kimikimi

Dex loved sushi night Fridays.

You two had settled into the routine months ago without either of you ever really acknowledging it. Fridays after work. The same tiny sushi place tucked between a laundromat and a pawn shop, the sign flickering like it was running on borrowed time.

Inside was all warm amber lighting and fogged windows, the air thick with rice vinegar and the low hiss of the grill.

The hostess smiled the second you walked in now, already reaching for a menu you never looked at, because you already knew what you wanted, and Dex already knew you’d order it before you did.

You referred to it as your “cheat day,” something Dex privately thought was bullshit. You were always working on cutting back on takeout or “trying to be healthier,” only to cave every Friday night without fail.

But the word cheat implied you were doing something wrong. Indulging something shameful. And he hated the idea of you apologising for your own appetite.

He’d watched the pattern long enough to know it by heart; Sushi Fridays. Thai food on bad days (red curry, extra spicy, no matter how much it made you sweat). Wings—any kind really— when you were too tired to cook… or on your period.

And coffee, too much coffee, all throughout the week, the same two-pump vanilla order from the cart on 47th.

Dex didn’t think you needed to worry about your weight. The thought irritated him every time it surfaced, a low-grade static at the back of his skull. You were beautiful exactly as you were.

If he had things his way, you’d indulge every craving that crossed your mind. Midnight milkshakes. Extra dessert. Those strawberry candies you liked from the bodega near your apartment.

He’d drive across the city at two in the morning if you suddenly decided you wanted dumplings or lemon cake or greasy diner fries.

The restaurant lights caught against your jewelry when you moved, tiny gold hoops glinting near your jaw. Warm light softened everything about you.

Your skin took on a honeyed tone, the shadows beneath your cheekbones gentle rather than sharp. It made you glow in a way Dex had never been able to properly explain to himself.

Like candlelight catching honey, or the last sun ray through a window at dusk.

He watched you pick up another fried roll with your chopsticks, your nose wrinkling slightly when it nearly slipped apart before you got it into your mouth.

That made him chuckle. A sound that died in the hollow of his chest, swallowed by the space between his ribs.

God.

He needed this.

Needed the quiet rhythm of it after the last week spent buried in FBI work. The lies. The noise. Too many voices in his ear, too many meetings, too much time spent orbiting Wilson Fisk and his suffocating shadow.

His apartment never helped either. Too quiet and too still. Silence had a way of making his thoughts louder, the walls pressing in until he had to pace just to feel like he still had room to breathe.

But here, things felt… normal.

Outside, rain poured weakly past the windshield of Dex’s car.

The wipers had been off for a while now, leaving the glass streaked with dried residue. The heater hummed low near his knees, filling the car with dry warmth and the heavy, layered smell of fried tempura, soy sauce, and burnt coffee that had long gone cold in the cupholder.

Across the street, through the fogged window of the sushi place, you laughed suddenly at something on your phone, leaning forward across the table.

Dex smiled before he could stop himself.

He adjusted the takeout container balanced carefully in his lap before it tipped against the console. The plastic lid was beaded with condensation, the heat of the food fogging it from inside.

Soy sauce packets crowded the cupholder beside the coffee and crinkled napkins were shoved messily near the parking brake.

One dumpling had leaked grease through the paper container onto his slacks minutes ago, a dark stain spreading across the fabric near his knee, but he barely cared.

He hadn’t even registered the warmth of it until it had already cooled.

Dex stuffed another piece of sushi into his mouth absently, chewing without tasting, his eyes never leaving you.

The rice was a little dry. The ginger had that sharp, stinging bite that made the back of his throat tighten.

He’d picked up the order right before you came in, timed it so the food would still be warm when he settled into the driver’s seat.

His monocular rested against his thigh for barely a second before he lifted it again automatically. He settled it back against his socket without thinking, the world snapping into that familiar, compressed clarity.

His pulse eased the moment your face sharpened back into focus.

There she is.

Chin propped lazily into your palm now, reading something intently on your phone. A server passed behind you carrying a tray and even distracted, you looked up at him automatically. Sweet and polite.

Warm in that effortless way that still twisted something painfully tight inside Dex’s chest after all these years.

You gave pieces of yourself away carelessly without even realising it. A smile here. A laugh there. A small wave to a regular who held the door for you.

You never hoarded your warmth. It just spilled out of you, abundant and unguarded, and Dex collected every stray drop like a man dying of thirst.

His thumb moved slowly against the steering wheel, tracing the seam where the leather had begun to crack near the top.

This was exactly what he needed after the week he’d had.

Just you and him.

The thought surfaced without permission, settling somewhere deep behind his sternum. He let it sit there as his hand drifted toward the glove compartment without looking away from you once.

The latch gave with a quiet click, and his fingers found the familiar bundle by touch alone, soft cotton folded neatly in the dark, tucked beside his registration and a crumpled gas receipt.

He drew it carefully into his lap, keeping his eyes fixed on your silhouette through the monocular.

The pale fabric bunched lightly in his fist. The lace trim was cool against his palm, delicate, a detail he’d traced with his fingertips so many times that he could map it blind.

Almost absentmindedly, like a man reaching for a cigarette or rubbing a familiar scar, he brought the stolen panties toward his face and inhaled slowly.

The smell hit him in stages. First the faint, clean scent of your vanilla lotion, the one you applied after every shower. Then the warmer note of your shea body oil, the one you massaged into your elbows and knees before bed.

Beneath that, something warmer and distinctly you, something saline and soft that settled low in his stomach hard enough to make his slacks tighten slightly. A familiar, hungry ache that bloomed behind his fly at just your scent.

He held the breath for a long moment, letting it steep in his lungs, before exhaling through his nose.

A small souvenir he’d rewarded himself four months ago, after letting himself into your new loft late one night to make sure everything was secure.

You’d forgotten to latch one of the windows facing the fire escape. Careless sweet thing. The lock had been loose, the frame warped slightly from humidity, and when he’d tested it with his fingertips, it had swung open without resistance.

Dex had fixed it for you before leaving. Tightened the screws on the latch, oiled the track, made sure it would hold.

He’d found the panties in your laundry basket on the way out. A pale blue cotton pair, with a small tear near the waistband that you’d never bothered to mend. He’d slipped them into his jacket pocket before he could think better of it.

Across the street, you laughed again, shoulders shaking lightly this time, your head tipping back just enough to expose the column of your throat.

He exhaled softly through his nose, smiling along with you like he really was sitting across the table

Just you and him.

That was all he needed.

He didn’t know what to think when he saw the newspaper.

For one suspended second, there was nothing. Not anger. Not fear. Not even confusion. Just a sharp, empty stillness, like a pin had dropped somewhere inside his head and every part of him had gone quiet trying to hear where it landed.

Dex had been sitting there for hours, spine rigid, eyes fixed on the bank of screens showing Fisk’s penthouse from every angle. The man himself was visible in one frame, seated at his dining table. Calm and unbothered like always.

Then the paper landed in front of him.

FBI INVESTIGATES ONE OF THEIR OWN.

Agent Kane shifted beside him. “I’m sorry, Dex. This isn’t right,” she said quietly.

He heard her voice, but it came from somewhere far away, as if she were speaking through water. The words landed and dissolved.

Dex stared at the headline until the letters stopped being letters and became just shapes—black ink pressed into pulp, arranged by somebody who didn’t know him, didn’t care about him, didn’t understand anything about what he’d done or why.

The static began to rise. It always started like this, a low hum at the base of his skull, building as the world pressed in.

Around him, the room kept moving. Agents passed behind his chair, their footsteps a rhythmic interruption. Phones rang in overlapping cadences. Somebody laughed too loudly near the elevators, the sound slicing through the air before smearing into everything else, sharp and meaningless.

He could feel them looking at him.

Not directly, none of them were stupid enough to stare. But he felt the glances anyway. The way people looked at car wrecks when they slowed down just enough to see blood but not enough to admit they wanted to.

His jaw tightened. The muscle in his temple pulsed once, twice.

He was being used as a scapegoat.

By the time Winn and Hattley called him into the office, the static had thickened. It filled the room around their fake sympathetic voices.

“We’re going to find out who leaked this,” Hattley said, leaning forward with that practiced look of concern people used when they wanted to seem human.

Dex looked at her mouth while she spoke.

Not her eyes. Her mouth.

The words were too clean. Too prepared. Every syllable landed exactly where she wanted it to, like she’d rehearsed this conversation. There was no surprise in her tone, no real outrage. Just a performance of solidarity.

She was lying.

They all were.

The thing inside him stirred, restless and cold. He pressed it down. But it was harder now, when the structure he’d trusted was cracking around him, when the rules he’d followed were being used to crush him.

It had been the Bureau.

They were throwing him under the bus because someone had to bleed publicly, and it was easier if it was him. Easier because he had no wife waiting at home. No kids. No loud, charming friends in the office to make a scene on his behalf.

Easier because he was useful until he wasn’t, precise until precision made them uncomfortable, disciplined until discipline stopped protecting him from becoming disposable.

After everything, they were disposing of him.

If he followed the rules, he could be normal. He could be safe. Everyone else could be safe.

But the rules had just thrown him away.

“Think of it as a paid vacation,” Hattley said, offering a thin smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

The static in his skull sharpened.

Dex looked down at his badge before he realised he’d already taken it off.

He didn’t remember doing it. His fingers had moved on their own, undoing the clip, sliding the leather folder from his belt.

Now it sat in his palm like something foreign, the gold shield winking at him tauntingly.

His hand didn’t feel like his own when he set it on the desk. The leather made a soft, final sound against the wood. Then the gun. The weight of it leaving him felt wrong in a way that made his stomach tighten sharply.

Badge. Gun. Credentials.

Structure.

Mercer’s voice rose in his head before he could stop it.

Get a job with structure, Dex. Rigid structure. Stay disciplined. Stay useful. Routine is important for you.

Routine. Rules. The job gave him rules. Rules told him what to do. Rules made the edges of the world sharp enough to hold onto. Without them, everything blurred.

Everything bled into everything else. The thing inside him pushed against its cage like an animal scenting an open door.

And now they were taking it away from him like it was nothing.

By the time he reached the hall, the migraine had settled behind his right eye, hot and pulsing. It pressed against his optic nerve, sending thin spokes of light across his vision.

Nausea turned slowly in his stomach, a greasy, rolling sensation that made his throat tighten.

He was aware of his body in pieces. His pulse hammering in his wrists, too fast. Sweat cooling under his collar, the fabric damp and clammy against his neck. The empty space at his hip where his gun should have been.

Empty.

Empty.

Empty.

By the time he stepped back out into the hall, the Bureau felt wrong around him. Hostile in a way it hadn’t ten minutes ago.

But the air had changed. It pressed against him differently now, thick and heavy, as if the building itself had decided he didn’t belong here anymore.

He walked past an agent he’d worked with for two years. The man met his eyes, then looked away.

Dex’s fingers twitched at his sides.

None of it belonged to him anymore.

Or he didn’t belong to it.

The job was gone. The badge was gone. The rules were gone. And without them, he felt himself starting to come apart at the seams, the threads that held him together snapping one by one.

His breathing thinned. Too shallow. Too fast. The edges of his vision began to grey, just slightly, like someone was turning down the lights from far away.

He needed out.

He needed air.

No.

Not air.

You.

He needed to see you. Now.

The thought cut through the static like a blade. A fixed point in the chaos.

Dex looked down at his watch.

6:17 p.m.

Thursday.

You did your grocery shopping on Thursdays after work because you hated weekend crowds. End of the week, but not the weekend. Practical. Smart.

Sometimes you bought tulips even though you worked at a florist and could probably get better ones for free.

He had never understood that.

He loved that he didn’t understand that.

The Bureau, Hattley, Winn, Fisk, the paper, the headline, the badge sitting on that desk like a dead thing. None of it mattered. Not right now.

Not when his mind was splitting open and the only thought holding him together was the image of you standing under grocery-store fluorescents.

He turned before he’d fully decided to move.

His feet carried him toward the elevator. Each step felt like pushing through water. The walls of the hallway seemed to close in, then expand, breathing with him.

By the time he reached the elevator and pressed the button, his jaw ached from clenching. His hands were steady, but only because he had trained them to be.

Inside, everything was coming apart in small, quiet pieces. Like a dam with a thousand tiny cracks, water seeping through each one, the whole structure holding only by habit and memory.

That was fine.

He didn’t need the badge.

He didn’t need their rules.

He had you.

The drive from the bureau to the grocery store did nothing to settle the storm clawing through Dex’s chest.

His palms were slick against his slacks. He’d just walked in. Empty-handed. Bereft of purpose beyond the single, desperate need screaming through every nerve ending in his body.

Find her. Find her. Find her.

The automatic doors hissed shut behind him, sealing him inside a world of too-bright lights and Muzak and the sharp chemical sweetness of floor cleaner.

His tie felt like it had shrunk two sizes since he’d left the Bureau, the knot pressing against his throat like a noose. He tugged at it once, twice, but it only made it tighter.

The migraine was still there, settled between his eyes like a hot coal. It pulsed in time with his heartbeat, a steady, throbbing pressure that made the aisles seem to swim when he moved his head too fast.

And Mercer’s voice.

She was there, in the back of his skull, the way she always was when things got bad. But today she wasn’t the steady, grounding presence he remembered.

Her voice flickered and warped, sliding between registers like a broken radio.

Stay calm, Dex. Breathe. You’re okay.

Then, lower, twisted. Freak. Look at you. They threw you away because they saw it. They knew what you were.

His fingers twitched at his sides.

You were supposed to be better than this. All that discipline. And you can’t even—

“Shut up,” he muttered under his breath, but the words came out wrong, too loud, and a woman passing with a toddler shot him a strange look.

He didn’t care.

He checked the endcaps, the seasonal displays, the little stand with flowers near the entrance because you liked stopping there.

You weren’t there.

His breathing got thinner, shallower, each inhale less satisfying than the last. A tightness gathered behind his eyes, hot and humiliating, frustration swelling so quickly it scared him.

Not here. Not here. Not—

He crossed the store, his shoes squeaking on the polished floor. He passed a man in a dark coat who frowned at him. He ignored him. He rounded the corner into the makeup aisle and his chest seized.

Empty.

The shelves stretched out before him, neat rows of bottles and tubes and compacts reflecting the harsh light. A woman stood at the far end, examining a lipstick, but she had different hair. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

The frustration crested, crested, broke.

Tears pricked at his eyes, and he blinked furiously against them. His throat closed. His hands shook.

This was stupid.

This was—

Where the hell are you?

He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes until he saw stars. The pressure helped, briefly, grounding him in pain instead of panic. He counted to ten. Then to twenty.

He breathed in through his nose, out through his mouth, the way Mercer had taught him when he was thirteen and didn’t know how to exist without breaking things.

In through the nose. Out through the mouth. You’re in control, Dex. You’re always in control.

But the voice was quiet now, drowned out by the static.

He dropped his hands and looked up.

There.

The fruit and vegetable aisle. Eight feet away. Your back.

And everything stopped.

The world snapped into focus like a lens being adjusted. The lights dimmed to something bearable. The buzzing of the fluorescents faded to a dull hum.

A shock ran through his system, ice-cold and bracing, like being splashed with water in the middle of a fever dream.

His throat worked. He swallowed once, twice.

He dragged his eyes up, angry at himself and not angry at all. Angry that he couldn’t just walk up to you, couldn’t just be normal, couldn’t just—

His hands were still shaking.

His chest was still tight.

His breathing was still too shallow, too fast, each inhale catching on something sharp lodged in his lungs.

He was still falling apart, and you were right there, six feet away, squeezing pears and humming to music he couldn’t hear, and he couldn’t calm down.

The realisation hit him like a fist to his throat.

If he couldn’t pull himself together now, if he couldn’t drag his shattered pieces back into something resembling a whole person, he was going to have a full mental breakdown with you a few steps away from him.

He couldn’t let that happen.

He couldn’t.

He stood at the end of the aisle, frozen, his hands hanging uselessly at his sides, his heart hammering against his ribs, his eyes fixed on the curve of your spine and the gentle sway of your hips as you moved down the display.

And for a long, terrible moment, he didn’t know what to do.

The word nectarines repeated in his skull like a lifeline.

He didn’t know why that particular fruit had caught his attention—maybe because they were closest, maybe because they were red and blushing and reminded him of the colour your lips had been at the diner.

It didn’t matter. He grabbed one, then another, turning them over in his trembling hands pretending to inspect them.

Three steps away. You were three steps away.

Dex’s shoe scuffed against the linoleum as he adjusted his stance, positioning himself so he could see you in his peripheral vision without turning his head.

