Evidence ~ (Bullseye x Reader)
Benjamin Poindexter x F!Reader. - You're one of New York's best forensic photographers. You document each scene, every small seemingly insignificant detail, and do it all with far more respect and care than the investigators. It's a quality of your work that nobody seems to particularly care about. Until someone does...
Warnings: 18+, violence, graphic crime scenes, Dex stalking reader, slow-burn cat & mouse dynamic, eventual smut, subtle kn!fe play, slightly subby Dex if you squint, unprotected P!inV! (please wrap before you tap guys), implied voyeurism (??), Dex is kinda creepy but not pushy.
A/N: This is somewhat long guys, I'm so sorry, but this idea has been wracking my brain for months and I couldn't stop typing. I had to build up the plot before the sexy time, but it's there, I promise.
INSPIRED BY THE SONG - One Way Or Another - Until The Ribbon Breaks
The dead were always quieter than the living.
That was arguably the first thing you learned when you became a forensic photographer. The living wailed and screamed, contaminated crime scenes, cried into detectives' shoulders, and argued with police, begging for answers that nobody had yet.
The dead? They simply waited.
You adjusted the focus ring on your camera, waiting for the flash to recharge before taking another photograph of the apartment's narrow hallway. Blood had dried in a splatter across the chipping paint of the wall interrupted by a single handprint leading towards the front door. You had arrived to the scene earlier than usual at the request of the rest of the forensic team.
"Need anything?" A low grumble from behind you.
It was the lead detective, a rough man with an intimidating presence, one you'd grown all too accustomed to over the past few months. You had worked with him on murder after murder, all carried out in the same, calculated process, and no incriminating evidence to lead to the culprit. He was tired. You could tell by the dark sunken bags under his eyes. No doubt, he'd spent many hours in the night trying to solve these cases.
"No, not right now," You hum quietly in response, snapping another photo with a loud click.
Everyone on the scene was tired. This was the third one in two weeks. Any and all horror or sympathy was replaced by exhaustion and a sense of normalcy. Nobody cared about the grief: The sobbing family in the complex's hallway, the neighbors peeking through their cracked doors and covering their children's eyes, it was the same nightmare that everyone on the scene had lived through for months.
You tried to make up for it the best you could, not quite finding yourself at the point of numbness yet. You crouch down next to the victim. Middle-aged, thick wedding band, ink stains on two fingers. Someone who probably worked at a desk... Someone who had been alive yesterday...
You reached over, gently straightening the crooked picture frame that had fallen against his shoulder during the struggle with a gloved hand. A photograph of two little girls smiled back from the glass. Your heart ached at the sight. It was the normal for these victims to have families, but the thought of two little girls having to grow up without a father made your stomach churn.
"I'm so sorry..." You murmured, voice barely above a whisper, "I know this isn't how you'd want them to remember you..."
You stand up again, snapping one final photo of the body. As you clicked, the coroner approached, the same exhaustion on his face as the lead detective.
Nobody ever questioned your little ritual. They never would.
Across the street, four stories above the level of the crime scene on an inconspicuous rooftop, Benjamin Poindexter lowered the binoculars.
He'd expected the usual procession of uniforms and routine. What he didn't expect was you, apologizing to a corpse. Not out of policy or anything of the sort, but because you felt as if someone should.
It was a tenderness he'd never seen before from people like you, a quiet, gentle acknowledgement of a tragedy that has been seen time and time again.
He stayed on that rooftop far longer than he had planned.
***
The next morning, you sat quietly at your desk, sipping on a coffee that had long since gone cold. You supervisor appeared almost out of thin air, pale as a ghost, and dropped another case assignment on your desk.
"Brooklyn," She said, "Assumed homicide."
Your brow furrows and you let out a deep sigh, already reaching for your camera bag and badge.
"Busy week."
"It's New York."
By noon, you were already ducking beneath yellow crime scene tape, flashing your badge at the officer barking orders at the crowd of people and hungry reporters pushing against one another to get a better view.
It was a small condo, well kempt, rather lavish for being on the smaller side. One singular victim, as usual, with minimal signs of forced entry.
You begin the same routine you've had for a long time, using your camera lens to survey the scene quietly as officers and detectives' share quiet conversation around you.
Mid-range. Blood spatter. Entry wounds from a sharp object on vital points. Evidence markers. Nothing unusual from the scenes you'd inspected in the past. That was, until your lens caught something in the corner of the frame.
You lower your camera, eyes locking in on the focal point that you'd spotted through the lens.
On the windowsill, perfectly centered sat a white marble.
Something about it unsettled you. Not that marbles were impossible to find in a home, but because this one looked placed... deliberately. It caught the light of the window like it had been perfectly set for the camera.
You swallow hard and glance towards the evidence technician.
"Has someone marked this yet?"
He frowns.
"Marked what?"
You blink and point to the windowsill.
"The... marble?"
He glances to the windowsill for a millisecond, barely sparing a thought, furrows his brow, and then looks back at you.
"What are you talking about?" He murmurs, turning his attention back to the victim's body.
You gulp and settle your gaze on the windowsill again. It's still there, perfectly placed, waiting.
You take a deep inhale and lift your camera.
Click.
That photograph shouldn't exist.
You realized that before the image had even finished developing.
The print hung from the drying line by a tiny metal clip, swaying almost imperceptibly in the draft from the ancient ventilation system. One by one, the apartment came into focus. The entryway, the lamp overturned during the struggle, evidence markers 1-34, the blood pooled beneath the victim. And there...
On the windowsill, a white marble.
Your stomach dropped and you step closer, nearly bumping into the line of hanging photographs. Centered in the frame with impossible precision, bright against the dark paint of the windowsill.
