shoulders, slower this time, not dropping it right away. You let it drag against your skin, down your arms.

When it finally slipped free, you just let it fall. Your attention still locked on him, and on the way he was looking at you.

You stepped between his knees, close enough that he had to tilt his head up slightly just to keep your face in view, your hand coming to rest lightly against his shoulder.

“You’re doing good,” you sounded like a tease, though you meant it as a compliment.

He let out a strained sound that might’ve been a breath or might’ve been your name.

Oh. He liked that. 

“You’re…” he started, then stopped.

You tilted your head slightly, still moving, still close enough that your breath mingled with his. “What?”

His eyes met yours again, darker now, wilderness flickering beneath all that control. “You’re… a lot.”

You can’t help but giggle at that. “Good or bad?”

“Good,” he said, like it wasn’t even a question.

You let the rest of the lingerie strip away piece by piece, like you knew exactly what it was doing to him, like you were aware of the way heartbeat had started to hammer, the way his hands pressed harder into his thighs just to keep from moving, from doing something wrong, from giving in to every intrusive thought and fucking it up. 

“You can look,” you murmured.

He almost laughed at that.

“I am,” he said, because there was no point pretending otherwise.

You stepped closer again. Close enough that he could feel your warmth before you even touched him, close enough that his body reacted instinctively, tension pulling tighter, his breath stumbling for a second before he forced it back under control.

You slid your knee onto the seat beside his leg, then the other, straddling his lap without touching fully at first, giving him a second to adjust.

When you let your body settle on him, your hands slid over his shoulders, down his chest, like you were the one in control of how fast this went, how far it went, and he let you, he needed you to, because he wasn’t sure he could manage it on his own.

His head tipped back slightly, just for a second, a pathetic exhale leaving him before he could stop it. His entire body was tense under you, every nerve lit up and focused entirely on the fact that you were there, that this was happening, that you were choosing to be this close.

You let the dance stretch longer than you needed to, mostly because of how amazed you were with yourself that this didn’t feel like work.

Which was new.

When the music shifted, you slowed, then stopped. You smiled, easing off his lap, retrieving your robe and slipping it back on, but not closing it all the way.

You nudged his arm lightly with yours. “We don’t have to go back out there, you know.”

He glanced at you, then at the door.

“You don’t want to?” he asked.

You shook your head, a small smile playing on your lips. “We could just… stay here and talk.”

He studied you for a second, like he was trying to figure out if this was another part of the act.

He concluded that it wasn’t.

“I’d like that,” he said, but what he really meant was— I don’t want to share you.

—

The next time you saw him was a pleasant surprise. 

You were at the club again, and he was already there, waiting for you. He was sitting in the same seat, posture just as straight, eyes already fixed on you like he’d been tracking your every movement from the second you stepped on stage, you didn’t look away this time. You smiled. 

You finished your set quicker than you meant to. Or  maybe it just felt that way, your body moving through motions it knew too well while your attention stayed anchored to him.

The second the music faded you were already reaching for your robe, already tying it loosely as you made your way straight to the bar without hesitation, sliding onto the stool beside him like this had always been the plan. 

“Hey, you,” you said, leaning your arm against the counter, angling yourself toward him in a way that felt natural like you’d done this a hundred times instead of once before.

His head turned immediately, as if he’d been waiting for the exact moment you’d come down to him.

“Hi,” he said, and it came out gentler this time, like your presence gave him a focal point to cling onto.

“You’re becoming a regular,” you teased.

“I go where you are,” he replied, just as simply as before. You huffed a laugh, shaking your head even as your lips curved because he said things like that so easily, like they weren’t a walking red flag.

Talking to him felt as natural as it did before. You teased him about how stiff he still looked, he told you he didn’t know what to do with his hands, you laughed and nudged them onto the bar for him.

You didn’t even notice the way his attention flickered whenever another man else looked at you, didn’t catch the subtle tightening in his teeth when your laugh carried to someone who wasn’t him, didn’t see the way his hand curled slightly around his glass when a man across the room leaned forward like he was considering approaching. You weren’t looking for that. You weren’t looking for danger here.

“Hey,” one of the girls said, tapping your shoulder, pulling you out of the moment.

You turned, already halfway into a smile. “Yeah?”

She tilted her head toward the other end of the bar. “New guy. He’s asking for you.”

You followed her gaze, eyes landing on a man you didn’t recognize. He was well-dressed, confident. He looked like the kind that tipped without hesitation.  

Ah. Opportunity. Easy money. 

When you turned back to Dex, your smile had shifted, not entirely false but not entirely his anymore either. “Duty calls,” you said lightly, pushing off the stool.

You were already adjusting your robe, already stepping back into the version of yourself that knew exactly how to handle men like that, already moving away before you could think too hard about the fact that you didn’t actually want to.

Behind you, Dex didn’t move, didn’t look away.

He watched the man who had asked for you, watched the way you smiled at him, the way you leaned in just slightly.

Jealousy bubbled up in his chest. It was cold and unfamiliar to you but deeply familiar to him. 

Where you saw a job, he saw a threat.

And the difference between those two things was about to matter more than you realized.

—

At the end of the night, you expected to find an empty club. You didn’t think that Dex would still be there.

You invited him backstage. It wasn’t a big deal— all the other girls had left when you said you’d count for them since you have a day off tomorrow. Besides, you didn’t want him to be alone out there, waiting for nothing. 

He watched as you sat cross-legged on a leather couch with a small pile of bills spread out in front of you, sorting them out with ease. It wasn’t complicated work. It just took time.

Dex awkwardly stood there, not really knowing what to do. You glanced up once and went back to counting.

“You…  don’t have to stay,” you said eventually. Your voice was brighter than it should’ve been for how late it was. “It’s a slow night. I’ve got it.”

Dex didn’t answer. Instead, he sat on the edge of the couch near your feet. After a moment, he picked up a small stack of bills you’d already sorted and aligned the edges to perfection.

“I can help,” he said simply.

You finally looked at him then, amused. “You’re volunteering to count stripper money?”

He paused for half a beat, like he was recalibrating how that sounded. “I can count.”

That made you laugh.

“Alright,” you said, pushing a small stack toward him. “Go on then. Try not to get overwhelmed.”

He started counting beside you.

It should’ve been nothing. Just paper, numbers, time passing. But Dex was precise, and that made the task feel different. He didn’t rush. He didn’t miss anything. When you miscounted one stack out of habit, he corrected it without pointing it out directly, he’d just set the extra bill back in place like it had always belonged there.

“You’re weirdly good at this,” you said after a while, leaning back on your hands.

Dex didn’t look up. “It’s not complicated.”

“It is when I do it,” You groaned playfully. 

That earned you the faintest smile, like he wasn’t entirely sure he was allowed to have it. He handed you the last stack.

You let out a breath and tilted your head back against the couch. “Or maybe I just find it boring. Well, at least it is when you’re not here.”

Dex looked at you.

“I like it,” he said simply.

You raised a brow. “Counting money?”

He tilted his head.

“…This,” he corrected.

And for a moment, neither of you moved. The club kept thudding faintly around you, distant and unimportant, while the bills sat forgotten between your hands. 

And for once, you didn’t get up.

“We…” you said after a moment, tapping your finger idly against the edges of the paper, “we should probably stop meeting like this.”

“Like what?”

You gestured vaguely around you— at the bills, the mirror, the locker. “We should meet at Third Space,” you added casually, like it wasn’t a decision you’d already made. It was the cafè he claimed to have known you from.

“I—uh…” He cleared his throat slightly. “Yeah. I’ll be there tomorrow morning.”

“Good,” you said, finally setting the stack on the pile, “I’ll see you then.”

—

You almost didn’t believe he’d show, not because he didn’t seem like the type to follow through, but because clients you liked didn’t usually hold up outside of the club. 

Daylight stripped things down, took away the illusion. Made everything too real, too visible, too easy to question.

Third Space was always busy in the mornings. You ordered, collecting your drink before you let your eyes wander. You saw him immediately. He sat like he always did, straight-backed, eyes already on you like he’d clocked your entrance way before you even spotted him. Your heart did a small, annoying flip in your chest.

“Good morning,” you said as you slid into the chair across from him, setting your cup down. “Both early, are we?”

“I didn’t want to miss you,” he said, and it wasn’t smooth, it wasn't charming. It just sat there between you, a little too honest for seven in the morning.

You just hummed, studying him properly in the daylight, noting the same things you had before, only everything clearer now.

“If this is your usual spot,” you said, wrapping your hands around your cup. “I would’ve noticed you.”

“You didn’t.” He said without a shred of humour, and you tilted your head slightly, considering him, trying to decide if that was strange or just… him. 

“What do you get?” you asked, steering the conversation for the both of you. 

“The same thing you do.”

Oh?

You let out a breath that turned into a small smile. Mostly because you didn’t know what to do with that.

Maybe it didn’t matter. Not when sitting across from him felt like, for the first time in a long time, your conversations didn’t require effort or calculation or strategy. 

While you weren’t overthinking this, Dex wasn’t so lucky.

He had always relied on structure. It was the only thing that kept the world from slipping into noise. He had patterns and routines that made people predictable and therefore manageable. He categorized everything: threats, variables, outcomes. Even people had their place. But you didn’t. 

He had tried, sitting across from you now with his hands wrapped too tightly around a cup, to assign you a functional title: distraction, temporary interest, or low-risk variable. None of it held. Every time he reached for another definition, something in it broke apart, leaving him with nothing but the fact that he wanted to be here. 

He told himself he wouldn’t come back tomorrow. There was no reason to. You hadn’t offered anything concrete, nothing useful, nothing that justified him breaking his habit. By his own standards, this was already inefficient. And yet, the next morning, he found himself at the same table again, a bit later this time, correcting for your previous arrival window. He noted the inconsistency even as he adjusted for it. For the first time in a long time, Dex allowed something in his life to exist without fixing it.

—

The third time you met him at Third Space, you were late.

Not late in any meaningful way, only five, maybe ten minutes. When came in, you noticed Dex was exactly where you expected him to be, seated at the same table near the window, untouched drink in front of him like he’d ordered it out of obligation rather than want.

His eyes found you immediately. Like he’d been waiting, and now that you were here, something had clicked back into place.

You smiled as you ordered before making your way over, sliding into the chair across from him, setting your cup down like you hadn’t kept him waiting at all.

“You look like you’ve been conducting surveillance,” you said, glancing at his untouched drink. “Should I be concerned, or flattered?”

“I was watching the door,” he said.

You let out a laugh, leaning back into your chair. “Yeah, that part I got. I meant more like… was I the target, or is this just how you pass time?”

“You were the target,” he said, just as evenly.

That shouldn’t have been funny, but it was.

“Wow,” you shook your head playfully, dragging your fingers lightly along the rim of your cup. “Straight to the point. You’re really committed to this whole… unsettling thing, huh?”

“I’m not…” He caught himself, then took a deep breath. His mouth twitched into a small smile. “I haven’t been waiting long. It’s still warm,” he said, touching the mug. You didn’t realise he was lying.

“Good,” you hummed, leaning back in your chair like you were settling in properly now. “I’d hate to think I kept you.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” he admitted, finally taking a sip. 

You tilted your head, as if you were deciding what to do with that.

“Still,” you said. “I’d hate to be wasting your time.”

“Do you even know how to do that?” he asked genuinely.

“What?” You raised a brow, reaching for your drink. “Waste time?”

“With people,” he said, then hesitated. He was deciding how much to say. “You seem… selective.”

