As a father, there is no greater pain than watching your children grow up in fear and hardship, knowing you cannot give them the safety and comfort they deserve.
After losing our home, my family and I have experienced repeated displacement within Gaza. We are now living in extremely difficult conditions and urgently need your help for my three children.
Our tent has been damaged and is no longer suitable for living. We are suffering from insects and rodents, and just two days ago, one of my children nearly got bitten by a scorpion.
Current Progress: £154 / £2,000
Hello beautiful people around!
This is Mohamed Saraf, from London, UK. Today I'm representing o… Mohamed Tarek needs your support for H
We are trying to raise £2,000 to provide the necessary supplies and secure safer living conditions for our family.
Your support will help cover:
• Repairing and reinforcing our damaged tent.
• Providing safer living conditions.
• Food and basic necessities.
• Essential supplies for the children and our family.
Every donation, no matter how small, can make a real difference. If you are unable to donate, please consider sharing our campaign to help us reach as many people as possible.
Thank you for taking the time to read, care, and support my family. Your kindness gives us hope. 🤍
a fic where Adrian tolerates you with the rest of the 11th Street Kids who isn't his BFF Peacemaker but Earth X Adrian falls in love with you at first sight?
Adrian wonders if deep down he loves you too but definitely nope. It's just an Earth X Adrian thing. (Who arrives to your universe and attempts to take out Adrian so he can be with you)
summary: it’s ridiculous, because matt murdock is just kind. that’s who he is — kind to everyone, sweet to the elderly clients and charming to the young ones. beloved by the whole neighborhood. this smile isn’t special. you’re not special. (wc: 1.5k)
tags: f!reader, mutual pining, i keep writing flangst when i want to write smut... sigh. SUPER UNEDITED, if this has some similarities to my earlier secretary!reader blurbs that’s bc they’re branched off one mega draft… hehh ^_^;
part one of us at the end of the year
You’ve got it bad.
You sniff inwards, nose starting to drip on account of the weather. The bottom of the paper cups sting and dig into your fingers. This is a timed event, a regular one by all accounts. These coffee runs see you return to Matt’s office precisely when his cup sits empty, the faint ring of dried espresso at the bottom the only evidence of his last drink.
He’s never in peril of having to go without. Your eight months as secretary to Nelson, Murdock and Page have seen to that. Like second nature, you’ve memorized the rhythm of his days. You can have his files ready before he asks, organized exactly how he prefers: contracts first, discovery second, correspondence last. And if you’re lucky enough, his lack of vision will be enough to veil it, protect your affections for him a little longer, under the guise of simply doing your job well. All of it banked on your hope that he’s not that perceptive.
So, a losing battle.
To say you’re pushing it would be an understatement.
How else to explain the stupid, painstaking braille notes you started leaving three months ago? The first one itself cost you fifty-five minutes and a headache (not to mention one stolen slate-and-stylus set, courtesy of the rarely-opened file cabinet), fingers aching from all that gripping and punching just for five words—
Made completely worth it by the smile that had broken across his face once his fingers had finally brushed over those dots.
It’s routine now: arriving early, with coffee from the good cart or brewed yourself, and while it cools to drinking temperature on his desk (never too hot, he burns his tongue), you hunch over, punching away at whatever silly thought, whatever sweet contemplation that’s crossed your mind that morning.
Coffee machine plotting against us / Can feel it
Foggy ate all good donuts tragedy strikes NMP
Happy Friday. All done!
You’re working on today’s (Printer can smell fear / demands human sacrifice. Hire intern?) when the door opens and Matt enters, shaking snow from his dark hair. He’s early. December in New York has been merciless, of the particular wet slush kind rather than the cold, postcard-picture type you’d dreamed about as a kid, but Matt at least navigates for himself well enough to still be charming.
“Morning,” you call out, all casual-like as if your heart hadn’t just kicked into double-time.
“Morning. That fresh coffee I smell?”
“Yeah, just how you like it,” you say, quickly finishing up, and stand to smooth your shirt out, cross his office with the gathered files. To watch him hang his coat and fold his cane gives you the impression of a hot spike sinking between your brows; it’s not hard for you to superimpose apartment walls and picture frames onto the sight, imagine it domestic.
Oh, you’re so gone.
Matt luckily doesn’t notice. He inhales and groans appreciatively, much to the prickled pleasure at the back of your neck. “You’re an angel.”
“Hardly!” You set the folder down on his desk, punched-out index card included. “Um, okay, you have a meeting with a Mr. Meyer from BMP at ten, then the people from the Lust—sorry, Lutz—case are coming here to see you at two… They should have those files you requested. And Foggy wanted to go over the plan for the Gillespie deposition before noon… I left some out, but you can check the rest in the file I sent you.” All of it comes in a rush and you’re straight short for air, but still, with affected nonchalance: “Oh, and your note.”
“...My note.” With the way his fingers search the desk and find it immediately, you’d think nothing you said meant anything to him but just that. You chew on your cheek, bouncing on your toes slightly, watching as he reads. His expression softens and a huff of laughter escapes him, the smile tugging at his mouth.
“What? The printer?”
“Yup. Keeps jamming.”
“I didn’t know you had such cutthroat tendencies in you.”
“Consider it, Matt. Lots of kids out of work there looking for something to do.”
You’re backing toward the door before you can do something stupid, like stay too long. He’s still smiling, and it’s so bright and beautiful it makes you feel stripped bare.
It’s ridiculous, because Matt Murdock is just kind. That’s who he is — kind to everyone, sweet to the elderly clients and charming to the young ones. Beloved by the whole neighborhood. This smile isn’t special. You’re not special.
“Okay, then. Let me know if you need anything else,” you squeak, already fleeing.
“Wait—”
You don’t trust yourself enough to turn around.
“Thanks for the note, it’s sweet.”
Fuck fuck fuck fuckity fuck.
Heart pounding in your chest, you feel like you’re going to pass out. You should say something witty. Something light, biting. Instead, you mumble, “Okay, s’nothing,” and escape to your desk, thankful he isn’t aware of the flush creeping up your neck.
You pass Karen’s office on your way out, and she glances up with an eyebrow raised. She’s caught you staring at Matt’s office door more than once, but to her credit, she’s never said anything.
“You okay?” she asks.
“Yup! Fine!” You collapse into your chair, pulling up the planner on your screen. “Just fine.”
A printer demanding human sacrifice.
Matt can’t help smiling like an idiot far after you’ve scampered back off to your desk. He knows he shouldn’t encourage it—he knows it’s wrong or at the very least, doomed. You’ve been leaving these notes for months now; he should tell you that you don’t have to.
Exploiting his listening ability isn’t something he’s proud of but he does it all the same. Your heartbeat kicks up whenever he’s near. Call it selfish, self-centered, but Matt knows what that means. There’s a sweetness to your scent when you’re near him, warm and coaxing, and it makes him want to gather you up and just—
And just nothing. He can’t. He won’t.
Ruining good things is what he’s best at. Sweet things, of which you’re the epitome— genuine kindness.
It’s not that he’s a nihilist; in fact, he’s been more optimistic as of late. But even if it were all in good fun, all light and casual—he can’t consider the point of starting anything at all. Maybe if he were younger, he supposes, a little less scuffed and clipped by life, he would’ve risked it for a chance at something like this. But you deserve better than a life of constant lies and waiting up at night wondering if he’ll come home at all.
Still, it’s utterly endearing to him, hearing every muttered curse and frustrated sigh from you first thing in the morning as you work on the notes. You spend your lunches sometimes at your desk, just practicing, and he’s heard you prick your fingers more than once—the whispered ow, dammit—as punctuation to countless mistakes.
To tell you to stop would mean not getting these notes anymore. These little windows into your thoughts he’s intoxicated with.
So, there’s nothing else to do but be kind to you in return without crossing that line. There are no dinner reservations, no lingering touches nor confessions. He can’t covet that much. Only this: kindness, sweetness, a mirror to your own thoughtfulness, perhaps more than he should. That’s all he can do.
The coffee is perfect again, he isn’t surprised by that. Tracing the note one more time, Matt sighs and pulls open the drawer.
The card finds its place with all the others.
One way or another though, illusion must give way to reality.
It’s a Thursday. Business as usual. You’re at your desk, slate and stylus in hand, and there’s nothing clever to write. Not even anything particularly funny or interesting. The well has dried up, and your senses instead dedicate themselves to eavesdropping: the conversation is drifting from the break room, where Matt’s getting water.
“You should ask her out,” Foggy is saying. “She was into you, buddy.”
“Ah, I don’t know.”
“Come on!” You hear a thump, and recognize it for the good old-fashioned Foggy Nelson empathic gesticulating. “A, she gave you her number. B, she’s gorgeous, and B point five, she’s a lawyer, so you’d actually have stuff in common.”
A pause, then Matt laughs, soft and a little self-deprecating. “Sure. Maybe.”
“Maybe meaning you’ll actually call her or maybe meaning you’ll lose the number and pretend you never got it?”
“Meaning I’ll think about it.”
You stare down at the slate, at the empty index card holding nothing of note.
Of course.
There’s a gorgeous lawyer from a bar. Probably sophisticated, brilliant, someone who drinks wine without getting her mouth stained and talks legal jargon and doesn’t need to Google half the terms that cross her desk. Someone who fits into Matt’s world.
It’s not like you were thinking you had a chance. A girl who leaves silly notes and can barely manage basic braille.
You set down the stylus. Even many minutes later, the note sits unfinished on your desk, and you stare at it for a long moment before crumpling it up and tossing it in the trash.
Number 11 from the touch prompts with Matt, pretty please? 🥹 I love your work so much
heartstring
pairing: matt murdock x reader
summary: the doctors keep saying it’s heart failure, and all matt can think of is how your heart hasn’t failed him once. you’re the most loving girl he’s known, he contends—your heart must work just fine. (wc: 2.5k)
cw: reader has a heart condition & chronic illness. anticipatory grief. angst, mentions of possible death
a/n: thank you for the request !!!!! prompt was “linked pinkies,” sorry if this is out of left field – going through a bit of something rn so my natural response is to make matt suffer from the same thing YAY!! :DD anticipatory grief is so chic *swallows gun barrel*
Perhaps solely for your amusement, Matt says he’ll take it up with whoever acquires the hospital beds for Metro General. It’s nothing serious, but by the fervor with which he’s approaching the issue, you’d think it was a constitutional violation—that is, how these beds were clearly not designed to fit two grown adults. Even still, this has never deterred you in the past, and it hasn’t now. You and Matt are crammed shoulder to shoulder with knees bumping the railings, bodies only pushed apart just enough to make way for the pile of cards between you.
Given your habit of peeking, he’s twisted at some odd angle to shield his hand. He may say it’s “for posterity,” but you know better: he doesn’t trust you not to cheat. It’s a thoroughly correct instinct, considering you’re currently lying through your teeth—insisting for the third time that yes, of course! the Uno card you’d just slapped down was a red seven.
All-knowing, Matt tilts his head to listen to the telltale betrayal in your chest—“Uh huh,” hand sliding over the offending card itself, thumb brushing the paper where the punched braille dimples are. It only takes him a second to confirm his suspicions. “That’s funny. Because it feels like a blue five to me.”
“It’s red. You’re delusional. You’re lying.”
“So am I delusional or am I lying?”
“Both.”
He chuckles lowly and pushes the card back to you. “Sorry, sweetheart, rules are rules. Draw two.”
“Unbelievable. You’re no fun to play with.” You slam your fist down on the railing in frustration, but you’re nevertheless gracious enough to take your penalty, reluctantly picking two out from the pile. Still grumbling, you utter, “Freakin’ despot,” but if he hears it, he doesn’t deign to respond. With practiced nonchalance and his fingers loose and precise, he lays down his own card instead.
4+.
“Oh, you ABSOLUTE B—!” You cut yourself off, sputtering and far too offended to even continue. “That’s it. I’m calling Foggy. I’m gonna make him drag you back to the office. See what happens when you play hooky, Matt? You go mad with power.”
“Call Foggy? With what phone?” His grin is all teeth, and then he’s poking your side hard mercilessly, pulling breathless giggles from you so your ribs ache. Even as you’re hiccuping in the narrow space you’ve got, he keeps going until you’re laughing so hard it could kill you, and perhaps it actually might.
It’s too much all of a sudden, and the seizing sensation of your heart falling flat abruptly shoots through you. The laughter dies on your tongue, and your hand flattens instinctively over the monitors stuck to your chest. Immediately Matt goes taut with alarm, and while his hand hovers over your shoulder it doesn’t land. Afraid, you think, to find he’s made it worse. “Hey. Easy—hey. Sorry, sorry. You okay?”
But you’re already waving him off, trying to catch your breath by coughing it out. “Relax. I’m plugged up like a Christmas tree.” Tugging one wire across your gown for emphasis, you nod toward the monitor behind you. “Whole floor would’ve known by now if I was dying.”
You’re aware he deems such jokes as bad taste, being the hypocrite that he is. But before he can even start to scold you for it, the door cracks open and a nurse pokes her head in. One glance at the two of you wedged together on the mattress, cards scattered everywhere, and she exhales through her nose. She’s seen this exact scene one too many times, enough for it to be routine.
“No visitors on the bed, Counselor.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Matt says smoothly, without moving an inch.
When the door clicks shut, her muttering all the way about lawyers and stubborn patients, he listens a beat longer to the steadying patter of your heartbeat. Only then does he reach out, plucking four cards from the pile and sliding them into your hand. You let him, despite the overbearing cockiness. It’s hard to pay any real attention to whatever injustice when the sun’s slanting through the blinds, dappling his face in leopard-spots of gold and shadow, rendering you too distracted to be irritated.
Too distracted, still, when he tips his head toward you with a grin that’s all Matt, smug and boyish.
Holding his last card aloft, he says, “Uno.”
Matt doesn’t like going back to the apartment alone, but there are things to do beyond sitting and simply talking to you, however unpleasant this fact may be to him. Among these, getting a change of clothes for you. “Real coffee” for him, per your request—because you’d once literally sobbed at the thought of him choking down the gasoline/hospital vending machine swill at your expense (granted, you’d been on your period that time). Your phone. Your toothbrush, the stack of drafts you’d been working on, your dog-eared paperback. They are small things, ordinary things, proof of continuity. Proof that you’ll be back.
But screw coming back, he thinks. You should be here.
You should be on the couch, nagging him for leaving case files spread across the counter. You should be in the kitchen, heating water for tea you’ll forget about and leave steeping until it’s bitter. You should be in bed with him, tangled in the familiar comfort of his silk sheets.
Instead, the place is quiet.
“Lock it, Murdock,” you’d teased him that morning. You were leaning against the doorframe with your pinky stuck out, “Promise me you’ll be home in time for dinner.”
Some promise. Some dinner.
He tugs his tie loose ruefully, with no real bite to his frustration. It’s more his fault, really. He should have known and he did know; he’d heard something off when he left this morning, that subtle hitch in the rhythm of your heart. He let himself walk out the door anyway. Maybe if he’d stopped, insisted you call and rest and check in, maybe then you wouldn’t have collapsed in the street again. Maybe it could’ve been nothing more than a routine check-up, not another night with wires and beeping.
This line of thinking isn’t one Matt will admit he indulges in. As you’d told him before, spiraling at the expense of another’s suffering is pointless and—to put it frankly—selfish. This is not about him. There’s no point to be found in borrowing grief from the future: you’re not dying and you won’t die. You’ve lived with this your whole life; it’s part of you, manageable, just another Road Bump as you like to call it.
If someone’s going to die, it’ll be him. That’s always been the deal.
Still, the ground is sloping under him. No matter how much it may operate under the creeping guise of normalcy, it hasn’t slipped his attention how easily and more frequently these visits are fitting themselves in the pattern of your life. And before he can choke these thoughts off under the strict hand of compulsion, they always needle past his guard.
This is another alley, isn’t it?
His father, bleeding out in the dark. You, slipping away under fluorescent lights, your heart slowing to its inevitable stop. Him, standing helpless, again and again.
He could be Daredevil, he could be no one at all, and it wouldn’t matter. Lawyer, husband, sinner, saint—none of it matters. No fists to throw, no courtroom to argue in. This is the one fight he cannot win, so all he can do is hope you will.
After all, the doctors keep saying it’s heart failure, and all Matt can think of is how your heart hasn’t failed him once. You’re the most loving girl he’s known, he contends—your heart must work just fine.
There are a million possible reasons why the cocktail of new meds they’re pumping into you is refusing to sit right with the chemistry of your own body. By the time Matt comes back, it’s hit you so hard you’re curled against the rails, taking great care to look casual as you focus on the shitty, grainy cop movie flickering on the tiny TV bolted to the wall. The volume is turned so low your ears strain to hear it. Matt does not suffer from the same thing—he hears everything—and so he knows you must be scared, because the heartbeat in the room is pounding so loud he can’t even recognize it, poor thing, it’s—
It’s not your heartbeat. It’s his.
“This should’ve won Best Picture,” you rasp, lips twitching. Your voice is dry, almost to the point of boredom, though the tightness shows in every shallow draw of breath. “Siskel and Ebert, eat dust.”
“Back hurts?”
“Just a little. Chest too.” You grimace. “I’d give anything for a beer right now.”
“Sorry, not exactly doctor’s orders.” Having sat down, Matt’s hand finds your shoulder, then settles flat against the plane of your back beneath the gown. His warm palm begins moving in slow circles, up and down, pulling the pain from you so quickly it’s almost miraculous. You can’t tell if it’s the touch or just the fact that it’s him, ensconcing you with the heat of his presence. As if two opposite charges, finding comfort in Matt seems predestined, as natural as breathing.
“Cruel world,” you say. “How about tomorrow?”
“You’re still gonna be here tomorrow, sweetheart.”
“What?” You wrinkle your nose. “No, I’m not. We can’t afford another night here, Matt, they’re gonna bill you for breathing near the window.”
“Then let them. They can bill me all they want. You’re staying.”
“Oh, and we’re gonna pay for that with what money?” Between Matt’s suicidal excursions and the sabotage missions of your own body, the topic of strained finances is hardly anything new. “I’ve been through this a hundred times. I know when it’s fine.”
“It’s not—” Matt pulls his hand away, leaving the skin of your back prickling with leftover relief. That which quickly dissipates with the increasingly icy conversation. “It’s not fine,” he says, rubbing his face. “I should’ve known, okay? This is my fault.”
“Excuse me? How is this your fault?” You can’t look at him when he’s being ridiculous again, but all you find across the TV screen to distract you are fittingly dramatic explosions. “Give my dying heart some credit, Murdock. It’s working pretty hard to kill me.”
The words hang sharp between you, and you regret them immediately. You never mean for the jokes to land like knives. Matt has no sense of humor about this sort of thing, so you don’t know why you keep pressing the bruise—it just comes out, your mouth insisting on finding the sharp edges.
“Besides, I’m actually okay, you know. The hospital just has a crush on me. Can’t stop calling me back.”
Finally, finally that earns the smallest huff from him. “Ha. Well, you are very lovable.”
“…That’s it? I was kinda expecting a more reasonable response.”
“What, like?”
“Like, aren’t you going to fight the hospital for my hand?”
“Don’t I already have yours?”
Your mouth quirks. “Well, I could always leave you,” —and instantly, you regret that one too. The silence that follows is heavier than what the joke deserves, so you tack on quickly, “for the hospital, I mean.”
Matt tilts his head. For a long moment, he says nothing, and the absence of his voice makes the air so thick it burns your face. But softly, he asks at last, “Would you like me to fight them, then?”
“…I guess not,” you admit. “They are pretty nice to me.”
His adoring laugh issues a pleasant vibration across the air, a dizzying combination with his thumb that has found itself tracing back down your spine, siphoning comfort back into your body. “—Either way, just don’t leave.”
With no idea how he takes away the pain from you, the only reasonable conclusion you arrive at is that he must be your personal saint, carved by his God’s own hand for you.
“I’m not going anywhere. You should, though. Go out tonight, save someone.”
“Ah, think I’ll stay here instead.”
“Then at least catch up on work. Foggy and Karen are gonna kill you.”
“No, they’re not.” Matt smiles faintly. “They miss you.”
They miss you.
Nope. Nope. You’re not gonna start crying, not now, nope. You force a laugh and rub at your face, itching to change the subject before it can break you wide open. Sure, you are bored, aching to be anywhere else—writing, working, living. The heavier truth is that you want, as much as possible, to reduce the time in which any of them are a witness to you being pinned down by your own body. You have no desire to be a burden. And yet you don’t know what else to say that will succeed in pushing Matt out the door, Murdock stubbornness and all. You instead settle for narrating what’s happening on screen, as if this is just another movie night on the couch.
If Matt insists on staying like this, then fine—this, at least, you can give him. Being his eyes, a little proof you can still offer him something other than weight.
But while you mean to extend your commentary on the ethics of Bad Cop 2: Zero Tolerance for his own entertainment, the pain and the drugs—and the way his hands have found their way down to rub firmly into your swollen limbs—all of it drags you under, drifting into uneven sleep.
