M

Perhaps, that’s why you cling to the idea of Karen Page. She’s between your legs more than she’s beside you, and you have long stopped apologizing for it. Her tongue finds the rhythm you need before you can ask, swirling around your clit. Karen’s fingers pressing and curling inside you until you’re gasping—begging for a release that feels less like pleasure and more like permission to stop feeling at all.

Karen knows you don’t love her like that, though she knows you only do this because you needed to. She’s a warm body and she’s here, you give her that. It’s the cruelest thing you do and she simply lets you.

She’s told you one night, you go somewhere else when she’s fucking you deep. She had asked where but the silence from you was the only answer Karen could ever get. The truth was, you don’t know either. Somewhere Julie isn’t. Somewhere Julie is everywhere. Same thing, really.

“Can you pass me the cigarettes?” you murmured, swollen lips barely forming the words. You could see a bead of red still pooling there, when you bit her too hard at the peak of your orgasm.

Karen’s fingers leave you slowly, her nude in view as she reaches over to the nightstand, finds your pack of cigarettes, then shakes one loose. She moves closer, placing it between your lips without being asked. The lighter flicks, and the tip catches. Your gaze glances at her briefly before inhaling, you could feel the smoke filling your lungs, and it burns in your throat—the good kind of burn.

“Something on your mind?” she breathes, fingers brushing against your bare shoulder.

You take another drag and watch the smoke curl toward the ceiling, grey against grey, disappearing into the water stain you’ve been meaning to call maintenance about for eight months.

“No, no. I’m good.” you lie smoothly, turning away from her gentle touch. “I think you should go, it’s kinda late.” 

Karen exhales through her nose. “Call me if you need me then.” 

You listen to her dress; buttoning her jeans, fingers moving by memory, you could hear her find her bra, hear the clasps connect, the soft weight of her breasts settling into the cups. Karen always adjusts the straps. Two small tugs on each side, the hushed creak of elastic settling against her shoulder. You know everything about her body and nothing about her heart as much as Karen does with yours. 

But she lost someone, too. Foggy. 

Karen never says his name around you, just as you never say Julie’s around her. The loss exists anyway, swelling silently beneath the surface of everything between you. Maybe that’s why this works at all—because neither of you speak of the dead. This is how both of you survive, you think, through each other’s skin. 

Her lips pressed against your forehead then, a benediction you know you don’t deserve, and climbs off the bed. In your peripheral, you could see her silhouette hesitant, paused at the door, staring at you. 

“You ever going to tell me who she was?”

Your throat closes. “Goodnight, Karen.”

The door finally closes, and you have finished the cigarette. Completely alone, the smoke burns your insides the way nothing else does anymore. You can still feel Karen between your legs—an ache, this sole reminder that your body exists even when your mind doesn’t want it to. You press your thighs together and the sensation flares and fades, like everything else.

Julie is sitting in the corner.

“You can’t keep doing this.” Julie speaks, and her voice seems distorted, unable to remember what it sounded like anymore.

But you don’t turn around, couldn’t bear yourself to. You wouldn’t know anymore, everything blurs within you—everything except the weight of Julie’s gaze on the side of your face. Curtain blinds are half closed, they’ve been like that since she died, because you can’t stand the morning light and you can’t stand the dark either. You can’t stand the compromise but you made it anyway.

You have become a woman fashioned entirely out of concessions, all your sharpest edges sanded down by sufferance. A series of compromises stitched together. That’s who you are now, you suppose. Seeking absolution in the bodies of others, hoping it’ll wash away the agony through meaningless sex. A woman who hears her dead best friend’s voice and pretends it’s real, clinging on to anything so as to not fall apart.

“Shut up, Julie.” you say instead, only softly. 

Trepidation lodges inside your throat like secrets, all the things you should have said when she was alive and sitting in that same chair, with a smile that made you believe you were worth something. The shame is in the rehearsal, in the hundred times you’ve imagined this conversation and the zero times you have actually had it. 

“You’re being cruel to yourself,” it’s the love in Julie’s voice that breaks you, thin as a spider’s web, spreading outward from the spot where your name lands along with the words.

So are you, you want to argue back to a ghost. What did being good ever give her—a grave, dirt filling her body? A few dozen people who cried at her funeral and then went back to their lives? 

She poured herself out for everyone—for you, especially for you. 

That’s the real tragedy, perhaps. Julie was good and it didn’t matter, you're angry and it doesn’t change anything. She’s still dead. You’re still here. You, with your disdain for the world and your cold heart. You’re the one who gets to keep going, the one who gets to make mistakes and be cruel, still waking up the next morning and doing it all over again.

But you are the keeper of Julie Barnes’ memory, letting it go feels like another kind of murder. If you let go, who else will hold it? There is no urge in you to kill her again—once was enough.

You had so much love for her. Julie was gone, so it couldn’t change, it couldn’t turn into indifference. You were stuck with all that love, and it overflows. Floods the empty rooms of your chest and keeps rising. 

Where is this love supposed to go now?

Dex has spent a lot of time thinking about monsters during his imprisonment at Rikers Island. What makes them. What unmakes them. Whether a monster can choose to be something else, or whether the monster is all there is, has always been, will always be. 

The situation was extraordinary—how someone like Benjamin Poindexter could have wrought such a change in himself; the most worldly of men was difficult to understand. However, Dex had learned that the mysteries of reparation could not always be explained through logic. 

If man had his way, the plan of redemption would be an endless and bloody conflict. In reality, salvation was bought not by Jesus’ fist, but by His nail pierced hands. Because here was the truth Dex kept turning over; one good deed does not erase a thousand bad ones. But neither does a thousand bad ones erase the possibility of one good deed.

The world surrounding him was quick to lash out and assign blame, and yet mankind also drew from deep reservoirs of forgiveness. It won’t absolve him from anything, Dex already knows that. 

Perhaps, he’ll do this for himself instead—this one good deed. Besides, he’s not Jesus Christ anyway, not even close, though presumably the principle of it was the same.

Leveling the scales. Making amends. The blood of violence and the blood of sacrifice. Apropos of the way Jesus bled so that others could be saved, Dex has bled others so that he could survive and regain control over his life once more. 

Get his mind back. 

This also must be the reason why he tried to find where they had Julie Barnes buried, Dex regretted involving her unknowingly to Fisk’s labyrinth of lies and calculated manipulation, killing her in the process of it all. 

The way Dex dragged her frozen dead body into his car seat, driving to crash Fisk’s wedding all those years ago, but his mind tries to repress the lucidity of what happened afterwards—learning of her death. He knew he was a goner himself.

Julie was the closest thing Dex could have had in gaining some structure in his psyche, after Dr. Mercer’s death—life seemed a series of black and white in a world that’s somehow grey. Remembering the times where he’d listen to Mercer’s recording of their sessions, all of it a distant memory now, fossilized somewhere in the back of his mind. 

He never wanted to be with Julie, he wanted to be her. 

She made it look easy, being a kind person, and watching her had been different from listening to recorded tapes. Dex thought that if he studied her hard enough, some of her goodness might spill on to him. The living proof that people like Julie existed, that being dignified wasn’t just a concept nor a lie people told themselves to feel better about the things they have done.

Clearly, he was naive back then—begging society that would never hesitate to eat him alive if they learn what he really was. And then they did. They broke him. For this, Dex learned his most valuable lesson. He doesn’t need anyone for structure, he’ll be a good person by himself. 

Now he’s standing at her grave, the wind cold against his face, it was eerily quiet at night, there’s no one around. 

JULIE BARNES. BELOVED DAUGHTER, DEAREST FRIEND.

Dex was finally here, and yet he didn’t know what to say. Instead, he remained silent. Then, his gaze lowered down at the grave. The dirt has settled now, years later, grass beginning to grow over the wound. Soon, no one will be able to tell that anyone was buried here as the earth will heal. The grass will cover the scar, and Julie Barnes will become another name on another headstone, forgotten by everyone except the people who loved her.

He sensed the sound of footsteps until they’re almost upon him. Yet, Dex didn’t move from his position. 

You brought her flowers this time around. 

Julie would have hated anything ostentatious. Just put me in the ground, she said at your dining table, laughing, back when death was a joke and not a before-and-after in your life. Plant something pretty over me. 

But you never planted anything, you couldn’t bring yourself to do so. Instead, you bought magnolias from the old woman outside the subway station, drawn to them only because it looked like something Julie would stop for. She collected wounded things so naturally it almost seemed instinctive. Stray cats. Broken people. You.

The flower stems perspire against your palm, clammy and cold. By the time you pass through the cemetery gates, your sweater feels too heavy across your shoulders, your body taut with the effort of continuing forward.

You nearly turned back twice already—once beneath the jaundiced lights of the subway station, and again at the sight of the rusted iron archway looming ahead, when your lungs suddenly forgets how to draw a full breath.

You don’t come here often as much as you used to. 

There is always going to be some part of you that doesn’t want to feel the finality of her life, seeing where they’d put her. 

For months after the funeral, you kept imagining her underground. Flashes of images consumed the inside of your head; dirt settled into the concave of her collarbones, maggots eating around her rotting flesh, soil filled her mouth with her hollowed eye sockets wide open, screaming. This obscene impartiality of death, stripping Julie Barnes to something nature could digest. 

You would wake up sick over it, your fingernails raking against your own neck as though you’ve been buried alive alongside her.

Eventually, your mind learned a new trick for survival.

If you didn’t visit the grave, then some part of Julie could remain untouched, suspended somewhere outside of reality. Not alive exactly, but not fully gone either. A childish thing to believe, but grief made children out of everyone.

Even in the midst of your tribulations, you wanted to see her. Perhaps it was selfish, the way you nurtured your grief for years, indulging in your own misery while the rest of the world kept moving forward without her, and you were the only one who hasn’t.

A shadow appeared almost spectral from where you were walking, his outline blurred by distance and possibly your deteriorating eyesight. Cursing under your breath, blaming the hours you doom scroll on your bed so now you can’t see for shit. 

There was a man, this tall imposing figure, standing solemnly at the grave of your other half. For a second, you were nearly convinced your mind has flooded you with these cluster fuck of hallucinations—was he Death then?

Has he come to take you, too? 

But your feet kept moving despite every sensible thought urging you to retreat. The Zoloft in your system is doing wonders; muting every survival instinct and softening terror until it becomes bearable. 

“Hi—sorry,” you hear yourself say, voice hoarse. “Who the fuck are you?”

When he turned around, there was a fleeting moment before he spoke. You could feel the way his eyes seemed to assess you whole, coldly methodical rather than openly curious. Slotting every observable detail into place before determining whether you posed any real danger to him. Who did he think you were anyway? 