You should’ve known. If he was really ex military or fed, like you suspected, he must have resources. He must have done research on you, a background check, perhaps. You have been careful with cleaning up your reputation, of course. But you were aware you had cracks. After all, some men have made anonymous Reddit posts about your extortion, and god knows what other forums your name has appeared in. Still, you didn't think anyone would take it seriously.

“That’s a very polite way of putting it.”

“It’s accurate,” he shrugged, relieved at your rather tame reaction.

You watched him over the rim of your cup as you took another sip. “You’ve been observing me,” you noted.

“A little,” he said, not denying it, though there was something almost sheepish in the way his eyes dipped for half a second before coming back to you.

“I wasn’t trying to be—” he paused, searching for the word. “Intrusive.”

“Oh, I don’t think you’re intrusive,” you said, leaning forward slightly, resting. “You’re just… intense.”

That earned you a small laugh. 

“I’m just trying to figure something out,” he admitted, and even he seemed surprised that he did.

You leaned back, intrigued. “Should I be concerned?”

“I don’t know yet,” he said, and there was a hint of dry humor in it now.

“Alright, I’ll bite,” you said. “What’s the mystery?”

He hesitated again. “You don’t really fit,” he said finally.

“Wow,” you blinked. “That sounds like the beginning of a rejection speech.”

“It’s not,” he said quickly, almost instinctively, almost in a panic. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Relax,” you smiled. “I’m kidding. Mostly.” You placed your elbows on the table, curiosity winning out. “Fit where?”

“With how you usually operate,” he said. “You don’t give your time away, not without a reason.”

You let out a sound between a laugh and an acknowledgment.

“Fair,” you said. “And?”

“And I don’t think I’m giving you one,” he added, honest now.

“No,” you said, your fingers idly tracing the edge of your cup. He didn’t really fit the mold for your target. Which is why he wasn’t on the list. “You’re not.”

He nodded, like that confirmed a theory in his mind.

You tilted your head, then asked, “Does that bother you?”

“A little,” he admitted.

You laughed again. You can’t remember the last time you laughed this much without having to pretend a man was funny “God, you’re honest.”

“I just don’t…” He trailed off, then tried again. “I don’t usually choose things without a reason.”

“And I’m one of those things?” you asked lightly.

His eyes held yours. Fuck, you really had no idea, did you? 

You didn’t know who he was, didn’t know how he’d always needed something to ground himself. He’d needed a north star, a moral line he could follow and point to the right direction. 

And you weren’t that. Not even close. 

You weren’t good, not in any objective sense. You manipulated, you extorted, you saw people as opportunities. Even Dex could see that.

And yet.

You were just a girl he’d noticed one day on the street because you were pretty, and somehow that had been enough. Enough for his obsession to linger. Enough to be utterly infatuated. Enough for it to become… this.

He didn’t understand it.

With Eileen and Julie, there had always been structure, a reason. In his mind, there was a path between who they were, why they mattered, why they were good. But with you, there was nothing to map. No logic to follow. You didn’t fit anywhere he knew how to place you.

And still, he kept coming back.

Was this what people meant when they had a crush on someone? Was this what people meant when they said the feeling of love or whatever didn't follow any rhyme or reason?

“Yeah,” he said simply. 

“Well,” You leaned back, a small smile still playing at your lips. “That makes two of us.”

He frowned, just slightly. “You’ve never—”

“No,” you cut in gently. “I’ve never gone to coffee with someone I met at the club.” You tapped your fingers lightly against the table, then shrugged. “Maybe I just like you.”

You expected that to smooth it over, but he didn’t look convinced.

“Why?” he asked.

You laughed, dropping your head for a second. Then, you considered his question for a second, then lifted one shoulder dismissively. “Maybe you don’t have to understand it,” you said.

He looked at you like that wasn’t an acceptable answer.

You leaned forward just enough to nudge his arm lightly with yours, grounding the moment before his mind got too heavy.

“Or,” you added, a little playful again, “you can keep trying to figure me out. I’m sure that’ll go well for you.”

That finally got a real reaction— a small huff of a laugh.

“Yeah,” he said. “I don’t think it will.”

You grinned.

“Good,” you said. “Wouldn’t want to make it too easy.”

You talked longer than you meant to, about nothing and everything, your voice filling space where his didn’t, his answers careful, like he was mapping you in real time and adjusting accordingly. He remembered things, small things, things you didn’t even remember saying, and instead of being wary, you let yourself enjoy it, let yourself sit there and convince yourself this was normal.

That was the problem, really. 

You didn’t question it. You didn’t question him. You didn’t question why it felt like he had always been there, just outside your line of sight until the moment he decided not to be. You let him become familiar, and before you knew it, you started looking for him in a crowd without admitting you were looking. 

He was there the next time you went back, and the time after that. Sometimes, he was earlier than you, sometimes already watching when you walked in, always ready to fall into conversation like it had never stopped, and it slipped into your routine so easily it almost felt like it had always been part of it. 

And maybe that was why it took you longer than it should have to notice the pattern.

—

It started as coincidence. You barely registered it, because your world was full of men who come and go like background noise, faces that blur together unless you decide they matter.

Over the next three or four months, a new client would take interest in you. Always the same type, the ones who leaned too close too fast, who let their hands wander, who mistook your patience for permission, and you’d do what you always did. You’d smile, redirected and let them think they were getting somewhere. Let them spend.

They’d come back the next night.

Maybe the night after that.

It was enough time for you to decide whether they were worth keeping, worth working, worth peeling apart slowly for whatever they had to offer.

But now… you had less and less returning clients. 

At first, you didn’t question it. Men disappeared all the time. Wives got suspicious. Work got busy. Interest faded. It wasn’t unusual.

Until it kept happening.

Every new man who crossed your path would stay barely long enough to become useful, and then vanish before you could actually use them.

No calls or return nights. You had no second chances to pull something valuable out of them.

It was as if they were just… gone.

It started to bother you.

It wasn’t like you to lose assets like that. You didn’t let opportunities slip through your fingers.

So you started asking, casually at first. You asked the bartenders, the other girls. You asked regulars who noticed more than they let on.

“Hey, what happened to that guy from last week? Connors, I think. He was wearing a grey suit?”

All you got were shrugs.

“Haven’t seen him.”

You asked around again the week after. “What about Browne, the one who booked VIP twice? Dark hair, wedding ring he kept fiddling with?”

You received a blank look from the bouncer. 

“Didn’t he come back?”

“No.”

It was wrong. It felt wrong.

And then, because the world had a way of giving you answers whether you wanted them or not, you overheard two men at the far end of the bar. “I heard they found Connors dead in a ditch.”

You froze.

What?

“…yeah, couple days ago. It was messy.”

“Thought it was a robbery?”

“Nah. Didn’t take anything important.”

You told yourself it was a coincidence… Except then it happened again.

You were listening in on another conversation, another half-heard detail slipping through the cracks of a room full of people who thought no one was paying attention.

“Browne’s remains turned up outside the city.”

“There were no suspects.”

“…brutal, apparently.”

Your stomach tightened.

Because you were starting to see the pattern. Every man who crossed your path had disappeared. Two of them were now dead, so you could only assume… 

No. That can’t be… right? 

“It feels like someone’s finishing things I didn’t even decide to start,” you told one of the other girls, and she just laughed and called you paranoid. 

Across the room, Dex sat in his usual place, watching you like he always did.

When your eyes found him, he smiled.

And you smiled back, letting yourself believe, just for a little longer, that nothing was wrong.

After all, even Dex didn’t think of anything being wrong at all.

He didn’t think of what he had done to those men as interference. He thought of it as correction. He had watched the pattern long enough to understand your methods. It was efficient, but it left too many variables unchecked. Too many moments where things could escalate beyond what you could talk your way out of. He had seen the signs, and you handled it. That didn’t mean you should have to.

You gave them time, attention, access, more than they deserved, and in return, they tried to take more. Dex simply made sure they couldn’t. In his mind, it was fair.

He never told you. There wasn’t a reason to. You were safer this way. That was the only metric that mattered. The fact that your world was getting smaller, that your opportunities were being stripped away alongside the risks, didn’t register as a loss to him. Instead, it registered as protection. And if the line between those things blurred, Dex didn’t see it. Or maybe he did and chose not to care.

—

The next night, the club sounded a little louder when a new potential client walked in.

A senator.

He ticked both your boxes: predictable and profitable.

Senator Hale carried himself like a man who had never once been told no in a way that mattered. He had a wedding ring on his finger, reminding you of the leverage sitting pretty on his finger. Men like him were your specialty, men like him were walking safes waiting to be cracked open, and all you saw when you looked at him was his potential: money and information. 

He introduced himself to you sweetly, casually mentioning that his ‘ball and chain of a wife’ was overseas on some extravagant socialite trip. He told you that she’d be fucking a twenty-something year old Greek bachelor by now, and that he deserved a fun night of his own.

“I want all your private slots tonight,” he said, thirty minutes in, leaning back like he was ordering another drink instead of a session with you.

Cha-ching.

You smiled the way you always did, already imagining the kind of secrets a man like that might spill if you played it right.

Halfway through the night though, he placed his hand on your waist even though he knew it was against club rules.

“We should get out of here,” he said, like it was a natural escalation.

You tilted your head, amused. “That’s not really how this works.”

He smiled wider. “C’mon. I’ve got a restaurant downtown we can dine in. Let me treat a pretty girl to a meal, yeah?”

You had a bad feeling about it.

But you’d followed worse men and walked away richer every time.

—

In hindsight, you should’ve turned back when you realised that the restaurant was closed.

He told you he owned it. You played along, pretending to be impressed. You followed him upstairs, into a private room without any cameras, lined with a wide oak table and lavish velvet chairs. 

Hale told his assistant to get the 1976 Pauillac and an extra glass for you, and it wasn’t long until you both were drinking. You paced yourself, like always, but he didn’t. He drank and drank like he had nothing to lose, like consequences were a concept that existed for other people.

Slowly, his eyes shifted. The way he looked at you changed. He looked less patient and more like he’d already decided how this night was going to end, and you just hadn’t caught up yet.

Still, you played along.

“You’re even prettier up close,” he said, voice slurring now, stepping closer than necessary.

You smiled, already shifting, already preparing to redirect.

“Senator,” you teased lightly. “That kind of flattery costs extra.”

He didn’t laugh. His hand came to your waist and traced further down than you were ever comfortable with.

“Hey,” you scolded, still controlled. “That’s not part of the deal.”

“I think,” Hale growled, leaning in, breathing heavily with alcohol, “I decide what the deal is.”

There it was.

“No. You don’t.” You tried to push his hand away, but his grip was stern, his other hand squeezing your hips painfully as he pulled you up and shoved back against the wall. 

“Don’t play games with me,” he said, almost shouting. “Do you know who I am?”

You struggled, adrenaline spiking, every survival instinct kicking in at once. “Let go of me.”

He pushed you again, harder this time, your back hitting the edge of the table before you tried to twist away. But he was stronger, heavier, fueled by ego and the kind of power that had never been challenged. 

“You should’ve just fuckin’ taken it,” he sneered. 

The moment his hand closed around your throat, squeezing hard enough to cut off sound before it could even form, was the moment you realised that this wasn’t a situation you could talk yourself out of. This man wasn’t thinking about consequences, about exposure, about anything beyond what he wanted in this exact moment, and that made him dangerous in a way even you couldn’t manipulate.

You fought, because there was no other option, nails scraping, body twisting, trying to create space where there wasn’t any.

But his grip only tightening as your resistance escalated. His breath was hot, words spilling out half-formed, like your refusal was an insult instead of a boundary. The room blurred as pressure built in your throat, your lungs straining, every second stretching too long, your thoughts fracturing between panic and fear, where to hit, how to move, how to survive this—

Then, the senator choked.

