summary: you finally let dex in. donât be surprised when he decides to stay.
pairing: benjamin poindexter x f!reader
content/warnings: 18+ (mdni), stalking, invasion of privacy, obsessive thoughts, mentions of masturbation, sexually explicit content, delusions, brief mention of cancer, canon-divergent, no use of y/n
word count:Â 4.6k
A/N: i got tipsy on margaritas and wrote this :P FINALLY earning our 18+ warning here yippee! this is actually my first time ever writing anything remotely sexually graphic despite only ever reading smut in my free time so i apologize in advance if it seems clunky. i SWEAR i know how a dick works!! and you all will find that out in future chapters :-) thank you again for all the love on the previous parts and i hope you enjoy this one! this is genuinely just the tip of the iceberg for dex and northstar!reader and i cannot wait for yâall to see how insane it gets in the upcoming chapters.
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A North Star only works if you know where to find it.
And thatâs what you were. A North Star.
Dex shouldâve known it from the moment he opened the door to see you holding that frog-colored plate. He shouldâve known it when you blushed and apologized for talking too much before handing him your heart, battered and baked into perfectly symmetrical cookies. He shouldâve known it when you bared your teeth in that bewitching little smile you did and said âgood morningâ like you didnât know you were made for him. He shouldâve known.
But you see, love takes time. Dex was still learning that.
So, he adjusted. Thatâs what lovers do, donât they? They compromise. And Dex was not one to compromise easily, which shouldâve gone to show you just how sorry he was to not have recognized your purpose sooner.
After that night, after Dr. Johnson and the shooting range and the creased pink note that was still the centerpiece of his makeshift altar to you, he understood exactly what Mercer had meant all those years ago. It was difficult in the moment, being so young and filled with hate and confusion in the hellhole that was the Riviera Psychiatric Institute. For the longest time, he thought Mercer was speaking about herself. Maybe she was, in a way. She cared about him. She wanted him to succeed. She tried to teach him right from wrong. She gave him tools to adapt, and for that, he was thankful. But she had left him anyway.
Cancer, Mercer had told him. As if naming it made it hurt any less.
If Mercer was his North Star, his true North Star, why did she not fight to stay?
You would fight for him. Dex knew that, deep in the pit of his soul. You were caring, selfless. The kind of person who went out of your way to help neighbors you barely knew, who still called your parents, who taught little children and looked after friends. He had never known that a woman like you existed.
And more than all of that, you were good.
No one had ever successfully explained the difference between good and bad to Dex. Mercer had tried, as futile as it was. But Dex now knew why no one could teach him what good wasâŚbecause you were the only one who showed it. That was what a North Star should be. Someone who was good not only in theory or out of obligation, but in genuine action.
It was your goodness that regulated him more than any breathing exercise ever could. Dex soon learned that in the days after you left that note outside his door.
It was difficult at first, naturally. Change always was. Heâd still get a little twitchy when he left the house thirty-two minutes later than when he usually did. Or when he had to adjust the route of his daily jogs so he could follow you on Sunday mornings to the bakery two blocks away (âfollowâ was an ugly word; he preferred to think of it as âobservingâ).
But it was so, so worth it.
He knew that on the very first morning of his newfound strategy. After he had waited to hear the click of your doorknob and stepped out just as you were locking your own door. You had greeted him, seemingly pleasantly surprised, and Dex felt his face morph into a smile that copied yours.
You both had entered the elevator after, side-by-side. It was a cool September morning, but Dex could still feel sweat beginning to soak the cotton of his shirt. You just had that effect on him.
As the elevator ticked slowly down each floor, you gave a sigh, crossed your arms, and finally turned to look at him. âOkay. Be honest with me. The lasagna was horrible, wasnât it?â
âIâ no,â Dex stuttered. He felt a droplet of sweat drip down his back. Why couldnât he stop sweating? âNo, of course not. It was good. Thank you.â
The corner of your mouth lifted. âYou donât have to lie to me.â
âI-Iâm not.â He would never lie to you. WellâŚabout that, specifically. You shouldâve known that.