You try, you really do, but the only thing you can manage is a mumble, with drowsy sincerity: “…Do you think Brett has watched this?”
And the last thing you hear is the low rumble of his laugh as he kisses the side of your head.
Outside, the world keeps spinning: sirens, engines, shouts in the street. It is unfair to no end, how the night seems to not even have the courtesy to quiet down for your own sake. But this at least makes it clear to him, the next consequential step to the unmappable fear of it all. It may not stop for you, but perhaps for tonight, he at least can.
So Matt doesn’t move, not even when the clock ticks past midnight. He doesn’t even think of the suit waiting folded in the duffel at the foot of the bed. And when you stir again, fingers twitching and seeking him in your sleep, he slides his hand close, letting his pinky hook around yours.
Lock it, Murdock.
His back will ache in the morning, shoulders stiff from the chair, but that’s fine. That’s nothing. Because for all the unfairness of the world, there are still better days to have.
Pinkies still linked, he listens to your breathing until he finds a steady enough rhythm to follow. Issuing a sigh, Matt leans in, and lets the heavy hand of sleep pull him under, too.
(ho-mam'), (ζ) Pegasi, "the lucky star of the hero, or the whisperer."
synopsis: While watching Matt, he finds a new variable he's never seen before: you.
word count: 11.0k+
pairing: dex poindexter x fem!reader
notes: oh man oh man oh man... the first chapter of this lovely series/baby of mine, ahh i'm so nervy! i truly adore this series, so i hope people like it as much as i do! without further ado, here's the first chapter of a long journey :) and also fuck this country celebrate my fic instead of 4th of july!!!!!!
warnings/tags: no use of y/n, told from dex's pov!, stalking, mentions of St. Agnes, mentions of Doctors Without Borders, some small mentions/insinuations of reader not properly eating, yeah this is pretty much just dex stalking you lol
next chapter | series masterlist ⋆◎˚｡⋆
Dex had already been watching them long enough to know what “normal” looked like on Foggy’s face, which mostly meant loud and animated and a little too pleased with himself, especially when he was carrying a drink he didn’t need and talking like he owned the sidewalk. Karen walked like she was pretending she wasn’t looking over her shoulder, even when she wasn’t actually doing it, and she kept her bag close the way people did when they’d learned the hard way that a city took whatever you gave it. Matt was harder, not because he was mysterious, but because he was disciplined, and discipline was annoying when you were trying to predict someone who insisted on having control over every inch of himself.
Dex held still in the shadowed recess between a pharmacy window and a closed gate, a spot that gave him the whole corner without putting him in anyone’s line of sight, and the street noise did the rest of the work for him. The air smelled like roasted coffee and exhaust and someone’s perfume trailing behind them, and it made his teeth ache in that faint way that meant he was too aware of everything all at once. He watched Matt’s head angle a fraction toward Foggy’s voice, watched the cane tap a steady rhythm, and then watched Karen’s hand flick out to swat Foggy’s shoulder when he said something that made her roll her eyes.
Foggy’s voice carried clearly over the traffic, because Foggy didn’t do anything quietly. “Tell me you’re at least going to let me buy you dinner,” Foggy said, dragging the words like he was bargaining in a market. “You come back and you’re like, ‘hi, I’m here,’ and then you disappear into the lab. That’s criminal.”
Karen laughed, warm and sharp at the same time. “Foggy, you’ve known her for like five minutes again. Calm down.”
“Five minutes is all I need,” Foggy shot back. “It’s a gift.”
Matt’s mouth pulled into something that looked like a smile but didn’t reach his eyes, the kind he used when he was amused and exhausted at the same time. “It’s not a gift,” he said, mild enough that it sounded like he was humoring a child. “It’s a warning sign.”
Then Dex saw you, properly, instead of as a shape that had been there but hadn’t registered as important, and the shift hit like a sudden change in pressure.
You were walking on Matt’s right side with your arm linked through his, not pulling him, not steering him, not doing the gentle, careful guiding thing people did when they wanted to prove to themselves that they were kind, you were just there, close enough that it would have looked intimate to anyone who didn’t know better, and comfortable enough that it would have looked like habit to anyone who did. You had a tote bag slung over your shoulder, the kind that got heavier the longer someone insisted on carrying their life in paper and books, and you were talking while you walked, your head turning between Karen and Foggy like you belonged in that triangle without needing to ask permission.
Dex’s first thought was simple and sharp: she wasn’t part of the pattern.
He’d mapped the pattern; he’d watched it from rooftops and parked cars and the mirrored glass of storefronts, and he had never once seen you with them. Not with Matt, not with Foggy, not with Karen, not near the church, not near the office, not near any of the places that mattered. New faces happened, sure, but not like this, not inserted neatly into the center of the group like you’d always been there and someone had just forgotten to mention you.
You said something that made Foggy groan dramatically, and Dex narrowed his eyes, listening for the exact cadence. “You can’t just show up and declare dinner,” you told him, voice steady, amused, and not at all impressed by his performance. “I get asked questions all day by eighteen-year-olds who think mitochondria is a brand of Italian food. I’m not doing negotiations right now.”
Foggy made a wounded noise. “That’s a lie,” he said, scandalized. “No one is that stupid.”
Karen tilted her head toward you. “You’d be surprised.”
Matt’s hand shifted on the cane, not because he needed it, but because he used it like punctuation when he was choosing his words. “She’s not exaggerating,” he said, and there was something in his tone that Dex couldn’t place at first because it wasn’t flirtation and it wasn’t annoyance either—it was fond, but not soft, the way you sounded with someone you had known long enough to stop pretending.
You bumped your shoulder lightly against Matt’s, the movement small and practiced, and you didn’t let go of his arm. “Don’t team up on me,” you said. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”
“I am on your side,” Matt replied, and he said it with that calm certainty he used when he was telling the truth and didn’t feel like decorating it. “I’m also on the side of reality.”
“Traitor,” you said, but you were smiling as you said it, and Dex could hear it, not just see it.
Dex felt heat crawl up the back of his neck, the same kind he got when something didn’t line up, when a number was off in a sequence, when a shot was too easy and that meant it was a trap. You were too close to Matt, too familiar. If you were new, you weren’t acting new, and if you weren’t new, then Dex had missed you, which meant his surveillance had holes, and he didn’t tolerate holes.
He followed the line of you walking like that, like you’d done it a thousand times, like it didn’t matter that the contact would read as romantic to strangers, and he found himself focusing on Matt’s reaction instead of yours. Matt didn’t stiffen or adjust, and he didn’t do the careful thing men did when they were worried about how it looked. He simply let you keep your arm there, and he matched your pace without thinking about it.
You didn’t guide him, Matt guided you.
Dex watched the moment your foot hesitated near the curb when a cab surged past too fast, and Matt’s body angled just slightly, subtle enough that no one else would notice, putting himself between you and traffic without breaking the conversation. You didn’t even look at him when you stepped forward again, like you trusted him to handle it.
Karen glanced at you and lowered her voice, though not enough to stop Foggy from hearing because no one could stop Foggy from hearing anything. “Did you talk to your department chair?” Karen asked.
You exhaled, the sound full of tired patience. “I did,” you said. “He wants me to take on an extra section next semester because apparently being short-staffed is my problem now. I told him I’d rather chew glass.”
Foggy snapped his fingers like he’d been waiting for an opening. “Speaking of glass,” he said, brightening, “you know what fixes academic despair? Pasta. And wine. And someone else paying.”
“I knew you were going to say that,” you replied, and there was a warmth in your voice that didn’t match the way you were shooting him down. “Foggy, I’m not letting you spend money on me the first month I’m back.”
Karen’s eyebrows lifted, and she looked between you and Matt. “First month,” she repeated, like she was filing it away. “You really did just land and immediately get dragged into his gravitational field.”
Matt made a sound that could have been a laugh if he allowed himself the indulgence. “I didn’t drag her,” he said.
You squeezed his arm, not hard, but just enough that Dex could see the contact. “He absolutely did,” you said, and the way you said it didn’t sound angry. It sounded like something old between you, something that could survive teasing.
Foggy leaned closer to Karen, stage-whispering like he was sharing a secret even though he wanted everyone to hear it. “He missed her,” Foggy said.
Matt’s head turned toward Foggy with that quiet warning he did so well. “Foggy,” he said, and the name was enough to shut him up for about half a second.
You didn’t look embarrassed, and you didn’t look flattered either, you just looked… steady, like Foggy had said something obvious and you didn’t feel the need to perform a reaction for it.
Dex pressed his tongue against the back of his teeth and forced himself to keep breathing evenly, because his instincts wanted movement and closeness, and for him to cross the street and get a better look at you without relying on distance. He didn’t do it; he stayed in the shadow and watched like he always did, because watching kept him clean, calm, and in control.
You were still talking, and Dex focused on details that mattered because details were how you turned a person into something manageable. Your posture was relaxed, but not careless. Your eyes scanned without looking paranoid, like you’d trained yourself to be aware without letting it eat you alive. Your hands moved when you spoke, not wildly, but precisely, and when you adjusted the strap of your tote bag, you did it the same way twice, like you had habits that repeated without you thinking about them.
Habits were useful. Patterns were comforting.
Dex’s gaze went back to your linked arms, and he caught himself calculating the angle of Matt’s wrist, the point where your elbow rested against his forearm, how easy it would be to separate you if he wanted to. The thought came automatically, a reflex, and it didn’t make him feel better.
Karen stopped walking and pointed across the street. “There,” she said. “The place with the ridiculous pastries.”
Foggy made a noise of immediate approval. “Finally,” he said. “A woman with taste.”
You tilted your head. “I’m not eating a pastry the size of my face.”
“You’re absolutely eating a pastry the size of your face,” Karen replied, and she started walking again with purpose.
Matt shifted with the group, and as he did, he let his cane sweep forward, not searching, not needing it, just letting it exist. Dex’s jaw tightened at the sight, because the cane was part of a performance and Dex hated performances that worked.
You tightened your link for a second as you stepped off the curb, and Matt’s hand rose a fraction like he was bracing for you to tug, but you didn’t. You moved with him as though you’d learned the rhythm years ago and never forgot it. He could read enough from the way you moved and the way Matt’s shoulders eased when you were close. He could also read enough from Foggy’s familiarity and Karen’s tone. You weren’t a date or a new girlfriend, and you weren’t a fling. You were something that had existed before Dex started watching, which meant Dex had been late and he hated being late.
Foggy kept talking as they crossed, voice loud enough to bounce off the building fronts. “Okay, okay,” he said, “here’s the deal: pastry now, dinner later, and you can’t say no because I’m invoking the sacred law of ‘I missed you.’”
You laughed, a real laugh, not the polite one people used when they wanted to keep someone happy. “You can’t invoke laws you made up,” you told him.
Foggy spread his hands like he was presenting evidence. “Watch me.”
Karen looked over her shoulder at you again, something cautious behind her eyes that Dex couldn’t place, and her voice softened. “Are you okay, though?” she asked, quieter than before. “Really. Being back.”
You didn’t answer immediately, and Dex watched the pause like it mattered. Then you said, “yeah,” and the word wasn’t light, but it was honest. “I’m okay. It’s just… weird. Everything feels the same and different at the same time, like the city kept moving without me.”
Matt’s expression changed, small but visible, and Dex saw that he wanted to say something that wasn’t meant for the sidewalk. “It did,” Matt said carefully, “but you’re here now.”
Your fingers flexed where they rested on his arm. “Yeah,” you said again, and this time you sounded steadier. “I’m here.”
They reached the pastry shop, and Foggy immediately began arguing with the person behind the counter about how many pastries were “reasonable” for four people, which was not a real argument because Foggy didn’t believe in reasonable. Karen leaned in closer to you while Matt turned his head slightly, listening, but not inserting himself, and Dex watched you in that warm indoor light spilling onto the sidewalk.
You looked like you belonged with them, and Dex couldn’t stop the irritation from settling deeper, because belonging was something you earned, and you hadn’t earned it in Dex’s eyes, not yet. You had simply arrived and taken up space at Matt Murdock’s side like it was yours by right.
Dex stayed where he was, half-hidden, and let himself watch longer than he meant to, because the sight of you next to Matt made something in his chest tighten in a way he didn’t like. The feeling wasn’t clean enough to name quickly, and Dex didn’t tolerate unnamed things.
Foggy’s voice burst out again, triumphant. “Two boxes,” he declared. “One savory, one sweet. I’m a genius.”
Karen rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “You’re going to regret that.”
“I regret nothing,” Foggy said, then glanced at Matt. “Matt, back me up.”
Matt didn’t even pretend. “I’m not getting involved,” he said, and he angled his head toward you. “You tell him.”
You looked at Foggy, then at Karen, then back at Foggy, and Dex watched your mouth curve. “You’re going to regret that,” you told him, repeating Karen’s line with perfect timing.
Foggy clutched his chest dramatically. “Betrayal,” he said, but he was laughing too.
Dex’s eyes narrowed, and he memorized the way you smiled, not because he cared about smiles, but because it was another data point, another piece of you he could file away. He was already building a schedule in his head, already imagining where you’d go after this, already thinking about what it meant that you were “back” and that you hadn’t been here before.
He didn’t move when the group turned away from the shop, pastries in hand, heading down the block with the lazy ease of people who thought the day belonged to them. He waited until they were far enough that the crowd swallowed them again, and then he stepped out of the shadow, crossing the street with the flow of pedestrians like he’d never been there at all.
Dex looked in the direction you’d gone, and he set his mind to the new problem you represented, because a new variable demanded attention, and Dex never did well with anything he couldn’t account for.
---
Dex picked a different spot the next week because the city punished anyone who got lazy, and he wasn’t in the mood to be punished for something stupid like repeating himself. He stayed across the avenue this time, tucked into the mouth of an alley that smelled like old garbage and rain-soaked cardboard, with a clear view of the sidewalk and the building entrances Matt used when he wanted to avoid being seen. People moved around Dex without noticing him because people always did, and he watched their faces slide past like they were part of the background, because they were.
Matt showed up alone at first, cane in hand, suit jacket open, moving like he had somewhere to be and time to waste at the same time. Dex tracked him without shifting his weight, kept his eyes loose, let the traffic lights and passing buses break sightlines so he didn’t look like he was staring when anyone glanced his way. Matt’s head tilted toward the street as though he was listening for something particular, and Dex knew what he was doing even if nobody else did, because Matt never stopped measuring the world.
You came out of a building entrance a minute later, tote bag on one shoulder and a paper cup in your hand, and Dex felt the immediate, familiar jolt of irritation when your arm slipped through Matt’s again like it was the most natural thing in the world. You didn’t ask permission; you didn’t even hesitate. You moved into his space like you belonged there, and Matt didn’t move away.
“I’m telling you, you’re going to hate it,” you said, voice clear enough to carry between the cars. “It’s not a big deal until the week you realize you’ve spent three days straight explaining the same concept to people who are absolutely committed to misunderstanding you.”
Matt’s mouth curved in that restrained way it always did when he was amused but refusing to show too much of it. “That sounds like being a lawyer,” he said, and the words came out easy, like he was comfortable.
“You don’t have to deal with pre-med students,” you shot back, and the edge in your voice wasn’t anger. It was affection, which was worse, because it meant you’d earned the right to be sharp without it turning into a fight. “They’re relentless. They’re convinced every question is a trick question designed to ruin their lives.”
Matt angled his head toward you, and Dex caught the shift in his posture, like he was checking in without making it obvious. “Are you sure you’re not projecting a little?” Matt asked.
“I’m not projecting,” you said immediately, and then you added, “okay, maybe I’m projecting, but it’s justified. One of them asked me if bacteria are basically, like, tiny animals that want to be people.”
Matt let out a breath that could have been a laugh if he didn’t keep everything so controlled. “They said that to your face?”
“Worse, they said it with confidence,” you replied, and Dex watched you gesture with your coffee cup, careful not to spill. “They said it like they were waiting for me to congratulate them on being brave.”
Matt’s cane tapped the pavement, steady and deliberate, and Dex noticed the way it never caught on cracks, the way it never searched, the way it existed as a signal more than a tool. Your arm stayed linked through his, and the contact looked close enough that strangers would read it wrong, but your body wasn’t angled toward him the way lovers did when they wanted more space than the sidewalk gave them. You were facing forward, matching his pace, letting him set the rhythm.
A delivery truck rolled up too close to the curb, engine rattling, and you slowed half a beat because the sound and the bulk of it made you hesitate. Matt stepped first without any visible pause, not dragging you, not pulling you, just moving like the street belonged to him, and you followed his lead without thinking. Dex watched that exchange, watched the way Matt’s shoulder shifted, subtly, blocking you from the vehicle’s path as it edged forward, and you didn’t even glance at him like you needed reassurance.
“You’re doing it again,” Matt said, and he didn’t raise his voice, but Dex heard the change in it anyway.
“Doing what?” you asked, and your tone went lighter, like you already knew what he meant and wanted him to say it.
“You’re skipping breakfast,” Matt said, and the simple statement landed like it had a history behind it.
You made an offended noise. “I had coffee,” you replied.
“That’s not breakfast,” Matt said, and Dex couldn’t tell if he sounded annoyed or protective, but he knew it wasn’t flirtation. It didn’t have the softness of that, instead it had the steadiness of someone who was used to being responsible.
“I had a granola bar at like… nine,” you argued, and you sounded like you were smiling while you lied.
Matt didn’t even pretend to be fooled. “That’s not breakfast either.”
“Since when did you get so bossy?” you asked, and Dex watched you tilt your head as if you were trying to look at him directly even though you knew you couldn’t really catch his eyes the way you wanted.
Matt kept walking, unbothered. “Since you moved back and started pretending you can run on caffeine and stubbornness,” he said.
You clicked your tongue and squeezed his arm, quick and familiar, the kind of touch people didn’t do unless they’d done it a hundred times before. “You missed me,” you said, and it came out like an accusation and a joke at the same time.
Matt didn’t answer right away, and Dex saw the pause, saw the way his jaw tightened for a second like he’d swallowed something he hadn’t meant to. “Yeah,” Matt said finally, and it was quiet enough that the traffic should’ve eaten it. It didn’t. “I did.”
You didn’t make a big deal out of it, which was almost worse than if you had. You just nodded once, like he’d confirmed something you already knew, and you kept walking with him like that simple admission didn’t matter, like it wasn’t weighty, like it didn’t give you any kind of leverage. Dex hated that, too, because it meant the connection between you wasn’t fragile.
A group of college kids shoved past in a cluster, laughing too loudly, and you and Matt shifted without speaking, letting them flow around you. Dex tracked the movement automatically, noting how Matt angled his body again so the crowd would hit him first if it came to that, and you didn’t even notice you were being protected. You trusted the street because you trusted him, and Dex kept staring until the angle forced him to move if he wanted to keep you and Matt in sight.
Two days later he saw you with Foggy, and the difference in energy was obvious before Foggy even sat down. Foggy was louder in daylight, like he thought being seen was a human right, and he took up more room than the chair gave him by sheer force of personality. The place was a little café near campus with too many students and not enough space, and Dex stayed outside, just far enough that no one would clock him as a loiterer, close enough that he could hear through the half-open window when it mattered.
Foggy leaned forward over the table, elbows wide, talking with his hands like he was trying to physically convince you of something. “I’m just saying, it’s criminal that you’re back and you haven’t come to the office,” he insisted. “Like, I get it, you’re busy, you’ve got your fancy professor schedule, whatever. I’m not jealous, I’m not, but Matt is acting like a kicked puppy.”
You snorted, and Dex saw you rub your forehead with two fingers, like Foggy was giving you a headache you’d had before. “Matt isn’t acting like a kicked puppy,” you said. “Matt is acting like Matt.”
Foggy pointed at you like you’d personally betrayed him. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” he said, and his voice lifted, drawing a few annoyed looks from nearby tables that he ignored completely. “You say that like it’s normal, but it’s not normal. He’s sitting there being all… all stoic and quiet, and then I bring you up and suddenly he’s doing this thing where he—”
Foggy stopped mid-sentence and waved both hands in front of his own face, as if mimicking Matt’s expression could explain it. “He does that face,” Foggy finished, frustrated. “That ‘I’m fine’ face that is not fine, y’know that face.”
You leaned back in your chair, and the way you looked at Foggy wasn’t indulgent the way Karen looked at him sometimes. It was direct, familiar, and slightly unimpressed. “Foggy,” you said, “I’ve known him since I was ten, he has had the ‘I’m fine’ face for most of his life.”
Foggy’s mouth fell open. “Okay, yeah, sure, but still,” he said, and Dex watched him grab his drink, then set it down again like he couldn’t sit still. “You can’t just waltz back into the city and not let us see you. Karen’s been weird about it too.”
Your posture changed at Karen’s name, not dramatically, but enough that Dex clocked it. “Weird how?” you asked.
Foggy hesitated, and for once he looked like he was choosing his words. “Not bad weird,” he said quickly. “Just… careful. Like she’s worried you’re going to vanish again. Which, honestly, fair. You did vanish.”