Look at something else. Let your eyes find the target naturally. But his eyes weren’t listening.

They kept sliding back to you, hungry and helpless, drinking in the curve of your hip where your sweatpants rode low.

He could smell you.

Estée Lauder. Beautiful Magnolia.

He knew the scent because he’d bought a bottle once, from a department store in Midtown, just to understand what it was that clung to your clothes and lingered in the air long after you’d passed.

He’d sprayed it on his pillow that night and buried his face in the fabric, breathing you in until the noise in his head quieted to a hum.

He inhaled now, deep and long, hoping it would do the same.

It didn’t.

His hands were still shaking. He could see the tremors as he turned a nectarine over, the fruit wobbling in his grip like he’d never held anything in his life.

Just breathe, Dex, Mercer whispered, but her voice was thin, frayed, like a recording stretched to breaking.

We don’t know how this got out, Hattley’s voice cut in, smooth and false, dripping with pity. We’re going to find out who leaked this.

His jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached.

He wanted to hit something. Wanted to drive his fist into the display of nectarines, into the wall, into his own skull if it would make them stop.

Stop. Stop. Stop.

He tried to focus on you. On the sound of your breathing. On the fact that this was the closest he’d been to you in years.

But nothing helped.

The voices swelled. The migraine throbbed. His hands shook. His chest constricted. And he was drowning, drowning, drowning in the fluorescent light of a grocery store—

“Excuse me.”

The world snapped into silence.

Dex’s head shot up so fast his neck cracked. His eyes found yours, and everything in him locked up like a circuit breaker tripping. You were looking at him.

He stared.

He blinked.

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

The silence stretched, and your smile tightened at the edges, just slightly. You cleared your throat, shifting your weight, the picture of casual confidence.

“I don’t know if this is gonna sound a bit creepy,” you said, and your voice was smooth, rolling, the same voice he’d heard a thousand times in his memory, “but do I know you?”

His heart stopped.

Then restarted at double speed.

Say something. Say something normal. Say something human.

“I—” He cleared his throat. The sound was raw, scraping. He forced a smile onto his face, “I don’t think so.”

You tilted your head, studying him. “No, I do.”

There was no room for argument in your voice. No uncertainty.

He tilted his head, mirroring you. Let his eyes narrow slightly, as if he were searching his memory.

As if he didn’t have every moment he’d ever seen you catalogued and cross-referenced in his mind.

As if he wasn’t memorising the way the light caught in your hair, the faint sheen of gloss on your lips, the tiny beauty mark just above your collarbone.

You snapped your fingers, before pointing to yourself. “I used to work at this diner a few years ago. I don’t know if you know it—Bel Air Diner, maybe?”

He let the pause hang. Let his brow furrow. Let himself pretend, when all he wanted to do was reach out and touch you to make sure you were real.

“Bushwick?” he said finally, his voice steadier than he felt.

Your eyes lit up, and the sensation of seeing that, of being the cause of that light, was like injecting ecstasy straight into his veins.

“Yeah!” You nodded, your smile widening into something that crinkled the corners of your eyes. “The one on the corner of 9th Ave. That’s the one.”

Dex’s breath caught. He swallowed, trying to find his footing, trying to remember how to be a regular person, having a conversation with a woman who had no idea that she was the only thing that had kept him from falling apart for years.

“Yeah,” he said, and his voice cracked on the word. “Yeah, I remember.”

“But you don’t remember me?”

Dex blinked at you, the words landing like a slap he didn’t see coming.

For a long, terrible second, his brain seized, caught between the instinct to apologise and the dawning realisation that you were teasing him.

You were teasing him.

The corners of your mouth curved, and there it was, a glint in your eye, a playful tilt to your chin that he’d never seen before.

Not in all the hours he’d spent watching you. You were straightforward. Bold.

In his head, you were soft. Sweet. A little shy, maybe, the way you’d duck your head when a customer thanked you, the way you’d bite your lip when you were concentrating on an arrangement.

He’d built a version of you that was gentle and malleable, a fantasy that existed to be consumed, not to talk back.

“I’m kidding,” you said, after his silence stretched a beat too long. Like you could see him drowning and had thrown him a line.

He hated himself.

The feeling was familiar, worn smooth by years of repetition, but this was a fresh, raw kind of hatred that made his palms itch.

The Dex in his mind, the one he’d imagined a thousand times, would have had a smooth response ready. Would have leaned against the display, flashed a grin, said something that made you laugh.

That Dex was charming. That Dex was normal.

But that Dex wasn’t real. And the real Dex was standing here, sweat beading at his temples, hands shaking.

He scrambled, forcing a smile onto his face that he hoped read as charming rather than manic.

“No, no.” His voice came out too quick, too eager. He reined it in, softened his tone. “I do remember you now. I’m just surprised you remember me.”

You tilted your head smiling, and the movement pushed the apples of your cheeks up. God, you were beautiful.

“Can never forget a handsome face,” you said.

Handsome. She said handsome. She’s flirting with you. That’s what this is. Say something back. This is how it works. So do it.

But his brain was a white-noise void, every thought scattering like roaches in harsh light.

His smile felt brittle on his face, but he held it there, hoping you couldn’t see how badly his hands were shaking.

“Thank you,” he managed, and the words came out rough, almost shy.

He shifted the nectarine to his other hand, wiping his palm against his slacks in a motion he hoped looked casual. Then extended his hand.

“Dex.”

You smiled and told him your name. Like he didn’t already know it. Like he hadn’t whispered it into the dark of his apartment with his fist wrapped around his cock, gasping it into his pillow like a prayer.

Your hand slid into his.

The contact was electric. Your skin was warm, soft, impossibly real against his calloused palm.

He had to stop himself from closing his eyes, from letting the sensation wash over him and drown him.

Every nerve in his body screamed at him to pull you closer, to bring your hand to his mouth and press his lips to your knuckles, to your wrist, to the delicate skin where your pulse beat just beneath the surface.

Instead, he shook your hand once, twice, like a normal person, and let go before he did something he couldn’t take back.

“So, Dex,” you said, drawing his name out just slightly, testing it, like you were deciding whether you liked the way it felt on your tongue.

You had no idea he’d been waiting to hear you say it for years.

“What brings you to the supermarket at—” you glanced at your phone, then back at him, a small smile playing at your lips, “—seven pm on a Thursday.”

Simple question. Normal question. The kind of question one person asked another when they wanted to keep a conversation alive, when they wanted to prolong it.

And you hadn’t even seemed to notice that he had no shopping cart. No basket.

Just himself, standing here in the produce aisle like a man who’d wandered in off the street with no purpose other than to stare at fruit he had no intention of buying.

There was no way he could tell you the truth. That just hours ago he’d been framed by the FBI, scapegoated for an ambush he’d had no part in, cast out of the only identity he’d ever known.

That he’d spent the last hour spiraling in his car, hallucinating voices, pressing a gun to his own jaw before forcing it back into the glove compartment.

That he’d driven here not for groceries, but because your Thursday evening routine was the only fixed point left in his collapsing world.

He couldn’t say any of that.

So he said the first plausible thing that surfaced from the scrambled mess of his brain.

“End of the week,” he heard himself say instead. The words came out rough, but he pushed through. “But way less crowded on weekends.”

You raised your brows, a hint of a smile tugging at your lips. “So I guess I’m not original at all, huh?”

You were making a joke, and he’d walked right into it and now he was supposed to respond. Laugh. A laugh would be normal. People laughed at jokes. That was the expected behavior. He should laugh.

He made a sound that was supposed to be a chuckle but came out more like a choked exhale, his lips stretching into a smile that felt too wide, too stiff.

“Great minds think alike, I guess.” He tried for laid-back, tried to make his shoulders relax, but they stayed hunched, like he was bracing for impact.

You tilted your head, just slightly, and hummed in agreement.

And then there was a pause.

A little one, at first. The kind of pause that happens naturally in conversation, where one person waits for the other to speak next.

But it stretched. It grew. It filled the space between you like something physical, and Dex felt it pressing against his chest, tightening around his throat.

Say something. She’s waiting. She gave you an opening and now you’re letting it die.

But his mind was a blank wall.

He cleared his throat, the sound rough and too loud in the quiet aisle. “So, uh—” He glanced down at the nectarine in his hand, then back up at you. “You come here often?”

The words landed and he wanted to die. You come here often? That was the line he’d pulled from his brain.

The most generic, cliché, forgettable question in the history of human interaction. The kind of thing a mannequin would say if it were programmed to simulate human speech.

He braced for the look. The one that would say really? delivered with a curl of the lip, a shift of weight away from him. He’d seen that look on women’s faces before, when a man tried too hard or said the wrong thing.

So when you let out a laugh, genuine and surprised, it hit him like a punch to the chest.

You were laughing. At him, maybe, but not at him. With him. Like you found him funny, endearing even. Like his awkwardness wasn’t a turn-off but a joke you were both in on.

Dex felt his face go warm. He rubbed his brow, a nervous tick he couldn’t control, the heel of his hand pressing against his forehead as if he could massage away the embarrassment.

“Yeah, I heard it when I said it,” he murmured, almost to himself. “Sorry…”

He risked a glance at you through his fingers, and you were looking at him with an expression he didn’t recognise.

You looked like you were trying not to smile and failing, the corners of your mouth twitching upward.

His heart was hammering so hard he felt it in his throat, in his temples, in the tips of his fingers.

“I’ll give you a pass for now,” you said, a smile breaking through fully now.

Dex’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

Nothing came out.

He swallowed hard, his throat clicking. “Thanks,” he said again , the word barely above a whisper. “I—I’ll try to do better next time.”

You raised your brows again, but your smile didn’t shift. In fact, it seemed to deepen, the corners of your mouth curling with delight. “Next time?”

The question hung in the air, but to Dex it felt like a tightrope. One wrong step and he’d plummet.

He hoped to God you couldn’t see the sheen of sweat beading on his forehead, the way his pulse was visibly jumping in his throat.

Adapt. You have to adapt. She’s smooth, she’s quick, she’s going to eat you alive if you don’t keep up.

He forced his mouth into something resembling a smile, though it felt more like a grimace on the way up. “You’re the one who said for now.”

And that’s how Dex ended up with your number.

Thirty minutes earlier, Dex had been sitting in his car, the engine off. His spare gun had been in his lap, cold and heavy.

He’d pressed the muzzle against the soft skin under his chin, felt the metal dig in, tasted the copper of a future he’d almost chosen.

His career. His structure. His livelihood. His reputation. All of it gone, stripped away in a single afternoon by people who’d used him and discarded him like a broken tool.

One pull. That’s all it would have taken.

Now, driving home, the streets of New York blurring past his windshield in streaks of neon and headlights, Dex felt something he couldn’t name.

It wasn’t relief, exactly—the weight of what he’d almost done was still there.

But it was layered over with something else, something bright and unfamiliar, like sunlight breaking through clouds after a storm.

He kept glancing at his phone. It sat in the cupholder, screen dark, but he could feel it like a beacon. Your number. 

Your number, given willingly, freely, without coercion or manipulation.

The thought made his chest ache, a dull, insistent pressure behind his ribs. He flexed his hands on the steering wheel, and let out a breath that was half-laugh, half-sob.

It was a high he’d never experienced before. And he was terrified of coming down.

He pulled into the parking lot of his apartment building, cut the engine, and sat there for a long moment, staring at his phone. The screen was dark, but he could still see your face, the memory of your smile burned into his eyelids.

And then his phone buzzed.

The screen lit up with a number he didn’t recognise, but the area code was familiar. New York. Manhattan.

He stared at it for three rings. Four. Five.

His thumb hovered over the decline button, but something made him pause. Something cold and familiar, settling in his gut like a stone.

He answered, “Hello.”

“When I was a boy…”

His skin wasn’t buzzing.

It was flaying itself from the bone, a high-frequency current ripping through every nerve ending until he couldn’t tell where the violence ended and his own body began.

The climb back through his window was a smear of pure sensation, the groan of the frame digging into his bruised ribs, the distant wail of a siren that might have been real or might have just been the echo of the screams still ricocheting inside his skull.

He tumbled into the living room, the red suit clinging to him like a second skin of sin and sweat, and the silence of his apartment hit him like a physical blow.

He spared a blank look at the microwave. 2:37 AM.

The high was curdling. The exquisite, crystalline purpose Fisk had injected into his veins was souring into a dense, suffocating fog.

The voices in his head were warping and overlapping, layered with the fresh screams of the people he’d just killed.

They weren’t separate voices anymore. They were a single, roaring static that made his skull feel too small for his brain.

He fumbled at the gloves, his fingers clumsy and uncoordinated, tearing at the constricting seams.

The helmet followed. The seal broke with a soft hiss of trapped breath, and the cool night air of the apartment hit the raw cuts on his cheekbone and split lip like a strip of litmus paper.

He wasn’t in control. He was a passenger, a ghost haunting a machine made of meat and bone.

The machine moved on autopilot, carrying him across the sticky floor through the debris of his life, toward his closet. His safe.

His fingers knew the combination better than his conscious mind. Beep. Beep. Beep. The door swung open.

Mercer’s tapes.

He reached for them, his fingers brushing the familiar edges, and he could already hear her voice in his memory. She would fix this.

She would rebuild the walls, draw the clean lines of the diagram, soothe the static into structured silence.

He paused.

The tapes felt dead in his hand. Cold. Alien. The thing inside him, that had killed tonight with a terrifyingly genuine grin splitting his face under the mask, revolted.

Structure was a cage. Control was a lie he told himself so he didn’t have to look at the abyss. Mercer’s voice was the voice of a woman who had never existed, a blueprint for a life he had never actually lived.

He didn’t want to be fixed tonight.

He wanted to be real.

He set the tapes down. The plastic clattered against the wood shelf, and the sound was a door slamming shut on his old self.

His body, no longer his to command, drifted to the phone on the nightstand. The screen was a blinding star in the gloom of his apartment.

Before he could rationalise the catastrophic stupidity of it, his thumb pressed the call button.

The phone pressed against his ear. The flat, electric hum of the dial tone filled his head.

First ring. A knife. 

Second ring. His breathing turned ragged, harsh stabs of air in and out. He couldn’t control it.

His hand shook, the tremors traveling up his arm to his chest, making his heart rattle against his ribs.

Third ring. Where the fuck were you? The thought was a claw in his chest, desperate and raw, scratched out from the bottom of his fractured soul. 

Fourth ring. Despair hit him like a bullet. The rejection he deserved. The silence he was born for.

His thumb was already moving to sever the connection, to retreat into the familiar dark, to let Mercer be the only voice he ever heard again.

The click.

A breath on the other end. The soft rustle of sheets. The sound of someone shifting out of sleep, pulling themselves back to consciousness for him.

A voice, sleepy and warm, cutting through the static in his soul.

“Hello?”

He opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out. His throat had sealed itself shut, his tongue a dead weight.

The buzzing in his head didn’t stop, it changed, shifting from static into a high, thin whine of pure panic.

What the fuck was he doing?

He should hang up. He should hang up right now, pretend this never happened, crawl back to the tapes and let Mercer stitch him back together.

But he didn’t move.

“…hello?”

Your voice again. Groggy, yes, but there was an edge now. Caution. Awareness creeping in.

He could picture you propping yourself up on an elbow, squinting at the phone, trying to place the unknown number glowing in the dark.

He cleared his throat.

“Hi. It’s Dex.”

Silence. Long enough that he felt his stomach drop through the floor.

“From the grocery store,” he added, stupidly. “Earlier today.”

More silence. He counted the seconds. One. Two. Three. His heart was a jackhammer against his ribs, and he was suddenly, acutely aware of how insane this looked.

He had your number for less than twelve hours. He had called you at 2:37 AM. There was no version of this that didn’t make him seem unhinged.

Then your voice came through, softer now, a hint of recognition bleeding through the drowsiness.

“Oh. Guy from the fruit aisle.”

The words were flat, stripped of the teasing lilt from earlier. He winced. He was an idiot.

But he couldn’t hang up either.

“Yeah,” he said, and his voice cracked on the single syllable. He cleared his throat again, harder this time. “Sorry. I know it’s late. I—”

He stopped. Ran a hand through his damp, tangled hair. The words weren’t coming. They never came when he needed them. “I couldn’t sleep.”

A beat. Then, “You call everyone you meet at the grocery store when you can’t sleep?”

There it was. The faintest edge of something, not quite playfulness, but not hostility either. A testing of the waters. He latched onto it like a drowning man grabbing a rope.

“No,” he said, and the honesty slipped out before he could stop it. “Just you apparently.”

