K-6196

Worse, Lord Daniels looks at you as though you are already his property. Not a woman with thoughts, wants, or a heart of your own, but rather just a pretty vessel meant to warm his bed, bear his heir, and behave while doing it.

And god forbid you have hobbies! He treats your love of plants like a defect, like a girlish little habit he intends to prune out of you after the wedding.

So when you try to make your father understand that you cannot marry Lord Daniels, he does not listen. He calls you a selfish bitch.

You get into a screaming match with him after that. You tell him he is selling you off. He tells you that you are ruining your own future.

By the time you start crying, you’re running out of the house. 

You are not running forever, of course. You are not foolish enough to think you could survive alone outside your father’s house, let alone in the wild.

You just need space from your family.

So you run into the woods behind the estate, skirts damp, gloves dirtied, face hot with rage, needing only to be alone for a little while.

And that is where you meet Lord Poindexter.

Every woman in Mayfair knows of him but none of them truly knows him. Your mother once said he was “a fine match, of course,” then immediately followed it with, “Though there is something rather severe about him.”

Severe is one word. Dangerous is better.

He is hunting alone when he finds you, rifle in hand, coat across his shoulders. He frightens you, a little.

But then he lowers the rifle the moment he sees your tears. “My lady.”

“Your Grace.”

His eyes move over you, like he is cataloguing every sign of distress and deciding who must be punished for it.

You should curtsy and leave. Instead, you talk.

You tell him about Lord Daniels. About your father. About marriage without love. You tell him you would rather disappear into the woods than be handed over to a man who thinks your hobby is an inconvenience.

“I think I would like to marry a man who knows the difference between a daisy and a dahlia,” you say, bitterly.

That earns you another almost-smile. “Daisies,” he says.

“What?”

“You like daisies?”

You blink, thrown by the gentle edge of the question.

“Yes,” you say. “My favourite, in fact. They are not grand, but they survive almost anywhere. People overlook them because they are common, but I think that is rather unfair.”

Dex looks at you. He looks and looks and looks.

“My lady,” he says finally, “I do not think Lord Daniels deserves you.”

Your breath catches in the cold air. “You hardly know me, Your Grace.”

His eyes do not move away from yours. “Not yet.”

Hello?????

What the hell do you mean, Lord Poindexter? 

Because what is that? Who says that in the woods to a crying viscount’s daughter he has known for less than an hour? A madman, maybe. A loaded pistol in human form.

He escorts you to the threshold of your home, kisses your gloved fingers before he leaves, and you spend the whole night staring at your ceiling and thinking about him  like an idiot.

The next morning, Lord Daniels is dead because he had been challenged to a duel. 

Apparently, he has been shot through the heart at dawn by Lord Poindexter.

Oh, Lady Whistledown is frothing at the mouth.

The entire ton becomes rabid, because even the scribe doesn’t know why the Duke of Arrowhead challenged him to a duel. Some say Daniels owed him money. Some say Daniels insulted him at cards. Some say there was an argument over hunting rights. The men insist it must have been something respectable and masculine, because God forbid a duke shoot another lord over a girl he met weeping in the woods the day before.

But you know Dex loaded that pistol for you.

By afternoon tea, Lord Poindexter comes calling, telling your father that he would like to court his daughter.

He brought the biggest bouquet of daisies you had ever seen.

Your father grinds his teeth and hesitates, because Lord Poindexter has just killed your intended.

But also…

He is a duke.

A rich duke.

A handsome duke.

A rich, handsome duke who has come calling with flowers for your mother’s daughter, who, as your mother very gently reminds your father, has not exactly been cooperative with any of the men your father has presented to her.

So eventually, he is allowed into the drawing room.

Your father looks like he is swallowing a knife. Your mother looks like she is watching a scandal unfold in real time. 

And Dex looks only at you. He gives you the daisies like the dead man between you is merely an unfortunate scheduling matter.

From there, it snowballs.

Lord Benjamin Poindexter becomes devoted to you in a way that makes every ballroom feel like a crime scene waiting to happen.

He appears at social events he would once have avoided. He stands at the edge of every room in black gloves, watching you like the rest of the ton is background noise. He asks you to dance, and people are speechless, because the Duke of Arrowhead famously does not dance at balls.

Except now he does.

With you, and only you.

He is not charming with anyone else, though. Other ladies still try to speak to him (again, handsome, rich, duke). They flutter their lashes and smile and ask about his estate, his hunting, his views on town.

He gives them nothing.

Then you walk up and mention that your new fern cutting is struggling, and suddenly this man is leaning in like you have declared war on France.

“What kind of fern?”

“Maidenhair.”

“How much light does it need?”

And you talk and talk and talk, and the other ladies stare because this is not the Duke of Arrowhead they know. This man remembers the layout of your greenhouse, even when he claims he has never been there. He remembers the variety of your roses. He knows the shade your orchids prefer. 

He remembers everything.

And God help every Lord who even attempts to talk to you.

A lord compliments your figure too boldly?

Duel, shot through the head.

A viscount laughs about Lord Daniels and your “unfortunate effect on men”?

Duel, shot in the bowels and bled to death.

A gentleman grips your waist too hard at a ball, and you come crying to Dex because you feel ruined?

Duel. Shot through the liver at dawn so he feels the pain as the light drains from his eyes. 

There are dead lords behind you now. Injured lords. Ruined lords. Men leaving London for their “health.” Men avoiding your side of the ballroom as though you are cursed.

And maybe you should be horrified.

But there is a terrible and satisfying feeling curling inside you every time Dex’s eyes tunnel across a room because another man has made a pathetic attempt to court you.

You feel… flattered. 

Your mother is like, “He cannot continue challenging every gentleman who causes you discomfort.”

Your father is like, “He is making you impossible to marry.”

And you are like…

Is he?

Or is he making me impossible to marry to anyone but him?

Because Dex is not stupid.

He knows what this does. Every duel ties your name tighter to his. Society begins to understand your honour as his territory, your reputation as his concern. 

He wants the whole ton to know that touching you, wanting you, and embarrassing you comes with consequences.

Yes, he wants you ruined if ruined means no one else can have you. And the night Dex actually ruins you, it happens at Lord Ashcombe’s ball.

Ashcombe has been secretly admiring you all season like a man too stupid to notice the bodies piling up behind him. He asks for a dance with you and says it would be rude to refuse the host.

And you know Dex is watching.

Usually, you would say no. But today, you were feeling particularly brave and you wanted to test the limits of Dex’s affections. So you say yes.

Dex becomes murderously jealous almost immediately. 

Dex watches Ashcombe’s hand settle at your waist and crushes the wine glass in his hands. You smile and pretend not to hear the shatter. 

The moment the dance ends, Dex pulls you out to the garden and corners you there. 

The wisteria hangs heavy overhead, purple and soft and romantic in the most damning way. The music from the ballroom is muffled behind glass. Your heart is still racing from the dance, from the thrill of knowing you provoked him and he came exactly as you knew he would.

“What was that?” He demanded. 

And you pout, because apparently you have lost all sense of self-preservation. “Perhaps I am tired of waiting for a proposal.”

His jaw tightens. “You think I will not ask?”

“You have not even asked my father for my hand.”

And oh.

Oh, that wounded him. “I will.”

See, you don’t understand that yet. Dex is not delaying because he doubts his love for you. He is delaying because he is who he is. Because in his head, before he asks your father and puts the ring on your finger, he must clear the field.

He must eliminate every man who wants you and every lord who thinks he still has a chance.

And yes, that is deranged, but he enjoys hunting his romantic rivals for sport. He loves the fact that he gets to prove, again and again, that wanting you is dangerous unless you are him.

But then you ask with sad lashes, “How do I know you’re not lying, Your Grace?”

And Dex goes very still.

Then he kisses you.

His hands are on you at once, crushing your silk dress, dragging you closer. He kisses you like he is furious you ever doubted him. Like your mouth is the only argument he needs. 

You should stop him.

You could.

You do not.

Instead, you kiss him back and sigh a triumphant yes, knowing no other man will have you now. 

Eventually his hands bunches up your skirts and rips your undergarments. You gave a breathless little panic gasp, knowing no lady should let a man touch her like this before marriage.

Dex turns you carefully, presses you forward until he bends you over the garden wall, one gloved hand braced beside yours, the other holding you at the waist like he is both keeping you steady and making a claim.

“You want to know,” he murmurs, voice rough against your ear, “what husbands and wives do?”

Your breath catches.

“I need to hear you say it, Your Grace,” he says. Dex’s mouth brushes the shell of your ear, and you know that is not your title yet. You do not have a duchy. But it is the title you will take if he marries you.

When, you remind yourself, not if.

“Y-yes, Your Grace,” you managed.

“That’s my good girl,” he breathes, gloved hand tightening at your waist.

So Dex fucks you there beneath the wisteria, with the ballroom glowing behind the windows and your fingers trembling against old stone. He takes you, letting you adjust to his size as he ruins you completely and makes you understand exactly what he means to give to you once you are his wife.

He talks to you through it in that low voice, telling you this is what he will give you on your wedding night, and every night after, telling you he would not ruin you if he did not intend to keep you, telling you no other man will ever know you like this because no other man will live long enough to try.

You hate that it works.

You hate that every possessive word goes through you like fire. You hate that you believe him most when he is like this.

And when you fall apart for him, he holds you and kisses your temple through it, ever so gentle. 

He destroys your reputation with the tenderness of a man arranging flowers.

By the time it is over, your legs are unsteady, your mouth is swollen, your skirts are a scandal, and Dex is still pressed close behind you.

Then, you turn your head and see Lord Ashcombe at the edge of the path.

He looks pale and absolutely destroyed by what he has walked in on.

You glanced at Dex in a panic, but he is just casually buckling up his trousers and smiling. 

That's when you realised that Dex wanted you two to get caught.

He knew Ashcombe slipped into this part of the garden to smoke, that’s why he dragged you here, of all places! This was a trap. This was the hunting for sport he loved so much.

This was Dex proving his love in the most deranged way possible: by ruining you just enough to make Ashcombe understand he had already lost.

Dex adjusts your skirts while challenging him to a duel for your honour. 

By dawn, Ashcombe is dead. 

Lady Whistledown is frothing at the mouth.

By noon, Dex comes calling again with more daisies.

Your mother sits down very slowly. Your father says no when Dex asks for your hand.

Dex only raised an eyebrow like it was a minor obstacle.

So he leaves and comes back with a deed. He has bought you the largest greenhouse in the country. 

A scandalous duke with dead men in his wake gives you a kingdom of flowers and expects your father to keep saying no?

Please.

Your father’s protests are running thin. Your reputation is half-shredded. Your mother is exhausted. The ton already speaks of you as though you are his. Men no longer ask for your hand because they enjoy having all their organs where they are.

So finally, your father agrees.

Dex proposes in the garden with daisies everywhere, because of course he does. Because the man is unwell and romantic and terrifying and yours.

He kneels in the dirt like a duke who has never cared less about being a duke.

And you say yes with your whole stupid romantic heart.

Lady Whistledown writes of speculation like the ink has been laced with laudanum. Your mother cries. Your father looks like he’s biting through bullets. The remaining eligible men of London quietly celebrate surviving the season.

And Dex looks at you at the altar like every dead lord was simply the road he took to reach you.

You wanted a love match? 

Congratulations.

You got a love match with a body count.

—

Jack feels validated in his panic, given that you hadn't replied to a single one of his text messages since your disappearance from the Pitt. No matter how many he had sent, or how desperate he had sounded, you had ignored them all.

He is unsure about the rules of your safe word. Did not sending it mean you were not shutting him out or were you already beyond using it, silently telling him to fuck off? The uncertainty drives him crazy.

Jack stumbles out of the elevator, barely waiting for the doors to open wide enough for him to fit through the gap. He reaches your door in record time, his breath coming out uncharacteristically uneven and heavy.

He ignores the exhaustion clinging to him like a second skin. Clearing the air between the two of you is the most important thing right now. Sleep can wait; you cannot.

He is ready to knock on your door forever, fist raised, determined not to give up until you open the door or call the police on him.

But to his utter surprise, you open your door after his second frantic knock.

Jack is stunned, having expected to fall asleep standing there before you would ever consider showing your face again. However, he doesn't dwell on his relief for long.

Not when he can see your red eyes and puffy face–clear signs of you having indulged in a crying session not too long ago.

His heart squeezes tightly as he thinks about you being hurt by his friend’s words. And when his own words fail him, there is nothing else to say but, "I'm so sorry, darling."

You hesitate, looking defeated, as if he makes it hard not to break down again. Your teeth chew on the inside of your cheek and he can see you take a deep breath.

"It's okay," you choke out eventually, then clear your throat. Jack immediately shakes his head.

"No, it's not. Robby had no right to send you home, and whatever he told you isn’t true.”

You look at him, clearly unconvinced and Jack lets out a deep sigh. He isn’t far from capitulating and calling defeat, but there is still a most stubborn part in his body that is not ready to give up yet.

“Can I come in? Please, let me makes this right.” You wordlessly open the door wider, letting him in and Jack doesn’t wait around for you to change your mind again.

Inside, he falters, unsure if you’ll mind him keeping his shoes on. If he were in his own home, Jack wouldn’t think twice about it, taking his entire prothesis off and easing the uncomfortable ache he is experiencing after this double shift.

His mood in the second half of it hadn’t really helped his overall wellbeing, so additionally to the pain, irritation had festered underneath his barely holding composure. It had been one hell of a shift in any regard.

Now he wants nothing more than to relieve all the soreness his body accumulated over the hours, but he doesn’t.

Despite his exhaustion, he decides to bear this bother a little longer. His priority is to make sure you are okay–that he still has a chance to correct this mistake.

Jack stands there a moment longer, pondering if he should confront you with the reality of his disability, but you walk past him and disrupt his thoughts as if you can read his mind, “You can keep your shoes on if you want. I don’t care.”

You sound quiet, withdrawn from the situation–from him–as if you are speaking a mere formality. He wonders if your dismissive words are a passive jab, meant to show him that he isn’t welcome long enough for it to be worth getting comfortable.

But before he can voice his concern or anything else for that matter, you already take the lead.

“How are you?” you ask, standing in the middle of your living room and turning to look at him. Your eyes glide over his body, searching.

Jack has half a mind to blurt out the truth–that he is terrified to lose you again. Instead, he opts for something safer, something that doesn’t immediately expose his vulnerability and forces you to deal with it.

“I’m fine.” “You look tired.” “So do you,” he retorts, not trying to sound challenging as much as he is stating a fact. You do look nothing like the person that mere hours ago brought him food to work. Joy and energy have been sucked out of you completely.

“Then we should probably go to sleep.” “We need to talk first.” “We can talk tomorrow. Once you’re rested.” “No.”

You stare at him, not enraged or annoyed, just sad, and forlorn. He sees the way you swallow hard and tries explaining his intentions. “I don’t want you to have any more time to push me away or come up with narratives that might turn out to be false. We need to have that talk now.”

Jack realizes only afterwards how harsh he sounded, how his desperation made it seem like he is angry with you. He tries to relax his brow, let the frown disappear from his forehead and soften the way he looks at you.

Sighing, you look at the floor. “You just worked what? Twenty-four hours? I won’t run away overnight. I’ll be here tomorrow morning. You need to sleep.”

Even if you’d promise him to be here the next day, Jack doesn’t trust you to be alone with your thoughts any longer. Every second passing with whatever words Robby must have told you, is a surefire way of you drifting further away from him. He can’t have that.

Which might be why the next words leave his mouth with such seriousness despite their sheer outlandish properties.

“Then I’ll rest here. I’ll sleep next to you, if that is the only way. But I won’t leave you alone again.”

Your head snaps up at his proposal, searching for the humor in his words, for the teasing smirk on his face.

You don’t find anything like that.

Jack remains stock-still, not daring to move a single muscle, cautiously awaiting your reaction while being acutely aware that his own wishful thinking bled through into an otherwise silly demand.

He expects you to either snort in disbelief at the sheer audacity of his suggestion, or to dismiss it outright, deeming him unworthy of any further attention all together.

Instead, you blink, mouth slightly agape, eyes big and gaze penetrating.

After a few more seconds of silence, that seemingly stretch into eternity, you nod slowly, barely noticeable.

“Okay.”

Jack’s mind comes to a sudden halt. Every reeling thought dissipates. He struggles to discern the meaning of this singular word; of the implications it brings with it. It takes a few seconds for him to react.

“Yeah?” he asks breathlessly, not sure he heard you correctly. But again, you nod. “Yeah. If you want to.”

He does. Even if that hadn’t been the plan when he came up here first thing after work. Now it sounds like the most reasonable option to him.

“I do.”

Silence reigns and his enthusiasm settles enough for rationality to glimpse through. Jack clears his throat. “But…I don’t want to force you. If this will make you uncomfortable, I’ll go.”

“I agreed, didn’t I? I’ll be fine.”

Jack isn’t so sure about that, but he refrains from arguing further. Not at last because he actually doesn’t want you to kick him to the curb. This screams like a once in a lifetime opportunity. Maybe his only chance to make things better before time runs out and you decide he isn’t worth the trouble after all.

“Have you eaten?” you ask, already turning around, leaving Jack behind while moving into your kitchen.

“At work. We were lucky enough to get the leftovers from another team’s birthday celebration. What about you?” he asks, following you slowly, eyes wandering around the room as if he has never seen your apartment before.

Jack doesn’t know why he suddenly feels so out of place. Even the first time he came around here he never particularly acted as if this was a stranger’s home, being so familiar with the layout mirroring his own. But now, with the current disaster at hand and the possibilities of the next few hours looming ahead, he finds himself second-guessing his every move.

He is not yet convinced that letting him stay over was a truly consensual agreement on your end. Maybe he had sounded too desperate and you are way too vulnerable after today’s events for your invitation to be true. Had he been unfair? Unreasonable to demand something that he himself had not thought through?

If his mind is scattered like this, how would yours look right now?

Jack is ripped from his thoughts when you slowly step back towards him, handing him a bottle of water and nodding to your coffee table. He follows your cue and spots a pizza carton.

Knowing you have eaten despite your obvious foul mood has Jack exhale in relief.

You watch him for a moment, remaining standing before him. He lets you look without protest, despite feeling your eyes dissect him on a far deeper level than he is normally comfortable with. But Jack is exhausted and quite frankly tired of keeping everything hidden away from you. His one goal for tonight is to repair what has been broken after all, and it doesn’t take much to realize that honesty might be the best and only tool he can use to his advantage.

“What now, Jack?” you eventually voice, sounding small in his ears. “How do we…proceed?”

He expects you to fiddle with your hands, that your eyes will drift from his and search for a safety only your surroundings will provide you. But despite the clear unsureness of your question, you don’t do any of the small things you usually do. You remain unmoving, only your tired eyes blinking at him.

“I can sleep on the couch.” The offer is honest, even when his whole body seems to ache down to the bones and a mattress would be heaven after the day he had. Jack has slept in far worse places, on far worse excuses of a bed, after exceedingly worse days. He can easily camp out on a couch and will happily do so if it ends up making you feel more at ease.

“That’s not what I meant and it’s not going to happen either. Sleeping on that couch is a guaranteed way of ruining your body and you won’t be able to move tomorrow. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. I have a bed, it’s big enough for two and we’re both adults. Right?”

Jack can only nod, his pulse beating so hard and fast on the side of his neck, that he is sure only the sound of the beat will reverberate if he tries to speak.

Of course, you are right. Technically there is nothing special about sleeping next to another person. He has done it countless times in his life, whether with his wife, friends, or colleagues. Necessity and comfort would easily win over pride and childish regulations.

But Jack can’t deny that the prospect of sleeping next to you when there are much easier and logical options is thrilling.

He catches himself once again feeling something he must have last experienced in his youth, when he was still a teenager perhaps. Sleeping next to a girl he harbors a crush on is on a whole other level of euphoria, even without indulging in wild fantasies of possible pleasure. The simple act of being close, sharing a place of sacred peace and quiet, is impossibly intimate if one lets it be.

And Jack is very close to giving in.

“What I mean is…routine? Do we just go to bed or do you want to take a shower and freshen up and I don’t know…What do you usually…wear to sleep? Like, do you need to get something? I have a spare toothbrush you can use but do you need anything else?”

Jack can’t help but huff in both amusement and relief at your rambled thoughts, happy to see your usual demeanor shine through the gloom. It eases his own anxiety and tension and he too finds a bit of his true self awoken by the prove that you aren’t yet completely lost to him.

Grinning at you, Jack shakes his head. “One thing after the other, yeah? Don’t stress about this. If you are ready for bed then go on and I’ll follow when I’m done. If you need to get ready yourself first, I’ll wait. And I have a spare shirt in my backpack, I can keep my pants on if that makes you more comfortable.”

 You swallow, nodding along slowly, then say, “You can sleep however you like, I’m okay. I’ll just go brush my teeth really quick and lay that brush out for you.”

Jack hums in agreement, watching you slip inside your bathroom after one last look in his direction. When you’re gone from view, he takes a deep breath, trying to sort his thoughts and keep calm in the face of what’s to come.

He sets his backpack onto your couch before heavily sitting down on the cushions himself and only when lowering his aching body does he come to a startling revelation.

He won’t really get around showing you his missing leg. Not if he wants to alleviate the irritation that has been causing him to favor his left one for the past hours. Not if he plans on getting a decent night’s sleep in after two shifts from hell and gather enough wits to clear up any misunderstanding in the morning.

A slight bout of panic begins to rise inside Jack’s throat, threatening to spill out in an unpleasant stream of bile. He tries to be rational, to not make things worse than they might be.

You aren’t a villain, have not once shown disdain or judgment towards him or anyone else for that matter. If you were superficial surely you wouldn’t even consider hanging around with an old man like him.

And still, insecurity shatters Jack’s defenses with ease and brutality.

He is almost sure you aren’t aware of his missing limb. You never once mentioned it and Jack had more or less purposefully hidden his disability, whether that stemmed from the usual normality he regarded it with nowadays or in an effort to not invoke pity from you.

If he didn’t tell people about it, most wouldn’t know or find out. And normally that wasn’t because Jack felt ashamed for wearing a prothesis, but because he didn’t let it define him as a person.

It was just a trait of his. How others had colorful hair or tattoos, he had half a leg missing and an expensive substitute in its place instead. The trauma behind it was just an additional bonus on top he had mostly come to terms with by now.

And yet, right this very second Jack questions just how fragile that resolve really is.

Fear grips him a little too hard, making his head spin and his palms sweaty.

He tries to justify his reaction, but his fear is irrational. He can't find a real reason amid all the thoughts being sucked up by the tornado in his brain. The spiral grows ever wider, more ruthless, and deadly until nothing is left untouched.

And in the eye of the storm Jack only finds the frightening possibility of you thinking his worth is lessened due to another one of his deficiencies.

“I’m done. You can go in now, if you want.”

Your voice is like a beacon appearing in the endless dark and Jack finally snaps out of the clusterfuck that is his mind. He looks up, sees you standing in the bathroom doorway and forgets about his troubles for just a moment.

“Okay. Thanks.”

He gets up with much effort, arms straining to push off the plush seating underneath him. Jack catches himself masking his struggle, not wanting to show his weakness in front of you.

And just like that everything comes rushing back.

He quickly grabs his backpack, slinging one strap over his shoulder and making his way in your direction.

He feels like you scrutinize his walk. He is sure he can feel your eyes track and file away every little movement he does. And it has him power through the burning pain with the last remnants of energy stored in his muscles.

Smiling despite it all, he slides past you and closes the bathroom door behind him.

Jack finds himself sitting on the closed toilet seat, contemplating what the hell he is doing here. He can’t remember the last time he has felt as useless and incompetent as he does now. Like a child unable to do a menial task everyone else can do without thinking twice about it.

He is all too aware that he has spent way too much time in your bathroom without making much progress in actually cleaning himself up. But the reality of his disability punches him right in the face once again, not only at the worst possible time but also place.

He is contemplating if he should just skip a shower all together and risk sleeping next to you all sweaty and with the memories of the ED sticking to his skin. But that would neither be considerate towards you and your hospitality nor would it help garner it once more in the future.

Still, it almost seems like the less embarrassing route when the other path ends up with him having to openly confront you with his inability to function like anyone else.

“Jack, is everything okay? Do you need something?”

Your tentative questions ring through the door and make Jack flinch.

He didn’t think you would still be up, waiting for him. Maybe it had been a bit hopeful thinking on his part that you would just go to bed and fall asleep while he could use your unconscious state to slip underneath the covers unseen.

But as it seems, the pleasure of getting closer to you, on a level of intimacy he usually only dreams about in the dark of night, comes with the price of being unmasked and showing his shortcomings.

“I’m fine. I–“ The words die on his tongue, his fists balled in humiliation and anger at being so weak.

Sighing, Jack closes his eyes and presses his lips in a tight line. In this private darkness he at last finds a bit of courage, mostly ignited by the idea of only finding another way out of this if he would tell you he changed his mind and would return to his own bed.

The mere thought is enough for him to jump the plank and brace for the imminent impact of offering one of his most vulnerable revelations up to you.

“I could use some help.”

He barely finishes his sentence when you answer with a question. “What do you need? Should I… should I come in?” “Yeah, please.”

A second later the door opens just as Jack’s eyes do and he turns to catch your look when you find him sitting there, defeated, and tired.

To his mild surprise you don’t look as perturbed by the view as he would’ve guessed. Instead, your wide eyes shine with an innocence that has his heart clenching.

He notices that despite your clear exhaustion a bit of your usual manner seems to have come back. The gloom that has blanketed you minutes ago looks to be lifted, the invisible but clearly felt walls shielding him from your soul, lowered.

Sighing again, Jack averts his gaze and finally decides to drop the act. Chin tucked closer to his chest, lips pursed, he lowly admits, “I can’t really shower like this.” “What do you need?” you ask, not confused, just sounding like you want to be helpful to him. Swallowing, Jack answers, “Something to sit on, preferably. I…Maybe I should just go downstairs and–“ “No, it’s alright. I can get you something. Unless you feel more comfortable in your own shower?”

Jack looks over to you again, watching your eager expression with burning eyes and feeling smaller than he has in a very long time.

“I can work it out here.”

You nod, then turn and vanish out of the bathroom. It takes you less than minute before you come back, maneuvering a wooden chair through the door.

“I know this is not really what you’re looking for but it’s the best I can come up with right now. Do you think this is okay? If not, I can also just run down and get whatever you need from your bathroom. I’ll be quick.”

Jack nearly wants to laugh at the way you are offering more than he asks, as if it’s not a bother at all–as if he is worth the effort.

In the end he only sports a strained smile, shaking his head.

“This is fine. It will get wet,” he adds, as if that isn’t clear. You hum, shrugging without a care and wrestle the chair through the small room until you set it down inside your shower.

When you turn to look at him again, Jack carefully studies your face, searching for judgement. He finds none.

“Anything else? Oh, right! Towels are in there,” you point beneath your sink, “and you can use my shampoo and stuff, if you’re okay with smelling like, uh,” you lean towards your shampoo bottles, squinting a little to read the label, “a juicy green apple.”

You grimace while Jack huffs in amusement. “Not the worst I’ve ever smelled like.” To his delight, you chuckle, then step out of the shower but not yet showing any sign of leaving him to his business.

A few seconds go by with the two of you just looking at each other and something in Jack clicks with quiet acceptance.

“I’ve lost my leg years ago.”

The admission is sober, quiet, and honest. Jack can’t turn away this time, not wanting to miss even the tiniest expression passing your face. He expects many things. Disgust, pity, hesitance, hell even laughter in case you think he is joking and made you get him a shower chair for his age and not a disability.

He finds none of that. There is overall surprisingly little of a reaction to see at all.

You nod slowly, eyes flickering to his leg for a split second. “Are you telling me this because you want to talk about it or as a disclaimer?” “The latter. I don’t…want you to be scared or disturbed. I know some people can get uncomfortable with the fact and I don’t wear my prothesis when sleeping, so in case you still want to share your bed with me, you should know about this before I just jump it on you.”

A frown appears on your forehead. “Okay. I mean, I’ve known about this and I’m not disturbed or scared. I don’t see why I would be. I just don’t really know what you need or if I should assist you with anything. I’m sorry if I made you feel like you couldn’t tell me. I do want to learn. I just…suck at asking. I know it looks like I don’t care, but I-I do. I just don’t ask in case it makes you uncomfortable. But it’s the opposite, right? You think I don’t want to know about your struggles. I mean, is it a struggle? Is that an ableist thing to say? I don’t know. I just don’t want to do or say the wrong thing. I’m incredible at putting my foot in my mouth.”

Jack isn’t sure if he should indulge in the feeling of his heart soaring and weights dropping from his shoulders at the fact that you don’t mind his missing leg, or if he should beat himself up for ever doubting you.

Not once since meeting you had you given him a reason to think you would judge him for his drawbacks and still, he had unconsciously decided to not trust you enough with his insecurities.

Pain blooms inside his chest, deep humiliation for doing you such a disservice.

“Since when have you known?” he asks, confounded. You shrug again. “What was it? Our second meeting? Third? I’m not sure. You came up when I was being too loud and you were just on a crutch. Should I have said something? That I knew? Wait, were you trying to hide this from me or something?”

Jack’s head falls at the revelation, his eyes closing at the absurdity of his own mind. He had pretty much forgotten about the day you were talking about and even so wouldn’t have guessed that you had remembered a detail from months ago.

The time back then barely seems like reality to Jack anymore. The memories of how he treated the person he now cares so much about painful and unpleasant. Maybe that’s why he had banished all thoughts about your first run-ins with each other, including his careless behavior from then.

“I guess. It’s not really glamorous.” “It’s a part of you. It doesn’t have to be glamorous for me to want to be aware of it. Also, this is not something you can change. I have many flaws and to be fair, I could probably tackle a few of them if I just got my shit together. I could start cleaning and picking up after myself right away instead of procrastinating until the mess is too overwhelming for me to deal with. That’s something unglamorous, I don’t want everyone to know. But not having a leg isn’t something you can change for your benefit and with some work. There is absolutely no reason to feel any kind of shame about it either.”

“I know,” Jack admits. He can’t help but stare at you in awe. The way you are crushing the very insecurities he manifested not because of you, but because of deeming himself unworthy for you. “Then why–“ “I didn't want you to think less of me. I was scared that you would try to create distance between us once you knew. I was afraid you would shut me out in a polite way, to avoid hurting my feelings, but ultimately cut the ties anyway.”

The honesty feels both suffocating and freeing, as if it will kill him to open up so but promise a life of freedom in the same breath.

In the end, your reaction is his salvation.

“Jack,” you say his name so softly, almost reverent, that the hairs on his arms prickle and stand. Your naked feet pat quietly against the tile of the bathroom as you step closer to him. Then your hand slowly reaches out and your fingers brush against his cheek.

Leaning into it isn’t a result of his own free will. It’s a natural reaction. A reflex unstoppable by any known force and Jack gladly lets it take over, not wanting to escape you in the slightest.

“That’s not going to happen.” “You have a habit of running and hiding,” he says, looking up at you.

He doesn’t mean it as an insult or attack and luckily you don’t take it as such. Huffing, you grin. “Fair enough. But it wouldn’t happen over something like this.”

Jack’s shoulders drop and he simply surrenders to looking at you standing over him and letting your fingertips trace along the skin on his face. You permit it for a while, letting him drink in your presence.

But when your eyes start to flicker away from his and focus on your fingers instead, Jack is sure that your mind is wandering and you’re no longer comfortable with gazing at each other in silence.

Accepting that is bitter sweet, but Jack would rather keep it a pleasant moment for the both of you instead of going after his own selfish desires. He fears, you would never leave this place ever again, if he were to do so.

“Thank you, Sweetheart.” “For what?”

For being here. For not judging, but accepting him. For keeping his hope alive, that he hasn’t run out of chances with you yet.

Jack says neither outright and foolishly trusts his eyes to convey all of which he is feeling.

He must not be very successful.

You straighten on the spot, eyebrows jumping up and fingers leaving his face in order to smack your palm against your forehead lightly.

“Oh, right. The chair. No problem. If you need anything else, just holler. I’ll leave you to it now.”

You send him one last charming but flustered smile, then you’re out of the bathroom, having completely misread his unspoken words.

Jack is left shaking his head, utterly infatuated by everything you.

When Jack leaves the bathroom, you’re sitting on the edge of your couch. Your head snaps up at the sound of the door opening and you watch as Jack slowly steps out.

His eyes find you without delay and you notice him giving you a quick once over, noting the pajamas you’ve changed into the same way you notice his own sleep wear.

Jack is only clad in a simple black t-shirt and boxers, his prosthetic leg fully on display.

You try not to stare too intently at any part of him, opting to stand up from your spot and slowly inch toward your bedroom. Only when Jack follows do you fully turn around and lead the way.

No one says a word until Jack closes the door of your bedroom and the reality of the situation hits you square in the chest.

You’re about to sleep next to Jack.

Your pulse is drumming so loudly in your ears, that you’re wondering if you might be missing him speaking to you, but with a quick, nervous glance over your shoulder, you see that Jack is just standing there, not moving.

Merely his eyes are scanning your bedroom.

It feels weirdly intimate and you thank whoever is listening for having given you enough motivation to clean and tidy up your apartment a few days ago. Not that Jack hadn’t seen in it the worst possible state already. Nonetheless, you are glad you’re not presenting your earlier mentioned flaws on a platter.

There are much more critical things to consider and worry about now.

You clear your throat, trying not to seem as awkward, as you feel. Half an hour ago you had offered Jack your bed with a confidence that is nowhere to be found now. Maybe it is reality catching up, the actuality of what sleeping next to Jack will entail.

One look at your bed is enough to have you doubting your decision-making skills.

It’s not that you don’t want to sleep next to Jack. It’s much more the logistics of it–of sharing a bed with anyone, really.

Stressed, you stare at the rumpled sheets and haphazardly strewn about pillows.

“So, which side do you prefer to sleep on?” “What about you?” Jack asks in return, foiling your plan of just giving him what he wants, no matter your own preferences. Sighing, you click your tongue and look to the side. “I don’t really do sides. I pretty much sleep all over.”

You chance a quick look behind you, catching Jack grinning at your admission. “You sure you don’t want me sleeping on your couch? I don’t want to disrupt your sleep by getting in your way.” “No! It’s fine. I can manage. I can adapt. I will stay on my side, I promise. No need to worry. I can totally respect boundaries.”

Jack takes a moment before chuckling. “We’ll see.” “So what side do you want?” “I’ll take the one close to the door.”

Nodding along with his decision, you move to the other side and pull the covers back, slipping underneath. Your eyes follow Jack’s slow path, watching him lower his backpack to the ground next to your nightstand.

Before sitting down on your bed, his eyes catch yours. A silent agreement is forged in the dim light of your bedside lamps.

This is what you want. It won’t be weird. It’s two adults having a sleep over.

You stay still while Jack situates his body on his side, but he doesn’t lay down yet.

“I’ll take off my leg now.”

“Yeah. Alright.”

Unsure what to do and where to look, you decide on staring at your ceiling. You semi-consciously clutch your duvet while simultaneously trying to breathe as shallowly as possible. For whatever reason it feels like a sacred moment, one that shouldn’t be disrupted.

Jack seems to notice you anyhow, despite your effort to disappear into the mattress.

“I’m sorry to do that here. I would’ve kept it off from the shower but I don’t have any of my aids around and hopping around isn’t safe. I only have to take off the leg and lining. It’ll be over quickly.”

“I don’t mind,” you assure quickly, “I just don’t want to make you uncomfortable, feeling like I’m staring at you.” Jack is quiet for a few seconds, then you hear him take a deep breath. “You can look, if you want to.”

“Jack, you don’t have to show me if you’re not ready. This must be a lot for you to trust me with and I feel honored that you do! But you don’t have to move quicker than you truly want to. I can wait. One step at a time if that’s what you want.”

“It’s alright. Really.”

Your gaze softens, eyes losing focus on the texture of the ceiling and you slowly, very slowly, turn your head towards Jack. He is already looking down at you, a gentle smile playing along his lips.

You don’t immediately look down and seize the invitation, not wanting to seem too eager to see Jack take off his leg and make him feel like you are some kind of perverse spectator. Your eyes stay trained on Jack’s face, even when he turns his own attention towards his leg.

Concentrated but with a confident ease stemming from years of following a routine Jack takes his prothesis off. Only when he leans over the edge of the bed to carefully place it on the ground, does your gaze drift lower. It does not turn any more curious than any other time you find yourself seeing something for the first time and you never feel an ounce of disgust or fear, despite Jack’s initial doubts.

A small inkling of offense had first appeared when Jack had told you of his insecurities. The evidence that he thought so little of you, that he had been afraid you would judge and cast him aside over a disability that didn’t impact you in the slightest.

But you hadn’t let the thought fester–had realized that such trifles seldomly let one think clearly and rationally. You don’t blame Jack for fearing a worse outcome, not when you yourself plan for the worst-case scenarios in any regard.

And maybe it had been your fault for not ever mentioning or indicating that you were aware of Jack being an amputee. Even if it had stemmed from a good intention, not communicating well and assuming the other person could read one’s thoughts and gestures was a risky business. One that more often than not lead to misconceptions and ruin.

Sighing quietly, you watch Jack taking off the liner and revealing the stump which is left of his lower leg.

Time doesn’t stop, there is no sudden silence that threatens to suffocate you and you don’t feel a spike of anxiety rushing through you at the revelation. You look, see, and return your gaze back to Jack’s face, which in comparison to your own is tense and closed off, as if still waiting for you to jump out of the bed, screaming bloody murder and demanding he leave your apartment this instant.

Jack doesn’t speak for a while, just fingering the silicon in his hands.

You shift, trying to catch his eye. “It’s okay, Jack.” Your words finally get him out of his stupor and he exhales harshly.

“You sure?” “Yeah.”

Jack nods slowly, then lets out a deep breathe. He leans over again, placing the lining on the bedside table. “Do you want me to turn off the light?” “Not yet.”

Jack obliges, turning back around and shuffling to get under the blanket. He lays down, facing you and you use the remaining light to study his face.

