Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
The sharp knock against the driver's side window tears you out of sleep.
You jolt so hard your shoulder slams against the door.
For a moment you don't know where you are.
Bright morning light.
Far brighter than it should be.
For a moment it leaves you squinting in confusion.
The hum of distant traffic filters through the windows.
Your neck aches, a sharp crick running from the base of your skull down between your shoulders.
Your back isn't much better. Every muscle protests as you shift, stiff from being curled awkwardly in the driver's seat.
Something hard presses against your side, and for a few disoriented seconds you can't figure out why everything feels so uncomfortable.
Then your brain finally catches up.
The truck.
Right.
The familiar scent of worn upholstery and stale coffee settles around you as memory slowly returns.
Sometime during your search you must have pulled over.
Just for a minute.
Just long enough to rest your eyes.
Apparently long enough to fall asleep.
You groan softly and drag a hand down your face, trying to shake off the lingering haze of exhaustion.
A glance through the windshield reveals pale morning light creeping across the street, brighter than it has any right to be.
Great.
Probably a cop.
You can already hear yourself trying to explain why you've been parked on the side of the road for God knows how long, half asleep in your truck like someone who absolutely has their life together.
Your eyes squint, struggling against the morning light as you roll down the window.
The figure outside is little more than a blur at first.
Then suddenly a hand reaches through the open window.
Click.
The lock pops open.
"What the—"
Before you can finish, the stranger is already moving.
Footsteps round the front of the truck.
Then the passenger door opens.
A body slides into the seat beside you.
"Knew you'd come."
The voice is rough.
Gravelly.
Familiar.
Your entire body freezes.
"Dex?"
The name escapes you before you can stop it.
There he is.
Sunk into the passenger seat like every bone in his body hurts.
His head tipped back against the worn fabric.
A grin stretched across his face.
A ridiculous grin.
The kind of grin somebody shouldn't be capable of wearing while looking half dead.
Your stomach drops.
God.
He looks awful.
Worse than awful.
Dried blood stains the corner of his mouth, dark against skin gone pale beneath the grime.
More has dried in uneven trails from a split somewhere near his brow, crusted along the edge of a bruise already turning angry shades of purple and blue.
His face is swollen in places, one cheek marked with the fading imprint of a hard hit.
Fresh cuts and scrapes catch the morning light, and there are shadows beneath his eyes so deep they look carved there.
Exhaustion hangs off him like a second skin.
Like he's been running on nothing but adrenaline and sheer refusal to quit.
He looks like someone stitched together from scraps and stubbornness alone.
"Dex..."
The word leaves you in a breath.
And then nothing.
Your mouth opens.
Closes.
Every thought in your head tangles together at once.
The television.
The gunshot.
The blood.
The hours spent searching.
The certainty that he was dead.
The shock of seeing him sitting here now.
The shock of seeing what state he's in.
You don't know what to say.
Don't know where to start.
All that fear and relief crashes together until there's only one thing left.
"Dex, are you okay?"
You're already moving before he can answer.
One hand comes up to cradle his jaw, turning his face gently toward the light.
Your thumb brushes across a bruise blooming along his cheekbone, then traces carefully beneath his eye as if checking whether he's really there.
The other hand slips into his hair, pushing aside blood-stiffened strands from his forehead.
While Dex's grin only widens.
The idiot actually looks pleased.
Like this is the best thing that's happened to him all week.
"I'm good," he mutters.
The lie is so obvious it almost makes you angry.
Then he coughs.
A rough wet sound.
Your heart immediately sinks.
"Dex."
"I'm fine."
"You got shot."
"I'm alive."
"Dex."
He sighs dramatically.
Like you're the difficult one.
"Just take me back to your place."
Your eyes narrow immediately.
Absolutely not.
Without warning you grab the hem of his shirt.
"Doll."
You ignore him.
"Doll."
You lift it anyway.
His complaint dies instantly.
Beneath the black fabric sits a crude bandage wrapped around his abdomen.
The edges are stained pink with old blood.
Whoever patched him up clearly wasn't trying to win awards.
You stare.
Confused.
"Did somebody help you?"
Dex glances down.
"Yeah."
A pause.
Then a crooked smile.
"She did a terrible job."
Your fingers carefully touch the edge of the dressing.
"Probably because I killed her friend." Dex shrugs.
You blink.
Once.
Twice.
Then decide you don't have the energy to unpack whatever nightmare that sentence means.
The vigilante community is apparently insane.
You pull his shirt back down.
"I'll redo it when we get home."
The words leave your mouth automatically.
Simple.
Natural.
You don't even think about them.
Home.
Not your apartment.
Not your place.
Home.
As though the decision had already been made somewhere deep inside you.
As though there was never another option.
Dex goes completely still.
The grin slowly disappears.
Not because he's upset.
Because something softer takes its place.
Something almost vulnerable.
For a moment he just looks at you.
Really looks at you.
Then he leans back against the seat.
Exhaustion finally winning whatever battle stubbornness had been fighting.
And very quietly—
Almost too quietly to hear—
He says,
"Yeah."
A small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.
"Home sounds good."
You don't hear what Dex says.
Not at first.
You're too busy fighting with your truck.
The engine coughs weakly as you turn the key.
Once.
Twice.
A third time.
The old thing groans in protest before falling silent again.
"Oh, come on..."
You let your forehead fall briefly against the steering wheel.
"Why now?"
Of all mornings for your truck to decide it has opinions.
Beside you, Dex seems perfectly content.
His eyes have drifted shut.
His head rests against the passenger window.
For a moment, you think he's fallen asleep.
You almost feel guilty for the noise.
Then—
"I thought I'd die last night."
Your hand freezes on the key.
The truck falls silent.
For a second neither of you move.
You stare through the windshield.
At the empty street.
At nothing.
Then slowly turn the key again.
The engine protests.
You don't answer.
You don't want this conversation.
Not now.
Not after the last twenty-four hours.
Not after having him half dead in your passenger seat.
You just want to get him home.
Patch him up.
Make sure he's breathing.
Everything else can wait.
But Dex keeps talking.
"I really thought that was it."
His voice is quieter than usual.
Not weaker.
Just... stripped down somehow. Like he's too tired to pretend.
"When I got to the church..."
A small breath escapes him.
"I thought my time was up."
You stare ahead.
The key turns again.
The engine coughs.
Fails.
Silence.
"I thought I'd done what I needed to do."
His gaze remains fixed somewhere outside the window.
Not looking at you.
Not really looking at anything.
"I thought I took care of what had to be taken care of."
A faint smile touches his mouth.
One without humor.
"And I was okay with it."
That finally makes you stop.
Your hand slips away from the ignition.
Slowly.
Quietly.
Because somehow that feels worse than everything else he's said.
You turn toward him.
Dex is still leaning against the seat.
Eyes half-lidded.
Exhaustion written into every line of his face.
"I was at peace with it."
He lets out a small laugh.
The sound catches somewhere in his throat.
"I didn't think I'd be."
Another pause.
"But I was."
The morning light spills through the windshield.
Pale gold against dried blood.
Against bruises.
Against a face that suddenly looks older than you've ever seen it.
Then Dex finally looks at you.
Really looks at you.
"I'm here now."
His voice lowers.
"And that has to mean something."
Something vulnerable flickers behind his eyes.
Confusion.
Hope.
Fear.
You aren't sure.
Maybe all three.
"Because why else would I still be here?"
His fingers tighten slightly against his thigh.
"As messed up as I am."
A humorless smile.
"As broken as this thing is."
He taps his chest lightly.
"This body."
"This head."
"Why am I still here if there's not a reason for it?"
Your throat tightens.
Because for all the terrible things Dex has done...
For all the things you hate about him...
You know this isn't manipulation.
He's asking you a real question.
One he genuinely doesn't know the answer to.
And somehow that's worse.
The certainty is gone.
The anger is gone.
All that's left is a frightened man searching for meaning.
Then his gaze softens.
Immediately.
The moment it lands on you.
Like the answer had been sitting in front of him all along.
"Just before I thought the darkness was finally gonna take me..."
His voice cracks slightly.
Barely noticeable.
But you hear it.
"I thought about you."
You swallow hard.
Dex looks away for a moment.
Almost embarrassed by the confession.
Then continues anyway.
"I didn't think about Fisk."
"I didn't think about Daredevil."
"I didn't think about any of it."
His jaw tightens.
"I just thought about you."
The truck suddenly feels too small.
Too quiet.
Too intimate.
You can't seem to look away.
"I wondered what you were doing."
A faint smile.
"I figured you were probably worrying."
That almost makes you laugh.
Almost.
Then his expression shifts.
Something raw opening beneath it.
"And I missed you."
The words come out so softly you almost miss them.
Like he's admitting something shameful.
Something he wasn't supposed to say aloud.
"I missed you a lot."
Your eyes burn immediately.
"Dex..."
"I know."
He shakes his head.
"I know."
His gaze drops to his hands.
"I know I don't get to ask for things."
The words hit harder than they should.
Because for once he sounds like he believes it.
"But I did."
His eyes lift again.
Straight to yours.
"And I prayed."
You freeze.
Because Dex never talks about praying lightly.
Never.
His voice is barely above a whisper now.
"I prayed I'd see you again."
Your chest aches.
"And if I died..."
His mouth trembles slightly.
Just once.
"So stupid."
A small depreciative laugh at himself before continuing—
"If I die..."
His eyes never leave yours.
"I want it to be where you could see me."
The tears hit before you realize they're coming.
"I don't want to disappear somewhere you couldn't find me."
A pause.
Painfully small.
Painfully honest.
"I won’t be able to accept that."
And suddenly the truck feels far too small to contain the weight of what he's just handed you.
You nod weakly, dragging the heel of your hand beneath your eyes to wipe away the tears gathering there. Your fingers tremble slightly as you do it.
"Don't worry," you whisper.
The words come out uneven, your voice shaking around them.
"That won't happen."
Dex watches you with an intensity that makes your chest ache. His eyes don't leave your face for a second, as if he's searching for any sign that you don't mean it.
"I'll always be here."
You lean closer and reach for him, letting your hand settle against his arm. Your thumb moves in slow circles over the fabric of his sleeve.
The gesture is automatic.
Instinctive.
The same way you would soothe someone frightened after a nightmare.
The same way you would comfort someone who looked like they were barely holding themselves together.
"Just sit back, okay?"
You force a small smile, though it feels fragile.
"Let's get you home."
Home.
The word hangs in the air between you.
You watch it hit him.
Something in Dex immediately softens.
His shoulders loosen.
His breathing slows.
Like the word itself has wrapped around him.
Slowly, almost cautiously, he lifts one hand.
The movement draws your attention to the damage there.
Dried blood darkens his knuckles.
Thin scratches cut across his skin.
His fingers are rough and bruised.
Evidence of everything he's been through.
Everything he survived.
You don't pull away when he reaches for your hand.
You don't think you could.
Not now.
Not after everything that's happened.
His fingers curl carefully around yours, treating your hand like something fragile.
Something precious.
Then he lifts it toward his face.
His lips brush your fingertips first.
A feather-light touch.
Then your knuckles.
One by one.
Lingering for a moment on each.
Not rushed.
Not desperate.
Almost reverent.
Like he's trying to commit every detail to memory.
Like he's grateful you're letting him hold on at all.
When his lips finally press against the inside of your wrist, warmth blooms beneath your skin.
You feel the faint curve of his smile against your pulse.
Feel the soft exhale of his breath.
Then—
"Let's get married."
For a moment, your mind simply stalls.
The words reach you.
You hear them clearly.
But they refuse to make sense.
Like your brain can't quite arrange them into something real.
Dex keeps talking before you can respond.
"I don't think it'd be a big wedding."
His thumb drifts back and forth across the back of your hand in absentminded strokes.
"Probably small."
A quiet chuckle escapes him.
"I don't really have family."
Your stomach drops so suddenly it feels like missing a step in the dark.
Oh.
He's serious.
Completely serious.
"The only people there would probably be your dad."
Another small laugh.
Soft.
Almost shy.
"Maybe some of my old coworkers."
His brow furrows as he considers it.
"Though they might call the police."
"Dex."
You barely recognize your own voice.
It's thin.
Breathless.
His eyes lift to yours immediately.
Soft.
Hopeful.
Completely open.
The look on his face hurts.
Not because it's happy.
Because it's vulnerable.
Because he's looking at you like the answer matters more than anything else in the world.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean exactly that."
The response comes instantly.
Without hesitation.
Without uncertainty.
Like this is the most obvious thing he's ever said.
Like he's already made peace with the decision.
"I thought about what you said."
His fingers tighten around yours.
Not enough to hurt.
Just enough to hold on.
"The husband."
"The family."
"The life."
Emotion catches in his throat.
You see him swallow hard.
His jaw flexes.
"I think I can do that."
"Dex—"
"I do."
For the first time, urgency slips into his voice.
Not anger.
Not frustration.
Fear.
Raw and unmistakable.
The fear of someone desperate to be understood.
"I think I can be that man."
His eyes glisten beneath the light.
Bright with emotion.
"I think I can be good."
The words hit you like a stone dropped into deep water.
Because there it is.
The truth underneath everything else.
Not marriage.
Not children.
Not a house.
Not a future.
Good.
He's still talking about being good.
Still chasing it.
Still reaching for it with both hands.
Like it's always just beyond his grasp.
Like every time he gets close, it slips away again.
"Doll..."
His voice cracks.
Just slightly.
Barely enough to hear.
But enough.
"I think God gave me another chance."
Your throat tightens painfully.
No.
Not God.
Not destiny.
Not fate.
This isn't faith.
It's survival.
You can see it happening.
Right in front of you.
The same way someone reaches for a ledge while falling.
The same way a drowning person breaks the surface and gasps for air.
Dex almost died.
The thing he convinced himself would fix him didn't work.
The darkness is still there.
The emptiness is still there.
The fear is still there.
You can see all of it in the way his shoulders remain tense despite his smile.
In the way his fingers refuse to let go of yours.
In the way his eyes keep searching your face.
And now he's looking for something else to hold onto.
Something that will finally make sense of everything.
Something that will finally make him feel whole.
Something that will finally explain why he survived when he shouldn't have.
And somehow—
Horribly—
That something is you.
"I think you saved me."
