Touch starved as he may be, there is still deep-rooted discomfort whenever his hunger is fundamentally fed. Sex he can endure. It’s a physical need: your hands on him when he’s practically buried in your guts are a natural necessity for your balance.
But when your touch isn’t inherently sexual, that’s where he struggles.
When you linger nearby, fingers in his hair or cheek on his shoulder, he can’t fathom why. You have so many possibilities, so many spotlights ready to point your way, that he fails to understand why you would want to wander in the dark instead.
Why you, unbelievably patient, put up with a path so brutal, with a wall so thick and bricks much too heavy to bear.
He shuts that voice. Stabs it ruthlessly, using the gentleness of your head resting against him as the sharpest weapon. He shows it off, flaunts it around—look at this.
Summary: After hanging up the ghost mantle, Simon struggles integrating with civilization, leading to him buying a house near a beach and catching more than he bargained for.
Fish.
That's all he smelt standing on the rusty old excuse of a dock. Watching the waves as they slammed against dark rocks that lined the overgrown beach.
This is the last place he thought he'd end up at, he was sure his life would end in whatever third world country he was deployed to- but what was he supposed to do? Say no?
Disobey his captain when he passed over the documents? That damn piece of paper stating that his run is over, that he's unwillingly forced into retirement.
He didn't have a choice. Fate always had a cruel way of punishing him day by day after all.
"Tried to talk with Laswell but we both know your head isn't here Lieutenant."
"Sir-"
"After recent events... you haven't been the same." Price sighed, "I can't risk putting you or the team in danger."
"So I'm a liability now?"
He knew he was being a prick.
They all had been going through it. Including Price- who was trying oh so hard to keep everything togheter when he was rotting on the inside.
"Ghost-"
"I can still serve-"
"Simon."
The air was tense, every breath they took feeling like water was being filled in their lungs instead of oxygen. The harsh lights of Price's office making his already red eyes sting.
"It was an honor serving with you soldier. Take care of yourself."
So that's how he found himself back in his dingy run down flat in a rather unpleasant neighborhood in Manchester.
After years devoted to serving for his country, one wrong call and circumstance cost him his brother. Another person he thought of as home gone because he wasn't there to have his back.
It wasn't obscure to think that he would lose his mind- yes he was considered heartless and untouchable in the eyes of new recruits that would enlist- hell even his colleagues and higher ups thought the same. In reality, Ghost was only ever a facade to mask his hurt.
So how does one, who spent so long being a soldier, a machine built for war, go back to being a civilian?
He can't.
Simon Riley died a long time ago.
As much as he hated to admit it... Price was right.
He is a liability- became lost in his own rage and pain, blacking out and going on a rampage, killing multiple men like they were going to bring him back.
Months of him not sleeping, taking unnecessary risks, causing outbursts and overall punishing himself- ultimately leading to the death of Makarov. Killed by a bullet going perfectly straight through his skull.
Ghost made sure he put ten more for good measure and a few stab wounds before he was eventually pulled away.
He wasn't himself and he knew that.
Long gone was the calm and collected lieutenant.
Sounds of traffic, beeping horns, yelling, construction workers- drowned out by his own thoughts. Some random football game played in the background while he was on his... God knows what bottle of bourbon- he stopped counting after the tenth one.
Gaz and Price visited, took him out for a pint or two, went grocery shopping for him- but they still had work. Still had six months of deployment ahead of them. He doesn't blame them for losing track of time.
Just how he lost track of when he was supposed to pay his rent, the eviction letter pilled up next to the other useless junk mail.
So what was a man who was unable to integrate into society supposed to do? Pack his measly half empty suitcase and buy a house somewhere off the coast of course.
A two story beach house swallowed inside the overgrown forest that opened up to an unkept beach. Forgotten.
It was perfect.
So he got to work, started repairing the interior, plaster that had fallen off or old windows needing to be replaced by better insulated ones. Bringing in his minimal furniture from his flat after he finished repainting the whole house. He was slowly clearing out the outside as well, cutting down some smaller trees and tending to the grass.
It was sort of nice, he had something to do instead of live on his miserable couch, drinking and wallowing in self pity- I mean he still did that but that was time reserved for after he had finished working.
He even started a small garden for vegetables- mostly potatoes- considering the closest town was a relatively small one that was a 10 minute drive from where he was. He went once a week for basic supplies and food, even started selling fish on the market.
There was an old fishing boat that came with the property, he scraped off the algae and bought himself some new gear... Finding the whole experience quite relaxing.
Watching how the serene water shifted ever so slightly, the sunlight bouncing on the surface as he cast his fishing line once more.
It was familiar, yet...
No matter how much he enjoyed being out on his little boat, he couldn't shake the feeling of being watched.
Call it paranoia.
But years in the military have taught him to be aware of his surroundings and he knew when there was a pair of eyes on him. He could tell when he was being hunted.
Yet he could never pin point exactly where it was coming from.
He finished up for the day, deciding to head back to his humble abode. Not before looking at the water and gazing at his reflection, his scarred and burnt face staring right back at him.
Yeah... Enough for today.
Soon, the weather got warmer- almost six months since...
The water was frantic that morning, small waves moving and splashing due to the slightly windy weather. He had been fixing up the deck, sure it worked fine but it was a question of when it wouldn't. The screws were all rusty and crooked, wooden planks moldy and rotting away- so he bought some new ones from town and began unloading his truck. No doubt there was going to be a storm coming in so he just piled the wood and covered them with a tarp.
Good thing he already fixed most of the leaks in the attic, he was going to redo the entire roof at some point but it worked for now- before he had placed a multitude of different pots and pans to catch each individual leak.
He enjoyed it here far more than the city. There wasn't any loud banging or yelling, no nosy people, only the soft melody of crickets, waves and occasionally rain letting him go numb.
Fishing helped as well, it was a quiet past time.
No ghosts are coming to haunt him here.
Well...
Almost no ghosts.
He narrowed his eyes toward the window overlooking the water, taking a long drag from his cigarette. No matter how hard he tried, he still couldn't help shake that feeling that someone was watching him.
It had started weeks ago, a little after he moved in. Little things at first. Tools moved when he swore he'd left them elsewhere, or the occasional glimpse of movement beyond the rocks offshore.
Every instinct he had screamed he wasn't alone out here and every time he grabbed a rifle to check, he found nothing.
"Bloody losing it," he muttered under his breath.
The storm worsened by evening.
Waves crashed violently against the shore while Simon pulled on his jacket and headed outside with a flashlight. One of his spare fishing nets had come loose near the waterline, dragged halfway towards the rocks littering the beach.
He could've left it for tomorrow morning, could've stayed in the warmth of his living room instead of stomping across wet sand, boots sinking deep.
Then the beam of his flashlight caught movement, his muscles tensing up and seemingly all of his senses being on high alert.
Something thrashed inside the tangled net.
Not something.
Someone.
For some time his brain was struggling to take into account what exactly he was seeing. Pale skin slick with seawater. Long strands of hair tangled with rope. Wide terrified eyes reflecting in the light.
And below the waist- a fish tail.
Massive. Powerful. Covered in dark iridescent scales that shimmered a sort of turquoise color beneath the rain.
You jerked violently as Simon approached, claws catching uselessly in the netting.
"Easy," he barked automatically like he was giving an order, that only made things worse.
You hissed at him, sharp teeth flashing as you desperately tried to drag yourself backward toward the sea. The net tightening around your tail, cutting into the scales hard enough to draw blood.
Simon stared for another second.
Any normal person would've probably panicked.
But he had fought beside highly trained men, wearing a skull mask while missiles fell from the sky. His scale for "impossible" was far from broken.
He crouched carefully, slowly approaching you while drawing a dagger from his belt. Your eyes widening at the metal.
"Oi," he said gruffly, holding one hand up slightly. "Not gonna hurt you."
The words sounded ridiculous considering they were coming from him, six foot something, pure muscle of a man with a knife in his hand.
Of course you didn't trust him.
The moment he moved closer, you snapped at him hard enough that he jerked back on instinct.
"...Right. Fair."
Rain dripped from the edge of his hood while he studied the mess of rope wrapped around you.
The fishing line had dug deep between the scales of your tail. Every movement tightened it further.
Simon clicked his tongue, patience running thin.
"Hold still unless you fancy losing the whole bloody fin." He grumbled, left to only assume that you don't understand the words, but maybe you had understood the tone.
Barely.
Your breathing remained sharp and panicked, but you had stopped fighting long enough for Simon to start cutting through the net. The knife worked carefully between ropes, severing one knot at a time.
Up close, he could see details that made his chest tighten strangely.
Scars.
Old ones.
Across your shoulders. Along parts of your tail, not natural and definitely not accidental. Something had hurt you before.
"There," he muttered after cutting another line loose. You flinched when his hand brushed against your tail accidentally. The scales were colder than he expected.
Human enough to look fragile.
Not human enough to feel real.
One final rope snapped and the net fell loose entirely.
For a second neither of you moved.
Then you surged backward fast enough to splash seawater across his boots, dragging yourself toward deeper water, strong fins treading through the rough waves.
Simon stood slowly, knife still hanging loosely in his grip as he watched you swim away- only to stop and turn around to gaze right into his eyes.
Rain poured between you in silver sheets while your eyes stayed fixed on him- cautious, frightened, curious. Like you'd been watching him for far longer than he realized.
With a flip of your tail you disappeared into the waves while Simon remained there alone on the shore, soaked to the bone.
After a long silence, he looked down at the shredded fishing net beside his feet.
"...The hell just happened?"
If Simon couldn't sleep before, he sure as hell couldn't now. Sitting on his worn out mattress with a cigarette on his lips, taking deep breaths of it as he stared with wide eyes through his window. His wet clothes thrown in the laundry hamper while he contemplated whether or not what happened was real or not.
A fucking mermaid.
He truly has lost his mind.
Surely it's the lack of sleep, maybe even a rusty old pipe burst and he's getting high off of gas because there is no way in hell that what he saw was real.
The storm had long since passed, wind clearing out the nasty clouds as sunlight found its way and crept through his windows.
He must be crazy.
So why the fuck is there a torn up fishing net where you had been? Why did he find shiny scales around it and deep groves in the sand where you had dragged your body when you jumped in?
And most importantly- why were there missing fish in his catch from the day before? You have bloody claws and teeth and yet you chose to take his? He spent a few solid hours using his heavy duty equipment to catch those. Not to mention his perfectly good net that he had to tear up in a million pieces since you got yourself tangled up in it.
The nerve of some people- or fish.
A part of him wished it stoped then and there. But of course it didn't and you were still around.
He could still feel your eyes on him, frankly he isn't sure if it's better now that he knows who is stalking him- might've been better to live in paranoia instead of delusion.
You weren't being slick either, he could see the slight ripples on the water when there was no wind, or the silhouette sitting by the rocks at dawn.
When he was fixing up the house though? Yeah, that was apparently peak entertainment for you. Curious eyes staring at him from the water while he worked on the deck, trying to finish it up before another storm rolled in.
He got used to the staring.
It meant he wasn't alone.
Your voice was soothing as well. You'd spent nights perched up on your rock, singing a soft melody that lulled him to sleep whenever he was restless- which was almost every night but your songs made him get at least two more hours of sleep to his measly none.
So what if he accidentally left a fish on his deck?
It's not like he purposefully placed the biggest one and stayed perched on his window waiting for your little webbed hands to find it- or how his chest filled with pride when he noticed that it was gone.
Meaningless.
Just like the pretty shells and smooth sea glass he would find after accidentally misplacing a fish every morning. He doesn't miss the little pleased click you'd do when he picked it up, glancing unamused at your general direction and watching you plop back into the water like a child getting caught stealing.
Sure it was embarrassing, but he was so fascinating to you- humans were always afraid of your kind, hunting and poaching you for god knows what sort of imaginary tale they spread about you. Forcing your kind to retreat into deep water just to be safe, turning into a myth or legend that was told to young children.
But he was different. He could've easily taken you, practically served on a silver plater for him since your already caught yourself... he didn't though.
Simon soon realized you had been watching for far longer than what he thought.
You've had your eyes on him since the very first day he'd set foot on the property. Seen him open the door to the house and watch in amusement when the handle was left in his hand. Seen him drunk on his porch at 3am. Seen him awake pacing on the beach after a gruesome nightmare. Seen him sitting on the ground of that same beach and talking to ghosts that weren't there.
You've seen him entirely and saw yourself.
Weeks spent at a distance, knowing of one another and yet scared to get close- because for both of you, getting close meant nothing good.
Though, you couldn't help but sit closer and closer to the shore.
Who could blame you? That man had the most treasures you've ever seen- simple work equipment had you in awe whenever he would use it. Surely he wouldn't mind if you tinkered with them, holding them and mimicking what he did. And yeah, it did annoy him to find his tools wet and not where had left them- but he drew the line when he saw that his pack of cigarettes were gone.
He heard you laugh for the first time that day. Your sweet voice giggling behind a rock while holding his things hostage.
Slowly that giggle turned into words.
He'd sit on the now sturdy and well built deck while you were perched up on your rock. Listening to him speak, about his day, the fish he'd catch or the nosy townsfolk that make up stories about him. In time he started to open up about his childhood, the rare but fonder memories- then some of his time serving.
You loved his voice, gruff and raspy but soft when he spoke to you... Nothing like the fishermen you'd listen in on whilst you got curious and swam up to the surface. Their voices were loud- but you did learn a few words here and there just by observing them.
Eventually you became more comfortable around Simon, swimming closer to him and trying to form your own sentences. You could understand most of what he was saying, having him explain new words to you as you tried your hardest to remember them.
You in turn, would teach him about tide patterns, giving him insight on the underwater life and how they react to them- along with how to identify and stay away from dangerous currents.
Now, whenever he'd go fishing you would be trailing close behind, telling him what time of day it was best to go out. His eyes just followed you while you were herding up some fish and leading them directly to his net, careful not to catch your own fins since you already cost him one.
He'd reward you by giving you the biggest fish to eat, and you'd give him the shiniest shells you could find.
For a while he was just referring to you as Fish. An annoying fish that would meddle with his stuff. He learnt your name of course, it was as beautiful as you- also having him hear you say his name for the first time was something to say the least.
Doesn't stop him from continuing to call you fish.
You were by far the first living thing that made this place feel less empty... First thing to make his lip dare to lift up in a poor attempt at a smile.
His drinking started to decrease as well, the nightmares still haven't left but your singing helped him keep them at bay.
One night in particular he woke up after drinking a whole bottle of bourbon. He wasn't proud of that but if the hangover wasn't a big enough punishment, having a nightmare of him screaming Johnny's name whilst he sees the life drain from his eyes and blood pool around his head. Having his hand firmly pressed to his chest, desperately searching for a heartbeat only for him to turn into ash and dogtags.
Clenching his fist against his own heart, he found himself standing in the water instead on his own bed, the cold salty water to his knees as he lets out a frustrated scream.
Your ears pick up that sound and before you knew it you were moving your tail frantically, looking for him and thinking he drowned but he was just sitting there... Letting the waves hit him as he held his knees to his chest, red eyes filled with tears... Desperately trying to keep them from falling.
"Si...?"
"Couldn't save him."
Oh...
You didn't say much after that.
Just carefully swam up next to him and gently laid your head on his knee.
You've seen how this played out before, he'd have that same nightmare and believe whatever awful things his subconscious thought up to torture him that night. Although you didn't know what atrocity had woken him up or the extent of what he had endured... Pain is something you sadly recognized easily.
The only thing you could do is offer your presence to him, wishing to take or at most share his hurt.
That was the first physical comfort he'd accepted in years.
You stayed like that for a while, the soft waves hitting the both of you as you sit in silence, not wanting to move an inch in fear of startling him. Simon, whose ragged breathing had slowed down a bit, just stared out into the open sea.
"Cold" you mutter, feeling how cold his skin was. Humans weren't built like mer, he was going to get sick if he didn't go.
As much as he hated the thought of leaving, once he looked into your worried eyes he slowly got up. Your hands dropping to the wet sand as you looked up at him.
He just gave you a nod. Making his way to his house where a warm shower would do him some good.
The morning after he sat by the dock and waited for you to pop up, not uttering a word before giving you the fish he would've otherwise left.
You couldn't help the happy clicking coming from the back of your throat when you snatched the fish up, biting into it as if you were given the best meal ever- because you were given more than just food.
Since then he's made an effort to always greet you when the sun rises with breakfast. Started bringing his own food because last time you'd insisted on sharing the raw bloody fish with him and he almost took your offer. Food poisoning be damned.
On the other hand you always show up early, a shiny treasure in your hands and waiting for him to make his way down when you pop up from the water. He gave you a pleased grunt whenever you'd present them to him. Not nearly as much excitement as you but when it came to him, that was enough.
Well, the first time you'd had the pleasure of hearing him laugh- more like a small chuckle but it still counted- was when you tried getting up on the dock with him.
It wasn't that high.
But it wasn't that low either.
You could've pulled yourself up, sure, it would've been easier- but you decided to jump instead. Landing face first into the planks and bruising your cheek. Shrieking and flapping your fins like a fish out of water.
It's safe to say that whatever pain you felt was momentarily forgotten once you heard him scoff and saw the tiniest hint of a grin. Stilling yourself as you gazed at him, the corners of your mouth pulling upwards.
He pushed you back in the water for staring too long. Much to your protests. He watched you for a good five minutes just flapping around glaring at him before hauling you up next to him.
You huffed, taking a big bite from your food.
From this close you could make out more of his features, every line, scar and mark. You'd trace them all, your interest peaking at the ink that lined his arm. Asking him about his tattoos and looking closely at them- you didn't ask him about his scars though. You had your own share of them to knew how painful it is to remember how you'd gotten them.
Eventually you'll open up to him, once where you noticed how he let his eyes wander before looking away as to not make you uncomfortable. Painfully respectful- yet he couldn't shake the feeling of dread whenever he'd see your wounds.
"My kind dislikes yours," you'd start quietly. "We were driven away by fear, forbidden from going near the surface."
Your fingers ran absentmindedly along your scales as you stared out at the dark water. "I was a curious kid. Always sneaking away, always asking questions. I wanted to see your world." A small, bitter smile tugged at your lips. "Paid the price for it."
Simon followed your gaze before his eyes settled on the scar stretching across your back. Unlike the others, it was clean and deliberate, the kind of wound that hadn't come from an accident. His expression hardened almost instantly.
"Did they..."
You nodded. "They made an example of me. Said i didn't belong among them."
The waves rolled under the wood bellow you, filling the silence that followed. You expected questions, maybe even pity, but Simon only stared at the scar for a moment longer before looking away.
"Wasn't right of em"
Your head turned toward him.
"They were our rules-"
"Don't mean shit."