Quietly, you ask, “Is that all you have to do? Just take it off?” He shakes his head, returning your curious look. His eyes appear to be dark pools, only a slight twinkle appearing in them like a guiding star. “There are more layers, but I already took them off before the shower. I didn’t bother for the few steps. There is also cleaning and the occasional massage, if the skin or stump is irritated and I have enough energy and patience to treat myself. It’s not always this…clean. There is a lot of sweat.”

“Yeah, makes sense.”

“Usually I wear a shrinker overnight. It’s like a compression sock of sorts. But I don’t have one on me–”  “Do you want me to get yours?” You are already sitting up, ready to make the trip downstairs, but Jack quickly reaches out, holding onto your arm and shaking his head. “I was just about to say that I will be fine not wearing one for the night. Lie down.”

You deflate a little and sink back into your pillow, almost pouting at being stopped. But interest in Jack’s condition distracts you enough to find a new purpose.

“Does it still hurt sometimes? Like actual pain. Or is there just phantom pain? Does every amputee experience phantom pain? Is there a distinction between it? Like, does it feel like actual pain or slightly different? And what kind of pain does it feel like? Like a bruise kind of pain or like…the pain of how the leg was lost?”

Jack stares at you, lost for words if his silence is any indication. You realize you must sound like some kind of fetishist after all. “Shit, sorry, don’t answer that! I didn’t mean for it to sound insensitive. It’s probably not something you want to talk about. I guess I just proved that I absolutely suck at pillow talk.”

You know at once that your apology does little to support your case, and that the only way to hide your embarrassment while lying face to face with Jack is to close your eyes. You do so promptly and with such force that you see stars.

“Definitely not the kind of pillow talk I would prefer, but very you, I suppose,” Jack murmurs, the smirk clearly discernable in his tone. You almost choke at the insinuation which you set up and he willingly walked into.

Your eyes snap open again, if not solely to see a true indication, if Jack is kind of flirting with you. It seems unlikely, but one look at his tired, yet teasing expression confirms it enough that your head begins to start a little woozy.

“I did have a different topic of conversation in mind, though.” Jack’s grin falls a bit, melting into a mellow, yet strained smile. Any trace of joy vanishes from your mind the reality of the day and its happenings catching up with you like a freight train at full speed.

Double-edged words echo in your head. Sentences that sound kind enough, claiming the best possible outcome yet cutting with a ferocity never felt before. It’s sobering. It’s ripping the hastily placed bandage which Jack’s presence had put on right off the gaping wound.

For a moment you keep looking in Jack’s direction, then the memories become too much, blaring in your ears as if Doctor Robby is standing right next to your bed.

“Tomorrow,” is all you have to say.

 You slowly turn around, reaching out for the bedside lamp on your side and turning it off.

“Tomorrow then.”

A moment later you are bathed in complete darkness, when Jack turns off his lamp as well and there is only the rustling of the blanket, when he gets comfortable.

You stay quiet, swallowing and wishing to fall asleep quickly, so you might be once again dragged into the blissful peace you felt with Jack distracting you from everything else in the world. But of course, nothing ever goes your way, so sleep evades you as if it’s mocking you.

You don’t dare to move much, not wanting to disturb Jack, who clearly needed the rest more than anyone else, while also afraid of accidentally moving closer and bothering him in some other way.

So, you end up with a sore shoulder, staring into the dark with nothing else to occupy your mind but Jack’s even breaths and a ton of thoughts spiraling out of control.

Jack wakes up feeling more exhausted than when he went to sleep. His body aches, his head feels almost as if he got black out drunk last night and no matter how much he forces his eyes closed, sleep refuses to drag him back under until he is so frustrated, that he just gives up trying all together.

Sighing, he shifts, laying on his back.

There is a short moment of vertigo overwhelming him–his brain trying to place his position in bed and imagining it without actually using his senses. The logical result is that he is in his own bed, that his exhaustion has his mind reeling and all turned around.

But just a few seconds later reality crashes into him. Jack quickly opens his eyes, scanning his surroundings and coming to the conclusion, that he is not in fact sleeping in his own bed.

He barely looks at the furniture being illuminated by the soft morning light, because he doesn’t need more prove or another reminder that he slept over at your place. Instead, he turns around, slowly, and carefully, trying not wake or startle you.

The picture that bares itself to him has his heart beating up to his throat, the heavy thrum basically rocking his entire body with its intensity.

You’re still passed out, turned towards him, mouth agape and hands tightly clutched to your body, compressed into uncomfortable looking dinosaur-hands.

Only when he lets his gaze travel further down does Jack take note of how you have been hogging the blanket, legs intertwined with the duvet while he is left with nothing more than a small piece of it covering his foot.

He feels the sudden urge to take a picture of you. A memento to keep safely tugged away for dull days. A keepsake that will no doubt cheer him up when simply glimpsing it.

But he refrains from doing so, deciding instead to stay put and not move yet, hoping to steal some more time.

There isn’t much space between the two of you, your bed not offering all that much to begin with, but still, you’re not touching, as if an invisible barrier separates you.

Jack wants nothing more than to destroy it right then and there. The need is so intense, so all consuming, that there isn’t much he can do. No honor, nor self-restraint or even logic is able to keep him from slowly inching closer.

He knows it’s wrong, that you don’t even have a chance to utter disapproval or reluctance regarding his actions, but Jack finds a sliver of solace in the fact that you had willingly decided to share your bed with him.

You had not made a single attempt to create more space between you when you still had been conscious and while Jack is aware that that doesn’t equate to a free use policy in the slightest, it’s as if his brain once again lets an external power overtake his body.

Aches and pains protest while he scoots over until only a small space remains between you. He ignores it all, concentrating fully on your sleeping face and the deep breaths fanning across his chin.

If Jack were a better man, he would get up and leave you be. He rather decides to no longer claim such a title and slides his foot a little further underneath the small cover you so graciously left him with.

He doesn’t go so far as to touch your legs, stops as soon as the warmth of your body indicates its proximity. There isn’t as much restraint with his upper body, though.

Jack finds himself pressing closer, his chest pushing against you until your hands are trapped between you two and his chin is resting on top of your head. Your breath tickles the skin on his neck, warm and wet, but Jack doesn’t mind.

He slowly places his arm over your blanket burrito and decides to forget everything else just to enjoy this daydream he created.

There is little hope of this lasting anywhere near as long as he wants it to, which is even more reason to treasure it as a precious memory.

Closing his eyes once more he dares to get more comfortable, acting as is he has a right to any of this, to holding you close and feeling your body near his, separated only by some fabric.

And he stays just like this, dozing off, dreaming of this being reality–fate–and not just a man-made scene, built to satisfy everything wrong with him.

However long he gets to ride the high of it, it ends up being too short nonetheless. Eventually you stir against him, moaning when trying to move and finding yourself unable to do so, due to his hold on you.

Jack remains still, not ready to end his play yet, acting as if he is still fast asleep, just to drag this out a little bit longer. And he succeeds. You soon stop your endeavor, lowly grumbling but giving up on turning and escaping.

Your nose nuzzles deeper into Jack’s collar bone, lips skimming across his skin in an unvoluntary, secret kiss.

It has his mind close to exploding–short circuiting for sure–which ends up with him accidentally ending his charade.

“Darling.”

The word slips out before he can think better of it, sounding tortured and utterly destroyed.

You let out a hum, once again pressing closer.

Jack wonders if he has got it all wrong. If he isn’t the one playing a game, but you are secretly toying with him.

You are winning by a large margin nevertheless, and Jack can’t even be mad about it. Not when the consolation prize is better than anything he has received before.

He tries to calm down, slow his breathing, sort his mind–and fails miserably.

Would it be wrong to move just a fraction to feel your lips against his skin once more?

Torn between moral and desperation Jack’s decision is made when you start moving again, clearly waking up and trying to free yourself out of the cocoon surrounding you.

“Don’t move,” he rumbles and you still, sighing deeply. “Jack–“ “Stay like this just a little longer.”

Jack feels relieved when you stop trying to break free, but the tranquility of holding your sleeping form is gone as soon as consciences slowly starts to clear up your foggy mind.

“We should probably get up,” you mumble without making another attempt to move away. Jack hums noncommittal. “It’s Sunday. We can sleep in.”

You don’t have a rebuttal for his remark and Jack grins to himself.

Sighing, you clutch at Jack’s t-shirt. If accidental or not, he doesn’t care. It’s bliss either way. “How are you feeling? Have you slept okay?”

Jack couldn’t find grand enough words to describe the ecstasy this morning has bestowed upon him, even if he studied an entire vocabulary, so he stammers something out that isn’t even close to capturing it all.

“I’m good.” “How about your wounds? Do they hurt still?” “They haven’t hurt since yesterday,” he lies without remorse, not wanting to give you grounds to worry about him any longer.

He had experienced far worse things in his life. A few scrapes and bruises where not even worth thinking about.

“What about you? Are you okay?” His question is met with a few seconds of silence, but the proximity to you lets him feel the way your body tenses and your breath hitches.

Concerned, Jack leans back a bit, trying to catch the look on your face. Your sleepy eyes blink at him and you try to give him a small smile, but it doesn’t appear genuine. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

Jack doesn’t believe you and something inside of him tugs uncomfortably. He wants you to feel like you can trust him with the truth, no matter about what, no matter if its ugly or not. The last thing he wants to see is you torturing yourself by keeping things hidden.

“Don’t lie to me. Let me make it better,” he says lowly, trying to convey his sincerity. You return his peering look, eyes flitting between his as if unsure which one to focus on.

Your fingers tangle deeper into the fabric of his shirt, but eventually you give in, nodding barely noticeable. “It’s just…my mind is going crazy, because I don’t know where to go from here or what advise I should follow.”

Frowning, Jack lets his own hand grab onto yours, holding it carefully to his chest.

“Tell me all about it. I’ll help you decide.”

You hesitate, mouth opening but no words escaping yet, as if you don’t know where to begin. Jack waits patiently, thumb gently brushing over your knuckles in hopes of calming you down enough to open up to him.

It pays off eventually.

“I like this. You. Being friends, spending time together. It’s not something that happens often to me. I-I don’t have many friends and I guess that’s okay, because I don’t mind being on my own and having time to myself. But that being said, it hurts so much more when the few people I actually click with leave me. And it happens. A lot. Because I’m a mess and I get overwhelmed and don’t give people what they want because I forget that not everyone thinks the way I do.”

You gulp, eyes fixed on his hand holding yours. Then you continue, “I don’t want to lose you. But realistically what do I have to offer? Not all that much, huh? I bring chaos and require constant attention and care because I am unable to function like a proper human being. I mess up, I spiral, I run and hide away when things become too much and I sulk and make it far harder than it needs to be for others to clear up misunderstandings and apologize. I am no easy person to be around. I get that. It just hurts anyway when someone mentions your flaws directly, you know?”

Jack watches you intently, his jaw tense, holding himself back from cutting in and denying every one of your claims. He hates that you feel this way. That this has been plaguing you while he sees you in such a different light.

Honing his anger, Jack forces himself not to erupt on the spot and continue to hear you out. But the murderous thoughts keep swirling dangerously close to the surface, when his memory provides the villain of this story.

“What did Robby tell you?” “I don’t want to put a wedge between you two.” “You’re not. If anything, it would be him that did it.”

“He didn’t say anything wrong and he wasn’t mean. I mean, you’re friends with him, he knows you. Better than I do.” “Maybe in certain aspects, but clearly not in every regard. Now tell me what he said,” Jack commands sternly but with a pleading expression. He needs to hear it from you, so you can share the burden and let go off it. Jack is ready to take it all from you.

“Basically, he told me to stop bothering you, because it’s distracting you from the actual important things in your life. And that this is something temporary for you. Our friendship. Which is okay. It just hurt in the moment, because when it’s said so outright it hits way harder than when it slowly trickles into non-existence over time, you know. But I get where he is coming from. Maybe it would be different if I brought luck with me instead of ruin, but I’m clearly not good for anyone to be around. And listen, if what Doctor Robby said is true and you are only friends with me for the time being, that’s fine too. I don’t want you to feel obligated to be my friend, just because I reacted a little dramatically at the prospect of losing you. You can totally distance yourself and I won’t make a scene or anything. I promise.”

Jack stares at you with such intensity, he is surprised he hasn’t burned a hole into your head yet. To a degree he certainly would love to do exactly that–use his laser focus to cut out all of Robby’s words, fuck, every memory of anyone in your life causing you to come up with this narrative and such insecurities.

It pains him more than expected to hear you berate yourself and believe that he would drop you sooner than later. As if your purpose would simply end at one point and he could no longer find use for you in his life.

Jack doesn’t even know where to begin. Cleaning up this mess others have created over years could easily become a life’s mission.

Not very surprisingly, Jack thinks he is up for the task.

“Okay, so this is nonsense. All of it. Everything Robby told you. There is no expiration date to us. I’m not going to drop you just like that and be done with you. And literally nobody but me can decide if you are having a bad influence on me. Hell, even if your bad luck is rubbing off on me, I don’t give a shit. I’m the only one having a say on when I have enough of you and Robby clearly has no fucking clue about anything, because you and I both know that I am the one that keeps running back to you. I mean, fuck me, look at us! I’m lying in your bed, because I came to you. Not the other way around. I should be the one worrying about you getting sick of me.”

You snort and roll your eyes. “I don’t think that’s very likely. At least you bring plenty of stuff to the table. What about me, huh? What good do I have to offer you?”

That earns you a scolding look. “Are you saying you’re only tolerating me for my materialistic values?” “What? No!” you backtrack, eyes wide. “I’m talking about your personality. You are calm and collected, you get me out of situations I wouldn’t know how to deal with at any rate, you protect me. All good qualities. I have none of these.”

“I mean, if you could handle everything the way I do, you wouldn’t need me anymore. Isn’t that literally why we surround us with other people? To create a functioning relationship. No? And I don’t need you to be able to handle things or protect me. I don’t even need you to keep a level head. I will do all of this for you, if you let me. I value you for much different reasons.”

Jack finds himself in a dangerous territory and if he isn’t careful, he will be free falling in no time at all. But try as he might, there is no stopping now. Not when your wonderous eyes are peering at him the way they are.

It’s like you pull him into a trance, extracting all his truths and secrets with the flick of your lashes.

He doesn’t want to resist either. He only wants you to see what a treasure you have become in Jack’s eyes.

“Like what?” you ask with a mocking tone, as if not believing there to be anything to like.

“When I spent just enough time coaxing you, you will tell me the truth outright. No bullshit, no lies, just the simple and plain truth. It’s refreshing to have someone not beating around the bush and give it to me straight. It gives me certainty. I could listen to you ramble on for hours, just to get a glimpse inside that brain of yours. You see everything at a different angle and for an old geezer like me, who thinks he has seen and heard everything, it’s remarkable to be proven wrong from time to time. I know I teased you about running from situations and hiding away, but it’s not a bad thing per se. You could also just explode on the spot and vent your frustrations then and there, but instead you give yourself time to think things over. Which can be problematic sometimes, because you only ever think about the worst possible outcomes, but technically, if I can get you to a point of trusting me enough to not assume the worst of me all the time, you taking your time to decompress and deal with something is healthy. Better than snapping at someone without knowing the entire thing.”

He grins when hinting at his own faults, but it turns into a genuine smile once he goes on.

“You care about me, even when I haven’t earned it and you think I don’t see it. You accept me, despite being a grumpy old man sometimes and you brighten my days. Infinitely so. The moment I get to see you, my day gets better. You aren’t a distraction. You are the one thing I want to concentrate on and everything else is getting in the way. Do you understand?”

You stare at Jack, unmoving, possibly not even breathing from what he can hear. But maybe it gets drowned out by his blood rushing through his veins at the speed of light.

He is awfully aware that he is pretty much just confessing how utterly infatuated he is with you and despite fear clawing at his bones, he tries to tell himself that you would at least let him down gently if you decide to reject him.

He knows anything else is simply an old man’s dream. But he clings to that hope as if his life depends on it.

When you finally move, its frantic. Your limbs flailing around in a desperate attempt to free yourself from the blanket holding you hostage.

Jack retreats a little, giving you space while he watches in confusion, unsure what you’re trying to do.

Foolishly he imagines you untangling yourself in order to fully climb into his arms and let him be your blanket.

Jack’s heart beats as if he is sprinting towards a finish line that has been visible but out of reach for ages.

Then you are free, sitting up, all frazzled from the fight with the duvet. Your eyes flicker to his face, lips pressed together, body freezing for a second.

“I’m going to run now and contemplate some things.”

With those words you lean over, pressing your lips to his cheek for a moment and just like that you are scampering out of the room. Leaving a flustered Jack in your bed.

next part

Part 1: Well, That Stick Has Ruined My Morning. You could say it.

They were only words.

Two of them, technically. Tiny, ordinary words. You’d said worse in kitchens at full tilt with a printer screaming and three people asking stupid questions at once. You’d said harder things to people you liked less, with less sleep, and more mascara running. Separately, the words were nothing. Harmless. Manageable.

Together, they were enough to make your stomach turn over so hard it felt personal.

I’m pregnant.

You stared at yourself in the bathroom mirror like your reflection might volunteer to do it for you.

It did not.

The little ensuite in the hotel here in Yosemite was too small for a crisis of this size. The sink was narrow, the light above the mirror too fluorescent that made you look even worse than you felt, the window cracked just enough to let in a seam of mountain-cold air that lifted the damp hair at the back of your neck. Your toothbrush hung useless in your hand, toothpaste foam cooling in your mouth while your brain ran itself into a wall over and over again.

You looked ridiculous.

Hair loose and sleep-mussed. One of Shane’s dark blue shirts hanging off you, the hem barely decent, one side slipping low enough to show the curve of your shoulder. Your skin looked annoyingly good, which felt like betrayal on a molecular level. Fresh air, less stress, actual sleep when Shane forced you into it, less city grime. Yosemite had done wonders for your face.

Fantastic.

You’d add that to the pros list the next time he tried the whole move closer to me conversation in that maddeningly calm voice of his, like he was discussing weather patterns and not the possibility of uprooting your life.

Pros:

Skin clear.

Boyfriend stupidly hot.

Unfortunately pregnant.

You spat toothpaste into the sink with more force than strictly necessary and rinsed your mouth, eyes never leaving your own.

How the hell were you pregnant?

You had been careful.

You had used protection. Every time, except maybe that one time but that barely counted because you’d both been half asleep and very much in love and very stupid in that specific way people get when they think, well, what are the odds? You’d done the responsible adult things. The deeply unsexy, practical things. The things people in pamphlets and women’s health articles told you to do if you wanted to remain a person with agency and not become a cautionary tale with stretch marks.

You even went to the bathroom after because UTIs were no joke and you were not about to let romance make you medically negligent.

You stared harder at yourself.

Actually, scratch that.

You knew exactly how you were pregnant.

You were not, tragically, the Virgin Mary.

You were just a woman in a borrowed shirt in a bathroom in Yosemite, trying very hard not to throw up from anxiety before nine in the morning. Your laugh came out thin and hysterical enough that if anyone else had heard it, they’d have started backing away slowly.

“Okay,” you whispered to the mirror.

Your voice sounded nothing like yours. Too high. Too careful. Like if you moved too fast the whole room might crack down the middle.

“Okay,” you said again, because repetition had always felt vaguely like control.

It was fine.

It was.

You were an adult.

Shane was an adult.

The two of you could have an adult conversation in an adult way about this very adult situation that had arrived in your life like a fucking wrecking ball. Never mind that the two of you had never actually discussed this.

Not really.

Not in the one year and six months you’d been together.

There had been jokes. Passing comments. The occasional god, can you imagine? when a toddler had a public breakdown in Trader Joe’s or when you and him had stood in an elevator with a screaming baby and the mother trying to shush them while apologising to you at the same time. But never a real conversation. Never a sit-down, eye-contact, what do we want? what would we do? kind of conversation.

Because, if you were being honest, you’d both behaved like the future was this vague, generous thing that would wait for you both to be ready.

Apparently not.

You both still drove between cities and towns once a week, that had turned into once every two weeks once you both realised that a six-hour round trip every weekend was actually exhausting and not really maintainable in reality. You dragged both hands down your face and inhaled through your nose.

The room smelled like Shane. Soap. Pine. The faint, warm cotton smell of clothes that had been slept in. Under it, the chill mineral scent of mountain air coming through the cracked window. Out in the other room, it was quiet in that particular morning way—floorboards settled, kettle not yet on, no radio crackling at his shoulder, no boots moving around. He was still asleep.

Of course he was.

Because the universe loved a joke and apparently since day one of you meeting this man you were the absolute fucking butt of them all.

You pictured him in bed—half on his stomach, one arm shoved under the pillow, hair a mess, face soft in sleep in that way he never let the waking world see. One knee bent up because the mattress in the Yosemite rental was too soft for his back but he tolerated it because you liked it. Mouth slightly open. Breathing deep and even. Completely unaware that in the bathroom ten feet away you were trying not to have a religious experience over a stick of plastic that was still sitting in the bottom of your bag.

God.

You could just show him the test.

That was an option.

A valid option.

You could walk out there, pull it out, hold it up between two fingers like evidence in a murder trial, and let him do the math himself. Let him say it first. Let him be the brave one for once.

You could almost picture it.

His face going still.

His eyes dropping to the test, then back to yours.

The silence.

Maybe he’d take it from you. Maybe he’d stare at it too long. Maybe he’d say your name first in that low voice he used when he already knew that this wasn’t something you were going to make a joke about because you were going to throw up instead. Maybe he’d say, Are you sure? which, fair. Maybe he’d say nothing for just long enough to make your soul leave your body and take up residence in the heating vent.

You clutched the edge of the sink.

No.

No, if you did that, he would look at you with those stupid steady eyes and you would immediately burst into tears like a child and he would hug you and say all the right things to make you feel better but nothing actually helpful except “I’ll stand by you no matter what,” like the stupid sensible asshole he was. You needed at least ten more minutes of pretending to be a person with executive function.

“Jesus Christ,” you muttered.

From the bedroom, nothing. No movement. No voice. No miraculous intervention coming from the sky that would do all the hard work for you.

Coward, your inner voice said.

You glared at yourself. Your reflection, unsurprisingly, did the same. You looked pale now. Less dewy mountain-skin miracle, more woman about to announce life-altering news in her boyfriend’s shirt while trying not to disassociate.

You reached for your brush just to have something to do and ran it through your hair too hard. It snagged at the ends. Good. Pain. Useful. Grounding.

You could do this.

You could.

You’d done harder things.

You’d left cities. Rebuilt kitchens. Loved a man who lived half in wilderness and half in silence and somehow taught him how to let himself be loved back. You had survived weddings, disasters, raccoons, rumors, breakups, awful bosses, your own brain, and a truly humiliating phase in high school where you thought low-rise jeans were a personal right.

You could say two words.

Your hand paused mid-brush.

Unless he didn’t want this.

There it was. The thought you’d been sprinting away from finally catching you by the hair.

Your stomach dropped so hard you had to grab the sink again. Not because Shane would be cruel. Not because he’d be angry. Not because he’d ever, ever make this harder than it already was.

That was the problem.

He’d be kind.

He’d go quiet first, because he always did when something mattered. He’d think before he spoke. He’d ask if you were okay before he asked how he felt. He’d make coffee. He’d sit you down. He’d put one hand on the back of your neck, thumb under your ear, and say we’ll figure it out.

And maybe he would mean it.

Maybe he’d mean every word.

But what if underneath all that steadiness was the truth that he hadn’t wanted this? Not now. Not like this. Not before a thousand conversations you’d both failed to have.

Your throat tightened. The room suddenly felt too bright, too close, too full of every future at once.

A baby.

Shane holding a baby.

Shane absolutely refusing to admit he’d cry and then crying anyway. Tiny socks hanging to dry in the Yosemite sun.

The thought arrived first because apparently your brain had decided subtlety was for weaker women. Tiny white socks clipped to a line outside, moving in the high clear mountain air like surrender flags. So small. So offensively small. Little things made for a person who did not exist yet and somehow already had the power to ruin your composure before breakfast.

Then the next thought hit hard enough to make your grip tighten on the sink.

You, back in the city, nauseous and furious and alone for weeks at a time while Shane tried to make the drive work. Your apartment with its slightly warped floorboards and the upstairs neighbors who lived like they were training for a hoofed migration. The smell of hot pavement and garbage day in summer. You sitting on the edge of your bed with a bucket between your knees, hating everyone. Missing him. Resenting that you missed him. Resenting him for being somewhere all that sky and silence still fit around him while you tried not to throw up into municipal plumbing.

A cot in a tent and a child you could never put in it.

That one cut deepest.

Not because you thought Shane would suggest something that stupid. He wouldn’t. But because the image of his life—his actual life, the shape of it, the limitations of it—suddenly stood up in full, impossible detail. Canvas walls. Ground pad. Lantern light. The clean practical solitude of a man who could live out of a pack for days and somehow make it look like a philosophy instead of an inconvenience. You had spent a year and a half loving him in pieces and practicalities and now all of it was rearranging itself around a new fact.

His hand on your stomach.

Your mother’s face when you told her.

Mark’s face, God help you.

Brian and Gabe losing their entire collective minds.

The life you thought you had arranged for yourself tilting, then tilting more, then becoming something else entirely.

And underneath all of it—quieter, smaller, somehow more terrifying than panic—was the tiny glowing fact that some part of you was already protecting this.

Not deciding. Not planning. Not ready.

Just protecting.

Like your body had picked a side before your brain had even found the ballot.

The nausea hit so fast it felt personal.

One second you were staring at yourself in the little bathroom mirror, pale and wide-eyed in Shane’s oversized shirt, and the next your mouth flooded with that awful sharp water that meant you had maybe five seconds before this became a housekeeping issue.

“Oh, no,” you whispered to no one.

You lunged for the sink just in time.

It was not elegant.

There was nothing cinematic about it, nothing delicate or tragic. Just the humiliating violence of your stomach deciding it had opinions about the morning and wanted them heard immediately. Your hands braced hard on either side of the basin, hair dropping forward like it had joined the attack, shoulders tightening under the thin cotton of his shirt while you threw up once, hard enough to make your eyes sting.

You stayed bent over the sink afterward, breathing through your mouth, the tap still off, the room too bright. The toothpaste-and-pine smell of the bathroom had been replaced by acid and panic and the thin cold line of fresh air coming through the cracked window above the toilet.

Your eyes watered.

Your throat burned.

You could hear the blood rushing in your ears.

The floorboard in the other room creaked and then he was there.

Shane appeared in the doorway half asleep and somehow more awake than you had ever been in your life.

His hair was wrecked from sleep, one side flattened, the other sticking up in a way that would have been funny if your life wasn’t currently trying to fold itself inside out. He had on a grey t-shirt and sleep-soft flannel pants, bare feet on the cold floorboards, one hand still half braced against the doorframe like his body had arrived before the rest of him. But his eyes—those were already fully awake. Focused. Locked on you.

“Hey,” he said immediately, low and rough.

He crossed to you in two steps, turned the tap on without needing to think about it, and put a hand between your shoulder blades.

Not pressing. Not fussing. Solid.

Warm.

His palm moved slow once, twice, up and down your back while the water ran cool and clean over the porcelain.

“Hey,” he said again, quieter now. “You okay?”

A braver woman would have spilled then and there.

A braver woman would have turned around with shaking hands and wet eyes and just said the words. She would have let the cards fall where they may. She would have trusted him enough—or herself enough—not to stall.

But you were not, at this exact moment, a braver woman.

You were a woman who had thought once about disappointing her boyfriend and then, very stupidly, allowed that thought to set up camp in her ribcage and stayed.

No.

No, because that was the thought that kept catching its sleeve on everything.

Shane did deer and bears and raccoons and fences and missing hikers and stubborn chefs from San Francisco.

He didn’t do babies.

Your hand shook as you cupped some water and rinsed your mouth. Shane reached up with his free hand, gathering your hair out of the way and tucking it behind your ear with that maddeningly gentle practicality that always made everything worse.

“You’re burning up,” he murmured.

“I think Brian’s trying to poison me,” you said hoarsely, still bent over the sink. “I feel awful.”

You heard, rather than saw, the faint shift in his expression.

Because yes, objectively, that was ridiculous. But it was also the exact kind of thing you would say when you were trying very hard not to say the thing you actually meant.

His hand stilled against your back for half a second before continuing.

“Mm,” he said, in a tone that was deeply unconvinced. “Brian’s method’s gotten more ambitious, then.”

You let out a weak laugh that hurt your throat.

The water kept running.

You stayed facing the sink because turning around felt like walking straight into a wall you’d built yourself.

Behind you, Shane leaned one hip lightly against the vanity, staying close enough that you could feel him there without him crowding you. The little bathroom held the shape of him too easily: broad shoulders in the mirror behind yours, one hand still at your back, the quiet smell of sleep and cotton and skin and the mountain cold he always seemed to bring in with him.

He was watching you carefully now.

You could see it in the mirror without having to face him.

The furrow between his brows. The way his head tipped slightly, reading you. The stillness.

Your heart started doing that awful uneven thing again.

You took another sip from the tap just to buy yourself a second.

Then another. And then you straightened too fast, shut the tap off, and pressed the heels of your hands into the counter as if the cheap laminate might keep you from floating clean up and out of your own body.

For one horrible second, the room tilted anyway.

The bathroom was too bright. Too small. Too full of the sound of your own blood in your ears. The mirror gave you back a version of yourself that looked pale and wild-eyed and deeply unconvinced by her own coping mechanisms. Behind you, in the reflection, Shane stood in the doorway in sleep-soft greys and bare feet, one hand still braced against the frame, his face sharpened by concern and the kind of quiet attention that always made lying feel like amateur theatre.

He waited.

Of course he did.

Shane always waited.

He waited when you were furious and talking too fast, letting you burn through the first layer of temper before he answered. He waited in kitchens while you found the exact right word for what you meant, even if everyone else in the room had already decided they understood. He waited on trails when your pride made you insist you were fine, half a step back and to the outside, like patience itself had learned to wear flannel. He waited the first time you kissed him back, the first time you said you loved him, the first time you cried in front of him and tried to pass it off as allergies and rage. He waited at your worst with the same maddening steadiness he used at your best, like there was never a version of you he wasn’t prepared to stand still for.

So he waited now, in the little Yosemite bathroom that smelled faintly of mint and cold air and panic, while you tried not to come apart.

“Okay,” you said, because apparently your mouth had mistaken itself for a manager. “Coffee?”

Your own stomach responded to the word with a sharp little curl of protest.

You grimaced.

Shane’s eyes tracked that immediately.

“No,” he said.

The answer was so immediate, so flatly certain, that under any other circumstance you might’ve laughed.

He pushed off the doorframe and stepped fully into the room, gaze still on your face, taking inventory the way he always did—color, posture, breathing, whether you were still upright out of choice or stubbornness.

“I think,” he said, voice low and even, “what you’re going to do is have a shower, go lie down, put something mindless on, and stop trying to pretend you’re the foreman of this situation.”

You blinked at him.

He kept going, already planning, already moving pieces into place like a man laying out gear before weather hit.

“I’ll go into town and grab you some things. Crackers, ginger ale, whatever sounds good when I text you. I’ll call Brian and let him know he needs to do some actual work on the dinner menu instead of whatever bullshit he’s currently bringing to the table.”

“I thought I left the kitchen in safe hands,” you muttered, weakly defensive on behalf of your own command structure.

Shane’s mouth twitched.

“Safe-ish,” he allowed. “Contained, maybe. Not unsupervised.”

You wanted to argue. You really did. On principle, if nothing else. You were fully capable of managing your own nausea, your own crisis, your own deeply inconvenient emotional breakdown before breakfast.

But the truth was you were suddenly so tired you could’ve folded in half.

And Shane, the traitor, had already turned toward the shower.

He reached in and turned the water on, checking the temperature with his fingers the way he checked everything—carefully, practically, without fuss. The pipes groaned once before the stream evened out into a steady rush. Steam began to breathe slowly into the room.

You watched him through the mirror.

The quiet competence of him.

The way nothing in his body language was panicked, even though he had every right to be. The way he was handling you like you were something real and fragile and not an unexploded bomb he wanted to push back into the wilderness and hope never found its way home.

When the water had warmed enough, he turned back to you.

“Arms up,” he said.

You stared at him.

His eyebrow climbed.

You obeyed.

He hooked his fingers lightly into the hem of the shirt you were wearing—his shirt, dark blue, hanging off you in wrinkled surrender—and pulled it up over your head in one easy movement. The air hit your skin cool and immediate. You gave him a look the second you was bare from the waist up, because obviously.

He did not look down.

He very specifically did not look down.

Which, honestly, was more offensive than if he had.

You narrowed your eyes.

He kept his face pointed firmly somewhere around your shoulder, jaw set in that suspiciously neutral line he wore when he was behaving on purpose.

You caught the tiny tell, though—the faintest tension at the corner of his mouth, the discipline of a man very consciously not glancing where he absolutely wanted to.

Your eyebrow arched higher.

He felt it, “I can hear you judging me,” he said, dry.

“You should be judged,” you replied. “This is a hostile work environment.”

His eyes flicked to yours then, just yours, and there it was—that small, dangerous warmth that always lived under his restraint now, easy and private and entirely too dear.

“I’ll be back,” he said, and leaned in to press a kiss to your forehead.

It was a soft one. Not hurried. Not absent. The kind that said I know this is hard without the insult of saying it aloud.

Then he stepped back toward the door. “Shower. Bed. I’ll be back soon.”

You moved toward the steam with all the dignity of a damp Victorian ghost. “Yes, sir,” you muttered.

He paused with one hand on the doorframe and looked back at you.

That look.

Half warning, half amusement, all trouble, “Don’t.”

Your mouth twitched despite yourself, “I didn’t do anything,” you said, smiling as you stepped under the water.

It was a lie so obvious it practically glittered.

His gaze dipped—not indecently, just enough to let you know he was, in fact, still a man and still your boyfriend and still very much aware of the fact that you were naked in his bathroom, smiling at him like a menace while he was trying to be responsible.

Then he looked back up at your face and gave you the smallest, most betrayed huff of laughter.

“You know exactly what you’re doing.”

“Do I?”

“Yeah.”

You grinned at him through the steam. “That sounds like a you problem.”

His smirk arrived slow and unwilling, the way it always did when he was fighting one and losing with dignity, “Take the shower, Princess.”

“Oh, now you’re calling me Princess when I’m naked and emotionally compromised?”

“You’re the one who started with yes sir.”

“I was being respectful.”

“You were being a brat.”

The laugh that escaped you this time was real. A little shaky, but real. And that—somehow—that little scrap of ridiculous flirting in the middle of everything made your chest ache almost worse than the nausea had.

Because this was still you.

Still him.

Still the two of you, somehow, even with the world tilting under your feet.

He pointed once at the shower, like you were both a problem and his favorite one. “Five minutes. Then bed.”

“You timing me?”

“I’m considering it.”

“You’re obsessed with me.”

“That’s not the word I’d use.”

Your smile softened before you could stop it.

His did too.

For one second neither of you said anything. Just looked. Steam between you. Morning light catching on the edges of everything. The kind of quiet that didn’t ask for much except honesty.

Then he straightened, like remembering he had to actually leave if he wanted to get anything done, “I’m serious,” he said. “Shower. Bed. Phone on loud.”

“Yes, dear.”

He sighed like a man carrying an impossible burden. “You’re lucky I love you.”

You blinked once.

There it was again—that simple, matter-of-fact way he said it now. No drama. No weight thrown around. Just truth, offered the same way he’d offer you water or a jacket or his hand over rough ground.

Your throat tightened, “You too,” you said, quieter.

His face changed at that. Small. Wrecked around the edges. He covered it with a nod and stepped out, closing the bathroom door most of the way behind him.

You listened to him move through the cabin for a few seconds after that—the soft thud of boots being pulled on, the cupboard door, the rustle of keys, the muted clink of his ranger-issue mug being moved off the counter.

Then the front door opened.

Closed.

And suddenly it was just you.

You stepped fully under the shower and let the hot water hit your shoulders.

It should have helped.

It absolutely didn’t.

The room felt too loud now. Too bright. The water too sharp against your skin. Your stomach twisted again—not enough to send you back over the sink, but enough to keep your body on edge, every nerve waiting for the next wave. You braced your palms against the tile and bowed your head until your forehead rested there, the heat running over the back of your neck and down your spine.

The tile was smooth and cool beneath the steam.

You shut your eyes.

And there it was. Everything.

Not just the nausea, but the fact that you were too much of a coward to tell the man you loved the biggest truth of your life.

You’d told him you felt awful. You’d let him build a plan around symptoms. You’d let him kiss your forehead and tell you to go to bed and text Brian and take charge and do all the things he always did when you were fraying at the edges.

And still you hadn’t said it.

Your mouth opened on a breath that turned into something perilously close to a sob.

“God,” you whispered to the tile.

Coward.

You could fight with him, you could flirt with him, you could climb mountains, rebuild kitchens, confess love, steal shirts, make life plans, sleep in his ridiculous tent and bully him into buying a motel room instead.

But this?

This had reduced you to standing naked in a shower in Yosemite, forehead against the wall, trying not to cry because the truth was too big and too alive and too capable of changing everything.

You loved him.

That was the worst part.

You loved him enough that his reaction mattered more than your own panic.

You loved him enough that the idea of disappointment crossing his face for even a second felt unbearable.

You loved him enough to already be halfway protecting him from news that was as much his as yours.

And underneath all of that, low and glowing and impossible to turn off, was the other truth: some part of you was already protecting this too.

You pressed your head harder to the tile and let the water pour over you while your stomach twisted and your heart made a wreck of itself and the whole morning kept moving forward whether you were ready or not. <><><><><><><><> “Shane said you’re sick.”

Gabe’s voice drifted across the porch with all the casual menace of a man who’d absolutely clocked too much and planned to weaponize it gently.

You looked up from where you were sitting on the back step of the bar, one knee bent, the other stretched out, a sweating glass of water pressed hard against your cheek like cold could fix bad life choices. The porch boards still held some of the day’s warmth, but the evening air coming off the trees had that Yosemite bite to it—pine and damp earth and the faint smoke of someone, somewhere, making fire behave. The fairy lights strung overhead hummed softly, throwing a warm halo over the service path and making everything feel just intimate enough to be dangerous.