His grip faltered.

His eyes widened in confusion as his hand flew to his neck. 

Then, and only then, did you see why he had suddenly stopped. A knife had buried itself there. 

What?

Your brain stalled for half a second, trying to catch up to reality.

You scrambled back the second his body thumped to the floor, air rushing into your lungs in broken, desperate gasps, your hands shaking as you pushed yourself away from him, from the spreading red blood on the carpet.

Your eyes snapped toward the open window, curtains shifting, like nothing had happened at all.

Someone had been there. Someone was there. 

You pushed yourself up, legs unsteady but moving anyway, adrenaline carrying you faster than thought could keep up. The balcony was closer than the door and your body chose it before your mind could argue, climbing, slipping, dropping down harder than you meant to.

After that, you ran.

You didn’t look back. You didn’t stop to think about Hale, the knife, or the way everything happened so precisely; it couldn't have been luck. Your heart pounded too loudly, your thoughts too scattered to form anything coherent beyond go, go, go.

This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened: Your clients disappearing, dying.

It was the first time you’ve witnessed it, though.

You reached your apartment and slammed the door behind you, pressing your back against it.

Safe. You were safe. You told yourself that over and over, like if you said it enough it would feel true.

—

You didn’t sleep, not in any way that counted. You drifted in and out of shallow rest, your body exhausted but your mind refusing to shut off, replaying everything in fragments in your mind. Every time you came close to slipping under, your body jerked you back up again like it didn’t trust the dark anymore. 

By the time morning dragged itself in through the floor-to-ceiling windows of your apartment, you were already awake, already pacing, already halfway through a cup of coffee that had gone cold in your hand because you kept forgetting to drink it.

You told yourself you were fine. You said it out loud once, just to hear it, just to see if it sounded convincing. It didn’t.

At around 11 AM, your fingers hovered over your phone longer than you wanted to admit. You didn’t really have people to call on stuff like this. You had colleagues, you had contacts, you had old clients who thought they mattered more than they did, but you didn’t have… someone you could just ask to come over without a reason that benefited you.

And yet.

Your thumb tapped Dex’s name before you could overthink it. He had given you your number after the first day you had coffee together at Third Space. Never in a million years did you think you’d text him for this. 

When you have the time, can you come over, please?

You stared at the message, then added your address beneath it, because of course he didn’t know where you lived. Because you were careful, because you were smart and all that bullshit you keep telling yourself— and then you hit send anyway.

You had just enough time to refill your water before you heard a knock on your apartment door.

You froze.

“…what?” you muttered, more to yourself than anything, setting your glass down somewhere behind you without looking.

Whoever was out there knocked again.

You moved toward the door, your stomach feeling uneasy.

You opened it.

Dex stood there. He didn't look out of breath or rushed. His hands were relaxed at his sides, posture straight like always.

You blinked at him.

“What?” you said again, because apparently that was all your brain could produce.

He tilted his head slightly, like he didn’t understand the question. “You asked me to come.”

“I… yeah, I know, but I just…” you shook your head, stepping aside to let him in, still staring at him like if you looked long enough, an explanation would click into place. “That was, like, five minutes ago.”

“I was nearby,” he said with no elaboration and even less of an attempt to make it sound more believable than it was.

You stared at him for another second as if your instincts were trying to flag something and you were just… too tired to listen.

“Oh,” you said finally. “Oh. Okay.”

You shut the door behind him, and for a second you just stood there, your back to the door, your hand still on the handle, trying to regulate you breathing

Dex didn’t move far. He stepped into your space like he was aware of it in a way most people weren’t, taking in exits, windows, angles. 

You pushed off the door.

You gestured toward the couch as you moved past him. He sat down.

You hovered for a second before dropping into the cushion next to him, tucking one leg under you, your fingers fidgeting with the sleeve of your shirt before you forced them to still. The apartment felt different with him in it. 

“You know,” you started, tilting your head, a forced smile tugging at your lips because this was how you cope, “most people, when they come over for the first time, they ask how a stripper can afford a place like this.”

Dex didn’t even look.

“I…” he started, then stopped, like he was recalibrating mid-thought. “That’s not what I’m here for.”

Your smile faltered.

“I’m here because you asked for me,” he insisted.

You let out a small breath, your shoulders dropping a fraction as the performance slipped, as the version of you that joked and teased and deflected didn’t quite fit anymore.

“Right,” you said under your breath, running a hand through your hair. “Right, yeah.”

You looked at him, at his hazel eyes, at his scar, at the way his elbows rested on his legs.

“Something happened last night,” you said, and you told him everything.

And you didn't tell the polished version you told to your friend in the hospital. You told him about the senator, about the way he’d looked at you like you were already his before you’d even said yes. You told him about the restaurant, about how empty it had been, how wrong it had felt the second the door closed behind you. Your voice wavered once, and you hated that it did, hated that it had that kind of hold on you, but you didn’t stop.

You told him about the fight, about the moment you realized you weren’t going to be able to talk your way out of it.

“And then—” you swallowed, your throat tightening just slightly at the memory, “he just… stopped.”

Dex’s eyes didn’t leave your face.

“There was this sound,” you continued, like saying it in a lower volume might make it make more sense. “I didn’t even notice it at first. And then he just—” you gestured vaguely, your hand cutting through the air like you could recreate it, “he let go.”

You looked up at him then, searching his face like maybe he’d have an answer you didn’t.

“There was a knife in his neck, but I didn’t see anyone,” you added quickly, like you needed him to understand that you hadn’t imagined it. “The window was open, and I just… I ran. I didn’t think, I didn’t—” you let out a breath that came out more like a pathetic laugh. “I didn’t question it.”

You dropped your eyes to your hands again, your thumb dragging absently over your knuckles.

“I called a friend this morning," you said anxiously. “She works at the hospital.”

Dex didn’t interrupt.

“He’s alive,” you said. “She said he’s going to make a full recovery.”

Your jaw tightened slightly, your fingers stilling where they rested in your lap.

“I should feel relieved, right? That I didn’t just watch someone die in front of me.” you said under your breath, more to yourself than to him. “That’s what a… decent person would feel.”

You let out a breath, shaking your head faintly.

“But I don’t.” 

It felt wrong to… admit that.

“I keep thinking about it,” you continued, your voice dropping lower, more honest now than you were used to being out loud. “About what he did. About what he was going to do.” Your throat tightened again, but you pushed through it. “And I just—”

You hesitated, then said it anyway. “I kind of wish he was dead.”

You huffed out a quiet, humorless laugh, scrubbing a hand over your face like you could wipe the thought away after the fact. “That’s... fuck, that’s such a horrible thing to say.” Your eyes flicked back up to him. “You must think I’m a terrible person.”

“No. Not at all,” he said without second guessing.

Your fingers curled into the fabric of your sleeve, knuckles whitening as you tried to hold yourself together. But you’re slipping, everything is slipping, your thoughts tangling over each other faster than you can sort them.

“I shouldn’t—” your voice projected out thinner than you wanted it to be, your chest rising too fast. “I shouldn’t feel like that, I shouldn’t—arghh! What kind of person wishes —”

Your breath hitched again.

“I could’ve died,” you blurted, like your brain was jumping tracks, like it’s trying to piece a moral justification together and failing. “I… he—” your hand came up instinctively to your throat, fingers pressing lightly against skin that still felt too wrong to articulate. “And I’m just sitting here saying I wish he was dead like that makes me, what, justified? That’s—”

Your words broke apart into nothing, as you’re breathing spiral fast and your mind even faster….

“Hey,” Dex reached out, hesitantly holding your thigh. “Look at me.”

You didn't want to, not really. You did not wish to be seen, to be perceived, but your eyes lifted anyway. 

“It’s not your fault,” he says, firmer now, shaking his head once, as if saying How could anything possibly be your fault? 

Your lips part, but nothing came out.

“You should hate him,” he said, voice smaller now but no less intense, as if he knew these feelings through personal involvement. Though hate was a much nicer word that you would’ve used.

As your chest started to hurt as much as your neck did, you became hyper-aware of him. Of how close he was. Of the way he wasn’t rationalising, wasn’t judging, wasn’t trying to fix you.

Your body leaned toward him, and something in you gave way.

It was too much to process, too much to think through, and before you could think, before you could stop yourself, you moved. You closed the distance, your hand caught against his shirt as you leaned in, and then your mouth was on his.

It’s not graceful, and not at all controlled.

It felt impulsive and desperate as you kissed him like you’re trying to ground yourself in anything but the memory of last night replaying behind your eyes.

For a split second, he went still. That was when you realized what you’ve done.

You pulled back like you’d burned yourself, your breath hitching hard, your hand dropping away from him as your brain scrambled to catch up.

“Oh,” you choked, your eyes wide. “I’m sorry, I…  I don’t know why I did that.”

The words rushed out, tripping over each other.

“I just… I had a long night and I didn’t sleep and I think I’m just—” you let out a shaky laugh that didn’t quite land, your eyes darting away because you couldn’t quite look at him now. “You know. I’m just fucked up and craving human attention. That’s all. It’s- it didn’t mean anything, I…”

You never got to finish.

His hand came up to interrupt, fingers closing around your jawline, not harsh but firm enough to stop you mid-spiral, to turn your face back toward him before you could escape into your own excuses.

When he kissed you, it was nothing like yours.

There was no hesitation in it. It was intentional.

His mouth pressed into yours with a force that stole the breath you’d just barely managed to get back, not rough enough to hurt but strong enough to make it clear that this wasn’t a mistake, this wasn’t something he’s letting you brush off or explain away. His grip tightened just slightly, holding you there as your thoughts scattered all over again, but this time it wasn’t panic that flooded through you.

You made a small, involuntary sound against his mouth, and his response was immediate, deepening just enough to make your heart race. 

Your fingers found the edges of his shirt again without you realizing it, and for a moment, you forgot.

You forgot about last night, about the fear, the guilt, the way your lungs had struggled for air, because right now you were breathing just fine.

When he finally pulled back, it wasn’t far.

“…that,” you managed, a little wrecked, “didn’t feel like nothing.”

“C’mere,” he said, like it wasn’t a question at all.

And before you could second-guess it, before your mind could start building walls out of hesitation and overthinking and the thousand reasons you usually didn’t let things like this happen, he was already lifting you. One arm under your legs, the other steady at your back, pulling you against him like you weighed nothing at all. You gasped out of surprise, your hands instinctively circling at his shoulders.

“You don’t know—” you started, but it came out weaker than you intended.

“I know where your bedroom is,” he said simply.

And that was it.

You let yourself go quiet.

Your room felt different when you got there. He set you down like you were fragile, and for a second neither of you spoke.

“You’re shaking,” he said after a moment 

“I’m not,” you tried automatically, but it wasn’t convincing. Not even to you.

“I’ve got you,” he reassured you as Amish as he reassured himself. “I’ve got you.”

Whatever restraint you still had left didn’t stand a chance after that.

You pulled him down to you, and this time there was no apology in it, no confusion, no frantic attempt to explain it away afterward. Perhaps you needed to feel the touch of another human being. Perhaps, after not having a choice, having chosen him felt like its own kind of power. Perhaps, it was both. 

Even then, that little voice in your head said this wasn’t smart. This wasn’t you. You didn’t sleep with people you know from work, or seek out an emotional connection, because you never needed anybody. Because you were selfish. Because you only ever looked out for yourself. 

You knew that. And you knew exactly what this looked like from the outside. How quickly it was happening, how easily you were letting him in.

You knew it wasn’t healthy.

But fuck healthy.