The silence that followed was different. Softer. He could hear the rustle of fabric on your end, like you were shifting, settling deeper into the conversation.

“You’re weird, you know that?” you said, but your voice had lost its wariness. There was a thread of amusement in it now.

“I know,” he said. He didn’t even try to deny it.

He could have left it there. Could have apologised again, said goodnight, let you go back to sleep.

But the buzzing in his head was quieter now, drowned out by the sound of your breathing on the other end of the line.

“I was wondering,” he started, and his mouth went dry again. He pushed through it. “If you’re free tomorrow. Or, I guess, today now. For dinner.”

The words came out rushed, jumbled together like he was afraid he’d lose his nerve if he didn’t get them all out at once.

He squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the rejection.

Another long pause. Then, a soft, breathy sound that might have been a laugh.

“You’re asking me out at three in the morning?”

“Depends on if you say yes,” he said, and the words surprised him. They were smoother than he’d intended, a sliver of confidence he didn’t know he possessed.

Your laugh came through fully this time, quiet and warm, and something in his chest cracked open.

“That’s a good line,” you said. “You rehearse that?”

“No,” he admitted. “I’m kind of making this up as I go.”

“Pretty good for improv.”

He felt the corner of his mouth twitch, almost a smile. “Does that mean you’ll say yes?”

A beat. Then, “Depends on what you’re offering.”

He let out a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding. His fingers tightened on the phone, grounding himself in the plastic and the warmth of your voice.

“Anything you want,” he said. And he meant it.

Dex prided himself on focus.

It was the cleanest thing he had, the discipline that held the loose pieces of him together. But here, across the table from you, that focus was a dead wire. Useless.

Ten minutes in and he still couldn’t land anywhere. His eyes kept skirting, from the deep crimson painted across your mouth to the sharp neckline of that tight black dress, down to where the fabric pulled across your chest.

He felt the heat crawl up the back of his neck, forced himself to your eyes instead. The dark liner made them bottomless, pulling at him with every slow blink.

His body was wired tight, locked up like he was bracing for impact. Every breath measured. Every movement too careful.

Terrified of the wrong word, the wrong look, shattering whatever luck had gotten you here.

You took a sip of your wine, watching him over the rim. Then you tilted your head, a smile catching at the corner of your mouth.

“Relax. You’re sitting like I’m gonna jump over this table and bite you.”

The image slid under his skin before he could stop it.

I’d let you, he thought. Anywhere you wanted.

He locked that down, managed a rough chuckle. “Still can’t wrap my head around why you said yes.”

You shrugged, setting the glass down. “Got nothing better to do. Thought I might as well get a free meal with a hot guy.”

Hot. You called him hot. 

Then your eyes narrowed. “Unless you’re one of those guys who believe in fifty-fifty for the first date.”

The question caught him off guard. For a second, he just stared at you, his brain struggling to catch up. Then he let out a choked laugh, shaking his head quickly.

“No. No, god, no. I promise.”

“Good.”

Your voice softened into something warm, teasing. You leaned back in your chair, swirling the wine in your glass, and the candlelight caught the curve of your smile.

The waiter appeared and Dex grabbed the menu like a lifeline, staring at the words without reading them.

He nodded when you ordered, asked for the same thing. When the waiter left, you leaned forward, elbows on the table.

The neckline of your dress dipped just slightly, and he caught the black lace underneath.

Fuck. Were you doing this on purpose?

“So, Dex from the fruit aisle.” Your voice had dropped, stripped of the teasing edge from earlier. Something warmer now. “Tell me something about yourself.”

His stomach dropped. Just a flash. He pushed it down.

“I’m an FBI agent,” he said. Safe. Simple enough. “Or—was. It’s complicated.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Complicated how?”

“The kind that makes for a bad first date story.” He tried to smile. It came out crooked.

You laughed, and the sound loosened something tight in his chest. “Fair enough. I’ll take a rain check.”

He nodded, scrambling for footing. “What do you do?”

You rolled your eyes and he felt a flicker of panic before you huffed, amused. “Just a florist. Completely boring compared to chasing bad guys, I’m sure.”

There’s nothing boring about you. The thought hit him hard and fast, and he heard himself say it out loud before his brain could catch up. “There’s nothing boring about you.”

You let out a small laugh. “So you do know how to sweet talk a girl.”

He couldn’t hide the blush that crawled up his neck to his ears, burning against the collar of his shirt. “I’m just saying it how I see it.”

“Maybe,” you hummed, “but then again you don’t know anything about me.”

Never had he heard a more untrue statement in his life. 

He knew your schedule. Your favourite coffee order. Your comfort shows you loved to binge. Which soap you preferred. Your go to nail colour. How you liked cats and dogs equally.

But he couldn’t say that. So he just looked at you across the table, watched the candlelight catch your eyes.

The food arrived. Steam rose from the plates between them, the scent of ginger and soy cutting through the moment. The waiter said something he didn’t catch.

“Well,” Dex murmured, “I’m hoping to learn if you’ll let me.”

Being here with you was something he had never experienced before.

The night before was a smear of violence but it all felt muted now, distant, like a transmission he couldn’t tune into anymore.

Not with you across the table, your voice cutting through the static in his head.

You kept the conversation easy. When he fumbled an answer or went quiet because his brain short-circuited trying to keep up with you, you didn’t pull back. You just smiled, shifted, let him find his footing again.

Once or twice he found himself wondering why you were even giving him a chance. You could have anyone. Smarter, smoother, someone without the weight he carried.

It made no sense that you’d picked him. Not that he’d let anyone else close enough to try, but the thought still lingered.

Still, there was a weight pressing down on him the whole time. A clock ticking. He felt it sharpest as the check arrived. Signing it, his stomach twisted into a knot so tight it made him nauseous.

The thought of leaving, of stepping into the cold air alone and watching you walk away, hollowed him out.

He could already feel the emptiness waiting. Maybe he’d just follow you home. Watch you through your window. It would be enough to comfort him.

“How are you getting home?” The words came out before he could stop them.

“Walked here,” you said, pulling out your lipstick. “Guess I’ll do the same.”

He watched your mouth as you reapplied it, the careful, practiced stroke of colour. He couldn’t look away.

“Let me drive you.”

You paused, the compact half-closed. Your eyes lifted to his, and he could see you weighing it, the stranger across from you, the risk of letting him know where you lived. The silence stretched. He felt the whole night teetering.

Fuck. He’d done too much. He ruined it. He’d pushed too hard, too fast, and now—

“Okay.”

It hit him somewhere between the Williamsburg Bridge and the mouth of your street, a strange hollow equation he couldn’t solve.

Away from you, the restlessness ate at him, he couldn’t settle, couldn’t quiet the noise inside his head.

But here, with you in the passenger seat, so close he could feel the warmth coming off your skin through the space between them, he wasn’t any better. His body was locked tight, every muscle braced for a mistake he hadn’t made yet.

He couldn’t stop glancing at you while he drove.

His hands were rigid on the steering wheel, knuckles pale in the passing streetlight. You leaned back in the seat, your head tilted, completely relaxed, watching the city slide past the window.

No tension in your shoulders. No flicker of anxiety. Just calm. It made him feel transparent, like you could see every loose wire and frayed thread in his head.

By the time he pulled up outside your building, his heart was beating so hard he could feel it in his throat, a quick, raw pulse that wouldn’t steady.

How had this happened so fast? He’d spent years wanting you, fantasising about you from a distance, and now that you were here, the wanting had twisted into a kind of fear.

The fear of doing something wrong. Of saying the wrong thing. Of breaking whatever fragile spell had let him into your space tonight.

You turned toward him. Your expression was different now. At dinner, your eyes had been sharp, playful, like a vixen toying with her prey.

But here, in the dim lamplight bleeding through the windshield, your lashes fluttered against your cheeks, and your gaze was wider, softer, something he didn’t have a name for.

“I had a good night,” you murmured.

Dex opened his mouth. His tongue felt thick, useless. “Me too.” It came out pitiful, barely a whisper.

You kept looking at him, waiting. Your lashes lowered, then lifted, like an invitation he couldn’t decode.

He stared back, frozen. Should he get out? Open your door? Walk you inside? He had no script for this, no smooth line rehearsed. His eyes drifted from yours to your parted lips. Red. Soft.

He was still scrambling through the noise in his head for the right move when your hand moved. It slid up the back of his head, fingers threading gently into his hair.

Before he could react, before his brain could catch up, you were pulling him forward.

Your lips met his.

For a long, heavy beat, Dex didn’t move.

His body locked up completely as the reality of your mouth sank in. You were kissing him. The thought cracked through the static in his brain like lightning. You. Kissing him.

Then instinct took over before he could wreck it. His lips started moving, awkward and unpracticed, trailing behind the rhythm you set.

A shaky breath left him, his shoulders dropping a fraction as he relaxed into the warmth of your mouth, the simple unimaginable fact of it.

Until he felt the wet tip of your tongue brush his bottom lip.

He tensed immediately. His eyes cracked open, found yours closed, your face slack and completely lost in it. He parted his lips. Let you in.

The second your tongues met, a raw sound caught in his throat. His cock hardened painfully behind his zipper, a rush of blood that made everything else go distant.

The taste of you flooded his senses, faintly sweet, the slick slide of your tongue against his. His brain went quiet for the first time all night.

Then something inside him snapped.

The careful, terrified version of himself fell away. He had to touch you. Now.

He pulled his hand off the wheel, lifted it. Fingers spread, hesitated. Your hair? Your waist? Your cheek? He had no idea what he was doing. Every option felt wrong, but doing nothing was unthinkable.

His palm landed on your throat before he could decide.

His fingers curved around the column of your neck, thumb settling against the flutter of your pulse. You moaned into his mouth, pleased and approving, and the sound shot straight through his chest. You liked it.

He pushed harder against your mouth, greedier. The hand on your throat tightened fractionally, pulling you closer across the console.

He didn’t care about breathing anymore.

The taste of you flooded every nerve in his body like a drug he’d been starving for his whole life. He’d rather suffocate against your mouth than take another clean breath of empty air.

Your hands found his jaw, and for a split second his brain screamed that you were pushing him away. Too rough. Too fast. He ruined it. 

His grip started to loosen, a fresh wave of shame crawling up his throat—

But your fingers dug into his skin and pulled him closer.

The sound that left him was raw, almost animal. Relief and hunger tangled together as you yanked him deeper into the kiss.

Little noises escaped your mouth, muffled against his tongue, and he tried to memorise each one even as he lost himself in the wet slide of your lips.

His hand slid from your throat to your jaw, fingers curling around the bone, tilting your head back as he pushed further into your mouth.

His tongue swept against yours, messy and desperate. He didn’t know what he was doing, he just knew he needed more. He wanted to crawl inside your skin.

Then your palms pressed flat against his chest.

Push.

The separation hit him like cold water. He broke away gasping, and his mouth chased yours before he could stop himself. But you didn’t pull further back.

You caught his lips in soft, quick pecks, barely there, just enough to soothe the ache you’d left behind.

Your mouth brushed against his when you spoke, voice low and rough.

“Do you wanna come up?”

Fuck. 

The words hit him square in the chest, then dropped lower, settling hot and heavy in his gut. He was already nodding before his brain caught up, pupils blown wide, lips wet and swollen.

“Yeah,” he breathed against your mouth, “Yeah. Fuck—yes.”

Dex’s pulse slammed against his ribs the second the lock clicked behind him.

Standing in your apartment. He forced his eyes to wander like he was stepping in here for the first time, even as his brain catalogued every detail against the map he’d already burned into his memory.

“Nice place.” The words scraped out of him, rough and distracted.

He tilted his head at the bookshelf, the framed photograph he knew was your mother, the throw blanket draped over the armchair that he’d watched you buy from a street vendor three months ago.

Every careful glance was a lie, but he wore it like a second skin.

“Thanks.” Your voice came from right behind him.

Then your hands were on him again, sliding over his shoulders, turning him around. He went without resistance, boneless under your touch. You pulled him down and met his lips halfway.

Your tongue pushed past his lips and he opened for you like a starving thing.

Your fingers twisted into his hair, yanking his head forward just enough to deepen the angle, and he let you. He’d let you do anything.

You bit his bottom lip, sucked it into your mouth, and his hips jerked forward involuntarily.

His hands began to move. Everywhere. Your waist, the dip of your spine, the swell of your hips.

He grabbed desperate handfuls of your ass, pulling you flush against him, and the heat of your body through that thin dress made his head spin.

You were soft in ways he’d only ever imagined, and his imagination had been thorough, but nothing prepared him for the reality of you pressed against his aching body. He wanted to touch every part of you at once, to map you entirely.

You broke the kiss first, panting, lips slick and swollen. Your forehead rested against his, your breath hot and uneven on his mouth. “I don’t do this often,” you murmured, the confession raw and almost shy.

“I know,” he breathed without thinking.

The second the words left him, he felt you stiffen. You pulled back, confusion knitting your brows. “What do you mean, you know?”

Dex’s stomach dropped into freefall.

His eyes snapped open, panic flooding his veins. 

Fuck. Fuck. 

He scrambled for a lifeline, his mouth opening and closing before the lie managed to crawl out. “I mean I—I know what you mean. Me too. I don’t—I don’t do this often either.”

You held his gaze for a long moment. The sharpness in your eyes softened, and you snorted, a puff of warm breath against his lips. “You’re so weird.”

Relief flooded him so fast it made him dizzy. Before he could dwell on it, you were kissing him again, swallowing whatever fragile composure he had left.

Your hands guided him backwards. He followed blindly, drunk on your mouth, stumbling until the back of his knees hit something soft. You shoved him. Hard.

He landed on the couch with a grunt, bouncing once before settling, looking up at you with wide, dazed eyes.

Before he could ask, you leaned down, bracing your hands on his knees, and kissed him again. Slow and deep, a thorough occupation of his mouth that erased every thought trying to surface.

He melted into it, his hands finding your thighs, stroking the warm skin exposed by the hem of your dress.

You broke the kiss gently, pulling back just enough that he could see you.

You were on her knees. Between his legs. Looking up at him through your lashes, your lipstick smudged, your hair loose around your face.

The sight of you there stole the air from his lungs.

“What—what are you doing?” Dex heard himself ask, his voice thin and wrecked, stripped of every layer he hid behind.

You smiled as your hands slid up his thighs, fingers pressing into the muscle.

“Having my dessert.”

Dex’s brain went completely blank when your fingers found his belt buckle. The soft click-clack of it coming undone rang through the room like a gunshot in his ears.

He opened his mouth to speak, to protest, to do something other than lie there like a trembling mess offering himself up to you, but all that came out was a strained, cracked confession,

“Are you sure—you-you don’t have to—”

His hips lifted off the couch cushions anyway.

A complete betrayal of every word coming out of his mouth. His body didn’t give a single fuck what his brain was trying to negotiate.

It wanted you. It had always wanted you.

You didn’t hesitate. You dragged his slacks and boxers down his thighs in one smooth motion, baring him completely to the warm air of your apartment.

He shivered, his cock springing free to slap against his stomach with a wet, heavy sound.

He was already painfully hard, leaking against his navel, the swollen head flushed dark and slick, and the sight of you looking at it made his stomach clench so hard he thought he might be sick.

Your hand wrapped around him like it belonged there. A firm grip that made him grunt, his hips bucking up into your fist before he could stop himself.

The heat of your palm was everything. He watched, completely mesmerised, as your thumb swept across the sensitive head, smearing the bead of pre-cum that had gathered there, using it to slick your stroke.

You looked up at him through your lashes, your mouth hovering inches from his tip.

Your breath was hot and uneven against his sensitive skin, and there was a tremor in your voice when you spoke that made his heart stutter in his chest.

“You don’t want me to suck your cock?”

Jesus Christ. 

The visual was so fucking obscene, you, on your knees, looking up at him with those wide, innocent doe eyes while your hand worked his shaft and your lips hovered so close he could feel the ghost of them.

He had to lean his head back against the couch cushion and squeeze his eyes shut. He was going to cum just from looking at you.

A soft, dark laugh came from between his legs. “That wasn’t a no.”

Before he could answer, something wet touched him.

His eyes snapped open. He looked down just in time to see your tongue trace a slow path along the thick vein on the underside of his cock.

An embarrassing, needy whimper crawled out of his throat before he could strangle it. His hips twitched, desperate to push into the warmth of your mouth, but he held himself still by sheer, crumbling willpower.

You didn’t stop. You laid a soft, lingering kiss right on the crown, your lips parting just enough to ghost over the sensitive slit before pulling away.

When you looked up at him, your eyes were dark and hooded, your lips slick and parted.

“Keep your eyes on me, Dex.”