You stared at your cup for a second, thumb tracing the cardboard edge, and then you exhaled. “Doctors Without Borders isn’t exactly a nine-to-five,” you said, and Dex couldn’t hear pain in your voice, but he heard the weight of it, the kind of fatigue that came from living in a place where danger was normal. “I didn’t vanish because I wanted to. I just… didn’t have the kind of life where you can pop back for brunch.”
Foggy’s face softened in a way Dex didn’t like on him, because it meant Foggy was capable of seriousness, which was inconvenient. “I know,” Foggy said quietly, and he didn’t joke for a whole two seconds. “I’m not mad. I just missed you.”
You blinked at him like you didn’t know what to do with sincerity from him. “Yeah,” you said, a little awkwardly. “I missed you too.”
Foggy immediately seized the emotional high ground like it was a weapon. “Great,” he said, brightening. “So you’re coming to dinner Sunday. I’ll cook.”
“You can’t cook,” you replied.
Foggy slapped his hand to his chest again, dramatic as ever. “I can cook,” he insisted. “I cooked in college.”
“You cooked frozen pizza in college,” you corrected, and Dex watched you smile, small and genuine.
Foggy jabbed a finger at you. “That counts,” he declared. “Also, you owe me. I have been carrying Matt’s emotional baggage for years.”
You gave him a look, and Dex could practically feel the history in it. “That’s not a real thing,” you said. “And you love it.”
Foggy grinned, shameless. “I do love it,” he admitted. “But that’s not the point.”
Dex stayed outside long enough to see you stand when lunch ended, long enough to watch Foggy hug you without it looking like he was trying to make a point. It was quick, familiar, and brotherly in a way that didn’t match Dex’s first assumption about you, and Dex walked away before the two of you came out onto the sidewalk because he didn’t like the way his brain wanted to label what he’d just seen.
Later in the week he found you with Karen, and that took more effort because Karen didn’t move like Foggy; Karen blended when she wanted to, and she chose places where the light was low and the door was close, and Dex had to stay two blocks away and shift angles twice before he got a clean view through the bar’s front window.
You were sitting across from her with a drink that looked untouched, and Karen was talking with both hands wrapped around her glass like she needed something solid. Your face was turned toward her fully, not distracted, not scanning the room the way Karen kept doing, and Dex watched you nod slowly, taking in whatever Karen was saying without interrupting.
Karen’s voice didn’t carry as well through the glass, but Dex caught pieces when the door opened and a gust of noise spilled out. “—not the same,” Karen said at one point, the words clipped and tense. “Sometimes I think it never will be.”
You said something back that Dex didn’t hear, and Karen’s shoulders dropped a fraction, like she’d been holding herself too tight. She shook her head once, and her mouth twisted the way it did when she was trying not to let emotion show too much. You reached across the table and touched her wrist, not lingering, just contact for a second, and Karen’s eyes closed briefly like she’d been waiting to feel something simple and human.
“You don’t have to do that,” Karen said, louder this time, and Dex caught it clearly when someone walked out past the window. “You don’t have to take care of everyone.”
You leaned back, and Dex saw you tilt your head, expression dry even from a distance. “Says the woman who will literally bleed before she asks for help,” you replied, and your tone wasn’t cruel, it was the same steady bluntness Dex had heard from you with Foggy and Matt, like you didn’t do delicacy when honesty would work better.
Karen let out a humorless laugh. “Fair,” she admitted, and then she looked at you like she was trying to understand you. “Do you ever regret coming back?”
You didn’t answer immediately. Dex watched you lift your glass, take a slow sip, then set it down carefully. “No,” you said, and the word was even, not dramatic. “I regret leaving the way I did, sometimes, but I don’t regret coming back.”
Karen’s eyes stayed on you. “Matt’s happy you’re here,” she said, and the way she said it made it sound like she was testing a truth.
You huffed out a quiet laugh, like you were trying not to be affected by it. “Matt doesn’t do happy,” you replied.
Karen’s mouth lifted, small. “He does,” she said, and then she added, “not often, not loudly. But he does.”
You looked down at your hands for a second, and Dex saw you roll your thumb over the edge of your glass the way some people did when they were thinking. “Okay,” you said, and you sounded like you were accepting the statement more than agreeing with it. “I’ll take your word for it.”
Karen leaned forward, elbows on the table now, voice dropping again. Dex couldn’t hear what she said, but he saw the shift in your posture, the way you went still for a beat, and then you nodded once, sharply, like she’d told you something you didn’t like but needed to know. When you answered, Karen’s expression changed, relief mixing with something more complicated, and Dex watched the two of you sit there for another long stretch, talking like the noise of the bar didn’t exist.
Dex left before you did, because he didn’t like standing in one place for too long, and he didn’t like the way his attention had started to stick. He’d meant to watch Matt and his orbit, but now he was spending days tracking where you went and who you met, and he didn’t have a clean reason for it that would satisfy anyone who asked. He told himself it was still about Matt, because everything came back to Matt, but the truth was that he kept finding you even when Matt wasn’t there, and that was becoming its own pattern.
When he saw you again with Matt the following weekend, arm linked through his while you talked over the top of the crowd like you weren’t afraid of the city at all, Dex stayed far enough away that he could pretend it didn’t matter. He watched anyway, not because he had to, but because the question of you didn’t sit right in his head, and Dex had never been good at leaving questions unanswered.
---
Dex didn’t go back to the same places he’d watched you in, not right away, because repeating patterns got people noticed and noticed got people caught. He picked a public library two neighborhoods over, one of those old branches that smelled like carpet cleaner and paper dust, where nobody looked twice at a man with a hoodie and a cheap pair of glasses sitting at a computer terminal. The librarians were busy shushing teenagers and directing tourists, and the security guard by the entrance spent more time staring at his phone than at anyone who walked in, which was exactly the kind of negligence Dex preferred.
He logged on with a guest pass and the screen threw a pale glow across his knuckles, and he kept his posture loose, bored-looking, like he was killing time between errands. People believed boredom more readily than intensity, and Dex had learned that long before he ever wore a badge.
A man two computers down muttered at the screen, volume creeping upward as his frustration grew. “Why do they make it like this?” he complained, tapping the keyboard like it had personally insulted him. “I just want to print the damn form.”
Dex didn’t look over at him, but he spoke anyway, casual enough that it sounded like he was being helpful by accident. “You have to click ‘print options’ first,” Dex said. “Then pick ‘black and white.’ Otherwise it tries to send it somewhere else.”
The man stared, then did what Dex said, and the printer whirred a second later. “Oh,” the man said, a little embarrassed. “Thanks. Sorry, I’m not good with this stuff.”
Dex kept his eyes on his screen. “Yeah,” he replied, and the conversation died the way Dex liked conversations to die.
He searched you the way he searched everything, starting with the obvious and moving into the layers people thought were private. Columbia’s public-facing faculty directory gave him enough to start, not everything, but a clean outline that matched what he’d already seen. Biology department, faculty page, office location, office hours that weren’t really office hours because professors never stuck to their posted schedules unless they were terrified of their students. He clicked through the publications list and scanned titles without reading the full abstracts, because the details of your research weren’t the point yet, but the pattern of your mind was.
When he pulled up a CV, he didn’t smile, but something in his face settled, the way it did when chaos resolved into something catalogable. Degrees, institutions, dates, fellowships, field placements, then a stretch of years where the academic timeline was interrupted by work that had its own documentation. Doctors Without Borders didn’t advertise their staff like celebrities, but they left traces, the kind that existed because bureaucracies couldn’t help themselves.
He found a mention in a newsletter, a bland little paragraph about a field team and a project, and he clicked through the archived PDF without changing his expression. He read your name in a list, then read it again in a different format, then found a photo that had been uploaded with low resolution and worse lighting. You were standing in a cluster of people in front of a tarp-covered structure, sleeves rolled up, face sun-tired but steady. It wasn’t the kind of picture meant to show beauty, but it showed something else Dex cared about more, which was that you looked like you were used to holding your ground.
A teenage girl at the next station leaned too far back in her chair and bumped Dex’s elbow with hers, not hard, but enough to break the rhythm. “Sorry,” she said quickly, eyes wide, like she expected him to yell.
Dex kept his shoulders relaxed. “It’s fine,” he said, voice even.
She nodded, then returned to her screen, and Dex waited until she was fully absorbed again before he continued. He didn’t like interruptions, but he didn’t like attention even more, and attention was what you got when you acted like something mattered too much.
He opened another tab and searched your name alongside “St. Agnes,” then watched as the search engine offered him a handful of irrelevant results, a couple of archived charity posts, and one old article about an old fundraiser at the orphanage. Dex clicked anyway, because sometimes the useless links contained the right names, and names were handles you could grab.
The article didn’t mention you, but it mentioned a nun by name, and that name led to a small obituary on a church website, and that obituary linked to a memorial guestbook full of polite comments from people who’d once been children under her care. Dex scrolled until he found a line that made him stop, because it used your full name and referenced “the kids who came through together,” and it sat there on the screen like a breadcrumb someone had dropped without realizing what it was worth.
He read the comment twice, then copied the name of the commenter into a new search.
That line took him to a LinkedIn profile that still had a headshot from ten years ago and a job title that sounded too important for a person who typed in short, blunt sentences. The profile listed volunteer work at St. Agnes, years ago, and a current position with a nonprofit in the city that handled youth services and adoption placement support. Dex stared at that for a moment, then sat back slightly, not because he was thinking in circles, but because he was deciding which angle was cleanest.
He didn’t call from his phone—he never called from his phone when he didn’t have to. He walked out of the library and down the block, bought a cheap burner from a bodega that didn’t care who you were as long as your cash didn’t stick together, then went back inside the library and sat at a different computer so no one could place his face to the call if they reviewed camera footage later.
When he dialed, he pitched his voice slightly higher, a touch more clipped, like he was a hurried assistant who didn’t have time to be friendly. He waited through two rings, then three, then four, and he didn’t fidget when the line clicked.
“Family Connections, this is Marla,” a woman’s voice answered, weary but professional. “How can I help you?”
Dex kept his eyes on the screen, not because he needed it, but because it kept him steady. “Hi, I’m calling on behalf of Columbia University,” he said, and he made the words sound like they had authority without sounding like he cared. “We’re updating background verification for faculty records and I’m missing a piece related to St. Agnes. I’m trying to confirm dates of residence for a former minor. I have a full name and approximate years.”
There was a pause, not suspicion yet, but caution. “We don’t give out personal information over the phone,” Marla said, and Dex heard the practiced firmness.
Dex didn’t push immediately, he let the silence breathe just long enough to sound mildly annoyed, like he dealt with rules all day and hated them. “I get that,” he said. “I’m not asking for address history or placement notes. I just need confirmation of whether the person was in residence, because the university is cross-referencing for a scholarship record tied to alumni outreach, and the file is incomplete.”
“Alumni outreach?” Marla repeated, and her skepticism softened into confusion.
Dex made a small sound of impatience, like he wished she’d keep up. “The orphanage had a fund,” he said. “There’s an endowment that was used for education grants and I’m trying to confirm eligibility for a donor report. It’s routine.”
Marla exhaled, and Dex imagined her rubbing her forehead the way people did when they were tired. “What’s the name?” she asked, and her voice lowered, like she knew she shouldn’t be asking and did it anyway.
Dex gave it to her, clean and steady, and he listened as she typed. He didn’t move a muscle while she searched, because movement made noise and noise made people look up, and Dex didn’t want the librarian noticing him mid-call.
After a moment, Marla said, “I can’t confirm anything without written consent,” and then, as if she couldn’t help herself, she added, “but… if it’s who I think it is, yes, they were.”
Dex didn’t thank her, thanking made you memorable. He kept it transactional. “I’ll send an email request through official channels,” he said, like he intended to, and then he ended the call before she could reconsider.
He never sent an email request.
Instead, he woke the computer up and pulled your Columbia page again, then opened the archived alumni database he’d already accessed once years ago while tracking someone else. Universities kept records like religious texts, and once you knew where the rot was in their systems, you could slide through the cracks without even trying too hard. He searched by graduation year ranges that matched Matt and Foggy’s, then narrowed to the same program clusters, because people who grew up together tended to move in parallel even when they swore they wouldn’t.
Your name popped up with an old email address attached—a dormant one—and a line noting your undergraduate advisor. Dex clicked the advisor’s profile and scanned it, then opened another tab and searched the advisor’s last name with “St. Agnes” just to see if there was an overlap.
There wasn’t, but the advisor had published an article years ago about trauma-informed teaching methods for students with unstable childhood backgrounds. The acknowledgments section included a list of students who’d participated in a pilot program, and your name was there, along with Matt’s, which made Dex’s jaw tighten for a second because it confirmed something he’d already suspected but didn’t like seeing in print.
He stared at Matt’s name next to yours, then closed the tab, because he wasn’t here to think about Matt, not right now.
He was here to confirm where you fit, and the pieces were fitting too neatly.
Dex left the library after another half hour, not because he was finished, but because he’d pulled enough to move the work into the physical world, and he preferred the physical world. The digital traces were useful, but bodies were more honest; schedules more reliable when you watched them in person.
He went to Columbia the next day, not on your block, not near your building, but close enough to see the rhythms around it. He wore a cap and a jacket that didn’t fit him perfectly, because perfect fit drew eyes, and he kept his hands in his pockets like he was just another guy passing through campus to get somewhere else.
Outside a biology building, two students stood smoking, their backpacks slung low, and Dex slowed just enough to catch their conversation. “I’m telling you, she’s brutal,” one of them complained. “Like… she doesn’t even care if you’re dying, she’ll just stare at you like you’re a specimen.”
The other student snorted. “That’s not brutal,” she replied. “That’s fair, if you’re wrong, you’re wrong. She’s not gonna coddle you.”
The first student rolled his eyes. “You like her,” he accused.
“I respect her,” the second corrected, and her tone made it clear that the distinction mattered. “Also she brought donuts once, so she’s not a monster.”
Dex kept walking, but he filed that away, because it meant you weren’t a ghost here. You were known, you had a reputation, and you were consistent enough that students complained in predictable ways, and predictable meant trackable.
He moved to a bench across from a coffee cart, bought nothing, and waited.
You came out of the building an hour later with two graduate students trailing behind you, both talking too fast, both trying to impress you by throwing jargon into the air like confetti. You listened without looking rushed, but your stride was purposeful, and when one of them said something incorrect, you didn’t correct it gently, you corrected it precisely, with enough firmness that it wouldn’t happen again, and Dex felt his shoulders ease in a way he didn’t notice until afterward.
You stopped at the coffee cart, and the vendor greeted you like you were a regular. “Hey, Doc,” the vendor said, cheerful. “Same thing?”
You nodded, already reaching for your wallet. “Yeah,” you replied. “And if you have anything with actual protein in it today, I’ll take it, because I forgot to eat again.”
One of your grad students made a small, scandalized sound. “You always forget to eat,” he said, as if it was personally offensive.
You glanced at him, expression dry. “And you always forget to label your samples,” you shot back, and there was no malice in it, just the familiar bluntness of someone who cared enough to be annoying.
The vendor handed you your coffee, then slid a wrapped sandwich toward you. “On the house,” he said. “You look like you’re about to fight Thor.”
You huffed a laugh, and Dex watched it like it was evidence. “That’s just my face,” you replied, then you added, “but thank you.”
You turned, sandwich tucked under your arm, coffee in hand, and Dex watched you walk away with the two students still trying to keep up. Your pace didn’t slow for them, they had to match you, which meant you were used to leading without apologizing for it.
Dex followed at a distance, not close enough to be seen, but close enough to stay locked to you. He watched you split off toward another building, watched the grad students peel away toward a lab entrance, and watched you pause at the crosswalk when the light changed. A car rolled through the intersection too fast, and you didn’t flinch, but you did shift your weight slightly back from the curb, and Dex noted it because it was a small precaution that suggested you were more aware than you looked.
He didn’t approach you, and he didn’t want to yet. He wanted the last piece, the one that would explain how you could slip so naturally into Matt’s world without anyone having to introduce you.
That piece wasn’t at Columbia, that piece was at St. Agnes, even if St. Agnes wasn’t what it used to be.
Dex went there the following evening, when the streetlights were on and the building’s new facade tried too hard to look clean. Dex walked past the entrance like he belonged, because he did belong anywhere he decided to belong.
Inside, the church was quiet. A receptionist sat behind a desk with a mug that said “Be Kind,” and Dex almost laughed at it, but he didn’t. He leaned in slightly, polite in the way that got people to answer questions quickly.
“Hi,” Dex said. “I’m looking for someone who used to live at the orphanage. I’m helping coordinate an alumni event, and I was told there might still be a contact list.”
The receptionist brightened, because people loved feeling useful. “Oh,” she said, eager, “that’s sweet. I wasn’t here then, but we do have a couple of volunteers who were. Are you looking for Sister Maggie?”
Dex kept his expression neutral, interested but not too interested. “Possibly,” he said. “I’m also looking for someone named Marla, last name unknown. She used to coordinate records for placements.”
The receptionist frowned, thinking. “Marla,” she repeated. “I think she still comes in once a week for the youth program, actually. She’s here on Tuesdays.”
Dex checked the day in his head and adjusted without showing it. “Tuesday works,” he said, smooth. “What time is she usually here?”
“Late afternoon,” the receptionist replied. “Around four, sometimes five.”
Dex nodded like that was perfect, because it was. “Great,” he said. “I’ll come back. Thanks.”
He didn’t leave immediately, he walked deeper into the building like he was looking for a posted flyer, and he found a bulletin board with old photos pinned under a title that read “Our History.” There were black-and-white shots of children in uniform clothes, nuns lined up with forced smiles, then later color photos of renovation work, smiling donors, and ribbon cuttings. Dex scanned faces the way he always did, fast and ruthless, then stopped when he saw a group photo with a caption that included a year that matched your timeline.
The picture was grainy, but he could make out a boy near the back with a familiar posture, shoulders squared too young, jaw set like he’d already decided the world wasn’t safe. Matt Murdock, years before he became something else, was still Matt, and Dex stared long enough to feel irritation prick behind his eyes.
Then his gaze slid left, and he found you, smaller, younger, expression stubborn in a way that looked almost like a scowl. You were standing near Matt, not pressed against him, but close, a proximity that wasn’t accidental. You weren’t smiling at the camera, but you weren’t afraid of it either, and Dex took the image in like he’d been handed proof of something that had been bothering him.
A voice behind him interrupted, and Dex didn’t flinch because flinching was weakness. “Can I help you?” an older man asked, cautious.
Dex turned with a polite half-smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Just looking at the history board,” he said. “My uncle grew up here. I didn’t realize they kept photos.”
The older man relaxed slightly, sympathy landing on his face. “Yeah,” he said. “We try. People came through here with nothing. It mattered. It still matters.”
Dex nodded like he agreed. “Do you know if any of them come back?” he asked, casual. “Like, the kids from back then. Alumni.”
The older man shrugged. “Some do,” he said. “Not a ton. Life gets complicated.”
Dex let that sit, then asked, “Did you know a girl who went by—” and he said your name carefully, like he was testing whether it would spark recognition.
The older man’s eyebrows lifted. “Oh,” he said, and the recognition was immediate. “Yeah, I remember her. Smart kid. Tough. She came back years ago to donate books, and then she was gone again. She came by recently, though, a month back. I think she was looking for Father Lantom’s grave.”
Dex kept his face smooth, but his attention sharpened. “She’s back in the city?” he asked, as if he hadn’t known.
“Seems like it,” the older man replied. “She’s a professor now, I heard. Good for her.”
Dex nodded again, thanked him, and left with the calm of someone who wasn’t burning a hole through the inside of his own skull. Outside, the air felt colder than it had a minute ago, or maybe Dex was just more aware of his skin, of the tightness in his hands, of the way the pieces had clicked together so cleanly it almost felt like an insult.
You weren’t new. You’d always been there.
Dex had missed you because you’d been gone, and now you were back, and you had slipped into Matt’s orbit like a key sliding into a lock that had been waiting for it.
He walked away from the building without looking back, already thinking about Tuesday at four, already thinking about how easy it would be to get more records if he wanted them, and already thinking about the fact that this wasn’t just about Matt’s friends from law school, this was older than that, deeper than that, and that meant your connection to Matt was harder to break than Dex had assumed when he first saw your arm linked through his.
Dex didn’t like being wrong, and he didn’t like problems that required patience, but he adjusted anyway, because adjusting was what kept him alive.
---
Dex started carrying a small notebook again, the kind that looked like it belonged to anyone with a job and a commute, the kind people wouldn’t remember if they saw it in his hand while he waited for a light to change. He didn’t write in it like someone journaling their feelings, because that wasn’t what it was for, and he didn’t write in it like he was building a case file either, because case files had names and signatures and consequences. He wrote in it the way you wrote down a route you didn’t want to forget, quick marks and times and details that mattered, and then he closed it and put it away like it was nothing.
On Monday morning he got to the subway before you did, because arriving first meant he could choose a spot that gave him the best angle without having to shuffle around once you were there. He kept his hood down and his face neutral, and he stood with his shoulder near a support column where he could see the stairs and the turnstiles at the same time. People hurried past him with their coffee and their headphones and their purposeful little frowns, and none of them looked at him long enough to remember him later.