âOkay, okay.â You raised your hands in mock defeat and giggled. âIâm glad it was edible. I hope it made your night a little better. You looked pretty ragged.â You stopped yourself and Dex watched hopelessly as your face flushed. âSorry, I donât mean you looked badâ I just⌠Iâve had my fair share of bad days before, soâŚI thought maybe you had one, too.â
See? This is what Dex was talking about. âI did. Have a bad day, I mean.â Dex fiddled with his cuff buttons. âItâs fine, though.â
You nodded patiently. âWhat do you do for work?â
âI work with the FBI. The uh, Crime Division.â
âWow.â Your eyes widened. âSeriously? Like, the FBI FBI?â
âThat explains the suits, I guess,â you said. âProbably a much more stressful job than dealing with third graders, huh?â
Before Dex could answer and tell you, no, your work was more important, your life was more important, the elevator gave a quiet ding and its doors slid open. You hoisted your tote bag back up onto your shoulder and Dex watched helplessly as you put one foot out of the car.
âIâve got to run if I want to catch the bus on time,â You paused, and glanced back at him. Your eyes softened a fraction and Dex felt it in his bones. âTake care of yourself, okay?â
God, he wished he could. He had spent years trying. But Dex couldnât help himself. Only you could take care of him. Your presence. Your smile. You.
That short elevator ride was only the beginning. Dex had become very good at finding you.
Each pass in the hallway, every quick comment on the weather or last nightâs Knicks game, every time Dex just so happened to be sorting his mailbox when you came to check on yours, every time he passed the bakery you frequented Sunday morning and prayed you wouldnât notice him through the windowâŚit fueled him. It was more addictive than any drug imaginable. Your presence grounded him.
A few seconds of seeing you, or better yet being near you, or if God was good, talking to you, it was rejuvenating. He felt moreâŚcomplete. More human. He did better at the field office, slept better, ate better. You were good for him.
But Dex had become greedy. He needed more than just glimpses or a few casual words exchanged. He needed to know you. Understand what made you the way you were.
So at night, he would wait patiently for the jazz in your apartment to turn off. Wait until he could no longer hear the pattering of your feet or the running of the water from your bathroom (Dex had always hated how thin the apartment walls were. Now he found himself grateful for them). Once he imagined you were snuggled and safe in your bed, fast asleep, he would make his way to the desk in his bedroom, open his laptop, and begin his research.
At first, it was simple things. A quick Google search of your name unveiled a plethora of information already. Dex scrolled through the page.
First link: your Facebook. A profile picture of you at your college graduation with what must have been your mother and father (he would have to look them up after, of course). Shifting down the profile, he saw posts about school fundraisers, attending friendsâ weddings and baby showers, birthdays, childhood pets, holidays⌠All the painfully ordinary things Dex had always wished he could be a part of.
The Instagram was a slightly different story. You had a profile, yes, but it was private. Dex didnât have an account before, but now he had a reason to create one. A burner, obviously. No profile picture, just random letters and numbers. Heart in his throat, he sent a follow request, andâŚyou accepted it. Hmm. He would really need to talk to you about internet safety, one day.
Perusing through your profile, it became clear to him that Facebook was for family, and Instagram was for friends. You uploaded photos of mimosa-fueled brunches where your smile was loose and your eyes shiny. Or posted song links to your story late at night. His favorite post from you was from just a few weeks before you moved into 416: a collection of photos from the start of the school year. Your classroom in Harbor View Elementary that you had obviously put hours of hard work and poured your own money into decorating for your students, a view of the sunset from your old bedroom window, an expensive-looking matcha latte next to a dog-eared copy of The Secret Garden, and thenâŚa picture of you. Taken by one of your friends, most likely. You were sitting, cross-legged on a picnic blanket somewhere in Central Park. Mid-laugh, your hand was frozen halfway in the air like you were trying to cover your mouth.
Dex liked that photo. It made something pool within him, warm and fresh and childlike. Happiness, maybe.
If it was a particularly long day or he hadnât gotten to see enough of you, he would sit there in his dark bedroom and justâŚstare. He would stay there, basking in the blue light of his laptop, until he felt that warm feeling again. Sometimes it would be minutes. Sometimes hours.
Still, it just wasnât enough. More, his brain would demand. So, he kept digging.
Your Pinterest board with lesson-planning templates and pastry recipes.
Your school staff page with your classroom bio.
The wedding website of your childhood friend where you were listed as her Maid of Honor.
The baby registry for the same childhood friend where you bought her a pack of swaddles with ducks on them.
The rental listing of your old apartment.
The Venmo requests you sent to old college friends with captions like âFriday Uberâ and âDecember utilitiesâ and âgirls night!! đĽâ.
Your driverâs license photo.
Your Social Security number.