You wish you could beat him up with magnolias, it’s a stupid impulse. The flowers are soft, fragile, and most likely to disintegrate on impact. This stranger’s presence feels like an intrusion—a violation of the invisible bubble you’ve constructed around Julie’s grave. Who in their right mind visits a grave at two in the morning? You were the only one who was supposed to be here. 

This was your time to ugly cry. You know it’s not healthy, but it’s yours anyway, now you couldn’t even do that anymore. Couldn’t see his features clearly as the streetlights are dim low, some flickering; barely enough to navigate by, certainly not enough to make out details. You briefly wondered if he was one of those creeps who has these weird and fucked up fetishes, getting off on other people’s graves.

“—Dex.” 

You blinked hard, startled back to reality by the husky cadence of his voice. “What?”

“I said my name is Dex,” he repeated, his eyes lingering on you knowingly. “You zoned out for a bit.”

“I wasn’t exactly… zoning out,” you were quick to defend yourself, clutching the magnolias tighter. “I was just thinking.”

You held his gaze, and Dex held yours in return. The moment stretched awkwardly, saturated with tension neither of you seemed interested in breaking. You hated being caught off guard like this, his expression stayed frustratingly unreadable despite yourself, and uncertainty gnawed at you—was he amused by you, or merely indifferent?

“You knew her,” you started again, though it wasn’t a question. “How? I don’t think I’ve seen you before.” 

“Something like that, yeah.” Dex says, drawing back his gaze towards the headstone instead. “I worked with her briefly at the Brooklyn Suicide Prevention Center.”

“You were a hotline operator?” you couldn’t hide the skepticism in your voice. Dex didn’t look like the type. 

“For about a year,” he replies. “Julie was there longer. Three years, I think.”

“Three and a half,” you corrected mindlessly. “I still remember she started in February.”

His eyes flickered back to you. “I’m guessing you knew her very well, huh?”

This time, it was your turn to tear away from Dex’s gaze, there was a plethora of things you don’t talk about anymore. The words used to come easy, back when everything was, when you had someone who understood you deeply. Now it felt like extracting bloodied teeth—pulling truths out of yourself that had calcified in place. 

All the strings inside you broke somewhere along the way, you’re not certain exactly when, but you’ve been held together by her for so long that you’ve forgotten how to stand on your own, at the back of your throat; your voice choked by disquietude. 

“I didn’t come here to upset you,” Dex spoke, like he’d read your mind.

“Then what the fuck are you doing here?” 

“Pay my respects, same as you.”

You don’t buy a word of it, and judging by the look on Dex’s face, neither does he expect you to. Who is she to you? You wanted to ask, but then again, you don’t care about this stranger enough to call him out. Dex’s truth would feel like another burden you’d have to carry, and your limbs are already tired. 

“She never told me about you… or mentioned anything about a Dex,” you admit, or maybe you’ve long forgotten. 

“Does that bother you?”

“I don’t know, really—should it?”

Dex gave out a shrug. “Julie must’ve had her reasons then.”

“What kind of reasons exactly?”

“You’ll have to ask her.”

You could feel your chest ache, but it’s light and something tender, then a laugh of grief breathing out through your nose. “Oh, fuck you man.”

“Are you always this friendly?” 

“Only when strange men show up at my best friend’s grave in the middle of the night.”

He nodded slowly, the corner of his mouth forming into a half smile. “Sounds fair to me.”

The flowers shift precariously in your hands, damp stems slipping against your fingers. You should put them down, that’s why you came. But the presence of a stranger, Dex changes something fundamental. Suddenly, the gesture feels exposed, theatrical—something you’re doing for an audience rather than for Julie.

“You can put those down,” Dex says, nodding toward the headstone. “I’m not going to watch.”

“Feels like you’re watching either way.”

Dex says nothing in response. He shifts his weight onto one leg instead, shoulders loosening as if trying to appear less imposing beneath the cemetery shadows. He neither advances nor retreats, giving you space without truly leaving it.

Your knees crack painfully as you crouch, the sound startlingly loud against the surroundings of the grave. You grimace instinctively, embarrassed by the evidence of your own exhaustion. You wonder if Dex can hear how worn down you are—not emotionally, though there is plenty of that, too. Rather physically. Your body has carried pain for years like an extra organ.

You place the magnolias carefully beside the stone, their pale petals almost luminous against the surface, and briefly convince yourself that these small acts of remembrance might still matter. You run your fingers over the carved letters, tracing the curve of the J, then the slope of L. 

As it turns out, the depth of love a person inspires has very little to do with the amount of time you have known them. Because time means nothing against closeness.

“I’m gonna be here for a while,” you declare, pushing yourself upright, dusting off your palms, turning to face him.

Dex’s blank expression doesn’t falter. “If you want me to leave, I can do that.” 

“No,” you’re holding his gaze a bit more intensely. “I want you to tell me how you really knew her.” 

“Hm,” he contemplates, nodding slowly. “All right, I’ll tell you.”

And so, Dex tells his story, or at least, partially. Fabricated. A few truths survive intact among the lies, enough to anchor the whole thing in plausibility. What you don’t know, he reasons in his mind, can’t hurt you. 

Dex doesn’t follow you home, though it takes more restraint than he cares to admit.

He wants to, there’s an urge, very insistent in his mind. It would have been effortless, really; hang back fifty yards, match your pace, and easily disappear into the shadows when you glance over your shoulder. You wouldn’t even know. 

But Dex has already lived through the consequences of attachment once before. Look where it got his North Star, dead. Both Julie and Mercer fucking dead. Their graves stand as evidence to the contrary, and everyone he places on a pedestal eventually ends up beneath one.

Whatever strange gravity exists between you, he refuses to feed it. And yet, he can’t ignore what he noticed—that you are nothing like Julie Barnes. You were damaged, too, much like him. Dex recognizes pieces of himself reflected back in the deep sense of lassitude etched across your face. 

It occurs to Dex then that you are perhaps the worst kind of person for him to meet—you who mirrors him too closely. That isn’t good, you’re not someone that’s going to be good for him. There is no softness left in you to idealize, only survivability. Only like him, he supposed. 

You could never become the kind of person Dex needed—someone steady enough to build himself around, someone foolish enough to believe he could still be salvaged. You don’t carry that kind of faith inside you, it seemed. There was no warmth in your grief nor blind compassion that would look at him, and mistake him for a man deserving redemption. 

What unsettles him instead was the certainty that you would simply understand him.

And what’s more terrifying than the ordeal of being perceived? Understanding is far more dangerous than adoration—and simple adoration, he can manage, as it fits neatly into the framework of his fixations, it creates structure, and keeps relationships uneven, safely contained within roles Dex understands intimately.

Yet the former implies a two way street. It forces two people to stand equally exposed before one another, stripped of its dim illusion.

The mission in his head is what matters, Dex tells himself. Killing Fisk is what matters. One good deed, the only thing that might balance the scales, the closest he’ll ever get. You were a distraction he hadn’t accounted for, Dex went to Julie’s grave for his own atonement, that’s all. 

Although, when you gave him your name, Dex finds himself holding onto it carefully despite every instinct telling him not to, rolling each letter across his tongue in the privacy of his own mind.

He suppose old habits die hard. Fuck.

The bell above the door jingles, this tiny sound you’ve learned to drown out months ago. 

Sandy was the only old woman who could tolerate your aloof nature, who maybe even had a soft spot for someone as young as you. Besides, Bel Aire Diner is also the only place you’ve managed to stay.

There were jobs before this, different uniforms and break rooms, sets of coworkers who watched you with growing concern and some with contempt. Managers who eventually pulled you aside with careful voices, and practiced sympathy to ask whether things were okay at home. 

You stopped showing up to them, one day your name existed on the schedule, and the next it didn’t.

So when you showed up at the diner seven months ago, she simply handed you an apron and pointed to the coffee machine. You at least know how to make coffee, right? she said to you, and Sandy never asked anything personal. 

You’ve been here ever since.

It’s nice to have some sort of routine and not constantly be on your bed, caged from the world. You’d spend hours serving different people, making milkshakes, cooking eggs, and filling coffee—but the repetitive aspect of it didn’t bore you. 

Maybe it’s the invisibility it gives you. The way customers look through you like you’re part of the furniture, no one that matters, merely a hand that delivers their food and refills their coffee for them, disappearing back into the kitchen. No one expects you to be anything at all. 

You appreciate the noise, too. Clatter of plates, cars and trucks passing by outside, the soft chattering of people that never rises above a certain volume. It fills the spaces where your thoughts would otherwise live, keeping your sanity at bay. 

The golden sun seeps through the windows, harshly bright, and you squint against it, turning your face away. You have always preferred the night shift, but Sandy needed you to cover a double, and you don’t say no to Sandy. 

The griddle hisses from the kitchen, and somewhere in the back, you can hear Sandy shouting at the dishwasher about the difference between clean and sanitized. Despite yourself, amusement flickers briefly across your face as you polished the mixer clean.

You don’t turn around but you could feel the weight of presence taking a seat on your counter. 

“I’ll be right with you,” your tone slightly higher to seem friendly, dipping the sponge into the tub filled with fresh warm water. 

“Take your time.” 

Your hand freezes over the tub, the sponge drips soapy water back into the bucket, and only then, you can feel your heart start pounding. 

Motherfucker. You recognize that voice from weeks ago, one that couldn’t escape every corner of your mind. It’s him, there’s no doubt. The man from the cemetery—

“Oh,” you rasped out, eyes widened slightly. “It’s you.”

“It’s nice to see you again,” he beams, along with your name accompanied by a grin that shows too many teeth. “You’ve been doing well?”

“Yup, fucking fantastic. You?”

“Never been better,” Dex folds his hands on the marbled counter, fingers interlocking, thumbs pressed together as he lifts his gaze to stare at you. “What are you famous for?”

“… Milkshakes, I guess.” you blurt out, uncertain.

“Excellent. Thank you. I’ll have…”

You observed as his attention drifted over the menu while you studied him openly for the first time. Daylight altered Dex somehow. The dim flickering lights from the cemetery no longer obscured the planes of his face, and the scars tracing visibly across skin that was unexpectedly striking—these imperfections only seemed to emphasize the severity of Dex’s features. 

It irked you to realize how handsome he actually is. 

A long scar cuts cleanly across his right cheek, pale against the rest of his skin, while another slices right above the line of his left eyebrow. There are probably more hidden underneath his clothes, mapped across his body in places you cannot see.

Each one feels heavy with history, little remnants of violence preserved permanently on one’s flesh. You wonder briefly about the stories attached to them, but why would you care about something so trivial? That, and the way Dex also seemed different from the first time you have met him. Keeping your mouth shut, you wait for him to order instead.

“One banana milkshake, please.” 

You nodded, then asked, “Uh… you also want whip?” 

“Doesn’t everybody?” 

