"things i find extremely attractive" trend with dex
"c'mere" and pulls you towards him and tucks his face into your neck
it doesn't matter if you're in public or not for dex to do this. when he wants you near, when he needs to be close to you, he'll whisper "c'mere," sweetly to you as he's already yarding you towards him. dex'll tuck his face into you neck and inhale, softly kissing your hair/neck and hum.
fixing/playing with your hair
it started with dex tucking your hair out of your face to see more of you. over time he got more bold, running his fingers through your hair before gently tucking it behind your ear. when he noticed you shiver as he ran both hands through your hair as he made a makeshift ponytail is what decided dex to experiment. he loves listening to your little 'mm's as he played with the hair at the nape of your neck, and just simply adores how soft your hair is.
leaning down and the little "hm?" to talk to you
he is so tall, it's like second nature to dex to lean down a bit when he wants to focus his attention on you. when you mutter something, especially in public, he'll lean down into your space and hum softly, pretty head tilted to the side.
long eye contact in crowded rooms
he doesn't want to lose sight of you across the room. he'll look at you whether you're looking back or not. when you catch his eye the corner of his mouth might twitch for just a second, and he feeds on the way you stare just as intently back at him, ignoring the people or things around you/him.
messy makeouts
dex lives for messy makeouts with you. kissing you softly and with intention and it derailing into you pinned against something, both hands cupping his jaw as his hands roam. he doesn't even care if it leads to anything more or not, and doesn't make a move unless you do, but he's always painfully hard.
popcorn kisses
he loves your face. sometimes, when you're talking, he'll become so overwhelmed by the sight and sound of you he'll grab your face and kiss your face all over. his heart swells when you giggle and he'll kiss your face a few more times before giving you a rough kiss to your mouth.
carefully observing you when you're doing something
yeah okay we all know dex, do i even need to elaborate? it's one of his favorite things to do. he could watch you for hours, he could watch you watch paint dry. he loves to witness all the little way your face contorts when you focus, when you're frustrated.. the way you fidget, your favorite ways to fidget. he stores it all away in his mind for safekeeping.
rubbing their thumb on your hand while holding hands
dex likes to move his hands, he likes to fidget. when holding hands with you, it translates to rubbing soft circles on your skin. it comforts him, being able to gently squeeze your hand and feel your warm skin on his.
smiling as you do small things for them (tying their shoes, picking off lint, etc)
he loves when you pick a small piece of lint of his shirt mindlessly, as if you were almost unaware you did so until you see him smiling down at you. when you gently fix his hair and are slow to look back at him, making sure his hair looks just right.
standing close behind you
it's important to dex that everyone around you acknowledges that you are his, and his alone. he is so big and broad and warm it's impossible to not notice him standing so close behind you.
when they correct someone's perception of you or what you prefer "no she's allergic to that" / "her favorite color is green, not pink"
it irks dex when someone who claims to know you says something totally wrong. he keeps his anger in check, monotonal as he supplies the person with your actual favorite color, your proper pronouns. he also can't stand when someone is just so blatantly wrong about you. "what did you call her? hard to speak to? they're an introvert, and anyway i've always found them easy to speak with. you just don't know how to, i'd guess you're the harder one to converse with."
knees touching but not moving away
grrr ruff ruff.. he has to be touching you. it doesn't matter how. he will deliberately manspread to touch his large knee to your quaint one. it calms him.
scolding you but not stopping you
it's no secret dex is a brat tamer. he could easily get off on scolding you, making you pay, restraining you to stop you... but sometimes he likes to let you play, just a bit. you want to test your luck with him? okay, he'll scold and warn you but wants to see how far you'll really go.
lying for you
lies roll of his tongue for you easily. he doesn't even need an inkling of idea of why he needs to, he just simply does it. late for something and a friend is upset? 'they lost track of time studying for an important exam.' bruise(s) on your knee and embarrassed about it? 'slammed into the bedframe pretty hard, heard it from the living room.'
replying to you when you call their name with your name
his mouth curls upwards when you call for him. he'll call back to you with the same infliction and your own name on his lips while he makes his way towards where your sweet voice came from.
when they acknowledge it's wrong but they're too far in to stop
"baby, sweetheart..." he's breathing hard, fingers digging into your waist. "fuck, hun, we really shouldn't be doing this," but he can't help himself. "tell me to stop, baby." he can't stop, even if your soft voice begged him to.
Summary : Dex has to learn that you can have bad days, too.Â
Pairing : Benjamin Poindexter x reader (she/her)
Warnings/tags : established relationship, hurt/comfort, sensory overload, overstimulation, traffic light system, safeword use, mentioned free use arrangement, aftercare?, soft ending, dark romance elements, obsessive Dex, protective Dex. DDBA! Dex I think. :)
Word Count : 6k
Requested by : Ko-fi request <3
Notes : Hey yaâll! If you wanna be tagged, please send me a message! Comments get lost sometimes. Enjoy!
You hadnât had the best day and it started with the coffee machine not working.
That was entirely your fault. You had cleaned it the night before, rinsed everything carefully, set it back in place, and then just⊠not set it up properly again. Usually, you would have found it funny. You would have sent Dex a picture of the dead display and made him promise to bring you coffee later.
Instead, you stood barefoot in the kitchen at seven in the morning, pressing the button over and over like one of the attempts might change the result, and felt tears sting your eyes.
Dex was asleep down the hall, face buried in your pillow, one arm stretched across your side of the bed as if he had gone looking for you in his sleep. You considered waking him, and you nearly did, standing in the bedroom doorway with your bag hanging off one shoulder, watching the rise and fall of his back, and thought about crawling under the covers again.
But he had been out all night.
He needed sleep, and you needed to leave.
So you found instant coffee in the back of the cupboard and made it too strong because you were already running late. You burned your tongue, while the clasp on your necklace got caught in your hair. Your tights had a ladder in them, a thin line running up the back of your calf that no one else would probably notice but that you could feel all day like a crack in glass.
You changed twice and hated both outfits.
The third one was acceptable until you got outside and realized the waistband sat weird when you walked. It pinched at one side and shifted at the other. You kept trying to fix it discreetly beneath your coat while waiting for the train, which only made it twist more.
Then the train was delayed.
You kinda wished it wouldâve been canceled; it would at least have given you something to be angry about. It was delayed by six minutes, then nine, then twelve, with the announcement changing every time you looked up. The platform filled around you as a lady stood close enough behind you that her bag pressed against your back every time they moved. A man near the stairs was watching videos without headphones, and two women beside you were having an argument in furious whispers.
Your phone buzzed in your hand.
Dex. Coffee machine dead?
You stared at the message for too long.
Normally, you would have answered with something dry and funny immediately. Instead, you typed three different replies and deleted all of them because every version sounded irritated, and you were irritated, but not with him.
You sent a heart.
He replied with three.
That nearly made you cry again.
Work was not terrible enough to justify how terrible it felt.
Nobody screamed at you and nothing caught fire. You didnât get fired or humiliated, but it was just a constant fucking drag.
An intern, a fresh graduate called Grace, stopped you before you had taken off your coat because they needed help with something they had known about since yesterday. Your computer decided to update while going to the double-booked meeting room, so everyone stood in the corridor pretending not to be annoyed while Brad from HR insisted he had reserved it first. When you finally got inside, the projector would not connect.
Then your manager, Amy said, âThis should only take five minutes,â and it took forty-three.
At some point, your coworker Jack, put a hand on your shoulder from behind to get your attention.
You nearly snapped. They apologized. You apologized for reacting. Then you spent the next ten minutes thinking about whether your apology had sounded strange.
That was when you had to go to the bathroom and cry.
You sat in the last stall with the lid down, both feet planted on the floor, trying to breathe quietly so that no one would hear you. You hated crying at work and the bathroom lighting and the thin toilet paper scraping under your eyes. You hated that there was no single problem you could point to and say, there, thatâs why I canât do this today!
Your phone buzzed again.
Dex had sent you a message about going out because task force was spotted in droves on the other side of the city, and that he was going out to get them.Â
Then cried harder because you missed him, even though he lived with you and you had technically seen him that morning.Â
You washed your face, went back to your desk, and tried to finish the day.
At four, Dex texted that he would probably be home late.
You stared at that one until the words blurred.
It was reasonable and normal, by your standards. He worked strange hours and disappeared with even stranger explanations. You were used to eating without him. You were used to waking up with him suddenly in bed beside you, one hand finding your waist beneath the blanket.
But you had spent the whole day thinking about going home to him.
You didnât even want to talk to him. You wanted to walk through the door and see him standing in the kitchen. You wanted him to take your bag without asking and tell you to change into a soft cotton shirt so as not to trigger your sensory issues. You wanted to sit between his knees on the sofa while he rubbed slow circles into your thighs.
Instead, you sent. Okay. Be safe.
He reacted with a heart.
You put your phone facedown and finished the last hour.
The train home was worse than the train in.
You had to stand while a wet umbrella kept brushing your ankle, even though you didnât realise it had been raining. A man across the carriage kept coughing into his fist and then touching the pole. Every time the train stopped, more people got on and nobody got off.
By the time you reached your building, your shoulders ached from holding them up around your ears. You dropped your keys in the hallway, and the sound of them hitting the floor was so annoying that you just stood there staring at them for several seconds before bending down.
The apartment was dark when you opened the door.
You turned on the lamp instead of the main light and you took off your coat and immediately felt colder. You put it back on. Took it off again because the lining felt horrible against your skin. You stood in the living room holding it, suddenly unable to decide what to do with it even though there was a hook three feet away.