He nodded. A dumb, jerky motion. He didn’t trust his voice. He didn’t trust anything. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

You didn’t even have his cock in your mouth yet and he swore he could feel the pressure building at the base of his spine, coiling tighter with every second you held his gaze.

His hands fisted in the couch cushions, knuckles white. His breathing was ragged, each inhale a desperate gasp.

He clenched his jaw so hard his teeth ached, watching in rapt focus as you parted your lips and took the swollen crown of his cock into your mouth.

Your eyes stayed locked on his. You held his gaze as you sank deeper, inch by agonising inch.

The wet heat of your tongue curled around his shaft, the velvet pressure of your cheeks hollowing as you pulled him further into the slick, perfect heaven of your throat.

Every inch you swallowed made his hips twitch involuntarily against the cushions. Every flutter of your lashes made his stomach clench tighter. He couldn’t look away. He couldn’t.

Oh, fuck. Your mouth was so warm. So impossibly wet.

The slick slide of your tongue curling around his shaft, the flutter of your throat when the tip pressed against the back of your mouth, he didn’t think anything in this world could feel better than having his cock in your mouth.

He was certain of it. This was the single best moment of his entire miserable life. He was ready to die right here and call it a life well-lived.

You pulled back slowly, dragging your tongue along the thick, throbbing vein on the underside of his cock before taking him deep again with a low moan.

A broken whimper crawled out of his throat before he could clamp down on it. “Fuck—fuck, I can’t—” His voice was wrecked, barely more than a ragged whisper. “You gotta stop—or I’m gonna—”

You just hummed casually against his slick, swollen tip, your breath hot and uneven against his sensitive skin.

“No, no, wait—please, I want it to last,” he heard himself begging, the words tumbling out in a desperate, breathless rush. “I’m not gonna make it—I swear to God—”

You didn’t stop. You just held his gaze with those innocent, wicked eyes and took him deeper.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He was so fucking pathetic. Lasting like some inexperienced teenager, his first time all over again.

He tried to think of anything else; baseball statistics, the cold metal of his gun, the layout of the presidential hotel, but it was no fucking use at all.

Every nerve in his body was tuned to the wet slide of your mouth, the curl of your tongue, the soft, muffled gag when he hit the back of your throat.

He squeezed his eyes shut, could feel the frustrated tears prickling hot behind his lids. He couldn’t look at you anymore.

He had to stop himself, had to make this last, but his body was betraying him completely, trembling, arching, pushing deeper into your heat.

You took him back into your mouth in a single, fluid motion. Hollowed your cheeks. Pressed your tongue flat against the underside of his shaft.

And when you swallowed around the head of his cock, pulling him deeper into the wet velvet of your throat, he shattered completely.

“Oh fuck—I’m coming—”

His hips bucked involuntarily, driving himself deeper into your throat, feeling you gag around him, feeling your throat constrict and pulse as you swallowed, milking the orgasm out of him.

His release slammed into him like a freight train.

Hot, thick ropes of his come spilled into your mouth, and you swallowed around him, milking every drop, refusing to let him go even as he convulsed through the aftershocks.

His back arched off the cushions. His hands fisted so hard in the fabric he thought he might tear it. His vision whited out completely.

When his hips finally stopped stuttering, when his body went limp and trembling beneath you, you released him with a soft, wet kiss to his oversensitive tip.

The tenderness of it made his chest ache.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he felt himself mumbling, the words spilling out before he could stop them. “That was so fast—I couldn’t—I didn’t mean to—”

His hand came up to cover his face, shame and self-disgust crashing over him in waves.

But you wouldn’t let him hide. You caught his wrist, gently pulling his hand away, and crawled up his body.

Your lips were slick and swollen, your chin wet with him. You cut off his rambling apologies with a kiss, and his own taste flooded his senses. He groaned into your mouth, as your tongue played with his.

You broke the kiss just barely, your lips brushing against his as you murmured, “That was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

He blinked up at you, dazed and trembling. “Yeah?”

You hummed against his lips, a slow, satisfied sound. “And I can’t wait for you to fuck me.”

The words hit him like a spark in a gas tank. The shame, the self-hate burned away in an instant, replaced by an animal surge of hunger.

He looked at you, still dazed, a slow, disbelieving smile pulling at his lips.

He still hadn’t ruined anything yet. He still hadn’t lost you.

His hands found your waist, gripping hard enough to bruise. Before you could react, he was moving, wrapping his arms around you and hauling you up with him.

You let out a surprised squeal, your legs wrapping around his waist instinctively.

He captured your mouth in a bruising kiss as he stood, walking blindly toward the hallway where he knew your bedroom was.

Dex lay perfectly still, afraid that even the smallest movement might shatter the fragile, impossible peace of the moment.

You were curled against him, your back pressed to his chest, your breathing slow and deep, the sound of someone completely and utterly spent.

He had never felt anything like this. Not once in thirty-two years. This is what it feels like. This quiet. This rightness. This terrifying, exhilarating certainty that he was exactly where he was supposed to be. Happiness.

His mind drifted back over the hours, replaying the sharp, vivid highlights like a film he couldn’t look away from.

He had learned so much about you tonight. How your breath hitched when he scraped his teeth along your pulse point. How your fingers twisted in the sheets when he found the perfect angle.

You loved being on your hands and knees for him. The first time, he’d followed your lead, sinking into you from behind, gripping your hips so hard he knew there would be bruises.

He pounded into you, watching your body rock forward with every thrust as you cried into your pillows, muffling your pleasure.

But something in him had itched. He hated it like this.

He couldn’t see your face. Couldn’t watch the expressions that flickered across your features when he hit that spot. Couldn’t feel your heartbeat against his chest or taste your moans with his own mouth.

It felt too much like taking, and not nearly enough like having you.

After you came the first time, your body shuddering and clenching around him, he pulled out before you could catch your breath and flipped you onto your back.

He needed to see you. Needed to watch the way your mouth fell open, the way your pupils blew wide when he settled between your thighs.

He buried his face between your legs and drank you in with a need that bordered on worship.

He lapped at your slick, swollen folds until your second orgasm crested, your hands fisting in his hair, your hips grinding against his mouth as you gasped his name into the dark.

By the time your third orgasm rolled through you, he had your legs wrapped high around his waist, his body pressed flush against yours.

He was buried so deep inside you that the world outside the space between your bodies ceased to exist. His nose touched yours. His forehead rested against yours.

He captured your gaze and held it hostage.

“Look at me,” he breathed, the command barely a whisper. “Don’t close your eyes. Look at me.”

He wanted you to see everything he had felt since the first moment he saw you in that diner. The obsession. The desperation. The hunger that had consumed him for years.

He wanted you to feel it in the way he moved inside you, as if he was trying to pour every ounce of himself directly into your bloodstream.

He knew you probably didn’t understand the full scope of it.

But lying here, in the aftermath, he let himself pretend. He pretended you had been waiting for him all this time. That your body recognised him. That this was always meant to happen.

When he finally let go, he held himself perfectly still, pumping his release deep inside you with a low groan.

He pressed so close that he could feel your heartbeat through his chest, grinding against you as if he could transfer his devotion through sheer physical proximity.

His nose stayed pressed to yours, his lips hovering just over your mouth, sharing the same warm, humid breath.

He whispered things against your lips. Broken things. Beautiful things.

Confessions that would never make sense in the harsh light of day, but here, in the dark, felt like the only truth that mattered.

“Been waiting so long. So long. I fucking worship you. You’re mine. I’m yours. Don’t ever leave me.”

His voice cracked on the last word. He didn’t care. He let himself be cracked open, let you see the raw, jagged edges of him that he had spent a lifetime hiding.

You didn’t answer. You probably didn’t even hear him. Your eyes had fluttered shut, your body going lax and heavy against him.

Lost to sleep. Lost to him.

He smiled against your hair, a real smile that softened all the hard lines of his face. He didn’t need you to answer. Not tonight.

Just having you here, warm and trusting and full of him, was already more than he ever dared to hope for.

The air in the room had cooled, but wrapped around you, he was warm for the first time in as long as he could remember.

Only twenty-four hours ago, he had been suffocating. Bound by rules and routines and the desperate need to keep himself contained.

But Fisk had shattered the cage he kept himself in. He had shown Dex a version of himself that was raw, hungry, and unapologetic. And instead of retreating from the wreckage, Dex had stepped into it.

He had let go of the ropes and the rules and the white-knuckled grip on control. He had chosen himself for the first time in his miserable, constrained life.

And by choosing himself, he had found the path that curved inevitably, beautifully, right back to you.

He pressed a soft, lingering kiss to the curve of your shoulder. His hand splayed across your stomach, feeling the warmth of you.

I did this, he thought, pride blooming in his chest. I chose this. I chose me. And it led me to you.

Dex buried his face in the curve of your neck, his nose pressing deep into the warm, sleep-soft skin just behind your ear.

He inhaled slowly, letting your scent flood his lungs. You smelled like home—the faint coconut trace of your shampoo, the salt of dried sweat from the hours you had spent tangled together, and something deeper, muskier, that was entirely, irrefutably you.

God. This was unbelievable.

And that was where his next problem laid.

He spared a glance down, past the rumpled sheet that clung to his hips, and saw the unmistakable tent of fabric where his cock had hardened again.

He let out a quiet, shaky breath, his eyes tracing the outline of his own need with a mixture of frustration and irritation.

He couldn’t fucking help it.

He felt like a kid in a candy store. The kid being him, a thirty-two-year-old man who had never known what it felt like to want something and actually get it. And the candy store was you. Access to your body.

The knowledge that he could touch you, taste you, sink into you whenever he wanted, and you would let him. You would want him to.

He had known it would be addictive. He just hadn’t realised how quickly the addiction would take hold, how it would wrap around his nervous system and tighten until he couldn’t think of anything else.

His body moved before his mind could catch up.

Spooned against you, chest to your back, he felt his hips roll forward in a slow, instinctive grind.

The thick length of him slid into the warm cradle between your thighs, pressing against the soft, slick heat of you through the sheet. A low sound caught in his throat, a choked half-groan that he swallowed against your skin.

Fuck. He should let you rest.

He had been so rough with you tonight. Your body had given him everything.You deserved sleep. You deserved peace.

But his cock didn’t give a shit about what you deserved.

Before he could stop himself, his hips rolled forward again, and this time the tip of him nudged past the edge of the sheet, finding the bare, wet seam of your cunt.

He gasped against your shoulder, his eyes squeezing shut. The slide of you against him was obscenely slick, unbearably warm, a friction so perfect it made his toes curl against the mattress.

Shit. You were still leaking him from earlier.

The evidence of what he had done to you was still there, pooled between your thighs, making you slick and ready for him all over again.

He pressed a quick, guilty kiss to your shoulder, his lips lingering just long enough to form a silent apology. I’m sorry. I can’t help it. I just... I need you. I can’t stop needing you.

His hand moved, sliding over the curve of your stomach, tracing the soft dip of your waist before cupping your breast.

The weight of it filled his palm perfectly, the flesh so soft and warm, molding against his fingers like it was made for him. He squeezed gently, then let his thumb drag across your nipple, feeling the peak tighten and pebble under his touch.

A small shift rippled through your body. A subtle arch of your spine. A soft, breathy sound that caught in your throat.

He froze.

Every muscle in his body locked tight. His breath stopped. His heart hammered against his ribs so hard he was sure it would wake you on its own. He waited, suspended in the pure terror of being caught. 

She’s going to wake up. She’s going to see what I’m doing. She’s going to realise what a fucking creep I am—that I can’t keep my hands off her even when she’s asleep, that I’ve been watching her for years, that I am completely, irreparably obsessed with her.

The seconds stretched like hours.

But you didn’t wake. Your breathing deepened again, settling back into that slow, even rhythm. Your body relaxed against his, soft and trusting and completely oblivious to the war raging inside his chest.

He should have stopped. He should have been grateful for the reprieve, thanked whatever cruel god had given him this moment, and let you sleep.

Instead, he kept moving.

His hips resumed their slow, steady rhythm, grinding against your soaked cunt, the head of his cock sliding through the mess of his own release and your combined arousal.

The sensation was maddening; a wet, slippery tease that promised heaven without delivering it.

His hand stayed on your breast, rolling your nipple between his fingers, feeling the way your body responded even in sleep.

He pressed his lips to the back of your neck, a long, open-mouthed kiss that tasted of salt and skin. His breath came hot and uneven against your nape.

“I’m sorry,” he rasped against your skin, barely a whisper. “But I can’t... I can’t stop touching you. Every second I’m not inside you feels like I’m wasting time I don’t have.”

His hips rolled again, slower this time, deeper, the blunt tip of him catching at your entrance before sliding away, teasing both of you.

A shudder ran through his entire body.

“Please. Just a little more.”

The words slipped from Dex’s lips against the warm skin of your neck, a prayer offered to himself more than you, a plea for permission he was already taking.

He buried his face deeper into the crook of your shoulder, breathing you in until his lungs ached, and let his hips move.

There was nothing graceful about it. He rutted against you like a man possessed, the thick length of him sliding through the slick heat pooled between your thighs.

The sensation erased every rational thought. There was only you. The need to be inside you again. To own you. To fill you so completely that you couldn’t forget him, couldn’t leave him.

His breath came heavier against your nape, as his hand slid from your breast down to your stomach. He pressed his palm flat against the soft curve of your belly and pulled you tighter against him.

The arch of your back pressed your ass directly against his cock, and a fractured groan escaped him.

That’s when he felt it. A shift in your body. Your muscles tensed, your breathing changed, the subtle alertness of waking. Your voice cut through the dark, rough with sleep.

“Dex...?”

He froze for the span of a heartbeat. Then his hand came up to cradle your jaw, tilting your head back just enough for him to press a kiss to your cheek.

His hips never stopped their relentless grind, his cock catching at your entrance before sliding away again.

“Shhh,” he breathed against your ear. “Go back to sleep, honey. I’ve got you. Just let me stay right here.”

He needed you to stay in that space between dreaming and waking, where you were pliant and accepting and he could pretend his need wasn’t completely out of control.

But you turned your head toward him, your lips parting.

“Dex—”

He couldn’t let you finish. He kissed you, his tongue sliding into your mouth before you could form the rest of the sentence.

And you let him. No, you kissed him back. Your mouth softened under his, your body melting into his, your tongue meeting his with a lazy, sultry rhythm that told him everything he needed to know.

He felt your hand slide down between your bodies, your fingers searching blindly until they found him.

You traced the slick head of his cock, your touch featherlight, and a shudder ripped through him so violently he had to brace himself against the mattress.

“Fuck,” he gasped against your lips. His forehead dropped to yours, his breath ragged. “You want this too.”

You didn’t answer with words. You nudged the tip of him against your opening, a silent direction that drove the last shred of his restraint into the dust.

He answered with a small grunt as he pushed inside.

The heat of you swallowed him whole, and he dropped his forehead to yours, breathing you in. A soft, breathy moan escaped your lips, and your fingers curled against his back.

“Dex,” you murmured again, but this time it wasn’t a question. It was a sigh of surrender. A welcome.

He pressed another kiss to your mouth, before he began to move.

He tried to start slow. He tried to savour the sensation of sinking back into your slick heat. The attempt lasted only a handful of careful thrusts before the hunger surged through him.

His strokes turned hard and punishing. The rhythm of his hips fell into a desperate tempo that rocked the mattress beneath you, the steady thump-thump-thump of the headboard keeping time with the wild beating of his heart.

His hand slid up from your hip, fingers grazing the soft skin of your stomach, your ribs, before curling around your throat.

You looked up at him through heavy-lidded eyes, your pupils blown wide, your lips parted around soft, broken ah-ah-ah sounds that spilled from your throat with every deep thrust.

He leaned down, his mouth hovering over yours, and deliberately let a thick string of saliva fall into your open lips. He wanted more of himself inside you.

More of his taste, his mark, his presence seeping into every crevice of your body.

A low, guttural groan rumbled up from his chest as he watched you swallow it without hesitation, without question. Your throat worked under his palm, accepting him, taking him in, and the sight nearly sent him over the edge.

“Fuck,” he murmured against your lips, his balls slapping wetly against your ass as he drove into you harder. “You liked that, didn’t you? Touching you while you were asleep. Groping you. Fucking you like I own you.”

Despite the dazed pleasure softening your features, despite the way he was fucking the very thoughts out of your head, you still had the audacity to smile.

That slow, lazy, knowing curl of your lips that had haunted him since the first time he saw it. You hummed a soft, satisfied, “Uh huh.”

“Yeah,” he breathed, a fractured sound against your cheek.