Dex was contemplating this one morning as he waited in the apartment lobby, mindlessly shuffling through the same stack of bills and junk mail that he kept recycling through his mailbox. By now, he knew it was only a few minutes until youâd emerge from the elevator as you did on Friday mornings. Â
He knew the basics of you by now, daily whereabouts included. But there was more to you than that or the snippets of information he had scraped together online. What was the name of the jazz album you played in the evenings? What kind of ground coffee did you buy? Did you like paperback books, or hardcovers? What side of the bed did you sleep on? What was the name of that intoxicating, citrus-smelling shampoo he could sometimes smell wafting from you?Â
Of course, Dex knew there was a very easy way to find those answers. An apartment like yours would be almost laughably easy to break into. A simple bobby pin twisted and turned just right, and then he could finally have what he wanted.Â
Oddly enough, though, the temptation didnât sit right with him. He didnât want that. Dex didnât want to be a thief in the night; he wanted to be invited. He wanted you to open your door wide and ask him to stay forever.Â
The mailroomâs elevator dinged. Right on time.Â
When the doors slid open, you were there. Tote bag in tow, thermos in hand. Just as Dex knew you would be. Â
Your eyes lit up the moment you saw him.Â
âDex!â You trotted over to him, the canvas bag thumping against your hip. âI was hoping I would see you this morning. I have a huge favor to ask.â
He felt like he had been shot in the heart. Dex imagined he would remember those words for a long, long time. You? Hoping for him? Plus, he was honestly a little offended, because did you really think he would say no? He would do anything for you. Hell, if you asked him to cut off his own hand, he wouldâve sharpened the knife and asked which one, left or right?Â
âIâ uh, yeah,â Dex stuttered, mail forgotten. âYeah, whatâs up?â
âIâm going home this weekend to my parents, itâs my dadâs birthday,â you began to explain. Ah, of course. He knew your dadâs birthday was coming up. And your parentsâ home, too. From sale price to square footage to the lilac-painted room that you grew up in. âIâll be back Monday evening, but my friend just gave me this beautiful fern thatâs like, a total diva. It has to be watered every couple of days or itâll drop dead. Would you be able to come by while I'm out and water it for me?â
Dex blinked. For a brief moment, he genuinely wondered if you were a mind reader. Because honestly, what were the odds? Fate, he decided.Â
Yes, it was that moment, standing in the apartmentâs lobby holding a pile of dated junk mail he kept in his mailbox for the sole reason of seeing you, that Benjamin Poindexter finally realized he believed in fate.Â
How else? Why else would something so impossible fall directly into his hands?Â
âOf course,â Dex said immediately. He tried to keep his voice from shaking. âOf course, Iâ yeah, I can definitely water yourâŚfern.â
You clasped your hands in relief. âThank you. My fern should be safe with an FBI agent watching over her.â
You continued on, oblivious. âIâll just leave my key under the doormat, okay? You can just put it back once youâre done.â
âGreat!â You turned on your heel and started walking to the lobbyâs front door, waving at him over your shoulder. âI owe you one!â
Dex didnât sleep that night.Â
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw himself standing in apartment 416. Surrounded by your photographs, your books, your smell, yourâŚeverything.Â
He would roll over in his bed, trying to force himself to think about anything else, but twenty minutes later he would be imagining it in perfect detail all over again. Â
After tossing and turning the whole night, Dex was at least awake to hear you shuffle out your door when the sun was barely up. It was hard not to worry as he listened to your footsteps pass by. Were you driving home? Taking the train? Who was picking you up, your father? Your mother? What if something happened? What if you needed him? Not knowing was killing him. Dex had a brief thought that maybe he should just go with youâ
He tried to rein it in. You should spend time with your parents. Thatâs what someone like you did, anyways. Still care about the people who created you, because they deserved it. They didnât take one look at you, just a helpless little wailing infant, and decide, âHmm, maybe notâ. They raised you with love and affection, and maybe that was why you were lucky and he was not.Â
But there was no need to feel bad for him.Â
Because Dex was lucky in his own way, too.Â
You needed to leave because this was fateâs greatest gift to Dex: the literal key to have complete access to your life.Â
Dex spent the morning pacing his living room floor. His hands were clammy, his body practically vibrating with anticipation. He tried futilely to tell himself to be normal about thisâ water the fern, maybe take a quick look around, then come back to 415 and spend the rest of the weekend being miserable until you returned. Dex knew, of course, that wasnât going to happen.
Finally, having mentally fortified himself as much as he could, he exited the apartment and walked the three steps across the hall. In front of your door lay a small mat, prints of daisies decorating the edges and âPlease leave by 9!â stamped in the middle.Â
He crouched, and lifted the mat. A small silver key lay under it, identical to his own apartment key.Â
If anyone had ever found a key to heaven, the discovery would have felt less transcendental than this.