Tears spill over before he can stop them.
They slide silently down his cheeks.
He doesn't wipe them away.
Doesn't seem to notice them at all.
His entire focus remains fixed on you.
"I really do."
You stare at him.
At the hope shining in his eyes.
At the desperation buried beneath it.
At the tears tracking down his face.
At the way he's clutching your hand like it's the only solid thing left in the world.
Like letting go might send him drifting somewhere he can't come back from.
And suddenly you understand something that terrifies you.
This isn't a proposal.
Not really.
It's a lifeline.
A plea wrapped in the shape of a future.
For a moment, you try to picture it.
Marriage.
The word settles strangely in your chest.
Not because you have never imagined it before.
You have.
God, you have.
When you were younger, you used to imagine a little blue house somewhere quiet. A porch swing that creaked in the evenings. A garden you never quite managed to keep alive.
You imagined coming home from work to someone already there.
Someone normal.
Someone who would complain about coworkers and traffic and bills.
Someone who would leave coffee mugs in the sink and forget anniversaries and ask what was for dinner.
You imagined children.
Small hands.
Tiny shoes by the front door.
A face that looked a little like yours and a little like theirs.
Something steady.
Something ordinary.
Something safe.
Your eyes sting.
Because suddenly—
you realize none of those daydreams ever had Dex in them.
Not once.
And somehow that hurts more than it should.
Your gaze drops to him.
To the dried blood still staining his jaw.
To the exhaustion carved into his face.
To the way he is looking at you now.
Like a man hanging from the edge of a cliff.
Like if you let go, there will be nothing beneath him.
A terrible sadness settles inside your chest.
Not fear.
Not regret.
Grief.
Pure grief.
Because you understand now.
You understand that loving Dex has never been about choosing between a good future and a bad one.
It is choosing between him—
and the future itself.
You know what marriage will not do.
It will not cure him.
It will not heal whatever lives inside him.
It will not make him gentle.
It will not make him normal.
Tomorrow he will still be Benjamin Poindexter.
Still impulsive.
Still obsessive.
Still reaching for violence the way other people reach for comfort.
A wedding ring will not change that.
Your love will not change that.
Nothing will.
Because there is nothing broken in him waiting to be fixed.
This is who he is.
And this realization should make letting go easier.
It should.
But when you imagine pulling your hand from his—
when you imagine watching him disappear from your life—
when you imagine never hearing his voice again—
never feeling his hand searching for yours—
never seeing that ridiculous smile he only seems capable of giving you—
something inside you cracks.
A sob catches in your throat.
Because for all the lives you could have lived—
all the futures you could have chosen—
every road that doesn't have Dex in it suddenly feels unbearably empty.
Not happier.
Not brighter.
Just empty.
And maybe that is the cruelest part.
You know he will never become the man you once dreamed of.
But somewhere along the way—
without meaning to—
he became the man you loved.
The tears finally spill over.
You lower your head.
And for the first time since he said those words—
since he asked for forever as casually as asking for the time—
you realize the choice was never really between yes and no.
It was between grief and grief.
And no matter which one you choose—
something will be lost.
Dex sees your tears and mistakes them for joy.
Of course he does.
He has seen it before.
In movies.
In television shows.
Women cry when they get proposed to.
Women cry when they are happy.
Women cry when they are loved.
So when he sees you covering your face with your hand, shoulders trembling beneath the pale light spilling through the windshield, he smiles.
A small, relieved smile.
As if the hardest part is over.
"Hey."
His voice is soft.
Careful.
Almost hesitant.
"You don't have to cry."
A breathless laugh escapes him, quiet and nervous.
"I mean... unless they're good tears."
One of his hands lifts slowly.
Tentatively.
Like he's afraid moving too quickly might shatter the moment.
His fingers brush across your forehead, gently sweeping a few loose strands of hair away from your face. The touch is feather-light, lingering for just a second before his hand settles against your temple.
The gesture makes you look up at him.
Your eyes are red.
Glossy with tears.
Your lashes damp.
And the moment Dex sees them, something in his expression softens even further.
The nervousness fades.
The uncertainty.
All that's left is affection.
His hand slides down to your cheek.
Warm.
Careful.
Cupping your face as though you're something fragile.
Something precious.
His thumb brushes beneath your eye, catching a tear before it can fall.
Then another.
And another.
Wiping away tears that refuse to stop coming.
"You know..." he says quietly, almost shyly. "I've thought about it before."
His gaze drops briefly to your joined hands resting between you.
His thumb strokes absentmindedly across your knuckles.
"More times than I'd admit."
A small smile pulls at the corner of his mouth.
Embarrassed.
Fond.
"And every time I did..."
His eyes lift back to yours.
Steady.
Earnest.
"I couldn't picture anybody else standing there."
The words land like stones in your chest.
Heavy.
Unavoidable.
Because he means them.
Every single one.
There isn't a trace of manipulation in his face.
No calculation.
No hidden motive.
No attempt to convince you.
Just love.
Pure and terrifying.
The kind that asks for everything without realizing how much it's asking.
The kind that trusts completely.
His hand remains against your cheek.
Warm.
Gentle.
Cradling your face as though it is something precious.
Something breakable.
His thumb continues to move in slow, absent circles against your skin.
Comforting you.
Trying to soothe tears he doesn't understand.
And the worst part is—
he thinks this is a beautiful moment.
He thinks this is what happiness looks like.
He thinks the tears running down your face are because you've been handed a future.
Not because you're mourning one.
Patiently, he waits.
Waits for the answer.
For the word that will settle the restless thing inside him.
The word that will finally let him believe he isn't alone anymore.
The word that will give meaning to surviving.
The word that will keep him from falling.
You stare at him.
At the dried blood beneath his nose.
At the faint bruising beginning to darken along his jaw.
At the exhaustion sitting heavy beneath his eyes.
The exhaustion of a man who has spent years carrying more than he should.
And beneath all of it—
the hope.
God.
The hope.
It's everywhere.
In the way he's looking at you.
In the way he's holding your hand.
In the way he's waiting so patiently, as though he already trusts the answer.
And suddenly you realize you already made your choice the moment you started searching for him.
The moment you climbed into your car.
The moment you spent all night driving through Hell's Kitchen with your heart lodged somewhere in your throat.
The moment every unanswered call made you panic.
The moment relief hurt more than fear when you finally saw he was alive.
You were never standing at a crossroads.
You were only pretending to.
A sob escapes you.
Small.
Broken.
Your eyes squeeze shut.
Fresh tears spill over despite your efforts to stop them.
Then you nod.
Once.
Twice.
The movement is barely noticeable.
But it changes everything.
"Yes."
Your voice breaks around the word.
Fragile.
Unsteady.
You swallow hard and try again.
"Yes."
More tears slide down your cheeks.
Not because you're certain.
Not because you're happy.
Not because this will save either of you.
But because you love him.
Because despite everything, despite all the reasons you shouldn't, despite every fear clawing at your chest—
you love him.
And somehow that feels far more frightening than anything else.
"Yes," you whisper.
Your lips tremble.
Your throat tightens.
Then finally—
"Let's get married."
OC!Reader the biggest mama bird of them all. 😞😞😞
Thank you for the read everyone and as you guys must have guessed it.....next chapter is the last chapter. Whatttttt?!
Yep, Log 4 will be the final chapter of Northbound.
This ended up being a pretty short series, but this is mainly because I'm preparing to embark on a new journey in my own life. This is why I think I'll be stepping away from the writing world for a little while.
It's been an incredible experience. Your comments, support, and encouragement have meant more to me than I can properly express, and they played a huge part in helping me see this story through to the end.
Thank you for reading, for sharing your thoughts, and for joining me on this journey.
Summary : Benjamin Poindexter, monster to everyone else, is the only person who could keep your mind from falling apart.
Pairing : DDBA!Benjamin Poindexter x mind reader! reader (she/her)
Warnings/tags : Angst, Fluff, hurt/comfort, canon-typical violence, panic attacks, sensory overload, mind reading, intrusive thoughts, trauma response, mentions of medical experimentation, murder, blood, protective/obsessive behavior, codependency, morally complicated love, hurt/comfort, domestic Dex, very brief mention of sex. Reader is mentioned to be an OXE medical experiment (Set in the last Episode of DDBA Season 2) (let me know if I missed anything!)
Word Count : 15.8k
Requested By : Anon
Notes : Please send me an ask if you would like to be added to the taglist, sometimes it gets lost in the comments. Enjoy!
Matt Murdock told himself it was a welfare check.
Which was stupid. Obviously it was stupid. Calling anything involving Benjamin Poindexter a welfare check was almost funny, if Matt had been in the mood to laugh at anything anymore.
Dex had shot Buck Cashman outside the Supreme Court and forced a makeshift siege. Of course he’d act like people were just moving targets. Of course, if the city was falling apart, Dex was probably the one person who could make it worse.
But the courthouse was done now.
Sort of.
Matt had stood there in front of God, Fisk, Karen, the cameras, all of New York, basically, and said it. He had torn the last piece of himself open with his own hands.
He was Daredevil.
There was no putting that back.
Fisk took the plea, and he was finally out of office. Fucking finally. The city had helped, and for better or for worse, the streets had bled because of it. Riots broke out, and sirens were everywhere. The whole city sounded like it was trying to crawl out of its own skin.
And Matt knew his days of moving freely were numbered.
It would not take long for the paperwork to be in order. It would not take long for the police to get their arrest warrant.
His name would spread through every system he had spent years trying to evade. Matthew Michael Murdock, Daredevil.
Whatever he was to people; Catholic boy, blind lawyer, vigilante, hero, hypocrite, all of it? That meant nothing. He was just a criminal who had to pay for breaking the law now.
So, fine.
But before all of that happened. He needed to tie up loose ends.
That was what he told himself as he put on a hoodie the morning after the courthouse, at 2 AM.
He crossed rooftops and fire escapes, ribs aching, lungs burning, sweat cold beneath his hoodie.
He was gonna check on him, that’s all. Make sure Dex was not out there killing people for the love of the game. Make sure the city didn’t have one more monster loose before he was taken away.
This better be quick, because would really rather spend his time with Karen before getting locked up.
By the time Matt reached Dex’s apartment building, the riot noise had thinned, like thunder moving farther away without ever really leaving.
Outside, New York still burned in fragments. Inside the building creaked. Old pipes ticked in the walls. Someone two floors down whispered angrily behind a locked door. A television murmured emergency coverage through cheap speakers. The exhaust fans gave a faint metallic complaint above him.
Matt climbed the stairs, knowing Dex’s apartment was ahead.
And then… Matt heard sobbing.
He stopped at the door.
It wasn’t theatrical, not the kind of crying meant to pull attention from the other side of a wall.
It was smaller than that. It almost made it… worse.
It came through Dex’s door in little broken pieces, like your body had run out of strength before it had run out of panic. One shaky breath, then another, then a thin, wet sound you tried to swallow and failed. You were trying to be quiet, Matt could tell. You were trying not to make noise and still the hurt kept leaking out of you anyway.
Matt stopped dead and assessed the situation.
There was a woman crying inside Benjamin Poindexter’s apartment.
For one second, Matt thought about every horrible thing he already knew about him.
Foggy, Father Lantom, all the other bodies he left in his wake.
All of them were there in his head at once, not as memories, but as evidence. As proof against Dex. As a case already built and closed in his mind.
Dex had never been someone Matt could afford to give the benefit of the doubt, not after what he had done. Not after who he had taken. Not even after all that bullshit about one good deed, about evening out the scales, as if taking another life could balance out the lives he had destroyed.
So Matt listened.
And then Dex spoke. “Baby, breathe. Come on. I’m here.”
Matt’s stomach tightened.
Baby?
From anyone else, maybe it would have sounded the way it was meant to: a soft comfort, words meant to soothe.
But coming from Dex, the words twisted in Matt’s ears.
Still, Matt knew it sounded… sincere.
Soft, but not fake-soft. Not mocking. Not cruel. Not even controlling.
It sounded… exhausted and careful. It frayed apart at the edges, like he had been kneeling there for hours, saying the same few words over and over because he was terrified you would disappear somewhere he couldn’t pull you back from.
“I’m right here,” Dex murmured. “You’re okay. You’re with me.”
You made a small, broken sound.
It was this heartbreakingly helpless, breathless little noise that caught in your throat and dragged itself out anyway. It was as if your body was trying to keep crying after you had already run out of strength for it.
Your breathing was too fast; Matt could hear every jagged inhale scraping up short in your chest, every failed attempt to steady yourself. Your heartbeat fluttered, frantic and uneven, skipping over itself like it was trapped.
You were on the floor. He could tell by the way your sobs hit the wood first, the way it sounded low and folded down. You were curled into yourself, maybe.
And Dex was too close. He was close enough that his voice barely had to rise. He was close enough that Matt could hear the shift of his body beside yours, the drag of fabric against the floor, the way he moved like he knew exactly which sounds would hurt you and which ones would not.
Everything Matt heard told him Dex was not hurting you.
The care was there. The patience was there. The way he kept his voice quiet enough not to startle. The way he didn’t grab at you, didn’t bark orders, didn’t crowd too fast. He seemed to be making himself smaller just to keep from adding to whatever was tearing through you.
Benjamin Poindexter sounded…. kind.
Matt hated that. his senses were giving him one answer and his memory was giving him another.
His senses said Dex was helping you. His memory said Dex hurt people.
His senses said Dex was gentle with you. His memory said Dex had killed Foggy.
His senses said there was love in the room. His memory said Benjamin Poindexter didn’t know how to love correctly.
His mind immediately assumed the worst.
Had he held you here? Kidnapped you? Had he convinced himself he loved you, and was he trying to convince you to love him, too?
Your sob hitched again.
“I can’t,” you whispered, voice shredded thin. “I can’t, Dex, I can’t—”
“I know,” Dex said immediately, and Matt could hear his skin on yours, rubbing gentle circles on your arm. You weren’t pulling away. “I know. Stay with me.”
There it was, the softness again.
That was an almost desperate patience in his voice, and still, Matt couldn’t make himself trust it.
Not with Dex crouched close enough for his voice to brush your skin. Not with you breathing like the room itself was killing you. Not with the door locked and the city screaming outside and no one else coming.