He hooked your thigh higher over his arm, opening you wider, sinking deeper into your perfect, willing heat.

Your voice came out in fractured moans, but there was a teasing edge to it. “’S fucking hot. Knew you were a freak the second I saw you.”

Dex couldn’t help it. A laugh cracked out of him, low and disbelieving, pressed against the warmth of your cheek.

Here he was, balls deep in the object of a years-long obsession, and you were calling him a freak like it was the highest compliment.

The laugh faded into a shuddering exhale as he shifted his angle, driving into you with hard, deep thrusts that pushed the air from your lungs and left you gasping beneath him.

He wanted to leave a permanent mark on your soul. He wanted your cunt to remember the exact shape of him, the exact weight of him.

He wanted the memory of this night imprinted so deeply into your body that you would feel the ghost of him every time you closed your thighs.

He leaned down, lips brushing your ear, breath ragged and hot.

“I’m gonna make sure you never forget who you belong to.”

Your response came as fractured, desperate moans, words swallowed by the rhythm of his hips driving into you.

Without breaking pace, his hand moved. Two fingers pressed against your lips. You opened without hesitation, taking them into your mouth just as you took every part of him.

He pushed them deep, curling them against your tongue in perfect time with his thrusts, a double rhythm that had you moaning around his knuckles.

The sight of you like this; mouth full of him, cunt full of him, eyes glassy and fixed on his face, pushed him to the edge. He could feel the tension coiling tight in his gut, the familiar ache building at the base of his spine.

He was seconds away from coming. But he couldn’t. Not yet.

He needed you there first.

With a wet gasp from you, he pulled his fingers from your mouth, a string of saliva breaking between his skin and your lips. His hand dropped without hesitation, finding your clit.

He rubbed fast, precise circles against the swollen bud, his own rhythm faltering as he poured every ounce of focus into your pleasure.

His eyes locked onto your face. He watched every micro-expression. The furrow of your brows, the way your lips parted on sharp, punched-out breaths, the flutter of your lashes as pleasure overtook you.

You looked up at him, dazed and pleading, and he nodded like a man possessed, a dumb, frantic motion that matched the speed of his fingers.

“C’mon,” he breathed, the words cracking. “Let go f’me. Let go, baby.”

And you did.

The orgasm hit you like a wave, your back arching, your mouth opening in a loud moan. Dex felt it, the way your cunt clenched around him, choked him, milked him.

The sensation ripped a loud, guttural groan from his chest, his hips stuttering as he followed you over the edge. He closed his eyes, the world going white, and let himself go.

Deep, pulsing spurts of cum filled you, and he thrust into you with every wave, pushing himself as deep as he could go, holding himself there, making sure every drop stayed inside you.

When it was over, the room was filled with nothing but harsh, shared breaths.

He collapsed against you, his full weight pressing you into the mattress. He made no move to pull out. No move to let you go. He stayed buried inside you, as close as flesh could get.

“Jesus Christ,” you murmured in a daze, the words barely a whisper.

The silence that followed was a dangerous thing. It let the thoughts back in. The insecurity. The horrible, gnawing fear that he had done too much.

He pressed his face into the curve of your neck, hiding, breathing you in until his lungs ached. His voice was rough, muffled against your skin.

“Too much?”

A beat. Then your hand, slow and heavy with exhaustion, slid into his hair. You laughed, soft and drowsy.

“No.” A pause. “By all means... keep me in your basement if you want.”

Dex’s eyes snapped open.

The joke hung in the air, clearly just a sleepy, affectionate jab. But he didn’t hear the joke.

He heard the offer.

Having you to himself. Forever. In a place where no one else could touch you, see you, take you. A place where you were his, every single moment of every single day.

And if you wanted it... if you offered it up with that same trust you gave him your body, your mouth, your cunt...

Then why the fuck wouldn’t he do it?

He lifted his head slowly, looking down at your face. You were half-asleep, lips curved in a soft sex-dazed smile. You had no idea what you had just given him.

His voice dropped, quiet and raw. Completely serious.

“Yeah?”

Your lashes fluttered. You hummed, already drifting back into sleep, but the sound was an affirmation. A yes.

His hand slid up, cupping your jaw, tilting your face toward his. His thumb traced your cheekbone, and when he spoke, the words were a vow pressed against your lips.

“Then I’m never letting you go.”

a/n | dex feeling absolutely blessed and a surreality of being seen and chosen by you, meanwhile reader is just a youngho and overly horny

He wanted to be back.

‘Home’ didn’t mean anything. It was just a city: one he lived in if he wasn’t in the battlefield. One he just happened to pick out of geographical convenience.

It wasn’t a home. He hadn’t had one since his mum passed.

And so being away had always been more than fine, even sore and sleep deprived. But having no way to contact you the past five days because of your FTX sucked major balls. It only made him realise you’d been living rent free in his head.

When he landed Friday afternoon, he let you knew. You only replied hours later.

I don’t want to be outdoors for at least the next 3 business days

Thankfully my gym is indoors

Lucky you

When do you get home? I can get us dinner

I’m heading straight to bed. See you tmr?

Phillip was a patient man. He could wait 12 more hours. Though, the last thing he wanted to hear the next morning was you telling him you couldn’t make it.

I’m boneless. Can’t workout

I’ll get takeout. What do you feel like?

Honestly? Something home cooked

I can cook

An hour later, there you were answering the door in an oversized shirt and sweats. You looked tired, but soft. You could certainly still beat him up, but God you looked so soft, the kind that made him want to wrap his arms around you. And there his belly was doing whatever it did again last time he was there with takeout.

You stepped aside, and he followed you into the kitchen. He was visiting, but it felt more like he was walking in somewhere familiar, like the back of his hand.

“So what are we cooking?”

“I’m cooking. You sit tight.”

“Not very polite of me, is it?”

He nodded at your couch. “You’re dismissed, Sergeant.”

You smiled. “Yes, sir,” you said, making your way to it. “My couch doesn’t feel the same anymore since I sat on yours, by the way, but I’ll try not to fall asleep.” You tucked yourself under the blanket and flicked the TV on.

When he looked through your fridge and pantry, it only occurred to him he probably should have asked what you had in stock to ensure he could make something decent. His lips puckered to one side in thought.

But Phillip Graves wasn’t anything but resourceful. He’d survived years with limited cooking skills and random ingredients. He’d come up with something.

He started with a pot of water before proceeding with chopping. He glanced over his shoulder at the back of your head, the TV humming in the background as the garlic sizzled gently.

“Smells good,” you called.

He didn’t let you see his smile as he opened the can of chickpeas before dropping the pasta in the boiling water. He gave the garbanzos a quick sauté for some crunch and colour, finishing the sauce with a handful of frozen peas.

Soon, he fished the pasta out and into the pan of sauce before draining the water in the sink, tap running.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

His brows furrowed as he opened the cabinet under the sink only to find it leaking. He snatched a nearby cup to contain the drips.

“Hey, your sink’s leaky?”

“Oh!” You jumped off the couch and rushed to him. “Damn, I forgot to tell you. Can’t pour all at once or it leaks,” you said, taking the cup from him. “I told my landlord weeks ago. He hasn’t got back to me.”

He tended to the pasta, tossing it in the sauce. “I’ll take a look later.”

“No, you won’t.” You grabbed a rag and got on your knees to clean the mess. “I already feel bad enough you’re doing all this your own.”

“I don’t mind. You’re exhausted.” He portioned out the meal.

Back on your feet, you said, “Like you didn’t just come back from… God knows where.”

Phillip shrugged, carrying the plates to the table.

You sat across him, eyes on his. “Thank you. Really.”

“Dig in,” he said, taking his fork with a smile.

It was a simple garlic butter pasta with peas and chickpeas. You needed the protein and… well, it was all you had after a full week away from home.

After a bite, you hummed. “Now that’s what I meant by homecooked.”

His head tilted. “Elaborate.”

“Throwing things together and then have it all work together somehow. The spontaneity is where it’s at.”

Didn’t he know that all too well. Cooking for survival.

“You leaving town for Christmas?”

He didn’t even remember the holiday was just around the corner. “Nope,” he answered too quickly. “I’m already home,” he added before stuffing himself with a forkful of pasta.

He could tell you had something on your mind, but didn’t say it.

“I’ll have a look at your sink after this.”

You shook your head. “You really don’t need to.”

“Just tryna’ help.”

 “Please, don’t trouble yourself.”

“Not even as my Christmas gift?”

You laughed. “You sure love being Fix-it Felix.”

“You know it.”

“Okay.” You grinned. “Dork.”

After tending to the dishes, you let him, watching closely as he got under the sink.

Phillip was no plumber, but he knew enough that your worn rubber washer didn’t help with the dripping. If the pipes were clogged and the sink took its sweet time to drain, a fresh rubber seal would at least stop it from seeping around the basket.

He washed his hands. “I’ll swing by the hardware store to grab a new washer.”

“Right now?”

“Yeah. I won’t take long.”

“The least I can do is come with.”

He wasn’t going to argue with that.

You had a quick change, and before long, you were on your way. The helpful staff directed you to the plumbing aisle in the back.

“Aw, shit,” you muttered, stopping in your tracks.

“What-?”

You looked left and right before grabbing his arm, dragging him with you into a nearby supply closet. It was pitch black, but you left the door cracked open the tiniest bit as you peered outside. With his back against the racks, your back was almost to his chest.

“Hey, what’s going on?” he asked, alarmed.

“It’s the major,” you groaned, leaning to the side to let him look. “I could sense that moustache from a block away.”

He peeked outside at a man with a basket as he browsed the array of lightbulbs. He did have a glorious grey moustache. Comical, almost.

“One of my haters, I take it?” He stepped back with a chuckle, letting you take the vantage point back. “You said you were glad I didn’t call him for the ball invite.”

“That and, well, no one wants to have anything to do with the Major Adler.”

“Adler,” he mumbled.

“The one and only,” you said dryly.

“That’s my dad’s last name.”

You looked over your shoulder. “Not Graves?”

“No,” he said. “He was a soldier. Young when they met, ‘anything to get out of the barracks’ young.”

He didn’t have to tell you anything, but in the dark, it was too easy. Too easy when it was you, when you wouldn’t give him that look people did. Like he was broken.

“I barely remembered him when they inevitably divorced. Took my mum’s name before I went to high school.”

“So you should,” you approved. “Phillip Adler just doesn’t have the same ring, does it?”

He smiled. “Damn right.”

“Really, you could have been a real fuckin’ bore otherwise. Like absolute, downright, categorical buzzkill. Terminal wet blanket. RPG dodged right there.”

He barked out a laugh, but quickly bit his lip. “Y’know, you usually just pretend you don’t know each other off base, but you and this Adler… Sounds a little personal.”

You sucked your teeth playfully. “I guess you can say that.”

“Oh, so you do have beef with him.”

“I used to date his staff sergeant on my old base. He was still a captain. Never liked me much.”

“Why?”

“Said I was distracting.”

He snorted. He wasn’t wrong. You were distracting. “So what happened?”

“Nothing. Didn’t stop us. Broke no rules,” you said. “Just my luck he rotated here and became the major.”

“Sounds like your ex left quite the impression on him. You like hard chargers, huh?”

You considered. “I do, actually.”

“I knew it.”

“I like men with a smart mouth.”

“I like women with a smart mouth.”

“That one’s obvious.”

Phillip could tell you were smiling, and he wondered if you could tell how big his grin was.

The silence as you maintained overwatch only made him painfully aware of your proximity. Your warmth, the smell of your shampoo, the faint detergent on your shirt. The measly inch between your back and his chest only made his heartbeat pick up.

You might have been taller than him, but if he leaned in, just a tiny bit, his lips would line up perfectly with your soft neck- and oh- he was not the strongest man on God’s green Earth. He braced against the door frame to stop himself, inadvertently caging you in.

“What’s the sitrep, Sergeant?” he said, too lowly. He didn’t mean to, but you’d made his throat as dry as the desert he was in the day prior.

You gasped. Quiet, but didn’t elude him. Did his breath on your skin send a zap down your spine?

“St- Still outside. Seems to be deciding between warm and daylight- oh-“

With no warning, you turned, pushing him back against the racks before burying your face in his shoulder. Well, that sure lit him up-

The door creaked open. The janitor froze at the scene in his supply closet. Phillip only stilled at your hot breath against his neck, just as wide-eyed as the young man (looking like a fucking fool with the honey glow in his cheeks too, probably). It took a second for the janitor to get his bearings to slam the door with a frown, looking like the commander had insulted him and his entire lineage.

Poor guy. As much as Phillip wished otherwise, there was nothing inappropriate happening in there.

“He’s gone,” he managed.

You cleared your throat as you pulled away, facing the door again. “Good.”

Was your neck as hot as his was? Because the room suddenly felt like a sauna as he tried to get his heart to stop racing like a fucking schoolboy stealing kisses behind the bleachers.

“Target’s moving. Picked up both bulbs.”

“Hope he got the right wattage.”

A moment. “Should be clear now.” You pushed the door open as you scanned the surrounding, him following close.

The both of you stood in front of the closet. Your hands shoved in your pockets as he rubbed the back of his neck, both looking everywhere but each other. If you were this flustered… Did you feel it too?

“So the washer-“ he started.

“Yep, that way.” You pointed to the left and marched ahead.

It didn’t take long to find the item needed, and you made your way to the checkout. While the customer ahead was finishing up, your phone rang.

“Evie,” you said. “Must be calling about her dress.”

He pulled out his key from his pocket. “I’ll meet you in the car.”

You nodded with a smile before turning to the door, phone to your ear.

Soon, he moved up and placed the item on the counter which the teenage cashier swiftly rung.

She smiled. “Will that be all, sir?”

“Yes, thank you,” he said, retrieving change from his wallet.

“That’d be $3.50. Oh, and,” she said with a shy giggle. “I just have to say, your girlfriend is really pretty.”

Phillip’s hand froze mid-air before he broke into a grin. His girlfriend, you say? His head was about to explode with the unbridled swell of his ego.

He fished his wallet out again, this time pulling a crisp 100. “Keep the change.”

“For real?!” Her eyes lit up, clutching the bill. “Thank you so much! Have a good one!”

With the dumb smile he wore as he made his way across the parking lot, he knew he would. Was he even allowed to be this pleased from an honest mix-up? One he didn’t bother to correct, too.

“You sure look happy,” you teased when he got into the driver’s seat.

“Just excited to fix your sink, is all.”

“Alright, Felix.”

The drive back only took minutes, and when he was parked, you turned to him.

“I wasn’t going to tell you, but I thought you should know there’s been chatter about you… And me.”

He killed the engine. “Why, from the gun show photos?”

“No. I trust my men.” You shook your head. “Someone must have seen us, so… yeah, maybe laying low would be best.”

He supposed that was why you were extra cagey around the major.

“I hear you.” He met your eyes. “If it’s of any comfort, I can wear a cap when we’re out. And you could change my name on your phone.”

You frowned. “You think your number’s saved?”

“You know just how to break a man’s heart, don’t you.” He clasped a hand over his chest playfully.

Silence. You grimaced.

He dropped the smile. “Wait, you’re serious?”

You cracked up. “It’s just Graves.”

He always loved seeing you laugh openly like that. It made him feel all warm and gooey inside.

“Well, it could be Phillip,” he said matter of fact.

“No one calls you Phillip.”

“You could.”

You considered. “Eh, I like Graves.”

Well, he liked you too.

You went home for the holidays.

As one should. If one still had a home, or family, that was.

It was only 10 days, which would have been nothing, especially if Phillip could text you unlike during your FTX. However, the lack of work while being stuck all alone in his house, too big and too silent, made the distance unbearable.

What the hell was he supposed to do apart from spending hours working out, stuffing himself with takeout before curling up on the couch under your blanket? He’d checked the entire house for leaks and creaks, and there was no more reports to go through.

But he shouldn’t give in. Shouldn’t call you just to hear your voice, or ask for a photo of you because-fucking hell, how many days had it been? Sure, your absence irritated him, but he could wait. He should. He’d waited longer.

On new years eve, you sent a picture of a plate of stuffed mushrooms you helped your family prepare for the party at yours.

He smiled. He might not have been a big fan of mushrooms, but that sure beat eating ramen alone in front of the TV. Which, still, wouldn’t have been the worst thing.

If there was one thing he hated most about the holidays was the fireworks. The city was far away enough for it to not be loud, but in this side of town? Many of his neighbours hosted their own get-together and would set fireworks off even that it was prohibited in the area.

It was true: if one was rich enough, one could do anything albeit with a small fine.

This year was no difference. Five minutes before the stroke of midnight, the explosions started. He was prepared though: earplugs under his earmuffs as he sat in his walk-in closet under his countless suits.