Gabe stood there in the doorway for a beat, pink vape in hand, hoodie half-zipped, looking offensively unbothered by existence. He took a long pull, then exhaled a cloud that smelled like spun sugar, processed strawberries, and regret.

Your stomach twisted on instinct.

You made a face and brushed your hand in front of your nose. “I thought you were quitting.”

“I did,” he said, stepping out and dropping down beside you on the step with the long-suffering grace of a man settling in for gossip he had no official right to. “Then I thought about how great I was doing, had one celebratory puff, and now here we are.” He held the vape up between two fingers like evidence in a trial. “I’ve realized there are worse things in life than me vaping—”

“Like what?” you asked, still pressing the glass to your face because if you let it go you might combust.

“Capitalism. Global warming. The housing market.” Gabe ticked them off on his fingers. “Brian shaving his head again.”

You turned your head slowly and looked at him.

He met your stare with complete seriousness.

“Right,” you said after a second, because frankly there was no arguing with that level of confidence.

He nodded once, satisfied, then nudged your shoulder with his.

It wasn’t  a hard nudge; It didn’t need to be.

You winced anyway.

His head turned toward you in one sharp movement. “Okay,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “That got a reaction.” He leaned back slightly to look at your face. “So. Park Narc thinks you’re sick. What’s the problem?”

You kept your gaze on the service alley in front of you. The back path ran down toward the trees in a strip of gravel and shadow, still damp in places from the afternoon rinse. Beyond it, the lodge’s outer lights cut soft rectangles across the ground. Somewhere inside, someone dropped a pan and swore with conviction.

“Just Brian’s cooking,” you muttered.

Gabe made a noise so disbelieving it was almost artistic, “Nah uh.” He shook his head and took another drag. “Brian’s record of food-to-food-poisoning ratio is below average.”

You turned to look at him fully this time. “Should I be concerned that there’s an average? Does Justine know there’s an average?”

“I don’t know,” Gabe said, exhaling another plume of candy-scented poison into the night. “Ever since she went on holiday and met a man called Pedro, she’s had her head in the clouds. Which, frankly, is adorable and makes her less likely to notice when Brian nearly kills a tourist with aioli.”

That got the tiniest corner of your mouth to twitch before your stomach rolled again and reminded you this was not a fun, flirty porch scene in a movie. This was your life. Your very stupid, very loud, very hormonal life.

Gabe clocked it all.

Of course he did. He leaned his elbows on his knees, pink vape dangling from one hand, and looked over at you with the kind of concern he disguised so aggressively it almost passed for sarcasm.

“So,” he said. “Is this like sick sick, or sick sick?”

You blinked at him, “There’s a difference?”

He grinned. “There’s always a difference. I’ll bring out the sliding scale again if I have to.”

You let out a slow breath through your nose. “God, not the sliding scale.”

“Oh, it’s back,” he said. “It’s laminated now.” He held up an invisible chart in the air between you. “Sick is ‘I need soup and a day off.’ Sick sick is ‘I am about to alter the trajectory of my life and also maybe throw up in the fern by the ice machine.’”

That was too close.

You looked down at the glass in your hands. Condensation slicked your fingers. The ice had already started to melt, a quiet little collapse you felt strangely seen by.

“Seriously,” Gabe said, and the grin dropped away enough to show the real thing underneath. “You good?”

You wanted to say no.

No, you were absolutely not good.

You were tired in that deep cellular way that made sitting upright feel like a negotiable act. You were sore. Your back hurt. Your stomach had been turning itself inside out in waves all day—hungry, but also repulsed by food, except for when you were suddenly ravenous for the exact wrong thing at the exact worst time. You were exhausted from not sleeping and from too much sleeping and from the fact that your own brain had apparently become an enemy insurgency.

You had to think about your future.

And Shane’s future.

And your future with Shane.

You had to think about whether he would really move to the city for you and a baby, or whether he was still quietly, stubbornly fixed on not doing that in any permanent sense. Whether he’d sacrifice the mountain one week at a time and call it enough. Whether you’d end up giving up your career to move somewhere in between—some compromise town with one decent grocery store and a lot of emotional resentment—because neither of you could decide who got to keep the version of home that mattered more.

You had to think about apartments and doctors and distance and money and babies and bodies and jobs and time and whether loving someone was enough when geography was a very big very real thing.

You had to think about how Shane had looked at you that morning, all rough sleep and concern, and how he’d touched the back of your neck like he already knew you were balancing on the edge of something enormous.

You had to think about the fact that you still hadn’t told Gabe.

Or Becca.

Or Brian, who would cry and then make it weird and then cry harder.

You had to think about your mother.

Mark.

The kitchen.

Your own body, which no longer felt fully like it belonged to you.

You had to think about all of it at once, all the time, and you were so tired.

Instead, you lowered the glass into your lap and said, with a small, defeated sigh: “I just need another nap.”

Gabe stared at you. Then one eyebrow climbed. Slow. Deliberate. Dangerous.

“A nap,” he repeated.

“Mm-hm.”

“You’ve had, like, four today.”

“I’m committed to the bit.”

He leaned back on his hands and looked out into the dark for a second like he was giving the universe one final chance to make this less obvious. It declined.

When he looked back at you, the expression on his face was annoyingly gentle. “Chef,” he said carefully, “if you tell me you’re dying, I’m gonna be supportive. If you tell me you murdered someone, I’m gonna need details first but I’ll hear you out. If you tell me you’re just tired, after I personally watched you glare at a bread roll for thirty full seconds like it owed you money, I’m calling bullshit.”

You let your head fall back against the porch post with a quiet thunk.

The fairy lights overhead blurred for a second, “Don’t,” you muttered.

“I haven’t done anything.”

“You’re being unusually observant.”

“That’s one of my worst traits.”

Silence stretched between you, but not an empty one. Inside the bar, someone laughed too loudly. A chair scraped. Music bled faintly through the back wall, something bass-heavy. Outside, the mountain held its own quiet around all of it.

Gabe nudged your knee with his, lighter this time. “I’m not gonna push,” he said. “Mostly because you get mean when cornered and I happen to enjoy my face where it is.” A beat. “But, hypothetically, if this is bigger than Brian’s shitty aioli, you don’t have to do the whole thing alone; you have family here.”

Something in your chest tightened so fast it hurt. You swallowed. You loved this stupid asshole.

Looked down at your hands and at the clear glass between them.

At the water you hadn’t actually wanted but kept drinking because doing something felt better than sitting still with your own thoughts.

Your voice came out quiet.

“I know.”

And you did.

That was the worst part.

Because if you said it out loud—if you said the truth, if you took the thing in your chest and turned it into sound—then it would stop being yours alone. It would become real in a whole different way. Bigger. Sharper. Less containable.

Gabe, blessedly, did not fill the silence. He just sat there beside you, blowing smaller, more guilty-looking clouds into the dark like he was trying not to be offensive to your apparently fragile internal ecosystem.

After a minute, he held the vape farther away from you and said, “For the record, if this turns out to be something more serious than food poisoning, I’d like it noted that I was very cool and mature on the porch.”

You let out a tired breath of a laugh.

“No you weren’t.”

“I was porch-perfect,” He grinned.

“You smell like a carnival.” He looked offended. Truly offended, like you’d insulted his lineage and not his vape. “It’s strawberry.”

“It smells awful,” you said flatly.

Gabe pressed a hand to his chest. “Wow.”

“That,” you continued, pointing vaguely at the pink plastic crime in his hand, “is not strawberry. That is artificial strawberry.” You gave the word the same tone you reserved for “frozen hollandaise” and “pre-shredded parmesan.” “That’s what a strawberry would smell like if it had been described over the phone by a man who’d never met one.”

Gabe opened his mouth.

Closed it.

Opened it again, clearly ready to defend his chemical nonsense to the death; then his attention lifted over your shoulder and his face changed all at once.

Not softened. Not quite.

It just slid into that familiar, delighted expression he wore whenever the universe handed him a live episode of your life to narrate.

“Ah,” he said, straightening a little and lifting the vape in salute, “Canyon Casanova.”

You twisted enough to look.

Shane was coming down the gravel path from the lodge, one hand in the pocket of his jacket, the other swinging loose at his side. The outside dark had settled properly now, all cool blues and silvered edges, and he moved through it like he belonged to it in an infuriatingly photogenic way. Gravel crunched under his boots in that even, decided rhythm that your body had learned before your brain got a say. He stopped at the bottom of the porch steps, looked from Gabe to you, and then pointed at you like he was correcting a factual error.

“She does it better,” he said.

You blinked.

Gabe barked a laugh and pointed the vape at you. “See? Finally, a man of culture.”

The romance was not dead in your relationship. It was simply buried under several layers of sarcasm, practical concern, and a mutual need to bully each other for sport. Which was convenient, really, because you were currently sitting on a porch, keeping a pregnancy secret from your boyfriend, and trying very hard not to throw up on his shoes.

Those stupid boots.

Usually, the smell of him hit you like safety—pine, clean sweat, his soap, cold air, sun-warmed fabric, whatever impossible non-cologne cologne he’d been pretending not to wear for a year and a half. Usually it grounded you.

Tonight, the second the mountain air brought him closer, your stomach turned so violently you had to swallow back a gag.

God.

How had you once found outside on him attractive?

You loved him, apparently. Deeply. Idiotically. Enough to have his child, as it turned out. And right now he smelled like wet bark and fresh hell.

He came up the last step and stopped in front of you, eyes going immediately to your face. Not to Gabe. Not to the glass in your hand. To you.

The humor in his mouth faded just slightly.

“You eaten?” he asked.

The question was casual on the surface, but you knew him too well now. It wasn’t a question thrown out into the air. It was a check. Inventory. Data collection disguised as concern.

You opened your mouth.

Gabe beat you to it, “I tried to feed her,” he said, with the solemnity of a man giving a witness statement. “She glared at a bread roll, drank some water, then came out here. Me, being the concerned citizen that I am, followed. You’re welcome.”

Shane looked at him.

“You’re a community idol,” he said, deadpan.

“Finally,” Gabe murmured, basking. “The recognition I deserve.”

You looked between them and felt another small wave of nausea roll through you, less violent this time, but enough to make you sit a little straighter and breathe through your mouth.

Shane noticed that too.

Of course he did.

He always noticed.

His gaze dropped briefly to the untouched water in your hand, then back to your face. “Come on.”

You stood because arguing seemed like work and because if you stayed sitting another minute Gabe was absolutely going to evolve into emotional support stand-up comedy.

“I’m taking my break very personally,” Gabe said as you handed him the glass.

“You’re taking my whole life very personally,” you muttered.

“That’s friendship.”

“That’s surveillance.”

Shane’s hand landed briefly at the small of your back as you stepped past him. Not enough to steer. Just enough to say watch the step without saying it out loud.

You hated how much comfort there was in that.

Gabe watched the two of you go with the expression of a man who was absolutely going to have opinions later and knew better than to voice them while Shane was still in range, “Don’t die,” he called after you.

“Professionally impossible,” you said without turning.

The service path back to the cabin was quiet.

The lodge noise dropped away behind you in layers—the clink of glasses, the faint thud of music, somebody laughing too loudly near the side entrance—until all that was left was the crunch of gravel under your boots and the thin night sounds of Yosemite settling into itself. Pine boughs moved overhead in the breeze with that soft whispering hush that usually calmed you and currently just made everything feel bigger. The air was cold enough to wake your skin up, and still your body felt hot and strange and wrong.

Shane didn’t push.

Didn’t ask again if you’d eaten.

Didn’t fill the silence with one of his low, practical lectures about water and electrolytes and trying not to run yourself into the ground.

He just walked beside you, half a step closer than he needed to.

You could feel him looking over at you every so often, not obviously, just little glances in the dark that caught on your cheek, your posture, the way you kept one arm folded too tightly across your middle. Taking stock. Waiting for you to either speak or break.

Your brain, meanwhile, had completely abandoned dignity and started offering up ways to tell him.

Congratulations, you’ve been promoted.

Surprise, the protective custody unit got bigger.

Brian didn’t poison me, but someone did get me pregnant and frankly I’d like to speak to management.

That one almost made you laugh, except you were too busy trying not to throw up in the shrubbery.

Others were worse.

Blunter, harder.

I’m pregnant.

We need to talk.

Please don’t look at me like that.

You hated every version.

You hated that no arrangement of words seemed right enough for something this enormous. Too flippant and you’d look insane. Too serious and you might start crying before you got through the first syllable.

And sooner or later he was going to realize this wasn’t just Brian’s cooking.

Shane might not do babies, but he did patterns. He did observation. He did noticing when you tied your laces wrong or skipped breakfast or lied about being tired or pretended you weren’t hurt when you absolutely were. He noticed weather shifts and broken latches and the angle of your jaw when you were trying not to say the truth.

The longer you kept this from him, the worse he was going to take it Because he’d be hurt.

Because he’d look at you with those steady eyes and go quiet in that way he did when something mattered, and you would know immediately that waiting had been the wrong choice.

He glanced over again.

You felt it before you saw it.

“Still feel sick?” he asked at last, voice low.

“Yes,” you said, because that was easier than all the other answers stacking up behind your teeth.

He nodded once. “You want tea?”

Tea.

The domesticity of that nearly knocked you sideways.

He was talking about tea and you were carrying his baby and your entire life had become a bad rom-com written by someone who really liked stress.

“Maybe,” you said faintly.

He didn’t comment on your tone. Just adjusted his pace slightly when your steps slowed, as if the dark itself had asked him to.

The cabin came into view through the trees a minute later, porch light glowing soft and yellow against the wood. The small familiar shape of it made something in your chest tighten so hard it hurt. Home, for now. Home with his flannel over the chair and your boots by the door and his mug on the counter and the secret still lodged sharp under your ribs.

Shane went ahead the last two steps to the porch, pulling his keys from his pocket. The metal jangled softly in the night. He unlocked the door with the easy muscle memory of a man who had done this enough times to stop thinking about it.

You stood behind him, staring at the back of his jacket, at the broad line of his shoulders, at the nape of his neck where his hair had gone soft from the evening air.

You could still wait.

You could go inside, drink the tea, sit down, try to find a better moment.

A gentler one.

A smarter one.

Tomorrow morning, maybe. When the world felt less thin-skinned. When you hadn’t spent the evening trying not to vomit because your boyfriend smelled too much like actual wilderness. But then he pushed the door open and stepped inside, and the sight of him crossing the threshold—safe, familiar, his place, your place, the place the truth would have to live in eventually—made your panic spike so hard it overrode every last ounce of strategy.

“I’m pregnant,” you blurted.

He stopped.

Not gradually.

Just stopped dead in the middle of the cabin, one hand still on the edge of the door, body half turned back toward you as if the words had physically reached out and caught him by the chest.

The silence after was instant and absolute.

Your own heartbeat turned deafening.

The cabin suddenly seemed too small, too bright, every object inside it unbearably clear—the chair with his jacket over the back, the half-read field manual on the table, the lamp by the couch, the folded blanket, your water glass from this morning still sitting by the sink.

You had said it.

Oh God.

You had actually said it.

There was no taking it back now. No softer version. No strategic retreat. No joke.

Your stomach dropped so hard you thought for one insane second you might actually pass out and that would be not only humiliating but wildly off-brand.

Shane turned.

Slowly.

His face was unreadable in that first terrible second, not because he didn’t feel anything, but because he felt too much all at once and every part of him had gone still trying to catch up.

Your mouth opened, closed. You had the wild urge to immediately make it worse by talking.

To explain. To apologize. To say I was going to tell you earlier or please say something or I know this is bad timing or I know this is probably not what you wanted.

Nothing came out.

The panic was full-body now, hot and electric and humiliating. It buzzed in your fingers. Sat high in your throat. Made your knees feel weirdly detached from the rest of you.

Because now you had to wait, now you had to see his face change. Now you had to find out what that silence meant. And standing there in the doorway with the night still at your back and the truth hanging between you like a lit fuse, you realized with a horrible, crystal clarity that this was the part you had been afraid of all along:

Mot the pregnancy. Not the nausea. Not even the future.

This.

fainting had always been a little bit inconvenient.

not dramatic enough to be cinematic, not predictable enough to properly prepare for - just inconvenient in the kind of way that slowly embeds itself into every aspect of your life until you stop noticing how abnormal it actually is. It all started in high school, the first time it happened was arguably horrifying- 3rd period math class, and your crush had just offered you a pen and flashed you a crooked smile. Your heart raced, like a hummingbird wile and erratic and before you knew it, one minute you were bashfully giggling at his jokes about quadratic equations- the next you were face first in your notebook. The doctors told you Vasovagal Syncope, which in your opinion sounded like a hard metal rock band, but you took their blood pressure medicines from that day onwards. 

Over time, you learnt how to live with it. Sometimes it was manageable. Sometimes it was just dizziness and blurry vision and sitting down on the nearest surface before your body decided to humble you publicly. Sometimes it was waking up to panicked faces hovering over you while you tried to convince everyone around you that no, seriously, this happened all the time.

which, unfortunately, was true.

Allie and Hannah learned the quickest, being roommates would do that to you. The boys learned soon after. By junior year, there was practically a system in place for it - water bottles shoved into your hands, someone grabbing your bag before you hit the floor, Garrett texting Logan before you were even fully conscious again.

Logan, however, never quite adjusted to it the way everyone else did.

he tried to.

God, he tried.

but there was something uniquely horrifying about loving someone whose body could go slack in your arms without warning. Something deeply unsettling about the way you always laughed it off afterwards, brushing it aside with flushed cheeks and a quiet, "I'm okay,” while his heart was still somewhere near his throat.

because to you, fainting was normal.

to John Logan, it never would be.

But here are the two times he dealt with it..somewhat normally. And the one time he didn’t

𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝟏

The library at Briar had a very specific kind of silence.

Not actual silence - that would’ve been impossible considering half the student population seemed physically incapable of existing without aggressively whispering every thought that crossed their mind - but the sort of hushed atmosphere that made every dropped pen sound like a gunshot.

You were currently trying very hard not to contribute to that atmosphere by murdering John Logan with a highlighter.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Logan muttered from across the table, long legs nudging yours beneath it.

You didn’t look up from your notes, underlining a sentence in your physiology textbook hard enough to nearly tear the page. “Because,” You whispered sharply, “you’ve tapped your foot against mine for the last fifteen minutes.”

“That’s because your feet are freezing.”

“That sounds like a you problem.”

“It became my problem when you shoved your icy ass converse under my legs.”

A snort came from beside you. Hannah quickly disguised it as a cough when you glared at her over your laptop screen.

Across from her, Garrett looked deeply unbothered by the entire interaction, lazily flipping a page in his philosophy textbook while Hannah slowly collapsed into silent laughter against his shoulder.

“You two are disgusting,” Allie informed you quietly from the end of the table.

You blinked. “We’re literally studying.”

Logan hummed beside you, not even pretending to pay attention to the stats worksheet in front of him anymore, “Yeah baby, real filthy behaviour.”

Heat crawled up your neck instantly.

The word baby wasn’t exactly new. Logan had been throwing it around for months now, slipping it into conversations with such casual ease that you’d stopped reacting outwardly somewhere around week three, despite the fact every single time still felt like someone plugging your nervous system directly into a live wire.

“You’re staring again,” You muttered.

“I’m allowed to stare at my girlfriend.”

Allie gagged dramatically.

“Oh my god,” She whispered loudly, “he’s gotten even more annoying.”

“Impossible,” Hannah replied solemnly.

Garrett barely glanced up from his book. “Give it a week. They’ll become one organism.”

“We already basically are,” Logan said casually.

You finally looked up at him then.

That was the problem with Logan. The reason you’d fallen for him so spectacularly despite your better judgement.

He said things like that so easily. Like it was obvious.

Like of course he’d started keeping protein bars in his backpack because you forgot to eat when you were stressed. Like of course he waited outside your exam halls even when he had practice. Like of course your legs ended up over his lap every time you sat together for longer than ten minutes.

Your chest tightened softly.

And because apparently the universe enjoyed humiliating you whenever you got too emotionally comfortable, your vision blurred slightly at the exact same moment.

You frowned. That was… inconvenient timing.

The words on your laptop screen swam for half a second before sharpening again. Your heartbeat fluttered unpleasantly.

Not enough to panic over yet. You subtly shifted in your seat, rolling your neck and readjusting your posture- hoping to god that it would be enough, trying to ignore the familiar lightheadedness curling at the edges of your body.

“Hey.”

Logan’s voice dropped quieter instantly.

You looked over.

His brows had pulled together slightly, eyes scanning your face with terrifying precision.

“How long?” He asked softly.

Damn him.

Most people didn’t notice until you were actively halfway unconscious.

“I’m okay,” You whispered automatically.

A look crossed his face. Because he knew that tone. Knew what it meant when you said I’m okay in that specific careful voice. Your boyfriend leaned back slightly in his chair, completely ignoring the fact that Garrett was now openly watching the interaction over the top of his textbook.

“When was the last time you ate?”

You blinked once.

Logan sighed immediately. “Baby.”

“I had coffee?”

Allie dropped her pen onto the table. “Oh my god.”

“You can’t survive on caffeine and academic validation,” Hannah hissed.

“I literally can though.”

“No,” Logan said flatly, “you literally cannot. That’s the whole issue.”

Despite yourself, you laughed quietly.

Wrong decision.

The movement sent dizziness crashing through you harder this time, your stomach dipping sharply as black spots burst across your vision.

Logan was moving before you could even process it properly.

One second you were upright, the next his hand was wrapped around your wrist while the other steadied your shoulder.

“Hey,” He said immediately, voice calm enough that someone who didn’t know him wouldn’t notice the tension underneath it, “look at me.”

Your body felt frustratingly floaty all of a sudden.

“I’m fine,” You murmured weakly.

“Yeah, sweetheart, that sentence is losing credibility.”

Garrett was already standing.

“I’ll get water.”

Hannah reached for your bag without needing to ask while Allie shoved your laptop aside to make room.

The horrifying thing was how practised everyone looked doing it.

Like this had become routine.

Which, unfortunately, it kind of had.

“I hate all of you,” You mumbled as Logan carefully crouched in front of your chair.

“You love us deeply,” Allie corrected.

“Stockholm syndrome maybe.”

“You literally chose to date one of them,” Hannah pointed out.

“That weakens your argument significantly,” Garrett called over his shoulder.

Logan ignored all of them.

His thumb pressed lightly against your pulse point while he watched your face with that same concentrated expression he got before hockey games. Like he could somehow prevent your body from betraying you if he paid enough attention.

Your chest ached.

“Hey,” You whispered softly once your vision finally started stabilising again.

Logan looked up immediately.

You reached out without thinking, fingers brushing against the crease between his eyebrows. The tension sitting there.

“I’m okay.”

He closed his eyes for half a second. Then he turned his head slightly and pressed a quick kiss into the centre of your palm before standing back up.

The library collectively chose that exact moment to become aware of the fact that the hockey team’s second line centre was looking at you like you personally held his heart hostage.

“Oh my god,” Allie whispered dramatically.

Hannah looked emotional.

Garrett looked disgusted.

“Suddenly we’re all trapped in a Nicholas Sparks novel,” he muttered.

Logan didn’t even glance away from you.

“Shut up,” He said absentmindedly, still watching your face carefully, “she almost passed out.”

“I did not almost pass out.”

“That’s not medically valid.” Logan shot.

You flicked his forehead, “You’re not medically valid,” 

You stared at him for two seconds before bursting into startled laughter.

And just like that, some of the fear eased out of his shoulders.

𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝟐

The thing about the hockey house was that it never really felt like anyone was visiting it.

It felt like everyone was always a part of this little ecosystem, even if half of them technically still had their own places and the other half only owned two plates and a concerning number of energy drinks that nobody could fully account for.

Tonight was one of those nights where everything blurred into something almost domestic in a way you loved. Garrett and Hannah were folded into each other on the armchair in the corner, Hannah scrolling absently while Garrett spoke over her shoulder in low, easy comments about something on his screen that she kept pretending not to care about but clearly did. 

Dean and Allie were on the floor near the coffee table, Allie leaning against him in that casual way that somehow always ended with her stealing his hoodies and Dean acting like he was personally offended by affection while still adjusting her position when she shifted too much.

And then there was Tucker, occupying the remaining space like a problem nobody had successfully solved yet, talking at a volume that suggested he had forgotten walls existed.

You were on the couch.

Logan was on the couch too, your legs resting across his lap, your head resting on the back of the couch. His hand had found your ankle at some point during the evening and had simply stayed there, like it had decided that was where it belonged and saw no reason to reconsider.

“Have you eaten today?,” Logan murmured into your ear, not looking up from his phone.

You didn’t look away from the conversation Dean was having with Allie about whether cereal could be classified as a personality trait. “Hmm?”

“Did you eat today baby?” He dropped his phone into his lap and caressed your hair.

“I think so.”

A pause.

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“It does if you really think about it.”

Hannah glanced over from the armchair. “She’s lying.”

“I am not lying.”

Garrett didn’t look up. “You had toast and emotional distress.”

“I had toast and a very normal amount of stress.”

Logan’s thumb pressed lightly against your ankle once, absent and automatic, but his attention had shifted to you properly now. Not fully concerned yet, but already recalibrating the room around your answer the way he always did when he thought something might be off.

“Baby,” he said quietly, like it was a habit more than a warning.

You finally turned your head slightly toward him. “Don’t start.”

“I’m not starting anything.”

“You’re absolutely starting something.”

Across the room, Allie made a sound of exaggerated disgust without even looking up. “I can feel the health lecture forming.”

Dean nodded. “It’s in the air.”

Logan ignored them completely. “You said you had toast this morning.”

“I did.”

“And then what.”

You hesitated.

Which was apparently answered enough.

Hannah sighed. “Oh my god.”

“I had coffee,” you admitted finally, because there was no point pretending anymore.

Garrett closed his eyes briefly like he was praying for patience. “That’s not food.”

“It has beans in it.”

“That’s not how nutrition works,” Logan said, though his voice was still calm, still even, like he was trying very hard not to make it into a bigger thing than it already was.

You shifted your legs slightly on his lap, rolling your eyes. “You’re all obsessed with me.”

“Yes,” Allie said immediately.

“That’s not-”

“Yes,” Dean repeated, “we are.”

You opened your mouth to concede and hop to the kitchen, go grab whatever tucker had made and stored in the fridge, but the words didn’t come out as smoothly as they should have.

It wasn’t immediate. It never was, much to your annoyance. It was subtle in the way your body always was about these things, like it preferred to give you enough time to be pissed before it betrayed you properly.

A slight softening at the edges of your vision first, like the room had decided to lose definition without informing you. The low hum of conversation didn’t change, but it felt slightly further away, like you were listening to it through water.

You frowned. This was inconvenient.

You shifted your weight on the couch instinctively, trying to ground yourself without drawing attention to it, but Logan noticed anyway. Of course he did.

His hand tightened slightly around your ankle.

“You good?” he asked, quieter now.

You nodded automatically. “Yea,” pushing off the sofa, hoping the movement would reboot your brain,”... yeah im fine.”

It came out too fast. Logan’s expression changed imperceptibly, the way it always did when he didn’t believe you but hadn’t yet decided whether to challenge it in front of everyone.

“Hey,” he said again, softer, his hand wrapped around your wrist- following you away from your seat.

You tried to laugh it off, but it didn’t quite land properly even in your own ears. “I’m finally listening to you guys, just going to grab something to eat.”

You pushed yourself to step away.

That was when it hit properly. Your body simply decided that it was no longer participating in the conversation. The room loosened, like the edges stopped agreeing with each other and in between the gaps your brain filled with black spots.

You reached out without thinking, fingers brushing the back of the couch as your knees went weak in a way that didn’t feel like anything at first, until it did.

“Hey-”

Logan’s voice cut through immediately, sharper now, closer than it had been a second ago, but it was already too late for clarity.

There was so much movement all at once.

Someone swearing.

A water bottle being cracked open.

The shuffling of sneakers and socks against the floor.

Coming back was always the worst part.

Because there was always a moment where you could hear everything before you could properly exist inside it again. Voices layered over each other, closer this time, less casual.

“I’ve got her,” Logan’s voice said, low and controlled in a way that didn’t quite match the tension underneath it.

“She’s out cold?” Dean asked, like he was trying not to panic but also deeply failing.

“She’s not- don’t say it like that,” Allie snapped immediately.

“Water,” Garrett said somewhere to the side, already moving.

And then your vision finally returned in pieces.

Ceiling first.

Then faces.

Then Logan.

He was closest.

Crouched in front of you, one hand steadying your shoulder, the other still holding your wrist like he hadn’t fully decided whether letting go was allowed yet. His expression wasn’t dramatic in the way people expected panic to be.

He was focussed on you, in a way that made your chest tighten before you even fully remembered why. You blinked slowly.

“Oh,” you muttered. “That was annoying.”

Relief flickered across Allie’s face instantly. “She’s alive.”

“Barely,” Dean said.

“I heard that,” you murmured.

Logan didn’t smile, “you scared me,” he said finally. You swallowed, trying to sit up, but his hand immediately steadied you again, firmer now.

“Don’t,” he said softly.

“I’m fine,” you replied automatically, accepting the water from garrett with a smile, you reach over to your bag and search for an energy bar. You hated the nutty torture snacks, but Logan insisted on you carrying them around for emergencies.

Everyone around you had relaxed, Hannah, Garrett and Tucker went to the kitchen, animatedly chatting about dinner whereas Allie and Dean went back to their places on the floor, already scrolling through her phone. 

Logan hadn’t moved, his fingers drumming against your knee. Your fingers moved without thinking, brushing lightly against his sleeve.

“I’m okay,” you said again, softer this time, like it might mean something more if you said it gently enough.

Logan exhaled through his nose, eyes flicking briefly shut like he was trying to steady something in himself. He shook his head, as if the movie had been unpaused and he had momentarily lost the plot. 

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I know.”

𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝟑

Logan got the message in the middle of something he would not later be able to reconstruct properly, not because it wasn’t important, but because everything that happened immediately after replaced it so completely that the original context never stood a chance of surviving in his memory.

His phone buzzed incessantly on his desk breaking his concentration from whatever his professor was droning about to the group chat notifications exploding on his phone screen. It was Hannah’s name first, then Garrett’s, then Allie’s, all stacked on top of each other in a way  that made him unlock his phone and scroll through hurriedly. 

she fainted. properly. she’s awake now. come back.

He read it once without reacting in any visible way, which was what made it worse in hindsight, everything else that he had been doing was irrelevant, as though the idea of continuing it belonged to someone else entirely, and he was no longer that person.

By the time he got back to the house, his hoodie was half-zipped because he had started putting it on properly and then stopped halfway through, his cap still backwards and slightly uneven like he had forgotten it was there at all, and his hair underneath it flattened in places that suggested his hand had been through it more times than he had noticed.

Logan shut off his ignition and ran up the stairs, two at a time until he was bursting through the front door- his bag hanging from one shoulder as he scanned the scene in front of him. Garrett stood near the kitchen counter with a glass of water he had clearly forgotten to drink from, Hannah sat on the couch angled slightly forward in a posture that suggested she had not yet decided whether she was allowed to relax, Allie hovered somewhere between the hallway and the living room in a way that made it clear she had been going back and forth between checking on you and giving you space, and Dean existed in that familiar state of pretending not to be paying attention while absolutely paying attention.

And you were on the couch. Your eyes were open but not fully anchored yet, blinking slowly in that delayed way that made it clear your body was still catching up to where you were. Your shoulders were slightly hunched forward as if you were trying to find the correct posture for being awake again, and your hands were loosely folded in your lap before you noticed him properly.

The moment you did, everything in you shifted in a way that was immediate and familiar, like muscle memory rather than thought. You sat up, twisting over the couch to meet his eyes and smile with your hand outstretched- that was when the collective inhale happened, like even the house was waiting to see what he would do.

His eyes stayed on you without breaking, taking in the fact that you were sitting there, awake, conscious, present, and yet his brain still hadn’t stopped running like a hamster on a wheel, rotating again and again through all the scenarios he had plagued himself with on the drive over- a broken movie reel that fluttered between bad, worse and the worst.

You saw him, the way his eyes darted all over your face, how his hand was tightening and loosely against his bag strap. 

“Hey,” you said, your voice slightly rough, but it jumpstarted him to begin slowly approaching you, like a wounded animal. Your first instinct whenever he looked like that, as if you could smooth the edges of his expression back into something manageable by making yourself smaller within it, which was something you did without hesitation, like it was part of a pattern you had both already agreed to without ever discussing it.

He let you. 

Let you intertwine your fingers with him and pull him closer next to you. Let you kiss his hands, then knuckles and then the side of his wrist. He let you ground him before he could process anything.

“I’m fine,” you said quickly, already aware of how the room was still holding itself slightly tense, and your voice tilted into something apologetic without fully meaning to, “I’m sorry guys, I must not have realised how stressed I was. I didn’t mean to scare anyone, I just didn’t eat properly and I got a bit dizzy and I didn’t realise it would turn into anything, it won’t happen again, I promise.”

Around you, the room began to release itself in pieces.

Garrett exhaled and shifted his weight like he had been waiting for permission to stop bracing, Hannah leaned back into the couch again as her shoulders loosened, Allie moved a step closer to you and immediately started talking in that half-joking, half-relieved tone about electrolytes and how she was “putting you on a schedule if this ever happens again,” and Dean, finally, contributed something about how he shouldn’t have asked about how your paper went, and he’ll let you run him over with his car to relieve stress next time, which was unhelpful but normal in a way that helped everyone else reset.

You leaned into Logan without thinking, still holding his hand, your body molding into his as you rubbed circles on his knuckles and pressed your hand into his thigh

You looked up at him, already softer, already slipping back into the version of the evening where everything was normal again. But what you couldn’t see was the way his emotions swirled thunderously in his mind, how he couldn’t begin to relax like everyone else did- in fact he was baffled they were so normal so quickly. He barely heard you ask about his class, or notice when you peppered soft kisses to his jaw and say that you missed him- how boring it was when he wasn’t there. As though the structure of his day mattered more than anything.

He tried to answer at first, his words bubbling to the tip of his tongue, but it didn’t take long for him to realise they wouldn’t come out in a smooth, caramelised way that would flow into the calm atmosphere of the room. He gently let go of your hand, in a decisive way that made you furrow your brows and scan his face.

“Logan?” you said, quieter now, not fully alarmed but already sensing the direction this was going.

He rubbed his hands together, throat working thickly as his adams apple bobbed. Everyone else had noticed the shift, conversations slowed. Dean stopped mid-sentence. Allie’s expression changed slightly as she looked between the two of you. Hannah went still in a way that suggested she was no longer sure whether to intervene or wait.

Logan turned to you, his hair falling in specks along his forehead, “I need a minute.” He got up and went upstairs, footsteps heavy along the ceiling of where you all stayed frozen until his bedroom door clicked closed; you blinked a few times, looking at your friends who met you with confused, concerned shrugs and shakes of their heads.

Your expression tightened and you pushed yourself up to follow him, ignoring whatever advice your friends were half-heartedly giving you. 

When the door creaked open under your hand, you found him sitting on the edge of his bed, hands braced on his knees and holding his head, as though he needed something solid to hold the weight of his thoughts. His cap lay discarded on the floor, shoulders slightly lifted in tension that he was not releasing, and when you entered the doorway he did not look immediately, as if he already knew what would happen if he looked at you too quickly.

When he did meet your eyes, it was not anger that you saw first, but something more difficult to place because it did not sit cleanly in any single emotion. It looked like a strain held in place for too long.

“You shouldn’t apologise like that,” he said, and you frowned slightly, stepping inside and shutting the door behind you. Trapping whatever conversation you were about to have within these four walls.

“I wasn’t- I just didn’t want everyone worrying,” you said, still trying to smooth it over in the same way you had in the other room, still trying to keep it within something manageable. The bedframe creaked under you, as if warning you from crossing your legs and sinking into this situation.

But he shook his head once, not dismissive but overwhelmed, and when he spoke again his voice had shifted into something quieter but sharper at the edges, “You were apologising for being unconscious.”

That made you stop, properly stop, because it didn’t match the version of the moment you had been holding onto, and he saw that in your face immediately.

“I wasn’t here,” he said, and there was something in the way he said it that made it clear that time had not been abstract for him in the same way it was for you. “You were just gone, and I found out from my phone blowing up, messages that had sat there for god knows how long because…” He grit his teeth, “I just had to turn it on silent for class. And I get back to everyone telling me it was fine, that you’re fine, like that changes anything.”

You try to re-anchor him in proximity the same way you always did, your hand finding his again, your voice softening as you said, “You can’t always be there Logan, I don’t want you to always be on edge. I’m okay.”

But when he looked at you this time, there was something in his expression that did not settle with that reassurance.

“I know,” he said quietly, and it came out with more restraint than anything he had said earlier, like it was something he had been holding back for a long time and could no longer keep contained in the same shape. “I just don’t know how to stop thinking about what it looked like when you weren’t.”

You cup his cheek, turning him towards you, “I’m right here baby,” You kiss him, imprinting the taste of you onto his mouth, the feel of your lips together as a way to tell him that you’re still there with him, “I’m not going anywhere.”

Logan held your wrists, his fingers shaking against your skin, “I..” his eyes were wide, pupils flicking between yours, “I never know when you aren’t going to be here.”

He tugged at your hands and you let him, nails digging into the bedsheet uselessly next to you. Your breath caught in your throat, face quaking and crumbling at the edges, eyelashes fluttering- beating away the bubbling tears forming on your lashline. 

“I think I’ll sleep at the dorm tonight,” you said eventually, and your voice was softer than it had been before, tired in a way that didn’t fully belong to the moment.

Logan looked up at that, but he didn’t stop you, just watched with a shattered look in his eyes, his lips pursed and pressed against his hands that were clasped together. You collected your things as seamlessly as possible, and given that you’d stayed over for the entire weekend, it was proving to be harder than you thought. But you huffed and puffed with each new article that got shoved into the shoulder bag until the room looked as if you’d never stepped foot in there. 

You’d already begun to calculate how many trips it would take to empty out the clothes from his dresser and toiletries from his bathroom. 