You came down the stairs with a tote bag that looked heavier than it should’ve been, phone pressed to your ear while you talked like you were already tired and still somehow making space to be patient anyway. Dex watched you weave through bodies without touching anyone, as if you had learned how to move in crowds without letting the crowd claim you.
“I know,” you said into the phone, and your tone had that careful steadiness that meant you were trying not to snap. “No, I know that’s what you want, but that’s not what you’re asking. You’re asking me to sign off on a timeline that’s unrealistic and then you’ll act surprised when it blows up.”
Whoever was on the other end spoke fast enough that Dex couldn’t catch words, but you answered like you were used to this kind of argument. You stopped near the edge of the platform, looked down the tunnel, then adjusted your stance back a few inches when a gust of air rolled through. “I’m not saying no,” you continued, calm but firm. “I’m saying if you want the results you’re asking for, you either give me more people or you give me more time. You don’t get both for free.”
The train screamed into the station, and you stepped on with the same timing you always used, not rushing, not hesitating, but just letting the chaos happen around you while you stayed in the middle of it like a fixed point. Dex stepped into a different car, not far from yours, but close enough to track you through the windows when the train curved. You didn’t sit, even when a seat opened up, and Dex noted it because it wasn’t about fatigue, it was about control.
When you got off at your stop you ended the call and immediately started typing, thumbs moving quickly, expression set in a way that looked like you were already planning your next three hours. Dex followed at a distance through the surge of students and commuters, watching the point where the crowd thinned as Columbia’s edges swallowed people into campus and routine.
He didn’t go into your building; he watched from across the street and let the day unspool with the kind of repetition that made other people bored and made him calm.
Two students came out first, arguing with each other about something that sounded like it had been assigned and not chosen. One of them waved a worksheet around like it was evidence in a trial. “I swear to God, if she cold-calls me again I’m dropping,” the student complained.
His friend snorted. “You’re not dropping,” she said. “You love acting like you’re dropping. Just read the chapter.”
“I read the chapter,” he insisted. “It’s not my fault it reads like it was written by a robot who hates joy.”
The friend rolled her eyes. “She’s not the one who wrote it.”
“Yeah, but she’s the one who looks at you like you’re stupid if you say something wrong,” he replied, voice rising with the righteous outrage of someone who had never been in real danger in his life.
Dex watched the building’s main doors while they bickered, and he kept waiting for the moment you’d appear again, because you always did, eventually. He was learning the intervals, the gaps between your movements, and he didn’t like surprises.
You came out a little after noon, walking fast, sandwich in hand, coffee in the other, and you didn’t look up until one of your students practically jogged to catch you. The kid looked nervous in that eager way that meant he was terrified of disappointing you. “Professor,” the student said, matching your pace, “can I ask you something about the lab report?”
You didn’t slow down. “If it’s about formatting, the rubric answers your question,” you replied.
“It’s not about formatting,” he said quickly. “It’s about the control group. I think I messed it up.”
That got your attention, but not as softness. Dex saw the shift in your face, the way your focus narrowed. You stopped near a trash can, took a bite of your sandwich like you refused to pause your life for anyone, and then you spoke around the bite without apology. “What did you do?” you asked.
The student started explaining, hands moving, stumbling through the logic, and you listened all the way through without interrupting him. When he finished, you took another bite, chewed, swallowed, and then you answered in a tone that wasn’t gentle but wasn’t cruel either, the way people spoke when they wanted the person in front of them to do better. “Okay,” you said. “You didn’t destroy it, but you need to fix it. If your control group isn’t controlled, your results don’t mean anything. You can’t argue your way out of that, and you can’t charm your way out of that, so don’t try.”
The student’s face fell, and then you added, not softer, but more practical, “Come to my office at three and bring your raw notes. We’ll map out what you can salvage and what you have to redo.”
He looked like you’d handed him a lifeline. “Really?” he asked.
You stared at him for a second, expression dry. “Do you want me to say no?” you replied.
“No,” he said immediately, flustered.
“Then stop acting surprised,” you told him, and Dex watched the corner of your mouth twitch like you were amused despite yourself. “Three o’clock.”
The kid nodded fast and peeled away, and you kept walking like it hadn’t taken anything out of you. Dex followed through the campus paths, then stopped once you disappeared into a different building, because he’d already gotten what he needed: confirmation that you ran your day on schedule and that other people adjusted themselves to fit into it.
Wednesday was the late day, and Dex didn’t need to guess anymore once he’d watched it twice. You stayed in the lab past sunset, and the building’s windows threw pale light onto the sidewalk while most of the campus emptied out. Dex waited across the street near a food cart, pretending to browse the menu without ordering, letting the vendor assume he was deciding, and then letting the vendor get bored of him. Eventually the vendor called out anyway, voice loud and impatient. “You buying or you just reading for fun?” the vendor asked.
Dex glanced up with a look that suggested he was mildly offended on principle. “Give me a pretzel,” Dex said.
The vendor slapped one into a bag and held it out. “Three bucks,” he said.
Dex paid, took the pretzel, but didn’t eat it. He held it like a prop, because props made you look normal and normal was invisible.
You came out around eight, exactly the way you usually did, shoulders slightly tense, tote bag heavier, phone already in your hand. One of your colleagues walked with you for half a block, talking quickly like they were trying to squeeze in a last conversation before going home. “I’m telling you, the department chair is going to push back,” the colleague said.
You let out a tired breath. “He can push back,” you replied. “I’m not taking another section. If they want another section, they can hire someone, or they can stop pretending adjuncts don’t exist.”
The colleague made a sympathetic noise. “You’re going to make enemies.”
You shot her a look that Dex caught even from across the street, and the look said you didn’t care. “I already have enemies,” you replied. “They’re eighteen and they think I’m personally responsible for their GPA.”
The colleague laughed, then peeled off toward the subway. You crossed the street alone, and Dex waited for the moment you’d usually hesitate at the curb, and you did, just a beat, like the city had trained that into you no matter how brave you tried to be.
Saturday was groceries, and Dex didn’t have to work hard to blend in because Amsterdam Avenue on a weekend was full of people who looked like they belonged there. He wore a plain jacket, kept his hands in his pockets, and stayed just far enough that if you turned your head you’d see a crowd, not him. You went into the same store you’d gone into the previous Saturday, and you walked the aisles like you had a list in your head.
You stopped by produce first, and Dex watched you pick up a bag of apples, weigh it in your hand, then put it back and choose a different one like you could feel which one would bruise first. You grabbed spinach, then eggs, then yogurt, and Dex tracked the order because order mattered. You didn’t wander or browse, you moved with intention.
A woman near you dropped a jar, and it shattered, and people froze for a second in that communal moment where everyone decides whether they’re going to help or pretend they didn’t see. You stepped around the spill without stepping through it, then crouched and picked up the woman’s phone off the floor because it had skidded away. You handed it back and said something Dex didn’t hear, and the woman’s shoulders loosened like you’d reassured her without making it a performance.
When you got to the checkout lane, the cashier greeted you like she knew you. “Hey,” the cashier said, scanning your items. “Back again. You’re consistent.”
You smiled in that small way Dex had seen before, the smile that didn’t ask for anything. “I’m predictable,” you replied.
The cashier snorted. “Must be nice,” she said.
You glanced down at the groceries, then back up. “It is,” you said, and you didn’t say it like a brag, you said it like a fact you’d earned.
Dex waited until you left before he moved, because he didn’t want to share the same exit, not yet. He watched you walk home carrying bags with a steady pace, not rushing, not drifting, and he noticed you always adjusted the strap of your tote bag with the same hand in the same motion, like your body had decided on a method years ago and never bothered to change it.
Sunday nights were different, and he figured that out because you didn’t go every week, but when you went, you went with purpose. Twice a month, you ended up with them, and Dex had to admit he liked that it wasn’t random. It was scheduled, intentional, almost ceremonial, like you were making sure you stayed stitched into their lives.
He found the dinner the first time by tracking Foggy instead of you, because Foggy was louder and easier, and because Foggy never checked his blind spots. He waited outside a walk-up building with too many steps and a narrow hallway where the smell of garlic drifted down, and he listened through the thin windows because the building made it easy.
Foggy’s voice boomed first, as always. “Okay, everyone shut up, I have an announcement!” he declared.
Karen’s voice cut in immediately. “If this is about your lasagna again, I swear—”
“It is absolutely about my lasagna,” Foggy said, offended. “Also, it’s not just lasagna, it’s a labor of love.”
You laughed, and Dex heard you clearly through the crack in a window. “Foggy, you bought pre-made noodles,” you said.
Matt’s voice slid in, calm and too controlled. “That’s cheating,” Matt said.
Foggy made a dramatic sound. “You’re all ganging up on me,” he complained.
Karen sounded amused, but careful in the way she always did. “We’re not ganging up on you,” she said. “We’re just united in the truth.”
You replied, and Dex heard the smile in your voice even without seeing it. “It’s okay,” you said. “You can still take credit. No one else is going to cook.”
Foggy latched onto that like it was a win. “Thank you!” he said. “Finally, someone appreciates me.”
Matt’s voice softened, the smallest shift, like he couldn’t help it. “We appreciate you,” Matt said, and Dex could picture the expression even if he couldn’t see it, because he knew Matt’s tells by now.
Foggy went quieter for half a second, then recovered like sincerity was a threat. “Don’t get emotional,” he warned. “I’m fragile.”
Karen laughed, and then she said your name like she was bringing the room back to you. “So,” Karen asked, “how’s the chaos at Columbia?”
You groaned. “Don’t,” you said. “I had three separate emails about the same assignment and every single one of them started with ‘I know you said not to email, but—’”
Foggy cackled. “They fear you,” he said, delighted.
“They should,” you replied, and the line made them laugh again.
Dex stayed outside long enough to hear more of it, not because he needed it, but because it gave him something he couldn’t get from schedules and public records. It gave him your cadence when you were relaxed, the way you teased Foggy, the way Karen’s voice eased around you, the way Matt spoke more freely in your presence without sounding like he was trying to perform anything.
At some point Foggy said, louder, “Matt, tell her,” and Matt answered, “I’m not getting involved,” and you shot back, “coward,” and it all sounded easy in a way Dex didn’t like, because easy meant stability, and stability meant you weren’t temporary.
When Dex finally walked away from the building, he didn’t head toward Hell’s Kitchen rooftops or toward any of Matt’s usual routes. He went the other direction, toward the subway, because the next morning was Monday and you would be on the platform at 8:49 a.m., and he wanted to be there before you again, not because he needed to prove anything, but because he didn’t like the feeling of arriving late to something that was becoming routine.
nobody talks about how exhausting it is to live in that space between "things will get better" and "i can't handle this anymore." it's like your emotions are constantly swinging. leaving you both hopeful and defeated in the same day.
House hunting in the suburbs with Dex and your son?🤞
Finding the Perfect House with Dex
TW: domestic fluff!!!!! A bit suggestive towards the end. Set after DDBA season 2. You and Dex have a son called Leo, Husband! Dex x Wife! Reader (lmk if you I missed anything)
WC: 1.7k
Could be read as a one-shot but this is technically part of What Makes a Good Man?
House hunting with Dex had been great, actually.
Which was weird, because eight years ago your husband was imprisoned for multiple counts of murder. Because not too long ago, your husband was breaking out of prison, and now he was standing beside you at house viewings, asking estate agents questions about roofing, school districts, and whether the windows were double-glazed.
Most of this happened because Dex had a stupid amount of CIA money now, which meant you had a stupid amount of CIA money, too.
Mr. Charles paid well, like, “thank you for doing morally grey things in countries we will never admit you visited” well.
And Dex was legitimate now. Technically.
Charles was his handler, as per his government contracts. He had the paperwork to prove it. He wasn’t sleeping in safehouses anymore, not showing up at the apartment bleeding because he “had it under control.” He was coming home after a week-long mission in Madripoor, kissing you hello, showering, putting Leo to bed, and then sitting at the kitchen table with a laptop open looking at mortgage calculators.
So suddenly your Saturdays had become house viewings.
So fucking many house viewings.
He had a spreadsheet and a calendar specifically for viewing times. He packed snacks for Leo and carried him when he got tired. He started asking realtors questions about roof age and damp surveys and driveway sizes. He held your hand through front doors, and you loved watching him check locks without even realising he was doing it. You loved the way Leo ran from room to room yelling, “This one! No, this one! No, this one!” like every empty bedroom could be his.
But there were so many not-perfect houses.
One had a backyard that was technically a yard in the same way a crisp packet in a puddle was technically a water feature. Another had carpet in the bathroom, which should have been illegal. Dex said one had “not good enough sightlines down the stairs.” The last one you saw had “loads of potential,” which meant “please imagine this house after spending ninety thousand dollars.”
Sometimes, a house would be perfectly fine, on the outside. But then Leo would tug on Dex’s sleeve, look up at him very seriously, and say, “Daddy, I have bad feeling about this.”
And that was it, viewing over.
You and Dex would just exchange one look like, knowing Leo must’ve sensed something very wrong with the house. You wouldn’t even go upstairs. You’d just tell the estate agent something like thank you for your time, goodbye forever.
Because you both knew better than to question your son’s supernatural premonitions.
Then, this week you got to the house.
And, oh, you loved it immediately.
It wasn’t super-fancy. It was a Goldilocks-level of just right.
The hallway had enough space for Leo’s shoes, because Dex, who could never say no to his son, had been buying him every possible pair of dino shoes to the point that you had to buy an extra cabinet just for your little boy. The kitchen had beautiful lights. The living room had a corner where Dex would pretend he wasn’t watching you read. Upstairs, Leo found a bedroom with a window facing the garden and his eyes went as wide as dinner plates.
Then he saw the backyard.
It was bigger than you expected. It had a tree and a cute little swing set near the fence.
Leo stepped outside holding Dex’s hand and looked up at him with his own hopeful little eyes staring back at him. “Is this all mine?”
Oh, fuck off. That. Was. So. Cute.
Dex crouched, brushed Leo’s hair back, and said, “Whatever you say, buddy.”
Whatever you say.
Of course he didn’t say “maybe” or “we’ll see” or “don’t get your hopes up, kid! Only if the offer goes through.”
And right then and there, you knew Dex was gone gone.
You should’ve scolded him for possibly giving his son false hope, but then you watched Leo run to the swings and your stupid heart began rearranging itself.
You could see it now: Dex would stand by that kitchen window with coffee and you would complain about the school run. Leo would bring in worms and call them friends.
This was it, wasn’t it? This was the house.
Then the little girl appeared at the fence.
You were the only one close enough to hear, and Dex was inside with the estate agent, asking something about the boiler.
Leo was on the swing, pushing himself badly and loving every second of it, when the girl leaned over from next door.
“Hi!”
Leo lit up. “Hi! I’m Leo Poindexter.”
He always said it now, because Dex had taught him how to say his full name, slowly, syllable by syllable, but he got there eventually. Le-o Poin-Dex-Ter, he would practice again and again in the mirror, finally being able to legally use his father’s name, even though he didn’t know why he couldn’t before.
He said it to nurses, shop assistants, delivery drivers, dogs, one pigeon, everyone. Apparently, to his future neighbor.
“Hi!” The girl smiled. “I’m Danielle Cage.”
And your heart dropped.
Cage.
CAGE.
As in Luke Cage? As in Jessica Jones? Hello????
You stood there with a polite smile stapled to your face while your brain started going through every fucking scenario possible.
Leo said, “Do you want to see my Iguanadon socks?”
“Sure!” Danielle Cage climbed over her side of the fence and landed in the garden without even breathing hard.
Right. If you had any doubts that that girl might not be the Cage, it was erased right there and then.
Your son, delighted, showed her the socks. And Danielle nodded, telling him her daddy was going to build her a swing too one day.
You said nothing, because what were you supposed to say?
Sorry, sweetheart, I’m sure you’re lovely, but can you go home because your parents are too competent and inconvenient for our family dynamic?
You let Leo play for a few more minutes because he was happy and you were weak. Then you left the house with Dex beside you, Leo half-asleep in the back seat of your car, and your stomach somewhere around your ankles.
That night in the apartment, after Leo finally passed out clutching one of his dinosaurs, you told Dex.
“The neighbour’s kid is Danielle Cage.”
Dex paused, but only for a split second. He took off his watch and set it on the dresser.
“Dex,” you sighed, “are you even listening to me?”
He looked at you and walked across your bedroom slowly.
You stepped back, pointing at him. “Don’t do that.”
He kept walking you back until you hit the edge of the bed with the back of your knees. Still, he said nothing. He was calculating.
“Luke Cage would live next door,” you said, because you were still trying to be reasonable. “Jessica Jones would live next door. That woman will take one look at us and know we’re hiding things.”
For example, your son’s mutation.
Dex’s hands eventually settled on your waist.
“Leo loves it,” he murmured.
“Leo loves cheese puffs. That doesn’t mean we buy him a factory.”
His head dipped and kissed the corner of your mouth.
You stopped mid-breath.
Oh. So this is what he had resorted to now.
“Cheap trick,” you whispered.
Dex hummed against your skin.
Oh, you hated him.
Except you didn’t. You were catastrophically in love with him, and Dex knew it. Worse than that, he knew you. He knew when you needed to spiral and when you needed to be held and when your brain was building a doomsday bunker out of perfectly valid concerns.
He had learned, very early into marriage, that kissing you could be a strategy.
You had a lot to say, but Dex had discovered that if he kissed you gently enough, touched you carefully enough, your arguments would start dissolving
And he was a competitive man.
“You can’t seduce me into agreeing to move next door to the fucking Cages,” you said.
Dex placed a well-timed kiss under your jaw.
You closed your eyes. “Dex.”
His fingers tightened slightly at your waist. He wasn’t trapping, and you could have pushed him away.
But you didn’t because you liked it.
“You’ve made up your mind,” you realised, weaker now.
He laid you on the bed gently, hovered over you, and kissed you properly then.
Eventually, your thoughts drop one by one until all that was left in your mind was Dex, Dex, Dex.
You clutched his shirt as he smiled against your mouth.
“Don’t be so smug,” you breathed.
He kissed you again.
Bastard.
You were still trying. Kind of.
“She’s the best private investigator in the city,” you mumbled when he resorted to giving you open-mouthed kisses to your throat.
“We’re gonna have a bulletproof neighbour,” you held back a moan, because Leo was asleep in the next room.
He went back up, kissing the sensitive spot under your ear.
“They probably have a super strong child.”
You felt him laugh silently against your neck. “At least Leo doesn’t have to be different alone.”
Oh.
Oh, right.
Dex lifted his head, and his face was close. His eyes were on you like you were the only future he had already decided to build.
“We’ll handle it,” he said.
You hated that you loved that certainty.
You loved that Dex could still be scared of so many things and yet not this. How could he be scared of Leo having a yard? How could he be scared of that perfect attic you would turn into your private library?
He kissed you again before you could speak, because, frankly, he had learned this trick too well.
Your hands slid into his hair.
By the time you could think again, you were tucked against his chest, his arm around your waist, your legs tangled under the blanket.
“You weaponised your kisses again,” you whispered.
His fingers moved through your hair and kissed the top of your head. “Mm.”
You playfully pinched his side, and he caught your hand and held it against his chest.
For a while, neither of you said anything. Then, because apparently you had no survival instincts left, you sighed.
“Fine,” you finally said, “We can put in an offer.”
Dex’s arms tightened around you.
And that was how your husband, newly legitimate CIA asset, former walking red flag, kissed you into agreeing to maybe move next door to Luke Cage and Jessica Jones.
(Later, Dex would bring up the fact that Luke couldn’t exactly judge him for the whole Charles thing when he used to work for Charles, too.)
Summary : You fall for Dex, a faerie hunter who has already decided you belong to him.
Pairing : Faerie Prince! Benjamin Poindexter x Human Princess! reader (she/her)
Warnings/tags : Faerie au, fantasy au, dark romance, obsessive/possessive behaviour, stalking, shapeshifting, hidden identity, predatory courtship, manipulation by way of fae bargaining and loopholes, attempted assault by another character, murder, blood, explicit sexual content (afab reader with no explicit anatomical description), masturbation, fingering, oral sex, praise/degradation, implied captivity, food, north star! Reader. Reader is described to be a "spinster" and I picture her to be in her mid20-mid30s with the king and queen to be in their 60s, but open to interpretation, of course! (let me know if I missed anything!)
Word Count : 13.3k
Requested by : anon
Notes : The Title is Inspired by the song “Call Me Little Sunshine” by Ghost. Enjoy!
Being a princess was, in practice, spectacularly dull. Storybooks had neglected to mention that.
According to the bards, princesses spent their days dancing through rose gardens, befriending woodland creatures, and waiting elegantly by castle windows until the perfect knight arrived on a white horse.
The reality was considerably less glamorous, because reality included embroidery, war planning lessons, standing perfectly still while yet another seamstress held yet another gown against your shoulders and declared that ivory “brought out your breeding.”
The reality often was being escorted absolutely everywhere because, according to your father, kingdoms had a habit of declaring war over unmarried princesses.