Phillip pressed his back against the wall and pulled out his phone. Something to get his mind off the booms and the bangs.

Got fireworks there?

Dead silent. Small town perks

Nice. Always hated how loud it gets around here

The fireworks sped up. One after the other, sounding closer and closer. His brows knitted as he took deep breaths. Think of something nice.

Having you there would be. Kissing you would be.

The imaginary kiss would have been nothing anyway, okay? Just a thing people did at midnight. Just a thing he wanted to think about to get his mind off all the fucking the noise. Just to go somewhere else.

Hey, ya know what would actually help? If he called an airstrike-

Phillip’s phone rang in his hand.

Did you call to demand him to stop thinking about you? You couldn’t have known, but he felt caught red-handed anyway. Heat crept up his neck as he slipped his phone under his earmuff.

“Happy new year.”

Even through the phone, he could imagine the pretty tug on your lips. “Happy new year,” he repeated. Realising his voice was shaky, he cleared his throat. “You okay?”

As if he was in the position to ask with his heart pounding like that.

“You know what’s good?” you asked, tone playful.

“What?”

“Something cold… And thick and sweet…”

“In a tall glass?”

“Yep.”

“Milkshake,” he decided.

“Not quite. It’s pink though.”

His lips puckered. “Pre-workout?”

“Yeah. Can’t wait to use my private gym again. Nothing to lift around here but furniture.”

He let out a slow exhale, head tipped back against the wall. “Your gym is waiting, ma’am.”

“I’m looking forward to spring so I can finally swim too. Got swimsuits I haven’t got around to wearing last summer.”

“You don’t have to wait. The pool’s heated.”

You chuckled. “Well, you sure failed to mention that!”

“Would be a bit of a waste to have a pool if I can’t swim when it gets cold, wouldn’t it?”

You were right. It was quiet on your end, safe for some rustling.

“Guess what, Evie’s bachelorette’s party is at the end of this month.”

“Will there be strippers?” He couldn’t hide the accusation in his voice.

“No! Pfft.” You snorted. “What the hell, Graves?”

“Good,” he grumbled. He didn’t want you looking at other dudes. Not for fun anyway.

“It’s a weekend trip. She’ll have her dress fitting, and then we’ll have brunch and go to the spa,” you said. “Sound nice, doesn’t it? I could use a massage. Oh, and Chris would definitely want her nails done too. She’ll probably pick a shade for everyone.”

He smiled. You sure sounded excited for it. “You’re driving out there?”

“No. I’m carpooling with A-A-ron’s groomsmen.”

A beat. “Ay… Sorry, who?”

You laughed. “Oh God. I meant Aaron, Evie’s man. We call him A-A-ron.”

“Why?”

You laughed harder. “It’s from a skit. A substitute teacher butchering names. Aaron is one of the names he messed up.”

“What would mine be?”

You took a moment. “Fhh-LIP Gee-raves.”

“Huh.”

“Makes for a pretty cool stage name. DJ Gee-Raves.”

“Could have been worse, sare-gee-aunt.” He barked out a laugh, entirely too pleased with his come up.

“I’d much rather you call me ma’am than that.”

“Oh! And I’d have been gun-airy sare-gee-aunt.”

“You say that once more and I might forget how to say sergeant properly for good.”

Phillip’s smile lingered. He never seemed to be able to stop around you. It was then it occurred to him it’d become quiet beyond his earmuffs. Instead, quiet chatter came from your end.

“Yeah, okay, I’ll be there,” you said quietly before holding the phone closer again. “I gotta go. Stop fantasising about butchering more names.”

“Busted.”

“Goodnight, Gee-raves.”

With that, you hung up. The tingle in his stomach only intensified.

He didn’t miss what you were doing. Talking a lot more, getting him to think to distract him. How bad would it be if it made him want to fantasise about kissing you more?

Not like he was going to. He shouldn’t. You were friends, and friends shouldn’t enjoy hiding together in a dark, cramped supply closet of a hardware store so much. Or have to try that hard to resist the urge to lean in to get a waft of you, let alone think about tasting you.

But you’d be none the wiser, wouldn’t you?

When Phillip got in bed, his phone buzzed again.

First selfie of the year, you wrote under the picture.

It was a simple one of you in a thick hoodie, smiling sweetly. You knew how much he liked you in black, didn’t you? But those lips… they were made for something, weren’t they?

Oh well. That was on you.

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But he could be honest - to himself at least. He could find you bone-crushingly attractive and only see you platonically. It didn’t have to mean anything… He just needed a harmless little excuse.

You free for dinner Wednesday?

Why, you’re off early?

I could be

Don’t want to stay out late on weekdays

Doesn’t have to be far, maybe Chinese again? I can pick you up from base

They know you

I pick you up at home?

How about takeout?

Yes, rearranging his day so he could get off at a reasonable time was unwarranted, but he had his priorities.

Being hungry counted as an emergency, right?

Wednesday night with takeout in hand, Phillip knocked on your door. There was a faint rustle before the door cracked opened, and you greeted him in an oversized shirt and sweats. The warm glow of your apartment behind you lit up the wisps of your hair, loose and relaxed and… home.

He stilled. In that split second, it was like he’d opened the wrong door of reality and walked in on someone else’s life. One he wasn’t supposed to see. A glimpse of the fantasy he only allowed himself to indulge in those final moments before sleep took him in his cold bed.

With his combat shirt off, his black skivvy shirt remaining, it was like coming home after a long day to someone waiting for him. The domesticity made him grind to a halt.

“Come in, it’s cold!” You pulled him in by the forearm.

You’d touched before, carried him on your back- hell, you’d been chest to chest, albeit when you fell on him. But the way you smiled at him, your fingers on him got his belly flopping all sorts of way. An innocent touch that seared too deep.

He cleared his throat before following you to the table where you’d laid down plates and utensils next to two glasses of water. He set the bag down and took out its contents. One box. And two, and three- Oh, was he still going?

“That’s so much food! Are you trying to feed a squad?”

“I’m hungry,” he said lightly.

You laughed, and the way you peered at him made his heart tingle.

Dinner was slow (punctuated by your smiles and quiet laughter), and delicious. It was more like feast with the varieties he got, really, which was indeed too much food. His eyes could get bigger than his stomach indeed.

On the kitchen counter, Phillip moved the leftovers into tupperwares as you tended to the dishes at the sink, and before he turned to the fridge, he found himself staring at you a little longer than necessary. Just to see you being you, with your soft skin and pretty lashes and socks, unadulterated like he was supposed to be a part of this little secret. Like this was normal.

“I actually made cookies,” you said, wiping your cheek with the back of your hand.

He turned fast enough to put the leftovers in the fridge. “Ah.”

“My friend Evie, also from Texas, by the way, sent me the recipe-“ you pointed at a container nearby. “Have some.”

He cracked the container open only to be met with buttery, caramelised aroma. “Don’t mind if I do.”

“She’s getting married next year, and she’ll bake them as favours.”

“Really nice,” he said after a bite. “Can’t go wrong with chocolate chip.”

“You can have them. They’re addictive and I’ve had plenty,” you said, glancing at him. “And I mean plenty.”

“Hard to say no.” He smiled. “I noticed the list on the fridge. I’ll drive you.”

“You need to shop too?”

“No, but I can drive you.”

You must have been tired, and he could be helpful. And honestly? He’d take any excuse to linger.

On the quick shopping trip, Phillip followed close with a basket as you focused on going through your list. Knowing some of your favourite brands were his too made him smile: another piece of you he got to keep.

It wasn’t unusual for two friends to have a quiet weekday dinner before grocery shopping together, right? Wasn’t weird either that it made him oddly happy to be a small part of your day.

And to have you as the highlight of his otherwise exhausting day.

He pointed at a pack of strawberry gummies. “I grew up eat…” he trailed as he noticed the gentleman staring from further down the aisle.

Mid-20s, muscular, and in this side of town? Could very well be a Marine. The fact that he held the eye contact for another moment only told him that he might know the commander.

Phillip turned to you, blocking you out of the man’s view as much as he could.

“You loved these as a kid?” you repeated.

“Bad idea passing through this aisle. Too tempting,” he said, herding you away as you laughed. “Let’s go.”

In front of your building, you grabbed your bags before he could and insisted he didn’t have to walk you up. “Thanks, Graves. See you, Saturday.”

When he was about to exit his Rover at his was when he noticed the small pack of gummies you left next to his phone.

Phillip rationed himself to two cookies a day until Saturday, which was not enough by the way. Because not only were the they delicious, he couldn’t stop smiling at them as they sat on his generous mahogany office desk.

Yes, he’d smacked Oz’s hand with more force than he needed when he reached for the container. His second in command looked genuinely offended as he eyed him. Having known each other for many years, he shouldn’t have been surprised the commander was territorial with his treats.

The meetings and paperwork seemed a little less dreadful if he could reward himself with a small piece of cookie after each one. Just a little something to tide himself over until he saw you again.

On Saturday morning, Phillip buzzed you in, and you parked next to his Rover by the main door. You walked up with a duffle, dressed in a loose shirt and gym shorts, as you returned his smile.

He closed the door behind you. “I’m making a pre-workout smoothie. You want some?”

You followed him to the kitchen where he blended the frozen fruits his private chef had prepared.

“It’s pink!” you said, accepting the glass cup.

“Of course it is. Red dragon fruit is the superior one.” He took a swig.

You had a sip and turned to him. “I shouldn’t get used to this.”

“What?”

“Having someone make me a tasty pre-workout-“ you gestured at the cup in hand and his backyard- “before going to a private gym with a pool.”

He chuckled. “You can come over as much as you want. And I can get the chef to prepare other pre-workout flavours.”

“Oh God-“ you swatted your hand- “Please don’t bother. I’m already more than happy to not have to wear slides in the shower after a workout.”

He threw his head back in laughter. He felt that in his soul. After years and years of public bathrooms, it truly was a luxury.

You both started with dynamic stretches before proceeding with your workouts. He didn’t mean to stare, but he had eyes. You sweaty and tired was something he shouldn’t like seeing so much.

“Let me know if you need a spot.”

You readjusted the load on the chest press machine. “Will do.”

You never did.

Because he had plenty of machines. The very result of him not wanting to need a spotter himself.

No, he wasn’t trying anything. He knew where he stood, and there was no room for negotiation, but could a man not want to be a good host? He just wanted you to have a better time there than in your gym.

To cool down, you hopped onto the treadmill. He took the static bike next to you.

“That was a good session,” you said. “What’s for lunch?”

“Spaghetti meatballs. I’m cooking.”

“Really? You cook?”

He chuckled, amused at the genuine surprise on your face. “Why, is that so hard to believe?”

“You just didn’t strike me as someone who does.” You grinned. “But I’m looking forward to it. Wait, didn’t you say I was paying for lunch this weekend?

“Tomorrow’s still the weekend, isn’t it?”

You laughed, but sadly didn’t take the bait. Good thing you looked ahead so you didn’t see the dejection on his face. Was he crossing the line?

“But you should pick where and when if it’s on you.”

Phillip walked you to the guest bathroom by his bedroom. Later, you joined him in the kitchen, hair damp, smelling fresh. He too had showered and changed into a comfortable shirt and sweatpants.

“You cooked all this just now?” you asked, eyeing the pot of vibrant, bubbling tomato sauce.

“No, I started this morning. My mum’s recipe.”

“I thought I was imagining the smell when I walked in. Can I try?”

He handed you a spoon out of the drawer and you took a sample before lighting up.

“Oh, wow, it’s so good. Your mum must be a wonderful cook.”

The corners of his lips tugged. “She was, yeah.”

It had been a while since he’d spoken about her, but he didn’t expect the pang in his chest. It had been so many years.

“I’m sorry to hear,” you said quietly.

He let that hang in the air. He turned to the other pot and busied himself with the boiling pasta before finally breaking the silence.

“She… used to take me out for strawberry milkshakes after her payday.”

“Yeah? How many did she let you get?”

“Just one.” He stirred the pasta, a smile flickering at the memory. “I didn’t know it then, but it was all she could afford.”

“One is enough if it’s good.”

“It always was. With a mountain of whipped cream and a big, fat cherry on top.”

“The only right way to make a shake if you ask me.”

He grinned at you. “Damn right.”

The timer went off and he tipped the pasta into the colander. You took the plates he’d laid on the counter and helped him portion the meal.

You didn’t ask about his dad.

Probably for the best. Back in his day, if a mother had to work, more often than not, the father wasn’t in the picture. There was nothing to ask.

“Ya know, I think she’d probably suggest Strawberry Company instead of Shadow,” he said with a little chuckle. “Probably thinks it sounds a little cold.”

Phillip expected you to laugh. You gave a soft smile instead.

It was what he needed.

“She would have been really proud of you.”

She might have not been there to see him graduate high school, or when he made Marine. All those ceremonies when he picked up his ranks, or when Shadow Co. became reality.

If there was one thing he wanted to hear, it was that she knew he tried his best. Because he always gave it his all. Like she always taught him.

“I hope so.”

“I mean,” you began, the smile in your voice. “I might look better in black, but it’s not that bad on you so my opinion stands.”

That got a laugh out of him.

You took the meal to the dining table overlooking the large pool in his backyard. He didn’t cook a lot, let alone his mum’s recipes that would take hours, but this time it was different. Because he had someone to share it.

And a meal was always better with company. Especially after so many years.

“You’re coming to the arms show?”

You smiled apologetically. “Don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Williams gave you the green light. Plus I got Friday early access.”

Your head tilted with amusement. “And where will I be Friday?”

He shrugged. “Take the afternoon off.”

“That’s not how it works! Besides, I got a long week ahead preparing for training.”

His lips pulled to one side. “Shame.”

You twirled the spaghetti around your fork. “You can send photos.”

“Guess that’ll have to do.” He took a bite of his meatball.

While you got a small second serving, Phillip had a full one. The hours he spent was worthwhile just for that satisfied smile you wore.

“So what now, coffee? Dessert?”

“I’m stuffed!” you said dramatically before a sheepish smile graced. “But out of curiosity, what’s on the menu?”

“Anything. We can go anywhere.”

“Honestly, not sure I want to leave the house much at all if it was like this.”

He laughed, pointing behind him at the living room. “How about you find us something to watch? I’ll make some coffee.”

When he joined you on his large leather couch with two cups of coffee, you turned to him. “Where do you keep your blanket?”

He set the drinks on the table. “In the…. Bedroom? Are you feeling cold?”

“No, I meant for the couch.”

A beat. “Does a couch… need a blanket?” he asked carefully.

“Yes. How are you going to protect your feet from the monsters otherwise?”

He chuckled. “Well, I got duvets upstairs. They’ll give you better cover.”

“No,” you said, the façade cracking. “I said blanket, because it can’t be too warm.”

He considered before shrugging. “Sorry, best I can do is a towel.”

“Unbelievable. All this and not a throw blanket.” You sat back on his couch. “I’m bringing one next time.”

Phillip should be saying something back, but the thought of next time with you only made him giggle internally as he settled next to you.

Swamped with work the following week, you turned down Graves’ midweek dinner invitation. It was a shame - it was nice seeing a fresh face, and not being alone with the TV at dinner every now and then. Didn’t hurt that he was a fun company with his accent and witty remarks either.

You weren’t planning to go to the arms show that weekend, not with the field training the following week you had to rest up for, but looking at the photos Graves sent you that Friday afternoon made you second guess your decision.

These weren’t items available to the general public either. Without Graves’ VIP pass, you probably would never see them in real life otherwise. Maybe you should have said screwed it and took the day off after all for the rare opportunity.

Captain Williams was missing out. And you too, it seemed.

“Boys, come see this,” you called your men over at the rec room before playing a video of a row of rifles.

“That the gun show?” a lance asked. “I thought that was tomorrow.”

You hummed in affirmation. “But today’s the early access. They’re showing the good stuff to the VIPs.”

“Look at all that cool shit. We should be there right now, Sergeant,” a private said. “Who’s your guy?”

Your phone pinged with a drop-down notification. Another photo from Graves.

“Graves?” Justin Boyle said with exaggerated surprise. "He doesn’t text me. I thought we were friends!”

“You got an ugly mug, Bieber. That’s why,” the other Corporal quipped, earning a laugh from the juniors.

“What else he sent?”

You scrolled down to the newest photo, a strawberry with a dollop of whipped cream. “Close enough”, he captioned. You snorted, but the room stood still.

“I… I don’t think that was meant for us,” one broke the silence. “Yeah, that seems real dirty,” another said.

“No, no! It’s literal. He just really likes strawberry shake,” you defended.