For so long you've tried to justify what they did to you, to see reason within the truth... Swimming alone near the surface you once dreamt to see, running away from hooks and nets as the sharp blades pierced your skin.
Humans who would hunt you and whenever you'd tried to make a friend they would only care to have your tail on a line. You knew Simon was different. A human like them but he hadn't harmed you.
Hesitantly, you take his hand in your own and bring it up to your cheek, holding it there as you closed your eyes.
"Thank you."
For a moment, Simon only looked at you, the walls he kept around him were suddenly not so solid. He only grunted in response, yet he didn't pull his hand away.
Days started to blur togheter from that point on. He would wake up early to have breakfast with you, then do some work around the house as you watched him whilst you sunbathed on your rock. Once you gave him the clear on the weather, he'd set off on his fishing boat while you swam next to him.
You made sure to gather only the best fish for him, climbing on the boat once you were done to have some lunch. Giving him a playful splash from your tail before he heads back for town to sell his catch.
So what if he stopped by the small jewelers shop, the shiny necklace on display catching his attention. So what if he bought it for you? You seemed to like that sort of stuff anyway.
Judging by your reaction you more than loved it.
He helped you put it on as you held your hair up, only to look down and see how the light reflected off of it. The sun setting in the background as you laid down on the shore next to him.
It felt natural how he had somehow revolved his entire schedule around you.
He woke up thinking about you, worked around the property just listening you talk about everything and anything. Whenever he was in town he'd think of how you'd react to life on land, all of his mundane reactions would be tainted with thoughts of how excited you would be to see this. He'd spend the ends of his days watching the sun set peacefully with you by his side.
Which makes whatever emotions that built up hit harder when he shows up one day on the dock, carrying a sandwich for him and your favorite fish. Expecting to find you waiting there for him, either you'd be plopped on the deck already or hiding in the water trying to scare him- but you weren't there. Not when he scanned the entire area or called out your name. Maybe you just overslept. Didn't stop him from sitting there waiting for you. Telling himself you're fine.
But he wasn't fine.
Breakfast came and went without a glimpse of you. Simon told himself it didn't matter, carrying on with repairs around the house, an old plumbing leak he'd been putting off doing.
Yet every time he straightened up, his eyes drifted toward the water. By midday he'd checked the shoreline more times than he cared to admit, his tea long gone cold beside him. The afternoon passed no easier, each movement in the waves caught his attention only to turn out to be nothing.
By the time evening settled over the coast, Simon found himself standing on the porch with his arms crossed, staring out at the darkening sea. The realization that he'd spent the entire day waiting for you sat heavily in his chest, irritating him far more than your absence ever could.
To anyone else he would've seemed mental. Staring out into the open sea waiting for a damn mermaid to show up.
"Bloody fish." He muttered under his breath, feet already taking him away from the shore.
Then he heard it, a small splash in his direction and when he turned around- there you were. The second your head broke the surface of the water, Simon was already moving down the beach.
"Where the hell were you?" he barked, frustration getting the better of him. "Been gone all bloody day without a word-"
The rest died in his throat.
You'd stopped a few feet away, and only then did he notice the water around you wasn't just dark from the evening shadows.
It was red.
His eyes then dropped to your tail. A deep gash ran along one side of your fin, fresh blood slipping between the scales and disappearing into the sea.
The irritation vanished instantly, replaced with a feeling he knew all too well.
"What happened?"
His voice came out lower this time, sharper in a different way. He was already crouching at the water's edge, reaching for you before he even realized he'd moved.
"Current took me farther out..." you let him pick you up from the water, "Some fishermen managed to hit me-"
You hesitated before adding "I'm sorry."
Simon's expression darkened immediately as his eyes stayed focused on the blood staining your fin.
"Don't apologize."
The words came out sharper than intended. He crouched beside you, inspecting the wound before muttering a curse under his breath.
"Stay here."
Without another word, he turned and headed for the house, returning minutes later with a first aid kit, clean cloths, and a bucket of fresh water. By the time he knelt beside you again, the irritation from earlier had vanished completely, replaced by a focus you were beginning to recognize.
"Let me see it."
You pulled your hands away from your wound and hissed in pain when he started working on it. His hands were precise, cleaning and disinfecting, later wrapping you up in some waterproof gauze.
He finished tying off the bandage and sat back with a quiet grunt. The cut would heal, eventually. He told himself that was all that mattered.
Still, the image of blood in the water refused to leave his mind.
The silence stretched between you as the sun dipped below the horizon. Simon kept his gaze fixed on the waves, jaw tight. He told himself the anger twisting in his chest was directed at the fishermen, at the carelessness of it all. It had nothing to do with the way his stomach had dropped when you hadn't shown up that morning.
Not at all.
For the next two weeks, your visits became shorter while the wound healed. Simon insisted it was to keep pressure off the injury, though you suspected he was simply looking for an excuse to keep an eye on it. Even so, the beach felt strangely empty whenever you disappeared beneath the waves, leaving him alone with the sound of the sea and thoughts he stubbornly refused to examine.
Your fin had eventually healed enough that Simon no longer had an excuse to fuss over it, though that didn't stop him from glancing at it every now and then whenever he thought you weren't looking. The two of you had slipped back into an easy routine. You sat nearby, talking far more than he ever did, filling the quiet with questions about human life while he hammered boards into place or sanded down old wood. Most of the time, he answered with various grunts, but you'd learned how to translate those by now.
"What was your family like?" you asked, watching him work.
Simon paused briefly before continuing. "Complicated."
You accepted the answer for what it was. Some subjects were harder than others. Instead, you traced patterns into the sand with your fingers, thinking for a moment before looking back up at him.
"Do you ever get lonely?"
The question seemed innocent enough.
Yet the hammer stopped.
For a few seconds, Simon didn't move. His shoulders stiffened, his gaze fixed somewhere beyond the half-finished porch as if he were looking at something only he could see. You waited, expecting one of his usual dismissive answers, but none came.
Eventually, he set the hammer down with more force than necessary.
"Don't."
The single word caught you off guard.
"What?"
"Don't ask questions like that."
Confusion flickered across your face. You weren't trying to upset him. It was just another thing you wanted to understand, another piece of him he rarely spoke about. Yet something about the question had struck deeper than you'd intended.
"I was only curious."
"Well stop."
The sharpness in his voice made the air between you suddenly feel colder. Simon scrubbed a hand down his face before looking out toward the ocean, avoiding your eyes entirely.
"It's best if you stay in the water."
The words landed heavily.
You stared at him. "What?"
"Your world's out there." His gaze remained fixed on the horizon. "The sea's where you belong."
The confusion in your chest slowly gave way to hurt. For months he'd welcomed your company, taught you about his world, sat beside you for hours without complaint. Now he was acting as though you'd crossed a line you couldn't even see.
For the first time since you'd met him, the silence between you felt uncomfortable. Simon knew it the moment it settled over the beach, knew he'd said the wrong thing, but the thought of taking it back terrified him even more. Because if he did, he'd have to admit why the question had bothered him in the first place.
For a moment, you simply stared at him. The hurt on your face was immediate, impossible to hide no matter how hard you tried. Simon felt it like a knife between his ribs, especially when your eyes began to shine with unshed tears.
"Oh."
The quiet response was somehow worse than shouting.
You lowered your gaze, fingers tightening in fists as sand dug into them. For a second, Simon thought you might argue, might tell him he was being an idiot. Instead, you only nodded.
"Okay."
The word barely rose above a whisper.
Without another look in his direction, you slipped back toward the water. Your movements were slower than usual, lacking the excitement that normally accompanied your visits. Simon watched you go, every instinct screaming at him to say something- to stop you, explain himself, take the words back- but he remained rooted where he stood.
When you disappeared beneath the waves, the beach felt unnaturally quiet.
The first day passed easily enough. Simon threw himself into repairs around the house and convinced himself the silence was for the best. By the third day, he found himself glancing toward the water whenever he stepped outside. By the fifth, he was standing on the porch long after sunset, staring at the empty shoreline. A full week passed without so much as a glimpse of you, and the realization settled heavily in his chest.
The beach hadn't changed.
The house hadn't changed.
Yet somehow everything felt emptier without you there.
Days passed by in silence. Like they were before he met you... It's the same sensations he had when he lost-
He missed you.
No matter how much he denies it, the heaviness in his chest is enough to drown him.
Almost two weeks had passed.
The weather had been clear that morning, the sea calm enough that he'd decided to take the boat farther out than usual. Anything to keep his hands busy. Anything to stop himself from looking toward the shoreline every five minutes expecting to see someone who wasn't coming.
The engine hummed steadily beneath him as he cast his line overboard. He told himself it was for the best. You belonged to the sea. He'd only said what needed to be said.
Then why did he feel so empty?
A gust of wind cut across the water as the horizon darkened.
What had been clear blue skies less than an hour ago were now swallowed by heavy clouds rolling in far too quickly. The waves began to swell beneath the boat, rocking it hard enough to make him grab the railing.
"Shit."
The storm hit fast. Faster than he could ever anticipate.
Rain lashed against him as the sea turned violent, tossing the boat like driftwood. Simon fought the wheel, trying to turn back towards shore, but another wave slammed into the side making the boat jerk violently.
Something cracked.
Then another wave hit.
The world seemingly flipped as if the ocean was punishing him.
All he could feel in that moment was the cold biting at his skin.
Simon barely had time to suck in a breath before the sea dragged him under. He kicked toward the surface, disoriented, only for another wave to crash over his head. Saltwater filled his lungs as he struggled against the current, his soaked clothes dragging him deeper.
For the first time in years, genuine fear gripped him.
Not of dying.
Of regret.
The last thing he'd said to you echoed in his head.
It's best if you stay in the water.
His chest burned.
Another mouthful of water.
Another failed attempt to reach the surface.
And as darkness crept into the edges of his vision, all Simon could think was that if these were his final moments, then the last thing he'd ever given you was a reason to leave.
Miles away, beneath the crashing waves, something made you stop. You'd been drifting through the empty sea, wishing to go back and see him but you knew better. He didn't want you and that broke your fragile heart in a million pieces.
Suddenly a foreign feeling crept its way to you.
A disturbance in the water.
Something familiar.
And suddenly, without knowing why, your heart dropped as your tail cut through the murky water- frantically swimming like your life depended on it because it wasn't your life on the line but his.
The moment you found him, he wasn't fighting anymore.
His body drifted beneath the surface, dragged by the current as the storm raged overhead. Panic seized your chest as you shot through the water, reaching him just before he disappeared into the darkness below. You had one arm hooked beneath his shoulders while the other struggled to keep his head above the waves whenever he broke the surface. More than once the sea tried to pull him from your grasp, but you held on, ignoring the ache in your muscles as you forced both of you towards the shore.
By the time you reached the beach, you were exhausted.
"Simon."
No response.
You dragged him onto the sand, hands shaking as you pressed against his chest the way he'd once shown you after you'd asked about it. Nothing.
"Simon."
Your voice cracked.
Then suddenly seawater spilled from his mouth. He coughed weakly before falling still once more. Relief flooded through you so hard your vision blurred.
He was alive. Barely holding on but alive nonetheless.
Your gaze snapped toward the distant house.
You couldn't carry him there.
Not like this.
The wind howled around you as you looked down at your tail. Every warning you'd ever been given echoed through your mind. Every story. Every lesson. Every consequence.
There would be no going back.
Not after this.
For a moment, fear rooted you in place. If you did this there would be no taking it back, you'd be forced to live a life unknown to you- but one look at Simon's nearly lifeless face had your doubts wash away.
The choice disappeared and pain exploded through your body.
Your vocal cords burned as you yelled out, your tail thrashing violently against the sand as your sparkly scales split apart beneath your skin. Bones cracked and shifted into unfamiliar shapes. Every nerve in your body felt as though it were being torn apart and rebuilt. All while you could only manage to claw against the wet sand, desperate for relief that never came.
The transformation seemed endless, but when it finally stopped, you collapsed beside him, gasping for breath.
It was over. The relief washed over your body as you forced yourself to look down... What once was a powerful tail had become legs.
Human. Fragile. Permanent.
Tears mixed with rainwater as you stared at them. The sea no longer called to you the way it once had.
You had given it up.
Given up the ocean.
Given up your home.
Given up the only life you'd ever known.
For him.
The realization hurt almost as much as the transformation itself.
Yet when you looked at Simon, unconscious and shivering beside you, you found you couldn't regret it.
Not even for a second.
With trembling limbs, you forced yourself upright. The first step nearly sent you crashing back to the ground, feeling as you were walking on shards of broken glass. The second wasn't much better. Your legs felt wrong, unsteady beneath your weight, but somehow you managed to hook Simon's arm around your shoulders.
The brute was fucking heavy, making the walk to the house slow and miserable.
By the time you reached the front door, every muscle in your body burned and your legs felt ready to give out beneath you.
Still, you kept moving.
Because Simon had freed you from the net once. Shown you the type of kindness that you've forgotten from a life full of loneliness.
Now it was your turn to bring him home.
You'd set him down on the soft couch, started removing his drenched clothes. Drying him off and wrapping him in a thick blanket. The red flickers of coal in the nearly dead fire caught your attention, making you grab some of the logs and arranging them in the same way Simon once did when he showed you how good cooked food could be.
The house is much warmer now. Lulling you into a peaceful slumber as your eyes fell heavy.
A while later, consciousness returned slowly to him.
Everything hurt.
His chest burned with every breath like it was bleeding from the inside, his muscles ached, and there was a pounding headache lodged somewhere behind his eyes. For a moment Simon simply stared at the ceiling, confused by the warmth surrounding him. The last thing he remembered was the storm.
The boat.
The water.
The regret.
Then nothing but darkness.
A crackle drew his attention towards the fireplace. Someone had built a fire. Fresh blankets had been piled over him.
Then he felt it.
A hand.
His gaze dropped.
Your fingers were loosely intertwined with his own, your head resting against the edge of the couch where you'd apparently fallen asleep. For a second, relief hit him so hard it was almost painful.
You were here. Like an angel sent from heaven- was he in heaven? Sure seemed like it if you were next to him.
Then his eyes traveled lower.
And froze.
Legs.
His breath caught as the realization struck with the same force of the wave that knocked him out.
How the storm took him, or the fact that there was absolutely no way you could have gotten him home otherwise. A thousand questions rushed through his mind.
Slowly, carefully, Simon pushed himself upright. The movement made you stir, your brow furrowing as you began to wake.
The second your eyes met his, relief flooded your face.
"Simon."
His grip tightened around your hand before he could stop himself.
Neither of you spoke for a moment.
Then his gaze dropped briefly to your legs before returning to your face.
"What did you do?"
The question came out rough.
Not angry.
Not accusing.
Just afraid of the answer.
Your eyes welled up with tears and you brought his hand to your cheek, "Don't belong in the water anymore."
The weak smile you offered him did nothing to ease the sick feeling twisting in Simon's chest.
Instead it made it worse because only now was he beginning to understand what you'd done.
You'd given up everything for him.
"Jesus Christ..." he breathed.
Your smile faltered.
Before you could say anything else, Simon's hand slid from your cheek to the back of your neck, pulling you forward. The movement was sudden, almost desperate. One second you were sitting beside the couch, the next you were wrapped in his arms.
For a moment neither of you spoke.
You could feel the way his grip tightened around you, as though he were afraid you'd disappear if he let go.
"Dumb fish," he muttered hoarsely into your hair.
The insult lacked any real bite.
Slowly, your arms slipped around him in return.
"I thought you wanted me gone."
The words were barely above a whisper as Simon's chest tightened painfully.
"No."
The answer came immediately.
"No, sweetheart."
The endearment slipped out before he could stop it. You pulled back just enough to look at him and for the first time since waking, Simon met your gaze fully. There was no mask now. No distance. No convenient excuse he could hide behind.
Only relief.
Relief that you were here next to him, and that he'd been given another chance.
His hand rose to cup your face.
"I'm sorry."
Your eyes widened.
It was probably the first genuine apology you'd ever heard from him.
"You don't have to-"
"I do."
His thumb brushed away a tear before it could fall, and for a moment neither of you dared to move.
You were close enough to feel the warmth of his breath, close enough to see every scar and line on his face. Simon's gaze dropped briefly to your lips before immediately returning to your eyes, as though he was giving you every opportunity to pull away.
You didn't.
Slowly, carefully, he leaned in and you felt the brush of his lips against yours.
It was tentative at first, almost uncertain. Simon's hand remained against your cheek while yours found his wrist, holding on as if grounding yourself. It wasn't dramatic or desperate, just soft and lingering, years of loneliness and unspoken feelings finally finding somewhere to go.
When he pulled back, it wasn't far.
His forehead resting against yours as he let out a shaky breath, eyes closing for a moment.
"You belong with me," he murmured quietly, squeezing your hand.
This time, when you smiled, it didn't hurt.
Nuzzling your face closer into his neck as his hands hold you impossibly tighter- making you feel safe. This is your home now. Simon is your home and you wouldn't have it any other way.
You also couldn't help the way your heart skipped a beat when your eyes drifted to the little basket under the window, every little treasure you've gifted him was neatly tucked into it and it was the only thing in the house that didn't have a layer of dust covering its surface.
Yeah.
You don't regret one bit of it.
Not when you finally feel wanted.
Not when he'd finally taken you to town, shown you the life you'd yearned for all this time. Or how he'd let you decorate the house in different hues of blues and plants reminiscent of the kelp you'd once swam through. A big aquarium was stationed in the corner along with an assortment of shells and shiny rocks you'd collected with him whilst you walked along the beach hand in hand.
It was safe to say that Simon was right about how you'd react to human life- except for watching tv. You were cursing so much it would make a sailor blush because of the sheer amount of incorrect statements being said about underwater life.
Months later he'd surprise you with a shiny ring, asking you to marry him. You were confused to say the least- you were under the assumption that you were already mated. C'mon, you've given him almost hundreds of shiny treasures and he'd shown himself as a capable mate when he'd presented you with the biggest fish he'd caught.
Were you not mates?
It took a while for Simon to explain human customs and marriage over your hysterical crying, by the end of it you somehow ended up tangled in bed together- he ended up with a multitude of bites and purple hickeys, not like he complained.
You also didn't get the whole wearing white to a wedding. What was the point of wearing such a dull color to a special day? Simon made you cry once again when he showed you a custom made mermaid gown that had the exact hues and shades that once adorned the scales on your tail.
The wedding was small. By small it was just you two accompanied by Price and Gaz to sign as witnesses. The grateful look on their faces didn't go unnoticed by you. You decided it was best not to tell them what you were.
The only person you told was Johnny.
You held Simon's hand tightly as he knelt on the ground where they had once spread his ashes. He still has that nightmare from time to time, but now he has you to help him. A part of him believes that he had sent you to him. A guardian angel to make him die a happy man.
Because he is happy.