You dropped it on the floor.
Then you felt guilty because Dex liked things clean and in their place.
Fuck.Â
You sat down beside it and cried with one shoe still on and one shoe off, louder than you cried in the office bathroom. You cried because the apartment smelled faintly like Dex, but he wasnât there. You cried because you had spent the whole day being reasonable, and now there was nobody in front of you to be reasonable for.
Afterward, you felt stupid and sticky-faced, which just made the sensations worse.
You picked up the coat and put your shoes away. You sent Dex a message asking when he would be home, then deleted it before sending because you didnât want him distracted while he was out doing very dangerous Bullseye things.
You showered instead, and the water was too hot at first, but you didnât fix it quickly enough, so your skin felt like it was boiling across your chest and shoulders. You washed your hair. Then the wet texture clung to your back and made you angry, so you wrapped them in one of Dexâs old shirts instead of a towel because it was softer.
You put on your sleep shorts and the gray shirt of his you always stole.
It smelled like the detergent you both used now, not specifically like him, which made you strangely sad.
You tried to eat.
There were pasta leftovers in the fridge. Dex had labelled the container DO NOT EAT in black marker, then added unless you are my girlfriend beneath it in smaller writing because you had told him one you liked one of those cheesy jokes, and Dex being Dex, listened and manufactured it into his life even though he got no real enjoyment out of it. You heated it up, took three bites, and put them back because the tomato sauce was chunky, and it felt weird on your tongue even though technically, there was nothing wrong with it. .
So you made tea and forgot the bag until it went bitter.
You turned on the television, then muted it because the voice of the newscaster irritated you. The silence irritated you too, so you turned it back on quietly with subtitles.
At some point, you checked the locks twice.
You knew Dex would not use the door when he came back. He would use the fire escape.
On most nights, the thought made you smile. Tonight, you wanted him to use his key like a normal person.
You wanted to hear it turn in the lock like a warning. You wanted him to call your name from the entrance so you had time to prepare for being touched.
But whatever. He probably didn't even bring his keys.
You climbed into bed with the lamp on.
Usually, you liked Dex coming home with that focus still in his eyes. You even loved the way he sometimes stood at the foot of the bed and looked at you as if he had followed you there. You liked the games he played to rile you up, because Dex knew exactly how to frighten you without making you unsafe. You liked restraints because he checked every knot, every buckle, every inch of space between your skin and whatever held you down.
You liked being helpless when it was Dex.
Usually.
But tonight, you just wanted him.
You wanted to press your face into his chest and let him complain that your wet hair was soaking his shirt. You wanted him to ask what happened, accept ânothingâ as the answer, and hold you still.
The fire escape groaned outside the window.
Then the living room window slid open, and Dex climbed in with blood on his sleeve, still.
You were in that half-sleep state where your body had gone heavy but your mind was still floating somewhere above it, listening to the hum of the television you had left on in the living room and the old pipe knocking faintly in the wall. You were even still aware of your breathing, too shallow to be restful.
You knew what Dex was like after a long night. You knew the way adrenaline ran in his body like a live wire, making him hungry and a little fucking insane. Usually, you were more than happy to let him spend the rest of it on you.
That was the arrangement, after all.
The free use thing had happened over weeks of conversations, some serious, some filthy, some with you sitting cross-legged on the bed while Dex sat on the floor taking it all in like he was memorising a mission brief. What was okay, what was not. It was discussed and re-discussed, picked apart in daylight until even Dexâs paranoid brain had nothing left to gnaw on.
You had said it first half as a joke, grinning over your mug while Dex sat opposite you at the kitchen table looking like you had just handed him a loaded gun.
âWhat, you donât like the idea?â you had teased.
His eyes had gone dark in a way that made your thighs press together beneath the table. âI like it too much.â
That had been the problem, Dex had always liked you too much, wanted you too much, so you made rules.
You told him what he could do if you were half-asleep, and what he could do if you were pretending to be asleep, which was different, because sometimes you liked lying there smug while Dex tried to kiss you patiently. You knew what he could do if he came home needy.Â
Most days, you loved Dex coming into the bedroom while you were still sleepy, his hands sliding under your shirt like he owned every inch of skin he found there. You loved the first drag of his mouth against your shoulder and the rough sound he made when you pressed back into him without opening your eyes. You loved pretending to be annoyed while he kissed down your spine and told you that he knew you were awake because your thighs were already sticky for him.
You loved being wanted like that, loved Dex murmuring filthy nonsense against your skin about how pretty you were, how good you were for him even when you were barely awake. You loved the way he could make free use feel less like being used and more like being worshipped.
Sometimes he was sweet about it, climbing into the bed clean and careful, gathering you back against his chest, and kissing you awake inch by inch like he had all the time in the world. He would slide one hand over your stomach and whisper your name until you made that cute complaining sound he loved, and then he would laugh like you were the best thing that had ever happened to him.
Sometimes he was not sweet, still shaking with adrenaline and put a hand over your mouth before you could say something naughty, only to kiss your temple immediately. Sometimes he pinned your wrists because you liked to fight him for show, and he liked pretending not to know you were letting him win. Sometimes he found you half-asleep and still managed to fuck you awake so thoroughly that by the time you could think again, your face was hot, your hair was a mess, and Dex was in your ear telling you how good you were for letting him have you.
You liked that.
But tonight, your body had already been handled by the entire fucking day. Your nerves had been touched and touched and touched until touch did not feel like touch anymore. It felt more like threat.
You knew that, but then Dex came home and your first thought was still I want him.
You then heard the movement of him walking around the apartment, and not like a direct line to the bathroom, or the kitchen. Not even to check the lock, which he always did even when he had just broken into his own home like a lunatic.
Instead, he was coming to you.
The bedroom door was half-open, and you kept your eyes closed.
You told yourself it was because you were too tired to move, but part of you liked the game. Part of you wanted to be found like this, buried in the middle of the bed in his shirt and your sleep shorts, pretending you hadnât been waiting all night, helping you forget the day, forget the job, forget everything except getting his hands on the one thing in the world that belonged to him.
He stopped in the doorway, and before you knew it, the mattress dipped.
Dex was always careful at first, even when he was feral. He put a hand beside your hip, not touching yet. His breathing was slow, but not steady. You could hear the way he held himself back for the sake of a rule he wanted to break only because you had once told him breaking it in the right way turned you into putty.
His fingers touched your ankle beneath the blanket, almost testing.
Your body gave a tiny shiver.
Dex went still, before his hand slid higher, possessive enough to make heat flicker through the exhaustion. His palm travelled up the back of your calf, over the bend of your knee, over your thigh. You heard him exhale, and the sound was so hungry it made your stomach flip despite everything.
âPretty girl,â he whispered.
Your face warmed.
Stupid body. Stupid, fucking traitorous body.
He leaned over you, and his mouth brushed the back of your shoulder where his shirt had slipped wide at the collar. He started with one kiss, quickly followed by another. It became open-mouthed and filthy, like he was trying to be gentle and got overwhelmed. His hand found your waist beneath the shirt, fingers spreading against your skin.
For one second, it worked.
Your violent, devoted, half-mad Dex came home through windows and touched you like you were the only object of desire in the universe, who could make you feel filthy and adored at the same time, who could make being half-asleep feel like the dirtiest kind of safety.
His mouth moved to your neck, hand tightened at your waist.
âMissed you,â he breathed, rough against your skin. âBeen thinking about you all night.â
Your thighs pressed together beneath the blanket before you could stop them.
Dex noticed and made a small sound against your throat, almost broken with relief, and shifted closer until his body was against your back. His hand slid over your hip, tugging you back into him.
For one second, you really wanted it.
Your body remembered him before it remembered itself. It remembered all the other nights he had come home ruined and desperate and crawled into bed like your body was the only place he knew where to put the violence. It remembered waking up already breathless to his greedy hands, his mouth saying filthy, adoring things against your skin until you went undone beneath him.
For one second, you wanted to be that girl again.
Dexâs hand tightened on your hip, and your breath broke in a way that sounded enough like pleasure to confuse both of you. He pressed his face into your neck and inhaled like he was trying to crawl inside your veins.
âColor?â he asked, it was rough, but still good of him.
You meant to say yellow.
The word was right there, sitting behind your tongue. Yellow meant slow down, meant you wanted him, but you needed him kinder. It would mean this was good, but also too much. But Dexâs mouth was on your throat, and his hand was warm under your shirt, and you had missed him so badly all day that admitting you needed less felt like losing him for a stupid reason.
So you said, âGreen.â
Dex exhaled against your skin. âYeah?â he murmured.
You nodded, eyes still closed.
You should have said yellow again then. You should have corrected yourself because there was still a good amount of space to do it, while his hand was only at your waist and his mouth was only at your neck, but your mind was gone and your body had betrayed you with that little shiver, and Dex had never been the best at reading the small things. He was more a flashing lights kinda guy.
Feelings had to be handed to him with both hands. It had had to be said plainly, right in front of his face, with no riddles and no hoping he would guess. Dex, through no fault of his own other than his upbringing, didnât always know the difference between you trembling because you were turned on and you trembling because your nerves were fraying apart unless you told him.
He caught your hip and flipped you onto your back in one rough movement, fast enough that the mattress jolted under you and your breath left in a startled little sound. Dex was above you immediately, one knee between your thighs, one hand braced beside your head, his eyes blown wide with whatever the night had left in him. There was blood at the edge of his collar, and a smear of it near his wrist. His hair was damp from the rain, falling over his forehead in a way that made him look more unhinged at the same time.