Then your breath snagged hard “Dex.”
“I’m here.”
“No.” Your voice thinned, almost terrified. “Someone else is h-here.”
Matt went completely still.
Behind the door, the apartment changed.
It was just a shift in the air. Dex went quiet all of a sudden. Matt understood, somehow, that you knew he was there.
For one suspended second, no one moved.
Your breathing trembled in the silence. Then Dex’s heartbeat slowed as he turned.
That was what made Matt decide. The sudden stillness of a killer turning his attention toward the door.
Whatever comfort Matt had heard before, whatever gentleness had almost confused him, it collapsed under the weight of everything else he knew:
A woman was crying in Dex’s apartment. Dex was too close to you. Ergo, Dex was hurting you and Matt had to get you out.
So Matt stepped back once he kicked the door down, and it broke inward. The sound tore through the apartment, wood splitting against the wall.
Matt stepped, expecting you to recoil.
He expected you to scramble backward on the floor, away from Dex. He expected fear to pull you toward the farthest corner, toward the broken doorway, toward him.
Anything but what actually happened.
You moved toward Dex.
It was a clumsy, desperate little scramble, knees dragging over the floorboards, one hand slipping against the wood as you tried to push yourself up and failed. Your breath came in miserable pieces, your whole body folded around the panic like it hurt to exist inside your own skin.
“Dex,” you choked.
Dex was already moving. He closed the distance before you could reach him properly, like he couldn’t stand the sight of you having to cross even that little distance alone. His hands came out, open, and you clambered into him.
There was no other word for it.
You climbed into his arms like you were trying to get beneath his ribs. As if you pressed close enough, hid deep enough, the rest of the world might lose track of you. Your fingers caught the front of his shirt and twisted there, tight and frantic, pulling yourself higher until your face was buried against his chest.
Dex caught you with his whole body. One of his arms was wrapped around your back. The other came up over your head, shielding your face, tucking you under his chin. He bent around you so gently it was almost painful to process, all that deadly mass turned into cover, into shelter.
Matt froze.
You… were not trapped.
Your cheek was pressed to his chest, hands fisted in his shirt. Your body shook against his, but the second he held you, your heartbeat changed. It was still too fast, still terrified, still broken up with panic, but it reached for his rhythm like a drowning man reaching for shore.
Dex lowered his mouth to your temple.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured. “I’ve got you, baby.”
You made a devastated sound and curled tighter.
Your knees drew up against his thigh. One of your hands slipped from his shirt to his shoulder, then to the back of his neck, gripping there like you were afraid Matt might pull him away from you.
“He’s loud,” you managed.
Dex’s eyes stayed on Matt, who still hadn’t said anything. “I know.”
“He’s loud, Dex, he’s so loud.”
“I know, sweetheart.”
You shook your head against him, hiding your face harder in the hollow of his throat. “Baby,” you whispered, voice barely there. “He thinks you’re hurting me.”
Dex went still.
“I’m not,” he said.
“I know.” Your voice cracked on it. “I know. But he thinks it and I can hear it and it hurts.”
Matt’s throat tightened. What did that even mean?
He heard it then, not just the panic and sobs. He heard the trust.
Your fear was everywhere, all over the room, spilling out of you in ragged breaths, but it was not aimed at the man holding you. Dex was the only place in the apartment your body seemed to recognize as safe.
You kept trying to disappear into him.
Every time Matt shifted, even slightly, your fingers tightened. Every time the broken door creaked behind him, your breath snagged and Dex’s palm moved slowly over the back of your head, as if smoothing you back into yourself.
“Don’t listen to him,” Dex murmured against your hair. “Listen to me.”
“I’m trying.”
“I know.”
“It’s too much.”
“I know, baby. I know.”
Matt took half a step forward. Dex’s head snapped up. “Don’t.”
The word was quiet to not startle you, and that was enough to stop Matt anyway.
Dex shifted on the floor, turning his body more fully between you and the doorway. You followed without thinking, clinging to him as he moved, your face still hidden against his chest. He kept you tucked there, one arm firm around your back, the other curved protectively around your head like he could keep Matt’s thoughts from touching you if he just covered enough of you.
“Poindexter,” Matt started, and it was smaller now.
Dex’s expression did not change. “Get out.”
“I thought—”
“I don’t give a shit what you thought.”
You trembled harder at the anger in his voice. Dex felt it instantly. His eyes flicked down, and when he spoke again, it wasn’t to Matt.
“Not you,” he whispered, pressing his mouth briefly to your hair.
You made another broken little noise and pushed closer, like the words had gone straight through your heart.
Dex held you tighter, not possessively in a way that trapped, but just enough to tell your body there was he was around it.
Matt stood there in the wreckage of the door, listening to your heartbeat try to steady itself against Dex’s chest, and for one awful second he didn’t know what to do with what his senses were telling him.
Because Benjamin Poindexter was still the reason too many people Matt loved were dead. But you were curled into him like he was the last quiet place in New York.
“He’s still here,” you whispered.
Dex’s eyes lifted. “I know.”
Dex’s face changed, but not by much. Matt doubted anyone else would have noticed, but he did. He heard it in Dex’s breathing, in the shift of his weight, in the sudden burst of restraint. The city outside was loud. The riots were loud. Matt was loud. His suspicion was loud. His righteousness was loud. His judgment was loud.
And somehow, you could hear all of it.
“I don’t want him here,” you said.
That was it. Whatever patience Dex had left for Matt died right there on the floor.
His hand stayed gentle on your back, but his voice didn’t. “Get the fuck out.”
For once, he did what Dex told him to do.
Matt stepped back into the hallway and got out.
The ruined door dragged crookedly against the floor when he pulled it mostly shut behind him. The lock was useless now, broken out from the frame, hanging loose in splintered wood, but Matt still closed it as much as he could.
He stood there in the hall, one hand still near the broken door, breathing quietly through the dust and old paint and the faint metallic tang inside the apartment.
He should have left. He knew that.
You had wanted him gone. Matt had seen enough, heard enough, to know he had been wrong about at least the first thing: Dex hadn’t been hurting you.
But Matt still could not make himself walk away.
Because Matt has convinced himself that love, in the hands of someone like Benjamin Poindexter, could become a locked room so easily.
Matt stayed.
Not close enough to push the door open again, but not far enough to pretend he wasn’t listening.
Inside, your breathing was still ragged.
Dex was still on the floor with you.
Matt could hear the tiny, frantic movements of your hands in Dex’s shirt. The tremor in your inhale. The way you kept trying to tuck yourself into him like the world might stop finding you if there was enough of his body between you and everything else.
“He’s still out there,” you whispered.
Dex’s answer came after a second of consideration. “Is he, now?”
Your breath hitched. “He didn’t leave.”
Fuck.
Matt stood very still in the hall.
“I’ll take care of him,” Dex murmured.
Your breath snagged. “Don’t hurt him.”
There was a pause. It wasn’t long, but long enough.
Then Dex said, “I won’t kill him.”
“Dex.” You didn't sound convinced.
“I won’t kill him,” he repeated, softer this time. “Promise.”
“You’re mad.”
“I know.”
“It’s sharp,” you winced.
“I know, baby. I’m sorry.” Inside the apartment, Dex went quiet in a way that felt less like guilt and more like being seen too clearly. “I won’t hurt him unless I have to.”
“Dex.”
“I won’t hurt him,” he said, and this time there was no loophole in it. There was only surrender, because it was you asking. “Okay? I won’t.”
Your breathing shuddered as Dex shifted on the floor.
“I’m going to move you, okay?” he said. “Just to the bed. I’ve got you.”
You made a small sound, and Matt could picture it too clearly now. You curled in on yourself, face hidden, body shaking from too much of whatever it is you could sense.
Dex crouched slowly, though he was already close. Like even now, even with you clutching at him, he was careful not to startle you. He slid one arm under your knees and the other behind your back.
You clutched at his shirt with shaking fingers. “I’m sorry,” you whispered.
“No.” His voice went firm immediately. “No, don’t say things like that.”
“I ruined your night.”
“You didn’t ruin anything.”
“I came here and I—”
“You came to me.” Dex pressed his mouth to your temple, quick and fierce. “That’s all. You came to me.”
You made a broken little noise against him.
Matt stood in the hallway, just outside the ruined door, listening to Dex lift you from the floor.
He heard the way your breath caught when your body left the ground. He heard your hands grip for a better hold. He heard Dex adjust instantly, pulling you closer.
“I’ve got you,” Dex murmured. “I’ve got you. I know.”
“You’re going to leave.”
“No.”
You sounded so small when you said, “You are.”
Dex carried you to the bed like every step had been chosen before he took it. Like he knew which floorboards made noise and which ones didn’t. Like he had learned how to move through this apartment in a way that made the least amount of noise for you.
“I’ll take care of him, okay?” Dex murmured. “I’ll make him go away.”
Your breathing hitched as you started to say something, but Dex shushed you gently.
“Yes, I know,” he said, softer. “I know you don’t like it when people see you like this. I know. It’s just gonna be me and you, okay? Just me and you.”
The mattress dipped down under your weight.
“I’ll close the door,” Dex continued. “I’ll turn the lights off. I’ll come right back.”
Your fingers caught the fabric of his shirt again. “Don’t leave.”
“I’m not leaving.” Dex let out a slow breath. “I’m right here.”
“You’re thinking about going.”
“I’m thinking about making him leave.”
“I can’t tell the difference.”
Dex went quiet.
Matt heard him sit beside you instead of standing right away. The mattress shifted again as the room settled around the two of you.
You cried a little, more exhausted now, as if the panic had torn through you and left you hollowed out behind it.
Dex’s hand moved over fabric in a slow, repetitive pass. Matt realised he was making the sheets smooth for you as he laid you down.
His hand slid up from your back to the side of your face, thumb hovering near your cheek, not quite wiping the tears away until you leaned into it first. “Look into my mind, baby.”
Matt’s head tilted from the hallway.
What?
Inside the studio, everything went still except for your breathing.
The room was not large enough for privacy. Not really. The bed sat pushed into the far corner. The broken front door was too close. Matt was too close. The whole world was too close.
But Dex bent over you like he could make distance with his body alone.
“Go on,” he murmured. “Look at me.”
You stared up at him through wet lashes, face blotched from crying, lips parted around breaths that still would not come right. Your fingers trembled against his shirt, twisted in the fabric so tightly the seams strained.
For a second, nothing happened.
Then your grip loosened by a fraction.
Your eyes fluttered.
A shaky breath left you, not calm, not even close, but relieved enough that Dex’s shoulders almost caved in with it.
The answer was immediate. No room for doubt. No space for the thought to grow teeth.
But then your expression crumpled again.
“You’re mad.”
Dex closed his eyes for half a second.
He didn’t deny it. He couldn't, even if he wanted to. Not to you. “I am.”
Your breath caught so suddenly it sounded like it hurt.
Dex’s whole face changed. The anger was still there, Matt could hear it in him, running hot under the skin. But with you looking at him like that, terrified because his fury had no color, no label, no clear direction once it got inside your head, Dex felt almost sick with it.
“I’m not mad at you,” he said, urgent in a way that made the words rough. “Never at you.”
Your mouth trembled and repeated yourself. “You know I can’t tell the difference sometimes.” It came out so pained Matt felt it in his own chest.
You said it like an apology, like you hated needing him to explain the direction of his anger because you could feel it anyway, and feeling it didn’t mean understanding it.
Dex swallowed. His hand curved more fully around your cheek now, warm and steady, thumb finally catching one tear before it slid down to your jaw.
“I know,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”
You looked at him for another second, searching his face like your own mind wasn't enough tonight. Like even seeing inside him had not made your body believe it yet.
Then he lowered his voice. “I have to make him leave.”
Your fingers tightened again, not as badly this time.
Dex did not pull away. He leaned in instead, pressing a short kiss to your forehead, then another to the corner of your temple, like he could nail the promise into place with his mouth.
“I’m going to turn off the lights, okay?”
You nodded, barely, as breathing scraped in and out through your nose.
Dex shifted only when you let him. He eased you back against the pillows in the bed, not putting you down so much as arranging the room around your collapse. One hand stayed on you the whole time, a constant point of contact while the other reached for everything else.
He crossed the few steps to it and slid the window shut with painstaking care, catching the frame before it could knock. Street noise dulled at once.
Then he pulled the curtains together until the thin spill of city light vanished from the wall and your face disappeared into darkness.
As promised, he clicked the lamp off.
The studio fell dimmer, warmer, reduced to the weak strip of hallway light bleeding through the ruined front door.
The phone was next. He picked it up from the small table beside the bed and silenced it without looking, thumb moving from memory. He put it back, screen turned down.
A radio sat near the kitchenette, cheap and old, still plugged into the wall. Dex crossed to it barefoot and pulled the cord free. The plastic scraped faintly against the outlet, and even that made your breathing tremble.
Then, he opened a drawer near the bed.
Something rattled softly as he picked it up. A pill bottle, maybe? No, it could be earplugs in a little tin.
He came back with them in his palm.
You must have watched him through the dark because your breathing changed when he got close again, sounding less lost than before.
Dex sat on the edge of the mattress.
He tucked the blanket around you, drawing it up over your shoulder, smoothing the edge down like he was sealing the world out inch by inch. His hand lingered there after, broad against the blanket, feeling the shake of you through the fabric.
The apartment had become smaller. Every sound had been answered. Every light had been put down. Every little edge of the room had been softened, covered, turned away from you by hands that knew the ritual too well.
He had done this before. Like he had learned, piece by piece, how to make the world survivable for you.
At some point, you must have reached for him again, because Dex’s voice dropped inaudibly. “Hey,” he whispered. “I know.”
The bed creaked as he leaned closer.
A kiss touched your skin. Your forehead, maybe. Then another, lower. Your temple. The damp line of your cheek.
“I’ll be right back,” Dex breathed.
You made a small sound.
He stayed another second, maybe two. Long enough for your fingers to loosen.
Then he stood.
Dex walked to the other side of the apartment without turning on a single light. He made no wasted movement, not a single sound he didn’t mean to make.
At the broken front door, he paused and looked back once.
Matt could hear the small turn of his head. The habit of making sure you were still under the blanket, still breathing, still there.
Then Dex slipped into the hall and pulled the ruined door mostly shut behind him.