Especially the night where you were cuddled up close to him, taking his hand in yours and instead of pressing it to your cheek you lowered it to your stomach... Wordlessly telling him that you were having a little fry of your own.
Now, Simon Riley stood not as a dead man, but as a lucky bastard that was given a second chance at life- a life with you in it. Call it a fairy tale if you will but he is beyond grateful to whatever being there was that gifted you to him.
a/n: Oookay this was a bit of a long one on my part, do I think it could use a bit more flushing out and if given to the right writer it could sound so poetic and beautifully written? Yeah, a lil bit- but it's my lil story and I love mermaids this time of year- hope you enjoyed reading it tho <3
(MDNI, explicit sexual content, fem!reader, flirting, biting, fingering, p in v sex, outdoor sex, shane gets lead around like a dog on a leash but he likes it)
5.1k words
part 1
———
A proper shower is not an everyday occurrence for Shane Maguire. A scrub with baby wipes or a quick rinse with a portable camp shower is the best one can usually achieve out in the wilderness, and Shane prefers to spend most of his days in the trees. The creatures of the earth don’t care if he crawls into bed most evenings with a thin layer of dirt on his skin. Tonight, though, the squirrels and the birds won’t be his only company, and he has a feeling you would be less than impressed if he showed up for your date unwashed and sweaty.
A date. That’s what it felt like when you asked him to take you to see the stars. Shane is no romantic but this feels like classic romance. You and him and the night sky, alone on a ridge overlooking Yosemite. Cicadas chirping. Moon full and bright. He hopes you’ll think the mood is right, because the showers cost $5 to use and the box of condoms in his backpack cost $10, and he’s put so much damn work into wooing you these past few days that he thinks you might actually hurt his feelings if you turn him down now.
The cold water clears his mind, running grey and brown as it swirls around the drain at his feet. The workday was long and he spent most of it thinking about this evening, about seeing you again. He scrubs himself down with a scented body wash, fingers working into aching muscles, raking shampoo through his cropped blonde hair. He scrubs until he’s spotless and towels off in the damp stall, tugging on jeans and a soft t-shirt, boots, a dark flannel.
The bathroom is noisy with the commotion of other campers bathing and chattering. He picks a spot in front of an empty sink, drops his pack on the counter and digs out a razor and shaving cream. The stubble on his jaw disappears under the blade of his razor, and he wonders if you don’t prefer him that way. A little bit rugged. A little bit wild. But the skin left behind is smooth and soft, and he imagines you brushing your fingers over it, holding his face in your hands, planting your lips on the clean line of his jaw.
Shane Maguire, primping and preening for a woman. A likely place for him to be.
He takes a step back from the mirror to look over himself. Runs a hand through his damp hair. Adjusts the watch on his wrist. And, optimistically, tucks a condom into the pocket of his jeans. It’s getting late, and you’ll be waiting for him to text you.
He sends one off as he climbs onto his ATV. On my way now.
He drops his backpack onto the cargo rack and sees that you’ve liked the message, a little pink heart appearing next to the text bubble, before he stuffs his phone in the bag and heads out. Your cabin is a ten minute drive away off-trail, and by the time he pulls up to your front porch, the wind has dried his hair and the sky is painted in deep pinks and purples.
The window of your cabin is illuminated in warm yellow light. Through the parted curtains, Shane can see your clothes strewn over the quilt on your bed, as if you had been trying them on. He wonders if you were thinking of him when you picked them out — if you were trying to pick something he would like. Not likely. If the stunt you pulled last night was any indication, you already know you’ve got him on a leash.
He steps up to the door, pauses, runs a hand through his wind-tussled hair one more time, and knocks. Footsteps pad across the cabin floor, the sound soft and muffled through the door, and Shane remembers the last time he was standing in this very spot. Remembers the sweat on your bare skin and that satisfied smile. The door swings open and you’re there, tragically fully clothed in shorts and a shirt that hugs your body.
“Hello, mountain man,” you greet him. “You here to run off into the woods with me?”
“You know me,” Shane says, a smile creeping across his face. “Always looking for a pretty lady to throw over my shoulder.”
You step onto the porch and shut the door behind you, and Shane leads you down the steps to his 4-wheeler.
“And here I was thinking I was special,” you say, returning his smile with one of your own.
Shane huffs. “Sweetheart, you got no idea.”
He swings a leg over the seat of his ride and motions for you to follow. You climb onto the ATV behind him, chest pressed against his back, arms wrapping around his waist. Your body is warm against his and he can smell your perfume now, gentle and sweet in the fresh air.
“You been on one of these before?” he asks.
“Not really,” you say.
“Just hold on tight, keep your feet flat on the foot rests, and if I move you move — uh, you move — you move with me.” The words seem to stick, because your palms have flattened out on the plane of his ribs, moving in broad strokes over the front of his body.
“This shirt looks good on you,” you say, smoothing a hand over the fabric. “Feels soft.” Your arms wrap around his waist again and your hands settle over his ribs. He feels the heat of them like a brand through his t-shirt.
He clears his throat. “Yeah? You want to try it on sometime?” You laugh against his back, and before you can find some other way to torture him, he takes off into the trees.
The ridge Shane promised to take you to is not on any official trail. It’s a quiet spot. Secluded. One of the many places he’s discovered after years spent wandering the park. The two of you ride through pine forest, across a gulch, and up the steep hillside. Your arms squeeze tighter around him as the 4-wheeler rumbles up the sloped terrain, hands fisted in his shirt. There’s a smug satisfaction in the way you cling to him, and Shane lets himself revel in it as you finally pull over the top of the hill onto level ground.
Shane parks and cuts the engine, and the air around you is singing with the chirping and rustling of wildlife. Shane pats your thigh pressed up against him.
“Get a little scared there, princess?” he drawls.
Your teeth sink into his bicep through his flannel and he yelps. You hop off the ATV before he can retaliate and stroll to the ridge to survey the land spread out below. Yosemite at night is a wonder cast in soft blue moonlight. The jagged line of the mountains, the conifer forests below, the bright spots of campfires and lanterns dotting the spaces in between.
Shane rubs the spot where you bit him, the pain dull and pleasant. Grabbing his pack off the cargo rack, he follows after you.
“Just couldn’t wait to get your mouth on me, huh?” he says as he catches up with you. “And here I thought you didn’t even like me.”
You twine yours fingers with his, standing so close that the toes of your hiking boots bump up against his. “You like my mouth on you?” you ask as you bring his hand up to your lips, biting softly at his fingers. Your teeth leave a faint prickling everywhere they graze his skin.
“Yeah,” Shane says, voice low and rough, and because he’s nothing if not a cocky bastard, “got somethin’ else you can put your mouth on, if you want.”
“Oh, yeah?” you say, looking up at him through your lashes. “With or without teeth?”
Shane remembers that you’re evil. A devil sent from hell to torture him. You leave him with one last bite, mean and quick, before you drop his hand and turn to the ridge again. Shane also remembers that his mouth is the single greatest threat to his chances of getting laid tonight, so he considers himself lucky that he didn’t piss you off enough to send you marching back down the hill, and unzips his pack to dig out a blanket. He unfurls it over the grass and sits down on it as you admire the view.
“This is a nice spot, Shane,” you say. “How do you even find these places?”
“Been wandering these woods for years,” he answers. “Spend enough time in this park and you learn all of her little secrets.”
You turn to look at him. “You don’t ever get lost wandering around out here?”
He laughs and pats the space next to him, inviting you to take it. “The Rangers wouldn’t have had me if I couldn’t find my away around some trees.” You wander over to him and he continues. “The Army Rangers, I mean. Not the boy scouts that run around here.”
You stop in front of him, nudging his boot with your own to kick his legs apart. He obeys without protest and you plop down between his open legs, back pressed to his chest, and take his hands in yours to wrap his arms around you.
Oh, he is definitely getting laid. Shane gladly takes the excuse to touch you and rests his chin on your shoulder. The smell of your shampoo is herbal and pleasant. Lavender, he thinks, sweet like the wildflowers that grow in the spring. Your body is warm and soft against his as he presses you even closer into his chest, and you lean back against him with a content sigh.
“Tell me about the stars,” you say. “What’s that one?”
Shane follows your pointed finger to a bright star in the sky. “Alkaid,” he says. “First star in the Big Dipper.” He points to it himself, and then to the one beside it. “Mizar, Alioth, Megrez, and that red one —“ he says, tracing the line of the constellation with his fingertip — “Dubhe. And if you follow the line these two make, way out there, is Polaris.” His finger traces a line from the edge of the Big Dipper to another lone star.
“The North Star,” you say.
Shane squeezes your waist. “Smart girl. You’ll be a pro at this in no time.”
You laugh softly. “You think I’ll be navigating with the stars like you do?”
“Oh, I don’t use the stars for that, sweetheart. These days we’ve got this fancy new technology called maps and compasses.” You swat at him.
“But I can teach you to use those,” he adds. “If you want to come stay with me at my camp sometime. I’ll make a Ranger out of you, too.”
You give a thoughtful “hmm,” letting the offer hang in the air. “Maybe next time. When I’m back in the park later this summer.”
Next time. Shane likes the sound of that.
You point to another star, a blue pinprick against the inky black sky, and Shane tells you its name. He traces the outline of each constellation above you, patiently explaining them as he’s done for the plants and wildlife this last week. He loves this land. The affection bleeds through in his tone, his intimate knowledge of each and every part of it. He belongs to it, as wild as any other creature in its boundaries, and he realizes he’s given away this part of himself when you tip your head up to look at him fondly, your hand coming up to brush his cheek.
“I’ve had a lot of fun this week,” you say. “Thanks for showing me around. And buying me lunch.”
“Think I remember buying you more than one lunch,” he says, and you grin with mischief in your eyes.
“And I’m so grateful for all of them.”
“You better be,” he says. “The food in this place is all overpriced to hell.”
You take his hands in yours and press his palms flat against your hips, moving them up to the curve of your waist.
“You know, when we met a few nights ago,” you begin, “I thought you were an asshole.”
“Yeah?” Shane says. “And now what?”
“And now I know you are.”
Shane can only laugh. He’s man enough to admit that it’s true. You slide his hands further up your body, over the bottom of your rib cage. He feels your chest rise and fall in steady breaths. Can almost feel your heart thumping under your skin.
“You said somethin’ else about me too,” Shane says. “Somethin’ about being a waste of time.” He swipes his thumbs across your skin, and the calloused tips of them brush up against the curve of your breasts. His mind zeroes in on every point of connection between your bodies — your legs pressed up against the inside of his, your hips braced between his thighs. He’s certain you can feel his heart pounding against your spine.
“Oh, that’s not what I said,” you answer, guiding his hands higher. You turn your head to speak against his jaw, mouth hot against his skin. “I said you couldn’t make me come.”
And before he can speak, you press his hands into the fat of your breasts and he groans, low and ragged. His fingers sink into the soft tissue, kneading them under his sweaty palms, the thin fabric of your shirt and bra the only buffer between him and the heat of your bare skin. He wants them gone. Wants to feel the soft skin he saw for himself just last night, that he’s been thinking about every moment since.
You kick off your hiking boots and they roll into the grass. Your hands fall to your shorts, where you work open the button and slide the zipper down, hook your thumbs into the waist band and begin working them over the curve of your ass. Shane grips your breasts with enough force that he’s sure you’re aching under his palms, and watches, hungry, as you slide those shorts down your hips and toss them into the grass with your boots.
“I meant it when I said it,” you say against his skin. “And now I want you to prove me wrong.”
Shane doesn’t need to be told twice. He drops a hand to the space between your legs, covered only by the thin material of your underwear, and cups you with a rough hand. Damp fabric meets his fingertips, and a thrill skitters up his spine as he realizes that you’re already wet for him. That maybe you want this as much as he does. Your legs part to make space for his hand, breath hot against his neck, and he drags the flat of his palm against you in broad, firm strokes.
Thank you God, he thinks. Thank you Jesus. Thank you to whatever other higher power may be watching as he pushes your panties to the side and plunges two fingers into your entrance. Shane is not a religious man, but if there is a god out there to keep ledgers and hold grudges, he must not care much about the many sins of Shane Maguire, or else you wouldn’t be here whimpering into his ear.
This is the image that’s plagued his mind since you first shot him down at that bar so many nights ago, the sounds and sensations he’s been dreaming of. Your core, hot and silky under the rough pads of his fingers. The weight of your body squirming against him, your face crumpling as he probes every sensitive spot inside of you until he finds what makes you melt.
His fingers pump steadily inside of you, in and out, in and out, and you press down on the heel of his palm so it grinds against your neglected clit. Whatever you want, he’ll give it to you. Tonight, he’s your eager student, studying your body and your bliss with a gaze that devours.
The sounds you’re making are shutting down the higher function of his brain. Reducing him into an animal with two thick fingers sinking inside you, rubbing curiously against your walls, fixated with carnivorous intensity on each little shift in your expression. He curls his fingers into the spongy spot in your core and you arch against his chest, head tipped back against his shoulder.
“Yeah,” you say, breathless. “Yeah, right there. Right there, Shane.”
A week ago he was fisting himself to the thought of you saying his name like that. To the thought of you moaning and squirming against his body like this. You feel even better than he imagined while he was sweaty and alone on top of his shitty cot. The wet heat of you swallows his fingers up as they pump into you again and again, grinding against that spot you like each time. Hips rolling, you meet each thrust of his fingers, and the hand that was resting on his cheek is now fisted in his hair.
“You been so mean to me,” Shane says raggedly. “Leading me around like a dog on a leash. You like that? You like bossing me around?”
He feels your mouth curl into a smile against his skin. “You like it when I boss you around.”
Another point he can’t argue with. You’ve had him all but whipped for the last week and he would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy every second of it. Your clever remarks. The ornery curve of your grin as you leave him high and dry over and over again. The sweet shine in your eyes as he shows you the best and most beautiful that Yosemite has to offer. You must know how much he wants you. How much he wants you to want him.
“Shane, I can’t — I can’t come like this. I need you to — need to you touch me —“
“I know, princess. I got you.” He drags his fingers, wet with your slick, up to your clit. You pant into his neck as he makes quick circles, and he feels your body drawing tighter and tighter as he pushes you right up to that ledge. Your fist tightens in his hair and the pressure on his scalp draws out a groan from deep in his chest.
He hasn’t even taken his clothes off. Hasn’t even taken all of yours off yet, and he’s charged like a live wire around your trembling body. Your hips jolt against his hand, little bucking motions that rub up against his pants where he’s hard and aching behind you, but he can’t even think about grinding into you now. He needs to see the way your face breaks as you tumble over the edge. Needs to hear his name on your lips as he guides you over it.
The movement of his fingers is tight, controlled as he swipes over your clit relentlessly. Your hand wraps around his wrist, to keep him there or to push him away, as your body starts to tremble.
“Ah, Shane — fuck, I’m — I’m gonna —“ your voice breaks around the words.
“Give it to me, sweetheart,” Shane says. “You can do it. Give it to me.”
And for once, you do as he tells you. Your mouth parts into a pretty “oh,” body arching off of his chest, as you finally tip over that ledge and let him prove you wrong. A week of trailing after you was worth it, the bruise you left on his ego that night in the bar finally paying off, as you melt into ecstasy under his diligent fingers.
He should have made you beg for it. Should have made you eat those words and kiss the wounds you left on his pride, but any smug satisfaction he feels is being smothered under the sound of your pretty voice chanting “Shane, Shane, Shane,” like your clever little head has emptied out of every thought that isn’t him.
He guides you through the waves of pleasure, working you through your orgasm until you’re shoving at his hand and your moans turn into desperate little “ah,ah’s” as the sensation becomes too much. When you’ve come down from that high and he finally relents, you slump against him, boneless, only to gasp as he wraps a strong arm around your waist and tips back onto the grass.
He hauls you onto his body, laying with your back to his chest as he fumbles with the button of his jeans and shoves them clumsily down his thighs, working them down just enough to free his stiff cock.
“You better have a condom,” you say, voice still raw. “I want you inside me. Now.”
Today, Shane’s optimism has payed off in spades, because he digs that silver packet out of the pocket of his jeans and tears the corner off with his teeth. He’s barely fit the condom over his tip when he feels your hands fumbling for his dick, your body squirming on top of him as you line him up with your entrance.
“Fuck, sweetheart, god — just give me a second,” he says as he finally rolls the condom down his length.
Shane grips your hips between his hands, anchoring your body against him, plants his booted feet into the earth, and sinks into you with one strong thrust.
The sound that tears from his throat is almost humbling. Around his fingers you were perfect, but around his cock you are addictive. Hot and soft and slick. He pauses there, bottomed out inside you, every muscle in his body tensing as his mind narrows down to the singular feeling of you, perfect and beautiful, wrapped around his cock.
“God, fuck,” he groans through his teeth. He just needs a minute. One moment to gather himself, to stave off the release he can already feel building in his gut.
Because you’re evil and devoid of mercy, you squirm on top of him. “Shane, move,” you whimper, rolling your hips in search of friction.
He’s not going to last. Your desperate little movements are almost too much, and Shane knows as soon as he starts fucking you it’s going to be a short walk to the edge of that drop. You’ll never let him live it down.
“Just give me a minute,” he says, thighs shaking with the effort not to slam into you and finish it.
But of your many virtues, patience is not one. “Shane,” you say, voice hard. “Fuck me.”
Fuck it. Shane gives up. “As you wish, princess.”
And damn it, it feels good to give in. He pounds into you without restraint, fingers gripping your hips with enough force to bruise, and your voice breaks on little hiccuping moans with each thrust. He should, perhaps, be more concerned about getting caught. Yosemite is a big park but certainly isn’t lacking in visitors, and the two of you are making enough noise that the night-crawling animals have gone silent and wandered elsewhere. He would care if he wasn’t so, so close.
“I’m not gonna last,” he confesses, hips stuttering as he draws closer to that high. “Touch yourself, fuck, give me one more. Wanna feel you.”
You drop one hand to rub yourself in quick little motions, the other hand clasped around his arm where it pins you to his chest. “I’m close,” you say. “Really close.”
Good, he thinks, because he’s nearly at the end of his rope. His thrusting turns erratic, losing its rhythm as the coil in his belly starts to unravel, heat spreading through his hips in white-hot release. His thighs burn with exertion but he doesn’t slow, the ache registering distantly in his mind as his orgasm burns through him and he spills inside of you.
Your fingers have gone shakey where they play with your clit, fingernails digging into the skin of his arm. “I’m coming, Shane, I’m coming, don’t stop.”
He grits his teeth and thrusts into you even as the pleasure shifts into the sharp sting of overstimulation, his legs trembling, his breath hissing through his teeth. The pain grounds him, brings him back down to earth just enough to remember that he’s still not done with you, that there are things he’s been dreaming about that he still hasn’t brought to reality. The first of which he remedies by fisting a hand into the hem of your shirt and dragging it up over your chest. His fingers find the band of your bra and shove it up as well, and finally, your breasts are free.