It was small, of course. It was a marble for heavens sakes, but you couldn't make sense of the fact that the initial investigation team never saw it, especially because they were as thorough as it gets.
The logical side of you just presumes they missed it or deemed it as too insignificant to care about. Or perhaps, for some odd reason, someone on the team placed it there before you arrived, even though that was a complete violation of the policy.
At this point, however, policy didn't mean nearly as much to you. Because even with your logical side, something about this didn't feel right, and you do something you'd normally never even consider. You gently pull the photograph off of the drying line, gently tracing the edges as you survey it closely. As your eyes scan it over, that unsettling feeling only sets in more.
You can't reasonably explain why, but you slide the photo into your bag instead of the evidence folder, heart thudding against your ribs.
***
Benjamin Poindexter hated hospitals. They were too bright, too... chaotic. Too many people experiencing each and every emotion all at one time.
He exited through the emergency department without breaking stride, the nurse at the reception desk too involved with a screaming family member to notice him.
He glanced up as he walked. The security camera above the automatic doors had been facing three degrees too far left for almost six months and nobody had fixed it yet.
Normal people rarely noticed the little things like that. That was why they died.
He crossed the bustling street, disappearing into the late afternoon crowd. Three blocks later, he stopped outside an old camera shop, the outside noticeably rundown and sticking out like a sore thumb compared to the modern and refurnished buildings next to it.
He wasn't here because he needed anything. He was here because the display window reflected the sidewalk behind him.
You walked past exactly on schedule, camera bag over your right shoulder, coffee in your left hand, only one earbud in one ear.
You always adjusted the strap after crossing Seventh Avenue. Today was no different.
He watched your reflection intensely.
One.
Two.
Three.
Your hand reached up, tugging the worn canvas strap higher onto your shoulder as you walked, a mindless routine movement that nobody else would ever think to notice.
He smiled to himself.
You spent the rest of your boring afternoon trying to convince yourself you were imagining things. There had to be an explanation. It was misplaced piece of evidence or a child's toy overlooked by responding officers? Maybe the fatigue and stress had finally caught up to you? Anything.
By seven o'clock that evening, you'd almost succeeded. The trials of the day finally subsided, and you felt as if you could finally take a full breath.
That was until you unlocked your apartment door.
Stepping in, you felt exhaustion creep into your bones like every day, but this time, something felt different.
You looked around, eyes adjusting to the dark. Nothing was apparent. Everything was in the same spot as you left it this morning. There were no open windows or doors, truly nothing that would implicate some sort of forced entry or disturbance.
But yet, the hairs on your neck still stood straight up. You stood motionless for a moment, listening to the sounds around you. Save for the distant sounds of traffic and noises from other apartments, yours was silent. Not a gentle silence though, a silence that instead put you on edge.
You swept your eyes through the living room again, more focused this time. Nothing was abnormal. Bookshelf, couch, coffee table, everything in its perfect condition as usual. You let out a shaky breath and step further in, the shift of your body causing the light from the hallway to make something glint briefly in your peripheral.
You freeze, heart beginning to thud, as your eyes follow the glint.
In the center of the small table by your couch sat a single white marble.
You have never once owned marbles.
For several long seconds, you simply just stared, the thumping in your chest becoming audible now. Not taking your eyes off of the table, you fumble around in your bag, clutching your phone and pulling it out slowly, like a spooked animal.
You don't call the police. Instead, you open your camera app and quietly snap a picture. When the flash goes off, the marble gleams again, like an eye looking back at you in the dark.
***
You sat at your desk long after everyone else had filtered out for lunch. The marble rested inside an evidence bag beside your keyboard. You'd looked at it at least thirty times. Every single angle, every reflection of the light, mulling over every single explanation in your mind. Nothing made sense. There were no signs of forced entry when you did a sweep of your apartment, yet there was no possible way that marble found it's spot by itself...
After making yourself nauseous thinking about it all, you opened the department's digital evidence archive.
Case #24-1187
You enlarged every crime scene photograph, surveying every detail in every room. Nothing particularly unusual. Then, you get to the kitchen. You see the photos of the body at all different angles, and the blood spatter on the walls. Then, the photo of the window.
The marble gleamed from the windowsill, just like you remembered it. It made your nausea much more apparent, but you took a deep breath and kept moving through all of the archive.
You eventually reach the responding officer's body camera footage, and you click through the timestamps as procedure.
The responding officers enter, sweep every room, make contact with the body in the kitchen. The camera shakes as the officer walks to the window to look for signs of forced entry.
No marble.
Wait.
You rewound, pausing the video on the clearest shot of the windowsill.
No marble.
Your pulse quickened as you feel bile rise in your throat. You slam your laptop shut and stand up abruptly.
No marble.
The evidence photographs and the bodycam footage contradicted each other. Someone placed that marble in that spot before the forensic team arrived. Someone interfered with the crime scene. That wasn't supposed to happen.
Ever.
You stayed frozen in front of your laptop. The fluorescent lights above you hummed quietly, completely unaware that something had shifted.
That was the unsettling part.
The office looked exactly the same, the same stacks of weeks old case paperwork, the same half-empty coffee cups abandoned on desks, the normal quiet hum of computers running in the background.
But your understanding of the situation had changed.
This wasn't some strange coincidence.
Someone had entered a secured crime scene.
Someone had altered evidence.
And somehow, you were the person they wanted to notice.
You slowly sat back down, opening your laptop reluctantly and hovering your shaking hands over the keyboard.
Every instinct you had as an investigator told you to stop. You should close the file and report the discrepancy, bring someone more qualified in to examine everything.
But another part of you kept pulling you back all because of one question you couldn't ignore.