âMissed you,â he said, voice wrecked.
Your stomach flipped.
Fuck, he was beautiful like this. Even terrifying, he was beautiful, and you had built so much of your wanting around those two things. Dex looked down at you like he wanted to ruin you and worship whatever was left.Â
His hand slid to your chin, possessive.
Your thighs pressed together on instincts held apart by his leg between them.
âMmm ,â he whispered. âMy pretty girl.â
Heat curled in you, slick and stupid, even as your skin prickled at the edges. Your bad day had not killed the part of you that loved being grabbed by him, turned by him, handled by him. You loved Dex rough because Dex rough still meant Dex focused, Dex obsessed, Dex so fucking hungry for you that the rest of the world could plunge itself into a void and he wouldnât give two shits.
His mouth was on yours before you could think. The kiss was hard enough to make your head press back into the pillow. His hand stayed at your chin, holding you there while he took your mouth in a way that made your body go loose for him out of habit. You kissed him back, finger catching the front of his shirt, and when you pulled, Dex made a groan against your lips Then his hand went to the hem of your shirt.
His shirt, technically. He dragged it up your body impatiently, and the cool air hit your skin. You lifted your arms for him before you remembered you were tired.Â
âFuck,â he breathed.
Your face went hot.
He threw the shirt behind him.
Usually, you would have laughed and he would have said something deadpan and filthy enough to shut you up. Tonight, the loss of the shirt made you feel exposed too quickly, like your body had not agreed to be perceived that much even if your mind wanted to.Â
But then Dex kissed down your throat, and you forgot for a second.
His hands were everywhere, greedy at your waist, your ribs, your thighs, reminding himself you were real, coaxing himself out of whatever horror he had done.
You arched under him, and that was honest too.
Your back lifted as your hands found his shoulders. He caught both your wrists in one hand and pressed them above your head, pinning them there against the pillow.
His eyes lifted to yours, fever-bright. âYeah?â
You swallowed, and this time, no color came out.
Dex took it for yes because it did feel like a yes to you. Usually, you liked being held down. Tonight, you were too tired to know the difference.
Dex reached for the drawer beside the bed.
Your heart jumped, not in fear at first, but in anticipation.
You knew that drawer and what was in it. The rope came out in his hand.
Your breath caught.
âStill green?â he asked.
Say yellow.
Say yellow.
Say yellow.
You looked up at him, at the way his chest rose and fell. You thought about the whole day: the train, office, light, the way you had cried on the hallway floor because your coat had fallen.
You thought, I can take it.
So you said, âGreen.â
Dex looked relieved and hungry and dangerously grateful, like he had been waiting all night for permission to stop being human in exactly the way you usually loved.
He tied your wrists to the headboard, roughly, because he was Dex.
He checked the space between rope and skin automatically, two fingers, always. Your wrists went up as the expensive silken rope was bound to the bedframe.Â
Your body went liquid for one dizzy second.
You loved the helplessness that made your brain melt in a good way. It was a dirty drop of the heart, knowing you couldnât reach for him now unless he let you. You loved how Dex looked at you when you were restrained, like your trust was the most intimate thing you had ever given him.Â
âLook at you,â he whispered.
You looked at him looking at you, and for a moment, it was perfect.
Then the rope shifted just slightly. The knot didnât tighten or hurt. Still, it felt wrong.
The texture scraped your skin in a way it never had before. You could feel every fiber, every point of contact. Your skin pressing against the rope seemed to get louder than everything else in the room somehow, louder than Dexâs breathing, louder than your own heartbeat.Â
Your fingers flexed, and the rope moved again.
Your stomach dropped.
No.
You tried to breathe through it.
You tried to get the good feeling back. You tried to look at Dex, at his face, at the hunger you usually loved so much. You tried to remind your body that this was chosen and safe and that Dex had checked. That you had said green twice. That you loved this. You loved this. You loved this!
But the rope kept touching you and it felt like pure, crawling wrongness. The feeling started at your wrists and travelled up your arms until your shoulders froze and your chest went tight. The knot might as well have been around your throat for how quickly your breathing changed.
Dex lowered his mouth to your chest, still murmuring something against your skin,filthy and half-mad.
You barely heard it as your eyes filled.
At first, you did not even know you were crying. Then a tear slipped sideways into your hair, then another.
Dex felt you go still, and this time, he noticed immediately.
His head lifted. âHey,â he said.
You blinked hard, but the tears came faster.
Dex froze above you, that predatory stance gone now.Â
âWhatâs wrong?â he asked, panic filling the back of his eyes, unable to read your thoughts.
You couldnât answer.
His eyes moved over your face, your mouth, your chest, your wrists. He looked almost frantic trying to identify the injury. Was it blood? Bruises, pulled shoulder? Dex was good at identifying wounds.Â
Emotions made him useless unless you labelled them for him, but this was blatant enough that even Dex understood something was wrong.
âBaby,â he said, voice suddenly stripped bare. âWhatâs wrong? What happened?â
Your breath caught as the rope brushed your wrist again when you moved.
You made a horrible little sound, unable to speak.
Dexâs eyes snapped to your hands.
âWhat?â he said, reaching up but not touching yet. âThe rope?â
You nodded once, almost ashamed.
He nodded grimly. âWhat about the rope?â
âI-It feels wrong,â you choked.
Dex went white.
Your fingers flexed again, and the texture dragged at your skin, and suddenly you couldn't bear it for one more second. Not even half of one. Your whole body reacted around the rejection, and the word whispered out of you before you had decided to say it. âRed.â
Dex moved instantly.
His hand went to his belt and to his weapons, and for one horrifying second your body thought knife and almost spiralled further under, but Dex was not looking at you like that anymore.Â
He pulled the blade free with the same face he wore disarming a bomb.
âDonât move,â he said, practical.
He didnât untie the rope, because untying took time.
Dex cut it, a clean slice through the first binding, then the second. The rope fell away from your wrists in loose pieces, useless on the pillow, and Dex threw the knife across the room like he couldnât stand to have it near you a second longer.
Your arms dropped free, and he was already backing away.
Dex had stopped being a man and become an emergency response. His shoulder hit the dresser, hands lifted, palms open.
You were crying, that was all he saw.
Because of me, he thought.
âIâm away,â he said, a little too loudly and too quickly. âIâm away. Iâm not touching you.â
His voice was flat. Dex had never been truly calm a day in his life, so was just forcing panic into a box in his mind that was labeled âprocedure.â
You tried to say his name, but it came out broken, and it made him worse.
âIâll go,â he said. âI can go. I should go. You need space. You need me out. Iâll go to the living room. No, not the living room, thatâs not far enough. Iâll go downstairs. Outside. I can wait outside. I wonât come back until you tell me. I wonât touch you, I wonâtââ
âDexââ
âI hurt you.â
You wiped at the tears from your eyes now. âY-you didnât.â
He wasnât listening.
His eyes kept dropping to your wrists. His mouth had gone pale and his hands were still up, still shaking slightly like he didnât trust them anywhere near you.
You said red and youâre crying, was all he could think of.
âI hurt you.â he said, words coming faster now. âI scared you. I tied you down and you cried. I had a knife in my hand. I shouldnât have had the knife, I knew I wasââ
âDex.â
âIâll go.â
You tried to get back up, but even the sheets were starting to crawl as you were getting more and more overwhelmed. âN-No.â
âI need to go.â
âDex,â it came out breathy.
âI need to not be near you right now.â
âNuh-uh. Dexââ
âI canât be the reason youâre looking at me like that.â
You were crying harder now because he was spiralling, and you were spiralling, and the two of you were dragging each other down in opposite directions. Dex kept retreating. You kept trying to pull him back with a voice that was too fragile to reach him.
He turned toward the door, and you finally snapped.
âI need you!â
He froze.
The shout tore out of you raw, loud enough to hurt your throat. Dex stopped like you had fired a warning shot.
You shoved yourself upright, blanket slipping around your waist, cheeks wet, chest heaving.
âStop,â you sobbed. âDonât you dare fucking leave while Iâm-Iâm l-like this.â
His face fell, panic still prevalent. âIâm trying not to make it worse.â
You choked on a breath. âYou are making it worse!â
Dex went still.
You pointed at the floor like you could physically pin him there with the gesture. âYou are standing over there looking at me like youâre a monster and you keep talking about leaving and I canâtâ I canât do this too, okay? I canât comfort you while youâre trying to punish yourself. I need you.â
He looked devastated, and maybe that meant he was finally listening.
âI justââ Your voice broke, and the next words came out almost screamed, because gentleness wasnât cutting it anymore. âI just need you to hold me, you fucking idiot!â
Dex stared at you, looking completely lost.
Every terrible conclusion he had been building in his head had slammed into that sentence like a shield and shattered at his feet.
âYou want me to hold you?â he asked, barely audible.
âYes,â you cried. âJesus Christ, yes.â
His hands lowered by an inch.
âBut I scared you.â
âBecause I was already scared of everything,â you managed through gritted teeth.Â
âYou said red.â
âAnd you stopped!â
You could see it finally go through to him. His eyes flicked to the cut rope, then to your wrists, then back to your face. He was still terrified of himself, but he stopped backing away.
âI need you clean,â you said, voice shaking. âThen I need you here.â
He moved immediately.
Thank God.