He watches with a wolfish gaze as they bounce with every thrust, and he seizes one in his hand as the other arm keeps you steady on top of him. The skin of your breast is warm and damp with sweat, softer even than the fabric of your shirt, and your nipple pebbles under his palm. He kneads it firmly, roughly, as you ride your second orgasm on top of him.
Beautiful. You’re so beautiful, and still he hasn’t had his fill. He wants you on top of him. Wants your taste on his tongue. Wants you in every way he can take you, but right now, his body is slick with sweat and trembling with the sting of overstimulation. He brings you down slowly from your high, hand still clutched around your breast, until your cries die down and your muscles relax against him.
He collapses onto the blanket, your bodies falling into a sweaty heap. You’ve gone boneless on top of him, two orgasms in quick succession sapping you of your energy, and Shane feels that smug satisfaction returning. You told him to prove you wrong — he did it twice. Maybe you’ll let him crawl into your pants again for his efforts, sometime later, when he isn’t panting on the ground.
He shifts you off of his chest and sets you gently on the blanket. Crawls over you. Dips his head down and takes one pert nipple into the heat of his mouth.
“Mmph,” he groans, sucking you into his mouth. Your hands comb into his hair, pulling gently at the strands. The other breast he takes into his hand, pressing and kneading into it as he sucks and licks at the other. He could be here all night. He could fall asleep like this, absolutely pacified with your tit in his mouth. “Fuck, these tits,” he says, and switches, taking the other between his lips.
Your nails scratch the skin of his scalp, dragging from his crown to the base of his neck, the tingling feeling so delicious that he could start moaning all over again. He releases you with a wet pop.
“So, what do I win?” he asks. “For proving you wrong.”
You look up at him with a half-dazed expression, body still loose and fuzzy with the aftershocks of your orgasms. “You want a prize?” you say. “C’mere.”
You grab the back of his head and pull him down to you, catching his mouth in a kiss. Your lips are soft and pliant, working slowly against his mouth as he melts into the kiss. He meets each languid movement of your lips with his own, and you hum contentedly into his mouth. It’s a sweet thing, slow and fond and pleased, not the rough claiming he’s used to during his usual one-night stands. When you separate, neither of you speak. You gaze at each other, panting softly, until your heartbeats slow and your breaths even out.
“Should probably get you back,” Shane says, pulling his pants up and tucking himself back into his jeans. “You’ll be fallin’ asleep on the ride home.”
You nudge your shorts with a pointed foot. “Help,” you say, and Shane plucks them out of the grass and slides your feet through the holes, working them down your thighs and under your hips. He takes one boot into his hand next and slides your foot into it, lacing it up as you lounge on the blanket.
“You got work tomorrow?” you ask as he starts on the other foot.
“Yeah,” he says. “But I’ll make time for you.”
“Stay with me tonight,” you say. “I want to wake up with you.”
Shane wants to wake up with you, too. Wants to do about a dozen other things that he’s been dreaming about.
“Whatever you want, princess,” he says, finishing the knot on your laces and planting a kiss on your ankle.
The ride back is long and quiet, or as quiet as it can be with the rumble of the 4-wheeler. The forest is dark under the canopy of the trees, and animals dart out of the way of the bright headlights as Shane effortlessly navigates the terrain. By the time you reach your cabin, the moon has traveled long across the sky and the park has gone quiet.
Shane cuts the engine and you slide off the seat behind him, tugging him to your porch and up the stairs with your fingers twined in his. He lets you pull him inside, locks the door behind him. Kicks off his boots and follows you into the bathroom where you both peel off your clothes and step into a blissfully hot shower. You wash off in comfortable silence, dirt and sweat melting off your skin. He watches you with a tired curiosity, eyes tracking over every exposed inch of your skin. Noticing and appreciating.
When you tug him into bed, he folds under your covers like he’s done it ten times before. Fits your body against his and wraps an arm around your waist like you’re already his. The pillowcase smells like your shampoo. Herbal. Lavender. There’s a dangerous comfort in this. He could get used to it.
He turns that thought around in his mouth. Chews on it. Lets the taste linger and decides if it’s bitter or sweet.
“Shane,” you say, a gentle bid for his attention.
“Yeah?” he answers, voice hazy with sleep.
“Did you think I wasn’t going to make fun of you for lasting two minutes?”
Shane groans and drags an aching hand down his face. You’re evil. He knows that you’re evil.
You pull his hand up to your mouth and plant a kiss to his skin. “It’s ok,” you say with only a little bit of wickedness. “You’ve got time to make it up to me.”
Shane sighs. Presses you into his body. Finds your shoulder with his mouth and bites, sinking his teeth into your clean skin. You yelp, giggling and trying to squirm away as he pins you in place with one strong arm.
You really will be the death of him. But death has never scared Shane Maguire much, and at your hands, he’ll gladly submit to it.
He falls asleep wrapped around your body, the smell of you lulling him into peaceful rest, your body a comforting weight against his.
Summary : Benjamin Poindexter, monster to everyone else, is the only person who could keep your mind from falling apart.
Pairing : DDBA!Benjamin Poindexter x mind reader! reader (she/her)
Warnings/tags : Angst, Fluff, hurt/comfort, canon-typical violence, panic attacks, sensory overload, mind reading, intrusive thoughts, trauma response, mentions of medical experimentation, murder, blood, protective/obsessive behavior, codependency, morally complicated love, hurt/comfort, domestic Dex, very brief mention of sex. Reader is mentioned to be an OXE medical experiment (Set in the last Episode of DDBA Season 2) (let me know if I missed anything!)
Word Count : 15.8k
Requested By : Anon
Notes : Please send me an ask if you would like to be added to the taglist, sometimes it gets lost in the comments. Enjoy!
Matt Murdock told himself it was a welfare check.
Which was stupid. Obviously it was stupid. Calling anything involving Benjamin Poindexter a welfare check was almost funny, if Matt had been in the mood to laugh at anything anymore.
Dex had shot Buck Cashman outside the Supreme Court and forced a makeshift siege. Of course he’d act like people were just moving targets. Of course, if the city was falling apart, Dex was probably the one person who could make it worse.
But the courthouse was done now.
Sort of.
Matt had stood there in front of God, Fisk, Karen, the cameras, all of New York, basically, and said it. He had torn the last piece of himself open with his own hands.
He was Daredevil.
There was no putting that back.
Fisk took the plea, and he was finally out of office. Fucking finally. The city had helped, and for better or for worse, the streets had bled because of it. Riots broke out, and sirens were everywhere. The whole city sounded like it was trying to crawl out of its own skin.
And Matt knew his days of moving freely were numbered.
It would not take long for the paperwork to be in order. It would not take long for the police to get their arrest warrant.
His name would spread through every system he had spent years trying to evade. Matthew Michael Murdock, Daredevil.
Whatever he was to people; Catholic boy, blind lawyer, vigilante, hero, hypocrite, all of it? That meant nothing. He was just a criminal who had to pay for breaking the law now.
So, fine.
But before all of that happened. He needed to tie up loose ends.
That was what he told himself as he put on a hoodie the morning after the courthouse, at 2 AM.
He crossed rooftops and fire escapes, ribs aching, lungs burning, sweat cold beneath his hoodie.
He was gonna check on him, that’s all. Make sure Dex was not out there killing people for the love of the game. Make sure the city didn’t have one more monster loose before he was taken away.
This better be quick, because would really rather spend his time with Karen before getting locked up.
By the time Matt reached Dex’s apartment building, the riot noise had thinned, like thunder moving farther away without ever really leaving.
Outside, New York still burned in fragments. Inside the building creaked. Old pipes ticked in the walls. Someone two floors down whispered angrily behind a locked door. A television murmured emergency coverage through cheap speakers. The exhaust fans gave a faint metallic complaint above him.
Matt climbed the stairs, knowing Dex’s apartment was ahead.
And then… Matt heard sobbing.
He stopped at the door.
It wasn’t theatrical, not the kind of crying meant to pull attention from the other side of a wall.
It was smaller than that. It almost made it… worse.
It came through Dex’s door in little broken pieces, like your body had run out of strength before it had run out of panic. One shaky breath, then another, then a thin, wet sound you tried to swallow and failed. You were trying to be quiet, Matt could tell. You were trying not to make noise and still the hurt kept leaking out of you anyway.
Matt stopped dead and assessed the situation.
There was a woman crying inside Benjamin Poindexter’s apartment.
For one second, Matt thought about every horrible thing he already knew about him.
Foggy, Father Lantom, all the other bodies he left in his wake.
All of them were there in his head at once, not as memories, but as evidence. As proof against Dex. As a case already built and closed in his mind.
Dex had never been someone Matt could afford to give the benefit of the doubt, not after what he had done. Not after who he had taken. Not even after all that bullshit about one good deed, about evening out the scales, as if taking another life could balance out the lives he had destroyed.
So Matt listened.
And then Dex spoke. “Baby, breathe. Come on. I’m here.”
Matt’s stomach tightened.
Baby?
From anyone else, maybe it would have sounded the way it was meant to: a soft comfort, words meant to soothe.
But coming from Dex, the words twisted in Matt’s ears.
Still, Matt knew it sounded… sincere.
Soft, but not fake-soft. Not mocking. Not cruel. Not even controlling.
It sounded… exhausted and careful. It frayed apart at the edges, like he had been kneeling there for hours, saying the same few words over and over because he was terrified you would disappear somewhere he couldn’t pull you back from.
“I’m right here,” Dex murmured. “You’re okay. You’re with me.”
You made a small, broken sound.
It was this heartbreakingly helpless, breathless little noise that caught in your throat and dragged itself out anyway. It was as if your body was trying to keep crying after you had already run out of strength for it.
Your breathing was too fast; Matt could hear every jagged inhale scraping up short in your chest, every failed attempt to steady yourself. Your heartbeat fluttered, frantic and uneven, skipping over itself like it was trapped.
You were on the floor. He could tell by the way your sobs hit the wood first, the way it sounded low and folded down. You were curled into yourself, maybe.
And Dex was too close. He was close enough that his voice barely had to rise. He was close enough that Matt could hear the shift of his body beside yours, the drag of fabric against the floor, the way he moved like he knew exactly which sounds would hurt you and which ones would not.
Everything Matt heard told him Dex was not hurting you.
The care was there. The patience was there. The way he kept his voice quiet enough not to startle. The way he didn’t grab at you, didn’t bark orders, didn’t crowd too fast. He seemed to be making himself smaller just to keep from adding to whatever was tearing through you.
Benjamin Poindexter sounded…. kind.
Matt hated that. his senses were giving him one answer and his memory was giving him another.
His senses said Dex was helping you. His memory said Dex hurt people.
His senses said Dex was gentle with you. His memory said Dex had killed Foggy.
His senses said there was love in the room. His memory said Benjamin Poindexter didn’t know how to love correctly.
His mind immediately assumed the worst.
Had he held you here? Kidnapped you? Had he convinced himself he loved you, and was he trying to convince you to love him, too?
Your sob hitched again.
“I can’t,” you whispered, voice shredded thin. “I can’t, Dex, I can’t—”
“I know,” Dex said immediately, and Matt could hear his skin on yours, rubbing gentle circles on your arm. You weren’t pulling away. “I know. Stay with me.”
There it was, the softness again.
That was an almost desperate patience in his voice, and still, Matt couldn’t make himself trust it.
Not with Dex crouched close enough for his voice to brush your skin. Not with you breathing like the room itself was killing you. Not with the door locked and the city screaming outside and no one else coming.
Then your breath snagged hard “Dex.”
“I’m here.”
“No.” Your voice thinned, almost terrified. “Someone else is h-here.”
Matt went completely still.
Behind the door, the apartment changed.
It was just a shift in the air. Dex went quiet all of a sudden. Matt understood, somehow, that you knew he was there.
For one suspended second, no one moved.
Your breathing trembled in the silence. Then Dex’s heartbeat slowed as he turned.
That was what made Matt decide. The sudden stillness of a killer turning his attention toward the door.
Whatever comfort Matt had heard before, whatever gentleness had almost confused him, it collapsed under the weight of everything else he knew:
A woman was crying in Dex’s apartment. Dex was too close to you. Ergo, Dex was hurting you and Matt had to get you out.
So Matt stepped back once he kicked the door down, and it broke inward. The sound tore through the apartment, wood splitting against the wall.
Matt stepped, expecting you to recoil.
He expected you to scramble backward on the floor, away from Dex. He expected fear to pull you toward the farthest corner, toward the broken doorway, toward him.
Anything but what actually happened.
You moved toward Dex.
It was a clumsy, desperate little scramble, knees dragging over the floorboards, one hand slipping against the wood as you tried to push yourself up and failed. Your breath came in miserable pieces, your whole body folded around the panic like it hurt to exist inside your own skin.
“Dex,” you choked.
Dex was already moving. He closed the distance before you could reach him properly, like he couldn’t stand the sight of you having to cross even that little distance alone. His hands came out, open, and you clambered into him.
There was no other word for it.
You climbed into his arms like you were trying to get beneath his ribs. As if you pressed close enough, hid deep enough, the rest of the world might lose track of you. Your fingers caught the front of his shirt and twisted there, tight and frantic, pulling yourself higher until your face was buried against his chest.
Dex caught you with his whole body. One of his arms was wrapped around your back. The other came up over your head, shielding your face, tucking you under his chin. He bent around you so gently it was almost painful to process, all that deadly mass turned into cover, into shelter.
Matt froze.
You… were not trapped.
Your cheek was pressed to his chest, hands fisted in his shirt. Your body shook against his, but the second he held you, your heartbeat changed. It was still too fast, still terrified, still broken up with panic, but it reached for his rhythm like a drowning man reaching for shore.
Dex lowered his mouth to your temple.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured. “I’ve got you, baby.”
You made a devastated sound and curled tighter.
Your knees drew up against his thigh. One of your hands slipped from his shirt to his shoulder, then to the back of his neck, gripping there like you were afraid Matt might pull him away from you.
“He’s loud,” you managed.
Dex’s eyes stayed on Matt, who still hadn’t said anything. “I know.”
“He’s loud, Dex, he’s so loud.”
“I know, sweetheart.”
You shook your head against him, hiding your face harder in the hollow of his throat. “Baby,” you whispered, voice barely there. “He thinks you’re hurting me.”
Dex went still.
“I’m not,” he said.
“I know.” Your voice cracked on it. “I know. But he thinks it and I can hear it and it hurts.”
Matt’s throat tightened. What did that even mean?
He heard it then, not just the panic and sobs. He heard the trust.
Your fear was everywhere, all over the room, spilling out of you in ragged breaths, but it was not aimed at the man holding you. Dex was the only place in the apartment your body seemed to recognize as safe.
You kept trying to disappear into him.
Every time Matt shifted, even slightly, your fingers tightened. Every time the broken door creaked behind him, your breath snagged and Dex’s palm moved slowly over the back of your head, as if smoothing you back into yourself.
“Don’t listen to him,” Dex murmured against your hair. “Listen to me.”
“I’m trying.”
“I know.”
“It’s too much.”
“I know, baby. I know.”
Matt took half a step forward. Dex’s head snapped up. “Don’t.”
The word was quiet to not startle you, and that was enough to stop Matt anyway.
Dex shifted on the floor, turning his body more fully between you and the doorway. You followed without thinking, clinging to him as he moved, your face still hidden against his chest. He kept you tucked there, one arm firm around your back, the other curved protectively around your head like he could keep Matt’s thoughts from touching you if he just covered enough of you.
“Poindexter,” Matt started, and it was smaller now.
Dex’s expression did not change. “Get out.”
“I thought—”
“I don’t give a shit what you thought.”
You trembled harder at the anger in his voice. Dex felt it instantly. His eyes flicked down, and when he spoke again, it wasn’t to Matt.
“Not you,” he whispered, pressing his mouth briefly to your hair.
You made another broken little noise and pushed closer, like the words had gone straight through your heart.
Dex held you tighter, not possessively in a way that trapped, but just enough to tell your body there was he was around it.
Matt stood there in the wreckage of the door, listening to your heartbeat try to steady itself against Dex’s chest, and for one awful second he didn’t know what to do with what his senses were telling him.
Because Benjamin Poindexter was still the reason too many people Matt loved were dead. But you were curled into him like he was the last quiet place in New York.
“He’s still here,” you whispered.
Dex’s eyes lifted. “I know.”
Dex’s face changed, but not by much. Matt doubted anyone else would have noticed, but he did. He heard it in Dex’s breathing, in the shift of his weight, in the sudden burst of restraint. The city outside was loud. The riots were loud. Matt was loud. His suspicion was loud. His righteousness was loud. His judgment was loud.
And somehow, you could hear all of it.
“I don’t want him here,” you said.
That was it. Whatever patience Dex had left for Matt died right there on the floor.
His hand stayed gentle on your back, but his voice didn’t. “Get the fuck out.”
For once, he did what Dex told him to do.
Matt stepped back into the hallway and got out.
The ruined door dragged crookedly against the floor when he pulled it mostly shut behind him. The lock was useless now, broken out from the frame, hanging loose in splintered wood, but Matt still closed it as much as he could.
He stood there in the hall, one hand still near the broken door, breathing quietly through the dust and old paint and the faint metallic tang inside the apartment.
He should have left. He knew that.
You had wanted him gone. Matt had seen enough, heard enough, to know he had been wrong about at least the first thing: Dex hadn’t been hurting you.
But Matt still could not make himself walk away.
Because Matt has convinced himself that love, in the hands of someone like Benjamin Poindexter, could become a locked room so easily.
Matt stayed.
Not close enough to push the door open again, but not far enough to pretend he wasn’t listening.
Inside, your breathing was still ragged.
Dex was still on the floor with you.
Matt could hear the tiny, frantic movements of your hands in Dex’s shirt. The tremor in your inhale. The way you kept trying to tuck yourself into him like the world might stop finding you if there was enough of his body between you and everything else.
“He’s still out there,” you whispered.
Dex’s answer came after a second of consideration. “Is he, now?”
Your breath hitched. “He didn’t leave.”
Fuck.
Matt stood very still in the hall.
“I’ll take care of him,” Dex murmured.
Your breath snagged. “Don’t hurt him.”
There was a pause. It wasn’t long, but long enough.
Then Dex said, “I won’t kill him.”
“Dex.” You didn't sound convinced.
“I won’t kill him,” he repeated, softer this time. “Promise.”
“You’re mad.”
“I know.”
“It’s sharp,” you winced.
“I know, baby. I’m sorry.” Inside the apartment, Dex went quiet in a way that felt less like guilt and more like being seen too clearly. “I won’t hurt him unless I have to.”
“Dex.”