Why the marble?
If someone wanted to tamper with the crime scene, there were easier, less... nonsensical ways.
They could alter the body, clean up the blood, hide the signs of a struggle. Typical things that a calculated killer would do that you've seen plenty of times. Instead, they deliberately placed something there after the body was discovered. It was meant to be seen.
You scroll back to the photo of the window you had taken.
The marble came back into view, the same sight you had gone over in your mind hundreds of times. This time, your eyes moved away from it and you notice something else.
The angle.
You clicked open the image properties, opening a new window. Same with the crime scene floor plan. You return to the original image again.
The window where it sat wasn't facing toward the body, or any other significant part of the scene.
You zoomed out to look at the full picture again, the building across the road coming into view behind the marble. You pull up a map of the street and examine closely, eyes landing on the building opposite of the apartment. You... recognize it.
It used to be an old office for an insurance company that went bankrupt almost a year ago. You stare at the screen for what feels like minutes, your palms becoming increasingly clammier as your leg bounces nervously. It's a direct line of sight into the condo's window from any vantage point.
Your fingers begin to shake as your mouth falls open.
The marble was placed there because whoever left it wanted you to know where they had been standing, and you, the photographer, were the only one that could make the connection.
You should have stopped there. You should have closed out of everything, gone to the break room, and eaten your lunch in peace. Instead, you grab your coat and leave the building entirely.
This wasn't your job. Your job was to take photos of crime scenes and make reports of them. But, you had it all. You had a possible point of origin, a compromised crime scene, and evidence that someone had been watching. For weeks these murders had been going on, and for weeks nobody could make heads or tails of them. But now, you had a lead, and you couldn't pass it up.
The building was only a few blocks away from your office, a quick and chilly walk. Despite the nerves ravaging your body, you reassured yourself that you weren't investigating alone. You were doing this for the sake of your team and the victims that had their lives ripped away from them in the most gruesome ways. Besides, you weren't in any danger. You had a lead that you were following up with. What's so wrong about that?
The building was much smaller than you had remembered. The windows were all dark and the sign above the entrance was removed, leaving only the faint outline of letters contrasting the wear of the rest of the brick.
You approached the door slowly, shivering as a cold wind sent chills down your spine. It was locked of course, but as you stared at it, you notice something. The chain in front of the door was there, but the lock wasn't. It was broken off and laying on the ground a few inches away from your feet. Someone had definitely been in here recently.
As is your nature, you take a picture before slipping inside. It was dark, only the natural light of the outside gently sweeping over the lobby, which smelled of dust and old paint. Your footsteps echoed as you walked, the sound startling you.
You hastily made your way through every floor, finding nothing but abandoned cubicles and the occasional fallen ceiling tile. Eventually, you make it up to the rooftop, which was only a few floors high.
It was quiet up there. The city stretched endlessly around you, and wind rushed past your ears, carrying the sounds of people and traffic below you.
For a moment, you almost found a sense of peace. Nothing outwardly felt wrong, but as you walked forward towards the edge, you find a makeshift chair of cinderblocks, and a small knife laying on the ground next to them.
Your breath catches in your throat as you step closer, leaning over the edge. From this spot, the entirety of the original crime scene was visible. You could see the expanse of the neighborhood across the street, including the condo where everything had begun. You focused in closer, realizing that you could also see inside the window into the kitchen at a perfect direct angle.
Whoever was up here could have watched the whole thing unfold. The arrival of the police, EMS, the forensic team, and you.
Your chest tightened as you stepped back, realizing that this was never about the victim or the murder. It was a clue about whoever had carried this act out, along with all of the others.
But why now? Why start leaving clues now?
As you stepped back, something catches your eye that you hadn't noticed before, tucked behind the knife. You freeze entirely, already knowing what it is without having to look.
Slowly, you turn to the knife and crouch down. As you thought, there laid a marble. But it was different this time? Instead of the normal white sheen, this one was black, placed just for you to find, and underneath it was a crisp folded piece of paper.
Your natural instincts win you over before anything else. You take a photo of all of it. The viewpoint, the makeshift chair, the knife, and the marble. Only after snapping a hefty amount of pictures do you finally retrieve gloves from your bag and pick up the note.
You unfold it, being met with meticulous handwriting, perfect spacing, and the words,
YOU FOUND WHERE I STOOD
Your first thought was that you should be afraid. Maybe you were. But underneath that fear was curiosity.
Whoever this was, they weren't running from you, they were guiding you.
Across the street, blending in with a crowd of passersby, Benjamin lowered his binoculars. The same pair he had used to watch you many times before. He watched you stand in the same exact spot he did, studying your features and finding fear lace them slowly as you discovered everything he had left for you.
He expected you to be afraid, anybody would be. But they would run. You didn't. You studied, analyzed, documented, and searched every single detail, just like he hoped you would.
That's what interested him the most about you. You were so... careful. So tender and gentle with everything you came across. You never left anything untouched or unnoticed. He understood that. He liked that about you.
He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a notebook, flipping through it. The pages were filled with observations about you and your routine. Times, patterns, habits, all the simple little details nobody would ever think to pick up on.
He turned to a blank page and stared at it for several seconds before finally writing.
SHE FOUND THE THIRD ONE.
***
You didn't sleep.
Not because you were afraid. That would have been easier to digest. No, this was an overwhelming feeling of inquisitiveness.
The marble sat on your kitchen table. It was black this time, not white. A deliberate change.
You had spent the entire night replaying absolutely everything that unfolded throughout the week. The crime scene, photograph, the missing marble in the body camera footage, the rooftop, the note.
You found where I stood.
Not I was there, not I saw you, not I know who you are.