Giving him an instruction helped him. Dex disappeared into the bathroom with stiff purpose, and you heard water slam on. As he scrubbed his hands too hard. You heard him almost losing it over the sink and forcing himself not to because you had not asked for that.
When he came back, the blood was gone.
His shirt was gone too, replaced with the white sleeveless one you liked, because it made him look less like he had crawled out of an alley and more like the man who lived here. Your man, who slept with one hand searching for you.
He stopped by the bed, still afraid to presume after what happened.
You opened your arms.
He climbed onto the bed slowly, gave you every second to change your mind, and only closed his arms around you when you grabbed the front of his shirt and dragged him in.
Then he was truly in, and you folded into him.
You cried into his chest with both fists clenched in his shirt, and Dex held you like he was learning how to touch you all over again.Â
âTighter,â you sobbed.
His arms tightened.
âMore.â
He held you properly then, careful but not distant. His chin tucked over your head, one hand spread between your shoulder blades, the other on your back, keeping you against him without trapping you. You could feel his heartbeat racing under your cheek, and still, yours was worse.
For a while, neither of you said anything.
Words had been too much all day. Everything had been too much all day. So this was good.
Dex pressed his mouth to your hair.
âI just had a bad day,â you whispered into his chest.
His arms tightened again.
You felt him inhale. âAll day?â he asked.
You nodded.
His hand flexed against your back.
He wanted to ask, you could feel it. He wanted names, causes, targets, so he could follow them home and put them through a wall for making you feel like this. But for once, he held it in.
You cried harder, because he was warm and clean and finally close enough. âI meant to say yellow,â you whispered.
His chest stopped moving for a second.
âI know,â you added, before he could spiral again. âI know I said green. I know. I just wanted to be okay. I wanted it to be like usual.â
Dex didnât speak for a long moment.
Then he held you a little closer and pressed his cheek to the top of your head. âOkay,â he said roughly.
It sounded like he was swallowing glass.
You pulled back just enough to look at him. His face was serious, jaw tight, laying in bed with the woman he loved crying all over his shirt, trying to work out how to shoot a bad day.
And then, with absolute sincerity, he asked, âDo you want me to kill anyone?â
You stared at him.
He meant it.
Fuck.Â
It was so shocking, so cathartic, that a sudden laugh burst out of you, half-strangled against his chest. You tried to stop it, but the look on his face only made it worse. He frowned slightly, earnest, still holding you like he would rather die than move wrong.
âIâm serious,â he said.
You laughed harder. âDex.â
âWhat?â
âYou canât kill someone because I had a bad day.â
His brow furrowed. âWhy not?â
âOh my God.â
âIf thereâs a person responsibleââ
âThere isnât.â
âThereâs usually a person responsible.â
âThere was Brad from HR.â
You blinked at him. âHow do you know about Brad from HR?â
âYou texted me about him once.â
âThat was, like, six months ago.â
âI remember things.â
Despite yourself, you laughed again.
You buried your face against him again, laughing and crying at the same time until you could barely breathe. Dex still looked confused, but his arms settled securely around you. He understood this much, at least, when you pressed closer instead of pushing him away.
âI donât need you to kill anyone,â you murmured once the laughter faded.
âOkay.â
âI just need you to hold me.â
His mouth pressed to your hair again. âThat I can do,â he said.
And he did, held you until your breathing slowed, until the room stopped feeling like it was on fire.Â
After a while, very quietly, he added, âI would, though.â
You huffed a tired laugh into his shirt. âI know, honey.â
His arms tightened carefully around you.
âJust checking,â he said.
And because it was him, because he meant it with his whole heart, because the day had been awful and you were safe now, you laughed one last tiny laugh into the dark.
đ đđđđ. đđ benjamin poindexter.
Dex spirals into a breakdown over a betrayal, but you ground him by keeping him inside you.
cw á° .á HAPPY KINKTOBER ,, nsfw ,, cockwarming ,, gender neutral reader ,, sub!dex ,, coercion ,, manipulative reader if you squint ,, emotional comfort sex ,, MDNI
It started with the glass. Not the chair, not the rug, not something that could be nudged back into place, this time it was the sharp crack of glass against the wall, the shatter so sudden and violent it didnât sound like it came from his own hand. Except it had. His hand was already bleeding, small cuts across his knuckles where the rim had splintered. He barely noticed. He was too busy grabbing the next thing within reach, hurling it at the opposite wall, watching it explode into fragments. A plate. A lamp. The sound was better than silence. The sound was proof he was still here.
He couldnât stop. The rage kept climbing, blind and white-hot, lashing out at everything in sight. His fist went through the drywall, the crunch reverberating up his arm. He didnât even feel the pain until he pulled back and saw the blood smearing across the pale surface. The hole gaped back at him, ugly, jagged. He pressed his forehead against it, breathing ragged, chest heaving like heâd just run ten miles. It wasnât enough. It never was.
Fisk. The name alone set his teeth on edge, bile in his throat. Heâd believed him. That was the sickest part of it, he had actually believed him. Every word, every carefully placed kindness, every glance that seemed to cut through the noise in his head, heâd held onto it like a lifeline. Heâd let it convince him he wasnât broken, that he was valuable, that he could be something. And it hadnât been real. None of it had been real.
He thought he was something. Thatâs what burned the most. He thought he was seen. He thought the weight he carried, the urges, the violence, it all had a place, a use, a reason. Fisk had given him structure. A role. A mask that wasnât a joke. He thought, God, he thought, he mattered. And now, all at once, he could feel it unraveling, like heâd been tricked into standing on a bridge that was never really there. One step forward and it crumbled under him.
The apartment felt too small. His head felt too loud. He kicked the table leg out from under it, watched it topple, wood cracking against the floor. Not enough. Nothing would ever be enough. He wanted to crawl out of his own skin. He wanted to tear down the walls. He wanted to scream until his throat bled.
The only thoughts that formed clear enough to hold onto were the ones that gutted him: Youâre nothing. Youâre nothing. He played you. He used you. He made you think you were more, and you were stupid enough to believe it.
He hated the mess, hated it, and yet he couldnât stop making more. His body moved, rage propelling every twitch, every swing. He didnât care. He wanted it gone, wanted everything gone.
He thought he mattered. He thought the structure meant something. He thought he was worth something.
Was Fisk laughing? Right now, was Fisk somewhere laughing about how easy it had been? Did everyone know? Did everyone see how desperate he was for someone to tell him he wasnât broken? That he wasnât dangerous? That he wasnâtâ
His head snapped toward the door like he expected someone to be standing there, watching. His skin crawled with the thought. What if they all knew? What if every kindness was all pity, or worse, manipulation?
Being chosen, being noticed, had become such a normalized part of his day that he hadnât seen the danger in it. Why would he? Fisk made it seem ordinary, routine, expected. Praise when he followed the structure. Assurance when the rest of the worldâs noise threatened to overwhelm him. The kind of steady guidance Dex thought, naively, that he could trust.
But trust was a word that now tasted rotten. Fisk had known exactly which strings to pull, and Dex had mistaken the manipulation for meaning. He thought it was more. That he was more. That the monster he carried around in his skin had a purpose under Fiskâs command. But how easy it is to overthink those things after the fact.
Fisk. Fisk who made him feel like a soldier instead of a weapon. Fisk who had offered a place, a title, a reason to exist beyond the impulses clawing at him. Fisk who had pulled him in close just to prove how disposable he really was.
The thought alone cut something loose inside of him. The rage that had been pouring out in broken glass and split drywall stuttered, faltered, cracked beneath its own weight. His chest heaved, every breath shallow and frantic, the edges of his vision pulsing dark. His knuckles were raw, smeared in dust and blood. His apartment, a place that had always been sterile, lined up exactly so, was a wreck. He wanted to keep tearing it apart, he wanted to obliterate everything Fisk had touched in his head, but his arms felt heavy, his body catching up with the spiral.
He pressed his back to the wall, knees drawn up tight, breath catching in his throat as if the air itself had turned solid. His eyes burned hot, vision blurred, and though he bit down hard enough to taste copper, it didnât stop the sting from gathering at the corners. His hands found his knees, rubbing in restless, twitching circles, desperate to anchor himself in some kind of rhythm. Too fast. Too shallow. Too much.
Had it all been a lie?
And then, almost without realizing it, his body gave out. He slid down the wall, collapsing fully onto the floor. His breath rattled and hitched, a sound he couldnât control, something dangerously close to a sob that threatened to break loose. He pressed his palms harder into his knees like that might hold him together, stop him from splitting open completely.
The door opened.
He didnât hear it at first, too deep in the spiral to register anything outside of his own head. But then movement cut through, the shift of light spilling across the wreckage of the apartment, and he jerked his head up. You stood in the doorway.
And for a moment, his panic only sharpened, his first thought was that youâd see, that youâd know, that his collapse was spread out like an autopsy under your gaze. The shards of glass glittering on the floor. The cracked drywall. The overturned lamp. The complete violation of the order he always clung to. His chest twisted when he caught the look on your face, the way your expression fell the second you took it all in.
Dex looked nothing like the man he pretended to be. He was curled against the wall like he could fold himself out of existence, eyes red and glossy, breath trembling, muscles twitching beneath skin stretched tight with adrenaline. He looked undone.
Youâd been worried because his last messages had been a mess. He always replied fast; that was stupidly reliable. If he didnât answer within ten minutes it was nothing, if he didnât answer within an hour you texted again, then called. When he didnât pick up the call you hovered between rationalizing, maybe he left his phone, maybe something at work, and the small, cold knot that told you this silence was different. Hours passed. You texted. You left a voice message that sounded like you were holding in panic. You told yourself you were being dramatic, then you put on your shoes and came.