“I won’t hurt him,” he said, and this time there was no loophole in it. There was only surrender, because it was you asking. “Okay? I won’t.”
Your breathing shuddered as Dex shifted on the floor.
“I’m going to move you, okay?” he said. “Just to the bed. I’ve got you.”
You made a small sound, and Matt could picture it too clearly now. You curled in on yourself, face hidden, body shaking from too much of whatever it is you could sense.
Dex crouched slowly, though he was already close. Like even now, even with you clutching at him, he was careful not to startle you. He slid one arm under your knees and the other behind your back.
You clutched at his shirt with shaking fingers. “I’m sorry,” you whispered.
“No.” His voice went firm immediately. “No, don’t say things like that.”
“I ruined your night.”
“You didn’t ruin anything.”
“I came here and I—”
“You came to me.” Dex pressed his mouth to your temple, quick and fierce. “That’s all. You came to me.”
You made a broken little noise against him.
Matt stood in the hallway, just outside the ruined door, listening to Dex lift you from the floor.
He heard the way your breath caught when your body left the ground. He heard your hands grip for a better hold. He heard Dex adjust instantly, pulling you closer.
“I’ve got you,” Dex murmured. “I’ve got you. I know.”
“You’re going to leave.”
“No.”
You sounded so small when you said, “You are.”
Dex carried you to the bed like every step had been chosen before he took it. Like he knew which floorboards made noise and which ones didn’t. Like he had learned how to move through this apartment in a way that made the least amount of noise for you.
“I’ll take care of him, okay?” Dex murmured. “I’ll make him go away.”
Your breathing hitched as you started to say something, but Dex shushed you gently.
“Yes, I know,” he said, softer. “I know you don’t like it when people see you like this. I know. It’s just gonna be me and you, okay? Just me and you.”
The mattress dipped down under your weight.
“I’ll close the door,” Dex continued. “I’ll turn the lights off. I’ll come right back.”
Your fingers caught the fabric of his shirt again. “Don’t leave.”
“I’m not leaving.” Dex let out a slow breath. “I’m right here.”
“You’re thinking about going.”
“I’m thinking about making him leave.”
“I can’t tell the difference.”
Dex went quiet.
Matt heard him sit beside you instead of standing right away. The mattress shifted again as the room settled around the two of you.
You cried a little, more exhausted now, as if the panic had torn through you and left you hollowed out behind it.
Dex’s hand moved over fabric in a slow, repetitive pass. Matt realised he was making the sheets smooth for you as he laid you down.
His hand slid up from your back to the side of your face, thumb hovering near your cheek, not quite wiping the tears away until you leaned into it first. “Look into my mind, baby.”
Matt’s head tilted from the hallway.
What?
Inside the studio, everything went still except for your breathing.
The room was not large enough for privacy. Not really. The bed sat pushed into the far corner. The broken front door was too close. Matt was too close. The whole world was too close.
But Dex bent over you like he could make distance with his body alone.
“Go on,” he murmured. “Look at me.”
You stared up at him through wet lashes, face blotched from crying, lips parted around breaths that still would not come right. Your fingers trembled against his shirt, twisted in the fabric so tightly the seams strained.
For a second, nothing happened.
Then your grip loosened by a fraction.
Your eyes fluttered.
A shaky breath left you, not calm, not even close, but relieved enough that Dex’s shoulders almost caved in with it.
The answer was immediate. No room for doubt. No space for the thought to grow teeth.
But then your expression crumpled again.
“You’re mad.”
Dex closed his eyes for half a second.
He didn’t deny it. He couldn't, even if he wanted to. Not to you. “I am.”
Your breath caught so suddenly it sounded like it hurt.
Dex’s whole face changed. The anger was still there, Matt could hear it in him, running hot under the skin. But with you looking at him like that, terrified because his fury had no color, no label, no clear direction once it got inside your head, Dex felt almost sick with it.
“I’m not mad at you,” he said, urgent in a way that made the words rough. “Never at you.”
Your mouth trembled and repeated yourself. “You know I can’t tell the difference sometimes.” It came out so pained Matt felt it in his own chest.
You said it like an apology, like you hated needing him to explain the direction of his anger because you could feel it anyway, and feeling it didn’t mean understanding it.
Dex swallowed. His hand curved more fully around your cheek now, warm and steady, thumb finally catching one tear before it slid down to your jaw.
“I know,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”
You looked at him for another second, searching his face like your own mind wasn't enough tonight. Like even seeing inside him had not made your body believe it yet.
Then he lowered his voice. “I have to make him leave.”
Your fingers tightened again, not as badly this time.
Dex did not pull away. He leaned in instead, pressing a short kiss to your forehead, then another to the corner of your temple, like he could nail the promise into place with his mouth.
“I’m going to turn off the lights, okay?”
You nodded, barely, as breathing scraped in and out through your nose.
Dex shifted only when you let him. He eased you back against the pillows in the bed, not putting you down so much as arranging the room around your collapse. One hand stayed on you the whole time, a constant point of contact while the other reached for everything else.
He crossed the few steps to it and slid the window shut with painstaking care, catching the frame before it could knock. Street noise dulled at once.
Then he pulled the curtains together until the thin spill of city light vanished from the wall and your face disappeared into darkness.
As promised, he clicked the lamp off.
The studio fell dimmer, warmer, reduced to the weak strip of hallway light bleeding through the ruined front door.
The phone was next. He picked it up from the small table beside the bed and silenced it without looking, thumb moving from memory. He put it back, screen turned down.
A radio sat near the kitchenette, cheap and old, still plugged into the wall. Dex crossed to it barefoot and pulled the cord free. The plastic scraped faintly against the outlet, and even that made your breathing tremble.
Then, he opened a drawer near the bed.
Something rattled softly as he picked it up. A pill bottle, maybe? No, it could be earplugs in a little tin.
He came back with them in his palm.
You must have watched him through the dark because your breathing changed when he got close again, sounding less lost than before.
Dex sat on the edge of the mattress.
He tucked the blanket around you, drawing it up over your shoulder, smoothing the edge down like he was sealing the world out inch by inch. His hand lingered there after, broad against the blanket, feeling the shake of you through the fabric.
The apartment had become smaller. Every sound had been answered. Every light had been put down. Every little edge of the room had been softened, covered, turned away from you by hands that knew the ritual too well.
He had done this before. Like he had learned, piece by piece, how to make the world survivable for you.
At some point, you must have reached for him again, because Dex’s voice dropped inaudibly. “Hey,” he whispered. “I know.”
The bed creaked as he leaned closer.
A kiss touched your skin. Your forehead, maybe. Then another, lower. Your temple. The damp line of your cheek.
“I’ll be right back,” Dex breathed.
You made a small sound.
He stayed another second, maybe two. Long enough for your fingers to loosen.
Then he stood.
Dex walked to the other side of the apartment without turning on a single light. He made no wasted movement, not a single sound he didn’t mean to make.
At the broken front door, he paused and looked back once.
Matt could hear the small turn of his head. The habit of making sure you were still under the blanket, still breathing, still there.
Then Dex slipped into the hall and pulled the ruined door mostly shut behind him.
It couldn’t latch. But he cracked it closed as carefully as if it still mattered, leaving only a narrow gap of darkness between the apartment and the hallway.
He was keeping the light out. He was keeping Matt out.
When Dex turned, he stood half-shadowed in the corridor, eyes red-rimmed and flat with exhaustion. His face was calm in the way loaded weapons were calm. His voice stayed quiet, almost gentle, but not for Matt.
He did it for yous
“I told you,” Dex said, “to get the fuck out.”
For a while, Matt didn’t say anything.
The hallway held them in the aftermath of what Matt had done. The door hung crooked in its frame, pulled mostly shut even though the lock was split and useless, the wood around it cracked open where Matt’s boot had forced its way through. It couldn’t protect you anymore. It could barely pretend to be a door. Still, Dex stood in front of it as if his body could replace what Matt had broken, as if he could become the lock, the wall, the whole goddamn building if he had to.
Matt could hear the anger in him as clearly as he could hear traffic below: hot, contained, and viciously focused. Dex wanted to do something with it. Matt knew that, but he kept it buried beneath his ribs because you were behind that broken door, and if he let the rage rise any higher, you would feel it.
That was what Matt could not stop noticing. Not the anger. The restraint.
Inside the apartment, you shifted under the blanket. It was only a movement of fabric, barely anything, followed by the small uneven catch of your breath as you tried to settle yourself in the dark corner Dex had made for you. Dex turned his head at once. Not fully, not enough to take his attention off Matt, but enough that Matt realised that some part of Dex had never left the room with you. Some part of him was still sitting beside the bed, counting your breaths, waiting for the slightest sign that you needed him again.
For one moment, Matt didn't feel like he was looking at Bullseye. He was looking at a man furious enough to kill and still aching to go back inside because the woman he loved was trying to remember how to breathe without him there.
Matt swallowed. “I didn’t know you had a girlfriend.”
Dex looked back at him and the answer was obvious. Matt had no right to know. No right to ask. He had no right to stand there in the hallway after frightening you and pretend the question was harmless.
“I didn’t tell you.”
His voice was flat and guarded, the words set down like a barrier. Matt’s mouth tightened.
Behind the door, your breathing hitched again, smaller this time, like the sound of voices through wood was still enough to scrape against you. Dex heard it too. The anger in him shifted immediately, folding smaller, tightening down.
“What’s wrong with her?” he asked.
He knew it was wrong the second it left his mouth. The words were too blunt, too harsh, too clinical. He had meant, What happened? He had meant, Is she going to be okay? He had meant, What did I just walk into, and how badly did I make it worse? But none of that came out. What came out sounded like you were a problem.
“Nothing is wrong with her,” Dex said, and Matt could tell he was trying his hardest not to snap.
Matt didn’t move. Dex stepped closer by the smallest amount, and the entire hallway seemed to narrow with him. His face had gone hard, but not empty.
“Nothing,” Dex repeated, each syllable harsh enough to cut. “She’s perfect.”
Matt exhaled slowly through his nose. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Yes, you did.”
Dex didn’t have to snarl. He didn’t have to raise his voice. The accusation sat there between them, plain and ugly, and Matt couldn’t defend himself from it because part of it was true.
Inside, you were quiet now. Not calm, but silent in the way people became when they were trying very hard not to take up too much space with their hurt. Matt listened to the small tremor and felt the pieces beginning to arrange themselves in his head.
You had known he was outside before Dex opened the door. You had reacted to him even before he even stepped inside. You had known Dex was mad but couldn’t tell where that anger was aimed. Dex had told you to look into his mind with the ease of someone offering proof, not metaphor, not comfort dressed up as poetry, but a real thing he knew you could do.
Oh.
Matt looked back at Dex and stated the painfully obvious explanation. “She can read minds.”
Dex’s expression changed only a little, but Matt heard the rest. The brief tightening of his mouth. The instinct to protect you by lying took over, followed almost immediately by the realization that lying to Matt Murdock was pointless.
Dex looked away, and said, “Yes.”
His voice had changed, still rough around the edges, but the explanation seemed to cost him a part of his soul. Every word about you had to be handled carefully because it belonged to you first. He kept his eyes on the door as he spoke, as if even describing your pain required him to make sure it had not worsened.
“She hears thoughts, feelings. Most days she can keep it out, or keep it separate, or read one mind at a time. She knows how to get through the day.” His teeth clenched, and he looked down for half a second before forcing himself to continue. “But when there are too many people, when emotions run too high, it stops being individual thoughts and turns into noise.”
Oh.
Oh shit, Matt thought as he realized that last night hadn’t only been bad for you. It had been a disaster built exactly out of the things that hurt you most.
Last night, protests clashed with Fisk’s Task Force. Bodies were pressed shoulder to shoulder in the streets, voices raised, officers behind their shields, civilians furious and terrified and righteous all at once. Fisk’s fall had moved through the city like a shockwave. Matt Murdock’s confession that he was a Daredevil had made a home on every screen, in every mouth, in every disbelieving mind.
His confession had not stayed in the courtroom. It had spilled outward, turning into rumor and revelation and riot, and you had walked straight into all of it because you thought Dex was hurt. Because you missed him.
Matt felt his stomach sink.
He thought of you moving through that crowd, not just hearing the sirens and shouting like everyone else, but taking in the thoughts beneath them. Panic layered over rage layered over grief. Thousands of minds all pushing against yours with no space between them. A whole city losing control at once, and you were caught in the middle of it, trying to find one person.
Dex’s face tightened as if he could see the same picture and hated it more because he had already lived the end of it. He hated that he had found you like that.
Matt understood that without being told. Dex had found you shaking apart in this same apartment, or near it, or on the street outside, too overwhelmed by everyone else to find yourself. He had found you and brought you here and spent the night closing windows, killing lights, silencing phones, making the world smaller with hands that had done unspeakable things.
“She came looking for me,” Dex said.
The words were almost stripped of anger now. Dex looked at the door again, and his body softened before he could stop it. But Matt heard it in the way Dex’s breath caught around your existence on the other side of the wall.
Benjamin Poindexter loved you.
Matt didn’t want to know that. He didn’t want to have to make room for it inside the shape of the man he hated. He wanted Dex to stay simple. A killer. Someone with a label simple enough to condemn without complication. But love was written through him now in ways Matt couldn’t ignore.
Matt’s voice came quieter when he asked, “Does she need a doctor?”
Dex scoffed. “Doctors are what made her like this.”
Matt went still.
Dex didn’t explain. Maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe Matt hadn’t earned that part of the story. But still, he was opening just enough of a door for Matt to picture the white rooms, fluorescent lights and people calling pain research, behind him.
Dex looked back at the broken door, and for half a second, the rage in him gave way. “She has good days and bad days,” Dex said. His mouth tightened, and when he spoke again, the grief in it was almost unbearable. “And she was having a good week.”
That mattered.
Matt couldn’t possibly understand the full weight of that sentence, but Dex did. A good week meant sleep. It meant you could eat without feeling nauseous. It meant you had mornings where you didn’t wake up already bracing against other people’s thoughts.
You’ve had several really good weeks, actually.
It mattered because Dex had met you on a bad day.
—
Twelve months ago…
OXE hired him to kill you.
A freelance gig, really.
The file was from the private medical trial branch of the corporation. It said that you were a failed participant. You were a liability. You were just a woman whose condition had become unpredictable.
They sent Dex a name, a photograph, an address, and a warning not to engage longer than necessary.
The house they had sent him to had no security. It was an old, empty place with drawn curtains and stale air and dust gathered thick in the corners.
You hated it.
Dex found you in the attic under the slanted roof, sitting in the weak orange spill of late afternoon light, one wrist was handcuffed to an exposed pipe. Your knees were drawn up close to your chest. Your hair stuck damply to your face, and your lips were bitten raw, like you had spent hours trying to keep something inside your mouth by force.
The key was across the room.
It was kicked. Dex could tell from the scrape in the dust where it had skidded away from you, just far enough that your fingers couldn’t reach it unless you pulled hard enough to tear the skin around your wrist. The cuff had already bruised a dark, ugly ring on your skin.
You looked at him once.
A small, breathless laugh left you. It wasn’t happy, not even close. It was more like your body had mistaken despair for humor because it had run out of other ways to hold it.
“You’re…” Your voice cracked. “You’re here to kill me.”
Dex didn’t answer.
He didn’t need to.
Your eyes moved over his face, and something strange passed through them.
Then you laughed again, barely. “You think I’m pretty, Dex.”
The attic went still as dust drifted in the light between you.
Dex’s finger rested near the trigger.
“How do you know my name?”
You looked at him like the question itself was tired. “Mind reader,” you said. “Obviously.”
Dex stared at you for a long moment.
You didn’t look like what OXE had described.
Dangerous, yes, maybe. But not in the way they meant. You looked exhausted, cornered, and afraid of yourself than of him. Your whole body was tense against the cuff, but you weren’t trying to get free anymore.
Dex’s eyes flicked to the key, then back to you.
“Why lock yourself up here?”
For the first time, you looked ashamed. “Because it’s loud.”
Dex glanced around the empty attic.
You heard the thought before he could speak.
“Not here,” you said, swallowing, then pointing to your head with your free hand, “but here.”
Your hand then curled briefly around your own throat, not pressing, just remembering.
“I kicked the key away,” you whispered. “So I’d have time to stop myself.”
“From what?”
You closed your eyes. Your voice came out small. “Strangling someone.”
Dex didn’t move.
You opened your eyes, wet and miserable, and looked past him because looking right at him was suddenly too hard.
“He was loud. He wouldn’t stop. He kept thinking and thinking and thinking, and I kept hearing it. I told him to stop to shut up, but they couldn’t, because people can’t just stop thinking, and I knew that, see, I knew that, but I—
Your breath broke as you looked down at your cuffed wrist. “So I locked myself up here. Before I kill someone again.”
Dex should have killed you. That was the job.
OXE had paid him to remove a problem, and there you were, handcuffed beneath a slanted roof, bruised and filthy and shaking because the world had made you into something you were terrified of becoming.
He should have pulled the trigger. Instead, he lowered the gun.
Your face fell immediately, like mercy was its own kind of threat.
“Don’t,” you whispered.
Dex paused.
“If you’re going to kill me, just do it,” you said, voice cracking.
Dex’s mind went quiet.
He had no idea what to do with that. No idea what to do with you.
So he did the only practical thing he could.
He walked across the room and picked up the key.
You cried then, silently at first, tears spilling over without sound as he came back and crouched in front of you. Dex moved slowly. He set the gun down beside him, close enough to reach, far enough that you could see both his hands.
“I’m going to unlock it,” he said.
You stared at him.
“You can read my mind,” he added, awkward and blunt because gentleness was not a language he spoke well yet. “So you know I’m not lying.”
Your breath shook.
You looked at him, really looked, and you squinted your eyes in the smallest, most painful disbelief.
Dex unlocked the cuff.
The metal fell away from your wrist.
You didn’t move.
You only stared at your freed hand like it belonged to someone else. The skin beneath the cuff was swollen and angry, the bruise already darkening. Dex looked at it for too long.
Then he took off his jacket.
He draped it over your shoulders.
You were shaking so hard the leather fabric around you.
Dex did not ask if you could walk. He already knew the answer. He saw the way your legs failed when you tried to gather them beneath you, saw the way your hand went out blindly toward the pipe, toward the wall, toward anything that would keep the room from tilting.
So he picked you up slowly, one arm under your knees, one behind your back, no grip tighter than necessary.
You went rigid in his arms for half a second, then sagged, exhausted past the point of fear.
“Why are you doing this?” you whispered.
Dex looked down at you.
He didn’t know how to answer out loud.
Because I know what it means to be made wrong for the world, too.
Maybe, now that we’ve found each other, we don’t have to be alone anymore.
He said none of that. But you said, “okay.”