Did he know you were working at the Bel Aire Diner? No, he definitely did not. The diner appealed to him for practical reasons, of course; wide sightlines unobstructed by decor, multiple exits within easy reach, predictable flow of civilian traffic at this hour, and scattered across nearly every table sat utensils capable of becoming weapons if required.

And also, The task force would never move recklessly inside a diner full of witnesses, not unless they were desperate enough to risk collateral damage. You being there was coincidence. Pure coincidence. Ironic how Dex believes in coincidence now, after spending most of his life convinced the world operated only through cause and consequence.

The plan is set in motion, he made his call when you were busy making his milkshake. Dex knows the agents are already en route, and if he walks away now, abandoning the mission because of you, with your sad miserable eyes and magnolias in your hands, then he’s worse than a monster. 

A weak man, that’s what he’ll become. He can’t comprehend how someone like you—someone Dex barely fucking knows and for good reasons, makes him feel so weak. You are dangerous to him, and wanting someone dangerous is the first step toward destruction. 

Twelve minutes dissolves like cream in his milkshake, each second spilling into the next until all that is left was the countdown in Dex’s mind. Six minutes. Five. Four. And the sirens wailing in the distance, strobes of red and blue begin to flash against the diner’s interior. The AVTF is here. Dex can feel them approaching, the vibration of their vehicle—the reality of what comes next. 

Dex can bury these thoughts of you if he tries hard enough. Compartmentalize them accordingly amongst all the other dangerous impulses he has learned to suppress. Perhaps warning you would be the kinder thing to do—a small act of mercy before inevitability takes shape. 

Yet, some part of him wants you to witness him fully. Wants to feel your eyes fixed on him as he sheds the fragile disguise of normalcy and becomes precisely what he was built to become, and he wonders what you would do then.

Would you look away like everyone eventually does? Or would you continue watching despite yourself, unable to drag your gaze away from the destruction unfolding in front of you? 

People have always stared longest at the things capable of ruining them. Are you that kind of person? Dex needed to know, or this doesn’t work at all.

“Yo, you! Milkshake.” An AVTF agent points out to him. 

A red straw sits between his lips casually while both his hands rise into the air. Inside the straw, hidden from sight, rests the toothpick he slipped away earlier. Dex turns slowly toward the agent, movements deceptively unthreatening.

Then he blows into the straw.

The toothpick shoots forward with precision, disappearing straight into the agent’s eye before anyone fully understands what happened. A choking sound follows seconds later as the man collapses backward, crumpling instantly while chaos detonates through the diner around him. 

A second agent was reaching for him, but Dex was quick to throw his empty milkshake glass towards the wall, shattering pieces splashed across the agent’s face. But he did not kill him, no. Dex grabs the man’s wrist, twisting hard he could feel the bones grind against each other as the gun clatters to the floor. 

Dex kicks the gun away, using the agent’s body as a shield against the other one’s opening salvo. Bullets punch through the agent’s vest, letting out a pained scream. He lets them drop, and throws one of his knives—and the third agent goes down with a blade pierced into his nasal bridge. 

Bullets whistle past his ear, chipping the edge of the formica, sending shards of ceramic flying from the coffee machine behind him. Then, Dex throws himself toward the counter, hitting the floor hard, shoulder first, rolling into the narrow space behind the counter. 

His back pressed against the cabinets, knees up, hands already searching for another set of knives, and Dex’s fingers close around three. The way his body knows what to do, each following throws with a trajectory only he can see. The first blade stabs itself in an agent’s larynx, silencing a scream before it can form. Then comes the second; soft gap between helmet and vest, piercing into the clavicle. The third knife punches through an eye socket, and three agents drop without a sound, instantly killing them. 

And then Dex sees you, crouched against the wall, your knees drawn to your chest with your arms wrapped around your head. He could see your whole body violently shaking through your shoulders trailing to your fingers. You were trying to make yourself small and invisible enough that the violence might pass you by.

Yet, it finds you, always.

“Oh, don’t worry,” his voice came out raspy with your name attached to his lips, muffled by the Bullseye mask, thickened by exertion. “I’m not going to kill you.” 

The reassurance lands awkwardly between you, utterly lacking the social instincts that tell most people how to comfort someone in distress. Then again, Dex has never seemed particularly interested in assuming what others need from him, it simply is not in his nature. He stands before you bloodied and armed, but somehow expects trust to emerge from that.

You raise your head, it caught him off guard. Through the mask, your gaze finds him immediately—those horrific, soulless eyes of his. But instead, something gentler passes briefly over your features, was it altruism? Entirely at odds with the rigid line of your shoulders and the fear still visible elsewhere. What did you see? Dex wanted to ask, but his mind only knows your contradiction lingered unpleasantly in his thoughts.

So, he tries again. “I’m one of the good guys now.”

You don’t call Karen. 

The thought surfaces somewhere between the third and sixth drink—a flicker of instinct, old habit of reaching for warm hands and warmer bodies when everything feels fucked up. Karen would come, you imagined, she’d sit beside you on the barstool, order her own drink, and wait for you to speak first. Karen’s good at waiting, she’s had practice. Still, you don’t call her, and you don’t go home either. 

And you know how the saying goes—if home is where the heart is, then you’re all just fucked. Home is where everything reminds you of her, scent her perfume on a shirt you haven’t washed since she died, old things that she used to give you. Everything in your home was everywhere of her. 

Julie had looked at you then, and called it Weltschmerz, but it wasn’t pitying sadness. It was a larger one that seemed to encompass all the people, the billions you didn’t know, all living their lives, a sorrow that mingled with a wonder and awe at how hard humans everywhere tried to live, even when their days were so very difficult, even when their circumstances were so wretched. 

Life is so heartbreaking, you would say with your head on her lap. It’s so fucking depressing. Julie would smile softly, her fingers running through the strands of your hair. And yet we all do it, she’d say. 

You’ve decided to go to a bar instead, it’s not the one near the diner—that one is probably still cordoned off with yellow tape, crawling with investigators, the kind of place you’ll never be able to look at the same way again. They let you go pretty quickly after giving a statement to the police with what happened hours ago, though you didn’t say much. Your mind elsewhere. 

Drinking yourself into a stupor, by the time then, the shaking had stopped. The bar fills and empties around you. People come and go, laughing, arguing, living their ordinary lives. None of them know what happened this morning, that a man killed a dozen agents. Though none of them know that you watched, you couldn’t stop yourself from seeing. 

There was something vile and compelling about Dex in those moments; the eloquence of his movements, the terrible grace of his brutality. And then knowing that you would have done the same if you had his skills. You wanted him to slice his knife into your skin, your insides unused. Empty and pristine. You pictured your pelvis split open, to reveal a tidy hollow, like the nest of a vanished animal, unappealing to someone so violent in his nature. 

You hate yourself for it. Feel your limbs disconnecting, floating nearby like driftwood on an oily lake—a dead bloated body. With nothing to lash out on, you drain your glass and signal for another, trying not to think about the way his eyes found yours through the mask.

In your lowest moments, you see her. Julie’s looking at you with an expression you know too well. Guilt. It’s painted into every line of her face, the soft curve of her mouth, the furrow between her brows. She looks like she’s trying to apologize for something—for dying, maybe. For leaving. For making your life a perpetual loop of trying to recover from something after something, someone after someone.

No words came out from her mouth this time, and the bar became overwhelming with its crowd. The noise, the lights, the press of bodies; all of it feels like a trap, and you can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t fucking do anything except reach for your wallet and throw cash on the counter and stumble toward the door.

You don’t know where you’re going, yet your body makes the choice for you, carrying you through intersections and half-empty streets with the mindless certainty of habit. Walking through Hell’s Kitchen like you're following a red string of thread only you can see. It’s not until you see the archway that you finally understand.

Of course. Where else would you go?

Your knees hit the dirt when you come nearer, a hard impact that sends pain shooting through your joints. But you don’t care anymore. You crawl the last few feet, fingers digging into the soil, the cold seeping through the fabric of your sweatpants, unbothered by the way you appear. 

The magnolias are still there. Their petals have curled inward on themselves, brittle and withered, surrendering slowly to time. You stare at the headstone above them, the engraved letters swim briefly out of focus. You blink hard. When your vision clears, they blur again. “You knew him and you didn’t tell me.” you press your hands flat against the headstone, feel the cold granite bite into your palms. “Did you know he kills people? Did you know he’s—that he’s—,” your voice choked out by an ugly sob.

“I watched him put a toothpick through a man’s fucking eye... I watched him throw knives like they were extensions of his own hands. How can you know someone like that and not tell me?”

You lean forward, pressing your forehead against the stone. It’s cold. It’s so cold. You wonder if this is what she feels like now—not Julie, perhaps, but what remains of her. Always cold, buried deep within the dirt and the grass and the slow turning of seasons with everything left unsaid.

“Did you send him to me?” you whisper, words slurring. “Is this some kind of—of punishment? It must be, right? You—you hate me.”

If Dex’s barbarism can somehow serve as penance for your failure, then perhaps you can absolve yourself from the guilt you’ve been carrying for years. See? Isn’t this enough? Can’t you forgive me now? But the truth is simpler and far worse; there is no answer, only your self punishment. There is simply a world out there that doesn’t care whether you suffer or thrive, because what you really want isn’t punishment either—it’s her. And nothing will bring her back.

“Julie,” your voice empty, quietly strained in tone. “I don’t want to live anymore.” 

“Do you mean it?” 

A voice cuts through the silence behind you, you could feel your heart slamming painfully against your bones the moment you recognize who it was. 

You stumble clumsily, your knees scraping harshly against the ground. Fresh pain blooms through what was already aching from kneeling too long, dirtied hand slides through wet grass, sending a streak of mud across your skin, your back against the headstone. For a moment you remain frozen there, before finally looking up.

Dex’s presence was looming over you, maybe a few feet away, yet you could see the Bullseye mask is long gone—you see his face first; bruises darken the line of his jaw, ugly shades of purple spreading across his scarred skin, dried blood tracks from his temple in crimson red, disappearing into the collar of his suit, and his lower lip is split, swollen around the wound. There is so much blood on him that your gaze struggles to settle anywhere else.

He’s still in the suit. There's a gash on his forearm, with his hands hanging at his sides, fists clenched, and you notice they were shaking.

“Dex,” you manage, his name catching roughly in your throat. 

His eyes narrow slightly. “You haven’t answered my question,” his voice thick, slowly he begins moving closer, the distance shrinking inch by inch then he stops. “Do you mean it?”

“Why?” you dare to ask, lifting your chin despite yourself. “Are you going to kill me here?”

Maybe Dex could. You’ll be his one good deed. Isn’t that what it was all about? Ending one's suffering. The math had seemed so simple when he was sitting in his cell, counting down the days until he could put a bullet in Fisk’s skull. One life for another. Balance. Justice. And people have a hard time letting go of their suffering, out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.