You lived in the tallest tower of the royal palace, and not because you were imprisoned, but because it was traditional.
Your father insisted generations of royal sons and daughters had lived there before their weddings. The tower overlooked the capital, the forests beyond the walls, and, on particularly clear evenings, the silver mist that marked the border of the fae realm.
You were forbidden from going anywhere near it. So, naturally, it was the most interesting thing you could see from your window.
Sometimes, a raven came to sit with you on the sill.
He was a sleek, handsome thing with feathers black enough to reflect blue beneath the sunlight and eyes that seemed far too clever for an ordinary bird. He never startled when you moved too suddenly or tried to touch him. He simply watched you, head tilted, while you complained about your lessons, your father, and the latest dreadful man being considered for your hand.
The raven was your only friend.
You had started leaving scraps of breakfast for him, though he never really ate them. Most days, he seemed content merely to listen. Occasionally, he would tap his beak against the window sill or make a croaking sound at exactly the right moment, as though offering an opinion.
Every morning followed the same rhythm of breakfast before lessons, before war planning, before a walk in the palace gardens with no fewer than six guards pretending they weren’t following you, before fencing, before dinner.
Occasionally, your routine was interrupted by another prospective husband. Sometimes it was a prince, other times it would be a duke or a marquess. Once, it was an unfortunate count who spent twenty uninterrupted minutes explaining taxation while trying to court you.
Your father always watched these meetings with hopeful eyes.“What do you think of Prince Alistair?”
“He called me ‘adequate.’”
“He meant well.”
“He compared me to wheat,” you rolled your eyes.
He could only sigh. “Wheat is valuable.”
“I don’t want to marry a man who thinks my greatest quality is being agriculturally useful.”
Your father sighed, and it was the weary sigh of a king rapidly discovering that raising a stubborn daughter was considerably harder than negotiating peace treaties between entire territories. “You cannot refuse everyone.”
“I haven’t refused everyone,” you corrected, which was technically true.
“You’ve refused twelve.”
You held up a finger with a sly smile. “Twelve so far.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “You are one day going to become queen.”
“I know.”
“You need a husband.”
“I know,” you slumped to your seat, though the corset was now digging into your spine.
“A suitable one.”
“I know.”
“So what exactly are you waiting for?”
You glanced past him, beyond the castle walls, toward the ancient forest shimmering on the horizon.
“I don’t know,” you admitted. “But I feel like if I marry any of them…” You paused. “I’ll be settling.”
Your father smiled sadly, mistaking your hesitation for youthful nerves. “You’ll understand soon enough.”
You smiled back because it was easier than arguing.
The truth was, you already understood.
You simply wanted more than a political alliance and polite conversation over dinner. You wanted someone who made your heart race.
Someone worthy of becoming the subject of stories.
You looked out and simply wondered, if any human prospect was ever going to be remarkable.
—
You had never escaped six armed guards before, but today, you found out that it was surprisingly easy.
They were watching for assassins, kidnappers, enemy soldiers, perhaps even a dragon if the kingdom had been having a particularly difficult week. They were not watching for their princess to lift her skirts, squeeze through a gap in the palace hedge, and run directly into the trees.
By the time anyone shouted your name, you were already gone.
Why did she even do this? Your father would probably ask, but there was really only one answer: boredom.
You were bored of the same rooms, the same lessons, the same walks through the gardens. You were bored of waking each morning already knowing exactly how the day would end.
The raven had visited your windowsill that morning, but he stayed only long enough to tilt his clever little head at you, and then flew back toward the forest.
You had watched him disappear beyond the palace walls and thought, with a miserable pit in your stomach, if only I could be that free.
Perched beside you in the tower one moment, exploring the forest the next.
So you decided to do something about it and ran.
The forest began as ordinary woodland,
but grew stranger the farther west you went. The trees became older, their roots rising through the earth like sleeping serpents, and silver mist gathered between the trunks even beneath a clear sky.
That mist marked the border: Your kingdom ended on this side, and the fae realm began on the other.
You were not stupid enough to cross it.
You were still catching your breath by a rock when you heard something crying in the undergrowth.
The sound drew you deeper into the woods long before you saw its source.
It was not a cry of pain so much as a weary exhale, the sort a creature made after running farther than its body wished to carry it. The forest seemed reluctant to reveal where it came from, as ancient oaks stood shoulder to shoulder like old kings in round tables, their branches weaving together until only ribbons of sunlight reached the moss below. Blue-white motes drifted lazily through the shade, vanishing whenever you tried to follow them with your eyes
The doe lay only a few paces away, as though she had collapsed the instant she reached the safety of your kingdom. She was a beautiful hind with a pale face and enormous dark eyes that blinked sleepily rather than fearfully. The white arrow with black feathers rested against her flank, though when you looked closer your brow furrowed.
There was no blood or torn flesh.
The arrowhead shimmered with threads of pale gold that flowed over the deer’s body like sunlight through water. Wherever the light touched, the muscles beneath her coat relaxed. Her breathing remained calm.
“Oh.” You crouched beside her. “You aren’t hurt, are you, my love?”
The doe lazily lifted her head and nosed your shoulder before letting it fall again into the grass with contented resignation, determined to finish its nap.
You laughed nervously under your breath. “What have they done to you?”
“The Sleep of Rowan.”
The voice came from somewhere inside the silver mist, beautiful enough that it almost seemed to belong to the forest itself.
You looked up.
He stood where the mist was thickest, and somehow the trees seemed arranged around him rather than the other way around. His leathers were the deep blue of the ocean down by the south border, embroidered so finely with bronze thread that every movement caught the light like autumn leaves stirred by the wind.
A longbow rested loosely in one hand, carved from white wood that glimmered with faint silver runes. His hair was slightly tousled, sometimes dark brown and other times it was slightly golden. He was… Fair Folk.
There was no mistaking it.
He had pointed ears peeking through his hair, a strong jaw softened only by expressive lips that looked almost permanently on the verge of a knowing smile. His amber eyes were startlingly bright, flecked with molten gold, his fingers were glowing blue at the tips.
Then there was the scar, crossing one cheek in a narrow line, and one on top of the eye.
It should not have been there. Whatever had given him that one must have been vicious.
You knew now, that any sensible person would walk in the opposite direction.
Unfortunately, you had never been particularly sensible.
“Sleep of Rowan?” you blinked.
He inclined his head toward the doe. “The arrow contains no iron.” His voice carried no arrogance, only certainty. “It numbs the body before it strikes. By the time the arrow lands, the creature feels only warmth. They grow sleepy.”
The doe punctuated his explanation by yawning.
Your heart immediately melted. “Oh, sweetheart.”
The fae watched you smile at the animal. His expression changed so subtly you almost missed it.
Interest, maybe. Recognition, perhaps.
You looked from the doe to the bow resting in his hand. “You mean to kill her?”
“When the forest gives permission.”
You blinked.
He nodded toward the ancient trees surrounding you, fingertips brushing across the carved wood of his bow.
“We never hunt mothers with young,” he continued. “Never more than the Court requires. Every hide is worn and every antler is carved. Every bone shall be returned to the old groves before the first snowfall.”
He spoke not like a man explaining himself, but someone with rules and guidelines so ingrained into his bones it might as well be prayer.
“We borrow a life,” he said quietly. “We are expected to return honour in its place.”
You looked down at the sleeping doe as she twitched once in her dreams.
“Then…” Your fingers drifted automatically to the white patch between her ears, stroking it with infinite care. “…couldn’t you borrow another?”
The fae regarded you with an expression you couldn’t begin to understand.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You’ve already proved you could catch her.”
His brow lifted.
“You did.” You gestured toward the shimmering arrow. “She’s asleep.”
“She is.”
“So you’ve won.”
A tiny smile threatened the corner of his mouth. “I have.”
You looked back at the doe. “Please let her go.” The words escaped so quietly they were almost carried away by the breeze. “Please.”
He didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he looked only at you, but not at your dress or the small golden circlet resting in your hair, but into your eyes and then to the way your hand never stopped stroking the sleeping animal.
The silence stretched so much you began to wonder whether you had insulted him.
Then, without a word, he reached for the arrow. The runes dimmed beneath his fingers, the arrow dissolving into the afternoon air like scattered pollen.
The doe stirred, blinked twice, and climbed to her feet.
She stood for a moment, swaying gently as though waking from the deepest sleep she’d ever known. Then she nudged her nose against your shoulder in what could only be gratitude before disappearing into the trees with three graceful bounds.
Only then did you turn back. “You just… let her go.”
“Yes.”
“Because I asked?”
He smiled. “You asked kindly.”
“That can’t possibly be enough reason.”
“It appears to have been.”
“I’ve just ruined your hunt,” you managed a nervous laugh, “and you’re not angry?”
His eyes held yours. “No.”
“Why?”
He considered the question far longer than it deserved. “Because I preferred watching you.”
Unexpectedly, heat crept up into your cheeks.
There was nothing crude or flirtatious in the way he said it. It sounded like a fact.
He looked at you the way scholars looked at miracles and priests looked at altars: with complete attention, as though every movement you made deserved remembering.
“You have leaves in your hair,” he observed.
You huffed, taking one. “I escaped six guards.”
“I know,” he stepped ever so closer. “They’re still looking for you.”
“How do you know that?” You raised an eyebrow, taking a cautious step back.
His smile deepened ever so slightly. “They’re remarkably loud.”
“I suppose they are.” You sighed. “They worry too much.”
His expression remained pleasantly calm. “They are guarding a princess.”
You sighed, and he merely tilted his head.
After a moment’s silence, you simply asked, “Do… you have a name?”
“Dex.”
“Dex?”
“It will suffice.” You nodded.
“Very well, Dex.”
A brightness flickered across his face at the sound of the name in your voice. Approval, perhaps. Or satisfaction.
He rested the bow across his shoulder with effortless grace. “And you, Princess,” You didn’t even notice that he had done it again. “have convinced me to let my dinner wander off. The least you can do is point me towards the blackberry bushes.”
He knew the forest better than any living creature. Yet somehow, you found yourself leading him through it anyway.
And Dex, Crown Prince of the Wyld Fae, followed without the slightest complaint.
Because, according to every sacred law of the hunt he had ever been taught, once you found something worth following, you did not let it out of your sight.
—
The blackberry bushes grew wild along the riverbank, their thorny branches weighed down with fruit so dark they looked blue beneath the fading light. Dex moved through them selecting one berry from dozens as though there was an art to it. He plucked a particularly lavish one between two fingers and held it toward your mouth.
You stared at the blackberry, then at him. “I’m not stupid.”
Dex managed an infuriating smirk. “It appears you are.”
“Excuse me?”
His mouth pulled into a chuckle. “You think I’m trying to enchant you with fruit that grew in your own kingdom.”
You simply crossed your arms “I am smarter than eating or drinking anything offered by the Fair Folk.”
“The roots are in human soil,” he said, pointing to the roots of the tree. “Made of human rain and human sunlight. You will not be bound to me.”
Ah. Right.
Still, you narrowed your eyes. “No secret marriage?”
Dex looked more amused by your paranoia, as if enjoying toying with it. “No.”
“No hundred-year sleep?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“No waking up in your palace wearing a crown?”
Dex’s eyes dipped briefly to your mouth before returning to your eyes. “Not from the blackberry.”
You should have been more concerned by the distinction. Instead, you leaned forward and took the fruit from his fingers.
It was sweet enough to make you hum, wild and far richer than anything cultivated in the palace gardens. Dex watched you eat it with a satisfaction so singular it was almost ridiculous, as though convincing you to accept one perfectly harmless berry had been the greatest victory of his life.
After that, you talked, mostly about nothing. Then about everything.
You told him about the tower and how the wind made noise through the stones during winter. You complained about your governess, your embroidery lessons, and the latest nobleman your father intended to parade before you like an expensive horse. Dex listened with his full attention, asking questions in places where most people would have nodded politely and waited for you to stop speaking.
He told you about the forest in return, about flowers that only opened beneath eclipses and streams that remembered every person who crossed them. He showed you which mushrooms laughed when stepped on and warned you never to follow lanterns that moved. When you asked whether every fae hunter was as strange as he was, he told you that he was considered perfectly reasonable by the standards of his court.
You didn’t believe him.
The evening came around you while you wandered along the river, eating blackberries you picked yourself and talking until the light turned gold, then rose, then a deep violet between the trees. Dex stayed close. Sometimes, his hand hovered near your waist when you stepped over roots.
By the time the first stars appeared, you had almost forgotten you had escaped the palace at all.
That was until, the distant toll of the evening bell carried through the woods. You stopped beside the river. Dex stopped with you.
“I have to go.” The warmth left his eyes so quickly, and in its place was something coldly neutral. Still, you kept talking. “My father will be very furious.”
“Oh,”
It was all he could say.
You looked at him for a long moment, taking in the burnished gold hidden in his dark hair “I like you, Dex,” you said.
He went completely still.
It pleased you, strangely, to know you could surprise him. “Are all fae this kind?”
A glint passed through his mischievous eyes. “Is that what you think I am?”
“My mother says your kind are manipulative,” you said, “She says every gift is a trap and every kindness hides a bargain. She doesn’t trust your kind. Should I?”
Dex glanced toward the silver mist in the distance, then back at you. His frown had gone softer, though no less intent. “I suppose you will have to make up your own mind.”
You considered him as the fae hunter who had released a doe because you asked, as the stranger who had followed you through the forest, listened to every complaint, and fed you nothing that could bind you.
Before you could lose your nerve, you stepped closer and rose onto your toes and pressed a light kiss to the scar on his cheek.
When you drew back, he looked almost dazed, one hand lifting slowly toward the place your lips had touched. For a creature so graceful, so composed, and so clearly dangerous, he appeared wonderfully unprepared for affection.
“Goodnight, Dex.”
You began walking backward toward the palace path.
He remained by the river, watching you leave with that singular concentration.
“Will you be here again?” he asked.
You only smiled. You knew better than to give a promise to a fae.
But you thought the answer was obvious.
—
By the time you slipped back into the palace, dusk had swallowed the gardens.
Your father stopped you only long enough to ask where you had been. You could tell he was furious under his skin, having sent half his kingsguard on a fruitless search party.
You lied with the ease expected of royalty, telling him you've been reading in the reclusive west tower all afternoon. After all, you have been trained to lie to foreign dignitaries from birth.
“You are the Crown Princess,” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “You should have told us if you wanted to be one. You cannot simply disappear.”
“I won’t do it again,” you said, fully intending to do it again.
Once safely inside your tower, you dismissed your ladies, locked the door, and collapsed onto your bed with a sigh.
The ceiling stared back, and so did your thoughts.
You, of course, thought about Dex.
You smiled before you could stop yourself.
You knew the fae hunter was a terrible idea. But he was beautiful enough that every story your mother had ever told suddenly felt painfully believable.
You rolled onto your side, hugging one of the embroidered pillows to your chest. It was only harmless fun, right?
You weren’t making bargains. You weren’t wandering into Faerie. You weren’t accepting enchanted feasts beneath silver trees.
You knew the rules.
You couldn’t eat his food, but surely…
Surely you could have some fun with him.
That wasn’t forbidden.
…Probably.
You buried your face in the pillow with a groan. “This is how princesses end up cursed.”
Suddenly, you heard a gentle tap against the window, followed by another a few seconds later.
You turned immediately, your smile widening as familiar black feathers came into view. “There you are.”
The raven hopped onto the stone sill as it had done a thousand times before, folding his wings neatly against himself before fixing you with that strangely thoughtful stare of his.
You opened the window, and he stepped inside as though he’d always belonged there.
He gave one little chirp.
You laughed under your breath, pretending to be able to talk to him, because you always seemed to pretend he knew everything on your mind. “I know.”
He hopped a little closer.
“He’s a bad idea.”
The raven blinked.
“A very bad idea.”
He seemed to furrow his amber eyes, which was ridiculous to even imagine, right.
“…But he’s awfully gorgeous.”
The bird made a small little croak.
“I know.”
You smiled helplessly, as he nuzzled to your fingers.
Your heart melted immediately. “Oh, you.”
You gathered him carefully against your chest, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. His feathers were warm beneath your cheek, damp with the scent of leaves and evening air.
“You’re still my favourite,” you half-promised. “Even if Dex is very pretty.”
The raven settled into your arm, satisfied.
You held him while looking toward the distant forest, completely unaware that he had arrived much later than usual.
—
You had not slept properly in three nights.
Every time you closed your eyes, you saw Dex was waiting beneath the trees. Sometimes he stood beside the river with evening light caught in his hair. Other times he was close enough that you could see every tiny fleck in his eyes and the faint silver edge of the scar you had kissed. Once, in a dream so vivid you woke with your heart racing, he had simply watched you from the other side of the mist while you tried to find the path back to him.
By the third night, lying awake and pressing your face into a pillow had begun to feel undignified.
So you abandoned your bed, pulled a cloak over your nightdress and crept down to the oldest part of the royal library with a candle cupped between both hands.
The palace was unnervingly still at that hour, thanks to the portraits watching you pass through dark corridors, and every floorboard that determined to announce that the crown princess was wandering barefoot toward a locked collection of forbidden books because she could not stop thinking about a beautiful stranger.
The books concerning the Fair Folk were kept beneath the main library, behind an iron gate whose hinges had bled rust into the surrounding stone. Your mother kept the key in her study, hidden beneath a false-bottomed drawer so obvious that you suspected she had never once considered you might look.
The lower level library smelled of old leather, damp parchment and extinguished fires. Shelves climbed toward the vaulted ceiling, crowded with books no one had touched in decades. Some of them were even bound shut with iron clasps. Others had charms stitched into their covers or warnings written across their spines in three different languages.
You found the passage about the Wyld Court in a green leather volume, frail with age.
Several dried anemones had been pressed between its pages. Their white petals had yellowed around the edges, and one crumbled beneath your thumb when you turned to the chapter on the Hunt.
The first few pages were almost reassuring.
Human stories called the Wyld savage because they hunted often, but the account insisted this was ignorance rather than truth.
The Wyld do not kill for purely sport. Their hunters study the land before taking anything from her, sometimes watching a herd through an entire season to understand which lives could be spared without leaving young unprotected or weakening the group before winter. They never hunt during birthing months. They never took more than the court required. Every part is used and every hunt ends with a rite beneath the oldest trees.
You smiled.
You remembered Dex's voice when he explained why he wasn’t ashamed to hunt. He had simply believed it should be done with his ancient ritual.
The next section described how Wyld hunters selected their quarry.
They never choose impulsively.
A hunter watches first. They learn where the animal drank, where it sleeps, which trail it favours and how it behaves when startled. They study the rhythm of its body, the sounds it makes when content, the direction it turns when frightened and the places it instinctively returns to when it believes itself safe.
You shift the candle closer.
It was practical, of course. A skilled hunter had to know what he followed.
Dex had been like that with the doe, you supposed.
The book continued.
Once the quarry has been selected, the hunter begins appearing along its path, never close enough to alarm it, and never so often that it flees the territory entirely. They learn of its world before stepping inside it, careful not to disturb the habits they wish to understand.
That sounded…. strangely gentle.
You imagined Dex moving through the forest without snapping a twig, following the doe from somewhere beyond the trees.
A note in the margin had been written in a shakier hand than the rest:
The Wyld considers attention an act of reverence.
You traced the words.
“Mmm,” you whispered, though there was no one there to agree with you.
He had seemed to have undivided attention.
Dex had listened to you with the same concentration gave the forest.
You had assumed he was simply considerate.
The book described a hunter’s patience in borderline devotional language.
The hunter does not chase too early. He lets the quarry become accustomed to his presence, appearing at familiar places until their presence no longer causes alarm. If it looks toward them instead of away, that is considered progress. If it remains nearby willingly, it is a sign that the pursuit has entered its next stage.
Your mouth curled up. The doe, freed, hadn’t remained near Dex.
You had, but surely it must be different. You were not prey.
You barely entertained the intrusive thought before returning to the page.
The Wyld believes pursuit should be quiet. A careless hunter frightens away what they hope to bring close. A patient one learns how to make his presence welcome. They leave signs along familiar paths, small objects chosen with care that the quarry would recognise they have not appeared by accident. They remove thorns and stones from frequently used trails. They frighten away other predators before they are ever seen.
You pressed your thighs together beneath the table without thinking.
It was not fear that you felt. It was the memory of Dex following you beside the river, the way he had watched you eat the blackberry as though the smallest movement of your mouth fascinated him. The way his eyes changed when you said you liked him.
Perhaps Wyld hunters were simply intense people.
Some men at court barely remembered the colour of your eyes after spending an entire dinner speaking about themselves. Dex had looked at you once and seemed to notice everything.
That was hardly frightening. It was flattering.
You turned another page.
The descriptions grew more… intimate.
A hunter learns the sound of their quarry’s footsteps before they ever see it. They can identify its scent beneath rain, smoke, or crushed leaves. Over time, they begin to anticipate where it would go before it had made the decision itself.
You smiled dreamily, picturing Dex somewhere in the western woods already knowing which path an animal would take.