He carried you down from the attic and took you back to his apartment because he didn’t know where else to take you.
You sat on the edge of his tub in his jacket while he ran the water warm.
Dex kept looking away, not because he was embarrassed, but because he understood, somehow, that being looked at was another kind of noise. He handed you a towel, found some soaps and put a clean shirt on the sink.
When you could not lift your hands without trembling, he helped.
He helped you into warm water and rinsed dust from your hair, cleaning blood from your bruised wrist. His hand was steady on your skin when you started crying again.
He didn't ask you to stop.
He only said, once, very quietly, “I’m not going to hurt you.”
And because you could read his mind, you knew he meant it.
Benjamin Poindexter had been hired to kill you.
Instead, he took you out of the attic and bathed you.
—
Over the next couple of days, you were mostly good.
Mostly.
Because Dex learned quickly that good didn’t mean cured. It meant you slept more than you usually did. It meant you could sit by the window without pressing your palms to your ears. It meant you could make tea in his kitchen and smile at some thought he hadn’t meant to give you.
Within the first week, his apartment changed because of you. He installed wall panelling first, because the building was old and thin and the neighbors came through the walls too easily when everything felt hollow. Then, he gave you thicker curtains, then rugs. Then a new refrigerator because the old one hummed at a frequency that made you bare your teeth and say it tasted wrong.
Dex didn’t ask what that meant.
He just replaced it.
After all, your mind was already susceptible to being invaded by foreign thoughts, he didn't want you to be overstimulated by your senses, too.
That was how it started with him, really. Not with declarations. Dex loved in corrections, adjustments, and threat assessments. He noticed what hurt you, and then he removed it. He learned the signs of your bad days and built around them, one practical act at a time.
You fell in love with him so fast it should have scared you.
It didn’t, but mostly because you knew he had already fallen too.
You could hear it.
He thought he was being subtle, which was almost funny. Dex, who could control his breathing to take a shot, couldn’t hide wanting you to kiss him for more than a week.
You could hear his thoughts every time you came too close.
Not words, exactly. More like flashes of your mouth, your hands in his mind. The curve of your shoulder when you wore one of his shirts. The split-second image of him leaning in, followed by a disciplined thought-wall of don’t, don’t, don’t, because Dex could kill a man without blinking but apparently touching you first was too much.
You let him suffer with it for six days, mostly because you were giving him time to change his mind.
He didn’t.
On the seventh, he was fixing one of the new panels in the kitchen, teeth clenched because the wood refused to sit straight. You were sitting on the counter with one of his old FBI academy shirts that had since gotten too small for his bulk now, bare legs swinging, watching him pretend he was not acutely aware of your knees on either side of his ribs when he stepped between them to reach the wall.
You had laughed from where you sat.
He looked over at you. “You think that’s funny?”
You tilted your head. “You’re thinking about shooting the wall.”
Dex stared at you, setting the screwdriver down too carefully.
“You shouldn’t go digging around in my head.”
“I didn’t dig,” you said. “You’re loud when you’re annoyed.”
That should have bothered him. It did, maybe a little.
But then you smiled at him like his mind was not a terrible place to be. Like you could look at all the terrible things in there and still find him underneath. Like understanding him did not disgust you.
Fuck, he thought, don’t do things that make me want to—
“You want to kiss me,” you interrupted his train of thoughts.
Dex went so still it was almost sweet. Then he turned his head. “You shouldn’t listen to that.”
“You know I don’t mean to.” You hooked two fingers in the front of his shirt and tugged him closer.
His eyes dropped to your mouth, and that was answer enough.
So you kissed him.
Gently at first, just to see what he would do with it. Dex froze under your hands like his body had forgotten every instruction except stay. Then he made this small, ruined sound against your mouth and touched your waist like you were a fragile crystal he had been warned not to break.
After that, neither of you stood a chance.
Neither of you did anything halfway. Dex didn’t know how to want normally, and you didn’t know how to be wanted normally. Kissing turned into touching, touching turned to stumbling into his bed, and being in his bed turned into Dex curling into you afterward like he had found heaven and was furious nobody had warned him it would feel like this.
Sex with a mind reader should have terrified him.
But after the first time he understood what it meant with you. There was no pretending or hiding behind control. He couldn’t pretend to be calmer than he was. He couldn’t hide how badly he wanted to kiss you again, how much he liked your hands on him, how ruined he got when you said his name in that breathless sigh. You knew when he was overwhelmed and you adjusted. You knew when he needed to slow down. You knew when he was thinking too much and when he needed you to pull him out of his own head.
You kissed him through it. You talked him through it. You touched him like his wants were not shameful just because they were intense, like the inside of him was not too much for you.
And you loved him for it.
You loved the strange, violent tenderness of him. The way he checked your face before his hands moved. The way he liked when you told him what he wanted.
“You love me,” you whispered after the second month, half asleep against his chest, your fingers tracing lazy shapes over his ribs.
Dex went still beneath you.
You smiled into his skin. “Don’t panic. I love you too.”
He didn’t say it back then because he didn’t have to.
But his arms tightened around you like the thought of you leaving had become physically unbearable. His mouth pressed to the top of your head, then your temple, then the corner of your mouth, almost desperate.
He loved you with every ruined, desperate, loyal part of himself. He loved you like gravity, like a fixation, like a religion he had invented alone in the dark and then accidentally found living in your body.
You smiled up at him, eyes wet.
“I know,” you whispered. “I can hear you.”
Dex’s hand came up to the back of your neck and kissed you.
You heard it in him constantly after that, and not like a normal man thinking I love you in a normal way.
Still, there were rules.
You didn’t care that he killed AVTF agents and assassination jobs. You had heard enough of their minds to know duty didn’t make most men good. You didn’t hate him for coming home with blood on his hands.
If anything, Dex loved that about you. Because for once, he didn’t have to explain himself.
He didn’t have to come home and build a careful human-sounding justification for the violence. He didn’t have to say he had no choice, or they were a threat. You already knew. You reached into his mind, found his reasoning, and understood it before he even greeted you.
And you would look at him and say, “That’s fine.”
Not because you were naïve. But you knew exactly what he was.
You knew the terrible things he had done. You knew the sound of his mind when he decided someone had to die. You knew how quickly he could make peace with blood if the reason made sense to him. And somehow, you accepted it.
But proximity to killing was a different thing altogether. A hurt mind was a loud mind and a dying mind was worse.
You explained it after an agent got too close to the apartment.
Dex knew that he couldn’t risk a search. He knew he couldn’t risk him writing down the address. He couldn’t risk OXE finding you again.
So he killed him outside, close enough for you to feel the pain.
By the time Dex came back in, you were on the floor beside the bed, hands pressed to your ears even though that never helped. Your face was pale, eyes unfocused, like you were still hearing dead thoughts long after the body had gone limp.
“A hurt mind tastes like TV static,” you whispered.
Dex stopped with blood drying on his sleeve.
You tried to explain because he needed to understand, and with you, Dex always listened like the answer might save your life later.
“I don’t hear words when they’re hurt. Pain turns everything white and icky. It buzzes behind my eyes.” You swallowed hard, breathing through it. “And dying is worse. A dying mind clings to anything it can. A face, a smell, a prayer. Some room they were in when they were little. Anything to stay. It’s so loud, Dex. I can’t filter it, I can’t, I-I… can’t.”
Dex didn’t look sorry for the dead agent, that was not how he worked. But he looked… hurt. He was hurt because you were.
“I know why you did it,” you said, eyes wet. “I know he got too close. I’m not mad.”
That was worse, because he could’ve handled anger. He didn’t know what to do with forgiveness. “I just can’t be near it,” you whispered. “Please.”
It had never been easy for him to change rules, but just like that, because you were hurt, he changed it.
He promised no killing within half a mile of the apartment. He promised there would be no bodies in the building. If danger came near and you were close enough to feel it, Dex would send you away first.
And if he had no choice, if someone had to die and had to die fast, Dex dragged the body away before the mind finished breaking.
He’d drag them down alleys, around corners, behind dumpsters, far enough that their minds could get loud somewhere it wouldn’t reach you.
For a while, that was enough.
Then one day, Dex came home and you weren’t in the apartment.
The door was locked. The curtains were drawn. The lights were low the way you liked them. The kettle sat cold on the stove, even though it was time you usually had tea. Your blanket was half-folded on the chair, one sleeve of one of his shirts hanging off the armrest where you had left it that morning.
But you weren’t there.
Dex stood in the middle of the studio and listened.
He couldn’t hear bare feet shifting against the floor of the bathroom. He could hear breathing from the corner beyond the bed, where you usually were when you were overwhelmed.
Nothing.
His body reacted before his mind did.
A bloom of panic opened behind his ribs.
“Sweetheart?”
No answer.
He checked the bathroom, the closet, the fire escape. The bed, even though he could see you weren’t in it. Then again, because panic didn’t care about logic once it got its hands around his throat.
No.
No, no, no.
For one sick second, all he could think was OXE.
Someone had found you. Someone had gotten in while he was away. Someone had taken you from the little box he had built to keep the world out, and he hadn’t been there to stop it.
Then he heard you.
You were… down the hall?
You let out a sob muffled through someone else’s door.
Dex turned toward it so fast the room seemed to tilt.
He knew that sound. He knew every version of your crying by then. The small ones you tried to hide, the sharp ones that meant you were hurt, the breathless ones that meant too many minds had gotten in and you couldn’t find your way back out.
This one was worse.
This one sounded like shock and the beginning of self-hatred.
Dex was already moving.
The neighbors’ apartment door was unlocked.
He pushed it open and found you on the floor.
You were curled up near the kitchen tiles, knees drawn tight, hands pressed over your mouth as if you were trying to hold the sobs in with your fingers. Your whole body shook.
You were barefoot. Your hair was a mess. One side of your face was wet with tears.
Then Dex saw the bodies around you, and it belonged to the couple who lived there.
The ones who screamed through the walls so often their voices had become part of the building. The ones whose arguments rotted into your apartment at night. The ones whose thoughts were worse than their mouths, according to you. They were bitter and poisoned all the way through.
He knew pieces of them because you knew pieces of them.
You told them they had a son who didn’t live there anymore. The grandparents had taken him in because the father’s anger had become too physical and the mother’s neglect had become too easy to pretend not to see. The child’s room was now turned into storage.
They had been horrible people.
That did not change the fact that you had killed them.
You looked up at Dex. “I’m sorry.”
Your hands fell from your mouth to your throat, fingers hovering there like you could still feel what you had done.
“They were so loud,” you whispered.
Dex stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
Your eyes darted to the bodies, then back to him, wild and wet and ruined.
“I knew it would hurt,” you said, words coming faster now, tumbling out of you before you could stop them. “I knew. I knew dying minds hurt me. I knew it would be loud when they died, I knew it would get in, but they were already so loud, Dex. They were already in my head I couldn’t think.”
Your breath hitched hard.
“They were fighting again. Not just out loud outside, but inside. Inside was worse. He was thinking about what he wanted to do to her, and she was thinking about what she should have done to him years ago, and then they were thinking about the boy, and neither of them even missed him right. They just—”
You choked on it.
Dex took one slow step closer. You shook your head, frantic. “No. Don’t. I’m awful right now. I’m so loud.”
“You’re not too loud for me.”
That made you sob harder. You curled forward, forehead nearly touching your knees.
“I tried to go back,” you whispered. “I tried to go back to our apartment. I tried to shut it out, but they kept going and going and going, and I couldn’t tell what was mine anymore. I couldn’t tell if I hated them or if they hated each other or if the whole hallway hated them, and then I was here.”
Your hands twisted in your lap.
“I was just here.”
Dex understood, because it was you.
Because your mind had been filled past the point of reason by two people who had made a life out of being loud, and by the time you understood what your hands were doing, they were already dying.
“I made it quick,” you said.
Your voice was so small it barely reached him.
Dex’s teeth tightened. You looked at him like you needed him to believe that one thing, if nothing else.
“I did. I promise. I didn’t want them to hurt. I didn’t want to hear that part for long. I just needed it to stop, and they were going to hurt each other anyway, and they were horrible, Dex, but I—” Your face fell. “I killed them.”
There was no justification, no defence.
“I killed them,” you said again, and it sounded like you were trying to make yourself understand it.
Dex crouched in front of you, and your eyes flicked to his hands.
Dex knew too much about violence to be shocked by it. But seeing you like this, seeing the toll of it hollow you out from the inside, he understood one thing: The city was killing you.
It was simply too loud, too full for your mind.
“Look at me,” he said.
You shook your head. “I can’t.”
“Look at me.”
Your eyes lifted.
Dex reached for you then, slow enough that you could stop him.
You didn’t.
The second his hand closed gently around your wrist, you collapsed forward into him with a sound so broken it made his throat tighten. He caught you against his chest, one hand to the back of your head, the other arm locked around you while you sobbed into his shirt.
“I’m sorry,” you gasped.
Dex held you tighter.
“I know.”
“I don’t want to be like this.”
“I know, baby.”
“They were so loud.”
“I know.”
And he didn’t mean it the way you meant it. He couldn’t. He would never know what it was like to have a dying mind claw through yours, to feel someone’s last panic splinter behind your eyes. But he knew enough. He knew you. He knew what this had cost you.
He looked over your shoulder at the dead neighbors, and there was no pity in him for them.
Only calculation. He was going to clean up this mess, maybe make it look like a murder-suicide, and make sure the investigation didn’t even look your way.
You were crying so hard you could barely breathe.
Dex pressed his mouth to your hair.
“You’re okay,” he whispered, more to himself than to you. “You’re okay.”
That night, after he cleaned what needed cleaning and got you back behind your own door, after he tucked you into the bed and sat with you until exhaustion finally dragged you under, Dex stayed awake beside you and stared at the ceiling.
The panelling he put there was not enough. The blackout curtains he installed were not enough.
The quiet refrigerator, the rugs, the rules about killing, the way he had tried to make one studio apartment survivable — none of it was enough if the city could still get to you through the walls.
By morning, Dex had made up his mind.
He started taking bigger jobs after that, better paying ones.
All with one thing in mind: relocate you from the city.
—
After that, every job had one purpose.
You.
And Dex had always been better when he had a purpose.
Every payment, every account number, every envelope, every favor owed became a way out of the city, a way to buy air your mind could survive.
But money was never quite enough. Money could buy a place, maybe, but money left a paper trail. Dex needed a cleaner solution.
He got what he wanted when the property mogul came to him.
The man owned half a skyline and wanted another man dead over a development dispute he kept calling “a complication.” He met Dex in the private lounge of a building with marble floors and windows too high above the street for anyone inside to remember people lived below them.
He offered a number first.
Two hundred thousand dollars.
Dex did not react.
The mogul smiled like he thought he had accepted the offer.
Then Dex gave him his price. “Two hundred thousand dollars,” he said, “and land.”
The mogul blinked. Dex leaned back in his chair.
“Upstate, and no close neighbors within half a mile radius. I want twenty acres at least. I want an existing cabin if you’ve got one. If not, build one.”
The man stared at him for a second too long, like money had made him forget people could ask for things that weren’t numbers. Dex’s expression didn’t change.
“You want him gone by Friday?” he tilted his head. “That’s my payment.”
The mogul laughed uncertainly.
Dex didn’t.
By the end of the week, the man was dead, the dispute was gone, and a plot of land upstate had quietly changed hands through three shell companies and a fake name.
There was a cabin on it already.
It was small and slightly weathered, far enough from the nearest road that the city couldn’t reach it easily. It was enough from the nearest neighbor that even your mind would have to stretch to find another person.
Dex stood on the porch the first time he saw it and listened.
Nothing but birds and wind through the trees.
Perfect.
Dex wanted to surprise you, which was adorable, because he had been thinking about the cabin constantly.
Not just the cabin itself, either. He had been fixing and sanding and checking the locks. He had managed to put extra shelves in the kitchen and fixed the creaky steps. He was planning to replace the bedroom window before you ever saw it because the old one rattled when the wind hit wrong and you’d hate it almost as much as he did.
He wanted it perfect before he brought you there.
So you pretended not to know.
You let him come home with sawdust on his sleeve and plans tucked behind his eyes, let him sit beside you on the bed while thinking very loudly about the porch and curtain rods and whether the trees were far enough from the house to make you feel safe instead of watched.
“You’re in a good mood,” you said.
Dex glanced at you too quickly. “No.”
You smiled into your book. “Okay.”
Then, flatter, he realised, “You know.”
You looked up, trying so hard not to smile because he looked genuinely upset. “I know.”
Dex sighed through his nose. “I wanted to surprise you.”
“You did,” you said, reaching for the front of his shirt. “I’m surprised you thought you could surprise me.”
And poor Dex, murderous, meticulous, hopelessly in love Dex, let you pull him down into a kiss anyway.
Of course, when he took you there the week after for the first time with your duffel bags in tow, you loved it.
You loved the curtains. You loved the little fire pit he built after you told him fire felt like the good kind of white noise in your head. You loved watching him chop wood with unnecessary precision. You loved sitting on the porch with a blanket around your shoulders while he checked the perimeter for the third time that day, because Dex couldn’t love normally. He loved like a security system with attachment issues.
And Dex loved that you knew.
He didn’t have to explain the strange shape of his obsession. You could reach into his mind and find the answer before he ever opened his mouth.
Why did he reinforce the back door?
Because if someone comes through it, I want three extra seconds.
Why did he move the bed away from the window?
Because glass breaks inward.
Why did he buy six bags of birdseed?
Because you smiled at the cardinals.
That one made him glare at you.
“You’re not supposed to listen all the time,” he said.
You sat on the porch railing, grinning into your mug. “You’re not supposed to think so loudly.”
“I don’t.”
You shrugged. “You do sometimes.”
Your favorite part, though, was watching him practice.
He set up a target in the clearing behind the cabin, a clean round board nailed to a tree stump far enough away that any normal person would have missed half the time.
Dex never missed.
He would stand there in the cold morning air, sleeves pushed up, knife balanced between his fingers with that beautiful focus he had. Then his hand would flick, quick as a blink, and the blade would bury itself dead center.
Again.
And Again.
You sat on a log nearby, chin in your hand, trying very hard not to smile. “You’re showing off.”
Dex did not look at you. “I’m practicing.”
“You’re showing off because you know I’m watching,” you said, “You’re thinking, She likes when I do this.”
The knife hit the target with a sharp thunk.
Dead center.
Dex turned then, eyes narrowing.
You smiled sweetly.
Poor thing. He was terrifying to everyone else. To you, he was just your murderous little cabin boyfriend who would rather die than admit to liking your sweet little praises.
“You know,” you said, “you don’t have to impress me.”
Dex pulled the knife from the target.
That one got him.
Dex walked across the clearing toward you, knife still loose in his hand, expression flat in that way that would have scared anyone who didn’t already know his mind was doing the emotional equivalent of tripping over furniture.