It couldn’t latch. But he cracked it closed as carefully as if it still mattered, leaving only a narrow gap of darkness between the apartment and the hallway.
He was keeping the light out. He was keeping Matt out.
When Dex turned, he stood half-shadowed in the corridor, eyes red-rimmed and flat with exhaustion. His face was calm in the way loaded weapons were calm. His voice stayed quiet, almost gentle, but not for Matt.
He did it for yous
“I told you,” Dex said, “to get the fuck out.”
For a while, Matt didn’t say anything.
The hallway held them in the aftermath of what Matt had done. The door hung crooked in its frame, pulled mostly shut even though the lock was split and useless, the wood around it cracked open where Matt’s boot had forced its way through. It couldn’t protect you anymore. It could barely pretend to be a door. Still, Dex stood in front of it as if his body could replace what Matt had broken, as if he could become the lock, the wall, the whole goddamn building if he had to.
Matt could hear the anger in him as clearly as he could hear traffic below: hot, contained, and viciously focused. Dex wanted to do something with it. Matt knew that, but he kept it buried beneath his ribs because you were behind that broken door, and if he let the rage rise any higher, you would feel it.
That was what Matt could not stop noticing. Not the anger. The restraint.
Inside the apartment, you shifted under the blanket. It was only a movement of fabric, barely anything, followed by the small uneven catch of your breath as you tried to settle yourself in the dark corner Dex had made for you. Dex turned his head at once. Not fully, not enough to take his attention off Matt, but enough that Matt realised that some part of Dex had never left the room with you. Some part of him was still sitting beside the bed, counting your breaths, waiting for the slightest sign that you needed him again.
For one moment, Matt didn't feel like he was looking at Bullseye. He was looking at a man furious enough to kill and still aching to go back inside because the woman he loved was trying to remember how to breathe without him there.
Matt swallowed. “I didn’t know you had a girlfriend.”
Dex looked back at him and the answer was obvious. Matt had no right to know. No right to ask. He had no right to stand there in the hallway after frightening you and pretend the question was harmless.
“I didn’t tell you.”
His voice was flat and guarded, the words set down like a barrier. Matt’s mouth tightened.
Behind the door, your breathing hitched again, smaller this time, like the sound of voices through wood was still enough to scrape against you. Dex heard it too. The anger in him shifted immediately, folding smaller, tightening down.
“What’s wrong with her?” he asked.
He knew it was wrong the second it left his mouth. The words were too blunt, too harsh, too clinical. He had meant, What happened? He had meant, Is she going to be okay? He had meant, What did I just walk into, and how badly did I make it worse? But none of that came out. What came out sounded like you were a problem.
“Nothing is wrong with her,” Dex said, and Matt could tell he was trying his hardest not to snap.
Matt didn’t move. Dex stepped closer by the smallest amount, and the entire hallway seemed to narrow with him. His face had gone hard, but not empty.
“Nothing,” Dex repeated, each syllable harsh enough to cut. “She’s perfect.”
Matt exhaled slowly through his nose. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Yes, you did.”
Dex didn’t have to snarl. He didn’t have to raise his voice. The accusation sat there between them, plain and ugly, and Matt couldn’t defend himself from it because part of it was true.
Inside, you were quiet now. Not calm, but silent in the way people became when they were trying very hard not to take up too much space with their hurt. Matt listened to the small tremor and felt the pieces beginning to arrange themselves in his head.
You had known he was outside before Dex opened the door. You had reacted to him even before he even stepped inside. You had known Dex was mad but couldn’t tell where that anger was aimed. Dex had told you to look into his mind with the ease of someone offering proof, not metaphor, not comfort dressed up as poetry, but a real thing he knew you could do.
Oh.
Matt looked back at Dex and stated the painfully obvious explanation. “She can read minds.”
Dex’s expression changed only a little, but Matt heard the rest. The brief tightening of his mouth. The instinct to protect you by lying took over, followed almost immediately by the realization that lying to Matt Murdock was pointless.
Dex looked away, and said, “Yes.”
His voice had changed, still rough around the edges, but the explanation seemed to cost him a part of his soul. Every word about you had to be handled carefully because it belonged to you first. He kept his eyes on the door as he spoke, as if even describing your pain required him to make sure it had not worsened.
“She hears thoughts, feelings. Most days she can keep it out, or keep it separate, or read one mind at a time. She knows how to get through the day.” His teeth clenched, and he looked down for half a second before forcing himself to continue. “But when there are too many people, when emotions run too high, it stops being individual thoughts and turns into noise.”
Oh.
Oh shit, Matt thought as he realized that last night hadn’t only been bad for you. It had been a disaster built exactly out of the things that hurt you most.
Last night, protests clashed with Fisk’s Task Force. Bodies were pressed shoulder to shoulder in the streets, voices raised, officers behind their shields, civilians furious and terrified and righteous all at once. Fisk’s fall had moved through the city like a shockwave. Matt Murdock’s confession that he was a Daredevil had made a home on every screen, in every mouth, in every disbelieving mind.
His confession had not stayed in the courtroom. It had spilled outward, turning into rumor and revelation and riot, and you had walked straight into all of it because you thought Dex was hurt. Because you missed him.
Matt felt his stomach sink.
He thought of you moving through that crowd, not just hearing the sirens and shouting like everyone else, but taking in the thoughts beneath them. Panic layered over rage layered over grief. Thousands of minds all pushing against yours with no space between them. A whole city losing control at once, and you were caught in the middle of it, trying to find one person.
Dex’s face tightened as if he could see the same picture and hated it more because he had already lived the end of it. He hated that he had found you like that.
Matt understood that without being told. Dex had found you shaking apart in this same apartment, or near it, or on the street outside, too overwhelmed by everyone else to find yourself. He had found you and brought you here and spent the night closing windows, killing lights, silencing phones, making the world smaller with hands that had done unspeakable things.
“She came looking for me,” Dex said.
The words were almost stripped of anger now. Dex looked at the door again, and his body softened before he could stop it. But Matt heard it in the way Dex’s breath caught around your existence on the other side of the wall.
Benjamin Poindexter loved you.
Matt didn’t want to know that. He didn’t want to have to make room for it inside the shape of the man he hated. He wanted Dex to stay simple. A killer. Someone with a label simple enough to condemn without complication. But love was written through him now in ways Matt couldn’t ignore.
Matt’s voice came quieter when he asked, “Does she need a doctor?”
Dex scoffed. “Doctors are what made her like this.”
Matt went still.
Dex didn’t explain. Maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe Matt hadn’t earned that part of the story. But still, he was opening just enough of a door for Matt to picture the white rooms, fluorescent lights and people calling pain research, behind him.
Dex looked back at the broken door, and for half a second, the rage in him gave way. “She has good days and bad days,” Dex said. His mouth tightened, and when he spoke again, the grief in it was almost unbearable. “And she was having a good week.”
That mattered.
Matt couldn’t possibly understand the full weight of that sentence, but Dex did. A good week meant sleep. It meant you could eat without feeling nauseous. It meant you had mornings where you didn’t wake up already bracing against other people’s thoughts.
You’ve had several really good weeks, actually.
It mattered because Dex had met you on a bad day.
—
Twelve months ago…
OXE hired him to kill you.
A freelance gig, really.
The file was from the private medical trial branch of the corporation. It said that you were a failed participant. You were a liability. You were just a woman whose condition had become unpredictable.
They sent Dex a name, a photograph, an address, and a warning not to engage longer than necessary.
The house they had sent him to had no security. It was an old, empty place with drawn curtains and stale air and dust gathered thick in the corners.
You hated it.
Dex found you in the attic under the slanted roof, sitting in the weak orange spill of late afternoon light, one wrist was handcuffed to an exposed pipe. Your knees were drawn up close to your chest. Your hair stuck damply to your face, and your lips were bitten raw, like you had spent hours trying to keep something inside your mouth by force.
The key was across the room.
It was kicked. Dex could tell from the scrape in the dust where it had skidded away from you, just far enough that your fingers couldn’t reach it unless you pulled hard enough to tear the skin around your wrist. The cuff had already bruised a dark, ugly ring on your skin.
You looked at him once.
A small, breathless laugh left you. It wasn’t happy, not even close. It was more like your body had mistaken despair for humor because it had run out of other ways to hold it.
“You’re…” Your voice cracked. “You’re here to kill me.”
Dex didn’t answer.
He didn’t need to.
Your eyes moved over his face, and something strange passed through them.
Then you laughed again, barely. “You think I’m pretty, Dex.”
The attic went still as dust drifted in the light between you.
Dex’s finger rested near the trigger.
“How do you know my name?”
You looked at him like the question itself was tired. “Mind reader,” you said. “Obviously.”
Dex stared at you for a long moment.
You didn’t look like what OXE had described.
Dangerous, yes, maybe. But not in the way they meant. You looked exhausted, cornered, and afraid of yourself than of him. Your whole body was tense against the cuff, but you weren’t trying to get free anymore.
Dex’s eyes flicked to the key, then back to you.
“Why lock yourself up here?”
For the first time, you looked ashamed. “Because it’s loud.”
Dex glanced around the empty attic.
You heard the thought before he could speak.
“Not here,” you said, swallowing, then pointing to your head with your free hand, “but here.”
Your hand then curled briefly around your own throat, not pressing, just remembering.
“I kicked the key away,” you whispered. “So I’d have time to stop myself.”
“From what?”
You closed your eyes. Your voice came out small. “Strangling someone.”
Dex didn’t move.
You opened your eyes, wet and miserable, and looked past him because looking right at him was suddenly too hard.
“He was loud. He wouldn’t stop. He kept thinking and thinking and thinking, and I kept hearing it. I told him to stop to shut up, but they couldn’t, because people can’t just stop thinking, and I knew that, see, I knew that, but I—
Your breath broke as you looked down at your cuffed wrist. “So I locked myself up here. Before I kill someone again.”
Dex should have killed you. That was the job.
OXE had paid him to remove a problem, and there you were, handcuffed beneath a slanted roof, bruised and filthy and shaking because the world had made you into something you were terrified of becoming.
He should have pulled the trigger. Instead, he lowered the gun.
Your face fell immediately, like mercy was its own kind of threat.
“Don’t,” you whispered.
Dex paused.
“If you’re going to kill me, just do it,” you said, voice cracking.
Dex’s mind went quiet.
He had no idea what to do with that. No idea what to do with you.
So he did the only practical thing he could.
He walked across the room and picked up the key.
You cried then, silently at first, tears spilling over without sound as he came back and crouched in front of you. Dex moved slowly. He set the gun down beside him, close enough to reach, far enough that you could see both his hands.
“I’m going to unlock it,” he said.
You stared at him.
“You can read my mind,” he added, awkward and blunt because gentleness was not a language he spoke well yet. “So you know I’m not lying.”
Your breath shook.
You looked at him, really looked, and you squinted your eyes in the smallest, most painful disbelief.
Dex unlocked the cuff.
The metal fell away from your wrist.
You didn’t move.
You only stared at your freed hand like it belonged to someone else. The skin beneath the cuff was swollen and angry, the bruise already darkening. Dex looked at it for too long.
Then he took off his jacket.
He draped it over your shoulders.
You were shaking so hard the leather fabric around you.
Dex did not ask if you could walk. He already knew the answer. He saw the way your legs failed when you tried to gather them beneath you, saw the way your hand went out blindly toward the pipe, toward the wall, toward anything that would keep the room from tilting.
So he picked you up slowly, one arm under your knees, one behind your back, no grip tighter than necessary.
You went rigid in his arms for half a second, then sagged, exhausted past the point of fear.
“Why are you doing this?” you whispered.
Dex looked down at you.
He didn’t know how to answer out loud.
Because I know what it means to be made wrong for the world, too.
Maybe, now that we’ve found each other, we don’t have to be alone anymore.
He said none of that. But you said, “okay.”
He carried you down from the attic and took you back to his apartment because he didn’t know where else to take you.
You sat on the edge of his tub in his jacket while he ran the water warm.
Dex kept looking away, not because he was embarrassed, but because he understood, somehow, that being looked at was another kind of noise. He handed you a towel, found some soaps and put a clean shirt on the sink.
When you could not lift your hands without trembling, he helped.
He helped you into warm water and rinsed dust from your hair, cleaning blood from your bruised wrist. His hand was steady on your skin when you started crying again.
He didn't ask you to stop.
He only said, once, very quietly, “I’m not going to hurt you.”
And because you could read his mind, you knew he meant it.
Benjamin Poindexter had been hired to kill you.
Instead, he took you out of the attic and bathed you.
—
Over the next couple of days, you were mostly good.
Mostly.
Because Dex learned quickly that good didn’t mean cured. It meant you slept more than you usually did. It meant you could sit by the window without pressing your palms to your ears. It meant you could make tea in his kitchen and smile at some thought he hadn’t meant to give you.
Within the first week, his apartment changed because of you. He installed wall panelling first, because the building was old and thin and the neighbors came through the walls too easily when everything felt hollow. Then, he gave you thicker curtains, then rugs. Then a new refrigerator because the old one hummed at a frequency that made you bare your teeth and say it tasted wrong.
Dex didn’t ask what that meant.
He just replaced it.
After all, your mind was already susceptible to being invaded by foreign thoughts, he didn't want you to be overstimulated by your senses, too.
That was how it started with him, really. Not with declarations. Dex loved in corrections, adjustments, and threat assessments. He noticed what hurt you, and then he removed it. He learned the signs of your bad days and built around them, one practical act at a time.
You fell in love with him so fast it should have scared you.
It didn’t, but mostly because you knew he had already fallen too.
You could hear it.
He thought he was being subtle, which was almost funny. Dex, who could control his breathing to take a shot, couldn’t hide wanting you to kiss him for more than a week.
You could hear his thoughts every time you came too close.
Not words, exactly. More like flashes of your mouth, your hands in his mind. The curve of your shoulder when you wore one of his shirts. The split-second image of him leaning in, followed by a disciplined thought-wall of don’t, don’t, don’t, because Dex could kill a man without blinking but apparently touching you first was too much.
You let him suffer with it for six days, mostly because you were giving him time to change his mind.
He didn’t.