Perhaps he would be waiting near the river. Perhaps there would be anemones beside the blackberry bushes.
You hoped there would be.
A final passage sat at the bottom of the page, separated from the rest by an inked border of thorns. You bent closer to read it.
Wyld fae are occasionally known to form attachments of extraordinary depth to their prey. Once a hunter has chosen, fixation may last years, centuries or the full span of an immortal life. Distance rarely weakens it. It may delay the pursuit, but seldom ends the attachment itself.
Well… that sounded a little excessive.
You turned the page quickly.
The next chapter concerned Wyld courtship.
Anemones appeared again in the illustration. You expected this part to be filled with poems and stories. Maybe an explanation of some elaborate fae ritual performed beneath a full moon. You expected several paragraphs at least.
Instead, the chapter contained a single sentence with letters that were larger than the rest of the book, boxed in black ink and surrounded by a border of thorns:
WARNING: WYLD FAE DO NOT RELIABLY DISTINGUISH BETWEEN COURTSHIP AND THE PURSUIT OF PREY.
Huh. You thought. How vague.
—
The next morning, your mother returned just after sunrise with thirty riders, two foreign ambassadors, enough sealed documents to keep the council occupied for a fortnight, and a potential husband.
Ugh.
The palace bells rang the moment her party crossed the outer gate.
Servants hurried through the corridors carrying fresh flowers, guards straightening their uniforms. Courtiers appeared from nowhere, already smiling before the queen had even dismounted.
Queens inspired that sort of efficiency.
Your kingdom had always been matriarchal. Daughters inherited crowns. Queens wore crowns and commanded legions while kings negotiated peace treaties.
Kings advised. Queens decided.
Which meant your marriage had always been your father’s responsibility. The fact that your mother was now getting involved meant one of two things: you were becoming a spinster, or your prospects have started to look so concerning, even the head of state had to lend a hand. In your case, probably both.
She embraced you only briefly before holding you at arm’s length. “You look tired.”
“I’ve been unable to rest, mother.”
There was the faintest twitch at the corner of her mouth. “You’ve inherited your father’s habit of avoiding sleep.”
She smoothed an imaginary crease from your sleeve before her eyes settled back into regal.
“I’ve brought guests.”
You looked past her, and one of them was already looking at you.
You recognised him immediately as Lord Edmund, though you’d never met him.
You’d heard enough.
You heard ladies from across the land whispering his name behind fans at winter banquets, and their maids lowered their voices when he walked past. A merchant’s daughter had once refused to dance with him at a feast, that she’d been sent away to live with an aunt before the week was over.
Nothing had ever been proven, but you heard these things happened because of his very unpleasant behaviour.
He was handsome enough, and more importantly rich enough, to make the rumours inconvenient.
“My lady.”
He bowed and took your hand. His thumb traced the inside of your wrist with lazy familiarity before releasing you immediately tucked your hand behind your back. “You’ve grown even lovelier than your portraits.”
“I wish I could say the same.”
He laughed.
Your mother looked between the two of you with quiet satisfaction. “Lord Edmund has spent the last month travelling with our delegation.”
“I’m honoured,” he gave a saccharine smile,
“You should be.” She said it lightly, but you knew that tone. She had already decided this alliance made sense.
Oh. No.
As her conversation moved elsewhere, you took half a step backwards, and Lord Edmund took half a step forwards.
No one noticed when his hand settled lightly against the small of your back with enough pressure that you felt every finger through the silk of your gown.
Your body stiffened.
“So tense,” he murmured.
You moved away, and of course mother turned just then.
“There you are.”
You forced yourself to smile.
The bastard looked every inch the perfect gentleman.
“Lord Edmund has mentioned going on a hunt tomorrow,” She mentioned, adjusting one of your curls behind your ear. “You’ll accompany him.”
Your stomach dropped. “Mother…”
“It will do you good to leave the palace.”
“I don’t enjoy hunting.”
“You enjoy forests.”
Not the same forest, you thought, Not the same hunter.
Your hesitation lasted a heartbeat too long.
Your mother frowned slightly. “You’ve refused every suitor your father introduced.”
“I barely know any of them.”
“Exactly,” her voice lowered. “You cannot know a person’s character across a dinner table.”
She glanced toward Lord Edmund, who was speaking pleasantly with your father.
“Watch how a man behaves when he’s armed.”
It was advice every queen passed to every daughter: A gentleman could lie, but a hunter rarely did.
“I think you’ll find him disciplined.”
Oh, you very much doubted that.
—
The next day, you did go hunting with Lord Edmund.
The only alarming detail was that you returned dragging his dead body behind your horse.
By the time you reached the palace gates, the rope around his ankles had rubbed the leather of his boots raw and left a dark trail through the dirt. His expensive hunting coat was torn open at one shoulder, caked with mud and dead leaves, and his head struck every uneven stone with a dull, ugly rhythm that made several of the guards flinch as they rushed to meet you.
You rode straight through the gates, eyes blank beneath the grime, skirts streaked green and brown from the forest floor, one hand wound tightly around the reins while the other still trembled despite your best efforts.
Your father reached you first. He looked relieved to see you alive, only to collapse into horror when he noticed what followed behind. Your mother arrived seconds later, still fastening the clasp of her cloak, and stopped so abruptly that the entire courtyard seemed to halt, too, as she looked down at Edmund.
You dismounted without assistance and untied the rope from the saddle. His entire body dropped heavily onto the cobblestones at your feet.
“He went into fae territory,” you said. Your voice sounded remarkably calm.
Your mother stared at the arrow buried cleanly through Edmund’s chest. Fae work, unmistakably.
You nudged his shoulder with the toe of your boot and looked down at him with exhausted contempt. “Very sad.”
What a lie.
The truth was that Edmund had never intended to hunt anything.
He had looked convincing enough when you left the palace that morning in fine hunting leathers and a freshly carved bow.
For the first hour, he thanked the servants, praised the hounds and kept his hands where everyone could see them.
Then, he began thinning the party.
The dogs were too noisy, so he sent the handlers east. The scouts had supposedly found fresh tracks near the ridge, so the huntsmen followed. The guards were told to wait with the spare horses near the stream because too many riders would disturb the game. His instruction sounded reasonable by itself, and even though you had been suspicious, you didn’t understand what he was doing until you were alone.
Only then did you notice that he had not examined a single track all morning. He had not tested the wind, drawn his bow or once looked into the bushes.
He had watched your body instead, not listening to what on earth you were saying. He hungrily watched the sway of your body in the saddle, and how your skirt shifted when you dismounted to cross a fallen tree. Whenever you tried to turn the conversation back toward the hunt, his attention slid away from the forest and returned to you with the same damp, crawling persistence.
By the time he guided you toward the border, silver mist was already visible between the ancient trunks.
You told him you wanted to turn back. You even pulled your horse around, but Edmund blocked the narrow path with his own and smiled at you as though your fear amused him.
There was no deer trail or quarry, no reason to be there except the isolation and the knowledge that no human voice would carry far enough for help to come.
That was when the performance ended.
He caught your wrist when you reached for the reins and dragged you down badly enough that your shoulder struck the side of the saddle. Your boots hit the ground unevenly, and before you could recover, his body pressed yours up against the horse.
You told him no, I’m not interested.
You said it clearly and shoved at his chest and tried to twist away, but he only laughed under his breath, as though refusal were a nervous habit he expected to train out of you after marriage.
And when his hand forced its way beneath your skirts…. An arrow came through the silver mist so suddenly that the air scarcely had time to whisper around it.
It struck Edmund through the heart.
You knew the arrow immediately. It was the same white arrow with black feathers, the same fine silver runes carved along the shaft. It was the same one he had used on the doe, except there was no Sleep of Rowan in his mercy.
Oh. This one hurt.
Edmund’s hand tore away from you at once, his face blank with shock as he staggered backward, looking down at the arrow as blood welled dark through his coat. He collapsed first to his knees and then onto his side, choking on a breath that would not come properly.
The mist moved between the trees, and somewhere inside it stood a hunter who had watched long enough to understand exactly what Edmund had intended.
Edmund was still alive when you walked over to him.
His eyes found yours, wide now, stripped of all his arrogance. His mouth opened as though he expected you to help. Perhaps he thought you would call for the guards.
Instead, you looked down at him, shaking with fury, and relief so vicious it almost felt like joy.
Then you spat in his face.
He died seconds after.
You stood over the body for several long moments, wrist throbbing where he had held you.
Dex had killed him.
Dex had seen and he had known exactly what was happening and had not hesitated for even the space of a heartbeat.
You should have been horrified, you should have looked at Edmund’s blood soaking into the moss and felt sick over the life extinguished at your feet.
Instead, you felt safe.
It took you nearly an hour to secure Edmund’s ankles and drag him back through the woods, following a vague trail of blackberries that ensured you made it back safely, knowing exactly who put them there. You didn’t remove the arrow; wanted your mother to see it.
Now, standing in the palace courtyard with your parents staring at the corpse, you folded your hands in front of you.
Your mother crouched beside Edmund and studied the entry wound. Her face remained composed, but her eyes flicked once toward the bruises around your wrist before returning to the arrow.
“He crossed the border?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And the fae killed him without warning?”
You met her eyes. “He should have known better.”
Your father looked stricken. Your mother looked unconvinced.
Neither of them asked why Edmund’s bow was still strapped neatly across his back, unused. They didn’t even ask why one side of your skirt had been torn near the hem.
Neither of them seemed to want to ask why you showed no grief.
—
That night, your mother sent you back to your chambers to sleep.
And you should’ve at least tried.
Instead, you lay tangled beneath your blankets, staring up at the canopy while your mind wandered helplessly back to the western forest, and the dead body of a potential suitor.
Soon enough, your mind wandered back to Dex.
His name alone made heat unfurl in your stomach.
It was ridiculous how easily he ruined you. He had barely touched you the one time he saw you. Tonight, he hadn’t even shown his face.
But somehow, before you called for him, Dex had known you needed him.
Your thighs pressed together beneath the sheets.
What a sick fucking thought, you scolded yourself, what a sick fucking mind I have, that this makes my core weep?
“No,” you whispered to yourself, but your body had no interest in your dignity.
But your hand was moving between your legs before shame could stop you.
Beneath the blankets, your fingers slipped lower, tentative at first, then less so as you imagined Dex with your eyes closer.
A soft gasp left your lips.
“Dex.” The name came out needy, more pathetic than you meant it to. Still, pleasure sparked through you at the sound of it.
You said it again, quieter this time.
“Dex.”
Your fingers moved faster.
You bit your lip and tilted your face into the pillow, trying to swallow the next sound, but it escaped anyway, in the form of a helpless gasp that made your whole body shiver beneath the sheets.
You were shameless, lying alone in your tower, touching yourself to the thought of the fae who had killed the man meant to court you.
Another tremor of pleasure rolled through you as your back arched faintly from the mattress.
“Dex,” you breathed again, a little broken now.
It felt like summoning him. It felt like a confession.
You imagined him at the foot of your bed, hearing exactly how his name sounded when it left your mouth like that. You imagined his head tilting, his eyes darkening, his perfect composure cracking because you were not afraid enough, because you wanted him. Because some wicked part of you had read all the cautionary tales about fair folk and and thought yes.
Yes, him.
Yes, please.
The thought made you whimper into the pillow.
Pleasure built slowly, then all at once, warm and dizzying. You chased it with your eyes shut and his name on your tongue, thinking blood on moss and the beautiful fae monster who had looked at you through the mist.
“Dex, please—”
You didn’t know what you were pleading for.
You only knew you wanted more than just your fingers. You wanted more of that shameful sweetness rolling through you.
Your fingers twisted in the sheets. Your lips parted around a mewling sound. The pleasure crested so suddenly you nearly sobbed, your body going tight and shaking beneath the blankets as his name fell from your mouth one last time, helpless and utterly damning.
For a while, you could only lie there, glassy eyes staring up at the canopy as though it had witnessed your fall from grace.
An absent-minded smile made its way to your mouth before you could stop it.
“You really are a terrible idea,” you sighed into the darkness.
The words held no conviction at all.
Outside your window, the raven landed silently upon the stone sill.
He watched you through all that, head tilted thoughtfully, black feathers gleaming blue beneath the moonlight.
That night, you didn’t notice him.
Nor did you notice that, for the first time since you had known him, he didn’t tap impatiently against the glass to ask you to let him in.
He simply remained where he was, keeping watch over the lonely tower until dawn.
—
By morning, you had decided you only wanted to thank him.
A perfectly reasonable thing, right? A man saved your life and your dignity, even if he was not exactly a man. It was only… polite.
You sat on the edge of your bed, fingers curled into the blankets, staring toward the window.
You… should know better.
But wanting never really came with a rhyme or reason.
So, you dressed quickly, perhaps too quickly.
Your fingers fumbled with the laces of your gown, and you had to redo them twice. Your hair refused to sit properly and reflection looked entirely too flushed, too guilty for a princess who had technically done nothing wrong.
Technically.
You leaned closer to the mirror and frowned at yourself.
“You are going to say thank you in person,” you said firmly. “That is all.”
Your reflection did not look convinced.
“You are only doing this, because he came to your rescue,” you continued, because apparently arguing with glass was where your morning had gone. “Like a civilised woman. You have manners, right?”
Still, your reflection looked at you as if to say that civilised women with manners did not usually wander alone into fae woods after spending the night thinking improper things about the fae in question.
You ignored her.
At breakfast, you had honeyed bread, the sugared fruit, the little cakes glazed gold beneath the kitchen light. You needed to eat, just in case. You cannot find yourself hungry in the presence of Wyld Fae!
You could not be tempted to eat or drink anything he gives you, that’s all. You needed a full stomach, because you weren’t foolish
Less than an hour later, you were slipping out through the western gate alone.
With your mother’s return, it was even easier to sneak out this time, as many of the guards were preoccupied with the queen’s every whims and needs. A queen, that your father loved to remind you, that you would one day be, too.
Still.
The morning air was damp, mist clinging to the grass beyond the castle grounds, thin as lace, and the forest stood ahead of you in a dark green wall of ancient trunks and tangled branches.
Eventually, you stopped at the edge of it.
The trees seemed to notice as it shifted though when there was no wind. Somewhere deep in the woods, a bird called once, then fell silent. The path you had taken yesterday was still there, winding blackberries between moss-covered stones and pale roots, but in daylight it looked… narrower.
Stranger.
You swallowed.
“Dex?” Your voice sounded terribly small.
Nothing answered an took one step beneath the trees.
The forest swallowed the sounds of the castle almost at once. The distant clatter of carts, the faint bells from the chapel tower, the servants calling to one another across the courtyard was barely noise behind you.
You walked for what felt like an hour.
Then another.
At first, you told yourself he would appear any moment. Dex seemed exactly the sort of person who enjoyed doing that. He would step from behind a tree, and ask whether you made a habit of wandering into dangerous places alone.
You had already prepared an excellent answer.
No, you would say. If I assumed I was in danger, I would not be here.
But Dex did not appear.
By midday, your boots were wet and the hem of your dress had collected half the forest floor. You had crossed the same fallen branch three times, which either meant you were walking in circles or the branch was following you. You had apologetically startled at least four rabbits, nearly tripped over a root that had definitely not been there a moment before, and apologised to a mushroom because it looked like it was wilting when you stepped too close.
“This is foolish,” you whispered.
Then, a branch shifted above you.
You looked up to see your raven friend sat on a low bough. His head tilted, bright eyes fixed on you with unsettling intelligence.
“Oh,” you said. “It’s you.”
The raven blinked.
For a moment, you could not move.
He looked exactly as he had outside your window: watchful and clever, as most corvids are.
Huh. You thought. He travels far, doesn’t he?
Because if this bird knew the forest, maybe he knew where Dex was, or at least where the most dense fae population was near the border. If he did, then perhaps you were not wandering blindly through the woods after all.
You took one step closer towards your friend. “I don’t suppose you could help me?”
The raven gave a small chirp.
Your mouth curved into the smallest smile. “I only want to thank him,” you said.
The raven stared as your smile faded.
“All right,” you whispered, finally admitting to him what you had failed to admit to yourself all night. “I want to see him.”
The raven dropped from the branch and landed lightly on the moss.
Behind him, the mist thickened between two dark trees.
It didn’t drift so much as gathered.
The silver-white started subtly glowing, curling over the roots like silk poured over bone. The path you had followed seemed to end there, as if the forest had brought you as far as ordinary courage could take you.
The raven stepped toward it, then looked back.
“No,” you whispered. “Stay, please. I don’t want to be alone.”
He only watched you.
The air cooled against your skin. Suddenly, the castle felt distant, like it belonged to another princess, a safer princess. A princess who would not follow a raven to the ends of the earth because she wanted to see a dangerous man smile.
And just after giving a little croak, the raven vanished into the white.
You stood at the edge, alone now, cloak ends pooling around your ankles.
For one moment, you thought you saw something through the mist, like gold flowers and black thorns along a path no human should walk. And deeper still, briefly, you could’ve sworn you saw amber eyes watching from the other side.
Your lips parted. “Dex?”
When no answer came, you should have turned back.
You knew that, but longing was not sensible. And whatever Dex had become to you since he met you… that was not sensible either.
You stepped forward and the mist touched your boots first. Then your hem, then your hands.
You should have turned back.
Instead, you took a deep breath and crossed the threshold.
—
Eventually, the mist disappeared.
It thinned around you in pale ribbons, peeling back from your face and shoulders until the forest revealed itself by degrees.
It took you a while to blink awake, looking around blankly at the white that was now retreating when…. Oh. Oh, wow.
It was beautiful.
Moss glowed faintly pink beneath your boots. The trees rose black and enormous on every side, their bark veined with silver, their roots twisting through the earth like sleeping serpents. Violet flowers bloomed among thorns, heavy-headed and luminous, turning slightly as you stepped forward as though even the plants wanted to look at you.
It was very clear that wherever you had gone, it was far away from the human realm.
You looked around, looking for your raven friend.
You looked through the strange trees, the unnatural sky, and the path of white stones winding away into the woods as if it had been waiting for your feet.
You found nothing.
Your strange little friend had vanished.
You turned in a circle, searching the branches above you and the curling mist behind you.
“Hello?” you called quietly.
Nothing answered.
You frowned, though your heartbeat was too quick for proper annoyance.
“You cannot just lead me through the mist and abandon me,” you managed to say. “It’s rude.”
A drop of water fell from a leaf somewhere overhead.
Still, no raven.
You took another careful step. The moss gave beneath your boots with a cushion-y feel that felt almost alive. “Where did you go?”
At last, a voice behind you said, “Lost, princess?”
You turned so quickly your cloak swung around your legs.
Oh.
Dex stood beneath a silver-barked tree.
In that moment, all your prepared thoughts vanished.
He looked less like he had walked here and more like the forest had grown him. He was as pretty as you last remembered him, eyes fixed on you with that calm attention that made your stomach tighten and your thoughts go embarrassingly pliant at the edges.
Your breath hitched as his eyes dropped briefly to your mouth, then lifted again.
You remembered yourself with effort.
You had found him, yes, but you had some dignity left in you. You weren't going to make this easy for him.
“Where is my friend?” You said instead.
He raised an eyebrow slightly, though he didn’t seem confused at all. “Your friend?”
“The raven.” You glanced over your shoulder, still half-expecting the bird to appear on a branch. “He was right here. He led me through, and then he disappeared.”
Dex looked past you with mild, infuriating faux innocence. “Ravens are difficult to command.”
“I did not command him,” you insisted, trying to look away, even as you have found what you came for. “I asked for help.”
Dex tilted his head. “Did he?”
“He did,” you nodded, “but then abandoned me.”
“Perhaps he thought you had arrived safely.”
You narrowed your eyes. “You say that as though you know where he went.”
“I know very little about the private affairs of true ravens.”
“That sounds like a lie.”
Technically, it wasn’t.
Dex’s mouth curved up, barely, enough to make heat lick up the back of your neck. “You crossed into fae territory to interrogate me about a bird?”
“No.”
“Then why did you come?”
The question should have an easy answer. In fact, you have practiced it on the walk through the outer woods, when the trees still looked ordinary and you still had the comfort of pretending this was a sensible errand. You had told yourself you would be calm and grateful. You would thank him properly and then go home.
But Dex was looking at you now, all that polite pretenses felt suddenly thin.
“I wanted to find you,” you said weakly.
You hated that the words felt so bare once spoken, because you didn’t even say I wished to thank you or I owe you a debt of gratitude. It didn’t sound like court manners or duty.
I wanted to find you.
Dex took one step closer and asked. “Why?”
You swallowed.
You had many things you wanted to say, none of them a good idea saying. You wanted to tell him you had not slept properly because every time you shut your eyes, you saw the arrow split the mist.
“I wanted to thank you,” you said.
Dex’s eyes stayed on your face. “For killing the foul creature who wished to touch you against your will?”
You looked down.
Your fingers twisted in the edge of your cloak. For a moment, the forest around you blurred into last evening: Edmund too close, his fingers where they had no right to be.
The memory made your skin go cold.
You looked up at him. “Yes,” you whispered. “For him.”