Your throat is laid open to him, vulnerable in a way you don’t seem to realize. The pulse quivers inside your skin like a trapped bird, a wingless bird that wants to be free. Dex could wrap his hands around it—could imagine the feel of life draining out of you, watching the tension leave your body; your wholeness, your regrets, and your grief finally releasing its hold.

If he couldn’t do it to himself, perhaps he’ll do it to you.

But Dex offers no response, and instead, sinks himself to the ground, one knee first then the other. The fabric of his suit darkens further where it meets the soil, drinking in moisture without complaint as he crawls his way to you. He looks enormous from this angle, predatory in its movement. 

You try to scramble backward but your spine meets the edge of Julie’s headstone, realizing with a terror that there’s nowhere left to go, so you shut your eyes instead.

His breath warms against your face, fanning across your skin in uneven breaths. Dex’s arms come up on either side of you, caging you loosely, his palms flat on the dirt, and he can feel the heat of your body so close to his. Your breath comes in shallow gasps that mingle with his in the small space between you.

“Open your eyes,” he says, but you shake your head. “Open your eyes. I want you to see me.”

“You need t—” 

“Please.”

And you do, it makes him happy somehow. Your eyes flutter open to find him impossibly close, Dex’s face hovering just beyond your own. He was wrapped around in red. Blood red stains his skin, and the moon above silvering it in ways that should have been grotesque but aren’t. You don’t know what it means, you don’t know what any of this means.

You swallowed hard, trying to find your voice. “What do you want?” 

Dex wants to tell you something he doesn’t know himself—for it has always been a foreign language, a set of sounds he could mimic but never truly understand. There are no words in his lexicon for this vague desire he feels, drifting from one thing to another. Dex wants to kill you. Dex wants you alive. Trying to find reasons, only winding up with nothing. He didn’t know what he wanted, but the ache for it was palpable.

“Can you kiss me?” 

These words come out from his lips instead. Perhaps, he’ll learn what your mouth feels like against his. He finds himself wondering whether you carry the traces of whiskey on your lips, or something far more elusive—something he could spend a lifetime trying to define and still fail to capture.

What Dex didn't expect was your fist. 

Your knuckles connect with his cheek, it was clumsy, half grievance. Yet, the impact snaps through his face regardless, a shock traveling up through bone and into his skull. His head turns slightly with it, just enough to acknowledge force, but not enough to suggest defeat. It’s nothing compared to what he’s felt before. Your attempt at punching him felt more emotional rather than its usual physicality, perhaps, a release of everything you've been holding back.

“Fuck!” 

You hissed immediately, pulling your hand back, and Dex watches you cradle it against your chest, tears in the corner of your eyes. Your knuckles are already starting to swell, of course you’d hurt yourself, Dex was a lot stronger than you. Stupid impulse. There’s blood on his teeth, yours or his, no one’s certain, but it doesn’t matter. 

“Not exactly what I was asking for,” he remarked, and his smile is crooked, real. “But I’ll take it.”

Your expression falters, your anger is still there burning behind your gaze the way you look at him now. But something else is rising beneath it, hotter and more desperate, something that terrifies you almost as much as he does. 

Your hands grab the front of his suit, fisting in the fabric, pulling him toward you, then in a quick movement, your mouth crashes against his.

More teeth than tenderness, it seemed, as the heat between you is like a living entity, clawing its way under your clothes and searing every inch of skin it touches. You can taste the blood, the metallic red of it spreading across your tongue, but neither of you care. You clamp down harder on Dex’s lower lip and feel the tremor run through him, then a low guttural noise vibrates against your lips, more blood spilling down.

You want him to hurt, Dex thinks in between, because you kiss him like you’re trying to crawl inside him—that you’re trying to escape your own skin and find your way home in his. Yet, he relished the desperation in your touch, he didn’t care about the sanctity of the ground nor the eyes of the heavens. Jesus Christ can forgive him later for that. 

Dex shifted his weight, forcing your legs to splay open to accommodate the hard bulk of him. He broke the kiss only to bury his face in the crook of your neck, his teeth grazing the sensitive cord of your throat. You felt the stinging prick of his teeth not quite a bite, but a warning before his hand slid down from your wrist, traveling the curve of your waist to the hem of your shirt. 

“Don't look away,” he pleads with your name. “Look at me. Only me.”

But before you could even think of reclaiming your space, his hands were back, cupping your cheek with a sudden tenderness that didn’t quite fit him well. Dex’s thumbs swiped over your cheekbones, catching the stray tears you didn’t realize were falling. Even as he was here, letting you do whatever you want to him, your mind still lingers back to her. It was fucking unfair. 

Out of spite, Dex pulled away and settled on your waist, sliding up the underside of your chest, his calloused palm squeezing hard the size of your breast through the thin fabric of your shirt. A small, involuntary sound escaped you as his thumb found the peak of your tits. Even through the cloth, the sensation was electric and painful, you couldn’t deny. 

Dex began to roll the sensitive nipple between his thumb and forefinger, pinching and tugging them harshly as he watched your face with an unblinking, intense gaze, assessing every contortion of your expression and every whine in your breathing, feeding off the way your body arched instinctively toward his touch.

Your skin gave way beneath him, pliant and fever warm. But you also felt different, you were giving in, peering over the edge of what you should have been repulsed by, yet you kept encouraging Dex with the sound of your voice. Some sort of structure forming in his psyche. Guidance. Annihilation of a singular self.

He felt the nipple stiffen under his thumb, then the resistance as he rolled it and twisted your nipples around, and much to his delight, you convulsed; half lidded eyes glazed, lips wet and parted, releasing lewd sounds that were driving him insane.

He stopped momentarily, and you took that chance to let yourself breathe, staring at the night sky. You felt nothing and everything at the same time, and you must have believed yourself to be so cruelly wretched, you’d allow yourself to let him see your fragility in the form of perversion, that you would let Dex hold you stripped away of your tones and textures of your skin the same way one would to a dead body. 

What the fuck were you doing? You think to yourself, as contrition slither its way into your mind, almost consuming. But you hadn’t had the time to dwell longer as you felt a cold sharp metal pointed at your throat, your gaze glancing back to Dex with widened eyes, anticipation gnawing at your heart. 

Dex had his customized knife directly at your throat, he wanted to see the look on your face if you even had briefly thought that he was going to slit them open. Part of him was convinced that you would let him if he asked nicely. But alas, Dex didn’t. He aimed for the barrier of the fabric of your shirt instead, the steel of the blade catching glint as he brought it toward the center of your chest. 

“It’s okay,” he murmurs, soft. “I won’t hurt you unless you tell me to.”

With a single tug, the blade sliced through the material. The sound of the cloth rending was loud in the dead air, a violent rip that sends pure adrenaline through your veins. Dex didn’t stop at a single slit; he worked the knife with efficiency, carving a wide opening from the neckline down to your midriff. The chill of the night breeze brushes against your naked skin, sending a shiver through your exposed breasts.

He hummed, as his eyes traveled slowly, over the swell of your tits, the way they heaved with your frantic breaths and woeful cries. This sight of you vulnerable, and bared in the middle of a graveyard seemed to stoke the ambivalence of his nameless desire, flowing endlessly in his chest.

It’s you, Dex realizes. Fuck the divine being, it’s you for him.

You pull your upper body up, Dex watches in awe as you remove your bottom clothes except for the underwear. Then in reverence, you had clasped your hands around his, the one holding the knife, and gently trailed him toward the heat between your legs. Dex swallowed thickly, uncertain as to what you were trying to do but he gets the gist of it quickly, your mind synchronizes with his. The flat steel of his knife directly pressed against your clothed folds. 

You sank back into the earth, your body relaxing into the soil as if the weight of the world had finally been lifted, he understood—Dex understood the desperate yet beautiful madness of your entirety. Of what Julie could never witness even if she still was alive, because it was solely for him to see. Not Karen Page, not anyone. 

“You can put pressure on it, if you’d like.”

The words were an invitation that seemed to strip him even more naked than the knife had stripped you. He leaned over you, his frame casting a shadow that swallowed you whole, and to please, he began to move, you could feel the friction of it rubbing against your wet cunt. You can feel it at last, head full of desolation, this rage that has been going on for a long time, melting away. 

Dex moved with an agonizing slowness, as he gripped the hilt of the knife. He was focused entirely on the sensation of the cool metal dragging against the heat of your soaked fabric. The friction was a rhythmic grind, a heavy pressure that seemed to reach deep into your folds, stirring the very core of your being. 

“Let it all go for me.” he says, yet you both know what it had meant, feeling the way your hips jerked upward to meet the blade’s weight. 

The pressure builds, each drag of the knife against your clothed cunt sending sparks of pleasure through your mind. The blade is cold but the fabric of your panties grows slick and warm beneath it, soaking through as your arousal spreads. Dex watches the process with an almost fascination, his eyes observing the way the steel glistens with your moisture when he lifts it slightly, then presses down again.

“You’re making a mess of it,” he murmurs, but there’s no reproach in his voice. “You made it beautiful.”

He shifts his weight, adjusting the angle, and the blade drags differently now—the edge catching the seam of your panties, threatening to slice through. The danger of it sends a fresh wave of wetness flooding your cunt. 

You should be terrified, yet you had never felt more aroused and so open. A razor sharp blade is pressed against the most vulnerable part of you, one wrong move and you’ll be cut, but you do not fear it. You’re alive in a way you haven’t felt in months, years. It feels like being born again. 

Your hands find his wrist to guide him more intently. Your fingers wrap around his, feeling the corded tendons beneath his skin, the bones of his hand as they grip the knife’s handle. You press his hand down harder, forcing the blade deeper into the wet heat of your inner lips. 

A broken sound elicits from your throat, half moan, half sob. “God, fuck—Dex—!”

“That’s it,” Dex breathes out your name, his pupils blown wide, admiring you. “Take what you need. Use me.”

You can use him all you want for selfish reasons, but Dex will ensure he won’t be just another warm body for you. The knife moves in a slow grinding circle, the tip catching your clit through the wet fabric with each revolution. Your hips buck unwittingly, chasing the sensation that soon will fade, and the blade shifts and slides, the flat pressing directly against your swollen clit, rubbing over and over against it. 

You can feel the orgasm building, coiling low in your belly, as your breath comes in ragged gasps, your vision blurring at the edges. The surroundings spins around you, headstones looming like silent witnesses, the moon a pale spectator to your unbecoming. A depraved young woman with so much love nowhere to go. 

Dex leans down, his lips brushing the shell of your ear. “Come for me,” he whispers. “Please, I need it.”

Your body obeys before your mind can catch up. The orgasm tears through you, violent and all over the place, your back arching off the cold ground as a cry rips from your throat. Your cunt clenches around nothing, flooding your panties with a hot gush of release that soaks through to the blade. The knife, slick and gleaming, continues its relentless pursuit as Dex works you through every wave of pleasure, not slowing until your trembling subsides into aftershocks.