On the seventh, he was fixing one of the new panels in the kitchen, teeth clenched because the wood refused to sit straight. You were sitting on the counter with one of his old FBI academy shirts that had since gotten too small for his bulk now, bare legs swinging, watching him pretend he was not acutely aware of your knees on either side of his ribs when he stepped between them to reach the wall.
You had laughed from where you sat.
He looked over at you. “You think that’s funny?”
You tilted your head. “You’re thinking about shooting the wall.”
Dex stared at you, setting the screwdriver down too carefully.
“You shouldn’t go digging around in my head.”
“I didn’t dig,” you said. “You’re loud when you’re annoyed.”
That should have bothered him. It did, maybe a little.
But then you smiled at him like his mind was not a terrible place to be. Like you could look at all the terrible things in there and still find him underneath. Like understanding him did not disgust you.
Fuck, he thought, don’t do things that make me want to—
“You want to kiss me,” you interrupted his train of thoughts.
Dex went so still it was almost sweet. Then he turned his head. “You shouldn’t listen to that.”
“You know I don’t mean to.” You hooked two fingers in the front of his shirt and tugged him closer.
His eyes dropped to your mouth, and that was answer enough.
So you kissed him.
Gently at first, just to see what he would do with it. Dex froze under your hands like his body had forgotten every instruction except stay. Then he made this small, ruined sound against your mouth and touched your waist like you were a fragile crystal he had been warned not to break.
After that, neither of you stood a chance.
Neither of you did anything halfway. Dex didn’t know how to want normally, and you didn’t know how to be wanted normally. Kissing turned into touching, touching turned to stumbling into his bed, and being in his bed turned into Dex curling into you afterward like he had found heaven and was furious nobody had warned him it would feel like this.
Sex with a mind reader should have terrified him.
But after the first time he understood what it meant with you. There was no pretending or hiding behind control. He couldn’t pretend to be calmer than he was. He couldn’t hide how badly he wanted to kiss you again, how much he liked your hands on him, how ruined he got when you said his name in that breathless sigh. You knew when he was overwhelmed and you adjusted. You knew when he needed to slow down. You knew when he was thinking too much and when he needed you to pull him out of his own head.
You kissed him through it. You talked him through it. You touched him like his wants were not shameful just because they were intense, like the inside of him was not too much for you.
And you loved him for it.
You loved the strange, violent tenderness of him. The way he checked your face before his hands moved. The way he liked when you told him what he wanted.
“You love me,” you whispered after the second month, half asleep against his chest, your fingers tracing lazy shapes over his ribs.
Dex went still beneath you.
You smiled into his skin. “Don’t panic. I love you too.”
He didn’t say it back then because he didn’t have to.
But his arms tightened around you like the thought of you leaving had become physically unbearable. His mouth pressed to the top of your head, then your temple, then the corner of your mouth, almost desperate.
He loved you with every ruined, desperate, loyal part of himself. He loved you like gravity, like a fixation, like a religion he had invented alone in the dark and then accidentally found living in your body.
You smiled up at him, eyes wet.
“I know,” you whispered. “I can hear you.”
Dex’s hand came up to the back of your neck and kissed you.
You heard it in him constantly after that, and not like a normal man thinking I love you in a normal way.
Still, there were rules.
You didn’t care that he killed AVTF agents and assassination jobs. You had heard enough of their minds to know duty didn’t make most men good. You didn’t hate him for coming home with blood on his hands.
If anything, Dex loved that about you. Because for once, he didn’t have to explain himself.
He didn’t have to come home and build a careful human-sounding justification for the violence. He didn’t have to say he had no choice, or they were a threat. You already knew. You reached into his mind, found his reasoning, and understood it before he even greeted you.
And you would look at him and say, “That’s fine.”
Not because you were naïve. But you knew exactly what he was.
You knew the terrible things he had done. You knew the sound of his mind when he decided someone had to die. You knew how quickly he could make peace with blood if the reason made sense to him. And somehow, you accepted it.
But proximity to killing was a different thing altogether. A hurt mind was a loud mind and a dying mind was worse.
You explained it after an agent got too close to the apartment.
Dex knew that he couldn’t risk a search. He knew he couldn’t risk him writing down the address. He couldn’t risk OXE finding you again.
So he killed him outside, close enough for you to feel the pain.
By the time Dex came back in, you were on the floor beside the bed, hands pressed to your ears even though that never helped. Your face was pale, eyes unfocused, like you were still hearing dead thoughts long after the body had gone limp.
“A hurt mind tastes like TV static,” you whispered.
Dex stopped with blood drying on his sleeve.
You tried to explain because he needed to understand, and with you, Dex always listened like the answer might save your life later.
“I don’t hear words when they’re hurt. Pain turns everything white and icky. It buzzes behind my eyes.” You swallowed hard, breathing through it. “And dying is worse. A dying mind clings to anything it can. A face, a smell, a prayer. Some room they were in when they were little. Anything to stay. It’s so loud, Dex. I can’t filter it, I can’t, I-I… can’t.”
Dex didn’t look sorry for the dead agent, that was not how he worked. But he looked… hurt. He was hurt because you were.
“I know why you did it,” you said, eyes wet. “I know he got too close. I’m not mad.”
That was worse, because he could’ve handled anger. He didn’t know what to do with forgiveness. “I just can’t be near it,” you whispered. “Please.”
It had never been easy for him to change rules, but just like that, because you were hurt, he changed it.
He promised no killing within half a mile of the apartment. He promised there would be no bodies in the building. If danger came near and you were close enough to feel it, Dex would send you away first.
And if he had no choice, if someone had to die and had to die fast, Dex dragged the body away before the mind finished breaking.
He’d drag them down alleys, around corners, behind dumpsters, far enough that their minds could get loud somewhere it wouldn’t reach you.
For a while, that was enough.
Then one day, Dex came home and you weren’t in the apartment.
The door was locked. The curtains were drawn. The lights were low the way you liked them. The kettle sat cold on the stove, even though it was time you usually had tea. Your blanket was half-folded on the chair, one sleeve of one of his shirts hanging off the armrest where you had left it that morning.
But you weren’t there.
Dex stood in the middle of the studio and listened.
He couldn’t hear bare feet shifting against the floor of the bathroom. He could hear breathing from the corner beyond the bed, where you usually were when you were overwhelmed.
Nothing.
His body reacted before his mind did.
A bloom of panic opened behind his ribs.
“Sweetheart?”
No answer.
He checked the bathroom, the closet, the fire escape. The bed, even though he could see you weren’t in it. Then again, because panic didn’t care about logic once it got its hands around his throat.
No.
No, no, no.
For one sick second, all he could think was OXE.
Someone had found you. Someone had gotten in while he was away. Someone had taken you from the little box he had built to keep the world out, and he hadn’t been there to stop it.
Then he heard you.
You were… down the hall?
You let out a sob muffled through someone else’s door.
Dex turned toward it so fast the room seemed to tilt.
He knew that sound. He knew every version of your crying by then. The small ones you tried to hide, the sharp ones that meant you were hurt, the breathless ones that meant too many minds had gotten in and you couldn’t find your way back out.
This one was worse.
This one sounded like shock and the beginning of self-hatred.
Dex was already moving.
The neighbors’ apartment door was unlocked.
He pushed it open and found you on the floor.
You were curled up near the kitchen tiles, knees drawn tight, hands pressed over your mouth as if you were trying to hold the sobs in with your fingers. Your whole body shook.
You were barefoot. Your hair was a mess. One side of your face was wet with tears.
Then Dex saw the bodies around you, and it belonged to the couple who lived there.
The ones who screamed through the walls so often their voices had become part of the building. The ones whose arguments rotted into your apartment at night. The ones whose thoughts were worse than their mouths, according to you. They were bitter and poisoned all the way through.
He knew pieces of them because you knew pieces of them.
You told them they had a son who didn’t live there anymore. The grandparents had taken him in because the father’s anger had become too physical and the mother’s neglect had become too easy to pretend not to see. The child’s room was now turned into storage.
They had been horrible people.
That did not change the fact that you had killed them.
You looked up at Dex. “I’m sorry.”
Your hands fell from your mouth to your throat, fingers hovering there like you could still feel what you had done.
“They were so loud,” you whispered.
Dex stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
Your eyes darted to the bodies, then back to him, wild and wet and ruined.
“I knew it would hurt,” you said, words coming faster now, tumbling out of you before you could stop them. “I knew. I knew dying minds hurt me. I knew it would be loud when they died, I knew it would get in, but they were already so loud, Dex. They were already in my head I couldn’t think.”
Your breath hitched hard.
“They were fighting again. Not just out loud outside, but inside. Inside was worse. He was thinking about what he wanted to do to her, and she was thinking about what she should have done to him years ago, and then they were thinking about the boy, and neither of them even missed him right. They just—”
You choked on it.
Dex took one slow step closer. You shook your head, frantic. “No. Don’t. I’m awful right now. I’m so loud.”
“You’re not too loud for me.”
That made you sob harder. You curled forward, forehead nearly touching your knees.
“I tried to go back,” you whispered. “I tried to go back to our apartment. I tried to shut it out, but they kept going and going and going, and I couldn’t tell what was mine anymore. I couldn’t tell if I hated them or if they hated each other or if the whole hallway hated them, and then I was here.”
Your hands twisted in your lap.
“I was just here.”
Dex understood, because it was you.
Because your mind had been filled past the point of reason by two people who had made a life out of being loud, and by the time you understood what your hands were doing, they were already dying.
“I made it quick,” you said.
Your voice was so small it barely reached him.
Dex’s teeth tightened. You looked at him like you needed him to believe that one thing, if nothing else.
“I did. I promise. I didn’t want them to hurt. I didn’t want to hear that part for long. I just needed it to stop, and they were going to hurt each other anyway, and they were horrible, Dex, but I—” Your face fell. “I killed them.”
There was no justification, no defence.
“I killed them,” you said again, and it sounded like you were trying to make yourself understand it.
Dex crouched in front of you, and your eyes flicked to his hands.
Dex knew too much about violence to be shocked by it. But seeing you like this, seeing the toll of it hollow you out from the inside, he understood one thing: The city was killing you.
It was simply too loud, too full for your mind.
“Look at me,” he said.
You shook your head. “I can’t.”
“Look at me.”
Your eyes lifted.
Dex reached for you then, slow enough that you could stop him.
You didn’t.
The second his hand closed gently around your wrist, you collapsed forward into him with a sound so broken it made his throat tighten. He caught you against his chest, one hand to the back of your head, the other arm locked around you while you sobbed into his shirt.
“I’m sorry,” you gasped.
Dex held you tighter.
“I know.”
“I don’t want to be like this.”
“I know, baby.”
“They were so loud.”
“I know.”
And he didn’t mean it the way you meant it. He couldn’t. He would never know what it was like to have a dying mind claw through yours, to feel someone’s last panic splinter behind your eyes. But he knew enough. He knew you. He knew what this had cost you.
He looked over your shoulder at the dead neighbors, and there was no pity in him for them.
Only calculation. He was going to clean up this mess, maybe make it look like a murder-suicide, and make sure the investigation didn’t even look your way.
You were crying so hard you could barely breathe.
Dex pressed his mouth to your hair.
“You’re okay,” he whispered, more to himself than to you. “You’re okay.”
That night, after he cleaned what needed cleaning and got you back behind your own door, after he tucked you into the bed and sat with you until exhaustion finally dragged you under, Dex stayed awake beside you and stared at the ceiling.
The panelling he put there was not enough. The blackout curtains he installed were not enough.
The quiet refrigerator, the rugs, the rules about killing, the way he had tried to make one studio apartment survivable — none of it was enough if the city could still get to you through the walls.
By morning, Dex had made up his mind.
He started taking bigger jobs after that, better paying ones.
All with one thing in mind: relocate you from the city.
—
After that, every job had one purpose.
You.
And Dex had always been better when he had a purpose.
Every payment, every account number, every envelope, every favor owed became a way out of the city, a way to buy air your mind could survive.
But money was never quite enough. Money could buy a place, maybe, but money left a paper trail. Dex needed a cleaner solution.
He got what he wanted when the property mogul came to him.
The man owned half a skyline and wanted another man dead over a development dispute he kept calling “a complication.” He met Dex in the private lounge of a building with marble floors and windows too high above the street for anyone inside to remember people lived below them.
He offered a number first.
Two hundred thousand dollars.
Dex did not react.
The mogul smiled like he thought he had accepted the offer.
Then Dex gave him his price. “Two hundred thousand dollars,” he said, “and land.”
The mogul blinked. Dex leaned back in his chair.
“Upstate, and no close neighbors within half a mile radius. I want twenty acres at least. I want an existing cabin if you’ve got one. If not, build one.”
The man stared at him for a second too long, like money had made him forget people could ask for things that weren’t numbers. Dex’s expression didn’t change.
“You want him gone by Friday?” he tilted his head. “That’s my payment.”
The mogul laughed uncertainly.
Dex didn’t.
By the end of the week, the man was dead, the dispute was gone, and a plot of land upstate had quietly changed hands through three shell companies and a fake name.
There was a cabin on it already.
It was small and slightly weathered, far enough from the nearest road that the city couldn’t reach it easily. It was enough from the nearest neighbor that even your mind would have to stretch to find another person.
Dex stood on the porch the first time he saw it and listened.
Nothing but birds and wind through the trees.
Perfect.
Dex wanted to surprise you, which was adorable, because he had been thinking about the cabin constantly.
Not just the cabin itself, either. He had been fixing and sanding and checking the locks. He had managed to put extra shelves in the kitchen and fixed the creaky steps. He was planning to replace the bedroom window before you ever saw it because the old one rattled when the wind hit wrong and you’d hate it almost as much as he did.
He wanted it perfect before he brought you there.
So you pretended not to know.
You let him come home with sawdust on his sleeve and plans tucked behind his eyes, let him sit beside you on the bed while thinking very loudly about the porch and curtain rods and whether the trees were far enough from the house to make you feel safe instead of watched.
“You’re in a good mood,” you said.
Dex glanced at you too quickly. “No.”
You smiled into your book. “Okay.”
Then, flatter, he realised, “You know.”
You looked up, trying so hard not to smile because he looked genuinely upset. “I know.”
Dex sighed through his nose. “I wanted to surprise you.”