Logan still hadn’t said anything, his eyes widening by a fraction when he realised just how much you had erased from his space, but he stayed silent when your fingers hesitated against the door handle and didn’t dare to say anything when you turned back to him- eyes begging him to stop you, to cradle you in his arms and work it out. He ignored it all, looking through you and barely flinching when you shut the dare harder than necessary. 

You adjusted your bag strap over your shoulder with careful hands, stilling when you realised everyone was staring at you when you emerged from the stairwell, “I’m heading home guys..” 

Your throat tightened but you shook your head and forced a smile onto your face, it felt plasticy and fake when your eyebrows tightened together, nose burning with each deep breath you took. 

You added lightly, “I’ve got that test tomorrow anyway, and it’s probably better if I just- yeah. I’ll head back.”

Allie and Hannah both turned slightly, breaking out of the pitying trance when you grabbed your keys and headed for the door. 

Neither of them said anything at first, because there was a specific kind of silence that settles when two people are trying very hard to behave like nothing irreversible has happened only a floor above them.

“Okay,” Allie said finally, careful but not pushing, “Text us when you get in?”

You nodded quickly.

“Yeah, of course.”

Hannah’s eyes lingered on you a little longer, not interrogating, just observing, like she was storing away the way you were holding yourself more tightly than usual, the way Logan wasn’t following you to the door, barely letting you out of his hold with attacks of kisses and whispered in your ear. 

But neither of them asked.

Because to everyone else in the house, it still looked like something that could be explained away by stress and timing and too much noise and not enough food.

You said goodbye in a way that was deliberately light, stepping out with your usual version of composure stitched back together over something slightly less stable underneath it.

Back in the living room, the energy eventually returned in fragments, Logan had rejoined the group nearly an hour after the girls had left. 

Allie and Hannah left together not long after you, mumbled goodbyes were exchanged and worried whispers about Logan along with promises to update them over text had gotten them out the door back to you .

And once the door closed behind them, the house settled into a quieter version of itself.

Dean was the first to fully break the tension, dropping onto the couch with the kind of exaggerated movement that only made sense when someone was actively trying to remind a room how normal they were allowed to be. Tucker followed soon after, already halfway into a joke about how “Briar parties are medically unsafe environments” that no one really responded to but still helped reset the tone anyway.

Logan stayed silent for a moment too long in the kitchen doorway before eventually sitting down on the arm of the couch, not fully joining the group, just occupying space near it without integrating into it. The others kept talking for a while, but their volume softened slightly in the way it does when people unconsciously recognise that something heavier is still present in the room.

Eventually, Dean stretched and yawned in an overly theatrical way.

“Right,” he said, pushing himself up. “I’m calling it before I start thinking about my own mortality again.”

Tucker followed immediately, clapping Logan on the shoulder on his way past like nothing meaningful had just been discussed at all. “Don’t overthink it, man,” he added lightly, already heading upstairs. “She’s been doing that since high school apparently. She’s fine.”

Garrett didn’t follow them right away.

Logan just exhaled once, slow, like something had tightened in his chest at the phrasing.

Once the footsteps disappeared upstairs and the house settled properly, Garrett stayed behind in the spot next to Logan, leaning against the couch and pretending not to be boring holes into the side of his best friend's face. Logan was still on the couch arm, staring somewhere that wasn’t really the room.

For a while, neither of them spoke.

“I can’t imagine it,” Garrett broke the silence, voice quieter now, stripped of the earlier group energy, “loving someone and knowing that at any point they might just not respond.”

Logan’s jaw tightened slightly at that, but he didn’t interrupt.

Garrett looked down at his hands briefly before continuing, “I know everyone’s saying she’s used to it and it’s normal for her or whatever, but… that’s not really the part that sticks, is it?”

That landed differently.

Logan looked down finally, his hands loosely clasped together, and when he spoke his voice came out lower than before, less controlled in the way it had been earlier.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said, and there was no performance left in it now, no attempt to hold anything in place. “I love her so much it actually hurts, and I can’t… I can’t keep doing that thing where I pretend I’m okay when she’s-”

He stopped. Swallowed slightly and pressed his fingers to his eyes. Logan exhaled again, slower this time, like the words were physically difficult to keep forming.

“But I also can’t go on like this,” he finished, quieter.

That silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable in the way earlier ones had been. It was just heavy with the absence of an answer. Garrett nodded once, slowly, like he understood that there wasn’t a clean solution sitting anywhere in reach.

“I think,” Garrett said carefully after a moment, choosing each word like he was placing it somewhere fragile, “it might actually be harder to let her go than it is to keep reminding yourself she wakes up every time.”

Logan turned to Garrett, and nodded slowly- a row of tears fell from his chin and onto the soft cashmere beneath him, “I just don’t know how many times I can do it.”

 Chapter 4: The Not-Date (Stakeout Laundromat Edition) “A soulmate is an ongoing connection with another individual that the soul picks up again in various times and places over lifetimes…”-Edgar Cayce.

The afternoon was offensively nice.

New York had decided—just for a couple of smug, glittering hours—to pretend it wasn’t a city being slowly strangled by its own mayor. Sunlight bounced hard off glass towers and windshields, turning whole blocks into mirrors. Puddles left over from yesterday’s rain flashed like coins in the gutter. People moved like people still believed in errands and lunch breaks and the possibility of getting home before dark. Dogs pulled at leashes. A man in a suit laughed too loud into his phone. A woman in red sunglasses carried three shopping bags and a bouquet of peonies like the world hadn’t been split down the middle into before curfew and after curfew.

It made you want to throw something.

Because the brightness was a lie. The city looked scrubbed clean from a distance, but up close the evidence of Fisk’s New York was everywhere if you knew where to look. Curfew notices were pasted crookedly over old concert flyers and missing-cat posters. A smashed vigilante-wanted poster had been half torn off a lamp post and now flapped every time the wind turned mean. An AVTF cruiser rolled by slow enough to be noticed and quiet enough to feel deliberate. Safety, apparently, now came in black tactical uniforms and the sound of boots on concrete after sunset.

Very civic. Very reassuring. Very fascism with a nicer PR team.

Dex had picked the laundromat because he said it gave them sightlines.

You had picked nothing because apparently your role in this operation was be dragged into broad daylight on four hours of sleep and yesterday’s underwear and try not to look like you were currently accessory-adjacent to several felonies.

The laundromat was long and narrow, jammed between a shuttered nail salon and a corner deli with sun-faded lottery signs taped to the window. The awning outside hung low enough to throw a stripe of shade across the front glass, which meant anyone inside could watch the street without the street getting too good a look back. Smart. Annoyingly smart actually. Inside, the place smelled like detergent, hot metal, lint, and the very specific chemical optimism of fabric softener trying to convince everyone it was lavender and not a laboratory experiment.

Industrial washers lined one wall, white and square and humming like they had opinions. Dryers thudded in the back with that heavy, repetitive rhythm that made the whole room feel like it had a second heartbeat. A half-broken radio on a shelf near the register was playing something cheerful from at least ten years ago, the kind of upbeat pop song that survived entirely on vibes and a woman saying “baby” like it paid rent. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, trying to outshine the daylight pouring through the windows and losing badly.

You leaned against one of the washers and let the vibration press into your spine. It was almost grounding. Almost.

The hot dog in your hand was still warm.

That, more than anything, felt insulting because Dex had somehow worked buy you lunch into the operational plan with a straight face, and now you were standing in a laundromat eating a suspiciously decent hot dog while surveilling a wizard, like this was not only normal but maybe even quaint.

You took another bite and watched the man across the street through the glass.

Wong didn’t look like someone who could fold reality into itself.

That was maybe the most unsettling thing about powerful people in this city: how often they looked tired instead of mythic. He moved with that particular kind of contained purpose people had when they were used to not being interrupted. There was nothing flashy about him. No dramatic cloak snapping in the breeze, no visible sparks, no hovering. Just a man on a Manhattan sidewalk in broad daylight, walking like the air around him understood him.

Which, to be fair, it probably did.

You chewed slowly, eyes narrowed, and thought: a wizard. In New York. On a Tuesday.

It shouldn’t have felt remarkable. Not after aliens. Not after a purple man with a chin like a thumb erased half the population and then got undone five years later. Not after John Walker had publicly caved a man’s chest in with Captain America’s shield and everyone had just sort of… moved on from that. Not after a witch had hijacked an entire town and forced everyone in it to smile until their faces hurt.

Your standards for unbelievable had been dragged behind a truck and set on fire.

Still.

A wizard.

Across the street.

While you were in a laundromat with your soulmate, who was also a wanted murderer.

You hated your life a little bit on principle.

“You know,” you said around a mouthful of hot dog, because silence had never once protected you from yourself, “this could absolutely be considered our first date.”

You didn’t need to look at Dex to know his whole body had reacted.

It was subtle. That was the thing about him—subtle enough that most people would miss it, but you had been accidentally studying the man like your life depended on it. Which, okay, maybe it did. The line of his shoulders changed. His attention shifted. Not away from the street, never fully away from the street, but some of it snapped toward you like a wire pulled taut.

He stood two washers down pretending to read a folded local paper he absolutely had not absorbed a single word of. He blended when he wanted to blend. It was one of the more unnerving things about him, how easily he could decide what version of himself other people were allowed to see. Today he looked like a quiet man killing time while his laundry ran. Dark jacket. Neutral face. The sort of person you’d forget within ten seconds if you passed him on the sidewalk.

You, by comparison, looked like someone who had been hit by some super shitty circumstances.

“I mean,” you continued, because if you were going down, you were going down committed, “you brought me lunch.” You lifted the hot dog as evidence. “We’re in a quiet public place with mediocre music, stalking a wizard together while hiding from the police. That is objectively romantic.”

Dex’s gaze slid to you—brief, flat, warning.

You took another bite just to be difficult, “Very Bonnie and Clyde,” you added.

His jaw flexed once, the tiniest movement. “Do you ever stop talking?”

The tone should’ve sounded irritated. It mostly did. But there was something under it now that hadn’t been there the first night in your kitchen. Familiarity, maybe. Or the beginning of a joke he didn’t entirely trust himself to make.

You shrugged. “I could.”

He waited.

You chewed, swallowed, then added, “But then I’d have to sit here in silence with my thoughts, and my thoughts are a much bigger public safety issue than I am.”

A beat.

Then, without looking away from the window, Dex said, “That’s a fair point.”

You blinked.

Honestly? Offensive.

The bond under your ribs gave a small, traitorous flutter. Like it was delighted. Like it had just watched a wild animal do a trick and wanted to clap.

Across the street, Wong paused at the curb as traffic rolled past in glints of chrome and light. He tilted his head—not toward you, not toward the laundromat, but slightly upward, like he was listening to something above the range of ordinary hearing. It put a prickle down the back of your neck.

Dex straightened by a fraction.

You watched him instead of Wong for a second too long.

He felt it. His eyes cut to yours. “What?” he asked.

You took a slower bite than necessary. “Nothing.”

His expression said liar.

You swallowed. “Just thinking you look very natural. Real man-of-the-people energy. Community paper, stern face, body language like you could kill everyone in a three-block radius.”

“That’s not body language.”

“No, that’s fair,” you said. “That’s more like… ambience.”

The corner of his mouth twitched.

Not a smile. God forbid. More like his face briefly remembered the concept existed and then thought better of it.

It still hit you like a sucker punch.

You shifted your weight against the washer and let your shoulder rest there more fully. It hummed into your bones. The whole place felt hot with machinery and sunlight. Somewhere in the back, a dryer let out a soft metallic clunk and kept turning.

“So,” you said, quieter now, eyes returning to Wong, “we’re really doing this.”

 “We’re waiting.”

You gave him a dry look,  “That’s what I said. We’re stalking him politely.” You were splitting hairs and you knew it.

“We’re observing.”

“Sounds like something a stalker would say.”

“We’re waiting,” he repeated.

“Right,” you said. “Like two totally normal citizens hanging out in a laundromat with absolutely no laundry and no ulterior motives.”

Dex’s gaze dropped, very deliberately, to your hands.

You looked down too. Hot dog. Napkin. No detergent. No bag. No clothes.

You grimaced. “Okay, yes. In hindsight, I see the flaw.”

His eyes came back to your face like he expected you to have actually brought laundry. Your laundry was in your apartment that was probably swarming with cops by now and five dead bodies.

“Shit,” you said, already preemptively annoyed. “Sorry. I didn’t realize we need props for mystical surveillance. Next time I’ll bring a duvet and some pillowcases. Really commit to the bit.”

For one second—a real, visible, miraculous second—his mouth threatened an actual smile.

You stared at him, “That was nearly human,” you said.

Dex looked back out the window. “Focus.”

“Oh, no,” you murmured. “I’m writing this down later.”

Across the street, Wong started walking again. He turned the corner and suddenly he was out of sight.

Dex pushed off the machine, “Move.”

You pushed off the washer with a sigh and took one last bite of the hot dog before straightening. “You say the sweetest things to me.”

His hand landed lightly at the small of your back, not touching skin, just the fabric of your hoodie, and guided you toward the door. It shouldn’t have mattered. There was a layer of cotton between you. It wasn’t even a caress. It was practical. Barely there. The sort of thing one person did to steer another out of somebody’s way.

Your entire nervous system reacted like he’d put his mouth on your throat.

You hated that for yourself.

The bell above the laundromat door jangled as you stepped out into the sunlight. Afternoon hit you all at once—bright on the eyes, cold in the air, the city smelling like hot pavement, gasoline, coffee, damp stone, and sugar roasting from a nuts cart farther down the block.

“I’m sensing some tension,” you said, because your mouth had clearly mistaken survival for improv night.

Dex moved beside you, close enough to herd, far enough to look casual. “I’m sensing that next time you’re staying behind.”

You snorted and crumpled the napkin one-handed. There was a trash can near the curb; you banked the shot off the rim and into the bin. “Admit it. You’re almost enjoying having me around.”

“Am I?”

“Yes,” you said. “I bring range. Texture. Personality. I’m basically enriching your environment.”

He glanced at you. “You’re a liability.”

“That’s hurtful,” you said. “And rude. Also subjective.”

“It’s not subjective.”

“See, that right there?” You pointed at him as the two of you crossed under the shadow of the awning and into full sun. “That is not how you talk to a girl on a first date.”

“It’s not a date.”

“You bought me lunch.”

“That doesn’t make it a date.”

“You’re weirdly defensive for a man not on a date.”

Dex’s jaw tightened, but you caught it again—that faint twitch at the mouth, the almost-amusement he kept trying to starve out before it showed too much. It made warmth move low and unwelcome through your chest.

The bond purred under your sternum.

Traitor.

Wong was half a block ahead now, moving through the crowd with the kind of quiet inevitability that made people part for him without ever seeming to realise they were doing it.

Beside you, Dex changed.

It happened so cleanly it was almost more unnerving than if he’d suddenly drawn a knife.

One second he was enduring your running commentary with that particular tight-jawed patience that suggested he was debating whether homicide could, technically, count as conflict resolution. The next, all of him narrowed into function. His shoulders settled. His stride evened out. The loose, almost casual line of him sharpened into something quiet and predatory. His attention moved everywhere at once—shop windows, reflections in windshields, the roofline, parked cars, alley mouths, pedestrian flow—never randomly, never twice in the same order.

You felt it in your own body like a pressure change.

Your sneakers slapped lightly against the pavement as you matched his pace, trying to look like a woman out for an afternoon walk instead of someone who was one bad decision away from becoming wizard-adjacent collateral.

“So what’s the actual plan?” you asked, voice pitched low enough to dissolve into traffic noise. “Follow him until he does something magical? Follow him until you’re satisfied he isn’t about to snitch you out to wizard police? Follow him until I die of secondhand tension?” You shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t mind either way, but if you are about to get reported to some kind of interdimensional HOA, can I at least have your apartment key? I’d like indoor access while you’re being extradited to Hogwarts Guantánamo.”

Dex didn’t answer.

Which, in hindsight, should have warned you.

Wong turned suddenly—sharp left, down a narrow side alley tucked between a florist and a closed stationery shop—and Dex moved at the exact same moment.

One second you were walking.

The next, your back hit brick.

Not hard. Not enough to hurt. Just enough to stop you dead.

Dex crowded into your space fast and silent, one forearm braced near your head, the other angled at his side, body shielding yours from the mouth of the alley. He didn’t actually touch you—not skin, not even properly through fabric—but he was close enough that your brain shorted out anyway. Heat radiated off him in a tight, contained line. Soap. Deodorant. Clean cotton. The faint chalky trace of laundry powder still clinging to his jacket like he’d stepped out of his own too-neat orbit and dragged it with him.

Your thoughts went white.

Not blank exactly. More like every single one of them had run headfirst into a wall and dropped dead on impact.

You became aware, with humiliating precision, of stupid things. The scrape of brick at your shoulder blades. The sound of your own breathing. The fact that if you tilted your head even slightly your mouth would be too close to his throat for your dignity to survive it. The bond under your ribs flared awake, warm and hungry and deeply unhelpful.

For what had to be a full thirty seconds, you forgot every language you spoke.

He was close enough that you could see the minute shift of his jaw when he listened. Close enough that you could see the dark fringe of his lashes when his eyes flicked past you toward the alley. Close enough that all your body’s worst ideas woke up at once and began unionising.

Absolutely tragic, really.

“Now what?” you whispered, because that was apparently the best your brain could produce after flatlining.

Dex didn’t look at you. “Now you shut up,” he hissed back, voice low and edged.

Which should not have done anything for you.

And yet.

He eased away a fraction, just enough to look past the corner without losing the cover of the wall, and you had to fight the genuinely embarrassing urge to make a disappointed sound. You blamed sleep deprivation. The bond. Trauma. New York air quality. Anything other than the more obvious answer, which was that having an attractive, terrifying man almost pin you to a wall in broad daylight had done unpleasantly effective things to your central nervous system.

You were a victim, frankly.

Dex leaned just far enough to sight down the alley.

Then, to your horror, he stepped out.

Not stealthy. Not predatory. Not knife-first or ghost-quiet or any of the other alarming things he was good at. He stepped into the open with both hands raised, palms visible, posture loose but deliberate.

“I’m unarmed,” he called.

You stared at the back of his head in disbelief.

Then you did what you always did when Dex did something insane: followed him anyway.

You pushed off the wall and stepped out after him, lifting your hands too. “This was all his idea, I swear.”

“Stop,” Dex breathed, not even turning.

Rude.

Wong stood ten feet down the alley. Up close he felt different—not because of anything flashy, but because the air around him seemed settled in a way the rest of New York wasn’t. He was looking at Dex, but when his gaze shifted to you it landed with unnerving precision.

It felt like being read.

Not ogled. Not assessed like a threat. Not even judged, exactly. Just… seen. Too directly. Too cleanly. Like if he wanted to, he could look past your face and your clothes and your sarcasm and put his hand on every secret bruise you’d managed to pass off as personality. Your chest tightened. Your stomach pulled into a knot. For one ridiculous second you had the urge to start listing innocuous facts about yourself—your coffee order, your shoe size, the fact that you did in fact return library books late but not maliciously—just to crowd out anything worse.

Wong’s gaze stayed on you for one heartbeat too long.

Then it returned to Dex, “Why,” he asked, calm as still water, “were you following me?”

Dex lowered his hands, but only a little, still showing open palms. “I need answers.”

Wong waited.

Dex said, “About soulmates.”

You turned your head so fast your neck almost clicked.

You blinked at him. Once. Twice. Then you stared. Of all the answers he could have given—about Fisk, about the docks, about magical interference, about needing a favor or a threat assessment or literally anything remotely normal—that was what he went with.

Your chest did something catastrophic and humiliating.

“Oh,” you said, because apparently that was all the language you had left. “That’s what this is about?”

Wong looked from Dex to you and back again. His face didn’t change much, but something near his mouth shifted. Not amusement exactly. More like the beginning of it.

“You could have knocked on my door,” he said.

The snort left you before you could stop it.

Dex cut you a look.

“What?” you said, hands still half raised. “He’s funny.”

Wong’s eyes flicked to you again, this time with something undeniably warmer in them. “I like her.”

“That makes one of us,” Dex deadpanned.

Your jaw dropped. “Wow.”

Neither of them looked particularly moved by your suffering.

Wong studied Dex for another long moment, and the mood changed—not hostile, but heavier. Sharper. As though he’d glanced beneath the surface of the answer and found all the bits Dex wasn’t saying out loud. You could practically feel Dex refusing to shift under it, every part of him locked down and deliberate, like if he stayed still enough nothing would leak.

Finally Wong said, “Soulmate bonds are not usually something people stalk sorcerers over.”

“Usually?” you echoed.

Dex ignored you, “I need to know what it is.”

Wong’s expression remained unreadable. “You know what it is.”

“No,” Dex said. “I know what it does.”

That quieted you because there was something in the way he said it—flat, precise, stripped down so completely it almost sounded blunt. Like he was naming a weapon and not something that rewrote his entire nervous system.

Wong seemed to hear that too, “And following me through Manhattan felt like the best way to begin this conversation?” he asked.

Dex’s jaw flexed. “You didn’t leave me another option.”

“You could have knocked on the door,” Wong repeated.

You tilted your head. “See? Now he’s doing a callback. Strong stuff.”

Dex inhaled through his nose.

Wong, to your horror, almost smiled, then he lifted one hand.

You had seen portals before, on screens, in battle footage, in fragments of shaky internet clips people swore were fake until the next apocalypse rolled in and proved them right. None of that prepared you for one opening six feet in front of you.

Gold sparked into the air with a harsh, circular hiss, bright as welding. A ring of light carved itself open in the alley, spinning too fast and too smooth at once, edges shedding orange-gold embers that died before they hit the ground. Through it you could see another space entirely—shadowed stairs, dark polished wood, the suggestion of high ceilings and old light.

The Sanctum.

Your whole body recoiled on instinct.

Wong gestured once. “Come.”

You stared at the glowing circle like it had personally insulted you, “Oh, no,” you said immediately. “Absolutely not. I am not stepping into the weird glowing hole in space.”

“It’s a portal,” Wong corrected.

“Great,” you said. “That makes it so much better.”

Dex’s voice came flat from beside you. “Move.”

You looked at him in disbelief. “What if we end up in Florida?”

Wong blinked. “What’s wrong with Florida?”

You turned slowly to look at him. The look you gave him said, in order: really, how long do you have, and I refuse to believe a man who guards reality has missed that much news.

Wong regarded you with monk-like calm, “That doesn’t answer the question.”

“It’s Florida,” you said, as if that should settle the matter on a spiritual level.

He considered that for a beat. “We are not going to Florida.”

“You can’t say that with certainty.”

“I can,” Wong said.

“You say that now.”

Dex stepped closer. Not touching—never touching—but near enough that the heat of him slid along your side like a warning. “Go.”

Your eyes narrowed. “Interesting.”

Neither man moved.

You looked at the portal again, then back at Dex, and realized with a fresh spike of annoyance that he was waiting.

Waiting for you.

A tiny, ridiculous part of you went soft at once. Because maybe this was him being careful. Maybe this was him letting you choose. Maybe this was him standing back because if something was wrong on the other side, he wanted it to hit him first after you’d crossed. Maybe—worse, more dangerous, infinitely more humiliating—it was him being a gentleman.

Another, far meaner part of you wondered whether he just wanted to see if you got eaten by magic before he committed.

You wanted very badly to believe the first version. The bond under your ribs, useless and dreamy and clearly unqualified for the job, leaned hard in that direction.

You pointed at Dex. “If a tentacle grabs me, you better save me.”

“It won’t,” Wong said.

“How do you know that?”

Dex’s mouth twitched once. There and gone.

You saw it.

Of course you saw it.

Infuriating man.

With as much dignity as a person could reasonably gather while arguing with a wizard in an alley, you squared your shoulders and took one tentative step toward the portal. Heat licked at your skin—not burning, just strange, like standing too near an oven door and realizing the room on the other side of the threshold did not belong to the same physics as the one you were in.

You stopped at the edge.

“This is insane,” you muttered.

“That’s relative,” Wong said.

“Oh, good, he’s still funny,” you said over your shoulder.

“Move,” Dex repeated.

You twisted just enough to look at him. “You’re enjoying this.”

“I’m not.”

“Liar.” But you stepped through anyway.

The first sensation was wrongness—not painful, not violent, just the sharp, disorienting certainty that your body had gone one place while your stomach had briefly considered staying behind. Light flickered gold at the edge of your vision. Air changed. The noise of the street vanished as though someone had cut the cord on it.

Then you were standing inside the Sanctum.

Cool air brushed your face, old and clean and faintly spiced with incense, dust, stone, and something you could only describe as ancient library with a side of apocalypse insurance. Shadows pooled in high corners. Wooden stairs curved upward. The room felt enormous without trying to prove it. Not empty but layered, occupied by the weight of a thousand strange things being exactly where they were meant to be.

You turned in a slow circle.

“Okay,” you said quietly, because it was either that or start swearing in earnest. “That’s… upsettingly impressive.”

Gold flared again behind you as Dex stepped through.

You felt him before you heard him—some small internal knot easing, your body recalibrating to the fact that he was still there, still close, still real. Which was pathetic, yes, but not currently your biggest problem.

The portal snapped shut with a hiss.

For one suspended second, it was just the three of you in the dim, breathing quiet of the Sanctum.

You looked at Dex.

He looked back.

And because your brain was committed to your humiliation as a long-term project, the first clear thought it offered up was not about magic, or danger, or why he’d dragged you here to ask a wizard about soulmates.

It was: He let you go first.

And that felt far more dangerous than the portal had.

<><><><><><> 

The tea Wong made you felt almost offensive given the circumstances.

Not bad. Not suspiciously herbal in the way that suggested it might either heal your soul or make you see God. Just offensively good. Warm, fragrant, balanced in a way that implied someone here respected the ritual of tea enough to make even a hostage-adjacent conversation feel curated.

You sat with the cup cradled in both hands and let the heat soak into your fingers while trying not to think too hard about the fact that an hour ago you had been in a laundromat stalking a wizard and now you were inside the Sanctum Sanctorum drinking what tasted like the most expensive version of calm you’d ever had in your life.

You made a mental note not to mention accepting mysterious tea from funny wizards in strange houses at your next therapy appointment.

Your therapist already looked at you like she was one bad update away from billing you for her own therapy.

The Sanctum was worse the longer you looked at it.

Or better. You hadn’t decided.

At first glance it had been all grand old-house energy: dark wood polished to a low sheen, tall windows, carved banisters, layered rugs over gleaming floorboards, staircases curving away into dimness. But the longer you sat in it, the stranger it became. The room was too quiet in some places and too alive in others. Lamps cast a steady honeyed light that somehow never felt harsh. Candles burned without smoking. Shelves climbed the walls, packed with books whose spines ranged from ancient leather to modern clothbound editions, none of them decorative. They looked used. The whole place smelled faintly of tea, dust, old paper, wax, wood polish, and something sharper beneath it all—metallic and mineral.

Artifacts sat everywhere in that deeply unhelpful way that suggested they were safer where Wong could see them. A brass astrolabe the size of a serving platter rested on one table, all patient menace and carved markings. A glass case held something silver and intricate that might have been ceremonial or might have been able to end you dimensionally. Near the hearth sat a shallow bowl filled with smooth black stones etched in gold you absolutely did not trust.

The room felt old in the way cathedrals felt old—not fragile, not sentimental, but like it had survived long enough to stop explaining itself.

Dex sat near the edge of his seat, elbows on his knees. Hands clasped. His untouched teacup sat on the table in front of him, steam thinning into the air. He had not relaxed since stepping through the portal. Not by an inch. His gaze kept moving—to the doors, the stairs, the windows, the artifacts, Wong, you, back to Wong again—cataloguing every exit and every threat like if he stopped for even a second the room might turn on him.

You took another sip.

Still good.

You were annoyed by that still because it wasn’t like you could pop into the bodega and buy some.

Wong sat across from you with the calm of a man who had seen much stranger things than two idiots trailing him through Manhattan to ask invasive questions about soulmates. One hand rested on the arm of the chair. The other held his own cup. His face was unreadable in that practiced, disciplined way some people had when they knew silence could do half the work for them.

“So,” Wong said at last, voice even, “soul bonds.”

“How do you get rid of it?” Dex asked immediately.

You choked on your tea.

Not delicately, either. Properly. A sharp inhale hit wrong, heat caught the back of your throat, and you bent forward coughing into your fist while trying not to spray sanctified wizard tea all over a rug older than your bloodline.

Wong’s eyes flicked to you once, then back to Dex.

And there it was.

The real reason.

Not curiosity. Not caution. Not some vague need to understand the thing that sat between you like a live wire and a loaded gun.

He wanted out.

The thought landed so fast and so clean it felt like swallowing glass. You kept your face turned toward your cup so neither of them would see it happen, but the ache had already opened under your ribs, deep and ugly. Of course. Why wouldn’t he? The bond might have felt like relief to you—terrifying, humiliating relief—but Dex had never once looked at it like a blessing. He looked at it like one more thing he didn’t control.

Wong said, “You can’t.”

Dex’s expression didn’t change much, but something in his posture sharpened. “What do you mean, you can’t?”

“Soul bonds,” Wong said, as though explaining weather to two particularly dramatic strangers, “are not something you remove because they inconvenience you. They are part of you. No different from any other part of your body. You can resent them. Ignore them. Misunderstand them. But you cannot cut them out without tearing into whatever else they are rooted through.”

Dex went very still. “So what happens if one of us dies?”

The words dropped into the room like a knife laid carefully on a table.

You looked up at him. “You planning on killing me?”

His eyes cut to yours; Not anger exactly. More like a flare of something rawer—offended on principle that you’d even say it, and furious with himself for asking the question in a way that made you able to.

Then he looked back at Wong.

Wong watched him for one beat and said, “I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”

You lifted your cup because your hands needed a job. “Comforting.”

Wong ignored the sarcasm. “The bond does not vanish cleanly. If one soulmate dies, the surviving one still carries the damage. Sometimes it is grief. Sometimes pain. Sometimes absence that never fully closes over. There is no universal rulebook. The bond is not always romantic, so the consequences are not always romantic either.”

That made you look up properly. “What do you mean it’s not always romantic?”

Wong folded one leg over the other. “People like to narrativize soul bonds as destiny in the most flattering terms possible. Lovers. Grand devotion. Meaning written in the stars.” His mouth shifted, not quite amused. “Reality is less tidy.”

“So sometimes it’s just… bad?”

“Sometimes it is friendship,” Wong said. “Sometimes siblings in all but blood. Sometimes teacher and student. Sometimes enemies. Sometimes two people who will wound each other more deeply than anyone else because they understand each other too well. Sometimes two people never meet at all, but still shape one another’s lives through consequence, survival, and choice. Not everyone has a soulmate. Most do not. Those who have one tend to call it a blessing.”

“And a curse?” you asked, meaning it as a joke.

Wong inclined his head in agreement.

“Why a curse?”

“Because,” he said simply, “to be bound to another person is still to be bound.”

That sat with you for a moment.

“The blessing is being known,” he added. “The curse is that you cannot decide you would rather be unknowable.”

You stared at him.

That was irritatingly good. Very wizard of him. Very calm old-man-in-a-house-full-of-impossible-books.

You hated it because it made your chest hurt.

Wong set his teacup down. “I know two soulmates. Both of them have abilities. She is cursed to never be able to touch his skin.”

Your head snapped up. “Wait. Why?”

“Because her abilities allow her to absorb the powers, memories, and life force of whoever she touches. His is kinetic energy.”

You blinked. “That feels aggressively unfair.”

“Yes,” Wong said.

“And they just… what? Deal with it?”

“With difficulty,” Wong replied. “With care. With frustration. With adaptation. With longing. With anger, from time to time. But they make it work.”

You thought about that.

About skin as hazard.

About wanting as a logistical problem.

About the bond between you and Dex, and the way both of you had become acutely, miserably aware of touch by avoiding it.

The room went very quiet. You became aware, all at once, of where Dex sat in relation to you. Not close enough to brush knees. Not so far it could be called distance. Near enough that if either of you shifted wrong, your elbows might touch. Near enough that the bond under your sternum had gone from aching to listening.

“That’s bleak,” you muttered into your tea.

“It is honest,” Wong corrected.

“You people are exhausting.”

“We keep odd hours,” he said.

That startled a laugh out of you before you could stop it.

Dex made a low sound—almost a breath, almost not—and when you glanced at him his eyes were already on you. Not soft, just fixed there for a half beat too long, like your laugh had done something to the air he was still trying to understand.

Then he looked back at Wong. “If it can’t be broken, can it be controlled?”

Wong’s expression sharpened slightly. “That depends what you mean by control.”

“The pull,” Dex said. “The… effect.”

The effect; That was one way of describing the fact that your whole body had started orienting toward him like he was magnetic north and everything else was just ignored.

Wong leaned back a fraction. “The bond intensifies with recognition. Proximity. Shared experience.”

You nearly choked again. “Well, that’s unfortunate.”

“It can also be steadied,” Wong said.

“How?” Dex asked at once.

“Trust. Time. Choice.”

Dex’s face closed; Of course it did. The three things he would least enjoy being prescribed by a wizard.

“There are rituals,” Wong added. “Meditations. Disciplines. Sometimes charms if the bond is manifesting dangerously. But none of them remove it. They only help the people inside it live without letting it drive the car.”

You stared into your tea as if that was normal language. As if the thing between you and Dex was a house and not a wire strung too tight between two rooftops.

“And if one person doesn’t want it?” you asked before you could stop yourself.

The silence that followed was immediate and surgical.

Wong didn’t answer right away. Dex went rigid beside you, not outwardly dramatic, but so tightly controlled you could feel it like a knot in your stomach.

When Wong finally spoke, his voice had gentled by less than a fraction. “Wanting the bond and wanting what it demands are not the same thing. No one asks for a soul bond. That is why so many people mistake resentment for freedom. But whether a person wants it, rejects it, fears it, or clings to it—those things change what they do with it. They do not change that it exists.”

You looked down quickly. Too late, probably. You could feel Dex not looking at you and that was somehow worse than if he had.

The ache inside you had changed shape. It still hurt. But now it hurt around the edges, less like rejection and more like being forced to admit this had never been simple enough to reduce to he wants out.

Of course Dex wanted answers. Of course he—Dex, who liked exits and clean lines and weapons he understood—would come here asking how to remove the one thing in his life that had begun to matter without permission.

That didn’t mean he wanted you gone.

It also didn’t mean he didn’t. Which was, frankly, worse.

You took one final sip and found the tea had gone lukewarm.

Tragic.

“So,” you said, because somebody had to stab the silence before it became sentient, “to recap: nobody gets a refund, if one of us dies the other one is cosmically unwell forever, and the solution is trust and feelings.”

Wong looked at you with infinite patience. “That is an inelegant summary.”

“But not inaccurate.”

“No,” he allowed. “Not inaccurate.”

The silence that followed sat in the Sanctum like a fourth person. Not awkward exactly—though yes, awkward, but in a very specific, expensive way. The kind old places could hold without strain. The lamps burned low and steady. Somewhere deeper in the house, wood settled with a soft ancient creak. A clock you hadn’t noticed before ticked upstairs, each sound measured and patient, as if time itself was less frantic in here.

Wong rose, collecting his cup. “You should both leave before the city makes worse decisions.”

You blinked. “That implies New York has ever once made a good one.”

He almost smiled. “If you insist on treating the bond like a weapon,” Wong said, looking at Dex first and then, more briefly, at you, “it will behave like one.”

“And if we don’t?” Dex asked.

“Then it becomes a language.”

You made a face. “That’s very poetic for a man who just told us cosmic grief is forever.”

“It is still true.”

“Rude.”

Wong dipped his head a fraction. Then his gaze rested on you again.

Longer this time.

Not impolite. Not invasive. Just… intent.

It prickled.

There had been something strange about the way he looked at you from the alley onward, like he kept reaching the edge of a conclusion and choosing not to say it aloud. It happened again now. His eyes tracked over your face with a precision that made the skin at the back of your neck tighten. Not your clothes. Not your bruised cheek. Not your messy hair or the fact that you were still running on adrenaline and tea. Something quieter. Deeper. As if he was listening to something in you instead of merely looking.

For one stupid second your mind flashed bright and ugly:

Westview.

Hex magic under your skin. Forced smiles. Wanda’s red curling around the edges of your life like a stain that had never washed out properly.

Your stomach clenched.

Wong said nothing.

But the pause lingered a fraction too long before he turned away. If he had noticed something different about you—something residual, altered, wrong, or simply not entirely untouched by what had been done to you—he gave no sign beyond that brief unreadable look.

Which was somehow worse.

“Okay,” you said, clearing your throat. “Love the ominous silence. Very encouraging.”

Dex’s gaze flicked to you at once, sharp and immediate, like he’d heard the strain under the joke even if Wong hadn’t commented on it. Or maybe especially because he hadn’t.

You hated that he was getting better at that.

Wong moved toward the window, one hand lifting as gold sparks began to hiss and spin at his fingertips. The portal opened with a bright circular flare, throwing warm light over carved wood and dark rugs. Through it you could see an empty side street washed in late-afternoon grey.

“You’re sending us somewhere weird, aren’t you,” you said.

“No.”

“That was a very fast answer.”

“It is three blocks from where you were before.”

“Three blocks is enough to ruin a person’s life in this city,” You heard yourself mutter.

Dex stood before you did. No surprise there. His untouched tea sat accusingly on the table, cooling in a cup with a thin blue line painted around the rim. You had the absurd urge to tell him to at least say thank you.

Instead you stood and smoothed your hands over the front of your hoodie.

Wong’s attention shifted to Dex. “If you come back, use the door.”

Dex’s expression didn’t change. “Noted.”

“You won’t.”

“No,” Dex agreed.

That made you snort.

You moved toward the portal and stopped at the threshold, glancing back over your shoulder. Wong stood in the warm light of the Sanctum like he’d grown there—still, watchful, one hand lowered at his side. His gaze moved to you one last time.

That same pause.

That same private calculation.

You stepped through before you could decide if you wanted to ask what he was staring at.

The air on the other side felt colder.