So you let him kiss you like he meant it, and you had already decided that you were letting him take you apart, piece by piece, simply because you wanted him to.

—

Oh, he was good to you.

Did it really matter, what you asked him to do to you, that even surprised yourself? Does it matter, what he gave you to reach a catharsis, if you were the one who wanted it?

What mattered was that he was very sweet afterwards. 

You had showered with him, the hot water doing nothing to fully untangle the haze in your mind. When you were done drying yourself, you came out to your fully-made marshmallow of a bed.

You laid beside him without thinking, like your body had already decided this was where he belonged for now. He adjusted immediately when you settled in, one arm slipping around you.

“I will never let anyone hurt you,” he said, and he recited it like a vow. He sounded resolute, like this was a line he had crossed and couldn’t come back from.

He knew what you were. You were not a North Star, he had come to terms with it long ago. But it didn’t repel him. You didn’t need fixing. If anything, it made it easier. 

You’d never expect him to be better, and he didn’t need you to be. There was no standard here, no expectation from either side. You were something to… have. To sit across from, to listen to, to exist near. It didn’t improve him. It didn’t make sense.

And yet, he had chosen you, over and over again, without reason, without structure, without an end goal.

For Dex, it was the closest thing he had ever come to wanting something just because he wanted it.

Your fingers curled slightly into the fabric of your duvet, and you nodded. You believed him, you really did.

He shifted just enough to press a kiss into your hair, staying there like he wasn’t in a rush to move away.

Dex didn’t even understand what he was doing at first.

He didn’t understand why his hand kept moving over your skin absent-mindedly. He didn’t understand why he wanted to pepper your skin with kisses. He didn’t understand why he wasn’t distant, like he had always had before.

This wasn’t efficient. It wasn’t necessary.

And yet, he couldn’t stop.

You were warm against him, breathing slower now, settling into his side. That part, he understood. You trusted him. That was something he had built, something he could measure.

But this desire to stay exactly where he was, to keep touching you just to feel that you were still there, was new. 

His hand stilled for a moment against your arm, like he was testing if he could stop, and something in him resisted it immediately. His fingers resumed their path without thought, slower this time.

Oh.

As his fingers reached your waist, you melted into him without thinking.

And that was the problem. Because if your mind had been clearer you might have noticed things that didn’t feel quite right.

You might have wondered how he walked through your apartment like he had done it before.

How he had been able to find your bedroom on the first try, when all your doors looked the same.

How he had returned with a glass of water already poured, like he knew which cabinet held your glasses.

How, when you’d asked him to pass you a towel after shower, he had gone straight to the second cupboard to the left, third row down.

—

A month later, everything was in order. At least on paper.

That’s what the lawyers said anyway. They said you reached a resolution. It made such an ugly act sound almost respectable. 

The settlement came signed with expensive pens, and in the end you reached an agreement of seven figures, carefully divided between you and the club. 

They told you to take it.

They asked you to take it so everyone would be happy. So everyone would ‘benefit.’

And in the end, you did.

Because this wasn’t your battlefield. You didn’t fight men like Senator Hale under in front of judges who cared more about optics than truth. So you signed where they pointed, nodded when expected, and let them call it closure.

But it didn’t feel like closure.

So you did what you always did when something didn’t sit right with you. You worked around it.

You found a gap.

The NDA was careful, but it wasn’t perfect. It said nothing about anonymous tips, nothing about information that simply… surfaced. Nothing about whether or not Mrs. Hale was allowed to receive little packages of paper upon paper of proof that her husband wasn’t as faithful as she thought he was. 

So one evening, you sent it.

In the box were photos, messages, and notes from other girls about Hale’s… behaviour and lack of manners, to say the least. Technically, these statements weren’t yours, but it might as well have been.

You told yourself that was the end of it.

For a few days, you almost believed it.

—

The alley you took as your shortcut home was darker than you remembered that night. 

The hum of traffic filled in the lower frequencies of your ear, the neon from the main street barely reaching this far, bleeding weakly against brick and pavement. 

You shouldn’t have taken this shortcut, not when you knew he was alive.

But you had a long night, and your body moved on instinct, carving through the familiar path you’d walked a hundred times before. 

So you didn’t think anything would go wrong until you heard a small, metallic click. 

You stopped, like your feet had slammed a brake so hard it locked everything else in place.

“Well,” a voice rasped, ruined and jagged. “Look at that.”

Your stomach dropped as you turned. 

Senator Hale stood a few feet away, just inside the spill of dim light. He had been waiting for you for some time now, with a gun pointed straight to your head.

Senator Hale looked… wrong. He was much more alive than you last saw him, and this version of him was something else entirely. His suit hung looser, wrinkled like he hadn’t cared enough to fix it. The scar along his neck was thick and uneven, an angry reminder of what should've ended him. His voice barely held together.

But his eyes hadn’t changed at all.

They locked onto you with the same entitlement. 

“You,” he said, shaking his gun just slightly. “You f-fucking bitch.”

Your heartbeat didn’t spike the way it should have. It didn’t race or panic or spiral. Instead, it slowed, like you were expecting this, like you were ready to be taken out of this world if it meant that he got to suffer because of it. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you said, and your voice came out steady enough to almost convince yourself.

He laughed. It sounded wet and broken.

“Don’t,” he snapped, “Don’t insult me like that.”

He stepped closer, the gun shaking with tremor in his hand.

“My wife,” he continued, voice tightening, “gets a package out of nowhere. And suddenly my entire life is over again!” His head tilted slightly, studying you like he already knew the answer and just wanted to hear you lie. “You really think I wouldn’t figure it out?”

You didn’t move.

“You’re the only one who would’ve done it,” he went on. “The only one with the guts. Or the stupidity.” His lip curled, sinister. “Probably both.”

You felt your stomach settle. This was it. You couldn’t get out of this one, you couldn’t think of another angle to approach a man in rage. 

You exhaled, your shoulders loosening in a way that felt almost like relief. “Do it,” you said through gritted teeth, you dared.

For a second, disappointment flickered across his eyes. Or maybe it was irritation that you weren’t giving him what he wanted.

Fear.

He wanted fear.

Instead, you gave him nothing.

His knuckles tightened till it was red, pointing it straight to you.  “Oh, I will—”

Then, he gasped, his hand jerking uncontrollably. His gun wavered, dipping just slightly as confusion flashed across his face.

Then, he screamed.

You didn’t understand why, until your eyes dropped to see a knife had buried itself through his hand.

Through the hand holding the gun.

It was undoubtedly the same throwing knife that saved you in the restaurant.

The gun hit the ground with a dull, useless clatter.

Hale collapsed to his knees, clutching at his wrist, as he demanded you to help him. 

Your focus tunneled. Suddenly all you could hear was your own breathing, Hale’s wet, broken gasps and footsteps behind you that you already knew by heart.

Dex stepped out of the shadows like he was born in it. 

It was him, you realised. 

It had always been him.

And you weren’t shocked at all. Perhaps, some part of you knew, had always known it was him. But your brain worked in funny ways, and apparently, it wanted you to compartmentalise information from yourself. 

Until now. 

Because now, you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that everything that had been happening around you happened because of him. 

Every man who disappeared before you could finish what you started. Every opportunity that vanished just as it turned dangerous. Every moment where things should’ve gone wrong, but didn’t.

Dex saved you.

Dex cleaned up your messes before you even decided they were messes.

Dex knew your apartment. Dex watched over you, 

You should have seen it then. You should have called it what it was.

Stalking, obsession, hyperfixation. 

You didn’t.

Because somewhere along the line, your mind had convinced yourself otherwise. 

He was just a guardian angel with blood on his hands.

“Dex…” you breathed out. 

Hale was screaming, writhing, clutching at the knife through his hand, his voice scraping raw against the walls of the alley, but he didn’t matter. Not really. 

Dex didn’t even look at him.

He just walked forward, unbothered, like this was nothing more than a task he’d already completed in his head. He stomped his shoe on Hale’s wrist and the sound that tore out of him after that was almost inhuman. Next, he kicked his ankle, breaking it in just the right places so he couldn’t run if he wanted to.

Dex bent down, picked up the gun that had now clattered on to the asphalt, and checked it casually before offering them up for you.

“I didn’t want to take this moment from you.”

This? 

Oh. He meant he didn’t want to take the pleasure of killing Hale away from you. 

Your chest hitched, your breath catching in your throat as tears blurred your vision, because nothing about this was normal, nothing about this was right, and yet…

You felt seen.

“I’ve never…” your voice broke, shaking, your hands curling in on themselves. “I’ve never shot a gun before.”

You sounded small, so adorably helpless in Dex’s ears.

“That’s okay,” his eyebrows softened as he stepped closer.

His hand found yours, guiding your fingers as he placed the gun into your grip. You didn’t resist.

“Good girl,” he said quietly.

A gut feeling twisted low in your stomach— wrong, so wrong— but you didn’t pull away.

Instead, you leaned into him.

He moved behind you then, his chest at your back, his arm wrapping around you, his hand closing over yours where it held the gun.

You could feel him breathe.

“Let me show you,” he whispered, his lips touching the shell of your ears.

Your body trembled.

Hale was begging now. He was crying. Promising things that meant nothing. “Please! Please, I won’t… just don’t—”

“Safety’s off,” Dex continued patiently, like he couldn’t even hear him. His fingers adjusted yours carefully. “Keep your finger here. Not yet.”

You were hyper-aware of everything— of Dex’s hands guiding yours, of the weight of the gun, of how your body reacted to his voice.

“I can’t,” you whispered, your voice cracking. “Dex, I—”

“You’re strong,” he cooed, kissing your cheekbone lightly. “You can do it, baby.”

You closed your eyes, trying to process everything. 

You were shaking harder now, your fingers barely steady, your breath hitching in uneven bursts as tears slid freely down your face, but you didn’t pull away because you didn’t want to. 

Dex adjusted your aim, his body pressing closer to you. “Right there,” he guided gently. “That’s it. I’ve got you.”

Hale’s voice broke completely. “Please, please! she doesn’t have to—”

His hand closed over yours, steadying the tremor you couldn’t control.

“You don’t have to rush,” he told you calmly, “he’s not going anywhere.”

Hale’s voice cracked in the background, begging, breaking. You barely heard it.

“I’ve got you,” Dex said again, softer this time. You could feel the hollow of his cheek in your hair, and it felt comforting. “You’re safe.”

Safe.

It felt warm and suffocating all at once.

Your breath hitched. “I don’t know if I can—”

“You can,” he reassured, encouraging, coaxing your darker nature out. “I know you can. You’re my girl.”

Your sense of self snapped into place like a lock turning.

It was a lot to process— his hand over yours, steadying the tremor, his breath warm against your ear like he wasn’t guiding you through a monstrous act. It was like this version of you, the one shaking, the one furious, the one willing to pull the trigger, was the only version he had ever wanted.

So here he was, holding your hand steady while you pointed a gun at a man who had tried to break you.

“I love you,” you whispered without thinking. The confession tore out of you desperately. 

Of course you did. You loved him for not asking you to be better. You loved him for choosing you. You loved him because you were going to do the worst thing you will ever do, and he was fucking walking you through it. 

His grip tightened, not expecting to hear that here. To hear that now.

“I love you, too,” he said back, like it had never been a question, like he had known it long before you did. His forehead pressed against your temple, possessive and gentle all the same. “I’ve always loved you.”

The words didn’t comfort you.

They consumed you.

And that certainty made it easier to let go.

Your vision tunneled. Your thoughts fractured as Hale begged for you to stop, as he cried, as he called you both fucked up and demanded to know what kind of sick humiliation ritual this was—

And before you could stop yourself, you left absolution wash over you. 