You found where I stood.
The wording bothered you for many reasons, but mainly because it wasn't about what happened. It was focused on perspective. Whoever this was wanted you to see what they saw exactly.
You looked at the marble again carefully, then at the photograph from the rooftop. You had taken over one hundred pictures and spent hours attentively examining each and every one of them, and there was one thing in particular that finally caught your eye.
You zoomed in closer on the photograph of the note in your gloved hand. Behind it was the view of the street below, and the crowd of people casually going about their daily lives. But in the middle of those people, in a small gap, was a figure. It was too blurry to make out any sort of details or features, but one thing was evident. This figure was looking directly at you on the rooftop.
This person was watching your every single move. They watched you put the pieces together, and you had no idea.
The next morning, you went back to the rooftop. You told yourself it was because you missed something. It was a reasonable excuse, people missed things all the time in investigations.
Deep down, though, you knew that wasn't the entire reason. In some sick, adrenaline-junkie way, a part of you wanted to know if he would come back. You hated that.
You hated that whoever this person was had managed to turn fear into fascination. It was a slippery slope into danger, and you knew that, but yet, you couldn't help yourself.
The rooftop was different. The makeshift chair was gone, along with the knife. You stood near the edge of the building and looked down where everything was the day before. There was nothing. No new marble, or note, or any other item.
A strange disappointment settled in your chest before you could stop it. You immediately pushed it away.
You turned and walked toward the door, biting your lip with frustration, then something caught your eye.
A small scratch in the concrete, a few feet away from where the chair had been. You were used to catching things out of the corner of your eye at this point, but a new feeling of excitement settled in your chest this time in place of paranoia.
You crouched down and looked closer.
There was a faint mark, almost invisible, in a curved line, like someone had rolled something across the rooftop hard enough to leave a tiny mark.
You followed the direction of the line, eyes moving toward the far corner of the roof right next to the edge. You walked over slowly, and there it was.
A small glass marble laying by the ledge on the ground. It was a deep scarlet red this time.
You didn't pick it up. Instead, you took out your camera and snapped a photo of it. You expected this.
You removed a small evidence marker card from your bag and turned it over, carefully writing a sentence on it before setting it beside the marble and walking away,
Benjamin expected you to take it. That was the point. The previous two had worked because curiosity always won eventually..
He watched from the building across the street. He figured you would find it. You were smart. He also figured you would take a photo of it. That was your routine. What caught him off guard was that you just... left it. That wasn't like you.
His brow furrowed as he watched you leave the rooftop. That wasn't supposed to happen. He waited until you were gone before crossing the street.
The rooftop was empty, except for the marble he had left and the note, which he hadn't expected either.
He picked it up, turned it over, and carefully read the words a few times. For several seconds, he simply stared at it. It was somehow completely different from what he had expected, yet perfectly fitting.
Why me?
Benjamin looked toward the street, a small smile on his face. You were already gone. Mostly everyone in New York City wanted to know who he was, what he wanted, what he has planned next. The normal things. But you... You wanted to play his game. You wanted to find the reason.
For the first time, it didn't feel like he was studying you. He felt like you were studying him, and that simultaneously excited him and unsettled him at the same time.
***
You started noticing him everywhere. Not him specifically, of course. You had no idea what he looked like. But that was the problem, you started noticing everyone. The man standing too still outside the coffee shop, the woman who kept looking over her shoulder on the subway platform, the person who walked the same route behind you for four blocks before turning away.
Your brain had become a surveillance system you couldn't turn off. You knew that was what he wanted. That realization bothered you more than anything, because it meant you gave him power over you, and that he changed the way you moved through the world more than any crime scene did.
The next marble appeared somewhere where you could have never prepared for. Not at a crime scene, not at your apartment, not on a rooftop.
Your office.
You found it sitting on your desk when you returned from processing photographs from an unrelated homicide. Your entire body went rigid when you laid eyes on it. You looked around the room, body trembling in fear. It was empty, but the precinct was loud around you, filled with the normal sounds of phones ringing and printers running.
You picked up the marble with shaking fingers. Red. The same exact one from the rooftop, except this time, it was warm. You froze, a sickening wrenching feeling in your gut.
Someone placed this here very recently.
Naturally, once you unfroze, you looked around the precinct. You started with the obvious places. Doors, windows, exits. When you found nothing in those spots, your eyes moved to the less obvious places. You looked at the reflections on the glass and black computer screens. Anything that may show someone standing where they shouldn't be, a trick you had learned from the police sheriff years ago.
And then you saw him.
Across the floor, by the evidence lockers. Tall, blonde hair, broad shoulders, and a neutral expression with eyes that weren't looking at you. It was as if he was looking at everything BUT you, like he already knew what you had discovered.
Your eyes narrowed and he turned. For half a second, your gaze met, and something in your chest tightened.
It wasn't recognition, not quite. It was something worse than that.
Familiarity.
Like you'd subconsciously seen him before, but no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't place where. And it wasn't his face or body that was familiar to you, it was his presence.
Before you could take your next breath, he looks away, just like that. There was no acknowledgment, no reaction, nothing but a shared glance that lasted for a hasty moment.
You look down at the marble in your hand, gently rolling it in your palm as you furrow your brow. When you look back up, he's already gone.
You spent the next hour trying to convince yourself you imagined it. You couldn't identify him off of his face alone, and you couldn't prove he was connected because he made your tummy feel weird. That wasn't how evidence worked. So you did the only thing you could.
You researched.
The first thing you searched was every person who had access to the precinct, all of the employees, detectives, forensics team, maintenance crew, visitors from the past week. No luck.
Then you searched something broader.
Recent incidents, unusual cases, odd patterns in the system. Your fingers slowed as one name kept appearing.