Dex came closer, slowly, like approaching prey.
He gave you space to step back, space to turn away. You didn’t.
“You do not need to thank me for that,” he said, “it was my responsibility.”
His responsibility?
It certainly was not.
You should’ve questioned it. But unfortunately, you had more… urgent matters in your mind.
“I want to,” you insisted.
His eyes flicked over your face, lingering on your flushed cheeks, your mouth, the rise and fall of your chest beneath your corset.
“And that is all?” He asked.
The air warmed between you. Or perhaps that was only your body betraying you.
You lifted your chin. “Yes.”
Dex’s eyes barely changed, but you knew he didn’t believe you for a second. “Princess…” he tsked, almost scolding in nature.
“I came to thank you,” you insisted, as if repetition could make it any less untrue. Still, you were unable to meet his eyes as you said it.
“I heard what you said.”
“It is the truth.”
“No.” He stepped closer again, close enough now that you could smell rain on leather and pine. “It is part of the truth, isn't it?”
Your back touched the smooth trunk of a silver-barked tree not realising you had stepped back.
Dex stopped immediately, one hand bracing against the tree beside your shoulder. He didn’t cage you in fully or press his body to yours. He simply stood close enough that your breath tangled with his, close enough that if you leaned forward even an inch, your mouth would find his.
“Do not pretend a you’re welcome is all you should expect from me today,” he murmured.
Your breath caught.
His eyes lowered to your lips. “It is frankly insulting,” he continued.
A scandalised little sound escaped you. “I do not expect anything from you.”
He smiled. “Liar.”
You should have been offended. You were, distantly, beneath the pounding of your heart and the sudden awareness of your own body, there was probably a very respectable princess who objected to being called a liar by a fae hunter in the middle of an enchanted forest.
Unfortunately, she was not currently in charge.
Dex lifted his free hand. You watched it rise, unable to move.
His knuckles brushed beneath your chin, tilting your face up to his in a feather-light touch.
“Look into my eyes,” he said softly. “And tell me you came only to thank me.”
You held his gaze, and you really did try to force it out, but would not come.
Dex’s thumb brushed the corner of your lips.
“There,” he murmured. “I thought so.”
Your throat went dry. “T-this is very unfair.”
“Is it?” Dex looked amused.
“You know what you are doing.”
“Yes.”
The honesty made something your stomach pull tight.
His eyes darkened, not with cruelty or triumph, but with want so restrained it almost looked like pain.
“Can I kiss you, princess?”
Oh.
You didn’t expect fae to be this… blunt.
Heat rushed down your throat and settle behind your ribs. It made you remember Edmund again,m, because Edmund had not asked. Edmund had pushed close and taken space and treated your refusal like a bug he could smother beneath his heel.
Dex asked.
Dex, who could have been terrifying without trying. Dex, who has killed for you. Dex, whose mouth hovered near yours and still waited.
“Yes,” you whispered.
Only then did he lower his mouth to yours.
He kissed you slowly at first. His lips brushed yours once, and for one second, he let you decide, let you lean in, and let you press yourself closer to him. You fingers curled into the front of his cloak as you kissed him back.
Then you made the neediest sound against his mouth, and his control snapped thin.
He kissed you deeper, his hand sliding to the back of your neck, fingers warm beneath your hair. The tree was cool against your spine, his body warm in front of you, and between them you felt held rather than trapped.
His mouth opened over yours with a hunger that made your knees buckle, but even then, even with his fingers tightening slightly at your nape, he kissed like you were the singular thing that gave his life meaning.
You clutched his cloak, body tilting toward him before your pride could stop it.
Dex groaned quietly into the kiss.
Oh, what a wonderful sound.
You pulled him closer, and his other hand found your waist. His grip was warm as though he needed to feel the shape of you. He kissed you until your lips tingled, until your breath came in shallow little gasps.
When he broke away, it was only to press his mouth to your jaw, then your throat.
You tipped your head back before you could stop yourself.
Dex’s mouth curved against your skin with a little hum.
You were already shaking. “Do not sound pleased with yourself.”
“But I am,” he mumbled.
His teeth grazed the side of your neck just enough to make your fingers dig into his shoulders.
“Dex.”
For all his composure, his reaction gave him away. He liked your voice like that. He liked you, breathless and honest, he liked that that you had come here dressed in gratitude and were now pressed against a silver tree, melting under his mouth.
His hand slid from your waist to your hip, then lower. over the fabric, dragging heat in the wake of his palm.
Your breath hitched.
Dex froze at once. “Can I touch you?”
Your eyes opened halfway.
He was watching you now, close enough that his lashes cast shadows against his cheeks.
“Yes,” you said, cheeks burning “Yes, Dex. Touch me.”
His hand tightened once on your hip before he kissed you again and gathered your skirts, agonisingly slowly.
He did so layer by layer, his fingers drawing the fabric upward, exposing your stockings, your garters, the bare skin above them to the cool air of the fae wood.
You should have felt vulnerable, and part of you did, but you were not afraid. The vulnerability made your heart pound harder and your mouth open against his.
Dex felt your thighs part before his hand had even reached them.
“Oh, princess.” It was filthy and wondrous at the same time.
Your face burned as his fingers brushed your inner thigh.
You gasped.
Dex’s eyes darkened as his hand slid higher.
The first touch between your legs made you jolt against him. He found you slick already, shamefully wet, soaked from his kiss and his voice and the humiliating truth that he had been right. Thank you was not all you had come for, not even close.
For one second, Dex didn’t move much.
He dragged his finger through, feeling the slick heat of you against his fingers and your hips giving the smallest helpless tilt toward his hand.
His teeth clenched hard enough to make the muscle jump.
“Oh,” he breathed again, rougher this time. “You really did come here wanting me.”
Your hand flew to his wrist to hold him there. “I c-came to thank you,” you insisted for the third time.
His fingers slid through your wetness, and the sound beneath your skirts was utterly indecent.
Your breath broke.
Dex’s mouth brushed the corner of yours. “Yes,” he murmured. “You are thanking me very well.”
The words made you clench around nothing.
Dex felt that too. His smile felt dangerous against your cheek.
“Ah,” he whispered. “Shameless little thing.”
You would have protested if his thumb had not found the puffy sensitive bundle of nerves, begging for his attention.
The touch was light at first, circling through the slick, making pleasure spark hot beneath your skin. Your head tipped back into his waiting palm. He kissed your exposed throat, open-mouthed, while his fingers learned you beneath your gown.
He was too careful to be rushed but too precise to be merciful.
Every movement had purpose. Every stroke, every firm circle. His thumb pressed a little firmer.
Your knees buckled.
Dex caught you with his body, pinning you gently against the tree while his hand kept moving.
His fingers slid lower. “Still only here to be polite?”
You made a strangled sound. “I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“No,” you gasped. “I don’t.”
His first finger pushed inside you, and the sound of it could be heard within the hush of the forest.
Your mouth fell open on a mewl, and Dex’s forehead dropped to your collarbone. He held still for a heartbeat, letting you clenched around him.
You gripped his cloak with both hands. “No. More.”
His eyes nearly closed.
His composure cracked, hunger flashing naked and bright through the careful mask, and then he kissed you hard as his finger began to move, gently at first, slick and deep, curling inside you until pleasure jolted through your hips.
You cried out against his mouth.
Dex swallowed the sound like he had been starving for it. “There?”
You could not answer.
He curled his finger again, and your body jerked.
“Need words, princess.”
“Yes,” you gasped. “There. Please.”
His thumb circled while his finger worked inside you, the rhythm steady and wickedly exact. Every stroke made a pool of arousal gather around his hand.
His smile should have made you embarrassed.
Instead, it made you shameless, rocking down onto his hand with a broken little whimper.
Dex groaned.
“You hear that?” he murmured.
Your eyes squeezed shut. “Dex.”
“You do,” he said, kissing your cheek. “You hear how badly you want me.”
He added a second finger.
The stretch made your breath catch.
His fingers moved again, sliding into you with ease that made your face burn and your body melt. He curled them carefully, pressing deep, finding that same place until your thighs shook around his wrist.
Dex watched you like you were the only thing in the forest.
Not like Edmund.
Edmund had wanted you afraid. Dex wanted you ruined by pleasure.
Your hands clutched his shoulders. Your hips chased his fingers. You moaned into his neck, too far gone to care about the old stories warning girls never to follow fae men into the woods.
You had followed. You had crossed.
You were here.
So you might as well make the most of it, right?
“Dex,” you mewled as pleasure flared so bright you nearly sobbed.
“There,” he whispered. “Better than your own fingers, right?”
You should have noticed. You should have asked how he knew what you had done in your tower. You should have questioned how he knew his name had been in your mouth the night before.
But his fingers curled again and your thoughts scattered.
Dex smiled on your throat. “That’s what I thought.”
He didn’t give you time to recover.
His hand moved quicker now, fingers buried deep to his knuckles, thumb steady as pleasure climbed too fast and too high. Your whole body tightened around him, hips rolling shamelessly into his palm, chasing every stroke. You were wet enough that the sound of him touching you filled the space between your bodies, and Dex seemed to lose another thread of control every time he heard it.
“You are so sweet like this,” he murmured.
“Stop talking.”
“No.”
“Dex.”
“You like it.”
You did.
His thumb pressed harder as his fingers curled exactly right.
The climax tore through you in a hot, shaking wave.
You came with your face buried against his shoulder, mouth open on a broken cry, squeezing around his fingers as pleasure pulsed through you again and again. Dex held you upright through it, one arm firm around your waist, his mouth against your temple, his hand still moving beneath your skirts until every last shiver had wrung itself out of you.
Only then did he stop.
The forest around you seemed hazy and unreal, glowing moss beneath your weak knees. Dex withdrew his fingers, and your body gave one last helpless flutter at the loss.
You should have looked away, instead you watched as he lifted his hand between you, his fingers gleamed with your arousal.
Dex’s eyes stayed on yours as he brought them to his mouth and tasted you.
His eyes turned dark with satisfaction. “You really are sweet,” he said.
A scandalised little sound escaped you. “Dex,” you gasped. “You cannot say things like that.”
His thumb brushed your lower lip. “I can say much worse.”
“You should not.”
“No,” he agreed. “I should not.”
Eventually, he guided you carefully away from the tree.
Your legs were unsteady, dress rumpled. Your heart felt as though it had been taken apart and put back together. Dex kept one hand at your waist, watching you with a hunger that had not faded at all.
If anything, it had grown worse.
“How much more gratitude should I expect from you, princess?”
Your breath caught.
You knew you should be careful. You knew enough old stories to understand that words mattered here. Especially words spoken to beautiful fae men beneath magical trees and your heart no longer safely your own.
But then Dex’s hand slid into your hair, guiding you lower, his fingers threading through the loosened strands that your breath caught before you had even reached your knees. The moss gave beneath you, soft enough to feel unreal through the layers of your dress. Around you, the forest went uncannily quiet, as though the trees had closed their eyes and the flowers among the thorns had turned away out of courtesy.
Above you, Dex opened his belt. The buckle came free with a metallic click that seemed to echo as leather slid through its clasp, each small movement made unbearable by the way he watched you watching him. His blue-touched fingertips worked with the same terrible care you had seen when he handled his bow, and that precision made the moment feel even more indecent.
“As much as you want,” you whispered, holding his eyes, unshaded by how badly you wanted him to know the truth.
Dex smiled.
Your eyes lifted to his, licking the tip of his now-free length.
“There,” he groaned, thumb brushing your cheek as he pulled your mouth almost fully into him. “Now that feels like a thank you.”
You swirled your tongue as he closed his eyes. “Ah— fuck,” he breathed, voice barely controlled. “That’s it.”
You wanted more of that strained, beautiful sounds he tried and failed to hold back immediately.
So you let your lips and tongue become gratitude, letting every eager movement say what your mouth could not form into words.
Thank you for the arrow. Thank you for Edmund. Thank you for seeing what I wanted and waiting until I said yes.
Dex’s head tipped back slightly, a rougher, lower sound this time.
You took it as a reward.
“Princess,” he warned, though it sounded nothing like warning. It sounded like prayer.
Your eyes watered from the effort of taking all of him, from how much he was, from just how big he was that he barely fit in your velvety mouth.
Still, you looked up through wet lashes, and the sight seemed to make him twitch.
“Sweet, reckless thing.” he whispered.
You gave him more.
Dex groaned and the sound was beautiful.
This was better than court music under a chandelier during the autumn feast. This was the dangerous fae hunter above you losing pieces of himself because your mouth was warm and utterly devoted.
His pleasure was music to your ears and you wanted to make him sing.
“Look at me,” Dex said.
You did.
His amber eyes were dark now, fixed on your face, looking undone and hungry. His blue-touched fingertips glowed faintly where they rested against your cheek, wiping away a tear.
“Good girl,” he said.
You nodded, too full of want to be embarrassed properly.
His thumb stroked beneath your eye. “You are too sweet for your own good.”
You would have rolled your eyes if you had been capable of dignity.
Instead, you bobbed again, more frequent this time.
Dex’s breath broke as you tasted the first bead of arousal coming out of him, proof of how badly he wanted you.
His mouth parted around a breath that was nearly a laugh, nearly a moan.
“Do not look so shocked,” he murmured. “You did that.”
The words made heat flood through you all over again.
You should have felt shy. Instead, pride curled through your chest, wicked.
You had done that. You had made him sound like that.
So you kept going, tearful and greedy until he started murmuring curses in a language older than yours. You wanted him to remember this. You wanted him to know that you were no longer simply thanking him.
In an attempt to go deeper, to feel him in your throat as if you’ve trained all gag reflex away, you tilted your head slightly.
That’s when you saw the quiver of arrows lay in the moss beside you. It must’ve slipped off his shoulders at one point or another.
White ash arrows rested inside, carved with silver runes. You knew those arrows but it was not the arrows that stopped your heart.
It was the feathers that tipped the ends of the arrows, glossy blue-black beneath the fae light. You never noticed them before, but they were… raven feathers.
Your breath hitched.
Oh.
Oh.
Suddenly, you thought of the windowsill, your friend tapping at the glass. You remember his clever black eyes watching while you read aloud, lonely and foolish. The little creature had listened to your complaints, your restless dreams, your secrets.
The raven who had visited for years. The raven who had led you through the mist.
Your eyes lifted slowly.
Dex looked down at you with his amber eyes.
Oh.
All those mornings, all those evenings, all those years…
You should have known. You heard of stories of fae folk turning into woodland creatures all the time.
He was the raven.
Your hands tightened.
You should have pulled away and demanded answers. How long? How much had he heard? How many secrets had he carried away?
Oh, you had been so, so foolish.
You should’ve known from the first day you truly met in the woods. You should have questioned how he had known to call you princess when you had never told him what you were.
For a second, real fear flickered through your eyes. Not fear of him, Fear of the fact that some part of you did not hate it enough.
Dex’s face changed the moment you understood.
He knew the pretty princess he had been pursuing for years had finally had it all figured out.
Pleasure and guilt and hunger crossed behind his eyes in the same vein, you could barely separate them. His hand remained gentle in your hair, giving you room to turn your face away from him and the old magic curling around both of you.
You stared up at him, eyes wet, heart pounding.
You were frightened. But as your mouth kept working him, clearly, you weren’t frightened enough.
Instead, you had felt strangely, terribly cherished by the thought that the raven at your window had waited years to be touched by you like this.
As you quickened your pace, your eyes burned harder.
Dex’s thumb brushed another tear from your cheek, intended to be an apology in gesture.
You answered by giving him more.
His breath shattered.
You became greedy for his pleasure, greedy for every note you could draw from him. The forest blurred silver and green around you. The flowers bowed their heads among the thorns. Mist curled over your knees, hiding the path back, making you forget the safer version of yourself, who would have stopped the moment she realised the truth.
You were not her anymore.
You had crossed the line.
Dex’s moans were music to your ears, so controlled until they were not. Each one made your own heart pound harder, made your mouth react and your hands more certain. You wanted to ruin him kindly, to thank him until he forgot how to be anything but yours in that moment.
His head tipped back, and the sound that left him was almost helpless. It filled you with vicious pride. You wanted to keep it forever the way he had apparently kept pieces of you.
“You’re going to ruin me,” he said as the blue at his fingertips brightened.
His hand tightened in your hair, then loosened at once, still careful even at the edge of himself. His body went rigid above you, and the final sound he made was the prettiest yet.
His seed spilled into you as he reached his high and no textbook had warned you that a fae could taste like sweetness and binding magic.
Your throat worked once, eyes rolling back in a haze from the taste.
And you swallowed.
For a moment, you only knelt there, dazed.
Dex, finally catching his breath, finally looked down at you.
He laughed fondly, as though you had done something preciously foolish and still utterly expected.
“Oh, princess,” he murmured.
Then, his hand slid over the crown of your head in an almost patronising pat pat pat.
You blinked up at him, eyes glossy, mouth parted, still too ruined to be properly offended by the way he was looking at you, like you were helpless and had walked directly into his snare and thanked him for setting it.
“Poor thing,” he cooed, “you really don’t know, do you?”
Huh?
Your eyebrows pulled together, confused, mouth still dripping silver-white liquid. “W-what?”
Dex lazily pulled his belt on before crouching in front of you, amber eyes bright with wicked tenderness. His thumb brushed your lower lip, wiping away the last trace of him gently.
“You were right to refuse our fruit,” he said. “And you were right to refuse our wine.”
A strange warmth bloomed beneath your ribs.
Dex smiled wider. “But the old laws never distinguished between feasts and lovers.”
The words sank in slowly.
Your heart stumbled as looked down at your hands in the moss.
For one second, you thought the strange fae light was playing tricks on you. The glow of the flowers, perhaps old magic bending colour where it touched skin.
But no.
Your fingertips were blue at the very tips, like you had dipped them in moonlight and frost. The colour shimmered luminously beneath your skin, not stain, not paint that could be washed away.
A bond.
Dex made a pleased hum and took your hand in his, rubbing his thumb over the new colour as though admiring his own mark.
You should have recoiled or demanded answers. Maybe shouted at him
Instead, your lashes fluttered, and the golden thread beneath your ribs tugged you toward him until your body swayed towards him, not entirely magical in origin.
Because you truly believed, bond or not, you still wanted him.
Dex caught you.
His hand settled possessively at your waist, and you looked up at him with a weak smile that made his cold heart melt.
You had not known a lover’s offering could bind as surely as bread and wine. You had not known that he had turned your body into a feasting table and your mouth into a cup.
And the worst part was you did not care enough.
How could you, when Dex looked at you like you hung the moon and stars for him? How could you when the forest seemed to hum approval?
A distant, sensible part of you understood that you should have reacted. You should have stiffened in his arms, looked back toward the mist, thought of your mother and father, your kingdom, your guards, the frantic search parties that would soon spill into the western woods calling your name. Instead, you only curled deeper into Dex as though the sound had frightened you toward him rather than away from him, and his arms tightened around you at once, pleased by the surrender.
He gathered you closer, one hand beneath your knees and the other firm against your back, carrying you as though you weighed nothing at all. The thorn path opened behind him with a shiver of black branches, parting for their prince and the human princess he had finally claimed.
Dex kissed your temple once, his mouth lingering there as he murmured sweet little nothings into your hair. I never used the Sleep of Rowan until he wanted to become the kind of hunter you would not fear. I wanted to be good for you. You made me want to be kind. My North Star. My pretty girl. My princess.
The words should have mattered. A foolish part of you heard them and melted, heard the devotion beneath the old loneliness of centuries spent alone. Perhaps some corner of your heart truly did believe a creature like him meant every gentle thing he said, even while carrying you deeper into a realm that had just swallowed you whole.
All his pretty promises blurred into the darker truth humming through the old magic between you. He could not wait to show you his realm, his palace, his gardens, his bed. He could not wait to keep you spoiled as his lover and his plaything, the future mother to his heirs. You were for as long as the Wyld remembered how to hunger.
You should have been horrified, but you were too full of the sweetness you had swallowed, and the magic now curling through your blood like a second heartbeat. Your cheek rested against his throat, and when Dex’s hand stroked over your back, you sighed as though you were relieved, because being taken felt too much like being wanted.
For Dex, Prince of the Wyld, his three-year hunt for his mate was finally complete.
If he was being honest, he had thought it would take longer.
i do also feel the need to add that phil8248 really liked the joke. he said his wife had always had a dark sense of humour, even about her illness and death, and seeing the joke made him feel like he was laughing with her one last time.
Summary: Starting a family can be scary, but you and Haley are always there for each other regardless.
Word Count: 5k
Content + Warnings: Pregnancy (Reader is AFAB and is pregnant in the beginning), allusions to IVF treatments, talks of parenthood, talks of not being good enough, plenty of fluff
- - - - [Masterlist] - - - -
[A/N]: I might've gotten a little too carried away with this one, but I was genuinely so excited when I saw a request for her. I've had this specific fic idea in my head for her for months, so I sort of used this request as an excuse to finally write it.
Enjoy!