Noise returned all at once—distant traffic, a truck changing gears somewhere nearby, the muted hum of a city pretending not to surveil itself to death. Behind you, gold light flared once more as Dex stepped through after you, and then the portal sealed shut with a hiss that left the street looking too ordinary to be trusted.

Empty sidewalk. Brick walls. A shuttered deli with a sun-faded Pepsi sign. A pile of trash bags tied neatly near the curb. One dented bike chained to a parking meter. A streetlamp buzzing faintly overhead. The sky above the buildings had started washing toward evening, pale at the edges.

“Well,” you said, exhaling hard. “That was awful.”

You dug your phone out and squinted at the map as it struggled to orient itself. “I have no idea where we are.” You pinched the screen, frowned, then sighed. “I guess I could order an Uber.”

Dex didn’t answer.

Of course he didn’t.

You looked up just in time to see him turn and start walking away from you. You shoved your phone back into your pocket and pushed off after him. “Oh, super. We’re doing the brooding thing again.”

His shoulders tightened at the sound of your footsteps catching up, but he didn’t stop. He just kept moving up the sidewalk with that same clipped stride, face unreadable, silence wrapped around him like he’d decided words were now a personal failure.

You matched him anyway, “So what now?” you asked.

“Now we go back to my apartment,” Dex said without looking at you. “I need to think without you talking my ear off.”

You stared at the side of his face. “Right. Because I’m the problem.”

No response.

You laughed once under your breath, the sound drier than you meant it to be. “Good talk.”

He kept walking.

That hurt more than it should have.

Maybe because you were tired. Maybe because your nerves were still stretched from the laundromat and the Sanctum and the conversation about death and loss and bonds you couldn’t choose. Maybe because Wong’s words were still crawling around under your skin, refusing to settle. Or maybe because you had sat in that chair and heard Dex ask how to get rid of the thing between you with the same flat voice he used for exits and weapons and kill zones, and no amount of philosopher-wizard nuance was going to stop that from landing exactly where it had landed.

You heard yourself say, before you had properly decided to, “I heard what you said back there.”

That got him.

Not a full stop, but enough of one that his pace shortened by half a step.

You kept going because stopping now would be worse and you weren’t known for your good decision-making skills, “Look. If you want me gone, I’m gone. I don’t need this.”

Dex stopped.

Actually stopped.

You nearly walked into him for the second time that day, which would have been mortifying if you weren’t suddenly too angry to care.

He turned to face you. The streetlight above you flickered once, then held. It cast a weak yellow wash over the side of his face, the line of his jaw, the mouth that had become a problem in ways you deeply resented.

“That isn’t what I said.”

You folded your arms. “It’s what I heard.”

His expression changed—only slightly, but enough. Not softer. Just less blank. Less armoured.

“You heard what you wanted to hear,” he said.

“Wow. Strong opening. Very empathetic.” And something people had been telling you all your life so this wasn’t news.

His jaw flexed. “I asked how to get rid of the bond.”

“Yeah, Dex. I was there.”

“Because I need to know what it is.”

“No,” you snapped, stepping closer. “You need to know how to control it. How to manage it. How to make sure it doesn’t inconvenience you,” You should stop, you know you should stop, “You asked what happens if one of us dies.” His face shuttered again, but slower this time, like you caught something underneath before it sealed over. Fear. Not of you. Of the possibility.

The bond in your chest went tight and hot, pulling in weird, contradictory directions—hurt, anger, the awful instinct to close the distance anyway.

Dex spoke carefully, each word clipped into shape. “You think I wanted that answer?”

You blinked.

He took one step closer—not touching, never touching, but enough to force your attention fully onto him. “You think I asked because I want an exit?”

“Yes,” you said, though it came out smaller than you intended.

Something in his face hardened, then cracked around the edges almost at once. “I asked because I don’t know what happens if Fisk gets to you.” His voice had gone lower. Rougher. “I asked because I don’t know what happens if you get caught in this and I can’t—”

He stopped.

Air went thin between you.

You stared at him.

And because your life was apparently one long exercise in emotional whiplash, your first thought was not coherent enough to be useful. Just a sharp, humiliating oh.

Dex looked away first, eyes cutting down the street as if the parked cars had personally betrayed him by being present for that sentence. “I needed to know,” he said more flatly, trying to pull himself back together in real time, “what the damage is.”

The damage.

Not how to lose you. Not how to escape you. How bad it would be if you were taken from him.

Your throat tightened.

“You have a terrible way of phrasing things,” you said.

His gaze flicked back to your face. “I know.”

“Well. That’s not enough of an apology to count.”

“I wasn’t apologizing.”

You rolled your eyes. “Of course not.”

That might have been the end of it. On any other block. In any other life.

But the air was still too charged, the silence too full of the things neither of you were saying cleanly enough to survive. You looked at him and saw how tightly he was holding himself. How furious he was—mostly at the shape of his own helplessness.

It softened you against your will.

A little.

Not much.

“Look,” you said, quieter now. “I’m not asking you to suddenly become a person with healthy communication skills. I know that would probably kill you. I’m just saying if you keep phrasing concern like you’re filing an after action report, I reserve the right to take it badly.”

A pause.

Then, to your surprise, Dex said, “That’s fair.”

You stared at him. “Did Wong drug the tea?”

He ignored that, but the line of his shoulders loosened by the smallest degree.

The bond under your ribs answered with a low, traitorous warmth. Not triumph. Just the awful sensation of things settling half an inch closer to where they were supposed to be.

“So,” you said after a beat, looking down the block, “no Uber?”

“No Uber.”

“Because?”

“Because I don’t want a record of you getting in a car from a portal drop three blocks from the Sanctum after we followed Wong all afternoon.”

You took that in.

Then sighed. “Right. Fine. That is, annoyingly, a real reason.”

Dex turned and started walking again, slower this time.

You fell into step beside him.

The two of you moved in silence for half a block, shoes scuffing pavement, the city’s evening light dimming by increments around you. It wasn’t comfortable, not exactly. But it wasn’t the sharp-edged silence from before either. This one had a little more room in it, like neither of you had bled out all your options just yet.

You shoved your hands deeper into your hoodie pocket and glanced sideways at him. “For the record, this was the worst first date I’ve ever been on. And this is New York; I’ve had some absolute rocker first dates.”

Dex didn’t miss a beat. “It wasn’t a date.”

“Mm.” You nodded to yourself. “That’s exactly what a man says after buying me lunch, stalking a wizard, dragging me through a glowing hole in reality, and finding out we’re cosmically handcuffed.”

His jaw twitched. “I bought you a hot dog.”

“Two hot dogs,” you corrected. “Don’t erase your own grand gestures.”

That got you a look—brief, flat, almost offended—and something low in your chest eased despite yourself. The bond answered with a warm, traitorous hum. Not loud. Just there. Still listening. Still refusing to take the hint and die quietly.

The street opened onto a busier avenue. Headlights dragged pale ribbons over wet asphalt. Somewhere down the block an AVTF cruiser rolled by, slow and ugly under the streetlamps, and both of you tracked it without turning your heads. New York kept moving around you anyway—buses sighing, a distant siren, somebody laughing too loudly outside a bar like the city wasn’t being strangled one ordinance at a time.

Dex slowed half a step so you could match him without hurrying.

Not enough to comment on. Enough to notice.

You looked straight ahead. “So,” you said, voice drier now, more tired than sharp, “you brood. I talk. Apparently that’s the language.”

Dex was quiet for a moment. Then, low enough that it almost disappeared into traffic, he said, “Keep talking.”

Your throat tightened in a way you refused to examine.

You kept walking beside him, close enough for the bond to settle, far enough that your hands never brushed. Above you, the city darkened by degrees.

Skipping the last few steps before coming to a halt in front of him, your expression is one of pure excitement.

Jack thinks you look insanely cute.

It takes everything in him not to open his arms and offer you a hug which he more than eagerly would envelop you in.

But alas, he refrains from doing so, not wanting to make you feel uncomfortable and trying to keep up a semblance of professionalism that is to be expected of him while at the PTMC.

If one of his coworkers were to see him loitering outside and getting cozy with a more or less unknown woman, there wouldn’t be a shortage of rumors and teasing to come.

And while Jack wouldn’t necessarily mind that–him not being someone that lets his confidence sway over something like this or be insulted by it–he would rather not draw too much attention to a relationship that isn’t remotely as developed as he would like it to be.

Jack wouldn’t call himself overly gullible to believe in fate or the supernatural, but the chance of the universe fucking him over because his possibly, slowly developing love life was becoming a much bigger topic than anticipated, was daunting enough for him to want to keep it lowkey.

His coworkers finding out would no doubt lead to it being a far bigger affair than it actually is at the moment and Jack really wants it to be exactly the opposite of that.

“What are you doing here?” he manages an almost breathless question while trying to keep his grin at bay. Your bright demeanor is contagious enough that even with effort Jack can’t help a smitten smile painting his lips.

Your eyes sparkle despite the shadowed space you’re standing in and your head tilts to the side while raising the plastic bag in your hand higher.

“I brought sustenance!” you exclaim smugly and hand the bag over.

Jack’s brows furrow a little when he grabs your offering and opens the thin plastic. Immediately a cloud of delicious, rich smells invades his nose and his mouth waters.

“Whatever have I done to deserve that?”

You shrug, gentle smile playing along your lips before you avert your gaze.

“I mean, we did have plans to go to the street food festival together. Bummer that you had to take up an extra shift, but I obviously get that you helping others and saving lives is much more important than stuffing our faces. But you know–,” you trail off, eyes catching his for a second.

Jack feels his insides twist, guilt lashing across his conscience. He is almost immediately being overpowered by the disappointment that he had to make work a priority over enjoying an outing with you.

When the idea had first come up, Jack couldn’t have felt more elated that you agreed to spend time with him again–that you were not only willing, but eager to deem him worthy of your free time.

And apparently you had been ecstatic to have someone go with you, if your rigorous planning on what food stands you wanted to try were any indication.

The second shit hit the fan at PTMC and he realized an understaffed dayshift would most likely not be able to hold the fort today, Jack had to make the cruelling decision to work a double shift.

Something he had done many times before and never really complained about. But this time it weighed heavier on him than ever before.

Not only did Jack have to send you a text at the ass crack of dawn, letting you know he would have to cancel your weekend plans, he also had to deal with twelve more hours of feeling like a letdown.

“I mean, you did say you wouldn’t bring more than a snack to work because you wanted to have enough room to try and eat something at every stand. So, now that you’re working a double, I thought I should bring you an actual meal, so you can go on and do your best. Your body needs food.”

Jack can’t help but look at you like you’ve hung the stars up in the sky.

Your thoughtfulness shifts something inside his chest, an unfamiliar but not unpleasant feeling spreading along his ribs.

“You really didn’t have to do that.”

“Well, yeah. But I wanted to. You do so much for me on the regular and this is such a small thing, it hardly matters.”

But it does matter to him. So, so much, that Jack has to clench his jaw and swallow, to hold himself back from lunging forward and kissing you stupid.

“I was in the area anyways, so it felt obligatory to help you out. I hope you like what I got you. Didn’t really have the chance to find out your preferences yet, but maybe another time. I went with the tamer options, though, don’t worry. No grasshopper skewers or ghost pepper salsa.”

Jack feels himself deflate a little, a quiet frustration nipping at him.

“Oh, so you found someone else to go with you then?” You had clearly mentioned that you would never go to the festival by yourself, far too anxious to be stuck in the chaos of people and afraid that you would buy food, end up not liking it and not having a sidekick to finish your leftovers. Which was exactly why you had jumped at the opportunity of attending with Jack by your side.

His imagination has no mercy on him, steadily conjuring images of you enjoying what was supposed to be a friendly outing (an unofficial date in Jack’s books) with someone else.

Mateo comes to mind firstly. The friendly nurse jumping in as a lucky substitute and taking over Jack’s place with an easy swagger and blinding grin.

Jack is close to scoffing at his own fantasies, when you hum lowly. “Nah. I went alone, just to get you something. I didn’t want to stick around for long, but I thought I should bring you at least a tiny experience and show you what you’re missing out on. Technically, I’m not super upset that this didn’t work out,” you mutter, before quickly explaining with a panicked expression, “Not that I’m happy our plans fell through. I would’ve loved to go with you. But… you know, crowds and me don’t go along too well most of the time. So honestly, I don’t really feel much of a loss when I don’t have to go out. Again, I would’ve loved to do this with you! Just…”

“Are you trying to tell me, I shouldn’t feel bad for canceling our plans?” Jack offers gently and you point a finger at him. “Precisely!”

He chuckles at your enthusiastic confirmation and sighs.

“Alright. I’ll just have to believe you then. But let me make it up to you, yeah? Whatever plans we make next, I won’t bail on you. Promise.”

You grin and nod, then you wring your hands in front of you, as silence settles between you.

 “So… do you need to go back inside? I know, it must be crazy in there. And I don’t want to keep you for longer than necessary. I must have already bothered you by asking you to step out. I’m sorry. I–“

“I’m on my break.”

There is no such thing as a real break in the ER, but the lie falls easy off Jack’s tongue.

Within a second of him uttering the words they have the intended effect and calm you down. A tentative smile returns on your face, you rock back and forth a little.

“Oh, well, then… uh… what do you… usually do on your break?”

He hesitates just a second too long to answer–his brain scrambling to come up with something reasonable–and you rush back to the conclusion, that you’re not wanted here.

“Never mind, stupid question. You probably eat or take a nap and try to escape the noise, right? I should leave you to it. Gather some strength for the next hours. I will–“

“Go on a walk with me?”

His question comes out with an almost desperate edge, clearly audible by the way you freeze and stare at him like he just told you the biggest state secret. It takes but a beat before you shake off your stupor and nod, rather perplexed.

“Uh…yeah, sure. If that’s what you want.”

“It is.”

With his resolute affirmation, you slowly come up next to him and fall into step as soon as Jack starts walking.

He glances at you, studying your side profile and it’s like your presence alone causes his mind to relax.

A comforting white noise settles in his head and his shoulders loosen from their tense position.

“So, what’s the plan now, that I’ve stood you up?”

You turn your head, eyes meeting his.

“Oh, I don’t know. I’ll probably just head home. Second best option after going out with you is to enjoy my alone time on my couch.”

He huffs at that, shaking his head in amusement. Silence falls between you, Jack wondering what he could be talking about that doesn’t bore you to death.

You step out of the ambulance bay, sunshine casting upon you and Jack catches himself once again looking at you.

You’re scanning the area around you, eyes moving between people and traffic, taking everything in with keen eyes. Then you swerve slightly, balance lost.

You gently collide into Jack’s arm.

“Shit, sorry. Can’t walk a straight line for the life of me,” you apologize quickly and send him a sheepish look. He only chuckles, not minding the contact at all.

In fact, he relishes it in a little too much to be considered normal.

Jack feels pathetic for being so whipped–and that’s exactly what he is, no doubt. With his heart jumping a beat and butterflies dancing in his stomach, there is pretty much no other reality than that.

And it somewhat feels amazing and frightening at the same time.

Sure, he does think he is acting very much like a teenager not being able to handle his hormones, but the last time he had felt remotely as he does now, had been decades ago.

It proves as both a harsh reminder of his age and a youthful innocence he hasn’t experienced in a long time.

Even with his wife the feelings had calmed down after years spent together. They never died, but had dulled over time. Vibrant emotions had turned into level adoration, exciting new adventures had morphed into a steady routine.

Jack’s love for his wife had never stopped and still, this fresh, blossoming something is like finding a relic he had long thought lost in the past, never to be uncovered again.

Yet here he is. A new spark ignited in his chest.

And with it comes a plethora of sensations Jack had never expected to ever present themselves to him again.

It’s easy to get high on this euphoria, drink in every little drop of it like ambrosia and let himself fall back into a vast space of possibilities.

But there is fear as well.

Jack isn’t sure enough if he can trust it, hasn’t calculated all the ins and outs, but the pull is so strong, so adamant, that neither his trust issues nor hesitations stand much of a chance.

He is free falling–if he wants to or not.

Jack’s eyes flicker down to your hand, leisurely swinging beside your body, only inches apart from his own.

 “Actually, I started watching a new show and it got me totally hooked. So, I’ll probably just binge that for the foreseeable future. I hope it stays good,” you begin to ramble, completely oblivious to Jack’s inner struggles.

He doesn’t listen with more than one ear, too focused on the opening presenting itself.

Heat creeps up his neck, his fingers tingling, so close to reaching out and touching yours.

Jack tries to breathe normally, tries to tell himself that he can easily write off the innocent touch as coincidental if you react in a weird way, even if that prospect is enough to make him second guess the idea harder.

But with one last swallow and clenched teeth, he casually steers closer to you, just a tiny fraction, his hand barely moving away from his body and in your direction.

You rip your hand up, suddenly. “I usually lose interest in a series at some point and then, because I still want to know what happens in the end, I just end up watching edits or like the most popular scenes on TikTok,” you explain while wildly underlining your words with hand gestures.

“So little shows are able to nail the finale, though. It’s quite disappointing and honestly, beside things getting canceled left, right and center, this is a huge reason why I rarely start new shows. It’s really not worth it anymore.”

Jack drops his head back into his neck, frustrated about his timing and cursing himself out for losing his chance due to chickening out for just seconds too long.

“Sorry, this must be boring to you. Well, that’s my life, you know. Not that interesting.”

He snaps out of his pity party at your flippant self-deprecation, quickly looking over and watching you shrug before looking at the ground, grinning awkwardly.

“Wha– No! Sorry, I’m not bored. I want to know everything. Whatever you want to talk about, I’m happy to listen. I just… My neck is a bit sore.”

Jack almost cringes at his feeble excuse, despite it sounding legit enough. He still would love to kick his own ass for showing his struggles so openly and making you misunderstand.

“Oh. Yeah, makes sense after working so much and for so long. You must be really exhausted. Are you sure you don’t want to squeeze in a powernap instead of walking around with me? I don’t want you to collapse later on.”

You send him a concerned look and Jack is quick to shake his head. “I’m fine. I’ve had way worse days and shifts. This is child’s play. Don’t underestimate this old man.”

This manages to get a chuckle from you. Your eyes crinkle a little, when you smile at him next.

“You can’t make me feel guilty for teasing you about your age anymore, if you’re instigating the jokes yourself, you know.”

Jack’s laugh mixes with your own giggling. He is once again reminded how at ease he feels with you the moment he stops focusing on his insecurities.

“Fair enough.”

He goes back to studying your face, noting the way the midday sun lets you shine.

If Jack were a poet, he would be thinking about how jealous he is of the rays caressing your skin, getting to do the thing he isn’t brave enough to do. But all Jack knows in this very moment, is that you possess a beauty that captures something in him and not only turns his world upside down, but has him like putty in your hands.

There is no question that you have enough power over him, to ask anything of him. He would honor your every request in the blink of an eye, without hesitation.

And you don’t even realize it, by the looks of it.

Instead of making Jack feel relieved that you haven’t discovered this ultimate control yet, which could have him dancing to your whistle with zero boundaries, displeasure spreads through his nerves.

It’s just a reminder, that he hasn’t done enough. That he hasn’t shown sufficiently where his wants and needs lie, what he is willing to give and let you do to him.

Again, his eyes drop to your hand swinging gently next to your body.

Determination takes over from there on out.

Jack turns off his brain, shuts out every doubt, every obstacle keeping him from what he wants to do the most. He reaches out, fingers brushing against yours, warm skin skimming his.

The contact lasts for a few seconds, enough time for you to turn a furtive glance towards him.

Jack waits–for you to pull away, for you to say something, reject his advances or indicate that you are uncomfortable.

It doesn’t happen.

You just stare, eyes flicking all over his face, probably searching for an indicator if this is just an accident or Jack sought you out willingly.

He returns your look, staying strong and not turning away in embarrassment.

He wants you to see that he meant to touch you, that he is just as much inviting you in, as he is asking you to open your doors for him.

Jack holds his breath in anticipation for your next move. Every moment that ticks by has his nerves drawn tighter. The wait for your decision excruciatingly long and agonizing. But he keeps holding your gaze, trusts that his effort will gain him a little grace.

You eventually reward him with a smile, lashes lowering quickly and teeth nibbling on your lip a second later. But it’s enough for Jack to read the situation.

Little fireworks erupt inside his ribcage and the euphoric feeling of having taken another successful step in the right direction has a triumphant smirk playing across his face.

Boldness surging forward, Jack decides to gamble some more, go all in, throw everything on the line just for the chance of winning another piece of you.

He keeps his hand slightly extended so his knuckles keep on brushing up against yours with every step you take.

And when you don’t make a single attempt to pull away, he lets the back of his fingers slowly travel along yours, before tentatively linking his pointer finger with your pinky.

Time stands still for an indiscernible amount of time.

He is severely aware of you next to him, can hear the slightest hitch in your breath, feels your finger twitch.

Jack’s bravery is only superficial enough to go through with this action, but he doesn’t dare to raise his eyes and actually seek out the look on your face.

The air in his lungs seems to be stuck, neither wanting to come out nor let fresh one in. His heart has slowed down like the rest of the world around him and at this rate he isn’t sure if the queasy feeling spreading through his body is from the lack of oxygen being distributed to his brain or the nerves eating away at him while he waits for a reaction from you.

It’s hard to determine how much time has actually passed since he gained the guts to make an obvious move. It could be less than a second, maybe a few, possibly minutes. Time doesn’t seem real anymore.

Jack doesn’t know what to do, mind reeling and only supplying him half-assed options of what comes next.

If you won’t reciprocate–or worse–tell him to fuck off, he can only retreat and find the quickest way to send you off, in order to hide away and lick his wounds. And if you miraculously decide to humor him, accept him holding onto you…

Jack doesn’t want to rush too far ahead, the suspense killing him slowly but surely.

But then–

Your wrist moves.

For a heartbreaking moment he thinks you draw back, retract your hand, and establish distance.

But the contact never seizes, only changes, morphs into something new.

Skin sliding across his, palms pressing against each other’s and fingers tangling in a novel yet somehow familiar embrace.

Time and matter come flying back to Jack with full force, slamming into him, shocking his body into overdrive.

His pulse hammers in his ears, blood rushing through his veins, warmth flooding into him from where you are holding onto him. Everything is so loud all of a sudden, but his focus is only fixed on you and when he finally finds the courage to look back up, to search for your eyes, he finds that you are the calm in this chaos.

Which seems like a juxtaposition in itself, but for once it’s the truth.

You are looking at your intertwined hands, then meet Jack’s curious gaze.

Only a slight uptick of the corners of your lips hints at your mood, but given that you had taken the initiative to fully grab his hand, Jack isn’t all too worried that you are silently hating this–him.

Without saying a word, you turn you’re your head, facing forward again, and he wonders if you for once manage to hide your emotions well or if you really are as unphased by this newest development as it seems.

Jack can only be sure of one thing. And that is, that he might blow up any moment now due to the immense amount of joy and excitement building up inside his body.

There is still a smidge of panic in the mix, a tiny voice asking him what will happen now, what this means, where he will lead with this. But Jack tries to ignore it for the sake of relishing in the moment.

His fingers close a little tighter around yours in a pathetic attempt to somehow connect your hands forever, to make this moment endless while simultaneously using you as an anchor, keeping him from floating away with insecurities and what ifs.

With the sharp awareness of you by his side, clutching onto him like he is to you, Jack manages fairly well.

He finds himself enjoying the settling quiet between you, cherishes the sudden peace that surrounds him like the softest cotton balls.

There might be a lot to discuss in theory, many things to consider and solve later, but it can wait, if only so he can feel his soul settle and forget about uncertainties a little longer.

You silently seem to agree, not trying to breach a new topic. Your hands swing naturally between your bodies until you come to a halt at a red light. Jack uses this opportunity to take another look at you.

He knows all too well that he is being excessive with his attention on you, that it wouldn’t come as much of a surprise if you scolded him about it soon. Jack knows you usually don’t like to be the center of attention, don’t want to be perceived more than necessary.

But until you complain to him about his annoying habit, he will continue gathering these moments like precious trophies.

While he is busy watching you and futilely trying to calm down the fluttery feeling in his stomach, you keep you focus on the traffic light. As soon as it turns green, you tug Jack with you, grip on his fingers steady and warm.

He follows obediently, smirking slightly.

You two only manage less than a handful of steps into the street, before Jack is finally ripped from his peaceful revery by a loud hollering.

“YO WHATCH OUT!”

With barely a few seconds to assess the situation, Jack turns his head to the side enough to see something barreling towards you with dangerous speed. Then he reacts on instinct, pushing himself in front of your body, turning into a human shield.

His arm holding onto the bag of food you brought him comes up around you, bracing behind your head and pushing it closer to his shoulder, holding you tight, while simultaneously trying to pull you out of the way by your still clutched hands.

He isn’t successful in evading whatever is incoming.

Pain crashes into Jack a moment later, exploding everywhere all at once so he really can’t be sure where it originates from or if he simply disintegrated on the spot.

The initial collision and the final landing on the street happen so fast, that sound distorts around him.

He hears your muffled yell of surprise against the fabric of his scrubs, hears horrified screams from somewhere afar and some metallic sounds rattling, but his brain barely registers anything of it.

He must have closed his eyes, because when they next open, he finds himself on top of you, faces only inches apart.

Your frazzled expression is the first thing that greets him, your eyes big and horror-stricken.

Utterly confused about what just happened, your breath fans across his chin, warm, frantic.

“Fuck, are you okay?”

You only nod slowly.

He feels one of your hands grab ahold onto his scrub top, notices that he must have dropped your other one out of reflex to catch the fall. His palm burns like fire. He doesn’t concentrate on it.

“Jack,” you breathe perplexed.

“Are you hurt?” he asks despite your previous assurance.

“Jack.”

He slowly pushes himself up, guilt striking him for crushing you into the asphalt. Pain follows his every move. Nothing he can’t deal with, but annoying nonetheless.

He doesn’t immediately get up, opts instead for pushing his body next to yours, sitting up slowly and assessing you.

“Did you hit your head?”

“No. You caught me,” you say, then sit up as well with measured tempo.

Your eyes don’t leave his for a second, not even trying to see your surroundings or what hit you. Jack doesn’t want to avert his either, afraid he might rob you of a point to focus on. He doesn’t want to risk you spiraling out of control in front of him, so he keeps on being present for you.

His first priority is your well-being. Everything else comes after.

He needs to know you’re totally fine, before he can deal with everything else.

“You’re okay. I got you, yeah?”

You nod again, brows furrowing before you let your eyes flicker over him.

“Jack, you’re bleeding.”

“It’s nothing,” he assures immediately, even without knowing the full extent of his injuries. Given his clear mind and decent mobility, he isn’t all that worried for his health. Something he can’t say for you.

“Yo, man what the fuck!” An unfamiliar voice interrupts the two of you, Jack’s mind shortly centering elsewhere. As he looks around, a young man clad in business attire and a helmet is brushing dirt from his slacks.

He leaves behind a darker patch of blood, grimacing when the pain of his scraped palms registers. Then his incredulous look locks onto Jack, fury taking over for a second.

Jack raises his eyebrows, not waiting for the guy to get more worked up. “I hope you’re not trying to start a fucking fight here, because you are clearly in the wrong. Our light was green.”

Not that Jack knows for sure, as he was too busy admiring you. But for one, he trusts you way more than some random finance bro and clearly the rest of traffic did stop for you.

Some bystanders crowd around the accident site, concerned voices asking if anyone is hurt, if help is needed.

“I’m fine. It’s just–Jack. You’re bleeding,” you say again, waving another man off, when he leans down to check on you. You scoot closer to him, hovering your hands above his arm, not daring to touch.

The same man that offered you help, now regards Jack. “He got you good, Sir. Are you alright?”

“I can manage. I’m not really hurt and I’m a doctor, so I know what I’m talking about. Thanks for checking in.”

He turns back to the guy that just ran you over, watches him grab his bike from the road and assess the damage, all while cursing and groaning. It does seem like it’s more out of frustration than pain, but Jack feels obligation rear its head.

“You okay, man? Did you hurt yourself?”

If Jack were a lesser man, he wouldn’t deem the guy worthy enough of his concern, simply because he could’ve seriously hurt you and put you in unnecessary risk by being an ignorant, reckless idiot on the road.

But alas, in the end it all comes down to the simple principle that he swore to help and save lives no matter the circumstance. Even in this matter he can’t just decide to brush his oath aside and decide someone deserves less care because he is at fault.

Yet, with only getting a scoff in return, he can feel a rebellious wave trying to crash to the forefront.

“My bike is all fucked up thanks to you. Do you even know how much this cost?”

“Sir, we are all witnesses here. You clearly ignored the red light and ran these two over! How about apologizing and making sure they aren’t seriously injured?” Another bystander steps up, momentarily blocking Jack’s view of the guy.

It’s best like that as well. He can feel his anger rise inside of him and every additional second where he has to see this jackass, is pushing him closer to errupting.

“Cheese, Jack, you need to get this looked at. I mean, shit! Do you think you broke anything? Can you move? Can you stand?”

You not only steer his attention back to you, but manage to calm him down by simply existing in his space. Jack watches you slowly stand up, the people around you looking on and reaching out assisting hands in case you decide to lose your balance.

You don’t fully straighten, knees bent while studying his fallen form.

“I’m fine. I can stand.”

Jack realizes how humiliating his position must look right now, and the embarrassment doesn’t stop there. Not when he tries to heave himself up and fails miserably.

His hand is stinging with pain and one glance down shows bloody abrasions decorated by no small amount of gravel and dirt.

To top it off, his left leg is cramping and there is no easy way to come to terms with the fact, that he might remain on the ground if he doesn’t man up and ask for help.

Jack doesn’t usually care much for people finding out about his prothesis, but being this vulnerable due to his disability has him mortified.

It just comes to show, that he lacks in more ways than just his age.

He doesn’t want to prove this right in front of you, after taking steps in the right direction. He doesn’t want to destroy what little he has reached by now. But what other option does he really have?

Heat travels up his chest until his neck feels like it’s on fire as well.

Jack is ruminating how best to ask for help without making a fool out of himself, but you take action, before he can gather his courage and open his mouth.

“Sorry, can you help get him up?” you ask the man standing next to you. When he nods in agreement, you step up as well, extending your hands to Jack.

He watches you, hesitating to grab the fingers he only minutes ago didn’t want to ever let go ago. But when you smile at him encouragingly, Jack sucks it up and reaches out. You gently circle his wrists, careful to not irritate his ripped open skin.

The stranger does the same on his other arm and with a little effort on all three sides, Jack finds himself standing, trying to find his balance again.

While the helpful man steps back after making sure Jack won’t need him holding on any longer, you keep by his side. Jack doesn’t want to believe it’s out of pity, but after his display of helplessness he couldn’t even fault you for it.

Uncomfortable, Jack refuses to lock eyes with you.

He rather turns when hearing a little commotion and loses a little more hope for humanity, when noticing that accident causer is pretty much ripping his bike from a lady trying to stop him and without a look back, swings back onto the saddle.

Jack watches him ride away, vanishing around the next corner.

“What a dickhead.”

“Who cares. Are you sure, you’re not hurt badly?” you chime in, still looking him over, not seeming too convinced. Jack chuckles a little, before sighing. “No, you’re right, I am hurting so much right now.”

Your eyes triple in size at that, mouth opening in shock. “What? Jack! Why didn’t you say so? This is serious! Where are you hurt? Can you make it back to the ER? Or do I need to get like… a wheelchair or something?”

“Not sure. Have you ever felt the heartbreak of the food you wanted to enjoy later spilling out all over the road?” You frown at his words, needing a second before you understand that he is joking about a real-life tragedy.

You look down to see the mess that’s proof of the massacre that happened here, then roll your eyes at Jack’s antics.

“I’m serious! Tell me, honestly. Are you okay? You were like a damn lifejacket, catching me. This guy must have run straight into you!”

“I promise, I’m alright. Just scratched up a bit and I’ll probably have some bruises later on. Nothing major,” he relents, becoming more serious.

Jack doesn’t want you to freak out, even when there is a part of him, that feels a little smug about you worrying so much for him.

He really hopes it’s not pity but genuine care.

But whatever it is, you won’t let him joke about it any longer, by the looks of it. Tugging on his wrist, you command, “Okay, let’s go. I want a second opinion from a real doctor.”

“I am a real doctor!”

“Well, clearly you don’t take major injuries seriously, so I’d rather want a professional to take a look.”

Jack doesn’t resist, lowly chuckling at your silly behavior and nodding at the few remaining witnesses, that have yet to dissipate. “Thanks for the help. We’ll manage from here.”

Then you begin dragging him back in the direction you two came from. Your urgency is quite clear in the way you march a step in front of him, not letting go of his wrist, but Jack has the suspicion that you don’t rush to your fullest potential or deepest desire.

Instead, you adapt to his tempo the second you notice that he is limping.

Jack tries to hide the irritation in his muscles and the ache in his knee, curses his intact leg for acting up and making it seem like he is having problems with the remainder of his other one.

He doesn’t want to look weak in your eyes, but with the number of times he catches you glancing back and checking on him, he has almost zero chance to hide his struggles completely.

The worst thing is, that you don’t say anything the entire walk back. You silently assess him, most likely judging and worrying.

Jack tries to distract himself from his own thoughts.

“I’m not lying, you know? It’s just some small wounds, pretty much just road rash. It’ll only need some cleaning and dressing and then I’m good to go. I won’t die from this.”

His repeated guarantee doesn’t seem to do anything, your steps not slowing down even a fraction, your expression full of determination to get Jack into professional hands.

He isn’t sure if he should feel offended that you don’t think he can accurately determine the damage he took.

“You would do the same if I got hurt like that,” you eventually deadpan and Jack falls silent, feeling called out. He only huffs in amusement but lets you escort him back into the PTMC without another complaint.

“Sweet Baby Jesus, what the hell happened to you?”

The voice cuts through the tumult surrounding you and Jack like a hot knife, with precision and ease.

You are grateful to find someone to focus on, that is able to drown out and conquer the chaos, or else you feel like you would start having a crisis right then and there.

The noise of people, talking, screaming, crying and machines beeping is like a constant assault to your ears and if it wasn’t for Jack’s injuries, you would love nothing more than to run out of this place and bury yourself into a blanket on your couch.

You have no idea how people deal with any of this on a daily basis.

Caught off guard by just how chaotic the ER is this time around, you lose some of your momentum in finding someone that can actually take care of Jack and just stand there, still clutching his wrist. Now it’s less like a leash to keep him with you and more like a lifeline that’s holding you above the fray.

The blonde head nurse from your first visit comes hurrying towards you, a face to the voice. Her expression shows clear signs of worry, deep creases forming between her brows when her eyes trail to Jack, who is stepping up next to you.

Despite the circumstances, his presence grounds you. The heat coming from him, the slight scent of his cologne still clinging in your nose from when he played the hero and caught your fall with his body, him standing here overall.

You don’t want to think about how else this could’ve ended.

“It’s just some scratches,” Jack waves it off like it’s nothing again.

“He got run over by some guy on a bicycle,” you provide immediately to not let him diminish the accident.

“Yeah, and I’m fine. Just a little bloody, but nothing major. Can you please tell her, Dana? She wants a professional’s opinion and apparently I’m not qualified enough.”

“Well, if you aren’t then who is?” Dana chuckles, mirth coming through. “My words exactly. But let’s not disappoint the lady, yeah?”

Her eyes flicker to you, taking in your anything but amused state and sighs, turning more serious again. She opens her mouth, but before she can say anything else, another figure pushes itself in the picture.

The man seems a little familiar, but only after catching a look at his badge and recognizing a few letters from the distance do you deduce that this must be Robby.

Jack had mentioned his coworkers from time to time. Not enough for you to know them really, but enough that you had conjured up some rough images of them.

You stay silent while watching their interaction, feeling a bit awkward just standing there. Shuffling a little, you try and scoot yourself behind Jack.

“Brother, I was looking for you. Where were you?”

“Taking a break,” is all Jack says, shrugging. You watch his two colleagues raise their eyebrows, as if he said something outrageous.

“A break? You?”

“Goes to show that they aren’t your thing now, huh? I mean, look in what condition you came back,” Dana teases. “If you want to leave this place willingly, it will bring you right back as a patient, it seems.”

“What happened?” Robby takes a step towards Jack, frowning when apparently only now realizing that he is hurt.

“Just a small accident. Nothing to write home about. I’m only agreeing to get checked out because she won’t be able to relax unless a third party is confirming that I am fine. Which I am. I just need to get cleaned up.” Jack turns his head to send you a smile, which you return with narrowed eyes.

“Don’t worry, I’ll fix him up for you.” Dana steps forward, smiling at you warmly and rubbing your shoulder comfortingly. “He’ll be good as new when I’m done with him.”

Nodding slowly, you let go of Jack’s wrist. He fully turns to you, leaning closer and making sure to capture your eyes in one of his typical stares.

“You don’t have to wait for me. I know it’s hell in here. Just go home and I’ll text you and if you want, I’ll swing by later, after my shift. How does that sound?”

“Like bullshit. I’m not just going to go home while you’re injured. I’ll stay until you’re patched up and Dana gives you a green light to continue working. Only then I’ll consider leaving.”

You hold his gaze, raising your chin in defiance and demonstrating that you won’t back down so easily. Jack lets out a surprised chuckle, face softening. He watches you for a beat, face unreadable.

Then leans even closer, until his lowly murmured words travel directly into your ear.

“What about texting you and coming by after work? That sound like bullshit too?”

You take a second, pressing your lips together in an effort to conceal a smile.

“No, that…that sounds like a plan, actually.”

His breath huffs against your skin, before Jack retreats with a triumphant smirk on his face. You shake your head at him, watching him move past you and follow Dana to get cleaned up.

Your nerves tingle in a foreign way, the memory of his closeness doing weird things to you.

Only when he is gone from your view does your focus shift again and you find yourself in the bitter reality of being entirely out of place.

Uncomfortable, you cross your arms in front of your body and hiss when your hand touches your elbow. A quick glance presents you with your own little injury. Blood trickling down your arm in a so far unnoticed rivulet.

“Come with me. I’ll clean this up for you.”

Perplexed you realize you entirely forgot and ignored Doctor Robby who has remained standing a few feet away and is now motioning for you to follow him.