Not officially, not mentioned in reports or ever as a suspect, just mentioned briefly.
Benjamin Poindexter.
You stared at the screen. The name meant something. Not personally, but professionally. You had seen it many times before, everyone had. A man who was described differently depending on who was describing him. Sometimes he was a decorated FBI agent, other times he was a dangerous criminal. A person nobody could seem to categorize.
You lean in closer to the computer screen to look closer at his photograph, and your stomach drops. You recognized the way he looked at the camera. Empty... controlled... patient.
That evening, you didn't go home. You went back to the rooftop. You weren't sure why; your feet seemed to carry you before your mind could follow up. Maybe a deep part of you thought that maybe, if he was watching, you wanted him to know you weren't running. Not until you got answers. Maybe an even deeper part wanted to see if he would appear.
The rooftop was quiet, the twinkling lights of the city around you lighting up the night like stars. You stood where the chair had been, where he had watched.
"You wanted me to find you."
Your voice disappeared into the wind, a quiet murmur you couldn't stop yourself from saying. No answer.
You waited.
Ten seconds.
Twenty.
"Not exactly."
Your entire body went still. The voice came from behind you. Calm, low, and undeniably close. You turn slowly, heart pounding in your chest as your eyes land on him. The man from the precinct stood several feet away.
His hands are visible. Not threatening, not relaxed either. Just... there.
"Benjamin Poindexter..." You say, eyes scanning over his large form.
He's terrifying. Large, muscular, eyes fixed directly on you. You think about how if he chose to harm you, you would have no chance of defending yourself. Somehow, you aren't scared. His presence is too calm and controlled to be afraid, yet.
"You did your homework," He states with a small smile on his face, taking one step towards you.
"You made sure I would..." You respond breathlessly.
His expression changes ever so slightly. Not guilt or shame, but interest.
You stare at him for what feels like hours, the pounding in your ribcage only accelerating.
"You've been watching me..." You whisper, your voice shaky and small.
He says nothing for a while, just stands there, eyes still locked on yours. That's confirmation enough for you.
"Yes."
His response catches you off guard, and your fingers curl at your sides.
"Do you have any idea how... insane that sounds?" You say, almost laughing.
"Yes."
Now, you feel afraid. You take a step backwards, stomach churning.
"You broke into my apartment! And the places connected to the investigation!" You exclaim, emotion heating up your cheeks.
"I left things behind."
Your eyes narrow at him.
"T-that's.... That's not an explanation! That's not an answer!"
"No," his eyes drift to the edge of the roof, "It's not."
The calmness of his words scares you more than anger would. You've studied and dealt with criminals before. You knew what guilt and fear and anger looked like, especially when a person is trying to convince themselves that they aren't a villain. But he wasn't doing any of that.
"You killed... all of those people..." You say, swallowing hard as he takes another step towards you.
His eyes shift back to you, no distinct expression on his face.
"You know who I am."
You swallow hard again, trying to regain your composure.
"Benjamin Leonard Poindexter..."
He pauses.
"That's not the only name people use..."
Your stomach dropped more than you thought it could.
Bullseye.
The name carried its own weight. A man who left bodies behind him, a man who turned violence into a signature, and he was standing three feet away from you.
You instinctively back up again, legs hitting the ledge of the rooftop.
"You understand why I am afraid of you, right?" You mewl shakily.
His expression shifts again.
"I understand why people are."
You let out a breath, eyes scanning over his figure once again. His eyes flicker.
"You aren't like them."
A bitter, fearful laugh escapes you.
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
He shakes his head no. You stare at him bewildered, hands clutching the edge of the ledge.
"Then why?"
The question hung between you. Why leave the marble? Why choose you? Why drag you into this? He looked toward the city beyond you again.
"I wanted to know if you would see it."
You frowned.
"See what?"
"Me."
The word landed heavier than you expected. You don't answer, instead, you allow him to continue.
"Everyone sees what they expect to see." His voice remains even, "A weapon. A monster..."
Your expression hardened.
"Because of what you've done."
A pause. The smallest crack of emotion.
"I know. I know what I am."
The wind moved between you, cold and unforgiving.
"And still, you thought leaving clues for me was a good idea?"
"No."
You looked at him.
"No?"
"No."
His eyes met yours.
"I knew it was a bad idea."
"Then why do it?"
A long silence passes.
"Because I wanted to."
***
The weeks that followed became something neither of you outwardly acknowledged. The marbles stopped appearing at crime scenes. The notes stopped being riddles. Instead, they became conversations.
Not normal ones. Not the kind built over coffee or casual text messages. Yours existed in the spaces between things, a photograph left somewhere only you would find it, a question answered days later, a conversation that lasted five minutes before he disappeared again.
You learned quickly that Benjamin Poindexter, or Dex, as he preferred for you to call him, was not easy to know.
He was precise, controlled, observant to an unsettling degree. He noticed everything. The way you bounced your leg when you were thinking, the way you stopped eating when you were stressed, the way you looked at exits whenever you entered a room.
At first, it bothered you. It felt like an unwelcome intrusion in your everyday routine. But as weeks passed, it became familiar.
You never forgot what he had done and you never let him forget either. You knew you should have exposed him, put him in jail, let the whole world know who he was, but he swore that he had reasons for killing who he killed, and that none of them were innocent. You tried to get him to explain numerous times, but he never elaborated, instead, he'd get a dark look in his eyes and go quiet.
There were arguments. There were moments when you reminded him exactly who he was and what he was capable of. There were moments when he went quiet because he didn't like hearing the truth, but he listened anyway. Each and every crime scene you went to, you knew it was his doing. It stole a piece of your soul each time.