When you finally collapse, gasping, with the chill air cold against your sweat slicked skin, Dex pulls the knife away. He holds it up, then ever so slowly, he brings the blade to his lips and drags his tongue along the metal, tasting the essence of you. 

He tossed the knife aside into the dirt, unconcerned with the weapon now that he had achieved his goal, and lowered himself over you. Large hand cups your cheek, thumb tracing your jawline.

“Was that enough?” he asks, and the question carries weight. “Did I do good—do you need more?”

“Yes, you did so good.” his cock twitched at your praise. “But I want to feel you inside me now, Dex.”

Dex’s breath catches at your words, at the fervent need through your voice. His hand slides from your cheek down your throat, fingers wrapping around them. For a long moment, he stares at you, all that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that empty part of your chest. He wants to tell you to pour them to him instead, he’ll take it. If not, he’ll force you to. 

His hand leaves your throat, reaching to the side where he tossed the knife. His fingers close around the handle, and he brings it back into view, still slick with your arousal, it was gleaming wetly. Dex sits back on his heels, positioning himself between your spread thighs. With the tip of the knife, he hooks the waistband of your panties and slices through the fabric on one side, then the other, and the material falls away from you.

“Hurt me.”

He stopped in his movement. “What?” 

“I want you to hurt me, Dex. Make me bleed for you.”

Dex hesitates for a second but gives in because he would give you anything you wanted. Begging him to hurt you while looking like this in front of him—how can he deny you, or worse, how does he look away now that he has seen you? The coolness hits your dripping folds, making you shiver. A groan elicits from his lips as he takes in the sight of your bare cunt—slick, swollen, the lips parted and it was beautiful, truly. 

He reaches down with his free hand, two fingers gathering your wetness, spreading it over your clit in a circling motion. Your hips buck into his touch, but he pulls his hand away, bringing those same fingers to his own mouth. Dex sucks them clean, his eyes never leaving yours.

Then shifting forward, the knife is still in his grip. His other hand unzips his gear pants, freeing his cock. It’s hard and throbbing, the head already wet with precum. 

“This will sting,” he says. “But you’ll take it. You’ll take it because you want to feel something real, don’t you?”

The tip of the knife presses against the tender skin of your inner thigh, just where it meets your hip. He applies pressure, enough to break the flesh. A deep line of blood wells up, bright red against your skin and the pain is immediate, a flare that makes you gasp, cunt clenching reflexively. You feel whole, you think. Dex makes your head go quiet for you, it seemed.

Dex observes the blood bead and trickles down your thigh, a single rivulet tracing a path toward your soaking wet folds. He follows it with his eyes, mesmerized. Then he leans down and laps at the cut, his tongue hot against the wound, and the taste of copper fills his mouth, mingling with the salt and dirt of your skin, and the lingering sweetness of your come.

He adjusts his position, the head of his cock pressing against your entrance, dragging the tip through your wetness, coating himself in your arousal, mixing it with the blood that still seeps from the cut. The sensation is euphoric; the warmth of your cunt against the steel of the knife he still holds, the sting of the fresh wound, the anticipation of being filled.

“Eyes up here, please.” he calls out your name, and you do.

Your eyes meet his, and in that moment there was no guilt nor the past coming to take the both of you. There was only ever this, and you wondered briefly if Bedouins believed their heaven to be a lush paradise of trees and running water; yours was no different, though yours was bleeding together with Dex. 

He thrusts into you in one smooth, brutal motion. His cock stretching your insides felt overwhelming, you haven’t felt anything this big in a while. Your cunt clenches around him, still sensitive from your orgasm, but he’s so huge, filling you completely. A sob escapes from your lips, the sheer intensity of being fucked so hard it almost made you think he was God.

Dex holds himself still for a moment, buried to the hilt, letting you feel every inch of him inside you. Then, he starts to move, pulling out slowly, then slamming back in. Each thrust drives deeper and harder, the sound of his hips meeting your flesh echoing in the quiet cemetery. The knife shifts with the motion, the flat of the blade pressing against your stomach, a reminder of the danger and the trust held loosely between you.

Your blood still trickles from the cut on your thigh, and as Dex pounds into you, some of it smears across his skin, across your hips. He reaches down with his left hand, dragging his fingers through the blood, then bringing them to your mouth. You open without hesitation, swirling your tongue around his fingers, tasting yourself.

“Fuck, that’s perfect—you’re perfect.” he whines, and the praise drives you in a state of exaltation.

His pace increases, becoming desperate as Dex hits the right spot with accuracy every time. He was no longer controlled, this inhumane fucking, driven by something primal in the way every animals do. The knife clatters to the ground as he needs both hands now to grip your hips, angling you exactly how he wants, driving himself deeper and deeper into the wetness of your pussy.

You’re climbing toward another peak, the coil tightening in your belly despite the soreness, and all the blood. Your nails dig into his back, raking lines across his gear, and then you attempt to bite his shoulder hard and it rattles your teeth.

“I’m—I’m close,” he pants, his forehead pressed to yours. “Come on my cock. Let me feel you fall apart, fuck—she could never make you feel this good.”

His rhythm stutters, his body tensing above you. The first hot pulse of his release triggers your own, and you cry out together, a chorus of broken sounds swallowed by the night. His cum fills you, along with your own juices, with the blood that still weeps from the cut on your thigh. Dex collapses onto you, his weight a comforting pressure, his breath warm against your neck. 

For a long time there is only the sound of your combined panting, the frenzied beating of two hearts slowly calming. You stare at the constellations forming in the sky and try to remember how to breathe, you could feel your whole body ache from the violence of your own wanting, you should feel ashamed. You’re lying in a cemetery, your back pressed against the dirt that covers your other half’s body, and you let a killer put his hands on you. 

You wanted him to, and you had asked for it in the only way you knew how. You wait for it to arrive, yet the shame doesn’t come. Neither does the guilt. 

He moves, pulling out of you slowly, and the sensation of his release leaking from your spent cunt is almost too much, but Dex doesn’t let you dwell on it. He gathers you into his arms, lifting you from the ground, cradling you against his chest instead, you allow yourself to drift off.

Misery loves company, or so they say. You have never understood that phrase until now, and all you could feel is a strange kind of fucked up kinship.

The next morning when you wake up, you don’t recognize the walls around you. 

It’s plain looking and relatively small compared to yours, the lack of decoration made you think you were being held captive somewhere in an abandoned house. The walls are bare; no photographs, not even old erotica posters from the 90s, there was no evidence that anyone actually lives here. 

You’re on a bed, and there’s a single blanket draped over you. The mattress felt too firm, seemingly military in their lack of give. You wore a different shirt, bigger than your size and an underwear you’re not certain if it was ever yours but oddly enough fits you, then comes the soreness of your cunt and the fresh wound on your thigh. 

Then you remember. 

“Oh my fucking god.” you cursed under your breath, certain flashes of memories washes over you. All the choices you’ve made are coming back to bite you in the ass. Now, you’re two steps from the water and it’s so clear that you do this to yourself. You can feel the weight of desire, staring at things breathing—at all the things are living, because some part inside you wants to, and you could feel it. You could hardly describe this newfound sentiment.

Dex brought you here, whatever here is. You sit up too fast and your head spins around as you try to stand up, navigating around the room. It was easy enough to find him, opening the door leads to the whole place surprisingly. 

There he was, standing by the stove, cooking what you would have thought eggs and bacon were. A simple man indeed, one that is revolting and brutal yet in this light—you could pretend the slightest touch of normalcy in his gesture. He was also wearing a different outfit, a wife beater and grey sweatpants. Gone was the blood on his face, but the bruises remain, cleaned and washed. 

“You’re awake.”

You’re startled by his voice and the unsettling ability to notice you when you were so sure you had been quiet in your footsteps. Dex seemed in a good mood when he greeted you, but you couldn’t bear yourself to look at him. You didn’t know how to, after what transpired between you last night. 

“Where are we?” you ask instead, gaze wandering around. 

“My place.” 

“Are you sure? This place looks like something you’d see in horror movies.” 

“What does that even mean?” 

“It’s literally a textbook serial killer lair.” 

He turns then, spatula in hand, and looks at you. “Well, I kind of am, aren’t I?” 

You press your palms against your eyes, stifling a genuine laugh because you cannot simply argue with that. The absurdity of it messes with your head a little, makes you dizzy. When you lower your hands, Dex is still watching you, eggs sizzling in the pan, then your stomach growls loudly, embarrassing you at your lowest. 

Dex’s mouth twitches. “Hungry?” 

“A little.” 

He turns back to the stove, divides the eggs onto the plate, one in the pan, adding toast from somewhere you didn’t notice. Dex carries them to the table, sets the only plate he has in front of the empty chair, then looks at you.

“I’ll eat in the pan,” he says. “I don’t really have guests over like this.” 

You rolled your eyes. “Can’t see the reason why that is.”

You slide into the chair, the wood creaking upon your weight, and the cut on your thigh stings when you move but you don’t show it. Instead, your gaze drifts over at the plate in front of you. Eggs, golden and fluffy, toast buttered at its edges, a small pile of bacon that makes your stomach clench with hunger you didn’t know you had. 

The sunny weather outside doesn’t help the nostalgia you feel sick in the stomach for; this falsehood that the world has briefly forgiven itself—reminds you too much of another time. A better time, or was it perhaps a happier lie? Everything about this feels lighter and wrong, and you want to vomit all up. 

Dex leans against the counter, eating directly from the pan, his fork scraping against the metal, you can feel the heaviness of his gaze, watching and observing every move you make. 

“Why am I here, Dex?”

He chews, then swallows, takes his time answering. “Because you asked me to.”

Huh. “I don’t remember that.”

“But you did—even asked you if I should take you home,” he pauses. “You didn’t want to, you said I should take you to mine instead.”

Heat floods your cheeks, stabbing a piece of egg with more force than necessary. “You do realize I was drunk last night, right? Out of my mind?” 

“Were you? Your actions seemed clear to me.” 

Naturally, Dex lied. He didn’t really ask—you were too far gone, slumped against his chest, your breath warm against his collarbone. Your head had lolled against his shoulder, your fingers curled loosely into the fabric of his suit, and you’d mumbled something incomprehensible, he didn’t catch on. He made the choice for you, quickly decided that you were coming with him, that he wasn’t ready to let you go after what you just gave him. 

You exist in a state of perpetual contradiction, how your mind and words don’t align with themselves, yet all the more reasons you fascinate him. You say one thing, but your body says another. You push him away, but you don’t leave either, you’re even eating his damn eggs. You claim you don’t remember, but you remember enough to be embarrassed. 