There is no reason to decline his offer, so you quickly fall into step behind him.

“How did this happen, exactly?”

“Oh, uh…Jack wanted to go on a little walk while on his break and when we were crossing a road some guy on his bicycle ran a red light and collided with us. Jack made sure that I didn’t get hurt but he completely disregarded his own safety. Impossible, that man. I think he pretty much took the entire hit, so I don’t think it’s overkill to get checked out. I mean, he could have serious internal injuries, right?”

Either Doctor Robby doesn’t answer or it gets drowned out by the perpetual noise surrounding you. You stay silent regardless and let him lead you into what looks like a break room for staff.

His hand points to one of the chairs surrounding a small table, so you obediently take a seat and watch as the man opens a little cabinet, rummaging around in it.

With his back still turned to you, Doctor Robby speaks again. “Jack doesn’t take breaks, usually.”

Unsure what makes him open with that fact, you hum. “Oh, well, I didn’t know that. I-I guess he made an exception today. I texted him and asked if he had a minute to spare, because I wanted to bring him some food. He didn’t really plan on doing a double shift.”

“Yeah. I know. It made sense that he changed his routine when I saw you with him.”

A slow warmth begins to spread across your body, your mind running a mile a minute to keep up with the implication. Did Jack deviate from his normal ways because of you? Are you special enough to warrant that?

You nibble on your bottom lip, trying your best not to feel too giddy at the possibility.

“I think it’s best if you stopped bothering Jack.”

Doctor Robby turns around, rubber gloves on and disinfectant and a Band-Aid in hand.

At first you don’t even realize what he just said, smiling pleasantly at him. But once the words hit you square in the chest, it’s like you get run over by another bicycle and this time nobody is there to catch you.

Speechless and stunned you watch the doctor waltz toward you. His expression doesn’t change, dark, glassy eyes peering down at you with a gentle harshness that doesn’t fit.

With a few steps he is in front of you, crouching down and taking your arm to examine your wound. He gets to work efficiently.

The irony strikes you.

Here is this man, taking care of your wounds as if he hadn’t just ripped your chest wide open.

“What…what do you mean?”

“Exactly what I just said. I don’t think you are good for him. You are a distraction–Jack is constantly somewhere else with his thoughts and I don’t need to be a mind reader to know who the reason for that is.”

You stare at Doctor Robby’s forehead, almost unseeing due to the shock rendering you unable to function properly.

“A doctor doesn’t need a distraction. People rely on us; they sometimes die if we don’t have our head in the game. I’ve kept quiet for the time being. I’ve given him the benefit of the doubt. But he isn’t himself lately. And I can’t have that.”

You barely feel the Band-Aid being stuck on your wound; watch almost in a trance as Doctor Robby rises from the floor and gets rid of the waste in a bin.

You wish he would shut up. Not only because he is actively trampling on your heart after spreading your ribs apart wide enough to lay it open, but because you would like to have at least a second to digest what has just left his lips.

You are utterly confused where this is coming from. Not to mention, torn between not wanting to believe any of this and having to accept that this person might be the most qualified one to comment on this topic.

Yet, there is not even enough time for that, as Doctor Robby continues on with no mercy.

“I need Jack to give his best when he is in here. And he can only do his best, when there isn’t someone else demanding his attention around the clock. I know that he won’t have the heart to ever tell you no, so I’m letting you know in his place, with the best intentions. I know this is probably not what you want to hear, but it needs to be said, before this…fling or whatever you want to call it, becomes something neither of you can walk away from. And I promise you, if it would ever lead to that, it wouldn’t end well. Jack might be going through something right now, but eventually he will snap out of it and that will leave you with nothing.”

Your eyes are burning, throat closing around unsaid arguments and a sob. You don’t dare to look up, don’t want to risk seeing pity from someone that has a clearer view on the world, on Jack Abbot and the reality of your situation.

You swallow hard around the knot, nails digging into your palms when a pained gasp wants to break free.

“So, what now?”

You barely recognize your own voice, it being nothing more than a shrill, broken whimper. Embarrassment doesn’t take long to settle in. Clearing your throat, you blink repeatedly; you try to square your shoulders and keep your lip from wobbling pathetically.

“You go home and let Jack be.”

Doctor Robby says it so matter of fact that you don’t even think about protesting. Your muscles tense when you stand from the chair, still not brave enough to look at the man lingering by the door.

Your feet move without really being prompted to. But even when your brain catches up, it’s not like you want to stay here any longer.

The last thing you need now, is to break down in front of Jack’s coworkers. Nobody needs you to cause a scene in an Emergency Room. Jack doesn’t need you to cling to him.

When passing Doctor Robby, you nod. As what, you don’t know exactly. Maybe a farewell, possibly a thanks for being honest with you.

Jack is hurrying back to the hub, eyes scanning the area in search for you but only finding Robby, looking at a tablet.

He comes up beside him, leaning against nurses’ station, still surveying the ER for your form.

“Where is she?”

Robby doesn’t look up, just casually comments, “She went home.”

Jack’s heart sinks, eyes snapping towards the other attending, eyebrows furrowed. “What? Why?”

“What use would it be for her to stick around till the end of your shift? You said you’re fine.”

“Yeah, but she didn’t believe me. That’s the entire reason why she even came here with me. Why would she just leave without saying goodbye?”

Finally, Robby looks up, eyes peeking over the frames of his glasses.

“Why does that even matter?”

“Why wouldn’t it? She was worried; I don’t want her to be. So, I did what she asked of me and now I’d like to show her, that I very much know my trade. Can’t a man show off a little?”

Jack chuckles quietly, smirking despite not feeling all too much like it with the prospect of you not being around anymore.

He had urged Dana to be quick with his wound care in order to not waste precious time he could have with you before a bigger trauma case would ultimately snatch his attention again.

The disappointment and confusion for your disappearance has him miffed, to say the least.

“Brother, you need to get your head back in the game,” Robby huffs. Jack really tries to find the amusement in that order, but the grin on Robby’s face isn’t convincing at all.

“I never left the game.”

“Yes you did. You’re distracted.”

The sudden accusation has Jack stunned.

“Where is this coming from?”

“We have a full house today and are understaffed. Is it that surprising, that I want my staff to give a hundred percent and concentrate on the patients?”

“No, it’s not. But I’m not distracted. I’m just worried why someone would leave without saying goodbye after clearly stating they wouldn’t leave.”

“Yeah, well that is what’s called being distracted.”

“What is happening right now? Why are you riding my ass about this? Why are you so defensive all of a sudden? Did something happen, that I should know of? Do you know something?” Jack frowns at Robby, pressing for an answer while the alarm bells start ringing inside his head.

Something is definitely off.

Robby gives him this look, that is both unreadable but so clearly saying something and Jack scoffs, frustrated.

“Tell me!”

“Okay, we’re really doing this, huh? Fine. I sent her home, because she isn’t needed here and clearly you can’t concentrate when she is around.”

Jack blinks, as if wetting his eyes would make him hear better or change his memory.

There is no way he just heard his friend say this.

“I must have misunderstood.”

“You haven’t. To be fair, you are just as distracted when she isn’t here, but I guess it’s a little better at least. This can’t go on like this, Jack.”

“Wait, what the hell?”

“Let’s not do this right now. Let’s go back to work,” Robby sighs heavily, but Jack doesn’t let him off the hook that easily.

He can’t just rip the rug from under his feet and expect him to not question things. It simply doesn’t make enough sense for Jack to let the topic drop.

An uncomfortable feeling unearths inside his chest when he thinks about you, about what Robby’s admission means.

“No. I need to understand what’s happening. Not later, now!”

He holds his stare, daring Robby to decline that request without saying another word. Eventually, after a few seconds, he caves in, pressing air out of his nose and raising his hands in capitulation.

“Fine. Let’s talk.”

He stalks off, shaking his head as if he is the one disappointed by the way things turned out today. Jack follows, jaw clenched, fury collecting behind his eyes and making them burn.

He really hopes there is a logical explanation here, that he just didn’t get what Robby was telling him the first time and that the two of them are totally missing each other’s points.

They end up in North Six, the door closing behind Jack.

He doesn’t waste any time, not in the mood to wait around for Robby to find the right words, and just opens up, “So, you’re telling me, you decided she shouldn’t stay? Just like that?”

“Yeah. I did.”

“Why? Who are you to make that decision?” he asks incredulously, completely flabbergasted by the absolute righteousness Robby conveys. There is no wiggle room in there, no doubt in his logic.

“Who am I? Oh, I don’t know Jack. Your Chief attending? Your closest friend? Is that not enough? I think it is–to know you. It’s definitely enough for me to know that you are not yourself lately. And it’s very obvious who the reason for that is. I’m doing you a favor here, man! Try and appreciate it!”

“What kinda favor is that? Honestly, I don’t get it. Enlighten me!”

There is a second of silence. Jack can feel the challenge charge up the air and Robby hesitates. But one look at his friend and the resolute look in Jack’s eyes must be enough to destroy any inhibitions Robby holds.

Huffing out a laugh without any humor, he shakes his head as if he is disappointed.

“I’ve known you and worked with you for years, Jack. And the last time you were so distracted was when your wife died. I don’t want to see you like this ever again.”

“How is this even remotely comparable?” he presses out, trying to stifle the pain that trickles out of a whole different wound.

“It doesn’t matter if the distraction is a good or a bad one. What matters is, that you are not giving your all. You are distracted out there and maybe you’re not yet distracted while treating patients, but if this continues, whatever this even is, that might not be the case any longer. She is turning you into a liability.”

“You can’t be serious right now.”

“I am. Dead Serious. Everyone has noticed the change. The way your mood depends on whether you’ve seen her that day or not, the way you are glued to your phone whenever you have a second. You are preoccupied and one day it will cost someone their life.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, give me a break! I’m not letting personal matters control my abilities or quality of care. Yeah, if I have a second, I will look to see if she texted me. And yeah, maybe my mood changes from time to time, but it’s neither forbidden nor is this something exclusively happening to me. Not everyone is always able to just leave their personal life behind on the door step every day. You know that. But this has not ever caused me to lose focus with a patient and it never will.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“Well, I am. My patients are always coming first. Even when my wife died, I never let anyone in here down. What I do between patients is my business alone and as long as I’m doing my job correctly, which I am doing, I don’t need shit from you, Robby.”

Jack watches his friend shake his head in denial again. He knows the look in Robby’s eyes all too well, the anguished need to convince someone of the opposite and seeing that it’s going nowhere.

It’s familiar, an expression donned often while pleading with patients or family members.

But there is something else there as well.

Pain. Fear. Desperation.

“You got hurt today, because of your neighbor.”

Aghast Jack fails to react quick enough to that accusation and Robby continues with a sneer.

“You went out of your way to meet her outside, go on a damn walk and played her knight in shining armor. You were distracted and it got you run over. That’s my point.”

Jack rubs his thumb and index finger over his eyes, trying to get rid of the nasty tension in his skull while trying to sort his thoughts at the same time.

“The only one at fault for today’s accident is the prick that ran the red light. It didn’t happen because I decided to take a break, or because I went on a walk with someone. If that is your logic than it sucks. Bad things happen all the time, we know that better than anyone else. But you’re saying I can’t implement a single change in my life without getting hurt? Really? That is fearmongering and you know it. I can get hurt at any time, any place, with any person by my side. It happens and the only way it would ever stop being possible, is if I stopped living all together.”

“I’m trying to prevent exactly that from happening.”

“No, you’re trying to take away the one thing I like the most about my life right now.”

“Yeah, because you said it yourself before. She has the worst luck ever. Looks like it’s rubbing off on you already. The longer you keep her around, the more at risk you are. She is like your personal bad luck charm.”

Jack rolls his eyes at that, letting out a humorless laugh.

“Now come on Robby! Since when are you superstitious? You don’t even know her. Not to mention, that I would’ve tried to protect literally anyone else just as much from being run over. It just happened to be her. But that doesn’t mean anything.”

“Well, if it were anyone else you would be back to work already instead of fighting me on this. It just proves my point. She is a distraction.”

“Oh, for fucks sake. Stop saying that! The only reason why I’m not back to work is because you decided to mess with things that aren’t yours to deal with. If you hadn’t overstepped and sent her home, we wouldn’t be here having this discussion right now. I would’ve said goodbye and sent her off and that would’ve been it. Now it’s all a huge fucking mess, because you what? You don’t want to see me happy?”

“Oh, here we go.” Robby rolls his eyes, hands crossed behind his head and a mirthless grin on his lips. “Not saying goodbye has ruined your life. Is that what you’re saying?”

“I’m not joking, Robby. For you this might all seem like of little importance, but I have been trying for weeks to get closer to her, to build something I never thought I would ever even want again. She is the first person since my wife that has managed to get me to want to go home and not be stuck here all the time. I haven’t felt that way in years.”

“You and I both live for the ER. Nothing out there could ever keep us from coming back here. It’s just a delusion you hold onto right now, fueled by that silly crush you have. This is our life.”

“But it won’t be our life forever,” Jack defends, “And what happens after we leave this place? If one day the ER isn’t there anymore, I will be left with nothing. Unless I build something now and put effort into keeping it. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

“Do you really think a young thing like her is going to stay with you for that long? That she will be by your side when you’re old and wrinkly.”

“Some would argue I already am.”  Jack’s try at humor doesn’t fly with either of them.

“Jack, I’m doing this for your own good.”

“Are you? Because it doesn’t feel like it at all. It rather seems like you’re trying to sabotage my chance at something good. That’s not helping me. That’s you being scared that I’ll end up leaving, that you’ll end up alone, while I do what you claim we aren’t able to do. And you can’t have that, because it would mean that you can’t defend yourself with the same excuses again. Not when I prove the opposite of what you’ve been preaching.”

Jack knows he is walking the line, dangerously close to dipping into a territory that can do more harm than good. But anger keeps him going–the idea of losing you, not because of something he did but someone else said, is killing him.

He looks at Robby, sees his despair clear as day.

And still, Jack draws the bow and lets the arrow fly, sinking it into his chest with a resounding thunk.

“Just because you have given up on looking for a reason to live doesn’t mean nobody else can. I’m really trying hard to create something that doesn’t just keep me afloat, but can drag me out of the abyss. And I don’t need you to anchor me there forever, just because you use me as your own tether to this life. I want us both to live, I don’t want you to give up. But I also don’t want either of us to just vegetate miserably forever. I’m doing the work to change that.”

Jack lets his word hover in the air. Tension so thick, all the oxygen in the room seems to be sucked out.

“Next time you have an issue with the way I move, you come to me instead of going after the weakest link and appointing them the scapegoat.”

With that, Jack turns around, pushing the door open and struts back into chaos.

next part

Dex didn’t really need much. That was one of the first things you had learned about him, and one of the saddest. 

He owned what he could carry, what he could hide, what he could use: clothes, weapons, toothbrush, a plain black jacket that had seen through more death than most people. He hadn’t moved into your life so much as folded himself carefully into the empty spaces of it, as if he was still waiting to be told he had taken up too much room.

You had filled the rest. Your desk sat in the corner under the window, always drowning in highlighters, case studies, printed articles, and half-dead pens. Your forensic psychology textbooks were stacked wherever they would fit. There was a mug full of rulers and pencils beside your laptop, a corkboard with notes and deadlines and a photobooth strip of the two of you in Coney Island that Dex pretended not to care about but always noticed when it tilted crooked.

Of course he cared. It was your first date. 

And though he didn’t tell you, he had made a copy of it and put it under his suit when he went out, right over his heart. It was a reminder that you wanted him home. 

But this space was enough. It was more than enough, somehow.

There was still room to dance in the kitchen if you were careful. Last Saturday, barefoot and half-asleep, with the radio turned on, you had twirled yourself into his arms to Tina’s Proud Mary. Dex had just stood there like he had no idea what to do until you took his hands and put them on your waist. There was still room for him to lift you onto the counter when you kissed him too sweetly for too long. There was still room for dinner eaten on a small table with two folding chairs, there was still room for your laundry tangled together in one basket, for his shoes beside yours by the door. 

There was still room, somehow, for Dex to crowd you back against the wall, hands firm on your hips, mouth hot against your throat while you laughed under your breath and told him the neighbors were going get tired of hearing how well he fucked you.

Room for him to murmur filthy and wrecked things, that he should “throw your pills away,” that he was going to “knock you up, huh? Want me to put a baby in you?”

You’d pull back with a wicked smile, nails hooked in his shirt, and you’d whisper, “That is not the threat you think it is, baby.”

You chalked it up to your boyfriend being a kinky little shit. You should have paid more attention to the way his eyes went black, the way his grip tightened on your skin. When he kissed you again, it was with the devoted certainty of a man who had just realized his most unhinged fantasy was not his alone.

Still, even in this small fantasy, there was still room to pretend, on the good nights, that you were normal.

Tonight was not one of the good nights.

Dex had come home after a day across the Supreme Court building with blood dried dark along his cheekbone, though you suspected none of it was his. 

Even if it was, you knew he wasn’t hurt at all, because Dex didn’t stagger or slump. He didn’t come through the door gasping or cursing or asking for help. He entered the apartment with  rigid control in his body, like every step had been measured in advance. He came in like arriving home had been a decision, not an escape. Like whatever had happened in this room, with you, was sacred compared to the rest of the world.

He came home like he had not been part of the makeshift siege at court.

Like he had not shot the Mayor’s aide.

Like the whole city had not been tearing itself apart on the news for hours while you sat on the bed with your phone in your hand, refreshing headlines you didn’t want to read and listening for footsteps in the hallway.

When he looked at you, his pupils tracked your face. Before he let you touch him, before he let you ask questions, before he decided whether his own body was allowed to matter, his eyes went over you like a security sweep to make sure you were safe.

Then they landed on your arm and saw a bruise.

It was nothing, really. You had caught yourself badly against the fire escape earlier when you’d climbed out for air because the apartment had felt too small with sirens in the distance and Dex not answering his phone. It was a mean little scar, blue and purple, but shallow enough not to hurt you permanently. It was annoying, more than anything. You had almost forgotten about it.

But Dex looked at it like it was evidence.

So now you were sitting beside him on the bed with a towel, a bottle of peroxide, cotton pads, and the sad frozen bag of peas you had pulled from the freezer because neither of you owned a real ice pack. You were trying to clean blood from his face. He was trying to ice your bruise.

It would have been funny if it did not make you want to cry.

“Give me your arm,” he said.

“There’s literally blood on you,” you sighed.

“Not mine,” he said dismissively, confirming your suspicions, “give me your arm.”

“Benjamin.”

His hazel eyes flicked up, mostly because you only called him that when you were annoyed at him. 

You stared at each other for one stubborn second, but he didn’t seem like he was going to let up. 

Then you sighed and gave him your arm.

He took it carefully, his fingers gentle around your wrist despite the split skin across his knuckles. He pressed the frozen peas to the bruise like he was handling precious and breakable gemstones, his mouth set in a hard line, his focus absolute.

That was the thing about loving Dex: it wasn’t sensible. It had never been sensible.

You’d always had a practical head on your shoulders. You were getting your third degree in forensic psychology because you liked patterns, motive, broken systems, and the strange little hinges inside people that made them choose one door instead of another. You were both a student and a research assistant at the university, which sounded better on paper than it felt in your bank account. You were technically employed, technically building experience, technically lucky to have the position at all. In reality, you were paid in a way that felt insulting once, tuition costs, books, and subway fare had finished carving you hollow.

Still, you were smart. Academically, you understood obsession. You had annotated articles on attachment trauma, violent conditioning, hypervigilance, and maladaptive devotion. You had spent whole nights highlighting phrases that described people like Dex in clinical and sterile language. 

You knew the warning signs and studied the red flags. You knew the vocabulary you were supposed to use. You knew what you were supposed to do when someone like Bullseye looked at you like you were the last fixed point in the universe: run.

But when Dex saved your life during an Anti-Vigilante Task Force raid on the lab you were visiting, all that practical knowledge had become extremely inconvenient.

It had been chaos: glass breaking, alarm screaming. Your supervisor shouted for everyone to get down. The AVTF had come in hard, looking for records, samples, names, anything connected to vigilante research and enhanced activity. You had hidden beneath a workstation with one hand clamped over your mouth and your heartbeat so loud you thought it might give you away.

Then Dex had arrived.

He had been hunting that day. You later found out because he told you. 

He had moved through your lab with a purpose, turning the room itself into a weapon. A glass beaker found its way into a man’s throat. He had thrown a ruler with such perfect force, it split skin and cartilage. A metal clipboard managed to dislocate a man’s jaw, even through the helmet. Pens, scalpels, broken glass, a heavy ceramic mug from your professor’s desk were all used. Ordinary things became fatal in his hands, as if the universe had been waiting for him to point at something and decide what it was for.

He killed twelve men with office supplies and lab equipment, and then he crouched in front of you, breathing hard, blood on his cheek, and asked you if you were okay. 

You should have been horrified. You were horrified.

Part of you had been shaking with terror. Another part, the part you did like to examine too closely, had understood with awful clarity that some monsters were safer when they were loved than when they were not.

You should have run from him.

Instead, you had fallen in love.

Worse, he had fallen, too.

The love that grew between the two of you wasn't sweet, nor safe. Not in the way people with normal jobs and normal apartments and normal dinner plans fell in love. Dex loved wholly. He loved like if he took his eyes off you, the world would immediately try to take you from him. He loved like affection and violence had gotten tangled in him so early that he no longer knew how to separate protection from possession.

And you, for whatever reason, loved him right back.

You loved him in the studio apartment with the too-small kitchen and the desk in the corner. You loved him when he stood behind you while you brushed your teeth, chin resting against your shoulder, silent and half-asleep and watchful even then. You loved him when he checked the locks twice before bed. You loved him when he pretended not to care about your old Greek and Roman mythology books and then remembered every story you had ever told him. You loved him when he came home with blood under his nails, but looked at your scraped arm like the city owed him an explanation.

“Hold still,” he said, pressing the frozen peas more carefully against your skin.

You stared at him, at the slight bruise under his jaw and the split knuckles he was ignoring because your shallow scrape had somehow hurt him more.

“I should get a job,” you said, almost offhandedly.

His hand stopped.

You hadn’t meant for it to come out like that: flat and sudden. Not while he was sitting on your shared bed after a long day. But there it was anyway sitting between you and the ruined silence of the apartment.

Dex looked up slowly. “You have a job.”

“I have half a job.” You laughed without much humor. “I have a professor who thinks payment is optional because experience is apparently a currency. Because PhD students clearly don’t need to eat, right?”

He huffed. A few months ago, he did offer to dispose of your professor and you just waved him off, saying the person who would take his job would be worse. He offered to dispose of him, too, but stopped offering half-measured solutions when you kissed his forehead and said the department would probably just shut down because they can’t afford two murders. “But you’re in school,” he said.

“So?” You shrugged, “Lots of people are in school and have extra jobs.”

“You babysit Mrs. Smithers’ cat,” he frowned.

You snorted before you could stop yourself. “She pays us in lasagnas.”

“She makes good lasagna,” he insisted.

“That is not an income stream, Dex.”

“No,” he shook his head, knowing how hard you actually worked for your spot in the institution. “But you’re always busy anyway. I can take care of you”

“You’re wanted, baby,” you reminded him. 

That hurt. 

Dex’s eyes barely changed, but you knew him too well now. You saw the tiny shift in his eyes. His fingers adjusted around your wrist. He looked down at your arm again, focusing too intently on the ice pack, as if his obsession to keep you safe could be used to cover a wound in the conversation.

“I can provide,” he said.

You sighed immediately, because of course he would say it like that. Like a vow, like a reflex, like a wound of his own.

“I know.”

“I pay rent,” he reminded you, though he said it like it was a responsibility. He didn’t use it against you; it was just a fact. 

“I know.”

“I pay groceries,” he said.

“Yes, Dex,” you huffed, “I know.”

His teeth clenched, more disappointed in himself than at you. “Then what?”

You looked around the apartment because it was easier than looking at him.

Yes, Dex paid rent. Dex bought groceries. Dex came home with cash sometimes, folded tight and tucked away in envelopes. He made sure there was good coffee in the cabinet because you hated your mornings without it. He bought the brand of cereal you liked and pretended it was because it had been on sale. He fixed the loose leg on your desk chair. He remembered bills before you did.

He provided, but it was not stable.

Dex didn’t clock into shifts. Dex didn’t have a payroll department, a predictable deposit, a pension, or a neat little tax form with an employer’s name printed at the top. His work came in fragments and dangerous calls from powerful people who knew what he could do. 

Odd jobs, if you wanted to be generous. Assassination, if you wanted to be honest. 

He did it because he was good at it.

But mostly, lately, he did it because of you.

Because rent was due. Because the fridge needed filling. Because your textbooks cost you too much. Because he liked watching you eat takeout on the bed with your legs folded beneath you, he liked seeing you safe and warm and full in his room. Because every dollar he brought home became proof that he could keep you satisfied, that he could build a life, that he could be more than the worst thing he knew how to do.

And that terrified you almost as much as it touched you, because there was no stability in that kind of work.

Sometimes, Dex wished he had known you when he was still with the FBI.

Before prison. Before Fisk. Before his face was plastered on the news. Before every job application in the world became a joke. He imagined it sometimes in a way that felt masochistic. 

He imagined coming home to you in a suit and taking you to dinner with a paycheck that had his name on it. He imagined you flowers, buying you pretty things and whatever else you asked for. 

He could have been a man for you. As outdated as he knew that sounded, he still wished he could be that man again. 

“It’s not about whether you do,” you said carefully. “It’s just that… it’s not steady.”

His teeth tightened further.

“I’m not insulting you,” you reassured.

“You think I can’t take care of you.”

“No.” You leaned closer, your voice softening the impact. “I think you take care of me so much that you forget I should be allowed to take care of you, too.”

He didn’t answer.

Outside, a siren wailed below, then faded into traffic and distance. The studio felt very small around you, too warm and intimate.

Dex looked down at your arm again and pressed the melting bag of peas more gently against your skin.

“I’ll find something steady,” he said.

Your heart clenched. “Dex.”

“I will,” he promised. 

“Where?”

His eyes lifted to yours. You tried to smile, but it came out tired and fond and sad all the same. “You shot Buck Cashman in front of half the city. I’m not saying that like I’m mad. I’m saying maybe LinkedIn is not going to work out this month.”

“I’ll find something,” he said.

It came out too quickly, too flatly, like he was sealing a wound before you could see how deep it went.

You looked at him where he sat on the edge of the bed, one knee pressed against yours, the frozen bag of peas melting slowly in his hand. You saw the bruise smudged high beneath his cheekbone, the split in his lower lip that he kept worrying with his tongue like he had forgotten it was there. He looked awful. Beautiful, too. The world had tried, again and again, to make him unlovable, and your stupid heart had taken one look at him and said, mine.

“What, a desk job?” you asked.

Dex gave you a look.

He wasn’t offended exactly. More like you had asked him to picture himself, in his Bullseye suit that you loved so much, sitting under fluorescent lights, wearing a lanyard, filling out forms, and smiling politely at coworkers named Brad from HR.

The idea was so absurd that, despite everything, your mouth twitched upward.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” you said, leaning in a little. “Did I insult your very promising administrative career?”

He frowned unwillingly, and for a second you hated yourself for accidentally being a little too mean. 

Still, you couldn’t help yourself. You leaned closer and kissed the scar near his cheekbone so gently it was barely anything at all. Dex closed his eyes for half a second. When you pulled back, he still kept his eyes closed for one breath longer.

“Baby,” you whispered, voice gentler now, nearly breaking with fondness, “you cannot put ‘excellent with projectiles’ on a résumé.”

His eyes opened and found you immediately. “I could.”

You shook your head, “You really, really shouldn’t.”

“I have skills.” He pouted. It was cute.

“You have criminal charges.”

“Transferable skills,” he said, with such dry seriousness that you chuckled before you could stop yourself.

His posture changed, like he always did when you laughed. Not dramatically, though. He didn’t transform all at once. He softened by millimeters, as if your happiness had reached into some fortified part of him and loosened one bolt at a time. The hard line of his shoulders eased. His teeth unclenched. His thumb, which had been pressing the peas too carefully to your bruise, shifted a little.

For a moment, he looked less like a weapon that was left loaded in your apartment and more like a man who had come home to you because there was nowhere else in the world he could bear to be, because he was yours. Because he wanted so badly to be good for you that it almost broke your heart.

He adjusted the ice pack again. “You shouldn’t have to worry about money.”

“We live in New York, Dex.” You tried to sound light but it just came out tired. “Worrying about money is basically a civic duty.”

“You shouldn’t have to,” he said again.

He didn’t say it like a boyfriend trying to be useful. He said it like a soldier stating a mission objective. Like he had identified the enemy— rent, groceries, tuition, your professor underpaying you, the whole grinding machine of the city— and had decided that he would kill it if he could. “Not you,” he added, quieter.

And Dex didn’t feel this way for you because he had learned to be a sympathetic person. He wasn’t.

He didn’t suddenly feel tender toward the whole world because he learned how to love. He didn’t look at strangers and imagine their mothers. He didn’t hesitate before hurting people who had put themselves on the wrong side of his line. He could kill a room full of people and sleep like a baby afterward. He didn’t ask himself if the Anti-Vigilante Task Force agents had families who were waiting for them. Their blood did not weigh on his conscience in any meaningful way.

He hasn’t learned to be secretly good and noble under all the damage in some easy, redeemable way. He was only tender with you, and even that was not because you were an exception to his nature.

It was because somewhere along the way, Dex had thought of you and him as the same person.

You weren’t some separate innocent woman he loved from afar. You were not a moral compass he worshipped because you made him better. You were his life. His home. 

Your body was his body outside his body. Your exhaustion was his exhaustion. Your money was his money, and his money was yours, not because he felt entitled to it, but because the two of you had stopped existing as separate organisms somewhere around the first month he slept in your bed and woke up with your hand on his chest. You were one system now. One thing. One fused unit pretending to be two people for legal convenience.

So watching you work long hours in a lecture hall that barely paid felt like self-harm. That was the clearest way his mind could understand it. Like the two of you shared one nervous system, and every hour you worked yourself past exhaustion was pain traveling down the same wire until it reached him, too.

“Come on, Dex,” you frowned. “You think I want you running yourself into the ground because you decided you have to pay every bill?”

His eyes lifted to yours, and all you saw was terrible sincerity. It was desperate enough to frighten you because it didn’t know how to ask for love without offering blood in return.

“I should take care of you,” he said.

Not I want to. Not I’d like to. Not even let me.

I should.

You swallowed. “Dex…”

“I should.” His voice roughened, and it was absolute, like he had said this to himself before. Like maybe he had been saying it for months, in his head, every time he bought groceries, every time he counted cash, every time he watched you fall asleep over your notes with your cheek pressed to an open textbook. “You shouldn’t have to think about it. Rent, food, school, any of it. You should just—” He stopped, eyes darting away. “You should just sit there and be pretty.”

That ruined you a little.

There were things you could have said: Things about partnership, equality, how love was not supposed to turn into duty, how his need to provide came from some wounded place in him that still believed usefulness was the same as worth. You knew those things. You believed them, mostly.

But then he looked at you like taking care of you wasn’t a burden but a privilege. Like the idea of failing at it scared him more than the city hunting him. Like every terrible thing he had ever been made into could be balanced, somehow, if he could use it to keep you warm, fed, safe, untouched by the worst parts of the world.

He sat there, bruised and exhausted, dried blood at his temple, your scraped arm cradled in one hand as if it mattered more than every wound on his own body.

So you kissed him.

You didn’t mean to make it deep. You meant it to be reassurance, just a little press of your mouth to his, a way of telling him you were not leaving, not angry, not disappointed in how his love manifested even when it frightened you.

But Dex never received you halfway.

He leaned in, immediate and helpless, his free hamd coming to your waist with that familiar, possessive spread of his fingers. It was not rough, because he was never rough with you unless you asked him to be. But it was intense, as if the second your lips touched his, his body decided the only thing that made sense was pulling you closer.

You kissed him until the frozen peas slipped slightly against your arm and neither of you cared. Until his muscles relaxed under yours. Until he made a small sound in the back of his throat that made you hum, pleased with yourself.

When you pulled away, his eyes stayed on your lips, looking at your mouth like it had betrayed him by leaving.

You brushed your thumb over his chin. “You cannot just decide to provide by sheer force of will.”

Dex blinked, still dazed enough from the kiss that it took him half a second to find the conversation again.

Then his eyes sharpened in that almost boyish, almost hopeful way. “What if I got work?”

You exhaled through your nose. “Again. Where?”

His thumb moved once against your waist in small strokes that were barely there. 

“I heard that the CIA director is looking for someone to take over a contract,” he said.

You blinked.

It sounded clean on the surface and filthy underneath.

He said them carefully, like he was testing whether they could pass as normal if he used the right tone. 

“You mean black ops,” you said blankly.

“I mean work.”

“Benjamin,” you tilted your head.

“It’s steady enough.” His eyes did not leave yours. 

“That is not the same as safe.”

His eyes looked like guilt passing quickly through the devotion. “I can handle that.”

“I know you can.” You touched his cheek again, achingly gentle. “That’s what scares me.”

He looked at your face, taking inventory of every emotion there. His hand tightened at your waist.

“I’d come home,” he said.

Your heart ached. “You can’t promise that.”

“I’d make it true.”

“That’s not how promises work.”

“It is for me.”

And there he was. Your Dex. Your impossible, obsessive man, sitting in your too-small studio with blood on his face, telling you with complete sincerity that he could bend fate into obedience if the reward was coming home to you.

You wanted to argue, but he cut you off before you could even finish forming thoughts. 

“If I got a job,” he said carefully, “I could buy you a ring.”

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

For a second, you forgot how to breathe.

He had said it so quietly, so carefully, like the word itself was fragile. Like  if he had manifested it into the room too hard, it might shatter before you could touch it. 

A ring.

Dex watched you like he was waiting to see if he had ruined everything.

He didn’t look casual. He was never casual about you. He didn’t toss out precious things like the future just to see if they landed. He offered them like they had been a piece of his flesh cut out of him.

And you realized, in that second, that this had not been a stray thought.

Dex hadn’t just imagined it. Dex had been living with it.

You could see it now, in the way he held himself in the way his fingers had tightened just slightly at your waist, in the way his eyes kept flicking down to your mouth like he wanted to kiss the answer out of you and was forcing himself not to. 

He had carried this around. Maybe for weeks. Maybe for months. 

Maybe he had been thinking about marrying you while listening to your rant about your professor. He had been thinking about it while fixing the wobbly leg on your desk chair. He had been thinking about it while watching you laugh at Mrs. Smithers’ cat through the cracked door.

Maybe he had been thinking about it while buying groceries. Maybe he even stood in the pasta aisle with blood still under his sleeves, picking the brand you liked better because you once said the cheaper one tasted “dusty.” 

“Mm,” you managed.

It was barely a sound. Your throat had gone tight. You were trying very hard not to break apart, trying not to let the whole sweetness of it take you down completely, but your hand was already lifting to his face. Your thumb brushed the corner of his mouth, careful of the split in his lip.

“You sure you wanna marry me?” you asked.

Dex looked genuinely offended. “Yes.”

It came so fast you almost laughed. You did, a little, but it cracked around the edges. “Really?”

His brow furrowed, as if the question itself made no sense. “Yes.”

“You’ve thought about it?”

Dex stared at you, and the answer was so obvious then. 

He had probably thought about it too much. Dex didn’t daydream. He planned. He mapped. He calculated. Even his fantasies came with exit routes and contingency plans.

“Okay,” you whispered. “What would that life even look like?”

You saw this glint m in his eyes, the way they widened by a fraction. You had asked the one question he had been dying to answer.

His hand stayed at your waist. His thumb moved once, almost unconsciously, a small stroking motion through the fabric of your shirt.

“I’d get us a house,” he said.

Your heart gave a helpless little kick.

His gaze drifted past you, not away in dismissal, but as if the apartment disappeared from his eyes. 

“Not in the city,” he said. “Close enough if you still wanted it, for work or whatever you wanted, not right in it. Not sirens under the window all night, not this building where you can hear every footstep in the hall and know which ones don’t belong.”

His thumb moved once against your waist, like even with his head in the clouds he needed one hand on you to make sure the dream had a center.

“We’d look at the suburbs,” he continued. “I’d want roads I could learn. I want neighbors so you can bake them pie, but I don’t want them too close. We need a neighborhood with space between houses. We need streetlights that work. A sidewalk, maybe, where you could walk in the morning if you wanted and I wouldn’t spend the whole time looking over your shoulder.”

You stayed quiet.

You didn’t want to interrupt him. There was something too precious about the way he was speaking, like he had cracked open a safe inside himself and all these impossibly domestic things were spilling out. 

“It would have a yard,” he said, smaller now. “Not huge. We don’t need huge, but we need enough. We would need a fence. A good one. Tall, but not ugly. I’d make sure it looked nice. You’d care about that.”

Your throat tightened.

“I’d make sure I have good sightlines in there,” he continued, “no blind spots.”

There he is. 

“And I’d plant flowers,” he added.

You blinked. Dex glanced at you, then looked down again as if the admission embarrassed him more than the blood on his face.

“You like flowers. The wild-looking ones. The ones outside delis in buckets, or growing through fences. You slow down when you see them.” His mouth twitched faintly, affectionate. “You pretend you don’t, but you do.”

He… noticed?

“I’d plant those,” he said. “I don’t know anything about gardening, but I could learn.”

He kept going before you could answer 

“There’d be a porch, or a back deck. I’d put a chair there for you.” A little warmth moved through his eyes, as if imagining it. “You’d probably bring a blanket out even if it wasn’t cold.”

You smiled, and it seemed to give him more courage.

“And you’d have an office,” he said. “A real one, not a desk shoved into a corner with your papers stacked on the floor.”

Your eyes stung.

“Built-in shelves if we could, for your research books,” he continued. “Your fiction books, all of them. You wouldn’t have to pile them on the windowsill or keep the heavy ones under the desk. Your desk would face a window, but no one should be able to see into it from the street.”

You let out the smallest laugh, but he kept drifting deeper now.

“There’d be a couch in there,” he said. “So I could sit with you while you worked. I’d be quiet.”