But despite that, over the span of every interaction you had with him, directly or indirectly, you stopped seeing Bullseye more and more, until all that was left was Dex.
You knew something was wrong the second you opened your eyes. Your otherwise peaceful sleep was interrupted by the sound of gentle shuffling by your window. Your body instinctively freezes as your eyes lock onto the dark blur of the ceiling. You blink a few times tiredly, listening in to the sounds around you. You hear soft breathing, but it's not your own, coming from the other side of the bed.
Panicked, you suck in a sharp breath and lurch upwards, flipping the lamp on your bedside table on. What the light uncovers is Dex, standing at the edge of the bed, eyes fixed on you.
He's not in his typical clothing. Instead, he's in a tactical suit, adorned with weapons, and a mask covering his entire face save for his eyes. The look in his eyes was invasively calm, as if he didn't just break into your apartment. Despite the interactions you've had with him and the softness that you may have felt for him, seeing him officially as Bullseye caused a deep panic to set in your chest.
Your hand slides underneath your pillow, fingertips grazing the kitchen knife that you started keeping underneath it.
"Don't."
His voice was quiet, but stern. You freeze, and his eyes drop briefly towards the movement before returning to your face.
"You've got to be kidding me," You exclaim after a few moments of silence.
Through his mask, you see his eyes squint into a smile.
“Good morning.”
“It's two in the fucking morning.”
“I know.”
“You broke into my apartment.”
“I know.”
You scoff, clutching the blanket up to your chest and narrowing your eyes at him. You slowly pull back your hand from beneath the pillow.
“You're getting sloppy, Poindexter.”
His eyes flicked towards your hand, then back again to your face.
“No.”
The single word made something cold move through your stomach, a feeling that you were all too used to at this point.
“No?”
“I wanted you to know it was me.”
Silence passes. All those weeks you'd caught glimpses of him in your peripheral, across the street from the precinct, at the coffee shop you frequented each morning, standing beside his car when you'd left work. it began to feel like every time you had turned around, he'd been there, and every time you'd confronted him, he had somehow managed to make you question whether you had actually caught him at all. He had never denied it, not directly at least. You had assumed that was all part of his game, but now you weren't so sure.
“You wanted me to know?”
“Yes.”
Your fingers tighten around the blanket, a cold shiver running down your spine.
“Why?”
He looks at you for a moment then his gaze drifts around the bedroom. He notices your camera bag sitting on your desk and the half-empty glass of water on your nightstand. Your eyes narrow as you watch him catalogue every single detail.
“What are you looking at?”
“You leave your curtains open.”
Your blood ran cold at his observation.
“What?"
“At night,” his gaze fixes on you again. “Most nights.”
You stare at him, mouth slightly agape.
“You... keep track of that?”
“I keep track of a lot of things.”
Something about the way he said it made your skin prickle. Your thoughts begin to race in your head, and you furrow your brow.
"What are you doing here...?" You murmur quietly, debating on whether you actually want his response or not.
His expression goes blank. You'd seen this expression before, but never this close, never in a room this quiet, never with the understanding that there was absolutely nobody else between them now.
He straightens his posture and takes a step towards your side of the bed.
“You've been wondering how long I've been watching you.”
Your mouth goes dry as he takes another step
“You've been wondering if I know where you go after work.”
You say nothing.
“You've been wondering if I know which nights you stay late.”
Your pulse begins to pound.
“Dex...” You try to say as a warning, but it comes out as a shaky whimper instead.
“And you've been wondering,” he continued, almost conversationally as he steps again, much closer to you now, “whether I've ever followed you all the way home.”
Your eyes lock onto his above you. The room suddenly felt much smaller.
“You're fucking insane...”
“I know.”
His gaze doesn't leave yours.
“But you still kept looking for me.”
That silenced you, because deep down, you knew he was right. Every time you stepped outside the precinct, some part of you looked for him. Every time you parked your car, you checked the surrounding vehicles. Every time you walked home, you found yourself wondering whether you'd see that familiar silhouette somewhere ahead.
You told yourself it was vigilance, self-preservation that came with the nature of your job. But you started unintentionally looking for him even when you weren't afraid, and he knew.
You push the blanket away and swing your bare legs over the side of the bed, cold air prickling your skin. His eyes immediately dropped.
You notice. Of course you notice.
“Don't.”
This time, it was you saying it. His eyes return to yours, and something almost amused moves across his face.
“You don't like being watched?”
“Not when I'm asleep.”
“That's not what I asked.”
You freeze. He takes another slow step towards you, a heavy thud from his boots hitting your ears. You don't retreat or scramble backwards. Instead, you watch him carefully.
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“You've spent weeks watching me back.”
Another step.
Your heartbeat thuds harder against your chest.
“You knew I was there," he says quietly.
“Sometimes.”
“You looked for me.”
You say nothing. His voice lowers.
“You wanted me to follow you.”
Your jaw tightens.
“That's a hell of an assumption," you scoff, body stiff.
“No,” He stops a few feet away. “It's an observation.”
You hated that word coming from him, primarily because of what you did for a living. You had spent weeks treating Poindexter like a mystery you could solve on your own if you just watched closely enough. However, now you were beginning to wonder whether you'd been the subject the entire time.
“So, what happens now?” You ask softly, voice shaking. His eyes stay on yours, scanning your features intently.
“That's up to you.”
You frown, brows furrowing again.
“You broke into my bedroom. You've been following me. You've apparently memorized how I keep my fucking curtains at night.”
A beat of silence passes.
“Yes.”
“Then don't stand there and tell me this is up to me.”
His expression changes. Something dark passes behind his eyes.