“You did,” you said, reaching for the front of his shirt. “I’m surprised you thought you could surprise me.”
And poor Dex, murderous, meticulous, hopelessly in love Dex, let you pull him down into a kiss anyway.
Of course, when he took you there the week after for the first time with your duffel bags in tow, you loved it.
You loved the curtains. You loved the little fire pit he built after you told him fire felt like the good kind of white noise in your head. You loved watching him chop wood with unnecessary precision. You loved sitting on the porch with a blanket around your shoulders while he checked the perimeter for the third time that day, because Dex couldn’t love normally. He loved like a security system with attachment issues.
And Dex loved that you knew.
He didn’t have to explain the strange shape of his obsession. You could reach into his mind and find the answer before he ever opened his mouth.
Why did he reinforce the back door?
Because if someone comes through it, I want three extra seconds.
Why did he move the bed away from the window?
Because glass breaks inward.
Why did he buy six bags of birdseed?
Because you smiled at the cardinals.
That one made him glare at you.
“You’re not supposed to listen all the time,” he said.
You sat on the porch railing, grinning into your mug. “You’re not supposed to think so loudly.”
“I don’t.”
You shrugged. “You do sometimes.”
Your favorite part, though, was watching him practice.
He set up a target in the clearing behind the cabin, a clean round board nailed to a tree stump far enough away that any normal person would have missed half the time.
Dex never missed.
He would stand there in the cold morning air, sleeves pushed up, knife balanced between his fingers with that beautiful focus he had. Then his hand would flick, quick as a blink, and the blade would bury itself dead center.
Again.
And Again.
You sat on a log nearby, chin in your hand, trying very hard not to smile. “You’re showing off.”
Dex did not look at you. “I’m practicing.”
“You’re showing off because you know I’m watching,” you said, “You’re thinking, She likes when I do this.”
The knife hit the target with a sharp thunk.
Dead center.
Dex turned then, eyes narrowing.
You smiled sweetly.
Poor thing. He was terrifying to everyone else. To you, he was just your murderous little cabin boyfriend who would rather die than admit to liking your sweet little praises.
“You know,” you said, “you don’t have to impress me.”
Dex pulled the knife from the target.
That one got him.
Dex walked across the clearing toward you, knife still loose in his hand, expression flat in that way that would have scared anyone who didn’t already know his mind was doing the emotional equivalent of tripping over furniture.
“You think you’re funny,” he said.
“You love me.”
Dex stopped in front of you.
The woods were quiet around him. Birds were shifting in the trees. Firewood was stacked by the shed. Morning light caught in his hair and across the sharp line of his cheek. His mind softened before his eyes did, and you felt it bloom warm in your chest before he ever touched you.
I do, he thought. More than anything in the whole goddamn world.
You smiled up at him. “I know.”
Dex bent downs, caught your chin carefully between his fingers, and kissed you. It was ridiculously gentle for a man called Bullseye.
When he pulled back, your eyes were still closed.
“You’re going to do it again,” you murmured.
“The knife throwing?”
“No.” You opened your eyes and smiled. “Kiss me.”
Dex managed a smile. And because he never missed, he did.
—
Dex still went back to the city sometimes.
He had scales to level, as he put it. Important vigilante work, in his head. It was the kind of work that involved blood and ledgers and moral math only Benjamin Poindexter could make sound reasonable. You never argued with him about that part. You could read his mind. You knew his reasons.
Still, leaving you at the cabin always hurt him.
Not because the cabin was unsafe. It was practically a fortress by then, even with enough stored food to survive whatever apocalypse Dex had apparently been personally expecting.
But he still checked everything twice.
“You’ll call if anything feels wrong,” he said.
“I’ll call.”
“If someone comes up the road—”
“I go to the back room.”
“If the radio cuts out—”
“I use the satellite phone.”
“If you hear something near the woods—”
“I don’t go investigate like a stupid horror movie girl.”
Still, he never left for more than three or four days.
Never.
By the second night, his thoughts would start turning back toward you. By the third, they got restless. He’d think about whether you remembered to eat. Whether the firewood was dry. Whether the road was clear. Whether you were wearing his sweater because you missed him or because the house was cold.
Both, usually.
When he came back, it was almost always late.
You never waited inside.
You would be on the porch before he reached the steps, blanket around your shoulders, eyes bright from missing him too much. Sometimes he didn’t even get the Bullseye mask off before you had both hands on him.
“Missed you,” you whispered, then you’d kiss the mask, right over where his mouth should be.
And his brain would go completely, embarrassingly haywire with love, relief, home, you, you, you.
You laughed softly against the fabric surface of it. “You’re loud.”
Dex’s gloved hands found your waist. “I missed you too.”
“Mmm,” you hummed, “I know.”
He would pull the mask off properly after that, just to kiss you properly. And when his mouth finally found yours, you could feel the city fall away from him.
—
This time, Dex was gone for seven days.
He didn’t tell you why, and not because he wanted to scare you. Because in Dex’s mind, silence was kinder than worry. If he told you that he had played a part in killing the mayor's wife and had been injured, and now needed to do one last assassination before signing a contract with a government agency so he could start providing better for you, you would panic before he could get back to you.
So he kept quiet.
And that was worse.
By day five, the cabin stopped feeling peaceful and started feeling empty. By day six, you were sleeping in his sweater, radio in your lap, listening for a voice that never came. That’s when you realised his lines were non-active. By day seven, every crackle of static sounded like him dying.
He had never been gone that long.
So you left.
It took you hours to walk to the nearest train station, but you managed to do it.
The train, once you got on, was too crowded, and you suddenly were reminded why Dex had moved you away. There were too many shoulders, too many minds packed into one metal tube, all of them thinking too loudly at once. Fear about Fisk, about Daredevil. Anger at the Task Force. A woman was praying under her breath. A boy was trying not to cry. Someone was watching the footage of the protests on their phone.
You focused.
You filtered.
You had gotten good at that, hadn’t you? Dex had helped you get good at that. One mind at a time. One thought at a time. Find the edge of yourself. Stay there. Don’t let the fear become yours just because you can hear it.
And for a while, you managed.
Even with New York getting louder the closer you came. Even with every station spilling more panic into the train. Even as you got out, as the protests moved through the city like a fever, anger and terror and hope all tangled together until nobody’s thoughts came out clean anymore.
You pressed your nails into your palm and breathed.
In.
Out.
Find Dex.
That was all you needed to do.
Find Dex and everything would be okay.
You could be overstimulated. You could be shaking. You could have the whole city scraping against the inside of your skull and still make it to him, because you had done hard things before. You had survived OXE. You had survived bad days. You had survived yourself.
You could survive a train ride and a trip to the city.
You were managing.
Barely, but managing.
Until…
Somewhere in the city, a Task Force Agent shot a man.
You felt it.
You didn’t even see it.
But you felt the impact, the shock, the guttural animal panic of a mind realizing too late that the body was failing. His last thoughts clawed outward, grabbing at anything. He thought about a mother, a kitchen light, the taste of coffee, please, please, please — and it slammed through you so hard you thought you were the one dying.
Too much.
Too much, too much, too much.
By the time you reached Dex’s apartment, you could barely separate yourself from the city.
You stumbled up the stairs with his sweater twisted in your fists and let yourself in with shaking hands and a spare key he kept in the cabin. The old apartment still smelled like him. The wall panelling he had installed for you was still there. The bed you loved was still there.
So you crawled into it.
You curled up small in the old place where he used to hold you through bad nights, pressing your face into his pillow because it was the only thing close enough to a hug you could get.
And when Dex finally found you, you were shaking in the bed, sobbing like the city had followed you all the way in.
—
Present day…
For a while, neither of them said anything.
The hallway held the two of them in the weak yellow light, close enough to fight, close enough for Matt to hear Dex's slight chatter behind his teeth.
The anger was there.
It moved through Dex like a live wire, and viciously restrained. Matt could hear through his heartbeat how badly he wanted to do something with it. He could hear it in the slight shift of Dex’s weight, in the way his fingers flexed once at his side, in the careful control of his breathing.
But Dex didn’t move.
He stood in front of the broken door like his body could make up for the lock Matt had destroyed.
Behind him, inside the apartment, you made a small sound.
Dex’s head turned at once, not enough to take his eyes off Matt. But enough for Matt to understand that half of him had never left the room.
It was awful, seeing that.
It was awful because Matt struggled to see past his sins. He didn’t want to see past his sins.
But the man in front of him was standing outside a bedroom he clearly wanted to return to, choosing not to kill because you had asked him not to.
Matt swallowed. “Does she need help?”
Dex looked at him. His face went cold enough that Matt knew, instantly, he had said it wrong. “She has help.”
Matt’s mouth tightened. “You?”
Dex stepped closer by half an inch. Not a threat, but rather a correction. “Yes.”
Matt let out a slow breath. “I—”
“No.” Dex cut him off. “You don’t get to stand there after kicking my door in, after scaring her half to death, and think you’re the reasonable one here.”
Matt’s jaw flexed. “I heard someone crying in your apartment.”
“And what?” Dex crossed his hand over his chest. “You decided she needed saving from me?”
“You’ve given me plenty of reasons to think that.”
Dex almost smiled. It was a terrible thing. It was humorless, dead before it reached his eyes.
“Yeah,” he said. “I have.”
Matt went still.
Dex didn’t deny it. He didn’t reach for innocence he had no right to hold.
“I know what I am,” Dex said, voice low now. “You don’t have to remind me.”
“I don’t think you do.”
Dex’s eyes sharpened.
Matt took one step forward, careful, measured. “You think because you think you love her, that makes this different.”
Dex’s face changed. Matt heard the hit land.
Dex didn’t hide his agitation well, because in his mind he was thinking how dare you even fucking insinuate that I think I love her. I know I love her. How dare you?
Inside, you must’ve felt the frustration flare, because shifted again, sheets whispering under your trembling body, and Dex turned his head immediately, rage folding down so fast it almost hurt to witness.
His voice dropped toward the door, not Matt. “Sweetheart, I’m okay.”
You didn’t answer, but your breathing slowed.
Matt listened until it settled by a fraction.
“You hear that?” Dex asked with a sigh.
Matt said nothing.
“You hear how she breathes when I’m here?”
Matt’s throat tightened.
Dex leaned in slightly, voice still controlled. “You heard her when you came in. You heard what happened when you kicked the door down. She didn’t run from me. She ran to me.”
Fuck. He had a point.
Matt’s mouth pressed into a hard line. “I’m not trying to hurt her.”
“You already did.”
The words landed flat in his chest and Matt flinched despite himself.
Dex saw it.
“You came in here loud,” Dex said. “You brought in your thoughts, your judgment, your anger. You dragged all of it into the room with you and dumped it on her while she was already drowning.”
“I—“ Matt shook his head, turning it slightly down, “I didn’t know.”
“No,” Dex said. “You didn’t.”
The accusation wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be.
Behind the door, you gave another small, broken breath.
Dex’s hand twitched once at his side, like every instinct in him wanted to turn around and go back to you.
“You should go,” Dex said through gritted teeth.
Matt didn’t, at least not right away.
You were quiet now.
Not calm, Matt could hear that much. Your breathing still came unevenly from somewhere beneath the blanket, frayed at the edges, worn thin from crying. But you were quieter than before, and every time Dex shifted even slightly away from the door, your heartbeat changed.
Matt wanted to believe he was looking at Bullseye. At the man who had turned a courthouse into a warzone. At the man whose name belonged on a tip line, in a police report, on every alert system New York still had running after the riots.
Benjamin Poindexter was standing right in front of him.
Matt let him go only a couple of days ago, yes, but hasn’t he been pushing for transparency over the last twenty four hours?
He should believe in the law. Especially now. Especially after what he had said in front of the whole city. He had torn his own mask off for accountability. He had asked New York to believe there was still a line between justice and vengeance and was prepared to pay the price anyway.
So why was he standing here, letting a murderer guard a broken door?
Dex watched him think it.
His mouth barely moved.
“You want to hate me?” Dex said. “Fine. Hate me downstairs.”
Matt’s jaw clenched.
Dex stepped closer. His voice stayed low, but there was nothing soft in it now. “Just don’t do it near her.”
Matt shook his head and Dex shifted towards the door, like keeping Matt’s attention off you was as natural as breathing.
“She isn’t yours to protect,” Matt said quietly.
Dex’s eyes went flat. “No,” he said. “She’s mine to take care of.”
The words should have sounded wrong. Maybe they were wrong. But behind him, your breath hitched at the sound of his voice, and some tiny broken part of it steadied after.
A year ago, Matt would have heard that and called it delusion.
But tonight, he heard the window shut. Dex silenced the phone. Dex killed the lights and unplugged the radio. Dex tucked the blanket over you. He heard love in all the small, practiced mercies Dex had done without needing to be told.
Matt’s hands curled slowly at his sides.
He could still do it.
He could leave the building and call in an anonymous tip. That Bullseye was here, and they could go non-lethal because you were here and there was no way in hell Dex would kill near you. Matt could tell Brent this address, this floor, this door.
He could do it because it would be right.
Because Dex was dangerous.
Because the law had to mean something.
Because Foggy—
Matt’s throat tightened so sharply he almost moved.
But Matt understood, with a sick twist in his stomach, that if he took Dex away tonight, he didn’t know who would be left to tend to you. Who would know how to keep you from drowning in a city full of minds.
Because Matt had heard what one broken door did to you.
If cops came into that apartment with radios crackling, boots pounding, fear and adrenaline spiking out of every mind, you would fall apart. And if they took Dex away, then you would be well and truly fucked.
He didn’t know what doctors would want their hands on you. He didn’t know who would look at you and see a woman before they saw a weapon.
Dex was dangerous.
But maybe that was exactly why he knew how to keep danger away from you.
“She asked you to leave,” Dex said again, quieter this time. “So leave.”
Matt stood there a moment longer. Long enough to feel every reason not to. Long enough to know he might regret it. Long enough to know he would think about this hallway again, maybe for the rest of his life.
Then he stepped back.
Dex didn’t relax.
Matt took another step. Then another, until he reached the stairwell and stopped with one hand near the railing. His face angled slightly toward the apartment again, toward the woman he could still hear crying in the dark.
For a second, Dex thought he might come back.
Then Matt said, very quietly, “If she ever asks for help from someone else, don’t stand in her way.”