Humming in delight at the smell of warm pie wafting throughout the kitchen, Haley couldn’t help but let a faint smile spread across her lips, her feet carrying her to the source resting neatly on the counter. She reached towards it curiously, wanting to swipe the filling leaking from one of the sides with her thumb. A small, playful swat stopped her from doing so, however, prompting her to pout childishly as she looked over at you. “Not until after dinner, Haley,” you reminded her with an amused chuckle.
She tried to keep her pouty look fixed on her face, hoping you’d let her try even a small piece of the treat, though the sight of you gazing up at her with only softness and adoration in your eyes cracked her facade and let her grin return. “But it smells so good,” she argued pathetically as she eyed the pie once again. “It’ll still smell and taste the same after dinner.”
Sighing, she nodded, then watched as you turned to the sink and slipped on a pair of dishwashing gloves. Shortly after, you dipped your hands into the warm, soapy water resting in front of you and grabbed one of the plates, which you lifted only a few inches above the water to let you see what you were scrubbing at. “You know, I could do that for you instead,” Haley offered as she moved to stand behind you. “You shouldn’t really be on your feet so much anyway.”
With her words, you could feel her arms snake around your waist to let her delicate hands cradle the bump forming in your belly. “It’s not good for you or the baby,” she whispered, kissing your temple and resting her chin on your shoulder. “I’ll be alright for now,” you replied just as quietly, “but I certainly won’t be able to do things like this later on when my due date gets close.” She nodded against you. Smirking, you raised a brow and turned your head to eye her.
“Besides, weren’t you the one who kept complaining about how gross it is to wash the dishes?” Her eyes rolled at your response, though she didn’t bother trying to hide the look of pure mirthfulness at the memory. “Yeah, but I’m pretty sure I can suck it up for the time being. At least until the baby is born and you’ve recovered.” Her concern for you and the baby made your heart swell every time. You shook your head and returned your focus to the dishes for a moment. “Well, either way, you already started taking care of everything around the house and the farm once we found out I was finally pregnant. I think I can handle the dishes at the very least.”
Another hum escaped her as she moved her head to kiss your neck. “Okay, fine, but let me know if I need to take care of them instead, alright?”
“I will.”
Several moments passed where Haley simply watched you take care of the small pile of dishes in the sink, her thumbs gently rubbing circles against your baby bump so soothingly that you almost closed your eyes – though you knew part of your desire to fall asleep so quickly was because of how draining the pregnancy had been so far. Nothing had gone wrong, thankfully, and there were no scares, but you were already halfway through your second trimester, and you certainly were showing. Before, when the pregnancy first started developing, you were able to hide it with baggy clothes. You couldn’t do that now if you tried.
The baby was growing faster than you or Haley could entirely plan for, and it was taking a toll on your energy. Haley stepped up more than she had when you had married her. She’d head off to the store to buy seeds and groceries, and she’d take over chores left and right, including taking care of the farm animals and the crops. Not once had she complained about how sweaty or gross she felt after such a strenuous day. She knew you were dealing with a lot already, especially since you were the one carrying the baby, and she didn’t want to add to it by complaining over a little dirt or having to shower more than usual.
Thankfully, you didn’t have to worry about what all you needed to get for the baby.
Things were already in place before you finally decided on trying to get pregnant: all of the baby’s clothes, toys, decorations, blankets, food, and anything else you or Haley could think of were bought ahead of time. It was fun those couple of weeks the two of you worked together daily to get the nursery set up. Robin and Leah even contributed by creating little bits of furniture once they were made aware of the expected child.
With the help of Maru and Harvey at the clinic, you found a donor (taking plenty of time to ensure the child would have a good chance to look like you and Haley both) and started treatments. It took several months before it finally worked, but Haley was there for you through every negative test and each night spent crying or worrying.
To say you were both ecstatic at the news that you were finally pregnant would be an understatement.
You can still remember how Haley squealed and squeezed you tight once you made it home, and how she started searching online for more outfits and toys. You had to convince her to wait until the baby was born and confirmed to be healthy before going on another spending spree. Even so, a few small packages would occasionally show up on your porch, and you’d find Haley snatching them up and sneaking them into the nursery before you got a chance to ask her what it was.
When you started showing, she convinced you to try maternity photos, insisting she be the one to take the shots. It took longer than expected since she ended up having to take breaks between shots to wipe her eyes and calm down again. Throughout the pregnancy so far, she’d already built up a small photo album, one that you were sure she was going to have filled to the brim even before the child’s first birthday.
You honestly thought she was more excited to meet the baby than you were.
“I wonder what they’ll be like once they’ve grown up a little bit,” she murmured, snapping you out of your small daze. “Hm?” You hummed in response, a small sign to keep going. “I think that’s what’s so exciting to me. We’re bringing a new life into the world, but we also get to see who they’ll become. I mean, their likes, dislikes, interests, hobbies… I just,” she paused, eyes dropping down over your shoulder to peek at her hands still caressing your belly. “I can’t wait to meet them.”
You smiled again at her words and nodded in agreement. “It is exciting.”
You thought to yourself briefly for a moment.
“I wonder if they’ll try to steal dessert before dinner like their mother.”
She snickered behind you.
“They’ll be my partner in crime.”
By the time the pregnancy ended and you had the baby, you were entirely spent, your hormones running wild and spinning cruel lies in your head to make you feel as though Haley wasn’t happy with how little you were able to help out. She reassured you each time without a trace of venom or deceit in her tone that she was more than happy to watch over everything a little longer while you recovered. She’d be the first one to get out of bed in the middle of the night when the baby would start crying. She’d be the first to slip quietly into the nursery and pick your child up, cradling her in her arms as she sang soft lullabies and whispered comforting words.
Months passed after the birth, and you were feeling better – at least enough to start helping out like you would before the pregnancy. Even still, Haley made sure you were taking plenty of breaks so you could rest. Not once did she make you feel guilty for how exhausted you felt, instead opting to encourage and compliment you on how well you’ve been doing. “Our baby is happy, healthy, and perfect, and it’s because of you. You carried her for nine months, went through hell during labor, and are still trying to be there for her every step of the way. There’s not much more I could possibly ask for. We have a child because of you, and I’m so proud of you for everything.”
On the days where you couldn’t get out of bed for long, she’d bring your daughter to you and help you coddle her, even helping to hold her head up when she nursed from you. She’d bring you your favorite snacks and drinks, and would hold you until you felt better. She’d bring the baby into the room with her toys and the two of you would play with her.
She did everything for you.
It wasn’t until you started managing to take things over again that you finally saw her own insecurities starting to show.
You stepped into the living room after making sure each of the animals around the grounds were fed properly for the night. Smiling at the sight of Haley seated on the sofa with your daughter lying comfortably on her legs, you slipped your coat off and hung it on the rack resting just by the door. As you grew closer to the two, you could see Haley covering her eyes for a second before pulling them away, repeating this motion. Peek-a-boo.
When you sat down beside her, Haley beamed at you before looking back down at the baby. “Who’s that?” She asked in a playful tone, pointing over at you. “That’s mama! Can you say “hi” to mama?” The baby, finding her actions and voice silly, giggled and reached up for Haley with both hands. When the blonde lowered her face into her daughter’s hands, the laughing grew louder, tiny hands grasping at her ear and nose. Haley’s own chuckles filled the air and she moved one of her hands down to the little girl’s belly, using her fingers to tickle her.
You only watched for some time, your smile never faltering at the sight of how much your wife loved your daughter.
Shortly after pressing a quick kiss to her baby’s forehead, Haley looked back up at you, eyes softening further and face tinting with pink. “She looks so much like you,” you blurted, prompting her cheeks to redden even more. “Oh,” she looked down at the baby again, her hair falling to cover her bashful expression. “I don’t know about that. I think she looks more like you.”
When you had been looking for the right donor all those months ago, you were both prepared for the possibility that the child would only look like you or not look like either of you at all, but it seemed it was worth the effort of researching with how much the baby ended up sharing features the two of you adorned. To anyone who didn’t know about the treatments you went through, it would seem the child truly was from you and Haley.
“Either way, she’s beautiful,” you replied, leaning against her shoulder and joining her in gazing down lovingly at your daughter. “Yeah, she is. I can’t believe she’s actually here.” Confusion set in, your face contorting slightly as you glanced up at her. “What do you mean?” She hummed as a more somber look crossed her face. It was a struggle trying to keep her smile etched on her lips to not worry the little one still resting on her lap. “I guess I shouldn’t have phrased it like that,” she explained. “I knew she’d be okay during the pregnancy and everything. Dr. Harvey said she’s been healthy since day one, after all. I guess it would’ve made more sense for me to say that I can’t believe I’m actually here.
“I never thought I’d have a family of my own. I never even pictured myself actually falling in love and settling down with someone until I met you. I just…” Shakily, she let a small sigh slip past her lips. Now smiling again, she turned back to you. “I’m so glad I met you. Who knows how my life would’ve gone if you hadn’t moved here.”
Her words combined with the sight of tears pricking the corners of her eyes caused your own to start forming. “Oh, Haley,” you murmured as you pulled her into your arms. “I’m glad I met you, too, honey. I love you.” She couldn’t stifle it any longer, and you could hear a choked sob leave her as she hid her face in your shoulder. “I love you, too. So, so much.” As softly as you could, you pressed a kiss to the side of her head. “I’m so lucky to have you,” you said in a hushed tone, though her cries still grew in volume.
Noticing that her mothers were both crying now, your daughter frowned, then whined and squealed for attention to be back on her. It only took Haley a second after lifting her head from your shoulder to wipe her tears away with a sniffle and look down at her little girl. “Mama’s okay, sweetheart. They’re happy tears.” Your smile returned when she lifted the baby up to hold her properly and started peppering her little face in kisses, finally getting her to giggle all over again.
Your eyes scanned over the numerous toys scattered all around the floor, then wandered up to the clock above the doorway. “Oh, I didn’t realize how late it was. I guess we should get ready for bed.” Haley nodded and helped you stand, watching gleefully as you took the baby into your own arms. “Does that sound good?” You asked the little one, who clapped and laughed at the feeling of finally being in her other mother’s arms again for the first time in hours.
“Then let’s get you changed, yeah?” Haley trailed behind you and watched with caution as you both climbed the stairs. She knew you were regaining your strength day by day, but she also knew there was a chance you were more tired than you were letting on. Still, she kept a careful eye on you as you changed your daughter into her pajamas and helped her settle into her crib for the night. You stood by her side and hummed gentle lullabies until she fell asleep.
Once you were sure she wouldn’t wake up for the time being, you let Haley take you by the hand and pull you into the bedroom. Both of you attempted to stay as quiet as possible as you changed into more comfortable clothes and finished your nightly routines. For once, you found Haley in bed before you, though she wasn’t lying down. You could tell instantly that something was off. Usually, she was bundled up under the covers, smiling and watching you move around wherever you were in the room.
Instead, she stared blankly down at her lap and let her nails pick almost rhythmically against her hands, something you stopped by taking them into your own. “Hey,” you whispered, gaining her attention. “You okay?” She nodded, but you caught how her lip quivered and eyes glossed over.
“C’mon, you can tell me. You’ve been there for me left and right this past year and a half, so please let me start being here for you again. I don’t want you to feel like you can’t open up to me now that I’m recovering from the pregnancy. I’m here for you. Please, tell me what’s wrong.” The tears that blurred her vision finally sprung freely and trailed down her cheeks as she looked you in the eye. Frowning, you scooted closer and led her head to lean against your shoulder. Instinctively, her arms flew up and wrapped themselves around you, her nails digging into your shirt as her body trembled.
“It’s okay,” you assured her, “cry as much as you want. I’m not going anywhere.”
Several long minutes passed before she calmed herself enough to speak properly, though her voice still cracked and shook with every few words. “I’m scared.”
You leaned back, now cradling her head in your hands.
“Scared?”
“What if I can’t be the mother she wants? Or the mother she needs? What if she stops loving me one day because I’m not doing enough for her? I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want to end up like my parents, and I don’t want her to be angry at me the way I am with them. What if I don’t end up being good enough for her, or what if I end up ruining her trust in me, or what if I do something she’ll never forgive me for? What’ll I do then?”
You could only stare at her for a while, too stunned by her sudden confession. Not once throughout the past several months had you expected these kinds of feelings from her. She hid it so well.
A small bolt of guilt shot through your veins. She had been hiding it from you and for you. It was no wonder you’d never seen this kind of concern in regards to your baby.
It wasn’t hard to feel her still shaking in your hold. Your shoulders slumped as your frown deepened, wanting nothing more than to take those fears away from her for good. “Haley,” you murmured, the pads of your thumbs stroking soothingly over her wetted cheeks. “Honey, I can promise you none of those things will happen.” She glared up at you, her gaze almost accusatory. “How can you be so sure?” You knew she hadn’t meant for her tone to come out in such a challenging way.
“Because I know you. Not only that, but I’ve seen the way you’ve treated her since she was born. Even before her birth, you were always so excited and understanding towards everything and everyone that surrounded her. You’ve been patient, kind, resourceful, understanding, and so, so happy towards our baby. I can’t promise that things won’t ever get rocky. I’m sure there’ll be times in the future where you two will argue or butt heads over things, but I know it won’t drift you apart, especially not as much as you think it will.
“You’ve done it with me, too, and that’s how I know you’ll always find a way to fix things: we’ve gotten in our fair share of petty and not-so-petty arguments, but we always come back together because of you. Even when you’re not ready yet, you always take the first step and talk to me. That’s the most important thing. You talk to me: you ask me if I’m okay, if I’m ready to talk properly about what happened, and it took a little time, sure, but you’ve been more than willing to be the bigger person, even when you don’t have to be.
“I know you’ll be the same with our daughter. You’ll be the same loving, sweet, charming woman that I fell in love with, and you’ll be the one that little girl looks up to, even when she feels lost or confused. You’ll be an incredible mother, Haley, I know it. You already are.”
Looking back at Haley’s eyes, you worried that if you had said anymore she’d drain every single tear from her body. Even stopping when you did, it seemed that’s what would happen anyway. It was as if a valve behind her eyes had busted loose and caused all of her built up frustration and worry over the past year or two to finally gush out. Incoherent babbles and strained sobs wracked through her body once you held her to your front again. You wondered just how long she had been bottling everything up.
Soon enough, the fatigue from crying set in, and she ended up falling asleep rather quickly against you. Smiling, you carefully lowered her onto the mattress properly and shuffled in under the blankets on your side of the bed. Before crashing yourself, you shifted to lie just in front of her and pull her head to your chest, a small sigh slipping out as she unconsciously snaked her arms around you to hold you closer.
When the baby ended up crying randomly throughout the night, you were the one to get up and help her settle back down again, wanting Haley to finally get the rest she deserved. As you had expected, she tried to refuse and get up instead the first few times, though all you had to mumble was a soft “let me take care of it this time” before she finally gave in. You assumed, based on the quiet snores escaping her, that she eventually accepted it for the night and wouldn’t wake up again until her body was ready to.
You lost count of how many times you got up throughout the night by the time the crying finally stopped. Still, you weren’t upset or annoyed by anything. Haley had done it for so long, and it was your responsibility, too, after all. It felt nice to finally have the strength to help out again.
Each time you returned to bed, Haley latched back onto you, murmuring something incomprehensible each time. The night was halfway over by the time you were finally granted more than half an hour of sleep.
The next morning was a bit delayed due to your own exhaustion, though the beams of sunlight dancing throughout the room and ultimately across your face finally stirred you awake. Groaning, you sat up in bed and stretched with a long, drawn-out yawn. Desperate to feel awake, you tried to rub the drowsiness from your eyes with your palms, mumbling small curses to yourself as you tried to ignore your body begging you to lie back down and go to sleep again.
Your hands fell to the mattress on either side of you as you simply let yourself blink for a minute to regain your awareness. Heavy eyes sauntered over in search of your wife, only now noticing how cold the bed had been for a while. “Haley?” You called out gently when you couldn’t spot her anywhere in the room. It didn’t seem, based on the lack of light from under the door, that she was in the bathroom either. This wasn’t uncommon, since you often found her in the nursery watching over the baby or down in the kitchen preparing breakfast.
With a bit of an effort, you swung your legs over the side of the bed and forced yourself to stand, wincing at the sound of your joints cracking with your small movements. After slipping on a pair of house-shoes, you made your way to the nursery and peeked inside.
Odd.
No one was in there.
Haley was never usually up this early, especially not with your daughter with her. You closed the door to the nursery and waited for a moment, silently wondering where she could’ve gone after leaving the room.
The kitchen was your next guess on where they could be, though you found emptiness there as well. It was clear someone had been in there shortly before, though, judging by the plate and silverware still resting on the dining table and the partially cleaned up mess on the highchair.
Without giving it much thought, you grabbed the small rags from under the sink and let the water warm up while you collected the plate, fork, and knife from where Haley usually sat at the table. Once the water was warm enough, you quickly rinsed everything off before slipping it into the dishwasher. Following that, you grabbed the rags from before and finished cleaning up what was left of the mess on the tray of the highchair.
It didn’t take long to put everything back up where it belonged, and you immediately remembered what you were doing before.
A quick glance in the living room, cellar, and playroom let you know they weren’t there either. Maybe Haley had taken her into town to see her sister?
You hummed, returning to your bedroom upstairs to slip on something more presentable before heading out the front door. While opening it, you slipped your phone from your pocket and shot her a text, though you halted when you heard the familiar ringtone from Haley’s phone in the living room. Strange. She never goes anywhere without her phone, especially if she has her daughter with her. Still, you weren’t worried. You shrugged it off and assumed she simply forgot it somehow.
Turning again and pocketing your phone, you pushed the door the rest of the way open and closed it behind you once you stepped out onto the porch. Mentally and physically, you were preparing yourself for the long walk into town.
You froze, however, upon finally spotting Haley and your daughter only a few meters ahead of the porch. Just beside the patch of sunflowers you planted each year for her, Haley stood cradling the baby in one arm and reaching the other one out to let the tips of her fingers graze the leaves and petals of the tall flowers. A permanent smile was fixed on her lips as she seemingly spoke to the little girl, looking down at her every few moments while she talked about how beautiful the flowers were.
With silent steps to avoid being noticed, you moved to lean against the banister to watch the scene before you. Haley spoke quietly, both to avoid upsetting her daughter and because she was just so far away, but you still strained your ears in an attempt to hear what she was saying.
“A lot of people thought it was silly and childish for me to still like sunflowers,” you managed to catch, “but I didn’t really care. They’re beautiful to me no matter how much I tried to hate them, and after I met your mother, I gave up on trying to pretend they weren’t my favorite.”
Her head tilted backwards as she looked up at the golden petals towering above. The morning breeze helped them dance elegantly with one another, and Haley found her hands itching to dig out her camera and take a photo. She was too focused on the memories flooding her mind now to worry about that, though, and a mixture of serenity and nostalgia caused her eyes to close just for a moment.
They opened again shortly after, and she let them land back on the little one making all sorts of noises in her arm. She hummed.
“You know,” she added, her voice slightly lower as she focused all of her attention on the little girl smiling up at her again. “I’m kind of glad mama kept giving me these flowers when we started getting close. She still does, which is why these are here, but it still meant a lot then. I wasn’t having the best time before I met her, but somehow, finding one of these on my doorstep each morning with one of her sweet, dorky little notes helped me feel better. It gave me something to look forward to. It made me start loving them all over again, and it may seem silly, but it made me start loving mama, too.
“You wouldn’t believe how happy I am to see that she’s still planting them after all this time. She doesn’t have to, especially now that we have you to take care of,” she paused for a second to tickle her daughter’s nose, her smile growing at the laughter that came as a result, “but she still does because she knows it makes me happy. I started doing the same thing, actually.”
She turned, her eyes now skimming over the small plot of land right next to the sunflowers. Lined up neatly and still in partial bloom, she had planted your favorite kind of flower, the dirt nearly overshadowed entirely by the color you had adored since you were little. “I wasn’t great at this whole farming thing for a long time, and to be honest with you, I still think the chickens, goats, and cows prefer your mama over me, but she’s helped me learn so much about this kind of life. About the very thing that brought us together and helps us stay afloat in this little town.”
As her eyes continued roaming along the two separate patches of flowers, she hummed. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to thank her enough for the life she’s given me.” There was a brief second where she only stood there, examining the blooming flowers in silence. You blinked when she turned back to her daughter, her small smile returning. “I know the cows aren’t too fond of me, but I’m sure they’ll adore you. What do you think? Do you want to go visit the cows?”
Your little girl giggled and swung her arms up in the air. She may not have been able to speak yet, but you knew she knew what the cows were. One of the first words she started to recognize recently was “cow.”. She loved them, and it seemed Haley was convinced they’d love her, too. “Okay, c’mon. Let’s go see them.”
You continued to watch from your spot on the porch, even as Haley led your daughter over to one of the barns to let her see the cows. When she was out of sight and you were sure she couldn’t hear you, you found yourself murmuring under your breath, lips stretched out wide in a smile.
“Told you you’d be a great mother.”
Started on: December 17th, 2024
Finished on: December 18th, 2024
amandla
titsay
snowghoul
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
stormborns
gamechangershow
2087