Dex doesn’t know what to make of you, that’s the truth. You were the first person in years who doesn’t fit aptly into his understanding of the world. Unpredictable, it seemed, was the perfect word for you. He’ll make do with that. Dex will lie about other things, too. Whatever it takes to keep you within his grasp.

“Do you want to talk about last night?” he carefully pushes when you remain silent after the last one, noticing the gears turning inside your head. How miserable it must be being inside your head all the time. 

“I don’t wanna talk about last night,” your fork clinks against the plate as you set it down, suddenly not hungry anymore. Dex could anticipate what you were going to say next. “Look, Dex, I… what I made you do, or the awful thing we did, I’m not… I mean, I—”

Dex abruptly cuts you off. “I’m leaving New York.”

It must have landed, judging by the way you blinked at him, visibly thrown by his words. Your brows knit together, confusion overtaking whatever admission had been waiting behind your tongue. He’s giving you something else to distract your mind with, something bigger than your remorse. And it works.

“Okay…” you sound unsure, slow with your words. “Why are you telling me this?” 

“Because I want you to come with me.” 

You make a sound, a humorless laugh. “You can’t be fucking serious.”

But Dex doesn’t laugh along with you, his expression remains unchanged, there is no flicker of amusement in his gaze as it pierces right through you. 

“Shit,” you say, your voice suddenly smaller. “You are serious.” 

And it surprises you how intense his face was, it feels raw, the impersonation of a tortured soul. It was something that came out of you from nowhere, something you didn’t know you had inside, and you can’t tear your gaze away from him. Adamant that he won’t simply let you forget what happened between you, outwardly asking you to come with him—this killer you’ve come to entangle your body with. 

“That’s not how it works, Dex,” you try to explain. “I can’t just go with you. I have friends—I have a job, my apartment, I have—” 

“You have nothing left for you here,” he says, but it wasn’t cruel, it’s just the truth he thinks it is. “No one, not even Karen Page can save you from your grief, but I can. I did it last night, I’ll do it a hundred times more if you ask.” 

Your whole body went rigid. “How the fuck do you know Karen?”

Dex doesn’t answer. The pan settles onto the table with a metallic clank, but the sound barely registers over the ringing that suddenly fills your ears. He wipes his hands on a dish towel once, then he moves toward you. Planting one hand on the back of your chair and leans down, boxing you in without ever touching you. The kitchen suddenly feels smaller, like you couldn’t breathe with him occupying every space you have left. His expression doesn’t change—if anything, it smooths out completely, every trace of amusement draining from his face until there’s nothing left to read.

“Dex.” your voice strained harder, edged with something that might be fear or anger. “How do you know about Karen?”

His hand lifts slowly, and his knuckles brush your cheek first; a featherlight touch that makes your breath hitch and your entire body weak, because you don’t know what he plans to do next. Then his thumb settles on your lower lip, tracing the curve with such intimacy it almost fooled you. Dex’s gaze fixated on the movement of your lips, watching the way your mouth trembles beneath his fingertips. You swallowed hard.

“I’m the closest thing you’ll ever get to being with Julie.” he whispers against your skin. 

Then his mouth captures yours in a harsh kiss, he forces his tongue inside to slide past your lips before you can even resist and none of it feels tender. Sweeping across the roof of your mouth, your hands come up to push against his chest, but your palms land flat on the hard plane of muscle and they don’t push, they simply press, fingers curling into the fabric of his tank top. 

Dex’s hand moves from your cheek to the nape of your neck, fingers threading into your hair and pulling, making you tilt your head back to give him better access. The stretch in your throat makes you gasp against his mouth, and he swallows the sound, deepening the kiss until it’s almost brutal. One and the same with his nature. 

You taste yourself on him, or maybe Dex tastes like himself, and you’re simply drowning so fast you can’t tell the difference anymore. 

He pulls back, lips still brushing yours as he speaks. “That’s why you’ll come with me, because I’m the only one who can give you what you need.”

Dex leans away, stands fully in front of you, looking down at your dazed expression, the confusion settling into your features. Your eyes are glassy, unfocused, and your lips have been slightly swollen, still wet from his mouth. You look like someone who’s been caught in a current, swept out to sea, too disoriented to swim back to shore. 

And it’s exactly how he wanted you to be, what needs to be done, what this requires.

His hand slipped into the pocket of his sweatpants, and felt the cloth there; folded and damp. He had it prepared this morning, before you woke up. A last resort, Dex thinks. Something he wouldn’t use unless he had to. But truly, he had known. Even then, as he cracked the eggs and buttered the toast, pretending any of this was a normal morning, he simply knew.

You were never going to say yes.

But not all love is gentle, he supposed. Sometimes you have to do things for the betterment of your significant other, it can be gritty and dirty, sometimes it’s not supposed to be careful at all. But you have to take it upon yourself to make the harder actions, carrying the burden of decisions they weren’t strong enough to make themselves. That’s what this is—what he’s doing for you. Making hard decisions for the both of you. 

You’ll never heal as long as you’re still stuck in this place, chained down to Julie Barnes. She held onto you long enough, Dex will change that. He doesn’t have to compete with the dead.

He presses the cloth filled with chloroform over your nose and mouth, clamping down firmly, and you thrash immediately; muffled screaming noises, your hands flying up to claw at his wrists, your legs kicking against the chair, your body jerking with the instinct to escape.

But Dex’s entire arm holds you steady, feeling your nails scrape against his skin, leaving red marks that will fade by morning, though you might as well be pushing against a wall. 

“I know,” he says. “I’m sorry, I truly am. Just breathe. It’ll be over soon.” 

Your eyes are wide in panic, filled with tears. He watches the betrayal flood your expression, and it hurts him most yet Dex was not sorry for what he’s trying to do. It must have felt an eternity before your thrashing weakened, your eyes struggling to stay open, trying to focus on his face, watching your body go slack, head lolling back with your eyes finally closing. 

Your chest rises and falls once, twice, and then your breathing becomes stable, slow and deep. Dex holds the cloth in place for another thirty seconds, to be certain. Then he pulls it away, folding them carefully as he places it on the table instead. 

Kneeling beside the chair, his fingers brushes a strand of hair from your face, your skin felt warm beneath his fingers, alive. But what can be done, the one who loves must share the fate of the one he loves. You became his north star, the fixed point round which Dex’s world turned. For as long as his heart beat, he believed you would always share the same fate, because he is as much a part of you as you are a part of him now.

Dex could only hope you’re not dreaming of Julie. He hopes you’re dreaming of nothing but him at all.

Sighing tiredly, you rubbed the mark on your collarbone as your phone buzzed on the kitchen counter.

Matt. Again.

You stared at it until the ringing stopped, and then a ping indicated that a text had come through. Dropping the spoon into your half-eaten bowl of cereal, you grabbed your phone.

Matt: Dinner tonight. No excuses.

You closed your eyes briefly before another ping sounded.

Karen: If you ghost us again I’m coming over there and dragging you out with us.

Despite everything, a weak laugh escaped you. God, you missed them. Which made your guilt even worse.

Your fingers hovered over the screen before finally typing and sending a single sentence.

You: I’ll be there.

The response from Karen came immediately.

Karen: Suspiciously fast answer. Are you dying?

You snorted softly.

Only emotionally, you thought to yourself.

⠈⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄

Matt’s apartment smelled like pasta sauce and garlic bread.

Which made the dread clawing at your chest almost painful.

Karen stood near the stove with a glass of wine in hand while Matt finished plating dinner, movements smooth and precise despite his blindness.

For one horrible moment, you thought about lying again. Considered faking a smile and pretending that everything was fine.

“There she is.” Matt smiled when he heard you step inside.

Sliding off your shoes, Karen set down her wine glass as she walked over and hugged you tightly.

“You look exhausted,” she muttered against your shoulder.

“I’ve been busy.” You say, hugging her back.

“You’ve been avoiding us.” She said, hugging you tighter.

You forced a weak smile. “That too.”

Karen pulled back just enough to study your face before letting you go.

Matt’s head tilted slightly. “You haven’t been sleeping.”

You swallowed thickly. “No.”

The silence lingered a little too long for Matt to not notice your nerves.

“Dinner’s ready,” he said quietly.

The three of you settled around the small kitchen table, the room glowing warm under dim lighting while a soft breeze swept through it from the open window.

Normally this would’ve comforted you. Tonight it just made you feel trapped as Karen talked about work and Matt complained about a client.

Nodding at the right moments while barely tasting the food they made, your heartbeat refused to slow down, and you knew Matt could hear it.

It was halfway through dinner when Karen sighed and set her fork down.

“Okay,” she said carefully. “What’s going on with you?”

Your stomach dropped. “Nothing.”

“Bullshit.”

“Karen,”

“No! You’ve been avoiding us for days,” she interrupted. “You look miserable, you’re barely speaking, and don't think for a second we haven't noticed how weird you get when Poindexter is mentioned.”

You froze as your breath stuttered, and across the table, Matt went completely still.

The apartment suddenly felt suffocatingly quiet as your already racing heart got faster.

“Wait.” He whispered.

Your chest tightened painfully as Matt turned towards you, and in that moment you realised by the look on his face that he already suspected your secret.

“That’s why,” Matt said quietly.

Your eyes burned immediately. “I didn’t know how to tell you.”

Karen stared between the two of you, confused. “Is this another one of those twin things?”

“Say it,” Matt said.

“Matty,” your voice cracked as your fingers shook around your fork.

“Bug,” Matt softly said your childhood nickname. “Just say it.”

You swallowed hard as you looked down at your barely touched dinner.

“Dex is my soulmate.” You finally whispered.

Your eyes lifted as the room fell silent at your confession despite your chest feeling a little lighter.

“Oh my God.” Karen's words came out angry as she looked at you like you'd physically struck her.

“No,” she said immediately after. “No.”

Beside her, Matt sat motionless.

“Does he know?” He asked.

You almost released a bitter laugh because, of course, that would be Matt’s first question.

Not are you okay? Or has he hurt you? Or are you seeing him?

But does he know? Because Matt understood exactly what it meant if Dex did.

“Yes.” You say.

Karen let out a disbelieving laugh. “You told him?”

“I didn’t have to.” You tell them.

Matt’s jaw tightened slightly. “How long?”

Your throat closed. “Since the night he shot me.”

Karen inhaled sharply, and Matt looked sick for the first time all evening.

Because now they understood.

Dex had known the entire time. While imprisoned, while isolated, while unmedicated and unstable.

Obsessing about you.

“Oh my God,” Karen whispered, horrified now instead of angry.

You stared down at your hands in your lap. “I didn’t know what to do.”

“You should’ve stayed away from him.” Karen exclaimed, standing abruptly from the table.

You twisted your fingers tightly together, hoping the slight pain would ease the tightness in your chest.

“I tried.”