“And how would you know that, Sergeant?” Boyle challenged.

You gave him a sharp look before picking up your phone. “Graves,” you said out loud as you typed, “Cpl. Boyle was wondering why you don’t text him.”

“Hey!” he interjected as you pressed send.

The message was immediately read, as if he had the chat window open. The typing bubble appeared and disappeared under the scrutiny of multiple pairs of eyes, glued to your phone screen in building anticipation.

Instead, Boyle’s phone pinged in his pocket. He pulled it out to discover a text from the commander.

Miss you too Boyle [kissy face emoji]

Saturday was quickly becoming a day Phillip looked forward to each week. How could it not be, if you’d walk up to him on his front step in your workout attire, knowing how much he was going to enjoy the day with you.

Oh and, he promised he was looking respectfully, ok? But you in gym shorts made it so, so hard to look away, and he was just a man.

“Thanks for having me again.”

He smiled. “Pre-workout?”

“You’re spoiling me,” you said with a grin. “I got you this.” You handed him a paper bag of a neatly folded blanket.

He laughed, rubbing the thick and fluffy material between his fingers. “You weren’t kidding.”

“It’s lifechanging.”

“Will have to put it to the test.” He led you into the kitchen. “I actually got something for you too.“ He handed you the bottle of multivitamins next to the blender. ”Keep yourself fit next week.”

“Oh, that’s so kind. Thanks so much, Graves. Next week will be hell.”

He loaded up the blender. “Make sure to rest up tomorrow then.”

You had a light session that day (even less of a reason to need a spotter) and ordered in for lunch. By the time you joined him in the living room, lunch was on the coffee table while Phillip had bundled up in the blanket you got him.

His heavy eyelids flicked open. “I didn’t know being so cozy on the couch was an option. I thought it was only for the bed.”

You laughed. “Careful, you might fall asleep.”

“Could have warned me sooner.” He pushed the blanket aside and straightened up to unwrap lunch. Two subs and a large salad to share.

And cookies. You didn’t forget the cookies.

“Starting to feel bad having you drive all the way here,” he said after a bite. “And paying for lunch too.”

“Just here to settle my debt. Won't be a weekly affair.”

His gaze dropped to your lips. He didn’t mind at all if it was. “Still.”

“Well, if it makes you feel better, it’s a lot less likely that I see someone from base around here. Also my gym is a far cry from yours, and like I said-“ you chuckled- “No slides required.”

He tilted his head, a mischievous glint in his eye. “You saying you want to come more often?”

You snorted. “I’m not!”

“Friends come to each other’s places all the time.”

You turned to him. “I’m no freeloader.”

“Correcto, you’re not. So what’s the problem?”

“I’m the only one doing the coming.”

“I didn’t want to be rude and invite myself over,” he said lightly. “I wouldn’t say no if you ask.”

You stared at him for a beat before your eyes dropped back to the last quarter of your sandwich. “People know you, Graves,” you declared, tone final before taking another bite.

It was true. And he hated that it was.

“Just saying. It’s nice having a gym buddy.”

You. It was nice having you around in his otherwise too-empty house.

After the meal, you asked Phillip to pick something to watch and he settled on a sci-fi show he loved as a teen. You tucked yourselves in on the couch, the blanket big enough for the both of you to be on the opposing ends separated by a respectable distance.

He glanced at you and you turned to him, gaze locking.

There was nothing professional about sharing a blanket in front of the TV on a Saturday afternoon.

And there definitely was nothing professional about your breathing slowing down when you dozed off next to him halfway through the episode, or when he tried to not stare at your pretty face too long before scooting a few inches closer, only to tip his head back with eyes closed.

The next part is linked above if already up Masterlist

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For a long time, Dex was content with that explanation. He didn’t need theology or karma or the cosmos to keep him going. What he needed was routine. Structure. Rules. Baseball, once. Mercer. Then the Army. And now, the FBI. 

What could be more ordered than working in bureaucracy? There were procedures, badges, clearance levels, dress codes… It was, in theory, exactly the sort of environment a 33 year-old man with a multitude of mental health disorders should find for himself. 

And the best part about it was that it worked. 

The paperwork, the filings, the endless codebooks and all the cogs of a federal interagency machine churning, it kept things…quiet. Subdued, even. Sure, Dex still had his moments. Times where the cool steel of a federally-issued gun felt too heavy in his hand. When he would pass by a bar on his way home and overhear the crack of a bat and the rise of a commentator’s voice from a television inside. When the aripiprazole would take a bit longer to kick in and memories of Mercer’s voice felt closer than just a fragment of his mind. 

But the system always brought him back. Because no matter what, he knew what the next day held. Wake up, morning jog, coffee, newspaper, badge, suit, commute, work, home, exercise, shower, dinner, television, meds, sleep, repeat. 

It was good for him. Good for who he was. 

What he was. 

This is all to say, that no, Benjamin Poindexter did not believe in fate because he had no need for it. It was not needed to explain, or justify, or defend. 

He did not believe in fate. 

Until August 9th, 2018.

8:37 PM.

Yes, Dex remembered the time. What type of man would he be if he forgot? He wouldn’t. Couldn’t. 

It was hot outside that day. So hot that he had considered not taking the subway after work for how crowded and smelly and sweaty he knew it would be (he took the train anyway. Detours from routine had a tendency to create problems.). So hot that by the time he had arrived at his apartment building, perspiration had glued the fabric of his white button-down to the middle of his back. So hot that he wondered if he should turn the fan on when he got into his apartment (but what if the force was too strong and it knocked off the papers on the coffee table like it had last week? Nope, not acceptable.). 

Dex was so deep in heat-agitated contemplation that he nearly missed the stack of boxes outside the apartment across his. It wasn’t until he put his key in the door of unit 415 that he recognized there was something behind him. 

He turned. 

Boxes. Cardboard. Stacked neatly against the wall, like they were waiting for their turn in line. 

And more than that, there was…music? Piano. Saxophone. Jazz, maybe. Something slowly flowing out of the cracked open door to apartment 416. 

He paused, key still stuck in the doorknob. 

A new neighbor, then. 

No one had told him anyone was moving in. He corrected himself. No one needed to tell him, it just…would have been nice. New neighbors meant new information, new routines. New personalities to deal with. 

The old resident of 416 was a twenty-something year-old named Casey who worked somewhere in finance. JP Morgan, maybe. Dex didn’t like him. Not just because he left trash in the hallway or he talked too much if they happened to ride the elevator together. It was more than that.

Casey had a complete lack of consistency. His schedule was erratic. One day he would be out the door by 7:23 AM, clad in his yuppie suit and tie, yapping on the phone while chugging an energy drink. The next day he wouldn’t emerge from the apartment. Then the day after that, music and drunken laughter or yelling from his equally-as-annoying friends would blast out of the apartment from dusk til dawn. 

So yes, maybe it was a blessing that Casey was gone, because in a way, his behavior and whatever semblance of a routine (if you could even call it that) was, in a word, stressful. But Dex had gotten used to Casey.

Looking at the open door, the boxes on the hallway floor, Dex could feel that familiar tightness spreading across his chest. 

Fuck.

He turned away and forced himself into his own apartment, closing and locking the door behind him. He couldn’t hear the jazz anymore. Dex squeezed his eyes shut.

Breathe in, breathe out. 

In…and out.

On the last breath, he slowly peeled his eyes open. He clenched his fists, and then unclenched them. He did it again. Once more, for good measure. 

Okay. It was fine. He was fine. 

Change is inevitable, he reminded himself. The routine he relied upon would remain. A new neighbor would not derail what time he woke up, or took the train, or how he made coffee in the morning.

Dex took more deep breath, filling the breadth of his lungs, and then…silence.

Nothing had happened. He was not altered. A stack of cardboard had not unleashed whatever was caged in him, clawing to get out.

He nodded to himself in confirmation of his own humanity, and then went about the rest of his evening. 

The night’s routine was, for the most part, unaffected. Dex changed out of the sweat-damp button-down, put the laundry in the hamper. He stretched in front of the window. The workout was the same as always. Thirty pull-ups on the bar mounted on the bathroom doorway. One hundred push-ups after. Then one hundred situps. Afterwards, he let himself sit in silence, feeling the ache in his muscles and allowed himself to catch his breath for approximately six minutes. And then he got up, showered, changed, and started dinner. Salmon in the airfryer, bag of rice in the microwave, because it was Tuesday.

It was only after dinner, in between washing dishes and before watching TV (local news first, then one episode of a sitcom rerun) that the routine altered. 

There was a knock at the door. 

Dex paused at the kitchen sink, sponge in one hand and plate in the other. 

Another knock. Timid, like the sound was unsure of itself. 

He turned off the faucet, put the sponge and dish down. Wiped his hands on the dish towel. Walked to the door, and gazed into the peephole. 

The fisheye lens revealed a young woman, probably close to his age or a few years younger. She was holding something (a plate, maybe?), shifting back and forth on her feet. Chewing on her lip, she looked behind herself at apartment 416. 

An unusual sight for a Tuesday night. 

His years at Quantico would tell Dex he probably shouldn’t open the door to strangers. Especially strangers holding an unknown object. But a woman knocking on his apartment door at night was not a typical circumstance, or at least one that the Bureau or Riveria or Lyndhurst or Fort Moore had prepared him for.

So, he unlatched the deadbolt, unlocked the knob, and opened the creaking door. 

It was you. 

He blinked. You blinked back. 

“I, um…” Something about the sight of him must have derailed your train of thought. Your face flushed, and then you smiled. Truly smiled. “Hi.”

Dex blinked again. You looked at him, smile faltering only slightly. Your gaze flicked downward briefly before returning to his face. Shifting slightly, you craned your neck to look behind him. Were you trying to…look into his apartment?

“Sorry, I uh…I didn’t mean to interrupt anything, I just–”

“No,” The word left his mouth before he could stop it. His voice continued, sounding distant, like someone else was talking. “No, you’re not… You’re not interrupting anything.”

“Oh! That’s good. That’s, um…” you paused, then shook your head and laughed nervously. What was funny? “Sorry, let me just start over. I've been moving all today and have totally forgotten how to speak normally, apparently.”

You took a breath, then straightened your shoulders and presented the plate in your hands. It was covered in tinfoil. You still had that smile on your face as you shared your name. 

“I just moved in,” you gestured behind yourself. Apartment 416. “I wanted to introduce myself to the hall, so I thought I would make some cookies. But I couldn't find the baking sheets in my boxes, of course, and so by the time I actually got around to the cookies and had them ready, it was way too late to be running up and down the hall, banging on people’s doors like a crazy person so…” 

You looked down at the plate again, then did a little shrug. “I figured the person right across the hall was probably the most important one to win over, so…here I am, and I guess you get all the cookies to yourself!”

You laughed nervously again, and then waited, cookie platter presented. 

Dex looked at the plate, and then back at you. 

Silence. 

After a few seconds of this, you cleared your throat. “They’re…chocolate chip. In case you were…wondering.”

Dex knew what the regular response to this should be. He watched enough television and movies to know at this point, he should take the platter, spare you the confusion as to why your new neighbor was so socially inept, thank you for the kind gesture, and introduce himself. He just…his brain wasn’t working, for some reason. Nobody had ever brought cookies to apartment 415 before.

The silence was seeming to unnerve you. You continued speaking, hands tightening slightly around the covered plate. “If you don’t like chocolate chip, or– or if you’re allergic to dairy or gluten, which, God that would be so me to give a new neighbor anaphylactic shock on my first day in a new apartment, I could–”

Something about seeing you so worried forced Dex’s brain to finally connected nerve-endings. He found his voice once again. “No, I–I like chocolate chip. I’m not…allergic.”

His hands stiffly made their way from holding onto the door frame to gingerly taking the plate. It was still warm when he took it from you. “Thank you.”

You seemed more than relieved that your new neighbor was not selectively mute. A bright smile had returned to your face. “Yeah, of course! I love to bake. It’s hard to find the time to do it, especially nowadays with my work, but I actually used to want to own a bakery when I was younger...” You trailed off and rosy tint in your cheeks deepened. “I’m sorry, I have the tendency to ramble a lot. Anyways, I just wanted to introduce myself. Sorry it’s so late. I promise I don't have a habit of shoving baked goods in strangers' faces.”

“It’s..it’s okay,” he stammered. His voice had gone a bit shaky. He didn’t know why. “Really.”

You nodded, looking a little relieved to almost be done with the encounter. You glanced down at the cookies in his hands, and then at his face again. “Well…I won’t keep you anymore. I’m sure I’ll see you around!”

You turned and walked the three steps it took to cross the hallway to apartment 416. You put your hand on the knob.

"Dex," he suddenly blurted out. You looked back at him over your shoulder, an eyebrow raised in question.

"My name," he clarified. He could feel his own face growing redder by the second. What were you doing to him? "It's...Dex."

"Dex," you repeated slowly, like you were feeling the weight of his name on your tongue. The sound was like warm honey dripping down his spine. Your lips curved softly after and it did something strange to his guts. "Have a good night, Dex."

He watched as you slipped into the apartment. Only once the door closed behind you did Dex return back into apartment 415. He put the locks back into place and set the plate on the countertop, then carefully peeled the tinfoil back. The plate was green, like the color of a frog. Atop it sat six chocolate chip cookies, each one nearly identical to the next. He took one, and bit into it. 

It was good. 

He took another bite, and then another. The cookie was gone. 

He placed the tinfoil back onto the frog-colored plate, and after thinking about it, gently pushed it into the middle of the counter. 

Dex looked at the clock above the stove. It was 8:37 PM. 

He let the remainder of the evening unfurl as it should have. He watched the evening news where the anchor droned on about ongoing city council budget disputes and a robbery in Midtown. After that, he flicked through stations until he landed on a rerun of some 90s sitcom he had already watched twelve times before. 

Afterwards, he brushed his teeth, swallowed his prazosin and aripiprazole, flicked off the lights in the apartment, double-checked the stove was off, triple-checked the door locks, and finally made his way into the bed. 

As he lay in the sheets, staring at the ceiling and listening to the distant sirens that never seemed to stop in New York City, he reflected. Not on train time schedules like he usually did before he attempted sleep, or bureau mandated procedural sequences. Calm things, routine things. 

Instead, Benjamin L. Poindexter thought about chocolate chip cookies. 

He thought about the frog-colored plate sitting centered on his kitchen countertop. 

He thought about you, with your pink cheeks and nervous laugh. 

He thought about apartment 416. 

It was the annual Marine ball, held around November 10th to celebrate the Marine Corps’ birthday. Always the same place, same schedule.

It was true: Phillip Graves was infamous. Some Marines gave him the look as he walked into the grand ballroom, dominated by white and red, but he smiled and nodded all the same. There was no bad blood on his side, especially not when he was wearing such a crisp tux.

With the dinner over, the room had loosened up. People had left their tables, gone to mingle amongst themselves, the instrumental jazz low and unobtrusive in the background.

Phillip’s smile widened when he found you in the crowd, a flute in hand with a group of men in their dress blues. You’d done your hair differently, and God- that lustrous black evening gown. In the dim light, it was like it flowed forever, hovering right above the ground with its side slit reaching right above your knee.

You looked too good in black that his feet slowed. If he was any other man, he could have been fooled by how sweet you were. But he couldn’t miss the strength in those squared shoulders, the confidence in those eyes. You were just as lethal in a dress and heels. Perhaps even more so.

Your gaze drifted towards him and you did a double take before that smile dropped. You might have been across the room, but he could read your lips enough. Unbelievable, you said out loud, or something that made the group pause and turn to you. You recovered, excusing yourself before marching towards him.

“What are you doing here?” you demanded as you scanned the room for anyone looking.

“Told ya we’d meet again,” he said lightly.

Your hard eyes met his, and this close? Your pretty heels were doing something to him. “Who invited you?”

“Captain Williams.”

“He didn’t,” you deadpanned.

“He sure did. In fact, he’s lookin’ for you.” He gestured at your captain with his lieutenants. As if on cue, he looked up from his drink and nodded towards you.

Your eyes widened. “But… How? He’s not…”

“Very fond of PMCs? He seemed fine to me. Rather thankful when he shook my hand earlier actually.”

You stared at him like he was speaking another language.

He tilted his head towards your CO. “Come, don’t want to make him wait too long.”

You regained your composure and made your way across the room, looking a tiny bit too worried.

“Sergeant, hope you’ve been enjoying the ball. Mr. Graves invited me to the gun show next month. I’m afraid my schedule wouldn’t allow, but if you’re available, you should go instead.”