Dex’s fingers flexed.
The answer came immediately. “If she asks, I’ll listen.”
Matt could hear that he was telling the truth. His fingers tightened once around the railing.
Still, he stayed there for one more second.
Dex waited him out, because if Matt needed to drag his reluctance down the stairs one breath at a time, fine. He could do that. Dex could stand there all night if he had to. He could become the door until morning if he had to.
Finally, Matt lowered his head and made his way down.
Dex stayed in the hallway until Matt’s footsteps disappeared down the stairs.
Only when the last sound disappeared down the stairs did Dex turn back toward the apartment. The door was ruined, the lock hanging uselessly from splintered wood, the frame cracked where Matt’s boot had forced it inward.
For one second, Dex stared at it.
His anger flared, then he swallowed it down.
Not now.
Not near you.
He stepped inside and pulled the door closed as much as it would go. It dragged wrong against the floor, crooked and broken, but he eased it shut anyway. Then he picked up the kitchen chair instead of dragging it, because the first scrape of wood had made your breathing catch from the bed.
Everything had to be quiet.
He wedged the chair beneath what was left of the handle and pushed once, testing it.
The door held, only barely. It hurt him that it was imperfect, but it had to be good enough for tonight.
Then he turned back to you.
You were still crying, but not like before. Not the full panic that had torn through you until you couldn’t breathe. This was smaller, yet more exhausted. Like your body had run out of strength but your heart hadn’t figured out how to stop breaking yet.
You were curled on his bed under the blanket, face wet, shoulders shaking in little miserable tremors.
Dex crouched beside you so carefully, like one wrong sound might split you open again.
“Hey,” he whispered.
Your mouth trembled. “I wanted to hurt him.”
Dex went still as your eyes squeezed shut, fresh tears slipping down your cheeks.
“I wanted to,” you whispered, horrified by yourself. “After he scared me, after he thought those things about you, after he came in so loud, when he was outside with you and he upset you, I wanted to hurt him, Dex. I did. I did, I—”
“Shh.” Dex’s hand came up slowly, waiting.
You leaned into it before he touched you, and only then did his palm settle against your cheek.
“Shh, baby.”
“I wanted to make him stop.” You shook your head, crying harder now, broken open by the confession.
Dex leaned closer until his forehead almost touched yours. “So did I, baby,” he whispered, rough and aching, “so did I.”
You opened your eyes.
Dex looked at you like it cost him to be that honest and he would pay it anyway if it calmed you. “But we didn’t.”
Your breath caught.
“We didn’t,” he said again, softer. “You stayed with me. I stayed with you. He left. It’s over.”
Your face fell, and Dex shifted up onto the bed then, slow enough not to startle you, and gathered you carefully against him. You folded into his chest with a broken little sound, fingers twisting weakly in his shirt.
He held you like he was trying to put your body back around your soul.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered into your hair. “I’ve got you. I know. I know, sweetheart.”
You sobbed once, small and ruined.
Dex pressed his mouth to your temple. “We’re going back to the cabin first thing tomorrow.”
Your fingers tightened. “Tomorrow?”
“Yeah.” His hand moved over your back, slow and steady. “You can sleep the whole way if you want.”
Your breathing shook against him.
“And my new work doesn’t start for two weeks,” he said, like he was offering you the only miracle he had. “So that’s two weeks, okay? Two weeks of nothing.”
You pulled back just enough to look at him.
Dex’s thumb brushed beneath your eye.
“Just me and you,” he whispered. “No one else. No noise. No city. Just us.”
Your mouth trembled and he kissed your forehead.
“I’ll chop wood. You can sit on the porch. We’ll keep the fire on. You can wear my clothes and sleep all day if you want.”
Another tear slipped down your cheek before you could help it, and he caught it.
“And I won’t leave,” he said. “Not for two weeks. Not for anything.”
You stared at him through wet lashes, searching his face first. Then, his mind.
He was thinking about…
The cabin.
You sleeping in the passenger seat.
You on the porch.
You wrapped in his sweater.
You, safe.
And underneath it all, over and over, so constant it almost broke you…
I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.
Your breath hitched.
His face softened. “There you are,” he whispered.
You made a tiny sound and tucked your face back into him. “Okay,” you breathed.
Dex’s shoulders nearly gave out with relief. “Okay?”
You nodded against his chest. “Okay.”
He closed his eyes and held you tighter for one second, just one, like he needed to feel the word inside his own body. Then he kissed your temple again. “That’s my girl.”
Your crying slowed after that.
It didn’t stop, but it gentled into little exhausted shudders against his shirt while Dex kept his hand moving over your back, the way he knew helped. He stayed until your fingers loosened. Until your breathing stopped tripping over itself. Until your mind, still bruised and raw, found the steady line of his thoughts again.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
You could focus on it now.
Not the city. Not Matt. Not the broken door.
Just Dex and his thoughts, warm and obsessive and constant, wrapped around you from the inside out.
Finally, Dex pulled back enough to look at your face.
“I’m gonna clean up,” he whispered.
Your eyes opened again, instantly afraid. He shook his head before the fear could grow.
“I’m just going to the bathroom,” he said. “That’s all.”
You swallowed.
“I’ll be back in a bit,” he promised. “You should go to sleep, okay?”
You didn’t answer.
Dex kissed your temple. Then your cheek. Then your lips, so gently you almost started crying again.
“Try,” he whispered, because he knew you were so, so tired. “Just try for me.”
You nodded, barely.
Dex eventually eased himself away, slowly and careful, leaving the blanket tucked around your shoulders and the chair braced beneath the broken door.
The bathroom light stayed off, and the door stayed open.
Water ran low in the sink.
You appreciated it more than you could say. The sound filled the little apartment gently, not enough to crowd your head, not enough to become another thing pressing at the inside of your skull. Just enough to give your mind somewhere simple to latch on to.
Dex didn’t need to read minds to know that running water settled you the same way fire did. It had the same white-noise hush. It had the same clear, constant sound that didn’t want anything from you. Fire and water didn’t think. It didn’t feel. It didn’t ask to be understood.
It just moved.
And Dex knew that. He knew you.
So you laid there in the dark, still hurting, still broken in places you could not name, but now, you were present.
You took a shaky breath.
For a while, there was only the water running low in the bathroom sink and Dex moving quietly through the dark.
You could hear him in pieces.
You heard the careful pass of his hands under the faucet, the soft drag of fabric as he wiped his face. The small, practical thoughts he kept lining up for tomorrow.
Cabin first thing.
Full tank of gas.
No tunnel.
Back roads.
Blanket in the passenger seat.
Radio off unless she asks.
Two weeks.
Just me and her.
You focused on him. On the shape of his mind. On the tenderness he had no idea how to say without turning it into a plan, a route, a locked door, a fixed window. Even now, Dex was thinking about firewood and the bedroom window and whether the car heater would be too loud for you in the morning.
It made you smile.
Then… oh.
Something else reached you. Someone else.
It wasn’t Dex; this thought came from outside.
It was a thought that came from out the street, clear and heavy through the thin glass:
I hope I’m doing the right thing.
Your eyes opened. For one second, you lay very still beneath the blanket.
Dex was still in the bathroom. But outside, across the street, Matt Murdock had not gone far.
You got up slowly and turned your head toward the window.
The curtain hadn’t been pulled perfectly shut. There was a narrow gap where city light slipped through, pale and dirty against the floor. You shifted, leaning just enough to see past it.
There he was, across the street, half-shadowed beneath a streetlamp, hood pulled up, face tilted toward the building like he was still listening to the apartments.
Matt Murdock stood there with one foot turned away and the rest of him refusing to follow.
He was hesitating.
His thoughts were still loud, but not loud like before.
It was no longer crashing through you with suspicion and anger and judgment. This was different. His thoughts now were coherent, almost. They came to you in pieces, clear enough to understand.
Benjamin Poindexter is still a dangerous man.
I shouldn’t leave him with her.
But she asked me to leave.
But she’s calmer when he’s near.
Your throat tightened.
Matt’s thoughts vibrated around the shape of Dex, for lack of a better word. There was still blood there, grief there, a wound so deep it had a name you didn’t touch because it hurt even from a distance.
But there was something else in his thoughts now, too.
You.
Because you could read minds, you knew he had heightened senses, and you knew you didn’t have to speak loudly to reach him. You only had to speak clearly.
So you turned your face toward the narrow gap in the curtain, toward the street where Matt Murdock stood beneath the weak glow of a lamp, and whispered into the dark, “I know what he is.”
Across the street, Matt went completely still.
You saw the subtle lift of his head, the tightening through his shoulders. His attention snapping back to your window because he could feel where you were.
He heard you. You knew he did.
You curled your fingers into the blanket.
“But he’s not that to me.”
Matt didn’t move.
You could feel his mind presently listening now. Not as Daredevil. Not as the man who had kicked down the door. Not as someone trying to decide what kind of danger you were.
“He loves me,” you whispered.
Matt’s thoughts shifted.
He does. Even a blind man could see that.
The thought came so clearly it almost hurt.
You blinked, tears slipping sideways into your hair. “He’s good to me.”
You remembered him now, when it was Dex’s hand that unlocked the cuff, how he put his jacket over your shoulders. You thought about the cabin and the chair beneath the broken door. That man was in the bathroom, washing up with the door open because he promised he wouldn’t leave you alone.
You breathed in, shaky but steadier. “He’s a good man for me.”
Across the street, Matt’s face changed.
It was a small, tiny furrow of the brow. But then you heard the thought that followed.
I believe you.
Your breath hitched
Above all the doubt, above all the grief, above all the things Matt Murdock would never be able to forgive, that one thought came through clean.
I believe you.
Not Dex.
You.
He believed you knew what you were saying. He believed you were not trapped. He believed you understood the man beside you better than anyone else in the city possibly could.
And maybe that was the most Matt could give.
You, behind the glass, exhausted and half-broken in Dex’s bed.
Matt, across the street, carrying a truth he didn’t want and yet couldn’t put down.
Because maybe Benjamin Poindexter was not only defined by violence. Maybe there was something else buried deep under him, warped and wounded and difficult to look at, but human anyway.
A person.
Someone capable of loving. Someone, somehow, worthy of being loved.
Matt didn’t forgive him. But for the first time, he saw him differently.
Then he lowered his head and gave you a small nod.
Then Matt Murdock turned away.
This time, he truly left.
You watched until the dark took him, until his thoughts faded into the rest of New York and you could no longer separate him from the city.
But you knew.
You knew that Matt was starting to look at the man you loved differently.
— end.
Extra Note : Like the reader in this story, we all have good days and bad days. Please remember that needing help doesn’t make you weak, broken, or too much. It just makes you human. If you are struggling, please reach out to someone you trust or contact a crisis/support service in your area. You deserve care, patience, and support on your bad days too, lovelies! 🫶💕❤️
SUMMARY: You're the daughter of a Senator who happens to be on Dex's hit list due to his involvement with Fisk's release. Unintentionally, you inadvertently become a part of Dex’s plan to assassinate The Senator and his new North Star.
PAIRING: Benjamin Poindexter x Female ! Reader
STATUS: In Progress | 8/11 Chapters
LAST UPDATED: 1. June 2026
CONTENT/WARNINGS: Age Difference, Stalking, Obsessive Behaviour, Talks of Dex inflicting violence upon people, Family Abuse, Bruising, Violence, Death, Aggression, Obsessive Behaviour, Stalking Mentions of Violence and Death, Graphic Depictions of Wounds, Masturbation, Dex being a creeper™, Dex masturbating to you with a wall separating you because he's a FREAK, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Stalking, Smut, Benjamin Poindexter, Extremely Unhealthy Relationship, Extremely Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Extremely Unhealthy Relationships, Emotional Manipulation, Discussion/Mention of Death, Moral Ambiguity, Smut, Unhealthy Mutual Codependency, Trauma
TAGLIST: @star-yawnznn @efiask @n0bodykn0wss @miixkl @obsessedwithfakeguys
PLAYLIST & AO3
CHAPTERS:
Chapter 1 | The Star
Chapter 2 | The Taking
Chapter 3 | The Bird
Chapter 4 | The Routine
Chapter 5 | The Escape
Chapter 6 | The Breaking Point
Dex's Interlude
Chapter 7 | The Things We Carry
Chapter 8 | The Prisoner
Chapter 9 | The Long, Long, Long, Time
Reader's Epilouge
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Summary: Dex pissed you off and will do anything for your forgiveness
Warnings: Smut; Explicit, shower sx, this was written on a whim, insane amounts of teasing from reader, Dex on his knees💙, pathetic Dex💙, Dex is a good boy💙, did I mention pathetic?? As fuck????, he begs and pleads!! cumming early, BIG DICK DEX!, dom fem!reader, sub!dex (naturally), thigh fucking, Dex cries💙, 1/4 proofread
Not entirely my idea! I've kinda thought of this before but I didn't know how I'd expand on it UNTIL I saw THIS POST by @dexxingit and THIS TIKTOK ! Thank y'all for your service I js wanna kiss u (づ  ̄ ³ ̄)づ
Word count: 3.5k+ ... 🚶🏾♀️
Everything was fine. Everything was good. His life was so good. Better than going back to his apartment and wondering what you were doing when you weren't physically in his presence. He finally managed to have a girlfriend and keep a girlfriend without scaring her off or creeping her out. He was doing so well. Until he pissed you off.
It was eroding him from the inside. You were always so sweet and kind, so patient. Patient. He didn't deserve patience. He didn't deserve kindness. He didn't deserve someone so beautiful and so willing to take charge in and outside headquarters. You commanded your subunit with ease and took orders with no problem. You're perfect. No flaws. You can do no wrong.
Except for when you chose to ignore him for the first time.
It was such an idiotic argument. You were out late with your friends because it was a double birthday party and he lost his shit. You came home just a little drunk and with a dead phone in your back pocket. Normally you'd feel bad for not thinking sooner to get a charger and read the, checks notes, 105 messages sent from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. of him freaking the fuck out, but there were some threats in there. And some other things that were just downright hurtful.
The argument went terribly. You tried to reason with him, understand where he was coming from because he was genuinely afraid he was going to get abandoned again by the one person that understood his twisted mind, but he was so frantic and unreasonable that night that you had no choice but to kick him out of your place with a door slammed before he could get the last word. Was it harsh? Yes. Did it hurt to do that? Also yes. But he had to learn one way or another.