“You think you’re funny,” he said.
“You love me.”
Dex stopped in front of you.
The woods were quiet around him. Birds were shifting in the trees. Firewood was stacked by the shed. Morning light caught in his hair and across the sharp line of his cheek. His mind softened before his eyes did, and you felt it bloom warm in your chest before he ever touched you.
I do, he thought. More than anything in the whole goddamn world.
You smiled up at him. “I know.”
Dex bent downs, caught your chin carefully between his fingers, and kissed you. It was ridiculously gentle for a man called Bullseye.
When he pulled back, your eyes were still closed.
“You’re going to do it again,” you murmured.
“The knife throwing?”
“No.” You opened your eyes and smiled. “Kiss me.”
Dex managed a smile. And because he never missed, he did.
—
Dex still went back to the city sometimes.
He had scales to level, as he put it. Important vigilante work, in his head. It was the kind of work that involved blood and ledgers and moral math only Benjamin Poindexter could make sound reasonable. You never argued with him about that part. You could read his mind. You knew his reasons.
Still, leaving you at the cabin always hurt him.
Not because the cabin was unsafe. It was practically a fortress by then, even with enough stored food to survive whatever apocalypse Dex had apparently been personally expecting.
But he still checked everything twice.
“You’ll call if anything feels wrong,” he said.
“I’ll call.”
“If someone comes up the road—”
“I go to the back room.”
“If the radio cuts out—”
“I use the satellite phone.”
“If you hear something near the woods—”
“I don’t go investigate like a stupid horror movie girl.”
Still, he never left for more than three or four days.
Never.
By the second night, his thoughts would start turning back toward you. By the third, they got restless. He’d think about whether you remembered to eat. Whether the firewood was dry. Whether the road was clear. Whether you were wearing his sweater because you missed him or because the house was cold.
Both, usually.
When he came back, it was almost always late.
You never waited inside.
You would be on the porch before he reached the steps, blanket around your shoulders, eyes bright from missing him too much. Sometimes he didn’t even get the Bullseye mask off before you had both hands on him.
“Missed you,” you whispered, then you’d kiss the mask, right over where his mouth should be.
And his brain would go completely, embarrassingly haywire with love, relief, home, you, you, you.
You laughed softly against the fabric surface of it. “You’re loud.”
Dex’s gloved hands found your waist. “I missed you too.”
“Mmm,” you hummed, “I know.”
He would pull the mask off properly after that, just to kiss you properly. And when his mouth finally found yours, you could feel the city fall away from him.
—
This time, Dex was gone for seven days.
He didn’t tell you why, and not because he wanted to scare you. Because in Dex’s mind, silence was kinder than worry. If he told you that he had played a part in killing the mayor's wife and had been injured, and now needed to do one last assassination before signing a contract with a government agency so he could start providing better for you, you would panic before he could get back to you.
So he kept quiet.
And that was worse.
By day five, the cabin stopped feeling peaceful and started feeling empty. By day six, you were sleeping in his sweater, radio in your lap, listening for a voice that never came. That’s when you realised his lines were non-active. By day seven, every crackle of static sounded like him dying.
He had never been gone that long.
So you left.
It took you hours to walk to the nearest train station, but you managed to do it.
The train, once you got on, was too crowded, and you suddenly were reminded why Dex had moved you away. There were too many shoulders, too many minds packed into one metal tube, all of them thinking too loudly at once. Fear about Fisk, about Daredevil. Anger at the Task Force. A woman was praying under her breath. A boy was trying not to cry. Someone was watching the footage of the protests on their phone.
You focused.
You filtered.
You had gotten good at that, hadn’t you? Dex had helped you get good at that. One mind at a time. One thought at a time. Find the edge of yourself. Stay there. Don’t let the fear become yours just because you can hear it.
And for a while, you managed.
Even with New York getting louder the closer you came. Even with every station spilling more panic into the train. Even as you got out, as the protests moved through the city like a fever, anger and terror and hope all tangled together until nobody’s thoughts came out clean anymore.
You pressed your nails into your palm and breathed.
In.
Out.
Find Dex.
That was all you needed to do.
Find Dex and everything would be okay.
You could be overstimulated. You could be shaking. You could have the whole city scraping against the inside of your skull and still make it to him, because you had done hard things before. You had survived OXE. You had survived bad days. You had survived yourself.
You could survive a train ride and a trip to the city.
You were managing.
Barely, but managing.
Until…
Somewhere in the city, a Task Force Agent shot a man.
You felt it.
You didn’t even see it.
But you felt the impact, the shock, the guttural animal panic of a mind realizing too late that the body was failing. His last thoughts clawed outward, grabbing at anything. He thought about a mother, a kitchen light, the taste of coffee, please, please, please — and it slammed through you so hard you thought you were the one dying.
Too much.
Too much, too much, too much.
By the time you reached Dex’s apartment, you could barely separate yourself from the city.
You stumbled up the stairs with his sweater twisted in your fists and let yourself in with shaking hands and a spare key he kept in the cabin. The old apartment still smelled like him. The wall panelling he had installed for you was still there. The bed you loved was still there.
So you crawled into it.
You curled up small in the old place where he used to hold you through bad nights, pressing your face into his pillow because it was the only thing close enough to a hug you could get.
And when Dex finally found you, you were shaking in the bed, sobbing like the city had followed you all the way in.
—
Present day…
For a while, neither of them said anything.
The hallway held the two of them in the weak yellow light, close enough to fight, close enough for Matt to hear Dex's slight chatter behind his teeth.
The anger was there.
It moved through Dex like a live wire, and viciously restrained. Matt could hear through his heartbeat how badly he wanted to do something with it. He could hear it in the slight shift of Dex’s weight, in the way his fingers flexed once at his side, in the careful control of his breathing.
But Dex didn’t move.
He stood in front of the broken door like his body could make up for the lock Matt had destroyed.
Behind him, inside the apartment, you made a small sound.
Dex’s head turned at once, not enough to take his eyes off Matt. But enough for Matt to understand that half of him had never left the room.
It was awful, seeing that.
It was awful because Matt struggled to see past his sins. He didn’t want to see past his sins.
But the man in front of him was standing outside a bedroom he clearly wanted to return to, choosing not to kill because you had asked him not to.
Matt swallowed. “Does she need help?”
Dex looked at him. His face went cold enough that Matt knew, instantly, he had said it wrong. “She has help.”
Matt’s mouth tightened. “You?”
Dex stepped closer by half an inch. Not a threat, but rather a correction. “Yes.”
Matt let out a slow breath. “I—”
“No.” Dex cut him off. “You don’t get to stand there after kicking my door in, after scaring her half to death, and think you’re the reasonable one here.”
Matt’s jaw flexed. “I heard someone crying in your apartment.”
“And what?” Dex crossed his hand over his chest. “You decided she needed saving from me?”
“You’ve given me plenty of reasons to think that.”
Dex almost smiled. It was a terrible thing. It was humorless, dead before it reached his eyes.
“Yeah,” he said. “I have.”
Matt went still.
Dex didn’t deny it. He didn’t reach for innocence he had no right to hold.
“I know what I am,” Dex said, voice low now. “You don’t have to remind me.”
“I don’t think you do.”
Dex’s eyes sharpened.
Matt took one step forward, careful, measured. “You think because you think you love her, that makes this different.”
Dex’s face changed. Matt heard the hit land.
Dex didn’t hide his agitation well, because in his mind he was thinking how dare you even fucking insinuate that I think I love her. I know I love her. How dare you?
Inside, you must’ve felt the frustration flare, because shifted again, sheets whispering under your trembling body, and Dex turned his head immediately, rage folding down so fast it almost hurt to witness.
His voice dropped toward the door, not Matt. “Sweetheart, I’m okay.”
You didn’t answer, but your breathing slowed.
Matt listened until it settled by a fraction.
“You hear that?” Dex asked with a sigh.
Matt said nothing.
“You hear how she breathes when I’m here?”
Matt’s throat tightened.
Dex leaned in slightly, voice still controlled. “You heard her when you came in. You heard what happened when you kicked the door down. She didn’t run from me. She ran to me.”
Fuck. He had a point.
Matt’s mouth pressed into a hard line. “I’m not trying to hurt her.”
“You already did.”
The words landed flat in his chest and Matt flinched despite himself.
Dex saw it.
“You came in here loud,” Dex said. “You brought in your thoughts, your judgment, your anger. You dragged all of it into the room with you and dumped it on her while she was already drowning.”
“I—“ Matt shook his head, turning it slightly down, “I didn’t know.”
“No,” Dex said. “You didn’t.”
The accusation wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be.
Behind the door, you gave another small, broken breath.
Dex’s hand twitched once at his side, like every instinct in him wanted to turn around and go back to you.
“You should go,” Dex said through gritted teeth.
Matt didn’t, at least not right away.
You were quiet now.
Not calm, Matt could hear that much. Your breathing still came unevenly from somewhere beneath the blanket, frayed at the edges, worn thin from crying. But you were quieter than before, and every time Dex shifted even slightly away from the door, your heartbeat changed.
Matt wanted to believe he was looking at Bullseye. At the man who had turned a courthouse into a warzone. At the man whose name belonged on a tip line, in a police report, on every alert system New York still had running after the riots.
Benjamin Poindexter was standing right in front of him.
Matt let him go only a couple of days ago, yes, but hasn’t he been pushing for transparency over the last twenty four hours?
He should believe in the law. Especially now. Especially after what he had said in front of the whole city. He had torn his own mask off for accountability. He had asked New York to believe there was still a line between justice and vengeance and was prepared to pay the price anyway.
So why was he standing here, letting a murderer guard a broken door?
Dex watched him think it.
His mouth barely moved.
“You want to hate me?” Dex said. “Fine. Hate me downstairs.”
Matt’s jaw clenched.
Dex stepped closer. His voice stayed low, but there was nothing soft in it now. “Just don’t do it near her.”
Matt shook his head and Dex shifted towards the door, like keeping Matt’s attention off you was as natural as breathing.
“She isn’t yours to protect,” Matt said quietly.
Dex’s eyes went flat. “No,” he said. “She’s mine to take care of.”
The words should have sounded wrong. Maybe they were wrong. But behind him, your breath hitched at the sound of his voice, and some tiny broken part of it steadied after.
A year ago, Matt would have heard that and called it delusion.
But tonight, he heard the window shut. Dex silenced the phone. Dex killed the lights and unplugged the radio. Dex tucked the blanket over you. He heard love in all the small, practiced mercies Dex had done without needing to be told.
Matt’s hands curled slowly at his sides.
He could still do it.
He could leave the building and call in an anonymous tip. That Bullseye was here, and they could go non-lethal because you were here and there was no way in hell Dex would kill near you. Matt could tell Brent this address, this floor, this door.
He could do it because it would be right.
Because Dex was dangerous.
Because the law had to mean something.
Because Foggy—
Matt’s throat tightened so sharply he almost moved.
But Matt understood, with a sick twist in his stomach, that if he took Dex away tonight, he didn’t know who would be left to tend to you. Who would know how to keep you from drowning in a city full of minds.
Because Matt had heard what one broken door did to you.
If cops came into that apartment with radios crackling, boots pounding, fear and adrenaline spiking out of every mind, you would fall apart. And if they took Dex away, then you would be well and truly fucked.
He didn’t know what doctors would want their hands on you. He didn’t know who would look at you and see a woman before they saw a weapon.
Dex was dangerous.
But maybe that was exactly why he knew how to keep danger away from you.
“She asked you to leave,” Dex said again, quieter this time. “So leave.”
Matt stood there a moment longer. Long enough to feel every reason not to. Long enough to know he might regret it. Long enough to know he would think about this hallway again, maybe for the rest of his life.
Then he stepped back.
Dex didn’t relax.
Matt took another step. Then another, until he reached the stairwell and stopped with one hand near the railing. His face angled slightly toward the apartment again, toward the woman he could still hear crying in the dark.
For a second, Dex thought he might come back.
Then Matt said, very quietly, “If she ever asks for help from someone else, don’t stand in her way.”
Dex’s fingers flexed.
The answer came immediately. “If she asks, I’ll listen.”
Matt could hear that he was telling the truth. His fingers tightened once around the railing.
Still, he stayed there for one more second.
Dex waited him out, because if Matt needed to drag his reluctance down the stairs one breath at a time, fine. He could do that. Dex could stand there all night if he had to. He could become the door until morning if he had to.
Finally, Matt lowered his head and made his way down.
Dex stayed in the hallway until Matt’s footsteps disappeared down the stairs.
Only when the last sound disappeared down the stairs did Dex turn back toward the apartment. The door was ruined, the lock hanging uselessly from splintered wood, the frame cracked where Matt’s boot had forced it inward.
For one second, Dex stared at it.
His anger flared, then he swallowed it down.
Not now.
Not near you.
He stepped inside and pulled the door closed as much as it would go. It dragged wrong against the floor, crooked and broken, but he eased it shut anyway. Then he picked up the kitchen chair instead of dragging it, because the first scrape of wood had made your breathing catch from the bed.
Everything had to be quiet.
He wedged the chair beneath what was left of the handle and pushed once, testing it.
The door held, only barely. It hurt him that it was imperfect, but it had to be good enough for tonight.
Then he turned back to you.
You were still crying, but not like before. Not the full panic that had torn through you until you couldn’t breathe. This was smaller, yet more exhausted. Like your body had run out of strength but your heart hadn’t figured out how to stop breaking yet.
You were curled on his bed under the blanket, face wet, shoulders shaking in little miserable tremors.
Dex crouched beside you so carefully, like one wrong sound might split you open again.
“Hey,” he whispered.
Your mouth trembled. “I wanted to hurt him.”
Dex went still as your eyes squeezed shut, fresh tears slipping down your cheeks.
“I wanted to,” you whispered, horrified by yourself. “After he scared me, after he thought those things about you, after he came in so loud, when he was outside with you and he upset you, I wanted to hurt him, Dex. I did. I did, I—”
“Shh.” Dex’s hand came up slowly, waiting.
You leaned into it before he touched you, and only then did his palm settle against your cheek.
“Shh, baby.”
“I wanted to make him stop.” You shook your head, crying harder now, broken open by the confession.
Dex leaned closer until his forehead almost touched yours. “So did I, baby,” he whispered, rough and aching, “so did I.”
You opened your eyes.
Dex looked at you like it cost him to be that honest and he would pay it anyway if it calmed you. “But we didn’t.”
Your breath caught.
“We didn’t,” he said again, softer. “You stayed with me. I stayed with you. He left. It’s over.”
Your face fell, and Dex shifted up onto the bed then, slow enough not to startle you, and gathered you carefully against him. You folded into his chest with a broken little sound, fingers twisting weakly in his shirt.
He held you like he was trying to put your body back around your soul.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered into your hair. “I’ve got you. I know. I know, sweetheart.”
You sobbed once, small and ruined.
Dex pressed his mouth to your temple. “We’re going back to the cabin first thing tomorrow.”
Your fingers tightened. “Tomorrow?”
“Yeah.” His hand moved over your back, slow and steady. “You can sleep the whole way if you want.”
Your breathing shook against him.
“And my new work doesn’t start for two weeks,” he said, like he was offering you the only miracle he had. “So that’s two weeks, okay? Two weeks of nothing.”
You pulled back just enough to look at him.
Dex’s thumb brushed beneath your eye.
“Just me and you,” he whispered. “No one else. No noise. No city. Just us.”
Your mouth trembled and he kissed your forehead.
“I’ll chop wood. You can sit on the porch. We’ll keep the fire on. You can wear my clothes and sleep all day if you want.”
Another tear slipped down your cheek before you could help it, and he caught it.
“And I won’t leave,” he said. “Not for two weeks. Not for anything.”
You stared at him through wet lashes, searching his face first. Then, his mind.
He was thinking about…
The cabin.
You sleeping in the passenger seat.
You on the porch.
You wrapped in his sweater.
You, safe.
And underneath it all, over and over, so constant it almost broke you…
I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.
Your breath hitched.
His face softened. “There you are,” he whispered.
You made a tiny sound and tucked your face back into him. “Okay,” you breathed.
Dex’s shoulders nearly gave out with relief. “Okay?”
You nodded against his chest. “Okay.”
He closed his eyes and held you tighter for one second, just one, like he needed to feel the word inside his own body. Then he kissed your temple again. “That’s my girl.”
Your crying slowed after that.
It didn’t stop, but it gentled into little exhausted shudders against his shirt while Dex kept his hand moving over your back, the way he knew helped. He stayed until your fingers loosened. Until your breathing stopped tripping over itself. Until your mind, still bruised and raw, found the steady line of his thoughts again.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
You could focus on it now.
Not the city. Not Matt. Not the broken door.
Just Dex and his thoughts, warm and obsessive and constant, wrapped around you from the inside out.
Finally, Dex pulled back enough to look at your face.
“I’m gonna clean up,” he whispered.
Your eyes opened again, instantly afraid. He shook his head before the fear could grow.
“I’m just going to the bathroom,” he said. “That’s all.”
You swallowed.
“I’ll be back in a bit,” he promised. “You should go to sleep, okay?”
You didn’t answer.
Dex kissed your temple. Then your cheek. Then your lips, so gently you almost started crying again.
“Try,” he whispered, because he knew you were so, so tired. “Just try for me.”
You nodded, barely.
Dex eventually eased himself away, slowly and careful, leaving the blanket tucked around your shoulders and the chair braced beneath the broken door.
The bathroom light stayed off, and the door stayed open.
Water ran low in the sink.
You appreciated it more than you could say. The sound filled the little apartment gently, not enough to crowd your head, not enough to become another thing pressing at the inside of your skull. Just enough to give your mind somewhere simple to latch on to.
Dex didn’t need to read minds to know that running water settled you the same way fire did. It had the same white-noise hush. It had the same clear, constant sound that didn’t want anything from you. Fire and water didn’t think. It didn’t feel. It didn’t ask to be understood.
It just moved.
And Dex knew that. He knew you.
So you laid there in the dark, still hurting, still broken in places you could not name, but now, you were present.
You took a shaky breath.
For a while, there was only the water running low in the bathroom sink and Dex moving quietly through the dark.
You could hear him in pieces.
You heard the careful pass of his hands under the faucet, the soft drag of fabric as he wiped his face. The small, practical thoughts he kept lining up for tomorrow.
Cabin first thing.
Full tank of gas.
No tunnel.
Back roads.
Blanket in the passenger seat.
Radio off unless she asks.
Two weeks.
Just me and her.
You focused on him. On the shape of his mind. On the tenderness he had no idea how to say without turning it into a plan, a route, a locked door, a fixed window. Even now, Dex was thinking about firewood and the bedroom window and whether the car heater would be too loud for you in the morning.
It made you smile.
Then… oh.
Something else reached you. Someone else.