He gingerly retrieved the key and stood up. It took a few tries to slot it in the lock with how much his hands were trembling. Eventually, the key slid in, turned, and the door gave way.
Instantly, Dex was hit with a wave of familiar scentsâ citrus, something sweet and sugary like a pastry, a hint of coffee beans, the smell of paper and markers, andâŚyou.
He had to physically grab the door frame to steady himself and take a deep breath.
Dex focused his eyes on the floor until the world stopped swimming around him. Okay. Okay. He could do this. Duty first, reward later.Â
He straightened himself. Directly across the room under your living room window, a collection of potted greenery was arranged on the floor. In the middle of the group was a fern. You were right. The plant was beautiful.Â
Dex forced his feet to move one in front of the other, his gaze fixed on the plants, willing himself to just focus. A small tin watering can was on the windowsill. He picked it upâ seemingly, you had already filled it up for him, because you were thoughtful like that.
Dex tipped it over the fern. Glug, glug, glug.
Once he was satisfied with the plantâs hydration, he set the can back onto the windowsill.
And slowly turned to face the room.Â
The morning light cast soft rays across the floor, blanketing the whole apartment in a soft golden haze. A green velvet couch was scooted against on the far end of the wall, a warm, patchwork quilt folded over the back. The coffee table in front of it held a small homemade vase, slightly crooked and decorated with unevenly painted smiley faces. It looked like it mightâve been made by a child. Folders, notebooks, and some half-graded math worksheets were stacked neatly next to it. A record player was sitting on a side table near the couch, a crate of organized albums below it.Â
On the other end of the apartment, a small oak table with two matching chairs was tucked into the corner. The kitchen was similar to his own, but instead of the sterility of Dexâs, assorted colors of pots and bakeware and cooking tools were placed wherever there was spaceâ over the fridge, on the countertops, hung on hooks above the stove.Â
The walls were decorated with photos of you with friends, you with family, framed posters from movies and bands, and vintage artwork prints.
Dex never knew a place could feel soâŚwarm. Alive.Â
He felt like a man starved all his life and set before a feast. Like someone dragged out of a cave and shown the sun. Or, perhaps most accurately, like a sinner on deathâs door, crawling into a cathedral for absolution.Â
Apartment 416 was his chapel, and you were his God.Â
It was overwhelming, honestly. Standing there in the soft pale glow of the sunrise, surrounded by you. It almost made him want toâŚcry.Â
He hadnât cried since Mercer.Â
But now was not the time. The greedy, insatiable thing inside him had lifted its head, recognizing the opportunity for something more than scrolling through your photos in the dark of his bedroom.
Dex began with the thing closest to him. He opened the record player to see an album still on the mat. A Love Supreme by John Coltrane. Dex paused over it, thumb hovering just above the sleeve. Even your music seemed to understand what fate had brought you to apartment 416 for.
From there, his attention drifted to the stack of papers on the coffee table. Still grading on a Friday night? Of course you were. Looking more closely, he saw the worksheet on top of the pile. âGreat job!â you had written in purple ink, a smiley face next to the words. âProud of you!â
Dex walked into the kitchen. For a moment, he could imagine it clearly: you at the stove, sleeves pushed up, stirring something while Coltraneâs saxophone played softly in the background. A quiet evening. Two plates on the table.
More, the dark pit in his mind commanded.
That mental image opened something in him, an urgency. A daze, almost. He kept moving. He opened your cabinets. Your coffee, some small-batch blend from a farmerâs market. Your cereal. Your preferred brand of bread. Next cabinet. Your plates. Cups that had been touched by your lips. He ran his fingers over one of the rims.
In a trance, he drifted out of the kitchen, down the hall, past the photos and posters. They stared back at him. You as a young girl, squeezed in a tight embrace with your mother on a playground. You at your middle school graduation, gangly-limbed and mouth full of braces, posing with your father. A toga party from college. A group portrait of you and friends at a wedding. Years of you. Years he had missed.
Dex pushed open the door to the bathroom and flipped the light on. It was narrow and clean. A small tortoiseshell dish held a bar of hand soap. Next to it, a cup for your pink toothbrush. He opened the medicine cabinet. Ibuprofen, nasal spray, Band-Aids, a hair comb. Certainly more empty than his own, which held little besides a plethora of orange prescription bottles. He opened your striped shower curtain. A set of blue bottles waited for him. Dex picked one up and twisted the cap off, bringing it to his nose.Â
He inhaled again, deeper. There it was. It smelled like oranges and the sun. Like your hair when you passed him in the hall.