Dex’s fingers tightened slightly over yours, as if to say, go on. 

Your finger pulled, and the gun went off.

Hale hit the ground.

There was a bullet in his head. He was definitely dead now.

For a second, you felt nothing.

The sound didn’t deafen you, the recoil didn’t hurt you. Your perception of who you were as a human being didn’t shatter or explode. It just stalled, like the world had decided to wait and see what you would do with it.

You stared at him, your brain scrambling to process it, to reach an excuse. Self-defense or accident — anything that didn’t sound like what it actually was. Your hands felt distant, like they didn’t belong to you anymore, like they had acted on their own and left you behind to deal with it.

You had always been careful. You didn’t do irreversible. You didn’t cross lines you couldn’t step back from.

But this didn’t feel like a line.

It felt like there had never been one at all.

Oh. 

Oh.

Fuck. 

You stared at him. At what you’d done.

Your hand went slack, and the gun slipped from your fingers, clattering distantly in the alley.

A broken sound tore out of you, and you weren’t even sure you recognised it as your own. 

Suddenly, your knees gave out. Dex caught you before you hit the ground.

He wrapped his arms around you immediately, pulling you in like he’d been waiting for this, like this was the part he understood best.

“I’m so proud of you, baby,” he mumbled into your hair, voice raspy. “So fucking proud.”

Your head felt like it was spinning a million miles an hour.

“I… killed him,” you choked, your voice splintering as reality crashed down in waves. “Dex, I… he’s—he’s a very powerful man. They’re going to know! It’s going to come back to me, they’re going to find me, I—”

Your words spiraled, faster, louder, your breathing breaking apart completely as panic took hold. 

“They’re going to look for me,” you whispered, your grip tightening on him like you could disappear into his chest. “I’m done… I’m dead, I’m fucking dead—”

“Hey,” he interrupted.

His hand came up to cradle the back of your head, pressing you closer as his lips brushed against your hair, then your temple, and then, in a flurry of fluttering kisses, he reached the corner of your mouth.

“Remember what I said?” he said firmly, pushing a strand of hair behind your ears. The gesture felt so alien to him, like he’d never done it before. And yet, when it came to you, it felt so right. “Nothing is going to take you away from me. Nothing.”

For a moment after, he didn’t move. It amazed him, even after a month with you, that none of this felt forced anymore. Affection had never been necessary before, never useful. And yet, with you, it came naturally, like it was dormant, and now it had finally found a reason to exist.

He brushed his thumb lightly along your temple, and it was amazing how easily he wanted to keep going, to keep touching.

Whatever this was, whatever you had pulled out of him, it wasn’t something he could put back.

So he held you closer as your breath hitched, hiccuping sobs forcing its way out of your lungs, Hale’s blood now pooling by your heels.

“I’m going to keep you safe, okay?”

He said it like a promise. Like a vow.

You should’ve been terrified of him. Of what he was. Of what you had just become standing beside him.

Instead, you melted into him, your body going weak with it.

“Okay?” He asked, wanting confirmation. 

All you could do was nod. Your fingers tightened in his shirt as he pulled you to your feet, guiding you away from the body, away from the alley, away from everything you had just become.

Because whatever waited behind you — justice or consequences— it didn’t matter as much as the man beside you.

The one who saw you at your worst and called you good. The one who turned violence into devotion. The one who promised you safety with blood still fresh on his hands.

So when he helped you out that alley, you didn’t look back. 

Maybe you could’ve.

Maybe there had been a moment, somewhere between the first lie and the first shot, where you could have chosen differently. Where you could have walked away, untangled yourself, called this what it was.

But that didn’t matter anymore.

He was utterly yours now, in the same twisted way that you were utterly his.

Because love, you were starting to understand, was never meant to be gentle.

It had teeth.

Dex had gone white.

Then he had walked very calmly into the bathroom with one hand over his mouth and vomited until his ribs hurt.

Because yes, he loved you too.

He loved you so badly it felt like his body had mistaken affection for a terminal illness. He loved you until being away from you made his skin crawl. He loved you so much it made him cruel to himself. He loved you so much he wanted to crawl out of his own skin because wanting to keep you felt like a crime. He had wanted to be loved his whole miserable life, and then when you came along and loved him, he wouldn’t fucking trust it.

Because there was no way you loved him back.

Not really.

Not if you were whole.

Not if he had not done something to you first.

Because the first time you met, he had broken into your apartment. After all, your window had the perfect sightline into the building across the street.

Because you had caught him in your living room with a mug in your hand and sleep shorts riding high on your thighs, and he had looked at you like you were a small obstacle.

“What the fuck—”

His hand covered your mouth before you could get any louder.

“I’m sorry,” he said, genuinely, because he was one of the good guys now. “I just gotta do this one thing.”

You bit his palm.

He hissed, then caught your wrist and handcuffed you to the exposed water pipe under your kitchen sink.

He flexed his bitten hand once. “I said sorry.”

You glared up at him.

That day, you should have screamed yourself hoarse.

Instead, you had talked for six straight hours. 

You. Fucking. Yapped. 

Like a pomeranian on cocaine.

You had insulted his boots, his posture, his insane audacity. You demanded coffee. You asked if the gun was compensating for something (you later found out it was definitely not). You asked if he always tied women up before breakfast or if you were getting special treatment. You even threatened to bite him again if he came too close, then immediately asked if he was single.

Dex had sat by your window with a rifle scope pressed to his eye. He was pretty sure he fell in love somewhere between the twelfth complaint that your ass was sore and the twenty-first threat to sue him.

So now, eight months later, with you under him, legs wrapped around his waist and your body taking him so well he could barely breathe, all he could think was…

He had done this.

He had broken something in you.

Still, he moaned your name. You were perfect beneath him, pleasing him so well that his own voice kept dying in his throat every time he tried to speak. He could barely form the guilt into words because you kept squeezing around him like your body wanted him closer than close, like every thrust dragged a sound out of you that went straight through his cogmium spine and lit him up from the inside.

“You don’t love me,” he suddenly rasped, because of course he had to bring it up again while he was inside you.

You laughed, but it broke into a moan halfway through when he moved again, and the stretch of him made your whole body seize. “Dex…”

He choked on the spit buildup in his mouth because he was drooling at this point, his hands fisting in the sheets beside your head. “Fuck,” he breathed, voice ruined. “Don’t—don’t say my name like that.”

You tried to answer, but he was too much, too deep, fucking you into the mattress hard enough to make the bed frame knock harshly against the wall like every thrust was an argument he was losing.

“You’re so… hmph,” His forehead dropped against yours. His voice cracked. “God, you’re so fucking tight. I can’t think when you— when you feel like this.”

You could barely hear what he was saying, you just dragged him down by the neck and kissed the scar on his cheek. You were practically making out with it, because hyperfocusing on it helped bring you back to earth. “Dex… fuck!”

His whole body jerked at the sound.

“Don’t,” he rasped, but he didn’t stop.

His hips kept driving into yours, deep and rough, punching the breath out of you until your hands pawing at his skin. “Don’t say it like that.”

You tried to laugh again, but it came out as a shaky gasp when he pushed deeper. “Like what?”

“Like you, hmm.” His head dropped now, his mouth dragging wet and open against your throat. “Like you love me.”

Your nails dug into his back, giving his back scar company. “I do.”

Dex’s brows furrowed like you had hit him.

His pace faltered for half a second. Then the panic caught up to him and he thrusted harder, like he could outrun the words by burying himself deeper inside you. “N-no.”

“Yes.”

“No,” he said again, and it came out so small it was nearly swallowed by the filthy sound of his body moving against yours. “You don’t know that. You don’t know what this is.”

“I know exactly what this is.”

“You don’t.” His hand grasped the sheets. “You can’t. You can’t love me.”

You were struggling to keep your eyes open. He was stretching you so much every thought came apart before it finished forming, pleasure dragging through you hot and heavy, making your thighs shake around his hips.

Still, you forced yourself to look at him. “I do love you.”

Dex looked like he might be sick again.

Every time.

Every fucking time you said it, even if it was a hundred times a day, his heart broke a little. Like his body wanted the words and his mind rejected them. Like being loved by you was too impossible to fit inside him without tearing a wormhole open.

“You hear y-yourself?” he demanded, breathless, furious, hips still snapping into yours. “You hear how insane that sounds?”

You moaned, head tipping back against the ridiculously expensive pillows he had bought you because his last one ‘made your neck a little stiff’ once.

He groaned at the feel of you tightening around him. “Fuck… don’t—don’t do that.”

“I… ahh, can’t help it,” you managed, voice shaking. “I fucking love you.”

“No, you don’t.” He sounded almost angry now, but all of it was pointed inward, all of it soaked in guilt. “I cuffed you to a pipe. I— Fuck— scared you. I held you hostage and now you’re here, telling me you love me while I’m—” His teeth clenched, his body shuddering over yours. “While I’m doing this to you.”

“You’re not doing anything to me,” you forced out, gripping his arm hard enough to make him hiss. “I asked for this.”

His eyes burned. “That doesn’t make it better.”

“It does, actually.”

“You’re sick.”

“So are you.”

He laughed once, but there was no humor behind it. He then buried his face in your neck as his pace got messier. “I think I gave you Stockholm syndrome.”

“You didn’t,” you insisted. It was barely a sound, it was a miracle he heard you at all.

“You’re not listening.”

“You’re not thinking.”

“I am thinking.” His voice cracked on the last word because you tightened around him again and his forehead dropped to yours, “Shit, you drive me insane.”

“Good.”

“No.” He kissed you hard. “No, not good. That’s what I mean. You make me like this. You make me want too much.”

“You already want too much.”

His hips stuttered, and you saw the guilt pass over his face at once.

Then he drove into you harder. You cried out, and his eyes went dark.

“There,” he said, voice ragged. “That. You should hate me for this.”

“No, Dex.” Your hands slid up, catching his chin, forcing his face close to yours while he kept fucking you breathless. “You didn’t give me Stockholm syndrome. I. Love. You.”

He shuddered. His mouth opened, but nothing came out at first. Then a broken moan as his body betrayed him again.

“You don’t,” he whispered.

“I do.”

“You can’t.”

“I can.”

“You’re perfect.”

“I’m not.”

“You are to me.” His voice sounded raw, almost boyish in its disbelief. “And if you love me, then I did something to you. I had to. I had to have broken something, because there’s no– hnggf— no other way.”

Your chest tightened.

He was still moving, still taking you apart with a rhythm so desperate it bordered on punishing, but his eyes were wet. His eyes filled with self-hatred. He looked like a man starving at a feast and hating himself for opening his mouth.

“Fine,” you gasped. “Have it your way.”

Dex went still for exactly one second. Not fully, and definitely not enough to pull out. Then his body reacted before his mind did and he thrust harder.

It was as if the sentence had scared him so badly he had to pin you beneath him with his weight, his mouth, his hands, his hips. Like if he stopped moving, the words would become real enough to take you away. “W-what?”

“Maybe— hm, maybe you did g-give me Stockholm Syndrome,” you said, voice shaking, half from pleasure, half from fury. “Now what?”

His breathing turned ragged.

“So what, huh?” Your nails dragged up his neck into his hair, combing his scalp “You gonna tell me to go?”

Dex’s face soured. “No.”

“You gonna leave me?”

“No.” The thought of it made him sick. You could see it. You could feel it. His whole body tensed, his grip tightening, his hips losing rhythm for a moment before coming back rougher, deeper, more desperate. 

Leaving you was the one noble thing he kept threatening himself with, and the second you suggested it, it destroyed him.