The door closed behind you with the soft click of something ordinary in a place that had become anything but. The apartment, always so exacting, mugs aligned on the counter, the stack of newspapers at the same angle, his jackets hanging by color, had been vandalized by his own hands. You paused in the threshold, a slow inventory: a lamp toppled, frame glass scattered where he'd hit it, a ragged hole in the drywall. The neatness he clung to had been demolished.
Your heart did a quick, stupid double-take when you saw him, because you knew him, and what you were looking at wasnât him. Not the tidy, clipped-off sentences he liked; not the man who arranged his pens by weight on the desk and who kept his mug on the same coaster every evening. You moved instinctively slower, because you knew the wrong speed could be a threat. Dexâ world tilted when things moved too fast. You had learned, from bruises of argument and late-night practice, which syllables calmed him and which jumpedscared him straight into fight-or-flight.
For a second you simply stood there and let your eyes scan him for damage. He hugged his knees to his chest, hands rubbing at them in a repetitive, anxious motion, thumbs working circles that didnât make it better. His breath was a ragged; he blinked like someone trying to clear fog from a windshield.
You considered saying his name out loud to cut the distance, but you didnât. You let the silence hang a beat longer, the way you had learned to wait when he needed to decide whether you were friend or danger. (It was always a little terrifying, the way his assessment could flip on a look.) Instead you stepped forward, very slowly, each movement measured and small, palms visible, shoulders low. Your bag was on your shoulder only until you set it down gently beside the door; the noise of it hitting the floor was careful, no sudden clatter to startle him.
You sat down opposite him on the floor, crossing your legs slowly because you wanted to be smaller, nonthreatening. You kept your hands on your knees, palms up, because he could see them, no hidden fists, no phone glowing with messages. The distance was deliberate: close enough he could reach if he wanted, far enough that he wouldnât feel crowded. You watched him watch you watch him, and in that loop you did the math of what to say next and decided the first thing he needed was steadiness, not questions.
When you finally let your voice out it was soft and small, an observation turned gentle: âYouâve messed up the geometry,â you said, and there was the faintest attempt at humor. It landed a little; he blinked, the twitch at the corner of his mouth almost a memory of a smile, then vanished. His eyes went back to the hole in the wall like it might be a source of answer.
You kept cataloguing in your head, everything to know how to stay safe and how to keep him safe. Donât lean over him. Donât touch without permission. Donât make sudden moves. Breathe slow; mirror his exhalation to show him youâre tethered to the same rhythm. You thought of the time heâd taught you to breathe through a panic attack, the ridiculous military cadence he swore was clinically unsound but had worked for both of you, and, before you realized you were doing it, you matched it: inhale for four, hold two, exhale for six. It was both a thing heâd taught you and a thing you were now using to show him you hadnât left.
He watched that, watched the rise and fall of your chest and something in his shoulders loosened just a fraction, like a muscle relaxing when itâs safe to do so. You could see suspicion still there: the blinking shadow behind his eyes that said what if this is another lie? But under it, care pricked through, because he recognized the cadence and because he recognized you.
He made a small sound then, not a word, more a rasp, like someone clearing a throat that had been full of glass. His hands stilled on his knees. For the first time since youâd opened the door his gaze met yours and it was shaky, but it wasnât fleeing. You stayed sitting on the floor across from him, and waited to be invited in, without pressure, without judgement, because you had learned that with Dex the only way in was patience and proof, slowly given, every single time.
His lips parted once, twice, before sound finally scraped out.
âHeâ lied to me.â
The words didnât make sense on their own to you, but you didnât rush to fill the silence. His eyes darted away as soon as theyâd found you. You let the words sit between you, not prying. Still, gently, like one might try to coax a feral thing closer, you spoke, soft enough that your own breath nearly swallowed it.
âWho lied to you, Dex?â
His head jerked in the smallest movement, not quite a shake, not quite an answer, more the recoil of someone who didnât trust the ground beneath them. He muttered something under his breath, maybe a name, maybe nothing at all. He swallowed it down so fast it burned.
You could see it, the fracture line between rage and collapse. Youâd seen it before. The way his pupils sharpened like he was ready for a fight, only to dull again into something like despair when he realized there wasnât one to win. His hands flexed uselessly against his own legs, open-close-open-close, like he couldnât decide if he was supposed to strike or cling.
And you waited.
When you shifted, he flinched like the movement itself had teeth. Still, you let him watch you, let him track every second as you crawled closer across the floor, existing in his space without demanding entry. He didnât move away. That was enough. âDex,â you said again, firmer this time, grounding. âItâs me.â
Something in his face broke at that, his jaw working, his throat tight. You could feel the prickle of panic still radiating off him in waves, but beneath it, exhaustion was creeping in, tugging his shoulders down, blunting his edges.
You took that as the opening. Carefully, you reached out to lay your hand over his, stilling the nervous twitch of his fingers. His skin was clammy, but he didnât pull away. âCome on,â you coaxed, not commanded. âLetâs get you up.â
It took time. His legs were stiff from the way heâd been curled, his body reluctant to unfold from its cage. You steadied him without smothering, guiding him as he leaned heavily into your shoulder. âCareful,â you said under your breath, as much for him as for you, as you nudged him away from the worst of the mess. You paused and tossed the bigger shards of glass in the trash, enough to keep bare feet safe later. The finer mess could wait. For now it was enough that you made the floor walkable again.
Dex sagged more heavily against you the longer he stood, his body betraying the burnout. You steered him toward the couch, the closest thing, lowering him gently down until he was sitting instead of folding in on himself. His hands found the fabric of your sleeve, holding tight, desperate enough that you knew he was asking you to stay.
You brushed a thumb along the ridge of his knuckle, not forcing eye contact he couldnât hold yet. âItâs okay. Iâve got you.â
For a beat he only breathed, eyes fixed somewhere past your shoulder like if he looked too long heâd shatter all over again. Then his jaw worked, the words dragged up from somewhere. âFisk,â he rasped, voice cracked. âFisk lied to me.â
Your heart clenched, the truth hitting harder because youâd had suspected it, at least in the corners of your mind, that Fisk wasnât who he claimed to be he was for Dex. The way Fisk always gave with one hand while tightening a leash with the other. Youâd felt it before you ever saw it, that the man didnât offer anything without a reason, that he built loyalty by feeding hunger only so he could starve it later. And now you saw what that realization did to Dex, how it hollowed him out from the inside.
âOh, sweetheartâŠâ The word slipped from you, your throat aching with it. You leaned a little closer, careful not to crowd him. âIâm so sorry.â
He shut his eyes tight at that, chest rising like he wanted to argue, but there was no fight left in him. Sweat dampened his hairline, clung to his shirt. You kept your tone firm but gentle when you said, âArms up.â
He obeyed instantly, without hesitation, without thinking. It broke you a little, the way compliance was etched into him so deep that even undone like this, he moved the second you asked. You tugged his shirt up over his head, careful not to jostle him too much, and set it aside. His skin was scolding, clammy, overheated.
âBetter,â you murmured, brushing a damp strand of hair back from his forehead. âCan I get you something? Water maybe?â
His eyes cracked open, and for a second he looked like he didnât even understand the question. Then, almost desperate, he said, âYou.â
His hand reached toward you, fingers flexing like he was afraid he might break you just by holding on. He wanted you, but the wanting itself scared him, like everything in him was wired to destroy the things he reached for. His hand faltered like it might drop away. You caught it gently, folding his fingers into your own and guiding them until they rested at your waist. The grip was hesitant, feather-light, but you pressed closer, settling into his lap, wrapping yourself around him until his hands had no choice but to feel you there.
Your arms looped up around his neck, fingertips brushing the back of his head, grounding him in the simplest ways you knew how. His gaze was scattered, unfocused, darting toward every dark corner of the room like there were eyes hidden there. So you tipped his chin just enough to make sure all he could see was you.
You kissed along the line of his jaw, a series of touches that demanded nothing in return. He tensed, then released it in a shaky exhale that shuddered against your collarbone. Your mouth drifted lower, lips pressing to the side of his throat, then parting just enough to suck softly at the skin until the noise he made was something between a sigh and a broken sound.
Each each press of your mouth was meant to drag him back from the edge, to cut through the spiral with something simpler, heat, touch, proof. His hands tightened at your waist, anchoring himself. His eyes fluttered closed at last, lashes damp against flushed cheeks, and for the first time since you walked in the panic didnât own him entirely. Another shaky sigh left him, softer this time, like he was letting the fight drain out of his body just by leaning into you.
âDoes that feel good?â
The sound he made in return was half-sob, half-whimper, his head falling back against the couch as though the weight of sensation was too much to hold up. His hands gripped tighter at your waist, not daring to push, not daring to guide, just clinging. A muffled mh-hm slipped out, shaky with the kind of emotion that stripped him raw. He was caught in it, pleasure, panic, the needing of something to replace the spiral.
You trailed your mouth along his jaw again, slow nips and sucks meant to keep him tethered, âThatâs it. Donât think.â
He shuddered. His mouth opened, closed, until finally the words broke free in a voice that sounded cracked open, pleading:
â...More. Closer. Please.â
You pulled back enough to meet his eyes, which were glossy and seeking, before slipping off his lap. His gaze followed every move, wide and frantic with worry, but you kept your touch steady. Your fingers brushed his hip, then slid to the waistband of his pants. You helped him tug them down, then easing him out of boxers too, stripping away the layers that kept him locked tight in his panic.