It wasn’t Dex; this thought came from outside.
It was a thought that came from out the street, clear and heavy through the thin glass:
I hope I’m doing the right thing.
Your eyes opened. For one second, you lay very still beneath the blanket.
Dex was still in the bathroom. But outside, across the street, Matt Murdock had not gone far.
You got up slowly and turned your head toward the window.
The curtain hadn’t been pulled perfectly shut. There was a narrow gap where city light slipped through, pale and dirty against the floor. You shifted, leaning just enough to see past it.
There he was, across the street, half-shadowed beneath a streetlamp, hood pulled up, face tilted toward the building like he was still listening to the apartments.
Matt Murdock stood there with one foot turned away and the rest of him refusing to follow.
He was hesitating.
His thoughts were still loud, but not loud like before.
It was no longer crashing through you with suspicion and anger and judgment. This was different. His thoughts now were coherent, almost. They came to you in pieces, clear enough to understand.
Benjamin Poindexter is still a dangerous man.
I shouldn’t leave him with her.
But she asked me to leave.
But she’s calmer when he’s near.
Your throat tightened.
Matt’s thoughts vibrated around the shape of Dex, for lack of a better word. There was still blood there, grief there, a wound so deep it had a name you didn’t touch because it hurt even from a distance.
But there was something else in his thoughts now, too.
You.
Because you could read minds, you knew he had heightened senses, and you knew you didn’t have to speak loudly to reach him. You only had to speak clearly.
So you turned your face toward the narrow gap in the curtain, toward the street where Matt Murdock stood beneath the weak glow of a lamp, and whispered into the dark, “I know what he is.”
Across the street, Matt went completely still.
You saw the subtle lift of his head, the tightening through his shoulders. His attention snapping back to your window because he could feel where you were.
He heard you. You knew he did.
You curled your fingers into the blanket.
“But he’s not that to me.”
Matt didn’t move.
You could feel his mind presently listening now. Not as Daredevil. Not as the man who had kicked down the door. Not as someone trying to decide what kind of danger you were.
“He loves me,” you whispered.
Matt’s thoughts shifted.
He does. Even a blind man could see that.
The thought came so clearly it almost hurt.
You blinked, tears slipping sideways into your hair. “He’s good to me.”
You remembered him now, when it was Dex’s hand that unlocked the cuff, how he put his jacket over your shoulders. You thought about the cabin and the chair beneath the broken door. That man was in the bathroom, washing up with the door open because he promised he wouldn’t leave you alone.
You breathed in, shaky but steadier. “He’s a good man for me.”
Across the street, Matt’s face changed.
It was a small, tiny furrow of the brow. But then you heard the thought that followed.
I believe you.
Your breath hitched
Above all the doubt, above all the grief, above all the things Matt Murdock would never be able to forgive, that one thought came through clean.
I believe you.
Not Dex.
You.
He believed you knew what you were saying. He believed you were not trapped. He believed you understood the man beside you better than anyone else in the city possibly could.
And maybe that was the most Matt could give.
You, behind the glass, exhausted and half-broken in Dex’s bed.
Matt, across the street, carrying a truth he didn’t want and yet couldn’t put down.
Because maybe Benjamin Poindexter was not only defined by violence. Maybe there was something else buried deep under him, warped and wounded and difficult to look at, but human anyway.
A person.
Someone capable of loving. Someone, somehow, worthy of being loved.
Matt didn’t forgive him. But for the first time, he saw him differently.
Then he lowered his head and gave you a small nod.
Then Matt Murdock turned away.
This time, he truly left.
You watched until the dark took him, until his thoughts faded into the rest of New York and you could no longer separate him from the city.
But you knew.
You knew that Matt was starting to look at the man you loved differently.
— end.
Extra Note : Like the reader in this story, we all have good days and bad days. Please remember that needing help doesn’t make you weak, broken, or too much. It just makes you human. If you are struggling, please reach out to someone you trust or contact a crisis/support service in your area. You deserve care, patience, and support on your bad days too, lovelies! 🫶💕❤️
After the life Simon Riley has had, it’s really not surprising that he just can’t get it up anymore. He’s tried, time and time again, but the blood doesn’t pump through him the same way it did. And it isn’t that he doesn’t have a sex drive, god no, one look at you and he wishes he could fuck you into the mattress until your tears stain the pillows and the only sounds falling from your mouth are screams of pleasure.
You walk around the apartment, his big t-shirt on, no panties underneath, and it drives him insane. You’re an entire decade younger than him, young and sexy, and he can’t help but feel guilty for letting you stay with him knowing that he can’t give you what you want in bed.
It doesn’t stop him from eating you out until your clit is puffy and your walls are rubbed raw by his calloused fingers. When his head is between your legs, he tries, he really does. He gets so worked up, grinding his soft cock against the bed, willing it to get hard so he can fuck you right after, but it never does.
All it ends in is you cumming on his face one too many times and him walking out of the room without saying a word in pure humiliation.
You don’t take it to heart, you know he beats himself up for it, saying he isn’t good enough, that you should find someone who can actually give you what you want and keep up with you at that. Every time you reassure him, that he does satisfy you, that he never fails to make you feel good regardless of how he does it, but it seems to go in one ear and out the other.
But tonight, tonight is different and you will find a way to fuck your man.
You lay naked on the bed, legs spread, juices glistening off your folds while Simon hovers above you. His arms cage your head in as he kisses you rough, his tongue sliding over your soft lips, yours entering to explore the expanse of his mouth. He kisses the length of your jaw, down your neck where he licks the salty-sweet skin, bites just hard enough for you to writhe beneath him, and sucks until purple bruises are left to ache in the best way possible.
Before he can lower himself between your legs, you let your fingertips brush just under the waistband of his sweatpants, and his mouth stills against yours.
“Si… just let me try something tonight. I really want to,” you say breathlessly, pulling away from the kiss, gazing up at him with a look that is more of a beg than anything.
He kisses your forehead, moving his hand down to pull yours away, but before he can you reach in deeper, squeezing the base of him and earning a rumbling groan from him instead. His fingers wrap around your wrist, not moving you, just simply holding on like he has to steady himself.
“Lovie, please. Don’t embarrass me now,” he whispers, voice rough and low, wavering ever so slightly when your hand begins to trail further up his limp cock.
You don’t reply, but you do run your thumb against his tip, swiping the precum beading from his slit, evidence of his arousal despite him remaining soft. Lips meeting him again, he’s reluctant, but eventually he finds your rhythm.
Pushing his sweatpants down, you pull his cock out, stroking it gently and your warm, soft palm against him feels like you're touching his raw nerves. Even if he couldn’t get it up, it is still incredibly sensitive from months and months of pent-up need and no sex. Not that you hadn’t tried before, because you have, and every time he gets frustrated.
There’s not much you can say to convince him to try again on the same night.
Nonetheless, you focus on his tip, gliding your thumb under the ridge, rubbing against his slit, and you feel his cock twitch barely in your hand. You pull his body closer to yours, resting his cock on your folds, and he hisses from the sheer pleasure of that alone. Your body heat, your slick, the thought of him touching your aching clit like this has him beyond needy.
“Just slide against me. It’ll feel good, yeah,” you say, nodding your head slowly in encouragement.
His hips roll against you, his cock sliding underneath your palm and through your folds, and he bites back a whimper while shivers run down his spine. Simon can feel his cock hardening, just barely, just enough that he might actually be able to feel your walls wrap around him, so he wastes no time in finding out.
“Please, please,” he says under his breath, begging his body to let him pleasure you in ways he usually can’t, just for tonight if that’s what it takes.
He grabs the base of his cock, positioning at your entrance, and it takes a few tries but his semi-hard tip pushes through your entrance. You gasp softly, the feeling foreign and orgasmic, and your walls clench hard around him. A guttural groan rips from his chest when he begins to rock into you, his eyes meet yours, passion and desire swirling around as his pupils dilate from the sight of you taking him regardless of the conditions.
“You feel so good, Si,” you moan, lifting your hips to give him easier access, glancing down every few seconds to watch the way his impossibly large and yet still soft cock rubs through your walls.
“You feel like a dream,” is all he can get out before his eyes are shutting tight and his fingers are tangling in your hair.
Your body meets his, helping him through it, helping him get to where he needs to be so that just for tonight, he can feel man enough for you. And when he cums deep inside of you, his tip pulsing with long, thick ropes of warm cum, ‘thank you’s’ fall from him repeatedly before he kisses you with a newfound confidence.
“Again Si, don’t stop.”
He doesn’t. He stays rocking inside you, cumming again and again until his cock is too raw, until your pussy is full of his cum, and you feel every last bit of him. When he’s done, he lowers himself between your legs, cleaning his mess and sucking your clit, watching you cry from pleasure, watching you squirm away, but there is nothing he could give you that would ever come close to the feeling of showing him that he is enough for you.
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A/N: since someone had an issue with the fact that i said the reader is a decade younger than simon and "young and sexy" let me clarify that i never specified an age anywhere in the fic lmao the reader could be 24 and simon be 37 the reader could be 35 and simon be 50 for all i care thats for you to decide and that is why i dont specify certain aspects of the reader i simply wanted to emphasize an age gap to make the guilt simon feels more profound simon finds the reader sexy and shes younger than him there is nothing to read in between the lines or imply about that literally at all
i imagine the live camera feed goes off one night while youre lying in bed. new sheets still hugging you warm after the dryer. the boys are off doing their personal night routines, heavy guard dogs lay at your feet.
with the chime of your phone, a notification alerts you of outside movement. you consider it to be a waving branch or passing car, yet check it nonetheless. something about inner intuition.
youre glad you did.
watching silently as someones shadow skirts along the darker parts of around your house. passing the kitchen windows with a ducked head, then round the back.
"fuck," you bite your lip. sighing quietly as you toss your phone. "johnathan!" four heads from the bathroom peek around the doorframe slow, eyes open with the use of a full name. johnny fights a grin, ready to watch his captain get chewed out by their lady.
"..ye' love?"
"theres some weird guy wandering 'round the house outside," you inform dryly. plucking your phone back up and leaving it there. you reach for your wine glass on the bedside table, sipping as their hearts fall to their ass.
sure, anxiety stirs low in your gut. nipping at your reason and concious. but youre also keen of what your boys have lived through, the dirtest negotiations and most horrific actions.
alway do they come back home into your arms.
you could blame it on pure lack of sleep, but its nicer to pin it on the assumption youre probably the safest person in town. you were even willing to bet in the city.
so you continue with scrolling through ao3.
paying a half mind as military tense rounds over their bodies. simon whistles for the dogs and grabs his pistol. grunting and rolling his bare shoulders in atonished anger at somones sheer audacity. i mean for fuck sakes the mans tired. 
johnnys sneaking grin falls, replaced by a flat face as hes quick to grab a flashlight and gun. moving out the door on simons heels. big dogs herding around them.
"stay 'ere yeah love? dont open the fuckin' door," johns voice is a low growl. grabbing a hunters knife ( anniversary gift from you, his names carved in the wood ) and moving to the window. room lights flipped off when johnny left. scanning the open grass with an annoyed brow twitch. "kyle, wi' me."
kyle nods, glancing back three times to make sure youre content. careful to lock the bedroom door and leave a weapon with you, which he drills in not to touch less you hear the burglar. with a final glance, hes gone with the rest of them.
your ears perk for movement outside. glass shatters and a door kicks open. youre pretty sure you hear the guy shriek — most definitely simons doing, weird fucker was waiting in the dark — a brisk struggle before the house falls silent, words they dont want you hearing are exchanged then hes thrown out onto the grass.
hes quick to jump up and scurry off, wet pants uncomfortable and now stinking.
you sigh with annoyance, replacing windows was the biggest bitch. but whatever, sukuna is realizing his love for Y/N.
imagine being bullseye's target for a paid hit. he's so good at inserting yourself into your life, becoming an integral part of it. you're stupidly unsuspecting; he'd feel bad, but quite frankly, he's never seen such a high bounty placed on anyone's head yet, let alone a simple girl like you. it's almost too easy.
until it isn't. until he realises that he genuinely does like you, likes taking you out on dates and seeing you smile. even though you know him as tony, and he's been careful not to let the real him show, it's been slipping out anyway. and all the things he's catalogued in his brain about you under the pretence of knowing his target are things he keeps in mind around you—your coffee order, your morning routine, the temperature you like your shower water at.
he knows you charge your phone in the living room so you don't scroll in the morning, and your preferred way of waking up is when you're curled right into him with your legs tangled together, and when you're at home you skip more than you walk because you don't know what to do with the excess energy you have. and he's taken you on what, twenty dates now? and you call him your boyfriend and he's talked to your mum before—although it has been on the phone—and he has the spare key to your apartment.
he conveniently forgets to "do recon" sometimes, and he is not a man who ever forgets. he keeps on letting his guard down; he likes you too much. it has to be today.
or that's the plan, anyway.
it's a pretty warm day and you're already halfway through a tub of ice cream—or two; you've dumped both flavours in your bowl together and open the door with the spoon still in your mouth.
"hi," you say, but it comes out unintelligible, and he kisses your cheek and his hands slot into place on your hips. your free one traces the contours of his muscles up his side even through the hoodie he's wearing, and he kicks the door closed behind him.
"hi," he whispers back. you put the bowl and spoon down, licking your lips.
"y'miss me?"
"yeah."
then he kisses you for real, shuffling you back towards the wall. your arms loop around his neck, pulling him further into your space, and you taste like strawberry ice cream, a hint of vanilla. the weight of the gun, 3d printed to be untraceable, is devastatingly heavy from where it's tucked into the back of his jeans. just—just five more minutes, let me live this dream, he thinks.
you hum happily into his mouth, fingers brushing through the short hair at the back of his head. he doesn't mean to make a sound, but it happens, and you pull back to laugh at him. you're perfect, don't give him that look, now. you don't even know.
your eyes move to somewhere over his shoulder. "oh, my ice cream's melting."
he turns back, too, glaring at the offending mixture of pink and white. "oh."
you're scarfing it down at amazing speeds, sat beside him on the sofa with his arm 'round your shoulders. you'll get brain freeze if you keep going like this—
"i think i have brain freeze," you announce between mouthfuls of your strawberry-vanilla concoction. there it is.
he takes the bowl from you and finishes what little's left of it; your head's leaned back against the sofa, staring into space as you reconsider life.
"want me to kiss it better?"
you lift your head to stare at him, unamused. "tony, that's not how it works."
"i know that's not how it works," he responds, and his voice has dropped an octave, and you know what he wants, and you laugh.
"okay," you relent. he sets the bowl on the coffee table and you pull him down by the front of his hoodie to kiss him again and he makes the executive decision to not kill you tonight or forever. there's spit and teeth the way he likes it, the way you know he likes it. his knees bracket your thighs, arm braced by your shoulder as the other one tilts your head up; you push him away, back into the cushions, grinning at him with swollen lips already. he bites back a whine when you climb onto his lap, hand straying under the hem of your shorts. you guide his mouth to your neck with one hand, other one busy with god-knows-what (taking off your shirt, he hopes) and he's sure he'll leave bruises on your thighs, but the good kind, born of love and something more, ones only he gets to see, because your life will not end tonight. or anytime soon, if he gets to have a say in things.
the safety of your gun clicks off. you'd hidden it beneath the cushions, waiting for the perfect opportunity—as in right now.
"game's over, poindexter," you're still smiling, but its something sharper, meaner. so very unlike you, a mask fabricated for this very moment.
he draws in a breath, slow, controlled. "oh."
"i know why you came here tonight," you say. "to kill me, right?"
"wasn't gonna."
"no?" you realise with horror that even with your gun pressed up against his head, he's gazing up at you adoringly through his lashes, thumb still rubbing circles idly into your thigh. there's a faint flush on his cheeks. he doesn't seem scared.
"no," he repeats. "gun's under the hoodie. i changed my mind."
you reach behind him, pull it out, toss it to the floor like it burns to touch.
"you have no other weapons on you?"
his eyes flicker downwards, yours follow. then he looks up again, and your cheeks are burning because of what he's just implied. nothing you haven't seen before, of course, but under these circumstances…
"no, baby, i don't."
he looks like he wants to kiss you. and he isn't scared.
things are much, much worse, actually.
he's in love. with you.
a terrifying prospect, really.
(your heart skips a beat. or three.)
"you're my target," you say, more to convince yourself than him. "i'm going to have to shoot you now."
"okay." his voice is steady. he shifts, just a little, and the movement below makes your breath catch in your throat. "do you want me to put my hands up, or is this okay?"
your palms are sweaty, grip faltering. you're trembling. he tilts his head a little, surveying, and you push the barrel further into the side of his head.
"don't be scared," he murmurs. it's intimate, the way he's talking to you, like you're not holding him at gunpoint. "bravest girl i know."
"i'm not scared," you snap, but the gun's not even aimed at his head now; your hold falters. "any last words?"
his hand reaches up to yours, realigns it so it's like you'd originally held it.
"can you kiss me?" it's pathetic—he's pathetic, and he knows it. or maybe he knows you. "i know it was real for you too—"
he thinks he might've died and they accidentally let him into heaven.
or,
you chuck the gun away from you abruptly, scooting forward on his lap. you're not crying, 'cause you don't cry, especially in situations like this, but he swallows the distressed sound you make anyway and kisses you harder, licking into your mouth like a beast that's finally been uncaged. you're apologising with every breath, and a part of him wonders if he should too—
he pauses in place, pulls back just a little to look at you better, and you let out a soft tony, not liking the delay (even though you know it's not his name).
"dex," he corrects gently; you repeat it in the same breathless tone as before. he thinks he's never heard a prettier sound. when he cups your face, you lean into the touch with a sigh.
"i'm sorry," he says. he doesn't say it often, but he really means it when he does. "for everything."
and then a quieter confession. "i love you."
it's not like either of you haven't said it before, but something's changed this time. it's different, more honest in a way, even though you'd meant it every time you said it before.
"i know." it comes out a whisper, and you blink and swallow, hoping you don't end up crying. "me too. i mean—"
"i know," he echoes your words from before, before you lapse into a comfortable silence. it's almost normal for a second. then you sit up straighter, clearing your throat, and begin taking inventory of the situation. "we can't stay here for much longer. they'll know something's wrong."
he glances around, not as urgent as you. "we have time."
"hey," you say suddenly. "did you really get hard from being held at gunpoint?"
instead of responding, he shucks off his hoodie and his hand slips under your shirt, burning against your bare waist. he makes no effort to move it upwards; it just stays there, heavy, a brand on your skin. he looks up at you and grins, needy, wanting, and you get your answer.
hello god it's me gf2page BACK with ANOTHER fic about BENJAMIN POINDEXTER and before you ask YES i hate my life NO i will NOT stop writing. if you like this LMK :] 1.5K WORDS!
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