“He shot you.”

“I know.”

“He nearly killed Foggy.”

Your breath caught painfully as your eyes stung with tears.

The apartment went quiet again.

Karen’s eyes filled with frustrated tears. “And you still let him into your apartment?”

You flinched as a tear ran down your cheek. But that wasn't the worst part because what was worse was the fact that you wanted him there.

Matt's voice was steady when he spoke again, “Has he been contacting you?”

“Yes.” You confirm wiping the tear off your cheek.

“How?”

Matt’s expression hardened when you hesitated too long.

“Has he been seeing you?”

You looked away as your heart began racing again.

Karen stared at you in disbelief. “You can’t see him.”

Something inside you snapped slightly at her words. “Karen.”

“No,” she interrupted sharply. “Absolutely not. He is dangerous.”

“I know he’s dangerous.”

“Then why are you doing this?”

You froze at her question.

Because he notices me. You thought to yourself. Because he makes me feel seen. Because I want him to keep coming back.

Matt’s voice cut through your spiraling thoughts.

“How can you possibly want this?”

Your throat tightened at the crack in his voice. Because your brother wasn't angry, he wasn't judgmental. He was hurt.

Your eyes burned again. “You think I don’t ask myself that every day?”

Neither of them answered.

So you kept going. Mouth moving before you could stop it.

“I waited years for my soulmate,” you whispered shakily. “Years. And then it was him.”

Your voice cracked.

“Do you think I wanted it to be him?”

Karen’s expression faltered slightly.

But the words wouldn’t stop now that the hurt and suffering you had kept locked away for months had broken free.

“I know what he’s done,” you continued. “I know who he is. I know what people think when they look at him.”

Your breathing shook as you looked them in the eyes.

“But every time I try to stay away from him…” your voice softened painfully, “… I can’t.”

Silence filled the apartment for the third time that night. This time heavy and miserable.

Matt’s face tightened again. “He’s already attached to you.”

“Don't,” you looked at him sharply. “Don't use that against me. Against him.”

Matt’s jaw flexed once. “I can hear it every time his name comes up.”

Anger twisted low in your stomach. Because Matt was right, Dex was attached, and you knew that from his gifts and his relaxed attitude whenever he broke into your apartment.

But so was a part of you.

Karen sank slowly back into her chair, rubbing at her face.

“You’re my best friend,” she whispered. “And I’m terrified he’s going to destroy you.”

The anger in her voice finally cracked enough for the fear underneath to show.

Your eyes burned harder. “I know.”

Because that was the horrible truth. You knew exactly what this could become, how this could end.

And still you wondered about the what-ifs and the maybes and the possibility that this might not destroy you.

The apartment suddenly felt suffocating.

You pushed your chair back abruptly. “I should go.”

Karen immediately looked guilty. “Wait.”

But you were already sliding on your shoes.

Matt stood quickly too. “Hey, bug.”

You paused near the door, coat on only one shoulder.

Matt’s expression was a mix of protective, worried, and nervous all at once.

“You’re not alone in this,” he said quietly.

But somehow that only made your tears burn harder because, despite his words, you had never felt more alone.

⠈⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄

The rain had soaked through your coat by the time you got home.

Your chest still hurt, but at least your tears had stopped. Karen’s voice still echoing in your skull.

He shot you.

God. You knew that.

Hands trembling slightly, you unlocked your apartment and stepped inside. The lights were off, but you immediately felt his presence.

“You told them.” Dex’s voice came quietly from the darkness.

You switched the lights on and slowly shut the door behind you.

Dex sat on the sofa, half-hidden by shadows. His head tilted as he watched you again.

You suddenly felt exhausted down to your bones. “Yes.”

Silence filled the apartment as rain tapped softly against the windows.

Dex’s eyes moved slowly across your face, studying every emotion there.

“They’re upset.” He said.

A sad, humourless laugh escaped you. “That’s one word for it.”

Dex stayed quiet for a moment. “What did they say?”

You dropped your wet coat onto the chair. “That you’re dangerous.”

His expression didn’t change. Because that wasn’t news to either of you. “And?”

You looked away first. “They don’t understand why I keep letting you come back.”

The second the words left your mouth, anger shifted on Dex’s face.

Sharp and immediate.

Your chest tightened when you saw it.

“You told them why?” he asked quietly.

“It’s not that simple.”

“It is to me.”

Of course it was. To him you're not just soulmates, you're fate, you're destiny. And you knew that because Dex had always looked at you like you were it for him.

But for you? Nothing about this was simple.

“You don’t understand what this is doing to my life, Dex, to me,” you whispered tiredly.

Dex stared at you. “You think I don’t?”

“You have killed people, Dex.”

Your words cracked through the apartment sharply.

“I know.”

“You nearly destroyed my family.” You could feel the tears forming again.

His jaw tightened immediately. “I know.”

“You shot me.”

Your words were sharp, and you saw the emotions immediately on his face.

The guilt, the anger, and the frustration.

“Do you think I wanted to do that?” he snapped suddenly.

You blinked, stunned as Dex stood up and stepped closer.

“I didn’t know,” he said harshly. “I didn’t know who you were then.”

“But you know now.” You felt the first tear fall.

“Yes.”

“Then you know why this feels impossible for me?”

Dex’s breathing came out sharper than before. Because this conversation was turning into something he couldn’t fix.

And it was terrifying him.

“You keep pushing me away,” he said quietly, gently cupping your face.

Your chest ached at his words and actions. “Because I don’t know what to do.”

“I do.” He said as his thumbs gently stroked your cheeks.

A bitter laugh escaped you.

“No, you don’t.”

“I know you’re mine.”

The words hit like a punch as his name burned hot on your collarbone.

“I’m not a possession.” You snap, putting your hands on his chest, ready to push him away.

Dex stepped closer again.

“Baby, that’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?” You asked, ignoring your heart fluttering when he called you that. 

His eyes searched yours desperately, like if he could just make you understand his view, everything would stop hurting.

“You feel it too. The connection between us. Our bond.”

Your breath caught.

Because that was the problem, you did feel it.

You felt it in every glance, in every touch, and in every moment he looked at you like you were something precious. 

Something his.

You felt all of it, and you were too tired to deny that you didn't want more.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” you whispered shakily and knew that it was a lie.

Dex looked genuinely confused by the question.

“You.”

The simplicity of his answer made your heart flutter and break at the same time.

“You can’t just,” your voice cracked as more tears fell, “you can’t just come back after everything and expect this to be easy.”

“I don’t expect easy.”

“Then what?” You pushed against his chest, but he barely moved.

Dex stared at you for one long, awful second.

“You keep acting like loving me is the worst thing that could happen to you.” He whispered.

Your eyes widened.

Because that wasn’t what this was.

That wasn't what you meant.

But before you could explain, Dex suddenly closed the distance between you.

One hand moving to the back of your head while the other wrapped around your waist.

And then he was kissing you.

Desperate and impulsive, like if he could get close enough, this distance you kept between you two would finally disappear.

For a second you froze.

Because this was your soulmate, and you had imagined this moment for years. But also because this was Dex, and half of you wanted this.

Then reality slammed back into you.

Your hands shoved hard against his chest. “Stop.”

Dex stumbled back instantly, his hands leaving your body.

The apartment fell silent except for your uneven breathing, but you could see his expressions shifting.

From confusion to realisation and then panic. Like he’d only just understood what he’d done.

Your own mixed emotions made your head spin.

“You can’t do that,” you whispered.

Dex looked wrecked. “I thought.”

“I know what you thought.” Your tears were flowing freely now.

“But you can’t fix this like that.”

Silence filled the apartment again, and for the first time since meeting him, Dex looked uncertain.

And you hated that look on his face. You never wanted him to feel uncertain around you, but why is this situation making you feel like you have to choose between your family and your soulmate?

“Leave me alone.” Your throat tightened painfully.

The words shattered something between you instantly.

Dex went completely still, and the look on his face nearly made you take the words back. Because for the first time since you met him, he looked scared.

Scared of losing you.

But you forced yourself to hold his gaze anyway, and after a long, horrible moment, Dex nodded once.

Then, without another word, he stepped backwards toward the open window and stopped as if he was waiting for something before disappearing into the rain.

Leaving you standing alone and crying in the middle of your apartment, feeling like a fool for believing that you could have had it all.

you didn’t know what was worse, the fact that you’d refused to go to the hospital for a bullet wound in your stomach, or that you’d been hunched over your corkboard for two hours and your spine felt like it had adopted a new, crooked shape.

in your defense, you had a rough history with hospitals.

you winced as a thumbtack bit into your finger, but gratefulness settled warm on your shoulders shortly after.

the puzzle was finally piecing together.

fisk. the mayor. the hit.

manila papers scattered the board. faces of people you’d never met stared back at you, and somewhere in the blur of it all was a picture; grainy, but true. countless smear campaigns against fisk, the satirical broadcasts, someone with media access trying to wake hell’s kitchen up.

that someone was your sister.

your stupid, stupid sister.

you’d never been more sure.

and from there it all clicked. this apartment was listed under PAGE per public record. fisk took a shot at silencing who he thought was karen. it was simpler than money, power. no, he had that already so it was even worse.

he was protecting himself. his name. his carefully constructed image. from what? you didn’t know. but you were certain it was more than karen’s whistleblowing.

you were just a loose thread he’d tried to pull. er— karen was.

you’d buried yourself in all of this, probably to avoid the more pressing reality which was that you’d been traumatized approximately forty eight hours ago and could very realistically go septic and die if you didn’t google how to properly tend to a bullet wound soon.

it could wait.

foggy’s face gazed back at you from beneath a green tack. the only photo you had of him. karen had dragged him along on the annual summer trip and you’d braced yourself for some insufferable lawyer who would spend the whole week mansplaining the ocean to you.

and then you’d met him. warm and ridiculous and the kind of person who could talk about a fucking marble until two in the morning and make it the most interesting conversation you’d ever had.

a once in a lifetime person. that’s who foggy nelson was.

it made sense why your sister had arrived on your doorstep in pieces only a week after his death. she’d loved him, and she’d carried his blood home with her.

and then there was matt.

you ground your teeth.

the insufferable prick who had all but emotionally abandoned your sister when her grief didn’t move at the speed of his caseload.

so it all tracked. karen running the broadcast, trying to shake hell’s kitchen awake with both hands. some elaborate chess game between her and fisk, one you were almost certain matt had walked her directly into. but why?

it was a game that could have cost her everything if you hadn’t been the one at the sauce pot.

and still, one question sat unanswered at the center of the board.

who shot me?

and more pressingly, why the hell had they stitched you up rather than left you in a ditch somewhere. you were fairly certain fisk’s reach allowed for ditches.

you pinched your brows together.