It wasnât new. You had been here before, not this exact spiral, but this need, this wordless plea. The first time it had happened it hadnât been planned, hadnât been something either of you had put words to. He had been restless, unable to stop pacing, running hands through his hair, clawing at his arms like something was going to rip him apart. Then when you had pulled him into bed, coaxed him to sink inside of you and just stay, it had quieted. His body had remembered what his mind wouldnât let him trust: safety, warmth, belonging. Something to hold onto that didnât break in his hands.
It was like that now. You could already feel the weight of what he wanted in the way he shook, in the way his eyes kept flicking to you like you might vanish if he looked away. Cockwarming wasnât about sex to him. Not about chasing release or edge. It was about being so completely consumed by the feeling of being inside you that everything else had nowhere to root itself. The panic didnât leave him, but it blurred under the intensity of sensation. He couldnât spiral and hold onto you at the same time; the two states didnât coexist.
You leaned down and kissed his forehead gently. âI know,â you whispered, more truth than comfort. And you did. You always did, even when he couldnât find the words.
You eased back just enough to strip yourself down, pants shucked off, underwear too with a simple slide of your fingers. It wasnât hurried, it was the kind of slowness that told him you werenât afraid of him. You were both bare now, skin against his, and he could feel it in the way your thighs pressed to his, the heat radiating, the proof of you solid in his hands.
He trembled beneath you, eyes flicking over your body like he couldnât decide if this was another trick of a mind that had been eating itself alive all night. His breath hitched when you reached between you and took him in hand, guiding him, lining him up with your heat. The world narrowed for him in that second. What was sharp, what was undeniable, was the feeling of you holding him, ready to take him in.
The relief when you sank down over him was immediate. His jaw went slack, a sound catching in his throat and breaking off into silence as his head dropped against your shoulder. He clung to you with both arms, locking around your waist like he could weld you to him. The stretch, the warmth, the reality of being buried inside you, he melted into it.
You stayed still, letting him feel it, letting him fill you completely and just be there. His cock pulsed inside you, every twitch betraying how much he needed the stillness. He was extra quiet now, not a word leaving his lips, only the sound of his breathing against your shoulder. His skin was damp with sweat, chest pressed tight to yours, every inch of him bare against you, and yet the closeness wasnât suffocating.
He held on tighter, fingers digging into your back like he was terrified youâd be pulled away. You let him clutch, let him bury himself in your body, let him feel the undeniable proof of you wrapping around him.
It always amazed you how it worked. How something that seemed so simple could rewire the entire mess of his mind. He wasnât thinking about Fisk now, or betrayal, or the certainty of being nothing. He was only thinking of this, of the way your body enveloped him, the way you let him stay there. His breaths evened out slowly, one by one, and each sigh that left him carried less of the panic, more of the relief.
For a few blissful minutes, he existed only in you. His entire world had shrunk to the slick heat enveloping him, the overwhelming pleasure of being inside you, the way your body moved just enough to remind him he wasnât alone. His hands gripped your hips, digging in, and he swore, low and breathless, âFuckâŠâ
He melted further, teeth sinking into the crook of your shoulder, hands roaming like they couldnât decide where to claim you first. He was gasping now, barely coherent, and for a few moments it worked, he couldnât think, couldnât spiral, couldnât remember betrayal or Fisk or anything beyond the pleasure you were giving him.
But as the minutes stretched, you felt the tension returning. His hips twitched against yours, and his hands gripped your shoulders like he needed to push himself into you harder. His breaths became shorter, more frantic, eyes opening just a fraction, and you felt the panic creeping back into his mind.
âIâhe⊠he made me think I was something. Iâm nothing.. Iâm⊠god, Iâm such a fucking idiot.â His body stiffened, small shivers rolling across his skin as he started to withdraw just enough to be consumed by his thoughts. âI believed him⊠I â- I thoughtââ His chest heaved as if the truth was suffocating him. His grip loosened and then clutched again at your waist like he was terrified to let go, terrified to think without the distraction.
You pressed closer, letting your body move with him, subtle at first, teasing, just enough for him to feel you move. His words stumbled over themselves as your hips began to shift, gliding against his. His head snapped back, breath hitching mid-sentence. âWhat are youâ?â
âItâs alright,â you cooed, one hand braced against his shoulder. âJust let me take care of you. You donât have to think right now. Not about him, just me.â
He shivered, words catching in his throat as your hips pressed against his. âNâno,â he tried, hands pushing lightly at your waist as if trying to resist a gravity he couldnât fight, every syllable half-protest, half-plea. His body betrayed him, sliding against yours in spite of his stiff refusal, slick heat reminding him that part of him didnât want to pull away.
Your hands moved to steady him, fingers tracing the tension along his muscles, grounding him even as he jerked, squirmed, whined softly. âItâs okay,â you whispered, voice patient. âJust let it be good.â
His jaw clenched, the whine slipping past his lips again, the words shaky: âI shouldnâtâ Iâm notââbut his hips betrayed him, shifting ever so slightly to follow yours, sliding inside you despite his denial.
You pressed a hand to the curve of his cheek, tilting his head toward you, brushing a thumb softly against his clammy skin. âItâs okay. Youâre okay.â
His lips parted, teeth catching slightly, eyes half-lidded as he fought the urge to give in, cheeks flushed with the heat of it.
âNot⊠thisâŠright now,â His voice broke, swallowed by a sharp intake of breath as your hand moved lower.
âDonât fight it,â you pressed your forehead to his, then traced the tense line of his neck with soft kisses that made him twitch against you. âYouâre allowed to let go.â
His hands loosened just enough for you to guide his body. His chest rose and fell erratically, pupils blown wide, lips parted in gasps that mixed protest with desire. The tension that had clung to him began to melt under your touch. You could see it in the way his jaw slackened, the way his eyelids fluttered, the tremble in his hips as he finally gave the smallest, hesitant push back against yours.
And then the surrender started to settle in. His face was undone, sweat slick, flushed, brows furrowed, lips swollen and parted, eyes heavy with the mixture of panic fading into pleasure. Every flicker of his muscles, every shiver, every soft, gasping whine painted the picture: he was drowning in sensation, completely undone by the way you moved him, teased him, claimed him.
âSee?â you murmured against his ear, fingers threading through his hair. âYouâre okay.â
And finally every push of your hips made his body respond whether his mind wanted it or not. His hands tried to wrest control, pressing against your shoulders as if to slow you down, but you kept going, knowing that movement was the only way to keep his mind fuzzy from everything else. Little by little, the tension in his back softened, shoulders dropping just a fraction.
His noises and gasps became desperate little sounds caught in his throat. Every thrust made him tremble, his body clinging to yours as if trying to hold himself together while simultaneously giving in. You felt the tight, trembling pulse of him inside you, the way his body reacted to every press and release.
You increased the pace, letting yourself ride the friction just as much as you guided him, leaning into the motion so that each movement set off little shivers through both of you. His hands found your back and shoulders again, clinging, pulling, seeking some sense of stability as he gasped against your neck, letting the sensations ripple through him.
âShit, Iââ The way he pressed into you, clinging to your heat, gripping your sides and hips, made it impossible to deny how much he needed this, needed you to push him past the panic, to hold him, guide him, and consume him.
Your movements intensified until the warmth, the slickness, and the friction built into a coiling tension that had both of you seeing stars. You could see it all over his face: the panic fading, replaced by lewd abandon, fucked out like some pretty little doll for you to ruin.
Dex' hips stuttered and jerked as the coil inside him snapped. He slammed into you one last time, burying himself to the hilt as a guttural moan tore from his throat. His fingers dug into the flesh of your hips, sure to leave bruises, as his body went rigid. The feeling of his cock pulsing and throbbing inside you, flooding your insides with his hot seed, triggered your own climax.
Your vision went white as you felt his cum start to seep out around his still-pulsing length, dribbling down your thighs. His head rested against your shoulder, hair damp and sticking slightly to the sweat on your skin, lips brushing lightly across your collarbone as he let out a soft sigh. His hands clung to you with needy ownership. âDonât go,â he voiced, caught somewhere between exhaustion and contentment.
You shifted slightly, brushing a hand down his arm, nudging gently. âCome on⊠letâs at leastââ
âNo,â his reply was immediate, heavy with fatigue. Normally, heâd insist, heâd fuss, heâd clean up, but not tonight. Tonight he was soft, pliant, utterly reliant on you, and you let him be.
âOkay.â
He nestled closer, and you could feel his pulse slow, the frantic flutter of earlier replaced by a slow, steady beat.
Every nerve ending seemed tuned only to the press of your skin, the sway of your body, the heat and tension that had you both tangled together. He was sloppy and messy, shivering faintly from overstimulation, and yet perfect in his surrender, unable to think of anything beyond the way you felt pressed against him.