“No,” he said again, like he hated you for making him admit it. Like he hated himself more. “Don’t f-fucking ask me that.”

“But that’s what you’re… you’re saying.” You were so close now you could barely speak, words breaking apart every time he drove into you. “If you really think you ruined me, then stop.”

Dex’s eyes locked on yours.

Your mouth trembled into a cruel little smile. “If you really think, you— shit, you broke me, t-then stop fucking me.”

His breath hitched.

He didn't stop. 

You felt it in the way his body went even harder, even more frantic, like the command had gone straight into the darkest, neediest part of him and went feral.

“I-if you think you’re bad f’me, then get off me,” you whispered, mean and gentle all the same, by his ear, close enough to lick the lobe. “Then don’t touch me. Don’t kiss me. Don’t come in me, because we b-both know you’re— hmphh— planning to.”

Dex groaned, tortured, burying his face against your throat.

“No,” he rasped.

“No?”

“No.”

“Thought so.”

He kissed you then, hard enough to steal the rest of the taunt from your mouth.

It was perfect after that, fucking perfect and awful. Your bodies slick with sweat, his hands gripping your hips like he was trying not to bruise you and failing at restraint in every other way. He fucked you like he was confessing and denying the confession in the same breath, like every thrust said mine and every sound said I’m sorry.

“You should run,” he rasped.

“You’d follow.”

His eyes burned.

You smiled up at him, breathless and shaking. “And I’d let you c-catch me. I’m fucking into it.”

Dex looked ruined.

His rhythm stuttered, and for a second you thought that was it, that he was going to fall apart right there, but he grabbed your hips and flipped you with quick motion that left you dizzy.

Then you were on top of him.

Your thighs trembled on either side of his hips, your hands braced on his chest, and Dex looked up at you like you were killing him. His face was flushed, eyes wet, mouth parted as you sank back down onto him.

“Say it,” he said, voice destroyed.

You moved over him, thighs shaking, pleasure making you unsteady. “Say what?”

His eyes opened, furious and starving. “Say– fuck, baby— that you know you could leave and I’d let you leave.”

Your chest tightened. “Dex.”

“Say it.” His grip tightened, not forcing, just holding on. “Say you know the door isn’t locked. Say you know I’d let you go.”

You stared down at him. At the man who had wanted love so badly it made him monstrous with fear. At the man who still believed wanting you was worse than first degree murder. At the man underneath you, shaking, begging for proof that this was not captivity while his body betrayed how badly he needed you to stay.

You leaned down until your mouth brushed his.

“I know I can leave,” you whispered. “I-I know you’d let me.”

His breath collapsed.

Then you kissed the corner of his mouth without ruining your rhythm. “But I’m not.”

Dex broke under you.

His hands slid up your back, dragging you down against his chest as he thrust up into you, needy and completely undone. You could barely keep up, barely keep speaking, your forehead pressed to his as you rode him. 

“I love you,” you said again. and this time, he knew you meant it.

That was what did it for him. Not the heat. Not the filth. Not the way you tightened around him or the way he was losing himself inside you, though that helped.

That.

The idea that you had chosen him with all your mind intact.

Your breath hitched first, then your whole body seized, pleasure dragging you under so good that your words turned into a ruined little sound against his mouth. Dex’s eyes widened, his hands clamping around your waist as you went through it.

“There,” he rasped. “There she is.”

You came too hard to answer him properly, nails digging into his chest as he kept you there. “There she is,” he said again, almost broken. “That’s my girl.”

And then Dex broke completely.

He buried his face in your neck as he came after you, groaning your name like an apology, like a confession, like it was the only prayer he knew. His body trembled beneath yours, his arms locked around you while he spilled inside you, holding on as if letting go too soon might make the whole thing disappear.

Afterward, Dex held you like an apology.

His mouth fluttered gentle kisses over your temple, your cheek, your throat, frantic in little broken bursts. He kept whispering sorry so many times the word stopped sounding like language and started sounding like breathing.

You were half-asleep against his chest, your fingers tucked loosely against his ribs.

He kissed your forehead again. “Sorry.”

You breathed out, half asleep. “For what?”

Dex went quiet.

He didn’t know, not really. He was sorry for the pipe, for wanting you too much, for needing you in a way that still scared him. He was sorry for looking at your love and thought it must have been damage.

His arms tightened around you.

You opened your eyes just enough to look at him. His face was ruined, like he was still trying to decide whether holding you counted as selfish.

You giggled softly.

“Dex,” you murmured, eyes half-lidded, fingers lazy in his hair. “If I’m broken, then I was broken when you found me.”

His breath stopped.

You smiled like that was supposed to comfort him.

Instead, it crawled into him and settled under his ribs, sweet and infected. It made his heart thump hard against his ribs. It made the guilt twist, mutate, turn into a warm and fuzzy feeling. Because there you were, looking at him like he wasn’t the man that had ruined you, but the man that had finally made sense. Like whatever was wrong with you had looked at whatever was wrong with him and fuckin’ purred.

Dex stared at you, eyebrows relaxing.

You touched his face, thumb dragging gently over his cheek scar, and he leaned into it before he could stop himself. 

Pathetic. So utterly gone for you. 

“I love you,” he said.

It came out hoarse. 

You shrugged like you knew all along. 

“I love you,” he said again. His hand tightened at your waist. “I love you.”

And for the first time, Dex wondered if Stockholm syndrome could happen the other way around, to the captor instead.

There was probably a fancy word for it. Some clinical term made by people with normal hearts. Something he could look up, self-diagnose, dissect, pretend to understand.

But Dex didn’t care.

If that was what had happened to him, then fine.

He didn’t want it cured.

—end. 

That Bullseye?

Bullseye, human weapon? That Bullseye was clingy? He followed you around the apartment like he had imprinted on you? He stood in the doorway when you brushed your teeth because apparently watching you do mundane things soothed him? He would pretend he was just “checking something” in the kitchen and then end up pressed against your back with his chin on your shoulder?

No one would believe it.

Still, Dex’s clingy affection wasn’t casual. It wasn’t sane. It was not, “Hey, babe, can I sit next to you?” affection.

You would be sitting on the couch, reading your book, maybe tucked under a blanket, maybe with your knees pulled up, enjoying your quiet evening. And Dex would walk into the room, see you existing without him touching you, and immediately decide that was unacceptable.

Like, it was genuinely upsetting to him.

He would stand there for a second, staring at you.

You would look up from your book. “What?”

No answer. Dex would just look at you like you had abandoned him by sitting six feet away.

Then he would come over and climb on top of you.

And no, not cuddle, and not sit. What? Did you think he was gonna ease himself into your space like a normal boyfriend?

He would collapse, full body, dead weight. His face would press into your chest, arms around your middle, one leg thrown over yours like he was trying to physically prevent you from ever leaving the couch again.

“Dex,” you’d say, already sighing.

He would make a tiny noise into your shirt.

“You’re crushing me,” you said, but really, you were fine. You got used to this weighted blanket routine long ago.

He made another sound, even louder this time.

Dex knew. He was too aware of his own body not to know exactly how much of his weight he had draped over you. He just didn’t care, because this was where he wanted to be, and therefore this was where he belonged now.

He was so cat-coded, and not a cute little kitten cat-coded either. He was a big, feral, half-socialised alley cat who would hiss at everyone else and then crawl into your lap like a spoiled baby the second no one was looking.

Still, you secretly loved it so much it made you stupid.

You would never tell him that, obviously. God forbid. You had to keep some dignity.

So you’d complain the whole time.

“You’re so needy.”

He’d tighten his arms around you.

“You know that, right?”

Dex would just burrow closer, like he was trying to get under your skin, into your lungs, somewhere where nobody could take him away from you.

And then, like muscle memory, your fingers would find his hair. The second you started combing through it, Dex was gone.

His shoulders would loosen. His grip would turn less desperate and more sleepy. His breathing would slow down. He would go heavy and boneless in the way that made your heart do flips in your chest.

This was the same man who could hit a target without looking. The same man who could clear a room and barely blink. The same man who looked at most people like they were either threats, obstacles, or background noise.

The second you start scratching gently at his scalp, he would melt into you like he had been waiting all day for permission to stop being a person.

He wouldn’t purr, because he was a grown man. But he would make a sound very close to one. It's like a little hum in the back of his throat. It. Was. So. Fucking Cute. 

So you’d do it again and again and again.

And if you stopped, he would notice.

Oh, he’d notice. 

His head would lift up just enough for one eye to open, giving you this judgmental little look full of betrayal. Like, excuse me? Why did the hand stop? Who authorised that?

So you’d go back to combing through his hair, because you were weak to his little antics and he knew it.

Then you’d start reading your book aloud.

He didn’t even ask you to, but he would just get quieter when you did it. He’d pepper kisses on your chest and your neck because he loved hearing your breath hitch as you tried to say a long word. His grip would loosen, then tighten again, like he was trying to hold onto your voice as much as your body.

You could be reading absolute nonsense and he would listen like it was sacred.

It didn’t matter what the book was. Romance, horror, some old paperback you bought secondhand, a paragraph describing curtains for way too long, eventually, Dex would fall asleep to it anyway.

So no, Dex didn’t love halfway. When Dex loved you, it was with his whole obsessive, desperately loyal heart. And yes, if he were actually a cat, he would absolutely scratch the shit out of anyone who looked at you wrong.

Someone made you uncomfortable? Claws.

Someone spoke to you too sweetly? Claws.

Someone tried to take your attention away from him? Eat fucking claws, dipshit.

So yeah, you could be reading the most boring paragraph in the world and Dex would still fall asleep like it was a lullaby, because it was your voice. Because you were there. Because nobody was taking him away from his sacred couch time. 

And you’d keep reading even when he started snoring his cute little snores, one hand holding the book, the other buried in his hair, pretending not to notice the way he nuzzled closer, even in his sleep. 

Your clingy, surprisingly domestic, loverboy boyfriend.

Your murderous little rescue cat.

Fast asleep on top of you like he had finally found the one place in the world where he didn’t have to bare his claws.

—

So the first time he saw the scar running down your spine… Yeah. No. He would go silent.

You just finish getting changed, maybe, after a third date. Nothing explicit had happened between you more than a cute little kiss after the second date, because honestly Dex would take it at your pace. He would do whatever to get closer and closer to you, because you were his North Star! He’d earn it. 

Anyway, you were on your third date. You got rained on out of nowhere and your apartment was right around the corner. You'd take him there and you’d change out of your blouse to a tank top.  

And Dex would see it when you turned around, halfway through saying something, and then he’d just… stop.

And then he saw your back.

That scar. And something in him just went..

Oh.

Oh, there you are.

Oh, that’s why.

Because Dex wouldn’t see it as a coincidence. Dex doesn’t believe in coincidences when it comes to you. Dex believes in patterns, signs, impact points. 

So when he saw that scar to match his… 

It doesn’t even have to be perfectly identical, maybe. But close enough. You had a mark where he had a mark. You were standing in front of him, with this healed line down your back like the universe had written mine on you in a language only he could read.

Dex would decide immediately, that God, if there is one, had gotten bored of subtlety. The universe finally looked at him and went, Fine. You want proof? Here.

And reach out, moving to stand behind you with his hand hovering over your back.

You’d be like, “Dex?”

And he wouldn’t answer.

Because sorry, babe, he was busy having a spiritual crisis and an obsessive attachment episode all at once.

His fingers would touch the scar so carefully at first. Two fingers, barely there, tracing the length of it while his breath went shallow behind you. Like he was looking at proof. Like someone had handed him a religious artifact and said, see? You were never the only one. 

