weeeeeeee it’s more bulldevil time.
dex does NOT like to be restrained. he’ll tolerate it if he has to (and will absolutely spiral about it later) but if he can help it, it’s a hard no. It mainly stems from not being able to properly defend himself/the loss of autonomy and that he doesn’t truly believe that anyone willingly lets him out— i think they used to just cuff him to the bed and leave him there if he caused problems at the hospital. He’s a potentially violent patient with a record, they don’t trust him. we already know he spent most of that time heavily sedated, but it can take some time to kick in (oral administration/pills), and if he built up a tolerance they’d have to keep upping the dose when they notice he’s more alert.
this all causes problems (predictably) because matt doesn’t really trust him and usually needs to know exactly where dex is. there’s a lot of conditioning/bribing with rewards/punching the shit out of each other before matt puts the cuffs actually away.
exactly one (1) memorable time where dex allowed matt’s belt as restraint when they were fucking (because it sounded kinda hot/like a good idea at the time). It got retired (dex bit and tore through it)
matt’s the first one to get dex properly drunk, and his reasoning is that alcohol is a depressant so maybe it’ll calm him down. nope. he’s just giggly and talkative and then gets scared because it’s too disorienting. so matt just ends up babysitting paranoid drunk dex.
matt would never actually drug dex but dex would absolutely drug matt if he knew he would get away with it.
first thing dex does when he gets even the slightest idea it’s ok for him to do so, he shoves the bed in the corner and tries to sleep closest the door. that’s what he’s always done, why would he stop now? matt definitely feels weird that dex now has the “protective” sleeping spot, has absolutely fought him on it, but he really can’t argue against the fact that he can technically see through doors and dex can’t— so dex gets the visual vantage point.
the person mask is CRAZY now that dex is unmedicated. if he really wants to be, he’s the best actor in the world. but he never wants to be, and he’s still at that stage in withdrawal and relearning all your triggers where anything could send him spiraling or lashing out. it’s ok i dont need to see it. i know it’s there. the deadpan “oh shit. he has a gun.” is all the proof i need
i wanna talk MORE about EMOTIONAL INSTABILITY….
for one, he’s been regulated with mood stabilizers for most of his life. the emotional regulation toolkit is so empty and rusty because it rarely gets used for anything outside of like, rage, and maybe obsession, for 25+ years.
two, i just know that asshole is autistic, and i love to project that he also has very physical/visceral emotional reactions. so he has a kind of weird range of emotions where he spends most of his time in a neutral/unspecific state and then anything outside of that is an extreme that causes pain and confusion, because he doesn’t know why it hurts. even if it’s a good emotion, it gets physical and exhausting because it turns into sensory input too. he panics or gets angry and his lungs and throat hurt. he’s happy and his arms can’t stop moving. and all of it makes his chest hurt.
aaaaaand because it’s a physiological reaction, matt can sense it. he can hear how his heartbeat changes, obviously, but also the changes in breathing because it hurts to move his ribs, smell the panic/fear that comes with confusion, everything.
while dex is absolutely clingy the proximity isn’t a requirement. he feels just as close 1000 meters away through a scope. matt however likes touching, and dex isn’t gonna complain about it
and i think skin contact is important. like dex’s pressure to his chest, skin contact means they’re safe enough to be undressed and therefore fine. plus he’s using it as a monitoring tool.
he’ll press his face into dex’s neck, push his shirt up to get at his chest and stomach and bring him close so he can feel it against his own chest. he’ll slip his hands up under dex’s shirt or into his waistband just to measure body temperature.
it’s also at least a little bit because matt has super sensitive skin, but really i always think of giving brand new babies skin-to-skin contact because (tada! guess what i’m tying into again) it helps with their autonomic regulation. dex gets mental support and matt gets physical/sensory support.
dex will stand behind matt and tuck his chin over his shoulder to watch him do things, since matt’s always listening/smelling/feeling what dex is doing.
dex really likes when matt wears “his” blue. matt can’t actually see when dex wears red, but he can smell when he wears his clothes or uses his soap.
neither of them wear cologne that’s too much scents. especially for matt.
so dex steals matt’s clothes bc they smell like him and then they also smell like dex when matt gets them back.
i think dex is quiet… he strikes me as a guy who doesn’t say too much but when he talks, by god he talks— he likes talking, just not about stupid shit. he also has lots to think about and he’s not really that much of an external processor.
some of it also has to do with reading people, especially matt. He can read matt really well and matt can read him really well, so a lot of the time speaking would get more in the way. of course this does occasionally cause problems, because look at them, but usually it pans out to be the scariest nonverbal communication you’ve ever seen
aaaaaannndddd it circles back to the parallels. the foil. the contrast and the sweet, sweet opposites attract that we all love. they really only match each other in terms of power and technique (fisk may beat them both in pure strength, but he relies on that solely and lacks the training/skills matt and dex have) so that the main difference is sight-based, and the fact that dex likes to kill people and therefore has no problem making sure his enemies won’t bother him again.