Dex considered taking the shampoo with him, but then realized how rude that would be. Instead, he made a mental note of the brand and decided he would have to do some shopping later.Â
By the time he staggered to your bedroom door, he felt drunk on it. That citrus smell of you still lingered in his nostrils. Dex knew that if he went into your bedroom, he would not be coming back. No, because this was your inner sanctum. And he wanted in, so fucking badly. All reason had left his mind. No caution remained. No pretending that this was casual cataloging. Only the need for more.
And so, abandoning all pretense of humility and honor, he opened your bedroom door.Â
For a second, Dex could only stand there.Â
Your bedroom. Your bed. A sweatshirt hanging off a chair. A pair of earrings in a little ceramic tray. The ordinary evidence of a life interrupted, of a body that had been here hours ago and would return again soon.
The pillow on your bed still held the faintest impression of where your head must have rested. Dex stared at it until his eyes burned and his vision blurred at the edges. He shouldnât. Mercer would say no. She would say stop. She would say this was wrong.
His legs moved before he gave them permission. One clunky step. Then another. Then his knees were sinking down into the edge of the mattress, one hand braced against your sheets, breathing too hard and too loud. The bed dipped beneath his weight. He crawled forward, drawn in by that greedy thing inside him that he knew would never be satisfied.
Finally, Dex lowered himself face-first into the bed until he was smothered in the sheets. He would have died happily if he suffocated like this. Because this was more than your shampoo. This, layered with detergent and cotton, was the scent of you.Â
He dragged it as deep into his lungs as it would go.
This was where you slept. Where you dreamed. Maybe where you sat in your pajamas, talking and laughing with friends on the phone. Where you read until you fell asleep, pages still open against your chest.
Where you touched yourself.
His fingers tightened in the sheets and his breath stuttered. Yes. This was the place. Where you lay at the end of the day, body hot and aching with need. Where your hand might drift beneath the waistband of your pajama shorts.
Would you tease yourself? Would you take your time, fingers tracing over the swell of your breasts, over the softness of stomach, over your hip, along the inside of your thigh until you were slick with want?Â
Or would you be impatient? Would you go straight to it, pad of your index finger circling your swollen clit until your hips shifted against the mattress? Until you had to stifle your moans of pleasure into the very pillow Dex was lying on?
Dex had grown hard, cock throbbing painfully in the confines of his jeans. He pushed his face deeper into the pillow and groaned.Â
It would have been easy, so easy, to find relief. The smell, the vision, the unbearable mercy of finally being this close to you, it had already brought him close enough to his peak that one simple thrust into the mattress would have sent him over the edge.Â
But Dex couldnât. The shame, the disgust with himself still lingered underneath the infatuated haze. And deeper still, that insatiable monster knew it wouldnât be enough. He didnât want to spill in his pants like a teenage boy. He didnât want to go back to his apartment and jerk off in the dark like the pathetic thing he was. He wanted you. Always, always you. Your body, your mouth, the heat of your cunt pulling him in deeper and deeper still until there was no telling where he ended and you began.Â
And so, he took one last inhale of your pillow and slowly peeled himself off the bed, cock still aching against the zipper of his jeans. The absence was immediate, cold air hitting his face and the room brutally returning around him.Â
Ignoring the pulse in his groin, he took care to smooth the bed and adjust the pillow where he had disturbed it. He stepped back, his own heartbeat settling, and heard the bedroom quiet.
Dex had overstayed his welcome. He knew what he needed to know. It was time to leave. He made sure the cabinets were closed, the lights turned off. Double-checked, then triple-checked everything for good measure. And finally, he returned to 415.Â
The weekend passed without incident. Dex did his morning jogs, he read the newspaper, he did his stretches and his one hundred push-ups and one hundred sit-ups. He did not enter your apartment again, as strong as the temptation was. Years of denial still existed within him and Dex knew how to exercise restraint when required. When it was what you needed from him.Â
By Monday evening, you were back in the hall, standing in his doorway while you thanked him for watering your fern and complained about how long it took you to get back into the city with all the traffic. He nodded, assured you it was no problem, and wished you a good night as he watched you retrieve your key from under the doormat.
âSeriously,â you said as you unlocked apartment 416. âYouâre a lifesaver.â
You closed the door behind you.
For a moment, he remained in the open doorway, staring at the place where you had just been. Then he reached into the back pocket of his jeans. The copy of your key was warm against his palm.
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