â a / n : first time publishing smut since like 2020 donât shame meâŠ.. ummmm i went for something not super extreme to dip my toes into the water and see how i felt i will see about writing more explicit scenes đ€
cw á° .á obsessive tendencies ,, dark themes ,, gn reader unless i slipped up somewhere ,, headcanons ,, i mean heâs a murderer so
BEN POINDEXTER AS YOUR BOYFRIEND... is obsessed with you. not the âlikes your selfiesâ kind â more like memorized your schedule, cataloged your facial expressions, and would absolutely kill for you without a blink. no hesitation. no regret.
he has a tracker on your phone. not because he doesnât trust you â he just doesnât trust anyone else. he tells you itâs for your safety, and when you raise an eyebrow at him, he just shrugs and kisses your forehead. âiâd rather know where you are than bury you, baby.â
he gets jealous. so easily. and he hates it. hates how tight his jaw gets when you laugh at someone else's joke. how his fists curl when someone makes you smile. but heâs so good at holding it together â until youâre alone. then heâs pacing. spiraling. pulling you into his lap just to feel your heartbeat under his hand. âyouâre mine, right?â heâll ask, low and tight.
dex does everything for you. carries your bags. makes your coffee. walks you to class. waits outside your job. doesnât matter if heâs had the worst day imaginable â heâll still show up to tuck your hair behind your ear and ask if youâve eaten.
he gets scary when he thinks youâre pulling away. itâs subtle at first â quiet stares, clenched jaw, questions masked as concern. but the second heâs sure somethingâs wrong he snaps. cold. sharp. wounded in that dangerous way. looks at you with that unhinged grief behind his eyes. like itâs betrayal. like itâs death.
heâs weirdly soft in private. youâre the only person who gets to see the version of him thatâs quiet and needy and kind of broken. he sleeps with his head on your chest, fingers clinging to your shirt like youâll vanish if he lets go. sometimes he just stares at you, like heâs memorizing you in case you disappear.
always brings you little things he finds throughout the day. not flowers or jewelry â no, benâs gifts are weirder. more him. a vintage matchbook he liked the design of. a cool rock he found on the sidewalk. a bullet casing from his last mission. âmade me think of you,â he says, dead serious.
his love language is acts of service â intense ones. fixes everything in your apartment before you even notice itâs broken. goes grocery shopping and memorizes your favorite brand of literally everything. remembers how you like your tea down to the exact amount of honey.
canât sleep unless heâs touching you. even just a pinky finger brushing yours. if you roll away in the night, he subconsciously follows, pulling you back like a heat-seeking missile. âwhere you goinâ, sweetheart?â he mumbles, half-asleep.
keeps a photo of you in his wallet. itâs old, kind of faded, maybe creased in the corner â but he looks at it constantly. you catch him doing it once, and he just shrugs. âkeeps me sane.â
loves forehead kisses. wonât ask for them. wonât say a word. just leans down a little and looks at you with that tilted-head stare until you get it. and when you comply? his whole face goes soft like itâs the only thing anchoring him to earth.
has a surprisingly dark sense of humor. says the most horrifying things in the most affectionate tone. youâll say âiâm coldâ and heâs like, âwant me to burn the world down for you?â you laugh. he doesnât.
likes watching you do normal stuff. brushing your teeth. folding laundry. humming while you cook. he sits quietly, just watching â so still itâs unnerving. to him itâs peace. itâs you alive.
plays with your fingers absentmindedly. twists your rings around. traces the veins in your wrist. holds your hand even when you're just sitting on the couch doing nothing. asks what every little scar is from. âthis one?â heâd question. âfell off my bike.â a pause. âwant me to go back in time and kill the pavement?â
notices everything. you donât even realize how closely heâs watching until he casually mentions things like, âyou switched shampoo, didnât you?â or âyou tapped your foot three times before locking the door today. usually itâs four.â and itâs not judgment â he just keeps mental notes on everything that makes you you. so if something changes, he knows. and if somethingâs wrong, he really knows.
heâs extremely routine-oriented â and he builds you into his structure. once youâre part of his life, youâre in it.
your coffee order gets timed to the minute. your text messages get categorized in his head (green = happy, yellow = somethingâs off, red = drop everything).
he gets agitated if plans change too suddenly, but if youâre the reason? he softens instantly. you ground him. youâre the only thing that doesnât throw him off.
he gets attached fast. his BPD makes it so once he feels something for you, itâs intense. thereâs no casual dating. no half-measures. he goes from âi think i like themâ to âi will absolutely die if they leaveâ in under a week. heâs so good at hiding just how deep it runs.
he replicates your habits without meaning to. if you fidget with your sleeves, he starts doing it. if you use a certain word a lot, it shows up in his vocabulary. he mirrors you because it comforts him.
he hyper-fixates on your favourites. if you say you like a snack once, heâll buy ten. you compliment a song? itâs on every playlist he makes. you wear a certain lip balm? heâll go out of his way to buy backups. he wants to memorize what makes you happy so he can recreate it. perfectly. every time.
he spirals when he thinks he upset you. even slightly. a weird tone in your voice? a shorter text reply than usual? his brain jumps to you hate me. youâre going to leave. i ruined it. heâll pace. his routine will fall apart. instead of lashing out on you he gets quiet. self-destructive. unless you pull him back in with something soft â a touch. a word. a look. then he clings like a shadow.
he makes you things with his hands. little wood carvings, origami, folded napkin animals â he fidgets constantly, and youâre the outlet.
his hands donât stop moving, so they move for you. youâll come home and find a tiny heart made of safety pins on your nightstand. he wonât mention it, but heâll watch to see if you notice.
he always asks for reassurance, but never directly. heâll say things like, âyou still like having me around, right?â or âyouâd tell me if i was being too much?â and it breaks your heart a little, because heâs so desperate not to be a burden. you always answer the same way: âyouâre my favourite person.â
canât fall asleep without saying goodnight the same exact way. it doesnât matter how late it is, how exhausted he is, how bad the day was â he has to say it. same tone, same words, same kiss on your temple. if he doesnât it eats at him. heâll lie awake, heart racing, staring at the ceiling like something terribleâs going to happen because he broke the pattern.
refuses to let anyone else drive you anywhere. he doesnât care if itâs your friend, your boss, your own damn parent â if he canât be the one driving, heâs deeply uncomfortable. heâll sit by the door with his keys, ready to go.
has ârulesâ for loving you. like brushing your hair off your face with his left hand only. or always kissing you three times before you leave. he doesn't need to do it â he has to. if he breaks the pattern, his brain tells him something bad will happen to you.
saves every single voicemail and text you send. even the dumb ones. especially the dumb ones. he replays your old voicemails when heâs spiraling.
he screenshotted the first time you said âi miss youâ and keeps it in a locked photo album. youâre proof that something good happened to him once.
gets overstimulated easily, but hides it around you. if the lights are too bright, the roomâs too loud, someoneâs tapping a pen too much â heâs unraveling inside.
but if youâre talking to him? smiling? holding his hand? heâll grit his teeth through it, just to stay in your orbit a little longer.
has a favorite version of you, but itâs not what youâd think. itâs not when youâre dressed up, or being cute, or saying nice things. itâs when youâre sleepy. messy. barely awake and murmuring nonsense with your face squished into his chest.
âyouâre not real,â you mumbled once. âi made you up.â he still thinks about that. hopes itâs not true. but if it is? heâs glad you dreamed him.
collects your words like scripture. if you ever say something sweet to him, he will not forget. he repeats it to himself, over and over, like a mantra.âyouâre safe with me.â ,, âyouâre not too much.â ,, âi like you exactly the way you are.â he mouths the words in the mirror. sometimes he believes them.
panics if he forgets anything about you. canât remember your shoe size? his heart races. doesnât know if you take your coffee with sugar that day? hands start shaking.
his whole sense of safety is tied to knowing you. so if anything slips, it feels like the whole foundation is cracking.
he loves you in patterns. in rituals. in coffee orders and folded blankets and kisses placed in the exact same spot on your shoulder every night.
gets annoyed when you shower without him. he doesnât even want to do anything â he just sits on the toilet lid with his chin in his hand while youâre in there like, âyou left me out here alone for twenty-three minutes.â you open the door to steam and a pouty six-foot weapon of a man sulking.
gets weirdly quiet when youâre on your phone too long. not mad. just a little neglected. you look up and heâs just sitting there like a sad cat, hoping youâll notice. you say âbenny, you okay?â and he melts like, â...mâhere. just waitinâ.â
clings after arguments like his life depends on it. doesnât matter if it was something small or serious. once things settle, heâs already reaching for you, forehead pressed to your collarbone. ânot mad anymore.â he murmurs. translation: donât leave me.
keeps weapons stashed in every room âjust in case.â under the bed. behind the fridge. in your carâs glove box.
memorized your exâs face and car within the first week. he wonât say what he did with that information. but he didnât like how they looked at you at the grocery store that one time. he made sure it wouldnât happen again.
he hates parties.not because heâs antisocial, because he canât relax when youâre in a room full of strangers.
heâs watching everyone â every glance, every shift, every hand that moves too close. he stands behind you the whole time, hand at your lower back, barely talking to anyone.
texts you âwhere are you?â even when he knows where you are. he saw you leave. he knows youâre at work or running errands or at the gym. but he still needs to hear you say it. needs the proof. the reassurance. you say âiâm fine, benny,â and he responds with âmiss you.â (youâve been gone 20 minutes.)
calls you his âperson.â not partner. not babe. just âmy person.â says it in a tone that sounds more like my reason for breathing.
wonât let you walk on the street side of the sidewalk. youâve tried switching sides â heâll switch with you immediately. doesnât matter where youâre going. doesnât matter if the road is empty. ânope,â heâll mutter, hand on your hip. âyou donât get hit. not on my watch.â
he has a folder on his computer labeled âthem.â inside: blurry security cam screenshots of you walking alone at night (yes, he tapped into feeds), saved texts from people whoâve upset you, and a detailed list of names he keeps tabs on. you donât know it exists.