“I came here because I wanted to see what you'd do when there was no way for you to pretend I'm not there.”
Your breath catches in your throat, and he steps closer again. You can practically feel the heat radiating off of his body now.
“You can't go home and convince yourself you're imagining things, or that I don't exist outside of our interactions.” His voice dropps almost to a whisper. “I'm standing right here.”
You look up at him, and suddenly, you understood. This was the next move in the game.
“Why?” Your voice comes out smaller than you mean for it to.
Dex's gaze drops to your mouth, and when he answers, his voice is almost gentle.
“Because you've been daring me to come closer.”
Your breath hitches as your heart skips a beat.
“I never said that.”
“No.” His eyes met yours again, “You didn't have to.”
A man who had been watching you for weeks had broken into your apartment while you slept. You should be reaching for your phone, should be putting distance between you. Instead, you were looking up at him, half-naked in the middle of your bedroom at two-thirty in the morning, conversing with him like you'd done too many times before.
Your eyes drifted toward the bedroom window. The curtains were in fact drawn open, and you remembered what he'd said.
Most nights.
Your attention returned to him.
“How long have you been watching me from outside my window?”
His face went completely still. You immediately knew you'd hit something.
“Dex.” You whisper.
“Long enough.” He responds quiet;y.
Your pulse quickens.
“How long is ‘long enough’?”
“Long enough to know when you fall asleep.”
You swallowed hard.
“That's... fucked up.” You whisper again.
“I know.”
“Long enough to know when I come home?”
“Yes.”
“When I leave?”
“Yes.”
“When I have company?”
His eyes change, barely, but you catch it. You almost feel a smile creep into your cheeks.
“Ah.”
He says nothing.
“You don't like that question.”
“No.”
“Why?” You ask.
“Because I don't.”
You allow yourself to smile faintly. For the first time tonight, you finally felt like you'd gotten a little piece of the upper hand back.
“So you get jealous.”
His eyes narrow at you, deep and intense.
“I didn't say that.”
“You didn't have to.”
The words were a mirror of his own. Something dangerous flickered across his face. You could see it even through the mask. You lean in closer to his face, mere inches away from it.
“You were jealous,” you tease in a low tone.
“Careful.”
The word from him is quiet, not threatening. Your smile fades slightly as your heart thuds against your ribs.
“Or what?”
Dex looks down at you.
“Don't make me tell you twice.” His eyes moved over your face rapidly and he pauses. “You're not afraid of me.”
You almost laughed at the absurdity.
“That's a bold assumption considering you woke me up by breaking into my bedroom.”
“You're afraid.”
Your smile disappears.
“But you're not afraid of me.”
You stare at him through thick lashes.
“What's the difference?”
His answer came immediately.
“You're afraid of what I might do," your breath catches in your throat, “And you're not sure you want me to stop.”
The room goes silent. All your ears pick up on is the sound of your own hammering heartbeat.
“That's arrogant,” you whisper. “And if you're wrong?”
“I'll leave.”
You search his face, taken aback by his response.
“You'd actually leave?”
“Yes.”
“Right now?”
He doesn't move. That is what finally unsettles you. He was giving you a choice. You could say a few words, and he'd leave. You look at his form in front of you, then at the window behind him.
“You've been watching me and waiting weeks for me to tell you to leave?”
“No.”
Your brow furrows.
“No?”
“I've been watching you because I couldn't stop myself. And I've been waiting for you to tell me to stay.”
Your breath catches again. There is no smugness in his face now, just something almost frighteningly sincere.
You whisper, “And if I do?”
His eyes lower to your mouth as he lifts his mask off of his face.
“Then I'll stay.”
You lean in closer now, lips barely a centimeter from touching each other. You don't know why you are doing this. Why aren't you scared? Why aren't you calling for help? Why aren't you grabbing the knife under your pillow and chasing him off? Why are are you doing this?
Your hand finds itself gently resting on his forearm. He doesn't touch you. The restraint is almost maddening, but he resists. You huff gently at his hesitation, scooting closer to him, and closing your eyes as your face moves a hair closer.
"Do something..." You murmur under your breath, waiting for contact that never comes.
"Tell me to..." He responds, voice lowered almost to a whisper.
You bite your lip and pause for a moment, the thoughts in your mind becoming a dull blur.
"Kiss me."
And with that, those two simple words, he does.
The kiss wasn't gentle, but it wasn't careless either. It was the culmination of weeks of 'almosts''. Almost touching, almost admitting, almost allowing themselves to cross the line they'd been circling from the beginning.
You feel his hand slide higher along your back as you pull him closer. Your fingers slid beneath the hem of the collar of his shirt, brushing the warm skin at the base of his throat. He goes completely still, opening his eyes to look at you. Then his hand slides from your spine to beneath your hair and settles against the back of your neck. His fingers spread through the locks of hair gently. The touch makes you elicit a small sound from your throat.
He notices. Of course he notices.
You shiver as his lips find yours again, kissing you more fervently this time. Heavy breaths leave both of your chests as he pushes you gently back against the bed, straddling you with his legs. His hands work meticulously through your scalp as his mouth trails down to your neck, pulling your hair slightly to angle your throat for better contact.
You gasp as his lips leave wet kisses along your nape. You instinctively arch your back against his body, and you he grunts in response.
You've had sex before. Who your age hasn't? But this was the first time it felt like more than just a quick act of stress relief. The way he was palming your hair and touching his lips to your skin... It was so much different than what you were used to. It was like he was finally able to grasp something he had spent an eternity trying not to touch.
As his lips returned to yours, they began to get more desperate, crashing against yours like a starving man. His hand finds its way underneath your shirt, slowly rising as his fingertips find your breast. He pauses for a moment, unsure if he went too far, but you groan in defiance and arch your back again, forcing the contact. You can't think of anything else but him touching you right where you want it.