Then once the shock wore off, once his brain processed that you had been marked too… Yeah.

He’d get weird.

“Who did this?” 

And you would tell him honestly. Maybe it was a surgery, an accident. Some old thing, something boring, something interesting, whatever. You could tell him it was nothing dramatic and he would think, wrong. Nothing about you is nothing.

He would hear you. He would understand the words. And then his brain would politely throw them in the trash.

To Dex, the details would become decorative, because the origin didn’t matter as much as the symbolism did.

You had a scar down your spine. He had a scar down his spine. And he was supposed to believe that you just happened to be his North Star? 

Nope. Not a chance. This was fate. 

That was basically marriage to him.

And you’d probably laugh awkwardly because Dex staring at anything for too long was always a little unnerving. “You alright?”

He wouldn’t answer right away. His head would be too full.

The stars would align for him. 

This was a sign! Why else would you understand him so well? Why else would you look at him like he wasn’t too much? Why else would your hand fit in his perfectly like you had been made specifically to pull him out of whatever pit he was crawling into?

Dex would absolutely decide this meant something. No, actually, he would decide it meant everything. It’s basically the world drawing a line down your back and then drawing one down his and saying, there. Now find each other.

He’d get so quietly insane about it too. Not in a loud way, he wouldn’t start rambling. He’d just become gentle for the rest of the night.

And then that night, you would let him sleep in your bed because a storm was brewing. And nothing really happened except for a lazy, giggly kisses, but Dex didn’t mind. In fact he adores it because he was still trying to process everything. 

And later, when you were half-asleep, you’d feel him there again, his fingertips tracing that healed line 

“You never told me,” he’d murmur.

And you’d say, sleepy, “It never came up.”

Which would make his chest twist.

Because to you, it was just a scar. To him, it was a prophecy.

And then you’d cuddle for the rest of the night.

Dex didn’t get less insane about it once the relationship became comfortable.

A year in, after every physical line and emotional line had already been crossed, after he learned by heart what you sounded like when you fell apart for him, he’d still hyperfixate on it. 

You would have moved in together by then, which was the best decision of his life. Not only did Dex get to wake up next to your beautiful face every morning, but he also got access to all these small, domestic moments that kept making him melt.

You brushing your teeth in one of his shirts. You walking around half-asleep. You bending over the kitchen counter while your shirt rode up your ass, high enough for him to see the start of that scar.

Yeah. Good luck.

He would be behind you immediately, and he wasn’t even trying to be subtle about it anymore.

He’d have one hand on your waist. The other sliding beneath the hem of your shirt, finding the raised line of your scar like it was muscle memory. Like his hand knew the way home before his brain caught up.

And then his mouth would follow.

He would press his lips to your scar like he was trying to pray through his teeth. Every kiss had intention behind its like he was holding himself back by a thread and letting you feel every second of restraint. He’d drag his mouth down your back so slowly it would make you forget how to breathe.

He wouldn’t be saying anything at first because he would still be thinking insane shit about fate. 

You would feel him smile against your spine and know, instantly, that he had become worse.

“Dex,” you’d say, half-warning, half-laughing, because you recognised that look. And he would just hum against your skin like you had interrupted worship.

Excuse you. He was in church.

His hands would settle on your hips, not rough yet, but firm enough to remind you that he was there. That he knew you. That he had memorised you.

“You match me,” he’d say, wild and wrecked.

And you would roll your eyes because of course he would say it like that. As if you did it on purpose. As if  you went out and got yourself scarred just to complete some deranged soulmate diagram in his head.

“I didn’t exactly plan it.”

“I know.”

But see, that made it better. The lack of planning only proved the point. Planned things could be fake. This simply can’t be.

And oh, you loved it.

You would pretend you didn’t, obviously. You would act like he was being insane. You would tell him he was reading too much into it. You would make a whole performance out of being the reasonable one in the relationship, as if you weren’t just as bad, just more socially acceptable about it. You’re just better at passing for normal in public.

But then his mouth would find your scar again and you would arch. His fingers would trace the line and you would go quiet. He would kiss lower, slower, and your little argument would die in your throat like it had never stood a chance. He would turn around and you would kiss his scar, too. 

Because maybe he had a point.

Maybe it did mean something.

And once he noticed that you were starting to believe, there was coming back from that.

Because now the obsession had consent and symbolism, which was basically gasoline to Dex.

And you’d be like, “You are so weird about this,” while feeling the same weirdness rub off on you, as if it was contagious 

And he'd just shrug, shameless.

Dex would happily be weird about you. He would make a home in being weird about you. He would light candles in it. He would build a little cathedral inside his mind and put you at the centre of it, spine scar and all.

Anyone else would tell him that matching scars did not mean destiny.

But you’d look over your shoulder at him, all smug in the exact way he liked best, and say something awful like, “So what, you think we’re divinely ordained now?”

And Dex would look at you like you had just handed him a loaded weapon.

“Of course,” he’d say. As if it was ever in question.

Then he would press his forehead between your shoulder blades and just breathe there, like he had found an altar.

Like every terrible thing that had ever happened to him had led to this exact moment.

To your shared bed, in your shared home

To your warm skin under his lips.

To the realisation that maybe, just maybe, he had not been made wrong.

Maybe he had been made to recognise you.

—

Note: Anon!!! This request is so special to me!! I, too, have a scar on my back, but mine is from a bodyboarding accident!! I was caught in a wipeout and my back got scraped pretty deep against a rock, and it was insane how it just dragged down almost perfectly in the middle. But yeah I never thought to write about this, so thank you for requesting.  🫶

Yeah, sure. Not attracted to other guys at all!

Dex looked far too pleased about it.

You loved that about Dex. He never looked surprised when he got what he wanted. He looked like he had already calculated the exact second Bucky would snap and finally kissed him back already!

“You’re so fucking smug,” Bucky muttered.

Dex’s eyes slid to you. “She likes watching us.”

Bucky looked at you, too.

You were flushed, breathless, trying very hard not to smile.

“I do,” you admitted.

Bucky’s jaw clicked. Then he kissed Dex like he was a bit annoyed at him for being right.

It was rough, open-mouthed, and mean in that competitive, stupid, beautiful way men got when neither one of them wanted to admit they were enjoying themselves. Bucky made this low sound into Dex’s  mouth, and Dex’s hand tightened in his shirt.

See, you liked being watched. That was your thing. But apparently, you liked watching too. Which was why you invited them over to your place on a rare off-day. You had been casually sleeping with them separately for a while now, and you knew that both of them were aware of the other guy, so you thought eh, why not? Might be fun. Might be interesting. They might try killing each other, but maybe you’d be into that, too, in your own fucked up way.

Interesting turned out to be the right choice of word, because seeing Bucky’s mouth on Dex, seeing Dex lean into it like he had been starving, made heat curl low in your stomach so fast you actually whimpered.

Both of them heard it.

Dex broke the kiss first, breathing hard, eyes dark as he turned back to you.“You want him to make you feel good, baby?”

Bucky’s stomach flipped. You tilted your head.

Huh. That's new. 

Dex’s voice was low, like he was giving you a gift. Like he was reminding Bucky to understand that you were still the centre of this. Still the one they were both trying to please. Competitive bastard. 

But this was out of character, because Dex was usually the more submissive when he was with you. 

Apparently, Bucky being there flipped some jealous, vicious little switch in him. Suddenly he needed to prove he could fuck you just as stupid as a super soldier could. And he could.

Bucky, meanwhile, went the opposite way. Usually, he was much more dominant. Usually he was the one pinning you down and taking control.

But with Dex there, he got pleasantly quieter. More obedient, more desperate to be useful. Like he wanted to prove he could be good for you, too, mouth on you, hands where you told him, watching Dex fuck you while waiting for your next order.

So really, you were spoiled for choice.

Dex was trying to beat Bucky in his own game. Bucky was trying to prove that he could follow orders, too!

Unfortunately, you were greedy and wanted both. 

You looked at Bucky, and how he reacted to Dex’s words. 

Bucky looked at you like he was trying very hard not to crawl.

“Yes,” you said.

Dex’s smile widened. “Then tell him.”

“Please, Bucky,” you pouted, “Please make me feel good.”

Bucky was on his knees between your thighs before you could even tease him for how fast he moved.

And that was when it got from great to whatever the fuck the seventh circle of heaven was.

Bucky was hungry. He kissed the inside of your thigh like he hated the fact that Dex was watching and loved it at the same time. His hands gripped your hips, metal and flesh, holding you open while his eyes flicked up to your face.

Dex moved behind you, one hand at your throat, not squeezing, just keeping you upright. Keeping your head tilted. Keeping you watching.

“Look at him,” Dex murmured against your ear. “Since you want him so bad.”

You did.

You watched Bucky drag his mouth deeper and his eyes darken when your breath caught.

You watched him notice exactly what made your muscles tight and then do it again, harder, because Bucky Barnes had never lost a competition in his life without making it everyone’s problem.

Dex noticed too. That’s when his grip at your jaw tightened.

Bucky smiled against your skin. “She likes when I—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dex snapped, voice rough. “I noticed.”

You nearly came from that alone.

You loved the jealousy and the attention. The fact that they were both so focused on you it felt impossible to breathe. Dex behind you, controlled and possessive. Bucky between your legs, looking up like he was daring Dex to do better.

Dex praised you when your pleasure rippled through.

Bucky groaned when you pulled his hair.

Dex told you, “That’s it. Let her hear you.”

You hummed like the sound was a reward.

Fuck, who were these people and what have they done to your boys? They were so different with their roles reversed.

Different, but good different. It was nice to see them both out of their comfort zones for you, pushing your buttons in opposite ways. 

Still, what mattered most was that they worked especially well together.

Bucky knew how to make you feel adored and devoured at the same time. Dex knew how to hold you still without making it feel like a cage. Bucky knew being watched made you desperate. Dex knew praise made you pliant. Bucky knew exactly when to be patient. Dex knew exactly when not to be.

So when Dex finally pulled you flush against him, his body pressed behind yours, Bucky stayed in front of you with wet lips, bright blue eyes, and both vibranium and flesh hands on your thighs.

Dex’s hand slid down your stomach, teasing and mean.

Bucky watched.

Then instead of reaching for your core like you had expected him to, Dex leaned forward, grabbed a fistful of Bucky’s hair, and pulled him up from between your legs until he was sitting beside you instead.

Oh.

Bucky gave a lewd moan, eyes blown wide.

You turned your head, breathless, lips brushing Dex’s cheek.

“You liked that,” you teased Bucky.

Dex’s smile went wicked.

“Touch him again,” you whispered, not as demanding as you usually was with him. “Please, Dex”

Bucky murmured your name like a warning, but he did not pull away when Dex’s fingers trailed up his metal arm, before he caught Bucky by the chin and forced the former Winter Soldier to look at him.

Bucky made a whine that sounded obscene.

You smiled. Oh. This was different from usual, dominant Bucky. This was way different. Not that you were complaining.

“You two are so cute,” you said, and had the audacity to giggle. 

Bucky gave a rough, breathless laugh.

Dex bit your shoulder, not hard enough to hurt, but just enough to shut you up.

It didn’t work. Because now you knew. Now you had both of them.

And because they were both insane, because both of them wanted to be your favourite, because neither of them could stand the idea of the other pleasing you better, they became unbearable.

Dex pushed into you from behind, slow at first, his mouth pressed to your neck, groaning every time you clenched around him.

And Bucky took a leap of faith and kissed him again while he did it.

It was messy, hungry, and competitive, sharing your sweet taste with him. 

He did it like he hated how much he wanted it. Like he hated even more that Dex was good at this.