So you haven't spoken to him in about a week. What didn't help was your unit having to move to some penthouse with the word "prison" slapped on it as if that meant anything. Your positions were too far for him to casually be able to walk up and talk to you, which was also driving him nuts. He can't talk to you at work and he damn sure can't go to your place.
Every night he comes home, his shaking hand hovers over the call button. If he's too nervous he'll think to text you, but his hands still shake and that message will not be sent. He can't sleep. He can't eat. He can barely shower. He feels like he could die. Maybe even should die. Why would he think in a million years that he could have something so precious?
Three weeks go by. You just got home. You're tired. Eating alone again tonight. Sleeping alone. Showering alone. You weren't in the mood to call one of your friends either. With a heavy sigh, you drag your feet to the kitchen and pull out something that'll take at most ten minutes to cook. Then, as soon as you turn on the stove, your phone pings.
Picking up your work bag with a bit of dramatized grunt, you turn on your phone and your relaxed expression instantly falls.
"Can we talk? Please?"
You try to massage the growing headache starting in your forehead. Seriously? Now? Well...it has been some time of this silent treatment. You think maybe he's got the message.
Another text comes:
"Please stop ignoring me," it reads.
"I'll be good."
"I promise."
"I'll be so good."
Your heart rate grows with each passing message.
"Open the door."
Your eyes widen.
"Please."
You scoffed and stared at the door. No way. No...way. You turned off the stove and walked over, a little hesitant to open it because you knew he was never one to bluff. The knob twisted and opened to the sight of a mess of a man. Still in work attire and red puffy eyes.
A breeze hit as he bolted past you in a flash. You blinked, obviously shocked, and he spun around to go back to where he was.
"Shit, sorry. I'm sorry," he muttered as he went back out into the hallway. Head hung low. He was a nervous wreck. The tips of his ears pink and his neck shiny from sweating. "Can I, uh, ahem, can I come in? Please?"
You took a second to process what just happened in the last thirty seconds.
"You may."
You shut the door behind you with a deep exhale. Dex ran his fingers through his hair in haste as he tried to calm down, but it wasn't working.
"Dex- oh-"
You watched him drop to his knees in front of you. Shoulders slumped and twitching from what you assume him starting to cry. A soft whimper escaping before he could catch it. Wow.
You've seen him at some pretty low lows, but this?
"I'm so sorry," he whispered and shook his head. "I know I'm the worst boyfriend ever and what I said was fucked up and I don't deserve you. I don't deserve your love and patience. I'm just- the worst and-"
"Dex-"
"-Please don't hate me," he looked up at you through those wet blond lashes and gently placed his hands on the sides of your thighs. Face red and voice trembling. Still pretty as ever... "I'll do anything. You have every right to put me out and never want to see me again, but, please. You can hit me. Kick me. Curse me out. Anything you want. Just please don't leave me-"
"-maybe I should."
That shut him right up. Which only made your stomach swirl from seeing his reaction. Looking like a lost puppy out on a cold, rainy night.
"You said some really nasty things to me, Dex. Things I can't forget."
"I know, I know. You didn't deserve to be put through that and I've never felt so much shame in my life. The way I acted was unforgivable and...just- you have to believe me."
"Stop," you held a hand up and took a step back to rub your temples. This was the last way you expected to end a Friday night. He just sat there like you wanted. "I need to think."
As he watched you slowly pace in front of him, all he could think about, other than his major fuck up, was how pretty you looked. The lighting at your apartment was nicer than his. More ambient. More welcoming. More warm. Some part of him liked this angle. Him looking up after groveling at your feet after a long, stressful day.
Oh, how he missed you. So much. Missed your lazy smile in the morning when you ended up accidentally sleeping over. How your hips felt in his hands as he practiced gentleness to a slow jazz song played on your speaker. Missed your little rendezvous spot when it close to the end of one of your shifts to gossip. Or do other things when you were sure nobody was going to walk past--making out profusely, he hasn't been able to stop begging for it once you taught him how to kiss properly.
"I'll... do anything," he said quietly. "Anything you want. I'll buy you anything. Whatever it is, I'll-"
A single look at him interrupted his next words and he could physically feel his heart stop and start pounding again.
"I want you..." you began as the thought fully formed in your mind. The corner of your mouth tugged upwards for a second before it fell again. There was that look in your eyes. It was extremely rare. The look when you were about to do or say something petty. "...to do nothing."
He says nothing but you can see the cogs turning as he tried to understand your words. Was this a trick? Rhetorical? A metaphor? Were you telling him to leave? Stay? You said it so calmly. No yelling, no screaming. No crying (that makes one of you) no cursing...what were you planning.
"But-"
"-Don't talk," you said. "Do nothing."
His eyes followed as you went into the kitchen to resume your small meal. He stayed there in the middle of the floor, still in his knees. He wiped his tears and continued to watch to see if there was some grand gesture you were building up to, but you were just going on about your night.
You left the stove on to let the water in the pot reach a boiling point to go to your room and change. Closing the door so he can't see you. His hands curled into loose fists against his knees. Not in anger, but confusion and anxiety.
The silence was killing him.
You came back out and his lips parted in awe. Oh...you were playing dirty.
Clad in nothing but a loose tank top--no bra--and panties, a stark contrast from the very formal** work attire you just had on, he nearly choked on his own spit. You intentionally walked around him and sauntered just to make your ass look even better.
You whistled a tune like all was fine in the world. Moving around the kitchen and preparing a single-person dish like you were really gone alone. When you finished and tossed the used dishes in the sink, you rounded the counter so you'd be facing away from him. Leaning on it while eating so that all he was getting was a front row view.
His throat was as dry as his tears. Hypnotized. Too afraid to say something in case you'd instantly stop what you're doing and just go to sleep with him still sitting there.
Dex was beyond hard. It wasn't as gradual as he would wish, but this is you we're talking about. That and you've only had sex once but you were both drunk, so naturally he's been dreaming of the day he could have you properly.
He couldn't contain the desperate whine that was destined to come out once you reached over the counter to "grab something," making your underwear shift and give him something to really look it. Like your clothes knew to follow along with your cruel teasing.
You stood up and looked around.
"Did I hear something?"
He stayed quiet and swallowed thickly. Don't fuck this up again, Dex!
You finished your food and shrugged, putting that dish in the sink as well, which you might tell him to clean later.
You went back into your room but didn't close the door. He couldn't see well, but you stood at an angle so he could see you were taking off the rest of your clothes. His whole body catches a wave of chills. The sound of the shower connected to your room made him more alert.
"Oh, shit," You called out. He leaned in a little to listen in more. On what, he had no idea. You suddenly walked back out. Fully. Naked. Dex covered his mouth so the groan that was on the tip of his tongue didn't pass.
"Forgot my towel was in the dryer," you continued with a few tsk's. You kneeled and stuck your head in just to reach your highest potential of being petty. "Where is it...?"
If this were a cartoon, his dick would've sprung past the buttons and zipper like some kind of exaggerated comedy bit to show how painfully horny he was. His eyes shut tight for a second and he regretted opening them back up once half your body was out, a full view of your ass. Spread.
A choked sob bounced off your walls. Sitting up, you looked around again.
"That sound again..."
He forced himself to look at the floor and take a deep breath. This was so...he'd rather you kick him in the balls.
"Must've been the wind," you mused and got back up with a pep in your step. Stopping at your door frame, you looked over your shoulder at him. Poor thing. You slightly hated to treat him like this, but you'll bet he will never talk to you like that again. You cleared your throat loudly, prompting him to look up slowly. His sizable bulge was the first thing that eye caught. Then it was his blushing cheeks and hunched shoulders. He wanted you so bad. Needed you. So fucking bad.
Now all you did was raise a finger and give him a simple command.
"Come."
His ears perked. You headed towards your bathroom before he could even respond. He nearly tripped over his shoes chasing after you.
By the time he made it, you were already in the shower. The glass wasn't fogged up yet so now all he was seeing was you, naked. Wet. Waiting. Did you want him to join? To watch?
You peeked past the door that was purposely left ajar. "I said come."
His clothes were off in all but fifteen seconds. Clothes discarded to who-fucking-cares, stepping in behind you and sliding the door all the way. He turned slowly as if he hadn't been wanting something like this to happen for the last half hour. Your body covered in suds. His hands itched to touch you. Hold you.
"...um..." he muttered. Voice barely heard over the water. You washed off most of the soap and turned to him suddenly. Eyes trailing down that body of his. Licking your bottom lip once they landed on his erection. Thick and swollen with want. The tip as red as his neck. You took his hand and swapped spots with him so that the hot water was hitting his back. You didn't let him react as your arms wrapped around his neck. Taking a half step forward so his dick was between your soap-slick thighs.
He hissed and let out a deep whimper. Forehead resting on yours. It looked like he wanted to cry again.
"...I'm sorry."
You guided his hands so they'd circle around your waist. His large hands spreading across your spine. You could feel him throbbing in anticipation.
"Don't do that shit ever again," you said. He nodded immediately with a shaky breath.
"I will never, ever talk to you like that again. I swear it."
You smile slowly and give him a kiss. Pulling back before he could chase your lips. Looking down at you with glossy eyes.
"I know."
You kissed him again. This time a little slower and he practically melted. Putty in your hands. Licking into each other's mouths like a second language was being spoken (another thing you taught him). He started to move his hips in tandem with the pace you set. One hand on the small of your back and the other gripping you from behind, but not too hard. He wouldn't dare unless you told him to.
He moaned your name into your mouth. His hands grabbing your hips so he has more leverage to thrust easily. "You feel so fucking good. I could die."
Your nails trail against the nape of his neck, threading into his short locks on the back of his head and he moans again. Panting. The soap combined with your slick made his movements less in sync. The sensation was beyond him.
A little too beyond...
Dex grunted one time and you could feel a warm fluid dripping down the back of your thighs. He pulled away with an embarrassed whine and shut his eyes.
"Fuck," he whispered and held you tighter with shaky hands. "I didn't mean to do that. I'm sorry. Fuck**."
"It's okay, baby."
Baby. One of his favorite things that you call him. For a moment he was a little less embarrassed. Only a little.
"I fucked it up."
"You didn't fuck it up."
You kissed the corner of his lips before turning around in his arms. Ass rubbing against him like an animal in heat. He cursed again and rested his chin on your shoulder.
"Am I still...uh..."
"Hm?"
He huffed to ease his nerves. "Am I still your good boy?"
You hummed and slid your hand between your bodies to line him up where you need him. Ideally all** of him this time because he's just so fucking big.
"That's up to you," you said. "Just take it slower this time. We're in no rush."
Dex lifted his head and gently guided your hand away so he could take over this part. He didn't push; he eased. Inch by inch. By the halfway mark you audibly reacted.
"You okay?"
You nodded and patted his hand to reassure him. This was the last thing on your mind when you were drunk that one time, but you both were sober, drunk on longing and desire with a drop of desperation. On both ends.
He continued slowly as he could. Do not fuck this up, Dex. His half lidded eyes watched your face contort while he focused on not letting the way you feel enveloping him obscure the task at hand: make you feel good.
He held you with a sense of reverence. Even with the teasing earlier you were still perfect. No flaws. You can do no wrong.
Once he bottomed out, he caught another chill despite the warm water still beating against his back. You tightened around him and it snatched him out of his little trance.
"Still okay?"
"Yeah," you replied with quickness. Putting one of his hands on your breast for comfort. You could hear him swallow. Almost like it was comical. "Keep going. I'm good. You're doing great."
You felt him twitch when the words left your mouth. It took everything in him not to overachieve. Not yet, if he can last.
Dex pulled back just a little, and his first thrust earned a loud groan from you. His arm tight around your waist for balance.
"Don't stop," you said with a short breath. And now he was activated.
He set a slow pace to make sure you could comfortably adjust. The noises you were making were all going to his head. He's the one doing this. He's the one making you feel good. He's the only one who can get you to sound like this.
He felt so good that you wanted to run. Push him away just to pull him back in. Your stomach contracting with pleasure. Breathless moans filling the air more than the steam was. It was too much and not enough at the same time. He's so big and thick you were seeing stars already. He hasn't even picked up the pace yet.
"Can I go faster? Please?"
"Yes," you barely got out. A sharp gasp at how he took no time filling you at a faster speed.
If it weren't for him holding you so tight you probably would've slipped and fell. You were starting to lose focus. The toughness in you evaporating with the water. Your knees not nearly as strong as before.
"Am I doing good?"
"So fucking good, fuck-"
He leaned down and left a light bite mark on your shoulder. A loud, deep moan tearing from his throat as he couldn't mask it. Another string by your ear, but you barely registered it as you could feel that hot coil in the pit of your stomach unraveling.
"I think- I might cum again-"
"Hold it," you said. It came out like a growl. Almost scared him. "Be a good boy and hold it."
He whined and held you closer, if that was possible. But he obeyed. Determination and hopeless devotion sparkling in his eyes.
Whatever you were going to say next was irrelevant because now he was doing that thing where he randomly decides to be precise about whatever task he's doing. It's the worst, well, best, when it comes to sex. He did the same thing during your first time together. You might've been drunk, but you remember when all of sudden you said something to make him hit the target. Over and over again. Perfectly.
He found the spot and thrusted into it repeatedly, making that burning coil unwind and snap in a matter of a minute.
You covered your mouth last second as you had to remember you had neighbors who would have no shame in bringing this up in the morning. His thick shaft continued to drag against your walls as you both rode this out. His mouth smushed against your shoulder once more to keep from waking up everybody on this floor.
He did it. He held back under your command and was now unloading enough cum to where it was seeping out onto your thighs again. Once he came to a gradual halt, you were both shaking and holding each other like the floor could collapse under you any second now. Breaths erratic. Just standing there, tangled up in the other.
You lowered your hand and he nuzzled further into you. A single tear hitting your back as you hear a soft sniffle.
"Please don't ignore me for that long again," he murmured. "Or at all. I'll be a good boy...I promise."
You nodded lazily. Knees still weak and just now feeling the water that turned lukewarm a while ago. Sigh. You both were going to need another shower.