He takes the peak of your nipple between his fingers, gently rubbing it. The sensation makes you tremble as the slickness in between your legs begins to rapidly build. You buck your hips against his, feeling his hardened cock through his pants. The friction makes you mewl into his mouth, and you feel something in him snap.
With one swift motion, he pulls a knife out of his holster and slices through your night shirt, leaving your torso and chest bare to the cold. You gasp at the quickness of it and the feeling of metal against your skin, barely able to process what he had done, but he grinds his hips into yours and any coherent thought you had in your brain became a numbing hum.
His lips latch onto your breast, hand leaving your hair to trace against the waistband of your panties. He sucks gently on your nipple, the warmth of his tongue sending jolts of overstimulation to your core. You couldn't think. You wanted him to touch you. You wanted him to fuck you. You wanted him to do everything to you.
His lips trail from your chest down your stomach, until he eventually crouches down beneath your legs, face to face with your soaked panties. You hear a soft chuckle leave his mouth, and his fingertip gently traces the outline of your pussy lips. You squirm, desperate for touch yet simultaneously overstimulated at the same time. He takes that as a plea, and he leans forward, licking a slow wet line over your clothed folds.
A whimper unintentionally leaves your throat and your head falls back. He does it again, then again, then again, until his saliva and your wetness soak the cloth entirely.
"Fuck..." He whispers to himself, before grabbing the same knife he used to cut your shirt and doing the same to your panties. Again, the swift movement and the cold metal on your skin makes you gasp, and again, the overwhelming arousal you feel prevents you from caring at all.
He wastes no time latching onto your clit, running his tongue in circles around it with precision. You grip your bedsheets tightly, breath staggered and uneven. You writhe naturally, hips grinding away from his mouth on instinct, but he grips your thighs tightly with a warning squeeze, signalling for you to hold still.
"Don't start running from me now..." He asserts through laps of his tongue.
His low command mixed with the sensation of his mouth makes you cry out, legs shaking against his arms. As if you thought you couldn't feel more ecstasy, you feel a gloved finger enter your hole and pump in and out with a steady rythm.
Your hand finds his hair, lacing your fingers within his short blonde strands. You grind your hips against his mouth and finger, the familiar sensation of an orgasm rapidly building in your stomach. Your vision fades and the sounds that leave you are uncontrollable. He makes sounds of his own, low groans of pure pleasure. He was quite possibly enjoying this more than you were, as impossible as that seemed.
You're almost at your breaking point, and he could tell.
"Let it out... Give it to me..." He murmurs, finger pumping more rapidly in and out of you now.
Your orgasm hits you like a wave. You see stars, your legs tremble, and your mind goes utterly blank. He works you through it and steadies your trembling legs by rubbing them gently up and down, planting kisses on your inner thighs.
When you finally regain your composure, you look down at him, breathless. His mouth and chin are covered in a sheen of wetness, and he smiles, full of pride for what he's done to you. You try to muster up words, or a sound, or anything besides labored breaths, but your mind protests.
He stands up slowly, planting a wet kiss on your forehead and hands gripping your hips. You smile through your breaths, but before you can do anything else, he flips you over onto your stomach, and your face is buried into your pillow.
You exclaim, but don't protest. Instead, you arch your back slightly and wait for his next move.
He traces a gloved finger lightly on your spine, causing goosebumps to prickle your skin. You hear him mutter to himself, but you can't make out what he says.
After what feels like hours, you finally hear movement. First, it's his holsters hitting the floor, the metal of his various knives clinking on each other. Then, it's the sound of a belt being undone. Then, it's the sound of a zipper, followed by fabric sliding down skin. You wait, anticipatory chills running down your body.
He doesn't enter you immediately like you expect him to. Instead, you feel the head of his hard cock slide up and down between your slits. Its big. He goes slowly, like he's taking photographs in his mind. He leans down, the weight of his arms sinking into the bed as he reaches your ear.
"Tell me to stop..." He says in a strained voice, his last shred of control slipping.
You lean into him.
"Please... don't..." You whisper.
That's the last thing he needed before completely letting go. With one swift movement, he pushes his mass fully inside of you. The intrusion is painful at first, due to the sheer size of him, but it doesn't take long for your walls to adjust and for that whisper of pain to turn into an avalanche of pleasure.
He pumps into you steadily, going impossibly deep. The friction against your walls builds a whole new feeling of orgasm in your core. His precision and steady movements hit every spot perfectly, and you feel a sheen of sweat start to form on your skin.
"So good... S' so good..." He groans, gripping your hips tightly.
Your cries are muffled by your pillow, and he gently pulls your head up by your hair.
"No... Let me hear you... Please..." He begs, gently through gritted teeth.
You don't hold back. You let your moans echo like a sweet song. He pumps into you harder and harder, his rhythm faltering as he nears his climax. You follow suit, finding it harder and harder to resist cumming again.
It doesn't take long for you both to reach your climaxes. He goes first, pulling out at the last second and letting his cum spill out onto your back. You follow right after, shaking and practically screaming as another orgasm racks your body.
He backs up unsteadily, chest heaving as he tries to regain his breath. You struggle with the same thing, body so overwhelmed from the pleasure that you feel like you can barely move.
Through your breaths, you hear him shuffle behind you. You assume it's so he can gather his bearings and get ready to leave.
Imagine your surprise when you hear a loud click!
You look back curiously to see Dex standing there with your camera in his hands. You raise your eyebrows in surprise and bite back a smile.
"For evidence..." He says cheekily, lowering the camera to meet your gaze.