The confession was so completely him that something inside you melted. He said it without shame, without trying to make it sound less obsessive than it was. Of course he would watch you. Of course he had already imagined sitting in a room built for your mind, staring at you while you read and wrote and thought, content just to be near the machinery of you.

“I like when you’re focused,” he murmured. “You make that face.”

You did not ask what face. You wanted him to keep talking.

“The kitchen would be big,” he said next, and there was certainty in that, like he had stood in it a thousand times. “Big enough for that island you like.”

Your mouth parted.

“We’d have one with those ugly pendant lights,” he added, with the resigned tone of a man making a grave sacrifice. 

You smiled fully now. “They’re not ugly,” was all you could manage under your breath.

He heard it and very quickly added, “They are. But you like them, so we’d have it.”

That nearly did you in.

“There’d be storage,” he said. “Pans would be in the cabinets, not in the oven. I’d build you a spice drawer and I’ll organise them.”

You pressed your lips together, smiling harder.

“I’d make coffee before you woke up,” he continued. “Yours first. I’d make breakfast and I’d make more than eggs. Pancakes, maybe. You like pancakes when you’re sad.”

Your smile trembled.

“I’d make dinners, too,” he said. “You could sit at the counter and read to me while I cooked.” He looked almost shy at that. “Or talk. I don’t care. I just like your voice.”

The room felt too small for him then. Too small for the size of what he wanted. 

“And a dining table,” he said, his thumb stilled against you. “With more than two chairs.”

He swallowed once and kept going.

“The bathroom would have that shower,” he said. “Like the hotel you wouldn’t stop talking about.”

You almost laughed. “A rain shower?” You asked 

“Yes,” he said seriously. “With a glass door, a bench, and heated floors, because you hate cold tile.”

His eyes flicked to your face.

“I’d spoil you,” he said, like a vow. His eyesight  lowered to your hand, then back to your face.

You couldn’t speak, but he went on anyway, because now that he had started, the dream seemed to pull him forward by the heart.

“There’d be security,” he said. Of course there would be. But from Dex, even that sounded like love.

“I’ll get good locks with reinforced doors. I’d install cameras.” he said immediately, almost gently. “I’ll get motion lights and window sensors.”

He breathed out slowly.

“You wouldn’t have to check anything,” he said. “I’d do it.”

What he was saying was wouldn’t have to listen at night, or wonder, or brace, or be scared just because the world was dangerous. Dex would take the ritual of fear and make it his. He would check the doors, the windows, the shadows, so you could go upstairs and sleep.

“I’d check the locks before bed,” he said. “You could just go up and get in bed. Read or sleep with the light on if you want. I’d turn it off.”

He said it with such certainty that tears gathered before you could stop them.

He didn’t notice yet. He had gone too far into the house.

“There’d be a gun cabinet,” he continued, practical now. “Locked, of course, and separate from ammunition. I’ll get biometric locks and a backup key hidden somewhere only we knew.”

His focus sharpened slightly as he pictured it.

“And a weapons cabinet too, with knives, anything tactical, anything I wouldn’t want left out. It would be hidden or built into the wall somewhere no one would look. Not near the kitchen. Not near the bedrooms.” He said it like he had already rejected three possible locations. “Everything would be secured,” he continued. “No exceptions. Nothing lying around.”

Then, still looking into that future house, still seeing the walls and the locks and the rooms and all the dangerous love he wanted to put inside them, he added, almost absently, “at least until the kids are old enough.”

Oh.

“The kids?” you asked.

Dex blinked. For a second, he looked almost confused that you had stopped him there, like the kids had been so naturally integrated into the architecture of his fantasy that he had forgotten you were only just now seeing the floor plan. In his head, apparently, they already existed. 

“Yes,” he said, as if it were obvious. “Kids.”

He said it as if this were already settled. As if the universe had filed the paperwork. As if somewhere, in some future suburb with a fenced yard, your children were already waiting for him to come home.

“You just assumed?” you asked, your voice dazed.

Dex’s brows pulled together like he was only now realizing assumption was supposed to be a problem.

Then his eyes searched yours, suddenly cautious.

“I—” He paused, his fingers tightening slightly at your waist. “I assumed you’d want them,” he finished. “I assumed I’d give you anything you wanted. And I assumed…” His eyes dropped, then lifted again. “I assumed if there was any way the world let me have you like that, I’d take it.”

There it was.

Dex didn’t want a family because he had always dreamed of domestic happiness. He wanted it like conquest. He wanted children because they would be yours, because they would be his, because they would be the physical evidence of a future he had no right to expect. Benjamin Poindexter didn’t want in half measures. He consumed possibility whole. If he loved you, he loved the future of you and the shape of you extended forward. The house that held you. The children that might come from you. 

That was deranged. That wasn’t normal. But to you, that was also, for reasons you could not explain without sounding like you needed professional intervention, romantic.

Dex watched your mouth part. “I’d love them,” he said. “I would. I know I would. Because they’d be yours.”

There it was, not the socially acceptable version. Not I love children or I always wanted a family. Dex didn’t know how to make love sound normal when it came from him.

He would love them because they would carry your eyes, maybe, or your mouth, or your stubbornness. Because he would look at them and see you continued into another body. 

“They’d be mine too,” he added, like that part was harder for him to trust. “And maybe that part could be good because it came through you.”

Dex looked down at his hands that had done terrible things and could still hold you  like it was made of light.

So you only sat there letting him talk, letting him show you the things he had apparently been thinking around for months.

“Have you thought about names?” you asked.

Dex nodded slightly. 

Your lips parted.

“You have,” you whispered.

He looked almost offended again, but not at you this time. At the idea that he could have built this whole imaginary house, this whole impossible future, and not named the children already running through it. “Of course I have.”

“Tell me,” you said.

Dex watched you carefully. You could tell that there was still that small, frightened part of him, the part waiting for the insult, the laugh, the moment where your wonder hardened into common sense. But you just looked… patient. 

“For a boy,” he said, “Jason.”

Jason.

Dex’s voice lowered. “Because you loved Jason and the Argonauts when you were little. The way everyone went after something impossible.”

You remembered telling him that, barely. It had been one of those late-night conversations with your cheek on his chest. His fingers moved through your hair as you rambled about mythology books you used to check out of the library, about heroes who were never as perfect as people wanted them to be.

Dex had listened.

“And for a girl?” you asked, already knowing he had one.

“Callie,” he said then immediately added, “Short for Calliope. Callie at school. Calliope if she liked it. Whatever you liked.”

Your eyes stung. “Callie,” you whispered.

Dex nodded. “You said she was the muse of epic poetry. You liked that she belonged to stories.”

You pressed your fingers to your mouth. He remembered that too.

“Jason and Callie,” you said with a sigh.

You realized then, that Dex had not chosen names because he liked them. He had chosen names because he thought you would.

Because even in his most private fantasies, the children were not abstract. They were not trophies. They were not little versions of him he could shape into whatever he wanted. They were pieces of you carried forward into the world, proof that some part of you could exist outside your own body and still belong to him, too.

“You like them,” he realised.

“I love them.”

His hand tightened around yours. Then, as if the names had opened a door he could no longer close, he kept going.

“Jason would have your eyes,” he said, voice distant again, head fully in the clouds now. “He’d be quiet, I think, the kind of kid who watches first. He’d notice everything.”

Your throat tightened.

“And Callie,” he said, and a faint helplessness moved through his face. “She’d be trouble.”

You laughed a little. 

“She’d climb things,” he continued. “She’d argue. She’d look right at me while doing exactly what I told her not to do.”

You could see it.

Worse, you could see how much he loved it.

This imaginary little girl, stubborn and wild, already had him wrapped around her tiny, nonexistent finger.

“She’d have your mouth,” he said, almost to himself. “Your attitude.”

“My attitude?”

His eyes flicked to yours, and there was something wickedly fond in them. “Your attitude.”

He looked down at your joined hands again, thumb moving over your knuckles, and his voice changed.

“They’d need to be ready.”

For what?

But you knew what for. This part that should’ve made you want to retreat, but it only made you want to lean in more, because this was Dex’s love too. The same root, grown through darker soil.

“Ready?” you asked.

“For the world,” he clarified. 

Dex’s eyes were calm now, focused and devoted. There was nothing theatrical in him, nothing performative. He was not fantasizing about violence for the sake of it. He was imagining two children made from you and him, and his first instinct was to make sure nothing could ever make them helpless.

He wasn’t in the kitchen anymore. He was in the woods with Jason and Callie when they were older and taller.

“I know what I am,” he said with finality. “I know what I’m good for.”

Your heart pinched. “Dex…” 

“No,” he said, because he knew you. Because he could hear the protest forming before you even opened your mouth. “Don’t do that.”

You tilted your head. 

“I know what I’m good for,” he repeated, gentler this time, but no less certain. “And if I’m good for anything, I will make sure they have every tool in their disposal to survive.”

There was no self-pity in it. He didn’t sound like a man condemning himself. He sounded like a man who had finally found a use for the worst parts of him and decided that they would serve you.

“They won’t be helpless,” he said. “Not our kids.”

Our kids.

“Jason and Callie won’t be fragile and easy to hurt. I won’t do that to them.”

His jaw tightened, and pride flickered through his face.

“They’ll be smart. They’ll be aware. They’ll know when a room feels wrong. They’ll know what a threat looks like before it reaches them.”

You listened, heart thudding.

“And they’ll be skilled,” he said.

It mattered to him. You could hear it.

Skilled.

Not broken. Not molded. Not made into little copies of him. He wanted them skilled, accurate, and alive.

“I’d start small,” he continued. “I’ll teach them hand-to-hand, teach them how to use their reflexes. I’ll teach them how to move without panicking, how to get up when they fall, how to breathe when they’re scared. Jason would overthink it at first. He’ll want every movement perfect before he tries. Callie would rush in and get mad when I made her slow down.” His mouth curved up faintly. “She’ll hate slowing down.”

You almost smiled through the ache in your chest.

“But she’ll learn,” he said. “They both will.”

His eyes darkened around the imagination.

“When they’re older, I'll teach them how to aim.”

Aim was not violence to him, not really. It was discipline. It was proof that the body could obey the mind. 

“They better have their old man’s aim,” he murmured.

It should have sounded awful.

And it did, a little.

But it also sounded like him imagining a son and daughter with pieces of himself; His focus, his loyalty, his ability to lock onto a target and not shake.

“They’ll know how to throw,” he said. “How to hit what they mean to hit. I’ll get them knives, when they’re old enough. Take them to the range to shoot guns when they're older. No one fucking picks on my kids and lives to see another day.” He looked at you then, and the obsession in his face had turned holy. “I’ll make sure they understand that.”

You swallowed.

“If they find themselves in a bad situation, I’ll make sure they’re better than lucky. Lucky runs out. Lucky gets them killed. I want them trained. I want them calm. I want them to be able to look at danger and know they’re more dangerous.”

His hand tightened around yours.

“I want Jason to know how to get Callie out if something happens. I want Callie to know how to get Jason out. I want both of them to know how to get back to their mother.”

Your breath caught. 

Their mother.

Dex said it as if it were the center of the whole plan. 

“I’ll make sure they come home in one piece,” he said, voice rough now. “Ready for dinner. That’s the point.”

Your throat tightened.

“I’ll make damn sure they can leave this house and come back to it. I’ll make sure you’re not sitting at that kitchen table wondering if they’re safe.” His eyes dropped to your mouth, then back up. “I don’t want you afraid.”

Fuck.

The whole deranged, violent, tender fantasy had always curved back to that. Dex teaching your future children to fight, to aim, to survive, not because he wanted war in the home, but because he wanted peace for you. Because his idea of fatherhood was Jason and Callie walking through the front door with backpacks tossed on the floor, cheeks flushed, while you stood at the stove or sat at the island with your coffee and didn’t have to imagine every terrible thing that might have happened to them.

“I’d kill for them, you know this,” he said, rubbing a slow circle on your skin, “I’d burn the whole world down for them.” Dex did not look away. “But if I know they can take care of themselves, then my eyes can stay where they belong.”

His hand cupped your face fully now.

“On you.”

He said it like it was obvious. Like the whole future had a single center of gravity and he had been circling it the entire time, pretending he was talking about houses and kitchens and gun cabinets and kids, when really he had only ever been talking about you.

“Because all of this,” Dex whispered, “would happen because of you.”

His thumb moved beneath your eye, catching the tear before it could fall properly. He looked at you like the city and the sirens and the blood on his knuckles were temporary, like the whole world outside the window was an environment he could outlast if it meant getting you somewhere safe.

“You understand that, right?” he asked, but his voice made it sound less like a question and more like a confession he needed you to survive hearing. 

Dex leaned closer, his hand cupping your cheek now, holding you with that possession that never felt casual. 

“I’d make sure the kids knew that,” he said. “I’d make sure they knew anything good in me came from you.”

Your lips parted, but nothing came out.

“The warmth in the house, the fairytales they would hear before bed, the flowers they pick from the garden.” His thumb brushed slowly along your cheekbone. “They’d know that was you. That all of it was you.”

Your eyes burned.

“They’d love you,” Dex whispered. “because you’re perfect.”

“Dex…”

“And they’d love me because I’d earn it.” he said.

Oh, Benjamin.

Your heart broke a little at that.

He said it simply, like love was not something he had ever expected to be given for free if it was him. 

His hand slid a little lower, thumb brushing the corner of your mouth, parting your lips.

“You wouldn’t have to learn how to shoot,” he reassured. “Because you’d have me.”

His voice dropped lower, intimate and possessive all the same.

“I’d take care of you,” he continued, “because that’s the only thing I was made wrong enough to do right.”

It should have sounded suffocating. Maybe from anyone else, it would have. But from Dex, it felt less like a cage and more like a shelter.

A small, broken laugh caught in your throat.

His mouth curved faintly, almost shy and almost wicked. “You can just sit there and be pretty, huh, baby?”

Your heart gave in completely.

He said it like a promise, like he would happily make a fortress of his own body if it meant you never had to lift a finger. 

Your tears started falling quicker before you could stop them.

They started coming too quickly, gathering along your lashes and breaking loose before you could blink them back. One rolled down the side of your nose. Another slipped along your cheek toward his thumb. Suddenly you were crying in front of him over a house that didn’t exist, children who hadn’t been born, a ring he hadn’t even given you yet, and the sincerity of Benjamin fuckin’ Poindexter imagining a life precious enough for you to be loved.

Dex noticed and his whole face changed. His hand, still cupping your cheek, squeezed slightly. His eyes moved over your face, searching for the wound, the mistake, the exact word that had hurt you.

“What?” he asked, his voice wound tight. “What did I say?”

You shook your head, but that only made another tear fall.

He frowned. “I upset you.”

“No.” Your voice cracked. You hated how small it sounded. “No, Dex.”

“I did.”

“You didn’t.”

There was a panick-y edge beneath the flatness of his voice. Dex could handle blood and anger Dex could handle fear if it had a direction, if it could be aimed back at something. But your tears did something awful to him. They made him look helpless in the one way he could never tolerate: like he had caused pain he couldn’t kill.

You caught his wrist before he could pull his hand away from your face.

“Baby,” you whispered, “no.”

You pressed your cheek harder into his palm, making him understand that you were not resisting his grand plan. “These are not bad tears.”

Still, you could tell he didn’t believe you yet.

“They’re not,” you promised, laughing weakly even though your throat hurt. “You just… fuck, Dex. You just said all of that like it was real.”

His mouth parted slightly.

“You really want all of that?” You asked, though it sounded more squeaky than you’d like 

Dex stared at you, looking almost offended again, as if he was wounded by the possibility that you could still doubt the size of what he wanted when he had just laid it open in front of you.

“Yes,” he said.

You breathed in shakily. “The house?”

“Yes.”

“The kitchen?”

“Yes.”

“The flowers?”

His thumb moved under your eye, wiping away another tear. “Yes.”

“Jason and Callie?”

His eyebrows relaxed immediately at the mention of the names. “Yes.”

You shut your eyes.

And for one second, because he had given you permission by wanting it so badly, you let yourself imagine it.

Dex driving with one hand on the wheel, the other reaching back at a red light because Calliope had dropped her stuffed animal and immediately made it everyone’s emergency. You could see it his eyes flicking from the mirror to the road to her little outstretched hand, his mouth set in that serious line like recovering a plush rabbit from the floorboard was a tactical operation. Callie would kick her feet in the car seat, impatient and bossy, already certain her father would retrieve anything she dropped because Dex had never once been normal about anyone he cared for needing something.

Dex in a school parking lot, terrifying every other father by accident. He’d stand there in a dark jacket and smart-ish trousers, trying to look approachable and while still planning thirteen ways to neutralize a PTA committee just in case someone tried to speak wrongly about his kids. Jason walking beside him with a too-big backpack and the solemn concentration of his father. Callie skipping ahead, fearless because her father was behind her and therefore the world hadn’t yet invented anything that could touch her.

Dex teaching Jason how to throw a ball in the backyard. His son would squinting with concentration, little shoulders tense, trying too hard because he had inherited that from you. Dex crouched in front of him, adjusting his grip, telling him to breathe. Then he’d step back, watching Jason throw too hard and too wide, and smiling anyway. He’d be proud anyway, because it was a start. He’d make his way to the knives eventually. 

Dex standing behind you in the kitchen, arms around your waist, chin tucked against your shoulder while your children ran through the yard beyond the window.

He’d kiss your temple and ask for another one, and you’d say, “We’ll think about it,” because you two were a unit. You were two parts of the same whole. 

You opened your eyes, and he just looked terrified of how much he wanted it.

Your hand tightened around his wrist.

“When you eventually ask me,” you said, voice shaking, “know that I’ll say yes.”

For a moment, Dex didn’t move.

He didn’t even seem to breathe.

His eyes searched yours once, twice, desperately, like he had to make sure he hadn’t imagined it. 

“You will?” he asked.

You smiled through the tears. “Of course.”

Joy did not sit easily on Dex, but you knew this was what it looked like. 

You let out a watery little laugh, because if you did not laugh you were going to sob properly.

That seemed to bring him back to himself.

Dex leaned in and kissed your neck once, then your cheeks, then the damp place beneath your eye where a tear had slipped down.

Each kiss was careful and possessive in the best way. He wasn’t trying to stop you from crying. Instead, he wanted to claim every tear. 

Dex kissed your jaw again, then tucked his face into your neck, and for a long time he just held you.

What you did not know was that the ring was already more than a fantasy to him.

What you did not know was that earlier that evening, before the Supreme Court had gone to hell, he shot Buck Cashman, before he came home, Dex had received confirmation of an advance from Mr. Charles.

He had a government contract. He had a stable job.

Dex had read the confirmation once.

Then twice.

Then, because he was Dex, he had memorized the number. The second he saw the advance, his mind had gone to you.

Rent. Groceries. Your tuition. The overdue utility bill you had tried to hide under a stack of journal articles like paper could make debt disappear. The textbooks you kept putting off buying because you said you could “probably survive with library copies,” even though he had seen the way you frowned when you said it.

And then the ring.

He’d already planned the ring.

And no, he hadn’t told you any of this yet. 

Maybe he will after the first payment cleared. Maybe after the first job was done and he knew the money was steady. Maybe after he had washed the blood off well enough to convince himself he was allowed to touch something as clean as your hand.

He’d find the right jeweler, though he already had one in mind: a shop in the Upper East Side that did custom pieces. He’d get one commissioned specifically for you. Nothing too delicate, because he wanted people to notice it. Nothing too flashy, because you would wrinkle your nose and tell him he had lost his mind.

He’d get something that looked right on your hand when you reached for your coffee in the morning. A gem that would catch the kitchen light when you turned pages in your office. Something Jason might touch curiously as a child, asking if Dad gave you that, and Dex would hear you say yes from the doorway. Something Callie would one day ask to try on, and you would laugh and tell her when she could when was older. Something that said you belonged to him.

And more importantly, that he belonged to you.

For now, he said none of that.

For now, he only held you tighter on the bed, making sure you were okay.

“You’re going to be so spoiled,” he whispered against your skin.

You smiled, eyes closing, tears still drying on your face. “Am I?”

“Yes.”

“By a wanted man with frozen peas?”

That got the smallest laugh out of him. 

“By your future husband,” he said.

Your heart did a helpless little flip.

Little did you know, with this contract, the future wasn’t just a fantasy to him anymore.

He just needed to ask.

—end.

-

You were organizing printed out photographs taken during your recent trip. They were spread out on the table in front of you like cards on a casino table, your lips curved into a smile as you reminisced on each memory. 

Your best friend with her arm around you, the sun basking on your grinning faces. It was taken in the morning just as dawn was breaking on the beach. Another taken in the darkness at a foreign club, your skin illuminated by pink and red neon lights. You were so plastered that you pulled some of your friends onto the tiny karaoke stage for an impromptu concert. 

A small laugh shakes your shoulders. One that’s immediately interrupted when you hear the jukebox begin to stutter in the middle of its current song. 

Not again. You groan as the familiar guitar strums filter into the diner. The one that looped and looped and never stopped. Now you know it was futile to hope that it would have been fixed while you were away. 

“Maybe it’ll only play once this time.” Yeah right.

You rubbed your temples, at your wits end with this damn song.

Unbeknownst to you, a few tables down, someone had been observing your every move since you entered the diner. He had been seated at the counter, anticipating your arrival for your morning cup. 

Dex hadn’t even needed to turn around to know it was you walking through the door this morning. Just the hands of the clock on the walls pointing to the right numbers, recognizing the exact cadence of your favorite pair of shoes on the vinyl floors when the glass doors opened.

It had been about two weeks since he returned from handling some dirty work for Mr. Charles. Since touching back down in New York, he had swapped out his noon diner visits for morning ones, effectively syncing his routine with what you had mentioned yours to be on the plane. 

He still remembers the surprise in your eyes when he revealed you’d been in the same place everyday, only missing each other by a few hours apart. It was a coincidence, but certainly not an unwelcome one in his opinion. 

Your nervousness seemed to melt away the more you spoke to him and he was so used to the opposite reaction. Years of being in the military, then FBI, before ending up as Bullseye gave him that effect on people even when he tried to make them feel at ease with practiced speech and small talk.

You, on the other hand, didn’t seem to mind it much. 

It took you about one week after him to start coming back into the diner once you returned from your trip.

Dex didn’t want to show himself to you right away; he just wanted to see you as you were. Catalogue your coffee and complicated breakfast order to memory. Watch your reaction to the broken jukebox you ranted to him about. Try to understand how someone like you took comfort in him. 

He could still feel the weight of you on his shoulder. How your hair tickled his skin. The rhythm of your breathing as you slept, even over the sounds of his music and the plane’s engine.

Dex’s body tensed when he saw you stand from your table, the quarter he was shuffling in his hands pausing too.

You trudged to the corner of the diner to the jukebox, jamming a coin into the slot and pressing a combination of letters and numbers on the keypad.

Instead of the godforsaken song actually changing like you requested it to though, it looped. Again.

You gave the thing a light frustrated kick but straightened up when you saw the newspaper man lean over his booth and give you a judgmental stare.

Instead of letting you return to your booth defeated, though, Dex found himself standing from the counter seat and making his way over to you.

You hadn’t noticed him until he held the quarter in his hand out to you, and it glinted at you.

“Need another quarter?” He said it like he was coming to your rescue–which he was.

“Oh, it’s you–Dex, right?” Your expressive eyes lit up in surprise like he knew they would when you saw him again. Your gaze then fell to the quarter pinched between his fingers. “Uh, yeah, the machine ate mine.”

You moved to tuck your hair behind your ear before remembering you had tied it back this morning, and your hand fell to your side instead.

Oops.

You bit your lip trying to conceal a bashful smile. Maybe he didn't notice your nervousness.

Dex inserted the quarter to the machine and pressed the keypad again, the same combination he had seen you enter from afar. 

“Let’s see if it actually works this time.” He mirrored your smile. 

“I hope it does. I really don’t want to hear that song anymore.” You chuckled and pointed behind you towards your booth where you left your items unsupervised. “Did you want to join me?” 

He thought you’d never ask. He followed you back to your booth and slid in across from you. 

“Oh, sorry, I’ll gather these up.” You seemed flustered as your hands quickly swept up the prints, “I just got these printed and I was looking through them.”

Dex was a little surprised you just left them unattended. Anyone could have walked by and swiped one without you noticing.

“No, don’t worry about it. Are these from your trip?” He pointed to one that showcased you standing in front of a popular monument.

“Oh, yeah,” you laughed, looking down at the photo. “I was hungover in this one, actually.”

“I thought you said you weren’t going there to party,” he said with the ghost of a smile on his lips.

You hated that he seemed to remember your conversation on the plane better than you did. Then again, at least you were saving yourself the embarrassment of recalling what you said to him when you were nervous about the flight.

“I was trying to save face in front of a stranger. So what, everyone parties.” You held up the photo of you in the club with a smirk on your face. “It was a bachelorette trip, anyway. Or did you forget that detail conveniently?”

Of course he hadn’t forgotten. He remembered everything you said down to the tone of your voice when you said it. He was looking down at the rest of your photos, trying to memorize every single one of them that had you in it. 

You posing in a flower garden with a bouquet of daffodils in your hands. You in an aquarium holding a plush shark from the gift shop. You…scantily clad on the beach.

His blood ran hot under his skin.

Before he could get another look at that one, your hand had smacked down onto it, palm covering it. 

“Oh god, I forgot that one was here.” The words tumbled from your lips in a hurry, voice thin as you tucked it underneath another photo, hiding it from his view. 

Dex cleared his throat awkwardly, “right. Seems like you did a little bit of everything on your trip.”

You were still avoiding his eyes. The photo wasn’t just a regular bikini picture or something. You weren’t nude but it had definitely been taken for…artistic reasons. 

He instead focused on that aquarium photo again.

You were grinning wide in front of a giant fish tank, carrying the plush in your arms like it was a stray cat or something. He wondered if you put it in your bedroom when you returned from your trip.

Before either of you could break the stretch of silence, there was a sudden resounding quiet in the diner. No strumming of that same guitar you’ve heard for the past hour, no lyrics that were ingrained on the insides of your brains…

Just silence.

You both shared a confused glance, and then, the mesmerizing tune of synths instead flooded in through the speakers. It was the song you requested. Or at least, the one Dex requested after the poor excuse for a jukebox ate your quarter.

Your lips stretched into a grin. “Hear that?”

“I hear it.” Dex was just as amused as you were. Even he thought the jukebox was a lost cause.

When you began flipping through your photos again, he wondered how long he could keep you talking about your trip. Would he be able to stall you here the whole morning? Maybe stretch it out until lunch? 

But his plans were ruined once his phone vibrated in his pocket. It was ‘work’ which he couldn’t just ignore to his dismay. If they did send someone after him for bailing, he could easily deal with them but he didn’t want to risk the little structure he finally rekindled in his life.

Especially now that he had decided to add you into his routine.

“I have to get going,” he said with an air of reluctance as he stood from the booth. It’d have been easier to leave if you didn’t pull your lips into that adorable pout when he did.

“That’s a shame,” you sighed, slightly disappointed. “But I’ll see you around, right?”

His lips slanted into an easygoing smile. “You definitely will.”

When you returned to your apartment that night, you were on the phone with your best friend. You were discussing your trip together, a glass of wine in one hand and the collection of printed photos in the other. 

“Did you print out that one of us when we went to dinner altogether?” Your best friend's voice crinkled jubilantly on the other line.

“I printed all of them out. They had a deal to print 20 for dirt cheap.” You shuffled through the collection of photos and frowned. “Hold on.”

“What is it?” She asked.

You looked down at the rows of five you spread out on your dining table. One of the rows only had four photos.

“There’s one missing.” 

You knew you shouldn’t have been so careless at the diner. Spreading photos of yourself out all over the table and then leaving them unsupervised to change the music in the jukebox.

Or it could have slid off the table, slipped between the booth seats–it could be anywhere, for anyone to find. It made you feel exposed.

“Which one is missing?” She asked on the line.

Hopefully the missing photo isn’t…oh no. Your beach photo.

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the city in the evening glow of street lights and aroma of cigarette smoke, Dex was climbing the fire escape to his apartment balcony after a tough job.

He removed his mask, stepped inside, and then pulled a folded photograph from the pocket of his pants.

He took a pin and stuck the photo onto the wall beside his front door, smiling at it. It had ended up in his pocket as he was leaving the diner. It was his favorite in the bunch you showed him, even if he couldn’t quite pin down why. 

There was just something about the way you were smiling in front of the fish tank, illuminated by the glowing blue behind you as you held tightly onto that chubby shark plush that made him want to have it for himself.

You breathed a sigh of relief when you spotted your racy beach photo among the collection on your table. At least it wasn’t that one that went missing. Although, you did look exceptionally amazing in it if you do say so yourself.

Warmth rushed to your face remembering how you accidentally let Dex get a peak at it. You probably wouldn't mind it if that photo somehow ended up with him...

“No idea.” You said into the phone, sitting on your bed beside your new shark plush you bought during your trip. “I’ll cross reference it with my camera roll later.”

Dex was sure you wouldn’t miss it too much.

It’s been three weeks since Dex’s break in. 

Your window is still annoying, still hard for you to push up beyond a crack. A wire you need for a monitor dies, so you order a new one over Amazon and splurge a little on a Depeche Mode CD you find on your homepage.

In that time, you find nothing. No hits on Dex’s name. No inquiries into his history, his records, his existence. It's like he really is dead.

So you keep going about your days.

You walk a little because like your doctor likes to say: the A in “ambulatory user” means able. Your goal is to build enough tolerance to walk to the corner bodega and back with just a cane.

You tell yourself that the digital silence excellent news. Dex is safe, which means you're safe. The money trickles into your account like water through a closed fist, eroding nothing but your irrational fear of being out on the streets. You’re being paid to do nothing, which is something all versions of you, past and present, would been cheering at. 

But you still don’t sleep well.

Call it anxiousness. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why your dreams feature men in SWAT vests, guns in their hands and flashing badges that keep shifting symbols and names. Your apartment door splinters inward with a single kick, the windows shatter for no reason. You dream about Dex standing over you with that hollow-sharp look, saying you’re not trying hard enough. When you’re thrust in front of your keyboard, all monitors read his name and your fingers are melted into the keys and you can’t move and you can’t move and you can’t move and maybe you never could.

The dreams are stupid. 

You know they’re stupid, just your brain being annoying about your job. You go through patches of guilt from time to time, the way you imagine a drone strike driver does behind their console. But knowing this doesn’t stop your hands from shaking when you wake up at three in the morning with your heart trying to punch through your ribs.

So when your laptop chirps at 01:47 AM on a Tuesday, you're already half-awake and transferring to your wheelchair. 

False alarm. Another project— that businessman you’d looked at the night Dex climbed in through your window. You save the file and wheel back to bed.

You don’t go back to sleep.

The real thing comes three days later.

You’re halfway through a plastic takeout bowl of lukewarm ramen at your dining table. Stop Making Sense plays on your not-work laptop as white noise. David Byrne’s huge suit and dancing with the lamp is good for the soul, especially when it almost flies out of your body when Saberfind’s alert pings. You set the bowl aside and limp to your office.

Saberfind has flagged an inquiry about Poindexter, Benjamin. It's in the New York State records. Not a deep dive, not a formal request that would leave obvious tracks. Just a single query that gets buried in a sea of legitimate traffic. Submitted to the Department of Vital Records just now, at 7:01 PM Eastern Time.

You trace it back. The IP routes through three different servers, two of them international, which tells you whoever’s looking knows what they’re doing. 

But you're better.

Forty-five minutes later, you have an origin point: a secure terminal in the FBI New York field office.

You lean back in your fancy ergonomic office chair, staring at the screen. The noodles in your ramen have probably gone cold and swollen with soup, David Byrne’s voice is tinny from the other room where you didn’t pause your movie.

Dex said powerful people thought he was maybe-dead. Powerful people apparently meaning the FBI, which you should have guessed. And now they’re starting to doubt him being dead, or someone else is running their own investigation about what happened to him when he “died.” You’ll have to ask about how he “died” soon, which is a whole other can of worms you’re not even looking at yet.

You check the other parameters you’ve set— missing persons reports that match his description, Interpol inquiries, the P.I forums searches. Nothing else. Just this one query, sent at an hour when most agents are trying to have dinner and look busier than they are. It has to be off-book, right?

You pick up your work phone. 

You pause. Dex didn’t give you a proper number, just whatever burner he’s using at the moment before the next. Communication’s also always been one-way: he finds you and you let it happen because it felt safer that way. Knowing more about him felt uncomfortable.

But now you have his name, which means something’s changed. Minutely so, because he’s still just Tony in your brain, but he’s also now pointedly a person with a past and buried as a John Doe by your assumptions. 

You type.

one hit. new york fbi field office. 7:01pm. off book query

Three dots appear immediately.

Name? only says Rankin, D. just agent level. want me to look more?

A long pause. You watch the dots appear and disappear three times before the message finally comes through:

No. It’s fine. Just look for more hits. I’ll come over later.

You want to ask more—who Rankin is, why this matters, what you’re actually caught up in.

Instead you type.

use the door. buzzer code is 1024

Another pause.

Door it is.

You almost smile.

☆☆☆☆☆

Dex shows up at 11:47 PM, and he looks worse than you've ever seen him. You step aside and let him in.

The denim jacket is the same but the tee under it is wrinkled up like a motel bedsheet. He’s surprisingly let himself grow a five o’clock shadow that glints in your apartment’s lamplight in the very specific way short blond hair does. His eyes have that hollow quality turned up to eleven, and when he sits on your couch he does it like you do after walking for too long.

“Rankin,” he says, and now this is all about work, so you put away the mild concern about his appearance. “Tell me everything.”

You walk stiffly to your armchair and sit across from him.

“Special Agent David Rankin at the New York FBI field office in organized crime division. He’s got a clean record. He’s fourty, he’s being doing this right out of college. He doesn’t have any obvious connections to anything dirty.” You massage your knee. “But he’s the one who ran the query. I traced it back to a terminal, and it’s under his credentials. Either he’s working alone, or he’s point man for someone else. It could even be someone using a computer he’s logged onto.”

Dex stares at the coffee table for a long moment. The lamp casts shadows that carve his face into something almost skeletal. He hasn't blinked in what feels like ten minutes.

“Rankin,” he repeats, and the name sits in his mouth like something rotten. “Organized crime.”

“That's what the file says.” You knead at your knee again, the joint complaining about the walk from the door and everything else. “You want to tell me why an organized crime agent is poking around your dead body?”

Dex’s hollow-sharp eyes slide to you. “No.”

“Right. Yeah.” You lean back. The deluxe edition of Violator is still in its plastic wrap on your bookshelf. When you look at it, Dave Gahan says enjoy the si-lence as neither you nor Dex speak. “Well, for what it’s worth, it was just the one search. It could be just him going I wonder what happened to that one dead guy.”

“That's how it starts.”

You don't ask what it is. You’re learning the contours of what Dex will and won’t reveal, the shape of who he is being formed like the negative space in those still life drawings. The white void of nothing. 

“Did you know him?”

Dex’s jaw flexes. You see it in his neck too, the tendons tensing under his skin. For a moment you think he’s going to deflect again.

“We were partners for a bit, and then we got moved around. Sometimes went out for drinks when our schedules lined up.”

“So he was a friend.”

Dex shrugs. An acquaintance, then.

“And now he’s looking for you.”

Dex doesn't answer. His right hand rests on his thigh, fingers splayed, and you watch the index finger twitch once, twice, three times. Reaching for something that isn't there.

“What happened?” The question slips out before you can catch it. "When you died, I mean. What happened that made you… fake die?”

The silence stretches. The rain has started again, it’s a wet, wet week. The shadows of raindrops against the glass makes your apartment feel smaller. Dex looks at the window like he can see something far through it, like he’s watching something happening six blocks away instead of sitting on your couch.

“Fisk,” he says finally. His voice is flat. Clinical. Like he’s reading you a police report about someone else. “He broke three of my vertebrae.”

You keep quiet. You’d read somewhere that the quiet usually makes people elaborate. 

When you’re about to call it a fluke with Dex, he continues.

“There was a doctor who did… experimental work. I was given a choice when I came to: stay paralyzed, or let them try something new. Something that might kill me on the table, or might give me back my legs.”

You think about the way Dex moves— that perfect posture, those long strides, the way he climbed up and down your fire escape like it was nothing. 

“What was it?”

Dex finally looks at you. “He fused my spine with Adamantium. When I was up, I started killing again.”

“Fisk’s people?”

Dex nods. “Everyone low, then I worked my way up.” There’s no pride in his voice. No satisfaction. Just fact. “Every associate, every enforcer, everyone who helped him run his empire. I’ve been at it for about a year and a half now. They’re not sure who it is. Bad luck, rival gang shit, maybe the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.” He smiles to himself when he says that. It’s private and utterly without soul, blank eyes and his lips thin across teeth. “But it’s me.”

You process this. The late-night swaps, the information you've been stealing like financial record and personal schedules… you’ve been feeding Dex the locations of his targets. You know you’ve been dooming these people, because it took an incredibly stupid person to think that someone like Dex would ask for intimate information like this to just scare someone.

“The people I used to work for,” Dex continues, “they don't know I'm alive either. I told the doctor to bury me after the surgery. So FBI thinks I’m dead. Either way, I’m not their problem anymore.”

“And Fisk thinks you’re dead too.”

Dex smiles thinly again. “The doctor who approached me was underground. He could’ve blabbed.”

“So Rankin,” you say slowly. “If Fisk has people inside the FBI, and one of them is checking on a dead man—”

"Then Fisk is getting suspicious. Someone knows that too many people are dying. They're looking for a connection."

"And if they… solidify the connection?"

Dex finally drinks his tea. His expression doesn't change, but something in his eyes goes distant. Calculating. The way he looked that first night ever at the diner, reading a file about some common thug with that focus that could cut diamonds.

"Then I’ll need to disappear again.”

The words hang in the air. You think about the window that’s hard to open, the fire escape, the way Dex moves through shadows like he could melt into them. You think about your life, how you carefully built yourself in this space accessible by a wheelchair and a cane and a reluctant will to keep living.