Captain George Williams was around Phillip’s age, maybe a little younger. Sharp hair and trimmed stubble, smile well-practiced. With the officer’s athletic build, one could easily mistake him for a businessman, or a lawyer, if he was out of his dress blues. He had that look in his eyes, like he always had the upper hand and he knew it. Like he could do anything he wanted just because he could, with a smile at that too.

“Sir,” you said.

“Oh, and why don’t you see if there’s anything extra for Mr. Graves in the kitchen?” Your captain turned to him. “Shame you had to miss dinner. We saved you a seat too.”

You gave a nod.

“You’re always welcome on base, Graves-“ he smiled, shaking his hand- “Have a good evening.”

Phillip nodded and excused himself with you next to him. His grin was a little too smug that it needed be. “What did I tell ya?”

You downed your flute, as if not wanting to acknowledge the efficacy of his charm. “You know he was just being polite, right?”

“Sure, but he shouldn’t have said it if he didn’t mean it.” He stopped in his tracks and turned to you. “But now we don’t have to pretend we don’t know each other anymore. They saw us and the world didn’t explode, did it?”

“You son of a gun.” A smile tugged on your lips as you eyed him. Amused, maybe even a little impressed. “Good thing you missed dinner and most have left.”

“So what do you say-“ he held his hand out- “is being amicable on the table now?”

Your gaze fell to his hand in contemplation before shaking his hand. “Fair enough.”

He was too pleased with himself, wasn’t he? “Well, you heard the man. Why don’t we see if there’s extra food for me?”

You laughed. “Yes, sir.”

Unfortunately for him, there was nothing left in the kitchen, with dinner having have been served over an hour ago.

He turned to you expectantly. “Did you drive?”

“And walk two blocks away from parking in these?” You gestured at your heels. “Hell no.”

“Then you can eat with me. I’ll give you a ride after.”

“At this hour? Nothing’s open.”

“Burgers. I know just the place.”

“In formalwear?”

“Why not? We’re already dressed up.” Perhaps it was a little silly, yes, but he probably won’t see you so dolled up again anytime soon, and he wanted to look. “Besides, a man’s gotta eat.”

Your lips pulled. “Fries do sound pretty good right about now.”

You bade your goodbyes to your fellow Marines, and your steps slowed in the hotel lobby as it dawned on you.

“Wait, where did you park?”

Phillip pulled the valet ticket out of his jacket. “No walking for you.”

Within minutes, the staff pulled up in his grey Rover and the commander opened the door for you.

“Ma’am,” he said with commitment to his bit.

You chuckled. “Didn’t have to do that,” you pulled the length of your gown out of the way.

“Comes with the bowtie,” he said before shutting the door.

The diner wasn’t far, and was rather quiet at that hour. He’d been there a few times, also after the Marine Balls he attended all those years ago. The place didn’t change much – perhaps a new coat of paint, and new décor here and there.

But one thing he hoped didn’t change? Their thick and luscious strawberry milkshake.

“I can’t believe you actually did that,” you said when the waitress stepped away with your orders.

His brow rose. “Did what?”

“Got an invitation. From Williams no less. How did you do it?” You stared at him with an amused yet bewildered expression.

“I called him.”

“And?”

“Asked if I could get an invite. Worst he could say is no, right?”

“What if he did?”

He considered. “Probably try the Major.”

“I’m glad you didn’t. You always this shameless?”

“Don’t say it like it’s a bad thing. I like getting what I want. Don’t you?”

“You sound insufferable,” you teased, shaking your head before sipping your chocolate shake.

“Yet here you are.” He chuckled. “Glad I could still make it though. My meeting ran very late though.”

“All that tux just for a burger and milkshake.”

“It’s the company that matters,” he said, reaching for his drink. “But I’d do a lot of things for a good strawberry shake.”

Your gaze lingered on his chest a beat too long before picking up a fry.

He didn’t mind at all if you wanted to check him out - he did put on the tux for a reason. He too was looking respectfully (tried his best anyway) when he walked behind you. He could only hope he was discreet enough, because damn, it was hard to look away and you were right there in those heels.

Maybe taking his jacket off would make it easier for you…

“Feeling a bit warm?” you asked as he draped his jacket over the seat next to him.

“I like to live on the edge,” he said, picking up his burger. “Should have ordered the spaghetti meatballs.”

That earned him an open laugh before your eyes fell on the scar on his cheek again. He could tell you wanted to ask. You never did.

“I think you still owe me a rematch,” Phillip said before his second to last bite.

“What rematch?”

“At the range. My turf this time.”

“People might talk.”

It might have been a different story if you were out in public, but his Shadows were no snitches. Wasn’t very smart risking a job as such.

“My boys know to mind their own business. Besides, I thought Williams said you should come with me to the arms show.”

“Your base is not the arms show.”

“It could be. I thought you were very interested in the new drones we got.”

You let out a playful sigh as you dipped another fry. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Just saying. And… maybe we could find more glittery drinks after.” He took his last bite.

You looked at him expectantly.

He wiped his mouth and fingers clean. “You got time to think about it. I’ll be away next week, and you can let me know when I’m back.”

You smiled. “Give ‘em hell, Graves.”

Phillip didn’t want to admit he’d been thinking about you. Probably too much for his own good too. But it was a crush, and crushes faded. The sooner he acknowledged it the sooner he’d get it out of his system.

He could text, or call, and succumb to his impulses, but he’d rather save it for when he got back. Only made his return sweeter, didn’t it?

The first thing he did when he hopped on the plane back home was to text you.

You done thinking?

Can I fly the drones?

I don’t see why not

Maybe just a little visit

Hook, line and fucking sinker. He really shouldn’t be this pleased with himself.

For the coming Saturday, Phillip suggested grabbing breakfast before going to HQ, but you refused as you’d be at the gym. Shame, but at least you agreed to him picking you up.

You walked up to his SUV in a black shirt, dark jeans and a jacket. Comfortable, fitting for a few hours in the sun.

“Well, someone looks excited,” he said as you strapped yourself in.

You couldn’t hide that giddy beam. “I feel I’m going to be witnessing something top secret.”

“It is. But you can tell Boyle. I like that kid.”

“He’d be very happy to know.”

He grabbed the paper cup out of the holder and offered it to you. “Had your coffee yet?”

“Not yet, thanks.” You reached for it. “You?”

“No. I didn’t know how you liked it so I was going to have that in case you didn’t want it.”

You retracted your hand. “Oh, you should have it then.”

“How do you like your coffee?”

“Doesn’t matter as long as it’s got caffeine.”

He laughed, holding it closer towards you. “Then we can share.”

You had your half before handing the rest to him. Phillip didn’t intend to brush your fingers with his, and while it didn’t seem to faze you, he didn’t miss the most miniscule jolt that went down this spine.

“Hey, Williams didn’t say anything, did he?” he asked as he approached the HQ gate.

“Nope. Business as usual.”

“Good. Hope that makes you feel a little better about coming out here today. I do want you to have a good time.”

You might not have answered, but the small tug on your lips didn’t go unnoticed.

“Sir-” the guards nodded as he stopped for the scan- “Ma’am.”

“Nice base,” you commented.

“I try.” He drove down the road past depots and warehouses before parking outside the training facility. He turned to you as you walked up to the building. “Should we go to the shooting range first or…?”

“Save it for last. Give your ego some more time to prepare for another loss.”

“Damn. Maybe we should skip the range entirely, if you put it that way.”

You laughed as you walked through the door he held for you.

“Graves,” the Shadow at the armoury greeted before nodding at you. “The drones are ready.”

He led you out to the large, partially-shaded outdoor area. You lit up as you approached the table where the three drones laid. He always liked seeing you get excited about tech, when you could nerd out with him.

“Alright. Let’s see.” He pointed at the palm sized UAV on the far-left. “Recon drone, 8k resolution, unbelievable zoom. Thermal and night vision. 3 hours flight time-“ He moved along, pointing at the quadcopter. “Tac drone. 16-inch wheelbase, foldable to fit in your pack. Marks targets for air strikes and can move small payloads. Often used with loitering munitions.

“And the newest-“ He flipped open the metal case akin to a mint tin to reveal a one-inch drone- “The Hornet. Virtually no acoustic signature, even at its top speed of 40 mph. Flight time is only 35 minutes indoors, but it tries its best.”

What he didn’t expect when he turned to you, though, was the concern on your face.

“God, I don’t want to know how expensive these are.”

“You don’t have to?”

“I feel legally liable to tell you I won’t be able to pay for any damage I might cause.”

“It’s impossible to mess up in this big of a space. And you’ve flown before.”

You grimaced, gaze jumping between the drones, as if weighing your options before turning to him. “I’ll just watch you.”

He chuckled. “I thought you wanted to fly! We came all the way here.”

“Well, I changed my mind.”

“Come on.” He tilted his head. “I’ll be right next to you.”

You eyed him warily.

“I’ll make sure you don’t mess up.” He reached for the tac drone first. “Let’s start with the easiest one.”

You observed quietly as Phillip got it up in the air. He walked you through the different features before coaxing you to fly it, and you relented. You might have been a little apprehensive at first, but that didn’t last long at all as soon as you held the controller, your smile fast blooming.

Next, you tried the recon drone, confident enough now to lift it off on our own before he showed you how to cycle between the imaging modes.

“Can I scout your base?”

“Why not. The airspace is clear today.” He pulled out his phone to dial the ATC. “Shadow-1 to Radar. Be advised, I’m flying a UAV in the AO.”

You flew out the area, past the neighbouring buildings and across the runway.  “Damn, Graves. How big is this place?”

He shrugged. “Enough for 500 operators.”

“How many of them do you think dress up as you on Halloween?”

“Doesn’t matter. You did it better.”

You let out a playful gasp. “I did not dress up as you.”

“Think you did. Wore my clothes,” he teased. “Better than me too.”

“Not my fault black’s not your colour.”

He glanced as your shirt. It indeed was not.

“Hey, is that what I think it is?” you asked, the drone hovering above a small, windowless concrete building.

“Yup. The infamous gas chamber.”

“My nemesis.”

“I send insubordinate Shadows there.”

You whipped to him with wide eyes which only made him burst out in laughter.

“Just the ones who miss their weekly barber trim.”

“I was wondering how everyone’s hair is in tip top shape.”

“24/7, baby. Better have your hair in check if you want that year-end bonus.”

You moved along, flying forwards.

“That’s the CQB hut.” He pointed at the monitor. “Moving targets. Pretty fun.”

“Huh, looks like that’s our rematch right there.”

He turned to meet that teasing smile. “Challenge accepted.”

Phillip gave you a virtual tour of the base, even scouted the HQ and showed you the window of his large office. It was surprisingly fun, as he too, had never had an aerial tour of his base.

When you flew the drone back, you aimed the camera at the both of you before switching to thermal vision with a little giggle. “Never seen myself in thermal before.”

“Me neither.” He stepped in closer to you and looked up at the drone. “Take a photo.”

You smiled at the camera and snapped a pic before landing the UAV on the table.

Next, he took out the Hornet from its case and held it out. You started it up and it lifted off his palm.

“Holy crap. It is silent,” you said as it zoomed across the area.

He could only smile when you spent the next few minutes zipping through gaps and between table legs with adorable amusement.

“Pretty cool, huh?” He tucked the Hornet back in its case.

“Insanely cool. You do have really nice toys here.”

He placed the case on the table. “CQB now? Loser pays for lunch.”

You headed back to the armoury to get a rifle and a sidearm loaded with ball ammo. You put on your vest and gloves before Phillip led you to the CQB house.

He set up the course on the tablet by the door and put on the live feed of his body cam. “In case you want to watch,” he said before putting on his eye and ear protection.

“Are you flexing again?”

He pressed start and the countdown started. “I am. But please look away if I miss twice in a row.”

You grinned. “Wouldn’t wanna miss it.”

Phillip missed a few shots here and there, but still finished just shy of two minutes, which wasn’t bad at all for a casual round.

“You turn,” he said, resetting the course and switching to your body cam.

You moved through the rooms with confidence and precision, and were neck and neck with his time. Until you slipped when you rounded a corner.

He straightened up. “You ok?” he yelled out. He wasn’t even sure you heard him, but you immediately recovered and were back on your feet to make it through the rest of the course.

Moments after, you busted out the door with a satisfied smile. “Good run.”

“You alright?” He scanned down your body and instinctively reached for your shoulders, but catching himself just in time before he made contact. “I saw you fall.”

“Been through worse. Not sure you’ve heard, but I fell through the floor with a certain someone.” You brushed off the dirt off your thigh with a chuckle. “So how did I do?”

His shoulders relaxed with the sound before you turned to the tablet.

“Aw, 25 seconds behind!”

“But you slipped. You want to go again?”

“I can take a loss, Graves.” You nudged him with your elbow. “You won fair and square.”

“So a tie breaker then.”

You tilted your head. “This never ends, does it?”

He shrugged, the smile spreading on his lips. Not if he kept needing an excuse to see you.

You called it a day, ready to finally grab lunch. You thanked the specialist at the armoury when you returned the gear before leaving the building

You strapped yourself in his Rover. “So what do you feel like?”

“How about some Chinese?” he asked as he pulled off.

“I know a good place near mine.”

As he drove through the gate, he asked, “You’re doing your laundry tomorrow?”

“Unfortunately.”

“If you do it today, I can help. Not to brag, but I’ve always been really good at folding clothes.”

“Of course you are,” you teased. “You sound like such a suck up.”

Phillip glanced at you with a mock gasp. “You want immaculately folded clothes or nah?”

“Don’t you have better stuff to do, Graves?”

“It’s the weekend, and I’m already out. We’ll be eating while it’s washing, so might as well.”

It wasn’t like you needed the help at all, but what was a man to do for some more time with you? You didn’t mind him sticking around a little longer, did you?

The place you suggested satisfied his craving – salty, crispy and the right amount of greasy. Unfortunately, yet understandably, they didn’t have glittery drinks to offer. When it came time to pay, he nudged your hand away when you pulled out your card.

“Hey, I thought I was paying,” you said when the server left.

“You’ll pick it up next time,” he said, slipping his card back in his wallet. “Next week?”

“You’re talking like you’d be in town.”

“You’d be the first to know if I wasn’t.” He got up and you followed suit.

“I had the impression you were rarely home.”

“Not wrong. Which is why I try to make the most of my time when I am.” He held the door for you. “You want to work out at mine Saturday? My gym isn’t too bad, and you can swim too.”

“You invite your friends to your place a lot?”

“If we’re friends, yeah.” He turned to you. “Are we?”

You smiled, a little softer than he expected. A little too genuine for the banter. “I suppose we are.”

He looked away too fast. The sun didn’t have to make your eyes that much more beautiful. “Well, then it’s just two people hanging out. Doesn’t have to mean anything else.”

Back at yours, you separated your laundry to fold on the dining table.

“I know what we can do for our tie breaker,” Phillip said. “We had a sleeve rolling competition in boot. I was the best in my platoon.”

“Unbelievable.” You shook your head. “Aren’t you the golden boy.”

He grinned. “I take pride in it.”

“What did you win?”

“More bragging rights.”

“I doubt you know how to roll anymore though.”

“Hey, my sleeves were never short of stellar even when I left.”

You laughed. “Alright, let’s see if you still got it, Commander.”

He set up the timer on his phone and you both got to rolling. It had been a while since he properly rolled his sleeves, but it didn’t take long for the muscle memory to kick in. Old habits died hard after all.

You both held your hands up when the timer went off and inspected each other’s work. You didn’t do bad at all, but well, he’d had a few more years of practice.

“Damn, that is crisp, especially in 5 minutes.” You ran your finger over the smooth cuff. “Yeah, alright,” you admitted with a playful tone. “You still got it.”

“Sorry, you’re paying for lunch next week.”

You smiled as you unrolled the sleeves. “Looking forward to it.”

That little phrase didn’t have to make him feel so weird in the belly.

He helped you with the rest of your laundry, and while you didn’t hint at him to leave afterwards, he didn’t want to overstay his welcome and excused himself shortly after.

When arrived home, he sent you the thermal photo the specialist extracted from the drone. It was silly, really. Just the both of you in nondescript red and yellow blotches on shades of purple.

Looks like red is your colour, you replied.

I’ll consider rebranding to Ketchup Company

Strawberry Company is more like it seeing how much you like strawberry shakes :P

Phillip tried not to giggle.

Was it the emoji you sent? The first one too, as if this was how you officially became non-professional. Was it because you remembered his favourite flavour? Or was it from the fuzzy feeling that hadn’t left since you smiled at him in front of the restaurant?

All he knew, though, was that next Saturday was too long a wait to see you again.

The next part is linked above if already up Masterlist

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