Then Bucky turned and kissed you too with Dex’s spit still trailing from his mouth, stealing every sound Dex dragged out of you like he wanted to claim those, too.

It was filthy.

It was perfect.

Dex behind you, inside you, trying and failing to keep control. Bucky beside you, metal hand slipping between your legs while his other hand worked himself, his mouth moving between yours and Dex’s like he couldn’t decide who he wanted to ruin more.

And you were spoiled rotten.

You were held open. Watched. Kissed. Praised. Teased. Split apart between two men who had spent the entire night pretending they hated each other when really they hated how badly they wanted the same thing.

You.

And maybe, a little bit, each other.

You came first, because of course you did. They were both too competitive not to make that happen. Dex fucked you through it with his face buried in your throat, voice breaking around your name, and Bucky’s hand wasn’t much better. He didn’t even slow down as he watched you fall apart like it was the prettiest little thing he had ever seen in his century-old tenure on life.

Dex followed after, buried deep, shaking behind you.

Then Bucky came around his own fist. Still breathing hard, he grabbed Dex to kiss him again.

Though he wasn’t angry this time. He was still rough and possessive. But not angry.

Dex melted into it, pleased with himself.

Afterward, none of you moved much

Dex stayed behind you, arm locked around your waist like he had no intention of letting either of you escape. Bucky had his head in your lap, fingers tracing lazy circles over your tummy, eyes half-lidded and far too pleased with himself.

Then Dex murmured, “I think I’m her favourite.”

Bucky’s head lifted immediately.“You’re delusional.”

You laughed.

Obviously, they were going to deny it.

Bucky would call it adrenaline. Dex would call it curiosity. Both of them would insist it had mostly been about you.

And sure, maybe it had been. For now.

But you had felt Dex shiver when Bucky touched him. You had seen Bucky lose his composure when Dex kissed him.

They liked each other. Probably almost as much as they liked you.

They liked fighting. They liked watching. They liked being watched. They liked competing to please you so badly that the competition had turned into wanting each other too.

They just hadn’t figured it out yet.

Which was fine. You had plenty of time.

And next time, you had every intention of making them do much more than make out while you watched.

—

Note: I’m always so pleased that so many of us have the same taste in emotionally volatile men. This will be my last blurb of the night! Keep em coming and I will try my best to write them 🫶

You’d answer him with nothing more than a little “mhm.”

He’d start experiencing psychological warfare.

“Baby,” he’d say from the doorway, like a man begging outside a locked church. “Can you talk to me?”

“Hmm.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Hm?”

“You’re doing the thing.”

“What thing?” You finally said.

“The thing where you act like I’m not your favorite person.”

And, like. Fuck. What were you supposed to do with that?

He’d start bringing you random peace offerings too. Water. Your charger. A blanket. A snack. One time he sharpened your kitchen knives as an apology and looked like he was going to cry when you said that was not normal boyfriend behavior.

Eventually he’d crack completely.

He’d follow you into the bedroom, standing there with his hands flexing, trying not to crowd you, trying not to touch you, trying not to look as ruined as he felt.

“I’m sorry,” he’d say, and it would come out way too serious for an argument that started because he put a tracker in yet another piece of jewelry without asking.

You’d raise an eyebrow.

He’d swallow. “I was stupid.”

“Yes, you were.”

“I should’ve asked.”

“Yes, you should’ve.”

Dex was insane, not dumb. He knew exactly when he pushed too far. He recognised when your anger stopped being cute and bratty and started being real, and the second he realized that, he was gone. 

Destoyed. Because he had been the reason you were in a foul mood and he’d beat himself up for it, too.

He’d be on his knees emotionally, spiritually, probably literally if you just asked.

“What do you want me to do?” he’d ask, voice wrecked. “I’d do anything, baby.”

And you, because you were evil and in love, would say, “Anything?”

His eyes would go dark immediately. “Anything.”

Pathetic man. But he was yours. You learned quickly enough that he would do tricks for you if it meant you won’t give him the silent treatment anymore. 

And yeah, you’d forgive him eventually. Obviously you would. Not because he deserved it immediately, but because he looked so miserable standing there, because he was trying so hard, because being mad at Dex when he was looking at you like a kicked guard dog was nearly impossible.

Still, you’d make him work for it.

You’d ask for coffee in the morning and a chocolate bar from your favourite store. Maybe a little groveling. Maybe a lot.

And Dex would agree to all of it so fast it was embarrassing. Because the man could kill a room with office supplies but the second you stopped calling him baby? Completely useless.

When Dex was more mad than you, it was a different story. 

You got sweet. Not innocent, God, no. Just sweet.

If after an argument you realised that he was way more pissed, you'd be all soft-spoken gentle-eyed. You'd be a little too compliant on purpose, like you knew exactly what it did to him when you stopped being arguments and started being a good girl for him.

Dex could argue with you when you were bratty. He could snap back when you were trying to get under his skin.

But you being docile ruined him.

Usually he got mad because you did something stupid with your own safety. Maybe you somewhere alone when you knew someone was watching you. Maybe you didn’t tell him you were hurt. Maybe you took a risk and then acted surprised when Dex reacted like you had reached into his chest and ripped out his heart.

He would leave the house to cool down. Not because you were scared of him.

Please.

Dex could be terrifying to the world, but never to you.

He left because he knew if he stayed too long with all that fear, he might say impulsively cruel that he didn’t mean, and you might say something worse, and then both of you would bleed over an argument that really didn’t need to be bad at all. 

So he’d go and spend a few hours killing people who he thought deserved to die. Mostly people who wronged you, really: the construction worker who catcalled you, the rude lady who shouted at you in the workplace. You stopped asking, really. 

And you would wait.

By the time he came back, you’d be in bed wearing one of his shirts, hair loose, legs tucked under the blanket, looking up at him with your adorable eyes.

Dex would stop in the doorway.

You’d look at him and say quietly, “Hi.”

And that would somehow make him angrier at how badly he loved you. At the fact that you could scare the hell out of him and then sit there looking sweet enough to break his self-control.

“You scared me,” he’d say.

You would lower your gaze a little, not because you were ashamed exactly, but because you knew he liked seeing you soften. “I know.”

“You could’ve gotten hurt.”

“I know.”

“You didn’t call me.”

“I should have.”

That would stop him because he was ready for a fight. He was ready for you to throw that snarky attitude at him so he could catch it and throw it right back.

But you didn’t.

You just sat there, sweet and too willing to let him be mad, like you were offering him somewhere to put it.

He’d walk closer slowly, like he didn’t trust himself to move too fast. “You’re being very agreeable,” he’d murmur.

You’d blink up at him. “Am I?”

He’d run a bloody finger over your lower lips. 

You would reach for him, slow and careful, your fingers catching the hem of his shirt.

“I’m sorry,” you’d say.

Dex would look down at your hand on him, then back at your face.

“You sorry,” he said, voice rough, “or are you trying to get me to stop being mad?”

You’d swallow. “A little bit of both.”

His mouth twitched into a ghost of a smile. 

Then he’d stepped between your knees and you would be obedient before he even asked for it. 

Then, you’d whisper something like, “You could always use me, baby,” And that’s it. He’d literally do exactly as you asked and made you feel really, really good.

You’d let him crowd into your space. You’d his hands settle on you, firm and possessive You let him tip your chin up. Let him look at you for as long as he needed.

And when he finally kissed you, it would not be gentle. It was rough and possessive. 

It would be all the anger he didn’t want to say. All the fear he didn’t know how to name. All the horrible, desperate proof that you were still there, still warm, still his.

You’d let him take it out on you in bed. Not because you had to, but because you wanted to. Because there was something sick and sweet and perfect about being the only person Dex trusted with that side of him.

You’d let him grip your hips. You’d let him pin your wrists. You’d let him bury his face against your throat and fuck like he was trying to crawl inside your ribs.

By morning, he’d be softer around the edges.

Still mad, maybe. Still whispering that you were reckless and impossibly annoying and going to put him in an early grave.

But his arm would be around your waist and his mouth would be against your collarbone. “You’re not doing that again,” he’d mumble.

You’d hum, half-asleep. “Okay.”

“Mean it.”

“I mean it.” Then, because you were a bit of an asshole  even when you were sleepy, you’d say. “Mostly.”

Dex would bite your shoulder and leave a possessive mark.

“Don’t start,” he warned, but you could feel his smile against your skin.

Honestly, you would never admit it out loud, but sometimes you’d pissed him off and argue with him on purpose just so he would come home mean and fuck you stupid.

Dex knew.

Of course Dex knew. 

He just never said anything, 

He’d always take the bait fully knowing it’s fucking bait, because he liked your cute little games almost as much as you liked losing them.

—

His face was softer when he was asleep, less sharp, less dangerous, and looking like the Dex he only showed you when he was awake. 

Your fingers moved absently across the warm skin of his chest, tracing lazy patterns there as you stared out the window feeling nothing but peace for the first time in a while. 

A feeling that settled nicely on your chest as your fingertips drifted over your name etched into his skin and sat unmarked on his ribs like he had done everything possible to guard it, a mark that looked like it belonged there as naturally as it did for you to breathe.

Dex shifted slightly beneath your touch, tightening his arm around your waist instinctively before settling again, and your lips twitched softly, happy that he trusted you enough to sleep this deeply beside you.

Because Dex was someone who always noticed everything around him, from every sound to every movement to every threat, and yet here he was sleeping deeply enough that you could trace shapes against his chest without him immediately reaching for one of his many sharp knives.

An action and the feelings of trust made your heart skip a beat.

Your gaze and finger drifted over the scars littering his skin from fights and violence and the one down his spine from his surgery. You knew nearly all of them by heart now as your fingers slowed to a stop, hand resting on his stomach.

I could get used to this. The thought hit you hard enough to steal your breath for a second.

Because it wasn’t just him. It was the days spent together, the nights with his arm around your waist, the quiet mornings in his embrace, but mostly it was the soft warmth of him choosing you over and over again despite everything.

Your chest tightened unexpectedly.

Because this wasn’t supposed to feel like this. This relationship was supposed to feel dangerous, complicated, and wrong, but instead it felt safe. 

It felt like home. 

Dex stirred beneath you then, his breathing changing slightly before his eyes slowly opened and immediately settled on you despite the small, faraway look in them. A habit of his you had noticed on the first day he escaped prison. 

“How long have you been awake?” His voice was rough with sleep.

“Not long.” You whispered.

Your stomach flipped stupidly as his hand slid slowly up your spine beneath his shirt that he’d pulled onto you after he carried you from the sofa to his bed.

“You’re staring,” he murmured.

“You’re very observable.” You whispered, moving to run a hand through his sleep-ruffled hair. 

A faint smile touched his mouth. “You trace patterns when you’re thinking too much.”

Your eyebrows lifted slightly. “Is there anything you don’t notice?”

“Not when it comes to you, baby.”

Your cheeks warmed embarrassingly fast at the lack of hesitation and confidence in his answer.

Dex’s fingers brushed lightly against your jaw before he leaned forward to press a soft, lingering kiss against your forehead, the tenderness of it filling you with warmth.

“You’re quiet,” he murmured.

You looked down at his chest for a moment before admitting softly, “I’m thinking.”

“About?”

Everything. You thought to yourself. About him, Matt, Karen, and Foggy, this relationship, the future. 

But instead of saying any of that, you just shook your head and softly smiled. “Nothing important.”

Dex looked unconvinced but didn’t push as he pulled you closer until your ear rested over his heartbeat again.

You listened to it for a while before finally forcing yourself upright.

“I should go.”

His hand immediately tightened on your waist as his eyebrows furrowed.