"If you disappear," you say slowly, "what happens to me?"

Dex looks at you. Really looks, in a way he hasn't before. You don’t feel like a resource, hacker, UberEats for file deliveries at Red’s. It’s like he’s seeing you as a complete person.

"I don't know," he says. It might be the most honest thing he's ever said to you.

“Then I guess we better make sure they don't find you.” You say with absolutely fake confidence.

Dex smiles in a different way. Thin, but it’s softer. It’s almost there.

"Okay," he says. "Where do we start?"

“You new here?” you asked when you got to the top of the stairs.

He turned, and there it was.

You recognised him instantly.

Benjamin Poindexter.

Bullseye.

You didn’t know him personally, but you’d seen him enough times, in enough places. You saw him on screens, from news clips, in courtroom sketches on social media. After all, you kept tabs on a lot of dangerous people in NYC. Out of habit, more than anything, really. 

Your expression didn’t change, though. You just shifted your groceries slightly higher on your hip.

“Yeah, I just moved in.” Then, after the tiniest pause, he introduced himself. “I’m Tony.”

A lie.

You almost laughed at how mundane Tony sounded. Still, you didn’t call him out.

You weren’t a snitch, and never had been. After all, grew up around men who made him look almost… refined. Your father would always tell you there were honour amongst thieves, he’d say. 

In this case, murderers.

Still, you’d learn early how to mind your business and survive.

And besides… You’d heard what he’d been doing.

He’d been hunting Anti-vigilante task force agents, dropping them on the streets one by one.

You didn’t lose sleep over that.

So you pushed off the walls by the staircase, stepping a little closer like this was just a normal introduction. “Welcome to the building, Tony.”

His eyes were still on you. There was a sparkle there, as if interest formed before he could stop it.

You pretended not to notice, especially because your arm was starting to hurt. 

“Hold on—” you muttered, shifting your grocery bag to the floor and digging through it. “Here.”

You pulled out an extra roll of paper towels and held it out to him.

He blinked, like that hadn’t been part of the script.

“For the pipes,” you said, pushing it into his hand when he didn’t take it fast enough. “They’re shit. They’ll leak, clog, make your life miserable. You’ll want backup.”

“Thanks,” he said as he took it, still looking at you, still so… focused.

You grabbed your groceries again, already turning back to your door.

“Don’t mention it,” you said, slipping your key into the lock. “And if you die in a pipe-related accident, I’ll tell management I warned you.”

“Very reassuring,” he said.

“Tell me about it.”

You pushed your door open, stopping just long enough to glance back at him. “Try not to flood the place, Tony.”

Then you slipped inside, leaving him in the hallway with a fake name, a paper towel roll, and a seed of obsession watered by conversation.

Like ivy finding its first crack in a wall, he knew it was going to grow.

—

A week passed before anything more than that happened.

Not that he didn’t notice you.

He did. Fuck, he did.

He noticed you every time your door opened. He logged every time your footsteps hit the hallway. He listened every time your laugh carried faintly through the thin, terrible pipes you’d warned him about.

But the interactions were small and contained. 

You’d nod when you crossed paths. You’d say a quick “morning” on your way out of the apartment. Once, you smiled sweetly when you both reached the stairwell at the same time and you gestured for him to go first.

He didn’t.

“After you,” he said.

You raised an eyebrow. “Wow. A gentleman.”

That was it. Still, he thought about it longer than he should have.

Then, one morning, you stepped out into the hallway, to spot the other neighbour who lived on this floor. She was a lovely elderly woman, and she definitely loved you. She’d call you the “granddaughter she never had,” then proceeded to try and try to get you on a date with literally any guy she knew. She introduced you to the landlord’s son, the electrician, and even her own grandsons. 

Her apartment door was propped open, and she stood there, gently ushering her cat into the hallway to stretch its legs.

“Well, look who it is,” she said the second she saw you.

“Good morning,” you greeted sweetly, passing her a brown bag with a mint chocolate chip cookie in it.

Her face lit up like you’d handed her gold. “Oh, you angel. I told you, you don’t have to keep doing this.”

“I know,” you said, smiling. “I want to.”

The cat stretched toward you immediately, paws reaching, and you obliged, scratching under its chin. It purred loud enough to echo. As you picked her up and cuddled your little furry friend in your arms, you coddled her and whispered a little “Hi, baby. When do I get to cat sit you again, huh?”.

That’s when another door clicked open.

You didn’t need to look to know who it was.

Dex stepped out into the hallway, pausing when he saw the little scene in front of him. His eyes landed on you first, then flicked to the older woman, then back again.

She followed your glance and her face lit up.

“Oh! Perfect timing,” she said, waving him closer. “Come here, come here.”

He stepped closer like he wasn’t in a rush to be anywhere else.

“Tony, this…,” she said proudly, gesturing toward you, “is the pretty girl I was telling you about. She always brings me cookies.” She leaned in slightly, lowering her voice like it was a secret. “She is an excellent baker.”

You let out a quiet laugh, shaking your head. “We’ve met.”

The cat wriggled happily, and you set her down, watching it immediately circle your legs again. You turned slightly toward him, tilting your head. “Are you a cat person, Tony?”

He shrugged. “Sure.”

What kind of answer was sure? Did he just see that you seemed like a cat person, and decided he simply would be, too?

The cat brushed against his leg, and he glanced down at her like he was trying to figure out the correct response.

It was slightly stiff, but you could tell that he was trying. 

It was… weirdly cute.

“Anyway,” you shook your head, smiling despite yourself. “I need to go to work. I’ve got a client who wants a full sleeve done in one session and I really need to tell him it’s not happening.”

“You work all the time!” Your neighbour said, scandalised.

You scoffed fondly. “Oh my god.”

“It’s true,” she insisted, looking between the two of you like this was critical evidence in her case. “She’s never around long enough to meet anyone nice.”

You rolled your eyes, but turned away to go. If you let her, she’d keep you here all day and talk about all the nice boys your age she met in church. “I gotta go now,” you said, “I’ll come by later.”

You headed toward the stairs.

A second later, you heard footsteps behind you.

Of course, Dex was going out, too.

You didn’t slow down, but you didn’t speed up either.

“Pretty girl?” he said from a step above you, almost amused

You groaned under your breath. “Don’t start.”

He shrugged, completely unbothered as you let him catch up. “She’s not wrong, though.”

You almost missed a step.

“Wow,” you said, recovering quickly. “You’re laying it on thick this morning.”

You reached the bottom of the stairs, past the mailboxes. He followed, falling into step beside you.

“Don’t tell anyone,” you said abruptly.

He glanced at you. “About?”

You leaned in just slightly, lowering your voice. “The cookies?”

“Yeah?”

“They’re from the supermarket.”

He went quiet, before letting out a short chuckle, shaking his head. “So you lied.”

You nudged at him immediately. “I never said I made them. She just assumed.”

“And you never corrected her,” he pointed out.

“It makes her happy,” you said, shrugging. “She likes the idea of it. I’m not ruining that over a 3 dollar box of cookies.”

He watched you for a second longer than necessary. There it was again, that focus. That sharp, almost unsettling attention.

Softer, he said, “Fair enough.”

You crossed your arms lightly, smirking. “What? You’ve never bent the truth before?”

For a split second you could see his brain buffer, but it was gone just as quickly. “Maybe once or twice,” he said.

You huffed. “Right.”

Internally, you almost laughed. Talk about lying.

Outwardly, though, you just shook your head, nudging the door open to head your separate ways.

“I hope my secret’s safe with you,” you said, stepping out onto the pavement.

“Of course,” he replied.

You started walking, then glanced back at him once. “And if she asks, I spent hours baking them.”

The last thing you saw before turning was his smile.

He stayed there for a second, watching you go.

That day, he debated following you to your workplace  instead of killing the two Task Force agents he knew were going to be by the bridge. 

—

A week later, you found yourself in the basement, doing your weekly rounds of laundry. It smelled like detergent, damp concrete, and rust.

You were crouched in front of one of the machines, shoving a stubborn pile of clothes deeper into the drum with your forearm, when the door creaked open behind you.

Then, you heard footsteps. You didn’t have to turn to know who it was.

“Hi, Tony,” you greeted with a small smile. But as you got up, you winced a little. 

“You okay, pretty girl?” He asked, eyebrows raised.

Oh, so it was a nickname now?

You waved it off immediately, rolling your shoulders like that would fix it. “Yeah, yeah. Just…” you paused, stretching, “—work is trying to kill me. I’ve been hunched over a chair all day today.”

His eyes flicked over you as he put his basket down on the table. “What’s work?”

You snorted, grabbing your laundry basket and setting it on top of the machine. “Ink,” you said, glancing over your shoulder at him. “I work at a studio a few blocks over.”

He nodded like that was new information.

It wasn’t.

He knew your route down to the minute. He knew what time you left, what time you got back, which days you tend to stay late. He knew which shop you stopped at when you were too tired to cook.

You, on the other hand, just kept talking.

“Actually—” you turned a little, hooking your thumb under the hem of your shorts, tugging it up just enough to expose a small piece of ink on your upper thigh. “See this?”

His eyes dropped instantly to a small design, a little uneven if you looked closely, lines not quite as confident as your newer work, shading a touch inconsistent.

But it was… cute. Especially on you, Dex thought. It was definitely on theme with the other tattoos you had down your arms and legs. 

“I did that,” you explained. “I don’t usually tattoo myself, but it was studio policy. Had to do it to get from apprentice to artist.” 

“I like it,” Dex said, and for once, he was honest. 

You glanced down at it fondly. “It’s a little wonky, but… yeah. It’s part of me now.”

He didn’t answer right away.

He was still looking, and not just at the tattoo.

He was looking at the way it curved with your skin. The way your fingers rested just above it. He was thinking about how you didn’t think twice about showing him something that permanent, that close, that personal.

He briefly wondered what you would do if he hooked his finger on your shorts, maybe dragging it higher… 

You dropped your shorts back into place, completely unaware of the direction his thoughts had taken.

“You got any?” you asked, nodding toward him. 

“No,” he answered. 

You hummed, tilting your head like you were considering him from a new angle. “Would you ever get one?”

He almost said no again.

Tattoos were permanent. Identifiable. Stupid, for someone like him and his… line of work.

“You’d be a hell of a canvas,” you added, like that might sweeten the deal.

And just like that he said, “Yes.”

It was pathetic, really, how quickly he folded. All he could think about was how you’d be doing it, how you’d be marking him, how you’d be the one sitting him on a chair telling him to sit still, how you’d tell him he was taking such a good job resisting the pain when he would like it simply because it was you who was hurting him. 

You blinked, then broke into a smile like that was the exact answer you wanted. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

You nodded, like you’d already figured out the logistics in your head. “If you ever want one, you don’t have to go to the studio. I’ve got a setup in my apartment. It’s nothing crazy, just for friends and stuff. People who don’t want to pay the upcharge or deal with the whole… environment.”

His eyes flicked up to your face again.

“Noted,” he said.

You smiled, satisfied, turning back to your machine as it started its cycle. “I give a mean tattoo, Tony. You’d be in safe hands.”

He believed that.

You leaned back against the machine, folding your arms loosely. “So what do you do for work?”

You loved watching him squirm, even if his body language didn’t necessarily show it. His eyes darted a little, and you learned that it was as close as he got to a tell.

“Freelance,” he answered abruptly.

You raised an eyebrow slowly. “Uh huh.”

Still, you didn’t push. You didn’t call him out.

“Must be nice,” you said lightly. “Flexible hours and all that.”

He gave a vague shrug, but his attention had already drifted back to you, and to the ink peeking out from under your sleeves, continuing lines at your arm. He decided that you’d definitely have more hidden under your shirt.

He wondered how far it all went, how much of you was marked.

What it would look like if he could get you alone, without the distraction of clothing. He would trace every line, every curve, every piece of art embedded in your skin with his tongue, tasting and—

“Earth to Tony.”

He blinked. You were looking at him, amused.

“You just completely checked out,” you said. “I was saying, don’t overload that machine. It’ll make a noise so loud Mr. Ramirez from across the street is gonna file a noise complaint.”

“Right.” He nodded. Then, almost to himself, he added. “I was listening.”

You smiled, unconvinced but not pressing it. “Sure you were.”

The machines hummed between you, filling the silence.

For a second, neither of you moved.

“Well,” you finally pushed off the machine, grabbing your basket. “Have fun doing laundry, Tony.”

And just like that, you were gone.

—

You got so used to Dex being your next door neighbour that you almost forgot he was a convicted murderer.

After all, it was hard to even believe that when your interactions with him were so… wholesome. 

You’d be halfway down the stairs, keys between your fingers, already running through your day in your head when you’d hear his door click open above you.

“Morning, Tony,” you’d call, not even looking back.

“Morning, pretty girl.”

That was it, at first. Eventually it became…

“Running late?” he asked one day, watching you juggle your bag and a half-zipped jacket.

“Shut up, Tony,” you shot back, hopping the last step. You were amused though, and pleased that he even gave you any attention at all. 

He smiled.

A few days later, he “accidentally” ran into you on your way back, after the sun had dropped. You were tired, shoulders slumped, ink smudged faintly along the side of your wrist.

“Long day?” he asked.

You huffed, digging your key into the lock. “This girl wanted a tattoo of her boyfriend’s name. Bad idea.”

He laughed, cherishing every little interaction he had with you.

Some days, you’d offer him a bottle of water when the building’s pipes went weird again. He’d hold the door open when your hands were full. He'd give you salt when you ran out. He even helped you babysit your mutual neighbour’s cat once. 

And then one night, it changed.

You got back late. Later than usual.

Thank god you were back, though. Dex was a few seconds away from breaking and entering into your shop to make sure no one had hurt you. 

Still, your feet hurt, your back hurt, your patience was hanging by a thread. The second you stepped into your apartment you made a beeline for the window.

You shoved it open, letting the cool air hit your face, dragging in a breath like you hadn’t taken one all day. The city hummed below with distant traffic, music bleeding faintly from somewhere down the block.

You climbed out onto the fire escape without thinking about it. You’d done it a hundred times before.

You sat there with a beer, legs stretched out, back against the brick, letting the noise settle your brain.

Tonight was no different.

At least, it wasn’t supposed to be.

Little did you know, Dex had been watching you for a good five minutes. 

And because he just really wanted to sit with you, he eventually pushed his own window open and stepped up to his own fire escape.

You didn’t look over right away.

He moved across the narrow divider between your sides (there was barely a gap at all), and that’s when your head tilted, just slightly.

“Y’know,” you said casually, “most people use the front door.”

Dex paused before stepping fully onto your side.

“Didn’t feel like it,” he replied.

You let out a small huff of a laugh out.

You lifted the bottle in your hand slightly. “Beer?” you offered to share.

Dex stared at you for half a second too long.

That was it? You let him into your space, just like that? 

“Take it or don’t,” you said lightly. “But if you murder me, I’m gonna be really annoyed I wasted good beer on you.”

That almost made him laugh.

He took the bottle, and stiffened as your fingers brushed his for a second. “You trust me?”

You shrugged, settling back into your spot like the moment had already passed. “I figured if you were gonna kill me, you would probably be sneakier.”

He took a swig of the bottle. You were right, it was good beer.

“I might just be bad at it,” he said.

“Yeah,” you snorted knowingly. “You look real incompetent.”

Silence settled for a second, but not an awkward one.

You took the bottle from him and sipped, glancing sideways at him.

“So,” you said. “you always break into people’s fire escapes, or am I special?”

Dex leaned back against the brick. “Special,” he decided.

You hummed, clearly pleased with that answer. “Thought so.”

The conversation drifted after that. You talked about a client who tapped out halfway through a tattoo and blamed you for it. You complained about the landlord again. You pointed out which windows belonged to which neighbours, offering little pieces of your world like they didn’t matter.

Dex listened, of course. He logged everything. But for once, he didn’t feel like he was gathering intel.

He felt like he was… sitting. With you. 

At some point, you laughed head tipping back again, and it echoed out into his skull and gripped his heart like a vice.

He only really snapped out of his little trance when you asked, “Same time tomorrow, Tony?” 

—

It became a habit.

You’d sit cross-legged or stretched out along the fire escape. Dex would cross over, and then you'd pass bottles back and forth, talking about nothing and everything all at once. Work stories, complaints about neighbours, stupid observations about people on the street below. Easy things, safe things.

Dex told you just enough to keep it believable.

You didn’t push, not even when you smelled the lingering iron scent of blood on him. 

Still, you’d bump your foot against his when you laughed. You’d steal his drink the way he stole yours. Sometimes you’d talk over each other, then both stop, then both say “you go first” at the same time and laugh about it like idiots.

It was dangerously normal.

Occasionally, though, you weren’t as upbeat as you usually were. Those nights, Dex tended to pry a bit more. He needed to know what was wrong with his pretty girl, and who was responsible for you being in a mood, right?

“You’re quiet today.” Dex said once.

You glanced at him, a little surprised, like you hadn’t realised it yourself. Then you gave a small shrug, curling your fingers tighter around your beer.

In the end, you just shook your head. “Wow. Okay.”

You nudged his foot lightly with yours, a habit by now, but there was less energy behind it than usual.

“…It’s stupid,” you added after a second.

Dex just waited for an answer.

You exhaled, tipping your head back before finally giving in. “I did this back-of-the-hand tattoo today,” you explained. “Like, really intricate. It was of a sun with fine lines, proper detail, the whole thing.”

As you talked, a little life came back into your tone, the way it always did when you spoke about your work.

“I genuinely think it’s one of my best pieces,” you went on, glancing at him briefly. “Especially for that placement. Hands are tricky as hell.”

Then your tone dipped again.

“Guy ran out and didn’t pay.”

Dex tilted his head, but didn’t interrupt.

You rolled your eyes, but it didn’t quite land as playful. “Honestly? I don’t even care about the money anymore.” You picked at the label on your bottle, peeling it slowly. “I just wanted a photo of it. It was my art, you know? But he won’t even return my calls.”

His fingers tapped once, lightly, against the glass bottle in his hand. He was thinking of every scenario, how he could handle this, when, and how he was going to tell you about it. He needed a plan. 

“Does he have a name?” he asked.

You blinked, looking over at him. “Yeah,” you said, a little confused by how direct that was. “Jack Hargrove, I think. That’s what he signed in the form, why?”

Dex nodded once. “Okay.”

That was it, no more questions asked.

—

And then… there were the nights you got high.

Those were his favourite.

You had already grown into his favourite person by then, but when you were giggly and mumbly? He found you fucking adorable. 

You’d show up already a little floaty, or you’d pull out a blunt halfway through the night like it was nothing.

The first time you did it, you asked, “Hey.” You nudging his arm lightly. “You smoke?”

Dex didn’t even hesitate before answering. “No.”

You blinked at him once. Slowly, your eyes narrowed just a little, almost amused.

“Wow,” you said, dragging the word out slightly. “That was fast.”

“I don’t,” he repeated.

You snorted, shoulders shaking as you leaned back against the wall, bringing your hand up to cover your mouth like you were trying (and failing) to contain it.

“Alright, officer,” you said, wondering how much you can bring up about his past without him being suspicious. “or is it… agent?”

Dex’s head turned toward you so quickly it almost hurt him. “What?”

You were already grinning, wide and lazy, eyes bright with mischief, ready with a lie to soften your statement.

“You just hit me with the most federal ‘no’ I’ve ever heard in my life,” you quickly backtracked, knowing you had just put him on high alert. “Like, no hesitation, no curiosity, no ‘what is it?’ Just… no.”

He stared at you.

You pointed at him with the blunt, still smiling. “That’s fed behaviour.”

“I’m not a cop.”

“Mhm,” you hummed, playfully.

After a while, you leaned a little closer, squinting at him like you were inspecting something. “Yeah,” you teased, trying to push little buttons. “You’d hate paperwork too much.”

Dex almost frowned. “You’re making a lot of assumptions.”

“And you’re being very defensive for someone who’s definitely never been a fed,” you shot back lightly.

There was a good five-second pause before you grinned again, gentler this time.

“Relax,” you added, nudging his arm again. “I’m kidding.”

It wasn’t entirely a lie. You did enjoy toying with him. 

Dex let out a deep breath, tension he hadn’t even acknowledged easing just slightly.

“I just don’t smoke,” he said.

You hummed to yourself, satisfied, and brought the blunt to your lips instead.

“Suit yourself, officer,” you murmured, the tease slipping back in just enough to make it light again.

The flame flickered briefly as you lit it, casting a warm glow over your face before fading. You inhaled slowly, like you’d done it a hundred times before.

Dex watched the way you exhaled, smoke curling into the night air. He watched the way your shoulders dropped, tension leaving you in real time.

“Okay,” you sighed, settling back against the brick, your knee bumping his again. “Now I’m fun.”

Dex didn’t look away. “You’re already fun,” he’d mumble under his breath. 

Still. The more you smoked around him, the more he got used to it. 

He already adored you before, but something about the cute string of laughter you only got when you were high would make his heart melt.

The way you shifted closer without thinking, your knee bumping lightly against his. The way you leaned back, head tilting until it rested briefly against the wall, eyes half-lidded but still bright.

Most times, you’d just trip over your sentences.

“You ever just…” you started, then stopped, laughing under your breath. “No, wait, that’s stupid.”

“What?” he asked before he could stop himself.

You turned your head toward him slowly, like it took effort, eyes landing on his face and staying there.

“You’re, like…” you gestured vaguely toward him, giggling again. “You’re very… intense.”

You didn’t sound intimidated. You sounded delighted.

“Am I?” he said.

“Yeah,” you nodded, completely serious for half a second before it slipped again. “But it’s okay. I like it.”

Your words would drift in and out, sometimes making perfect sense, other times, it meant nothing. You’d laugh at things he didn’t understand. You’d drift from one thing to another. Childhood stories that didn’t sound like childhood stories. You'd say things that sounded like names you never explained. You’d mention places that didn’t quite exist in any way he could trace.

Sometimes you’d say things that should have sounded serious, but you said them with a smile, with a laugh, like they didn’t weigh anything at all. You once even said something about sleeping next to a sawed-off shotgun when you were twelve “just in case.”

In case of what?

Dex couldn’t find anything abnormal about your day to day life, no matter how much he dug or how many times he followed you, so he assumed it didn’t mean anything.

Every now and then, you'd let him tuck you in bed. Tonight was one of those nights.

You blinked slowly, looking at him like you were trying to say something important.

“Tony,” you murmured.

He leaned in slightly without thinking. “Yeah?”

You smiled, soft and sleepy. “You’re… nice.”

The word came out like it surprised even you. Then you giggled again, like the effort was too much.

He didn’t correct you. He just watched as your eyes drifted shut for a second too long.

“…Okay,” you mumbled, barely coherent now. “I think I’m… yeah. I’m done.”

Dex stood before you could even try. You didn’t protest when he guided you up.

You didn’t question it when he helped you through your window, one hand steady at your arm, the other hovering just in case.

Inside, your apartment was dim and warm.

You barely made it to the bed before sinking into it, still half-laughing at something only you understood.

Dex pulled the blanket over you as you shifted slightly, face turning into the pillow.

“Night,” you mumbled.

He stayed there for a second, looking at you. At how soft you looked like this. How open. How completely unguarded.

But then… your eyes opened up again just a little. You traced the scar on his cheek gently. 

“You don’t have to worry,” you mumbled. Your voice was different. Not quite giggly, but clear as day. “I’m not on anyone’s side anymore.”

—

That night, he left your apartment without a sound.

He came back over the fire escape, slipped through his own window, and closed it behind him like he had done many times before. 

Dex moved straight to his laptop, already pulling it open, fingers moving before the screen fully lit up.

Not on anyone’s side anymore? That was a red flag, right?

He immediately looked up databases, records, everything. 

He checked for you— your address, previous work history, licenses, financial trail. 

He found nothing.

He refined his search. He tried running deeper pulls. He cross-referenced. He even systems.

Still… Nothing. No childhood records, no school registrations, no medical history.

No digital footprint worth anything. No tickets, no fines, no traces.

It wasn’t just clean, It was impossible.

Dex leaned back slowly, eyes still locked on the screen like something might appear if he stared long enough.

His jaw tightened slightly.

Because now those moments replayed differently.

The way you talked, the things you said, the way you never explained anything fully, the way you didn’t ask questions.

You weren’t just a tattoo artist with a strange past.

You had no past at all. 

He stared at the blank screen again. “Who are you?” 

—

The next couple of nights were normal. It wasn’t until Thursday that things began to unravel. 

That night, you weren’t at your fire escape. 

Most people would ignore it, maybe even justify it with she’s  ust busy, she’s just tired, it’s just one night.

Dex didn’t believe in just one night. Not with you.

You were consistent, and that made patterns easy. You came home at the same time, your lights turned on within minutes, your window slid open not long after that. Sometimes you were early. Sometimes a little late. But you always showed up.

So when he stepped out onto the fire escape and your window stayed dark, he immediately started running all the scenarios in his mind.

He stood there, one hand resting against the brick, eyes fixed on the blank glass like it might change if he waited long enough.

Still, nothing.

He told himself to leave after ten minutes. He didn’t.

He stayed longer than that, longer than he would’ve for anyone else, eyes flicking to your window every few seconds like it was a reflex he couldn’t shut off.

When he eventually he went back inside, the feeling didn’t go with him.

—

The next day he confirmed you weren’t at work.

At first, he was confused when you didn’t get out of your door at all. Then, he thought you might’ve gone extra early. 

So he did what he did best— he went to your studio. 

From across the street, he saw that your workstation was empty. No setup. No sketches. No you leaning over someone’s arm with that focused look you got when you were working.

Nothing.

By the time he got back to the building, he made a beeline straight to your door. 

Dex didn’t knock, or call. He didn’t do things halfway.

He broke in, lock giving up in seconds. He slipped inside without a sound.

Your apartment felt… wrong.

Not messy or disturbed. Everything was where it should be. Your shoes were by the door, your jacket thrown over the back of a chair, a glass left on the counter like you’d meant to come back to it.

But it felt… stale. Like you hadn’t opened the window all day and all night.

Dex moved through it quickly, eyes scanning every corner, mind already working through possibilities.

Nothing in the living room. Nothing in the kitchen.

Then, he heard a faint sound from down the hall,

He stopped immediately. He heard a shallow inhale, followed by another, and another, like whoever it was couldn’t catch up with their own lungs.

Dex followed the sound to the bathroom. The door was barely closed, just enough to muffle the sound.

He pushed it open.

You were on the floor, folded into the corner like you were trying to disappear into it.

Your knees were pulled tight to your chest, arms wrapped around them so hard your knuckles had gone white. Your head was tipped forward, forehead almost pressed to your arms, your entire body shaking in violent, uncontrollable tremors.

You were breathing too fast, each inhale breaking halfway through, like your lungs were locking up on you. Your chest heaved, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing was enough.

Your eyes were wide, unfocused, glassy with panic, like you weren’t fully there anymore.

For a second, you didn’t even recognise him.

When you did, you shrank even more, as if you were embarrassed to be found. 

“Hey…” he pushed the door away, “hey, I’m here now.”

“He’s here,” the words tore out of you eventually. “He’s here, he’s in town! I saw him-I saw him—”

Dex dropped in front of you, one knee hitting the tile hard, but his focus never left your face.

“Look at me,” he said, cutting through the chaos. “Tell me what happened.”

Your gaze flickered, struggled, then caught on his.

“One of my dad’s friends—” you choked, your breath hitching so hard it made your whole body jerk, “His old friends, he found me, he found me—”

Your hands went to your hair, fingers tangling, pulling just enough to hurt, like you needed a physical sensation to hold onto.

“He’s gonna tell him,” you rushed, the words tumbling over each other faster and faster, spiralling, “he’s gonna tell my dad and he’s gonna… he’s gonna get me, he’s gonna—fuck—fuck!”

Your breathing broke completely after that, a choking inhale one right after another.

Your body folded tighter in on itself like it was trying to shut everything out.

Dex grabbed your wrist. “You need to tell me who you saw and where you saw him,” he insisted, “I can’t help otherwise.”

You stared at him, chest heaving, like you were trying to force your body to cooperate.

“Marko,” you whispered, the name barely making it out. “Marko Kovač.”

Your breath hitched again, but you pushed through it, words spilling out uneven and desperate.

“I saw him on E-Eighth and 23rd, outside that liquor store with the broken sign… he was just standing there and he looked right at me, like he knew, like he recognised me—”

Your grip tightened on his sleeve without you even realising.

“He knows I’m here,” you said, voice cracking completely now. “He knows.”

Dex went still, only for a second.

“Okay,” he said immediately.

Just like that, he stood up like there wasn’t time to waste.

Your hand shot out, grabbing his sleeve before he could step away, fingers clutching hard, desperate.

“Don’t…” your voice broke so badly it barely sounded like you. “Don’t leave me, please—”

Dex stopped and looked down at you. He looked at the way you were shaking. He looked at the tears you didn’t even seem to notice. At how completely, utterly terrified you were.

You, who laughed at everything, who teased him, who sat on that fire escape like nothing could touch you…

You were breaking.

And you were asking him to stay, but it didn’t change what needed to happen.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, quieter now. “Okay? Stay here.”

Your grip didn’t loosen right away. Your fingers trembled too much.

“Okay,” you whispered finally, as he gently pulled free. 

Because at the end of the day, you trusted him. 

—

It took a while before you could even move.

For a long time, you just stayed there on the bathroom floor, curled into yourself, your breath still catching every few seconds like your body hadn’t quite figured out how to come down yet.

But slowly, it eased.

Not gone. Not even close.

But Dex being there, telling you that he’d help, it was enough that your fingers stopped shaking so violently. Enough that you could uncurl your arms without feeling like everything would fall apart if you did.

You wiped at your face with the heel of your hand, dragging in a shaky breath that actually finished this time.

In.

Out.

It was still uneven, but it was better.

“Okay,” you whispered to no one, voice hoarse.

When you moved, every motion felt heavy, like your body wasn’t fully yours yet. You pushed yourself up using the edge of the tub, legs unsteady, breath catching again when the room tilted slightly.

You waited it out. Then you made yourself keep going.

You washed your face with cold water over and over until your skin stung and your reflection looked less… broken.

It didn’t fully work, but it helped.

You pulled your favourite hoodie on like armour. You tugged the sleeves down over your hands, fingers disappearing into the fabric, as if you could hide in it.

Then you made it to the couch.

You curled up in the corner, knees tucked in again, but looser this time. 

He said he’d be back.

So now, all you could do was wait. 

—

The door clicked open so quietly it almost blended into the hum of your apartment, but you still heard it. You didn’t even question how he got the keys. 

You didn’t move right away. You were still curled into the corner of the couch, hoodie pulled over your head, sleeves covering your hands, your body folded in on itself like you hadn’t fully decided it was safe to exist again. 

You looked up as he stepped into the living room.

Dex stood there like nothing had happened. Like he hadn’t left you shaking on the bathroom floor, like he hadn’t disappeared into the night with a name and a purpose. 

“Hey,” he said casually, like he’d only gone out to grab dinner.

Your throat felt a little tight, but not from fear. Not anymore. “Hi, Tony.”

You watched his mouth twitch at that, like the name amused him now instead of hiding him. 

Your eyes dropped to his sleeves and saw blood.

It was dried now, but you could tell it soaked into the fabric near his wrists and forearms. It was subtle. If you hadn’t seen blood on fabric before, you might have chalked it up to a stain. 

Your gaze lingered a second longer than it should have. He followed it.

Then, almost like it didn’t matter, he lifted the plastic bag in his other hand slightly. “I got Chinese.”

Your lips curled up faintly.

He didn’t ask where anything was. He set the bag down, pulled containers out, found plates in your kitchen as if he’d done it a hundred times before. The fragrant smell filled the room and it felt almost surreal layered over the reality of him standing there with blood on his clothes.

You pushed yourself up slowly, legs still a little heavy, and drifted closer.

“Did you—” you started, then stopped yourself.

You were going to ask. You wondered, distantly, how long it had taken. If Marko had recognised him. If he had time to understand why he was dying, or if it had been quick and efficient, like everything Dex did.

You wondered where the body was.

The Hudson, maybe, weighed down. Or maybe somewhere no one would ever think to look. Dex didn’t seem like the kind of man who left loose ends. 

Maybe he wanted someone to find the body, maybe as a deceleration of loyalty to you.

You decided against asking. 

He glanced at you anyway, oblivious.

“I got your favorite,” he added instead, nudging a container toward you as he sat down.

You blinked at that. “You don’t know my favorite.”

“I do.”

You opened the container. He could tell by your smile that he was right.

You huffed out a small laugh, shaking your head as you scooted beside him. 

“You’re welcome,” he said. 

You bumped your shoulder lightly into his as you settled in. He didn’t move away. If anything, he leaned into it just enough that you noticed.

You picked up your chopsticks, pausing for a second before actually eating. Your hands weren’t shaking anymore. That alone said everything.

“You don’t have to worry about him anymore,” Dex said.

You went still for half a heartbeat. Then you nodded. “Okay.”

You wondered again, briefly, if Marko had been scared. Then you took a bite of your food.

“Good?” Dex asked, watching you a little too closely.

You chewed, swallowed, then nodded again. “Yeah. Really good.”

He relaxed. It was as if he had been waiting for that exact reaction and didn’t quite know why.

And just like that, the moment settled into comfortable silence.

You leaned back into the couch, letting your shoulder brush his arm this time. 

Your body felt different now. Not wired with panic anymore, not collapsing in on itself. 

Against all odds, you felt safer because he was here.

Dex turned his head slightly, after finishing his meal. “Who was he?”

You knew what he meant. You nudged your food around with your chopsticks, eyes dropping. “My dad’s friend.”

You said it very flatly.

“Your dad has… very armed friends.”

You couldn’t hold back a scoff. You shook your head, unable to hide your cynical amusement. “Yeah,” you said. You hesitated, before reluctantly adding, “He was the one who armed them.”

That got his full attention. “Oh?”

Well, fuck.

You were assuming he killed a man for you. What more did you really have to hide?

“Ugh,” You exhaled, dragging a hand up over your face before letting it drop. “He was—is-  an arms dealer.”

You leaned back further into the couch, head tipping slightly against the cushion as you stared at nothing in particular. “I ran away when I was eighteen,” you continued. “Just as he was starting to talk about how his empire was one day all going to be mine.”

You let out a small, humourless huff. “Guess I wasn’t into the whole… family business.”

You never really had a problem with what he did, it was just the world you grew up in. You learned early not to judge it. To each their own and all that shit. Survival didn’t leave much room for morals anyway.

But you didn’t love it.

You could do it. You would do it, if you had to. That part of you was there, shaped and grown exactly the way your dad intended. 

Violence didn’t scare you.

You understood it, the same way you understood how to hold a pencil or steady a glock in your hand. If you were out in a situation where it could arise, you wouldn’t hesitate to dish it out. Even your mother considered you trigger-happy.

Still… it was never what you wanted.

You just wanted to draw.

And sometimes, that made you feel… pathetic. 

Because the voice your dad left behind in your head never let it be simple. In your nightmares, he’d call you selfish and weak. He’d say that all you cared about was your own need for self-fulfillment. While everyone else carried the family legacy, you were chasing something as small and useless as art for art’s sake.

Safe to say, he wasn’t exactly a good father.

Not when he shoved a gun into your small hands at seven years old and told you to stop shaking and kill the son of a bitch already. Not when he pressed the barrel one to your head at thirteen because you were sketching during one of his “important meetings,” telling you that if you were going to survive in this family, you needed to learn what deserved your attention.

He called it tough love. He was preparing you for a bright future.

And maybe it worked, a little. 

Because you didn’t run from violence. You just… didn’t actively seek it.

Dex didn’t interrupt. He just listened.

“He’s still looking for me,” you added, looking down. “Or was. I don’t know. I stopped checking.”

You lifted your shoulders in a small shrug. It looked casual, but there was a tired smile behind it. For a second, Dex wondered how much time you had really spent on the run.

“I just want to draw,” you finished, looking down at what was left of your food. Suddenly, your appetite vanished. 

To Dex, everything made sense. 

To him, it explained the missing pieces, your lack of records, your offhand comments, the way you never asked questions you should have asked.

He studied you for a second before asking, “You left all of that behind?”

After all, as an FBI agent, he’d seen heirs fight over an empire far less than what he could gather was your father’s. He’d seen people kill their own brothers over a small-town drug operation. 

You managed a chuckle. “I could’ve been filthy rich,” you paused for a second. “But I don’t like paperwork.”

For a second, he just stared at you.

Then… he laughed.

It wasn’t loud, but it was real. It sounded abrupt and rough, like the sound surprised him. You glanced at him, a smile tugging at your lips in response.

Out of all people, he made you feel like you had normalcy.

You were just on your couch, eating takeout, laughing about paperwork… while a speck of his sleeve was still dark red. 

You wondered, again, how it happened. What it looked like. If he’d been thinking about you while he did it.

The thought didn’t make your stomach turn. Instead, you felt more at peace knowing he had done it.

That Marko was gone.

That wasn’t coming to drag you back.

You nudged his arm lightly with yours. “Hey, Tony?”

“Yeah?”

“Come back when you’ve got time.”

He watched you, waiting.

“Think about what you want, and I’ll give you that tattoo,” you said, a warm smile forming. “It’s free,” you added. “As a thank you for helping with Marko.”

Dex held your gaze for a long second. Whatever he was looking for, he found it.

“Okay,” he said.

—

A couple of days later, he showed up at your door on your day off.

You let him in without a second thought.

“So,” you said, stretching your arms over your head as you turned toward your setup, “today’s the day. What are we doing?”

Dex stepped inside, eyes looking to the couch, now covered with extra fabric, the neatly arranged tools, the small table you’d set up.

“I don’t know what,” he said after a second.“But I know where.”

“Alright, Tony,” you nodded, grabbing a pair of gloves and snapping them lightly against your wrist. “Show me where you want it. We’ll figure the rest out together.”

He didn’t hesitate before he took his jacket off and reached for the hem of his shirt. He pulled it off in one smooth motion.

And… Jesus.

You knew he was built. You weren’t blind. You’d seen the way his shirts fit, the way he carried himself, the way fabric would ride up his stomach on the fire escape.