takes everything as a threat. you flinch at a loud noise? heâs already scanning the room. someone bumps into you too hard in a crowd? he steps between you like a human wall. you say âi donât feel safe,â and heâs already reaching for his coat.
he doesnât yell unless someone talks down to you. heâll take endless shit from people when itâs about him. but the second someone disrespects you? his voice goes sharp. dark. you see it flip in his eyes like a switch â âyou wanna repeat that to me?â and suddenly the roomâs ice cold.
heâll sit in complete silence beside you while planning murder in his head. someone made you cry? he holds your hand gently, rubs circles into your palm, kisses your wrist â and behind his eyes, heâs already figured out the five best ways to ruin their life.
he keeps track of your patterns better than you do. you get headaches before rain? he brings you meds before you mention it. your trauma responses show in tiny shifts? he spots them immediately and gets you out of the room.
he might be unstable, but when it comes to protecting you â heâs the most focused man alive.
stares at your contact name before calling you, like heâs bracing himself to hear your voice. thumb hovering over the screen, eyes soft and far away. sometimes he doesnât even call. just stares. like maybe thatâs enough to survive another hour.
doesnât know how to be casual. you say âi like your shirtâ and heâll buy five more. you compliment his cologne once? he never uses another one again. every word you say means something to him.
loves when you wear his clothes a little too much. he acts all chill but inside heâs screaming. watching you walk around in his hoodie with the sleeves over your hands? ruined. he has to sit down.
he has no idea what a normal reaction is. you get a weird DM? heâs already tracking the IP address. you trip and scrape your knee? heâs acting like you got shot. âyouâre bleeding.â he mutters, completely still. âbaby, itâs a scratchââ
gets scary quiet when youâre in danger. like full military-mode, voice low and flat. grabs your hand. pulls you behind him. âstay down. donât move. donât look.â and you listen â because in that moment, heâs not your sweet clingy ben. heâs the weapon the government built.
has trauma responses built around you. youâre late? his hands start shaking. you stop responding? he spirals. he doesnât just worryâ he catastrophizes. his brain jumps to body bags. blood. everything heâs lost before.
so when you walk through the door, totally fine, he just grabs you. holds you so tight it hurts. âdonât do that to me again,â he whispers. âplease.â
doesnât forgive people who hurt you. ever. you may move on. he wonât. he keeps the memory. files it away like a grudge on ice. and if he ever gets the chance to settle the score? heâll do it without blinking.
knows all your âtiredâ cues. you yawn a certain way when youâre really worn out vs. just sleepy. you go silent when your brainâs overwhelmed. so heâll quietly turn the lights down, warm up your hoodie, and run a bath without you even asking.
obsessively keeps the place safe. deadbolts, alarms, cameras, backup flashlights, reinforced doors. not because heâs paranoid. because you live there. and nothing â nothing â is allowed to hurt you where he sleeps.
he does not know how to regulate jealousy. like. at all. you compliment someone? heâs quiet for hours. you laugh too hard at someoneâs joke? he stares them down until they suddenly remember they have somewhere else to be.
he gets clingy after. full body contact. face buried in your shoulder. wonât let go. âyou like me better, right?â you tease him and say âmaybeâŠâ his whole face drops. âdont.â
and if he sees them in public, heâs pulling you closer with a hand on your waist like mine. mine. mine.
he repeats the same three phrases every time youâre hurt. like itâs a spell: âyouâre safe.â âyou didnât do anything wrong.â âi love you so much it hurts.â
he checks in constantly. not just âare you okay?âbut âdid you eat today? do you need quiet or company? can i hold your hand right now, or just sit near you?â
thinking about hyper codependent!benjamin poindexter who cannot do anything without youâŠ
super clingy. dex follows you everywhere, and when i say everywhere, i mean⊠everywhere. if youâre going to the kitchen to get yourself a glass of water, he is there. if you leave the room to charge your phone, he is there. even if you excuse yourself to the bathroom to pee, he is there, following you around like a newborn puppy. that man has severe separation anxiety :(
not quite submissive in bed but not super dominant either. dex is more of a gentle dom service top. he wants to endear himself to you, make you in love with him; something he thinks he will only achieve by pleasing you. that is something youâve been trying to tell him is not necessaryâyou love him for who he is, and youâve been trying to tell him that no matter how he messes up, youâll still love him. that your love isnât given with conditions. every time the two of you breach this topic, he nods his pretty little head, but the words donât seem to actually reach him. itâs like dex processes these words, files them away, but doesnât take them to heart. like he is still afraid that as soon as he makes a mistake, youâll dip. but with time, with lots and lots and lots of reassurance, words of affirmation and encouragement, he will unlearn this behaviour. just be patient with him <3
dex could never hurt you during sex or initiate it, but if you were into it, he would reconsider. still, dex being dex, he would still be afraid of doing something wrong and scaring you away that he would just let you lead him in doing it. like when heâs thrusting so deep in you that your legs are shaking, and you gently intertwine your palm with the back of his hand, guiding it to your throat⊠dex wonât admit it, but it kinda really fucking turns him on.
lowkey likes watching you sleep. itâs hella creepy, he knows, and itâs why heâll always do this in secret. itâs something heâs embarrassed of, something he doesnât want you to ever find out. but heâs just so fond of your sleeping facial expressions. most of the time, he just admires the way you look during your sleep, relaxed and comfortable and entirely at peace. privately, he thinks itâs so adorable.
dex is sort of like a crow in his love. heâll rarely say the words âi love youâ, but he will shower you with gifts and buy you things that remind him of you the same way some crows bring their favourite humans trinkets. heâll dance around it, too. like when youâre coming home, you see this inconspicuous, tiny thing on the table. no note, no previous text from dex, no nothing. itâs just there. and when dex comes home, and youâve unwrapped it and are squealing with joy as you give him kisses and hugs, heâll act clueless. dropping words like, âhuh⊠hasnât that been sitting on the table since yesterday?â.
dex is no stranger to feeling alone. it is because of this that he always makes sure to check in on you. usually, when you wake up, heâs already gone, but thereâs traces of him everywhere: a little âgood morningâ note next to your bedside table or a breakfast on a plate in the kitchen, still warm and fresh. during work, he often sends you texts. itâs a common occurrence for your phone to light up with a little âpingâ during your shift, with a super dry, robotic and vaguely cryptic text like ârequesting update.â, and even though he writes like heâs drafting a professional email to his supervisor, it makes you smile. it shows you dex cares, and boy, if only you know how much he caresâthe things he would do for you.
all in all: dex is the best boyfriend ever. he comes with a lot of perks like, heâs surprisingly good at fixing stuff and repairing things, and, of course, the fact that heâs super, incredibly, out-of-this-world level handsome.
take under advisement that he requires plenty of kisses (emphasis on PLENTY!), hugs and encouragement, and youâll be good to go!
dex shoving ur face in the pillows while fucking u at ur parents house im cummminbvgggggggg
aaand he's so mean about it too. your back arched and he's disgustingly slow as he's stuffing you from behind in your old bed. right hand lost in your hair, pushing your face into the pillows so the only sound he heard is the squelch of your cunt. you wiggle your hips, urging him to go a little faster but he likes to fuck you slow. likes to see you desperate and stupid. beginning for more as if it doesn't make you cum harder when he treats you so delicately.
you notice you can feel your juices dripping down your thighs when he whispers, "baby couldn't wait to get her insides ruined until we get home, huh? you got to take what i give you now, then. before i change my mind." he threatened. you begged him to do it so he was rightfully punishing you. he never liked to fuck you in your parents house out of respect but you knew exactly how to get him into your panties.
you could only whine into the soft fabric of the cotton pillows that swallowed all of your sounds. his voice is what pushed you to the edge, your cunt feeling hotter and tighter suddenly and he decided to reach forward and play with your little clit. now you growl. "yeah honey, feels full doesn't it? you take it so good, i might just knock you up. want that?" his other hand slid in front of your mouth, lifting your head up as he set his pace faster when you started cumming. eyes rolling back, his hand tight on your mouth and you felt your body getting limb. he fucked you through it all before he would allow himself to cum inside you, filling your little cunt up.
dex knows full well you're not on birth control, but the urge to take you raw always, always plagues him. he has to have it, he has to take you whenever, however he wants. you're both careful enough and there's been no mishaps thus far...
that is until one night, dex is so so close you can feel it and without a second thought you're caging your legs around his waist, locking your ankles together and moaning so loud you're practically begging him to cum right then and there.
his brows pull together and he's gasping, taking you deeper and harder, whimpering and pawing at your legs to release him so he can cum on your pretty tummy.
but that's not what you want. you're arching your back off the mattress, panting, gripping at dex's waist. pleading eyes just begging him to fill you up.
you both know he's physically strong enough to pull away, but he's so irrevocably obsessed with you that all he can truly think about is pumping you so full of his cum you're overflowing with it. he's desperate now to fuck a baby into your belly, growling as he gives in and crowds your body with his and hitting impossibly deeper forcing you to scream his name as you come around him.
he's biting you, hard, groaning into your skin as he fills your cunt full of his cum. "this what you want, hm?" he's mumbling into your neck. "will fill you up, baby, much as you want." within minutes he's already semi-hard again and rocking into you, filthy noises echoing in your bedroom.
this was inspired by a shane maguire ask on another page awhile ago but i lowkey lost it
raw. deep. messy. wet. backwards. against the table. against the wall. against the window, infront of a mirror. on the bed. on the kitchen counter. on the couch. on the floor. in the bath.
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