“i watch too much NCIS,” you muttered, rolling your shoulders and forcing your spine into something resembling upright.

you let your head fall back against the couch and stared at the ceiling. wondering if the curiosity was stupid. if you should just lock the door and wait for karen to handle it as per usual. but karen had matt, and matt had a habit of deciding who needed protecting and from what, and you had strong doubts that list included you.

so no. you didn’t feel like choice was something being offered.

a rattle.

soft. sudden.

your head snapped to the countertop.

what the f-

lilies. violet ones, in a slim glass vase, identical in color to the painting hung directly above your bed.

you swallowed.

you were ill, yes. possibly delirious, even. but not so far gone that you’d forgotten accepting a delivery. letting someone in. signing for anything. which meant —

“fuck.”

your phone rang and you nearly came out of your skin.

you were trembling, eyes refusing to leave the countertop, fingers moving on instinct as you pressed the phone to your ear.

“hello?”

“baby? heyyyy, it’s jess.”

a slow blink. the lilies blurred at the edges. realization struck you like a dagger to the chest.

someone had been in this apartment while you were hunched over your corkboard in a blissful, oblivious blur. standing at your counter.

watching you work.

the goosebumps came slow and deliberate up your arms.

“you’re out of rehab.” your voice came out steadier than you felt. low. careful.

“yeah, baby listen — can i crash at yours tonight? pops is on my ass again about the job stuff and— oh shit, kare? hey! babe, did you know your sister is here?”

the warmth that moved through you then was not a kind one. hot and feverish and immediate,

karen. fuck.

your eyes went wide and you dropped to your knees, dragging the corkboard beneath the couch, stuffing crumpled papers under the cushions with shaking hands.

“wh— just— tell her to leave—”

if it was him, the man in the mask, he still had a job to finish.

“we’re comin’ up now—”

“jesse. no—” he wouldn’t listen.

you slammed the phone face down on the carpet.

three minutes. maybe less, depending on ray at the buzzer. not enough time to sweep the whole studio. the bathroom, the bedroom, the balcony; too many places for an assassin to strike.

trembling hands grabbed the vase and turned it slowly, checking the underside, the roots, the water. nothing. no bomb. no death. just— flowers.

and then a flash of blue between the stems. it slipped through your fingers twice before you got it. a little card. blue sky, a rainbow arching across the front. golden letters.

GET WELL SOON!

you unfolded it.

inside, in clean, perfect script:

whoops, wrong target ☹⌖

a juvenile sad face. and beneath it — a hand drawn bullseye.

your brows knit so hard they ached.

you flipped to the back. and there, in sharp block letters that looked like they’d been pressed hard enough to indent the cardstock:

LOCK YOUR WINDOWS, Y/N.

four knocks at the door.

“one second!”

you shoved the card into the bin, curled your hand around your midsection and hissed through your teeth as you limped toward the bedroom. you were not afraid to die, no. not yet. you’d watched enough true crime to understand exactly what this was.

a moth in a jar.

you were just something being played with before being snuffed out.

the bedroom was colder than it should have been.

your breath was short as you shoved the window down with both hands, the window you were certain had been closed, and flipped both locks. a sharp look into the bathroom. a painful glance under the bed.

nothing. no one.

more knocks.

you wiped your face with the back of your hand, sniffled once, and limped to the front door. you kept the chain on and opened it three inches.

“i’m contagious.”

karen’s steel blue eyes moved over what little of you she could see, and something in them shifted immediately. jesse’s face fell behind her with the disappointment of a man whose plans had just been fucked.

“y/n.” karen’s voice was careful. “are you alright?”

the note. the lilies. the window.

the man who had crouched over you on this very floor and tucked your hair back like you were the moon and it was his first time seeing it.

you swallowed all of it down.

“peachy keen, karen.”

she didn’t believe you. she had that page look in her eye, the one dad used to wear when karen would lie about being drunk despite reeking of liquor. the one karen gave you when you were dosing all the time.

“contagious with what, exactly?”

a gulp. nervous eyes snapping toward where jesse pinched the skin between his brows. karen didn’t give you a chance to answer, she knew it was bullshit anyway.

her steel eyes cut to jesse, then back to you. and whatever morphed across her face in that moment made your stomach ache worse than the wound sitting behind the door.

“are you both using again?”

you went rigid.

you understood, on surface level, why she’d go there. this was weird. you were acting weird. but that accusation still landed like an open palm across your cheek. you clenched your jaw tight.

“no, karen. i’m not using again.”

she pursed her lips, exhaled slow through her nose. white-knuckled on the strap of her purse. your next breath was shaky and smelled of smoke and heroine.

you started naming cities in your head.

“but you’re back with jesse.”

not a question. the way she said it made you sway on your feet. the throbbing in your midsection sharpened all at once.

“i found out he was here when you did, kare.” a beat. “but thanks — for the backhanded concern. i think you’d know if i was sticking the needle in again.”

something cracked across her features then. regret, quick and unmistakable. she frowned, pressed her lips together, and without a word dug through her purse and pressed a folded wad of cash into jesse’s hand. his brows jumped to his hairline.

“holy shit, kare — than—”

“don’t.” quiet. absolute. “go find somewhere to stay that is nowhere near my sister. and so help me god, jessie; i have connections. if any of them tell me you were buying, you’ll be prosecuted by morning.”

matt. some perk.

your ex nodded once, slow. his eyes flicked to the crack in the door, tongue dragging across his chapped lips.

“later, y/n.”

that shake. that particular tremble in the way he said your name, the sniffle as he turned and walked away. that was something even karen page couldn’t piece together. something only you knew intimately.

he’d lapse within the hour.

but you wouldn’t tell her that. more pressing matters at hand.

when she turned back to you, you shook your head gently. you should have shut the door, locked her out just in case he was still close. but he would have tried by now, wouldn’t he?

“i’m sorry.”

you forgave her. you didn’t say that, because opportunity had arrived.

“accusations, right? s’my turn.” you pulled the page look on for yourself — pursed lips, steady eyes. “you said the mayor put a hit out on you. tell me why.”

your sister didn’t crack.

“i misspoke.”

“you’re lying to me.”

“you’d know if he’d sent a hit out for you. you’d be dead.”

you almost laughed out loud. if only she knew about the wound you were nursing three inches behind this door. your jaw ticked.

“fine. don’t tell me. fuck if i care — i’ll find out my own way.”

karen shook her head immediately.

“no. you need to stay away from this, do you hear me—”

“so there is something.”

“no — yes — christ, just listen to me! i’ll tell you when the time is right. that time is not now.”

silence fell between you both. the long, tension laced kind. her hand wrapped around the edge of the door where you held it open. tears stung at her eyes, red blooming across her nose and cheeks. she licked her lips and smiled — dry, tired.

“i shouldn’t have accused you. i’m sorry.”

you bowed your head.

it was nothing you weren’t already used to. you kept that part to yourself.

you thought about matt then. the way he looks at you when you’re around. careful, measured, like you’re something that requires fragility.

and it made sense, in a way. you’d ruined their lives once. karen. matt. you. foggy.

but foggy… he never looked at you like that though.

foggy used to look at you like you were just a person.

you swallowed back the tears crawling up your throat and steadied your breath.

“s’fine.” smaller than you meant it. “just — please. as soon as you feel clear weather on this, tell me.”

a single nod.

“i promise.”

you watched her face when she said it.

you didn’t believe her.

𖦏₊ ⊹

it wasn’t planned. of course it wasn’t. none of this was.

his pretty little north star. messy and the opposite of uniform, the antithesis of everything he’d ever sought out in a fixed point. he hated her.

god, he couldn’t get enough of her.

depravity had settled into his chest like a splinter. two agonizing days of it. two days of fisk buzzing in his ear about the importance of eliminating karen page, and ben nodding along like a man whose attention was fully present.

it was far from that.

he didn’t tell fisk, of course. not about her. not after julie. he knew better than that.

but he could control this. right? this wasn’t like julie. he could still perform the hit, get the job done. how different this was, he’d even been apart from her for two whole days!

day one, morning — he meditated. twenty minutes. focused. good.

day one, night — he stalked every crumb of her the internet had to offer until 3am.

y/n, huh… it tasted good on his tongue.

day two, morning — exercise. discipline. structure.

day two, night — he mapped every entrance to her apartment. every window. every weak point in the lock.

east window will be most efficient to see all of her.

day three.

a dream.

her wide, teary eyes. the addictive softness of her skin beneath his fingertips. he’d leaned down in it, watched her tremble, licked the tears from her cheeks while she squirmed beneath him. that last part was his imagination’s finest work, and he woke up with the blanket tented high and every nerve in his body pulled toward her like a compass finding north. he wrapped his hand around himself but by the second stroke he winced, he wanted to wait for her.

the urges had officially outpaced the control.

he needed more. he needed to see more.

getting in was easier than it should have been. he clenched his teeth. did she not care about the risk of some psychopath crawling through her window? he pressed his command down on the cardstock so hard, it dented and bled.

he’d spent two hours watching her from the half wall separating her bedroom from the rest of the studio. she had absolutely no idea. it made him grin.

he was relieved to find the apartment tidy — save for that chaotic explosion she was piecing together on the corkboard. he’d watched her work it, head tilted. she was so close and so very far simultaneously, and every time something clicked behind her eyes he felt a toothy grin pull at the corner of his mouth.

that’s it. almost.

his breaths were loud in his own ears. the vase of lilies in his arms, heavier.

how could he not bring them? he was a gentleman. and they matched the painting above her bed; the bed he had gotten very well acquainted with in her absence.

he’d pressed his face into the sheets and breathed. sweet, indulgent, the kind of thing he could inhale for the rest of his life and never tire of. tobacco and vanilla threaded through silk with something bright underneath— neroli, no- clementine, maybe. soft and warm and entirely, perfectly her. it took everything he had to pry himself away from them.

when he tired of watching her fail to crack the case for the sixth time, he moved. quiet, measured steps toward the island. he set the vase down.

it rattled.

he found the nearest shadow and went still. then retreated to the bedroom doorway, and waited.

the freeze that moved through her was worth every second. every single hair raising on her skin, those wide eyes, that idiotic bravery that made something in him simultaneously want to shake her and bend her over his-

she pried herself up. she found his flowers.

so good.

but then, a voice. male. crackling through the receiver but unmistakably male, and she was speaking to it, and the familiarity in her voice was not the kind she’d been using for her sister.

he went very still.

oh no no no, little star. already?

he leaned closer anyway. just to be sure. the name came through clear enough.

jesse.

one name. that’s all he needed.

with one last look at her, finding his note, reading those four words with that particular shade of fear he was quickly developing a preference for; he crawled through the open window and dropped down the pole to the cobblestones below.

he watched from the street as she closed it.

locked it this time.

good little star.

he wasn’t done with her. not even close.

but first, he had a situation to rectify.

jesse.